José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero and Baltasar Garzón dedicated this Tuesday night in Buenos Aires emphatic support to Cristina Fernández de Kirchner, two-time president of Argentina and current vice president.
"Nothing was ever built with hatred, resentment, insults and lies," said the former president of the Spanish Government during the III World Forum on Human Rights. "There is no need to judicialize politics, because justice ends up being politicized," he added.
Garzón was emphatic in his support for the Peronist leader, sentenced in December to eight years in prison for defrauding the State: "That sentence is a legal aberration. There is not a single direct proof in the 1600 pages, which I have read with great patience The indications are valid or the bases of the sentences, but these indications have to become evidence in the oral trial and here there is none, they are opinions, arguments empty of content ".
The meeting, held at the Kirchner Cultural Center (CCK), in the Argentine capital, brought together members of the Puebla Group, a discussion forum for left-wing leaders that includes several former presidents, including Bolivian Evo Morales, Ecuadorian Rafael Correa or the Uruguayan José Mújica.
Fernández de Kirchner, the victim of an attack from which she miraculously escaped unharmed in September 2022, was the stellar speaker, and she did not disappoint her listeners: "I don't care if they're going to disable me, if they're going to put me in jail, I don't care What matters to me, fundamentally, is that we return to rebuild a democratic and constitutional state, in which the guarantees established by the constitution are not painted cardboard ".
Zapatero dedicated heartfelt words to the Argentine vice president: "I was shocked that they wanted to kill you. I was shocked for Argentina and for you that political violence returned to this country that fought so hard for a democracy without political violence."
"Despite the lawfare, the truth will prevail. I have a reputation for optimism. But have no doubt. No grief, but peaceful and democratic courage,"
The former President of the Government praised the human rights policy followed by Argentina. "A country without memory is a country without dignity. The 40 years of democracy have left Argentina a legacy to the world, that of the fight for human rights like no country has tried to do: memory, restoration and justice."
The former leader of the PSOE made a comment based on Argentina's world title in the Qatar 2022 World Cup.
"Argentina not only wins world titles... Wait! But it has the title of best writer in the Spanish language, which is Jorge Luis Borges. And that of having been the country that in the last 40 years has fought the best and the most in favor of human rights".
"The Grandmothers and Mothers of May are a heritage of humanity forever," added Zapatero, who returned to the issue of the judicialization of politics.
"Never in my political career did I initiate a legal action against my adversaries because I knew that I would win at the polls, in Parliament and in the public debate, which is what must be done in a democracy (...) Politics must not be prosecuted, because justice ends up being politicized and doing enormous damage to the institutions of law".
Garzón, who has a very close relationship with the widow of former President Néstor Kirchner, went the same way as Zapatero, in addition to conveying to the hostess greetings from Julian Assange, the founder of Wikileaks who was in asylum at the Ecuadorian embassy in London. .
"When the Judiciary becomes a Judicial Party, it is a political actor that does not operate on an equal footing with the rest of the parties."
According to the former judge, there is a "Judicial Party" that "does not operate with dialogue, but with the State's monopoly of violence against its political opponents."
"Lawfare is the prostitution of the law because it abandons us, they choose who they want to eliminate and all the mechanisms that should be used as guarantees are used as weapons against the political opponent."
Minutes before, Correa had launched a harsh attack against Clarín, the most widely read newspaper in Argentina: "San Martín and Bolívar used the bugle to announce battles for independence. Now that name represents the most backward and stubborn of the oligarchy."
Fernández de Kirchner is facing other causes of corruption, and despite the fact that in December she assured that she would not run for any position, an important sector of Peronism is pressuring her to run again for the presidency.
According to the criteria of The Trust Project
