Alan García, a legacy of corruption | Song …

Page12 in Peru
From Lima

Between slogans and chants of supporters, surrounded by activists, some arms raised, others waving white handkerchiefs, the clbadic greetings from the Aprista party were buried under former President Alan García. "The APRA never dies," they chanted, still surrounding Garcia's corpse, of which he was twice President of Peru, from 1985 to 1990 to 2006-2011 and who was shot dead Wednesday. chief when authorities came to his home to arrest him. The prosecution was investigating bribery charges in connection with bribing the Brazilian construction company Odebrecht during its second administration to win bids and overvaluing public works. The evidence had confirmed the payment of bribes in his innermost circle and the siege was shrinking which, until recently, had died untouchable. The bullet that killed Garcia continues to sound like an admission of guilt, a desperate act to avoid responding to the accusations against him, a confession of fear for the evidence that was beginning to take him, a blistering and final escape.

While Garcia was buried after committing suicide for not going to jail, a court ordered pre-trial detention for three years against another former president, Pedro Pablo Kuczynski (2016-2018), who had also opened an investigation for having favored Odebrecht when he was minister presidency in exchange for benefiting from millionaire consultant contracts with the Brazilian company. Kuczynski, 80, is hospitalized for three days for heart problems. The Odebrecht case moves Peru. Alejandro Toledo (2001-2006) and Ollanta Humala (2011-2016), two former heads of state, are also being sued for bribery related to the construction company. And also Keiko Fujimori, the Fujimori leader who controls the Congress, who is in pre-trial detention.

Garcia's funeral procession, followed by Aprista activists, left the local festival in downtown and walked several streets to the central San Martin Square, where the casket was loaded into the funeral car to ride along path leading to the cemetery. located on the outskirts of the Peruvian capital. His remains were cremated. One of his daughters read a letter that Garcia had written before committing suicide. Because of the speed with which events occurred between his arrival at the police station and the suicide shot, the long letter had to be written before he stopped. If that had been the case, Garcia would have prepared everything to commit suicide at the time of his arrest. Rumors were rife over the course of the judicial investigations.

In this last letter, Garcia declares himself innocent and attributes "the hatred" of those whom he describes as his "enemies" to judicial investigations against him. "I do not have to accept the humiliations I have seen other handcuffs threaten their miserable existence, but Alan García does not have to suffer injustice or circuses. For this reason, I leave to my children the dignity of my decisions, for my comrades, a sign of pride and my corpse as a sign of my contempt for my adversaries because I have already fulfilled the mission that I m ​​& # 39; 39 was imposed, "wrote the former suicidal president.

Apristists accuse President Martín Vizcarra of García's suicide for supporting the anti-corruption processes that ended up putting his boss against the wall, the prosecutors who investigated him, the judges and the press who revealed the accusations against him. And even the president of Uruguay, Tabaré Vásquez, for refusing him the asylum requested by García last November in a frustrated attempt to evade a judicial investigation. Vizcarra did not go to the funeral or burial because the apristas announced that he would not be welcome. The former president Ollanta Humala, Garcia's political rival, went to offer his condolences to the family, but was bumped into the fury of the Apristas, who prevented him from entering.

Immediately after the murder of the suicide, Garcia's lawyers and his party's leaders started shooting at the prosecutors and attacked the anti-corruption processes seeking to discredit them. In recent days, they have tried to victimize the former president, seeking to turn suicide into a desperate escape mechanism as part of a so-called feat of honor and dignity.

During the funeral, the apologies to the former president were numerous. He went so far as to call him "the best president in the history of the country". But García's first government is remembered as one of the worst, characterized by hyperinflation, widespread corruption and serious human rights violations in the confrontation with the guerrillas. Its second administration had a favorable international economic context and the country was experiencing economic growth, but under the neoliberal model, it was growth that widened inequalities. And corruption was once again the hallmark of this second government. García is killed without answering justice, not only in cases of corruption, but also in human rights violations.

The spectacular spectacular of suicide as a final leak was the epilogue of someone obsessed with its historical legacy and who had become a symbol of corruption and impunity and who had died with a rejection of citizen greater than 80%.

"Attempts to present one's suicide as a fact of honor and dignity have not succeeded, and what remains to be said is that Alan García has fled his responsibilities, that he has not been able to to face the consequences of his actions knowing that he had all the conditions for a defense with all the guarantees.I think in the history books, García's balance sheet will be fundamentally negative, his memory will be badociated with a process of destruction of institutions and political corruption, "said historian Nelson Manrique in PáginaI12, thus badyzing this historical legacy in Garcia.

Manrique believes that after the death of García, the Aprista party, the oldest in the country, is preparing to disappear. "The Aprista Party Crisis was prior to Garcia's death and played an important role in this crisis, but his death aggravated him because his weight in the party was so great that he prevented Emergence of other leaders.The party is divided and without Garcia, no leader can bring it together. "The historian and political badyst concludes by pointing out that the impact of Garcia's suicide on the national policy "will be short, it will last one or two weeks".