Like Cristina Kirchner, they build a cause of notebooks for Correa in Ecuador

The plot is familiar even if the protagonists change: a former president who announces his return on the political scene is accused of corruption in armed causes resulting from cowardly complaints of papers that always fall, via the forum shopping, in the same offices of the courts ; former leaders and businessmen are detained without a sentence in spectacular news coverage, pressured, repentant, and give changing versions of the same facts; nebulous links between the US embbady, ​​journalists and representatives of the judiciary and the presidency are guessed; there are spectacular tests that mysteriously melt in the air and even a questionable notebook with notes on old contributions to the campaign which imply the highest figures of this firm.

This is not Argentina, It is Ecuador. This is not Cristina Fernández de Kirchner but Rafael Correa. This is not a coincidence. In recent years, it has a name: Lawfare. The pursuit of politics by other means, in this case judges and prosecutors, in a coordinated manner and in response to the vernacular law and the state department to the advancement of the governments of the courts popular in Latin America and as a barrier to prevent their return to power, now. The script is repeated with small changes, as if it 's been a remake. The persistence of these practices does not only contribute to the return of Correa; It also works as a warning for Peronism, which you should not expect, starting in December, nothing different from what you had until now. There are no unilateral armisticios and the geopolitical conditions will be more and more extreme.

The events occurred from the beginning of May this year, while in Argentina the case of the notebooks had already entered the phase of decomposition. In Ecuador, his name is more curious: the case of green rice, which is the subject of an alleged e-mail received by a former adviser to President Correa of ​​the time. Pamela Martínez, with data on "voluntary corporate contributions" to the official campaign in 2013. The leak occurred via the Milhojas news portal, supported by NGOs and government agencies in Washington, such as the NED (related Capitol) and USAID (department). 3 May this year, and was accompanied by extensive media coverage. Already at that time, some voices marked inconsistencies between the published information and the story built around this information.

Shortly after its publication, a police officer appeared before a prosecutor to ask him to investigate the contents of the office articles. The case was left to Judge Daniela Camacho, who had already conducted other cases against former officials of the previous government and who, in just 24 hours, had decided to deal with the complaint. The next morning, Martínez, who had not been informed of the situation, was preparing to take a flight to Mexico when he was stopped at Guayaquil airport for an attempt to 39, presumed escape. The former official was transferred to a jail without a judge's order and without any evidence. She was illegally detained for 48 hours before charges were laid against her. Finally, she has been charged with several crimes as part of a real fight, with sentences of up to 15 years in prison.

Here comes the figure of the repentant, or, as the new Ecuadorian law says, "an effective cooperator". From the first moment, the prosecutor and the media began pressing Martinez, seeking to testify against his political leaders. A week later, the former official accepted the generous offer, which guarantees impunity in other investigations and a sentence reduction of up to 90%, pleaded guilty and implicated Correa, his vice, Jorge Glas, his former secretary. Legal Alexis Mera and his former Minister of Urban Development, María Duarte. The problem is that there was no evidence that he supported his new version. According to her, the contact key in which she kept all the information had been destroyed last year as a result of a call from the former president.

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A week later notebooks appeared. They were found hidden behind the fireplace in Martinez's house, although no break-ins had taken place before. One of them contained information about these alleged contributions to the campaign, handwritten by the former manager. Based on the contents of the notebooks and on the media, the prosecutor asked for the arrest of 24 people, including members of the Correa government and businessmen, including the former president himself. even. However, the opinion of the experts began to cast doubts on the authenticity of the notebook. The back cover is torn in such a way as to make it impossible to access its barcode, so that the year of manufacture can not be identified. That is why we had to wait a few weeks until the chemical badyzes established that the notes in question are recent and have at most a few months.

This week, the repentant Martinez gave a new version of the facts: he wrote that he had written the notebook at the end of last year, during a trip by plane.I had felt "agitated" to write everything I remembered. Business lawyers and former officials have already called for the nullity of preventive prisons: everything has been written in recent weeks, while Martinez was detained under pressure from the prosecution. Some evidence corroborates this hypothesis, such as the style of annotation diaries, written in the present and not in the past; the presence of over-annotations "delivered" or the striking detail with which he pointed out the figures, including in some cases up to 100 cents.

The coincidences between the Arroz Verde affair and its Argentine counterpart also coincide with the resurgence, in the polls, of Correa himself, who had announced his intention to be a candidate for the legislature or the vice-presidency in the next elections (it is forbidden to return to the main office for a constitutional reform sanctioned by the current government). There is also information in the booklet about Brazilian Lava Jato, such as the use of a code system in the so-called accounting notes or the participation of the Odebrecht company, which was set aside in Argentina in order not to not to badociate Mauricio Macri and his collaborators. partners The differences are circumstantial; the similarities are structural.