Opaque transparency | Page12

The problem of transparency, like that of the fight against corruption, lies in the opacity of its selectivity. Those who could live more directly from this problem are journalists from around the world who always insist on doing investigative journalism. All were shaking on April 11, regardless of the editorial line of their newspapers, before the arrest of Julian Assange, forcibly taken to the Embbady of Ecuador in London to be handed over to US authorities who had taken against him. request for extradition.

The charges that have been brought against Assange so far relate to actions that were intended solely to guarantee the anonymity of the whistleblower of Chelsea Manning, that is to say, to guarantee the same. anonymity of the source of information, a guarantee without which investigative journalism would not be possible. If journalists are the ones who live most directly in the selectivity of transparency, those who suffer the most are the quality of democracy and the credibility of the duty of responsibility of democratic governments.

Why does the fight for transparency target certain political objectives and not others? Why are the revelations celebrated in some cases and have consequences when in others they are prevented and if they are revealed they are ignored? Hence the need to better understand the criteria that govern selectivity. Of course, the other side of the selectivity of transparency is the selectivity of the fight against transparency.

Perhaps we would not be aware of the disturbances revealed by WikiLeaks in

2010 (military videos on the killing in Iraq of unarmed civilians, two of whom were working for Reuters), though they had not been widely disseminated by mainstream media around the world. Why all the persecutory evil unleashed against the founder of WikiLeaks and not on these media, some of whom have brought back a lot of money that has never been properly delivered to Assange? Why then did the New York Times editors acclaimed Assange as a champion of freedom of expression and celebrated the revelations as the triumph of democracy, while last week's editorial considered his prison as the triumph of the rule of law? Why did the Ecuadorian government protect "Assange's human rights for six years and ten months," in the words of President Lenin Moreno, and pronounced it suddenly and informally, in violation of the law international asylum law? Is it because, according to the New York Times, the new IMF loan to Ecuador, worth about $ 4 billion, would have been approved by the United States? provided that Ecuador delivered Julian Assange? Is it because WikiLeaks recently revealed that Moreno could be accused of bribery for two supposed offshore accounts, owned by his brother, one in Belize and the other in Panama, where allegedly illegal commissions would have been filed?

With regard to the selectivity of the fight for transparency, we must distinguish those who are fighting from the outside of the political system from those who are fighting from within. As far as the former are concerned, their struggle has, in general, a democratizing effect, because it denounces the despotic, illegal and unpunished manner in which the formal, democratic and legal power is exercised in practice to neutralize the resistance to its exercise. In the case of WikiLeaks, we must recognize that he has published information that affects governments and political actors of different colors, which is perhaps his biggest sin in a world of geopolitical rivalries. The fate of WikiLeaks changed when in 2016, it revealed the illegal practices that manipulated the primary elections within the US Democratic Party. so that Hillary Clinton, and not Bernie Sanders, was the presidential candidate. and more after showing that Hilary Clinton was the main culprit behind the invasion of Libya, an atrocity for which the Libyan people continue to bleed. It may be objected that WikiLeaks has been restricted, in particular

general, to the more or less democratic governments of the Eurocentric or North-centric world. This is possible, but it is also true that revelations made beyond this world attract very little attention from the mainstream media.

The selectivity of the struggle on the part of those who dominate the political system is the one that can cause the greatest damage to democracy, because whoever leads the struggle, if successful, can increase his power by undemocratic means. The judicial and judicial system is today the privileged instrument of this struggle. In recent days we have witnessed desperate attempts to justify the annulment of Assange asylum and its imprisonment in light of international law and domestic law of the various countries concerned. However, nobody is unaware of the fact that it was a legal varnish that covered illegal political comfort, if it was not directly a request of the United States.

But without a doubt, the case study on the abuse of the right to conceal internal and imperial political interests is that of former President Lula da Silva. The executor of these abuses is Judge Sergio Moro, accuser, judge in his own case, Minister of Justice of the government who has won power through the imprisonment of the leader of the PT. Prosecuted for sordid procedural absurdities and in violation of the judicial hierarchy, Lula was found guilty of a crime that had never been proven. He is kept in prison while the trial has not been pursued yet. In fifty years, there would always be democracy. This case will be studied as an example of how democracy can be destroyed by an abusive exercise of the judicial system. This is also the case that best illustrates the lack of transparency in the selectivity of the fight for transparency.

It is not necessary to insist that the practice of promiscuity between economic power and political power comes from far and wide in Brazil and covers the entire political spectrum. Neither former President Michel Temer was able to complete the mandate for which he had not been elected despite the financial difficulties in which he would have been involved. The important thing is to know that the prison of Lula da Silva was fundamental for the choice of a government capable of providing natural resources to multinational corporations, to privatize the pension system, to reduce as much as possible the policies and put an end to the traditional autonomy of international politics. Brazil submitting to an unconditional alignment with the United States in times of geopolitical rivalry with China.

Objectively, it is the United States that benefits the most from these measures. It is not surprising that American interests were so involved in the last general election. It is also known that the information that formed the basis of the investigation into Operation Lava Jato will be the result of close collaboration with the United States Department of Justice. But perhaps it is amazing how quickly, in this case, the spell can turn against the wizard. WikiLeaks revealed that Sergio Moro was one of the trained magistrates in the United States as part of the "fight against terrorism". This training focused on the robust and manipulative use of existing legal and judicial institutions, as well as on the use of procedural innovations, such as the allegation that has been retained, in order to obtain quick and drastic punishments. It is this training that has taught lawyers to treat some citizens as enemies and not as adversaries, that is to say, as being deprived of constitutional and procedural rights and guarantees, as well as rights of supposedly universal man.

The concept of an internal enemy, originally developed by Nazi jurisprudence, was aimed precisely at creating an authorization to convict with exceptional logic, although it is exercised in an alleged democratic and constitutional normality. Moro was therefore chosen to be the politico-legal juggler serving causes that can not be democratically endorsed. What unites Assange, Lula and Moro, is to be the pawns of the same system of imperial power: Assange and Lula as victims, Moro as a useful hangman and therefore available when he has fulfilled its mission or when, for any reason, it becomes obstacle to the mission to be fulfilled.

Translation: Antoni Aguiló and José Luis Exeni Rodríguez.