Luis Moreno Ocampo (Buenos Aires, 1952) was the first prosecutor of the International Criminal Court between 2003 and 2012. A quarter of a century earlier he had been an accusation in the trials of the Argentine Military Juntas, an episode recently recovered by the film ‘Argentina, 1985 ‘. Committed to the search for Justice, which in his latest book he contrasts with war, it is illuminating to understand a world in which the (false) sense of peace in which several generations have grown up in the West has been lost. An expert in transitions to democracy, and with Benjamin Netanyahu and Vladimir Putin in the Court’s sights, it is impossible not to end up analyzing the future of Nicolás Maduro. -You, as a prosecutor, experienced the transition process in Argentina for three reasons. Do you dare to make a comparison between that process and the Spanish one? -When Alfonsín won the elections, the model to follow was the Spanish one: an agreed democracy. Alfonsín’s idea, the break with the military, was criticized, it seemed like a mistake. -Critics of the Spanish Transition denounce that it was a forgotten pact, even though that concept did not exist then, which arrived with Argentina in the years 80s and with South Africa in the 90s.-The South African process is fascinating, because Nelson Mandela was the hero. The white leader, Frederick de Klerk, was very important. A year before the final election, De Klerk told Mandela: “Forgive me, but I have to have one last all-white election, and I have to decide whether we make an agreement with you or not. “I’m going to propose it in a very ugly way, which you won’t like: either we give power to the blacks or they lose their properties.” That was the formula. He won that election and had the legitimacy to make the deal with Mandela. And, when Mandela was about to go up, the African generals told him: “Mr. Mandela, everything is fine, but don’t think about investigating us. “This is civil war.” Then, Mandela invented the Truth Commission, the clever way out of the military threat. The Truth Commission was not a brilliant thing, it was the necessity that we invented, because it was already post-Argentina. Related News Campus FAES 2024 standard No International justice, the way out of the Venezuelan crisis that Maduro fears most Andrés Gerlotti Slusnys Andrés Pastrana , Manuel Valls, Antonio Ledezma and Pedro Burelli discuss the future of Venezuela at a FAES event – How many successful transition processes have there been in the world? – I don’t know. In Europe, Spain and Portugal led, which were the countries that had problems. Now, we are in a new transition, in which national life mixes with the global, and that is what we are not understanding. -You were a prosecutor in the trial of the Argentine Military Juntas, which we relived in the film ‘Argentina, 1985’.-I didn’t know anything about politics, but I knew I had to investigate the facts. I played my role, just like the judges and the defenders played theirs. For this reason, the victims were encouraged to speak out. The law made everyone know what they had to do. -He was also a prosecutor in the Malvinas trial… -I learned the importance of planning. The military plans everything. Therefore, one thing we have to understand when we talk about crimes is not what the perpetrators do, but how it was planned. What happened had been planned since the 1950s. In 1956, Argentina imported four colonels from France with experience in Algeria, and they designed the policy that the commanders implemented twenty years later. What we have to understand, and what I try to explain in this book, is what lies beneath people’s behavior. And the legal structures define what we are going to do and the behaviors. The Argentine torturers were not bad people, they were public officials and they tortured because it was their function. -Is the institutionality of the second half of the 20th century over? -The Second World War caused the states that won to take power. The Security Council told the five winning states: “Do what you want.” It was not useless: colonialism was ended, and that is incredible. -And then the Cold War was over. -And it was obvious that innovation was needed. The novelty was the International Criminal Court, a model in which, if the States do not do justice, it is judged in the Court. Its most important role is to influence the States so that they do justice. – Give me an example. – The best case is the one I never did, which is Colombia. We never opened the investigation, but our presence made them move forward so that the law was respected. -The success of the ICC is not to act, but to influence. -Exactly. When I took office, I said: “The greatest success is that there never was a case.” The judges were very angry with me. Stupid prosecutor, they thought. The ideal is that there would be no cases, because then there is no genocide and, if there is, then the States should respond. -What has been the most relevant case you have had? -The serious problem was gathering the evidence in Congo, gathering the evidence in Darfur and then arresting the president of Sudan. That’s a serious problem, no one knew how to do it. The trial… We know how to do that. -War in the West: one in Ukraine and two with Israel, or two and a half. -Yes, we are going for Iran now. And Syria, which is still at war, and civilians in Libya, and in Darfur, where there is now an open war between a rebel group and the Government. We don’t even mention them anymore. The thing is that we have empathy for those who are similar to us. Technology presents us with a very big challenge: having empathy for people in a remote place. Technology helps us in part, but we have not accompanied it with the institutionality that is needed. “Technology presents us with a very big challenge: having empathy for people from a remote place” – Will Netanyahu end up in the Criminal Court? – The prosecutor He has asked for the arrest warrant and I know that Netanyahu is very worried because it is not nice to be prosecuted by the Court. He knows that when he loses power, he goes to prison. He is a very determined guy, and the Government is more right-wing than him and pushes him. He knows that his best protection is more war. -In the case of Ukraine, could completely unseating Putin lead to an explosion of Russia? -That is an obvious, elementary thing, but it is not going to happen, because Ukraine is not going to beat Russia. But that idea, and that atomic bombs fall into the hands of a fragmented mafia government, is crazy. We are playing with madness, it’s incredible. Already in 2022, military experts said that the war was in a state of balance, that it was not going to change. But we don’t have a plan. -We should investigate the motivations and strategies designed by Putin, which come from afar. -It’s not just that Putin is a madman. There is a rationality that Putin has and that we are not reading correctly. There is no one in Washington who proposes cooperation with China. How is it possible that the only possible strategy with China is war? If you tell me ‘a war with Russia is ridiculous’, I tell you that a war with China is the end of the world. Sometimes they tell me that it is innocent to propose that war does not exist, but what is innocent is war. It is not compatible with the development of the 21st century. -However, war is the usual element in the history of humanity. -Yes, but tribes with arrows and spears are one thing and atomic weapons are another. China opposed Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in the Security Council, it does not agree. For China, sovereignty is very important. Why doesn’t Europe, instead of allying with the United States, ally with China against Russia and use China as a guarantor? -Because Europe depends a lot on the United States. -I think we need to create new spaces and start proposing alternatives . When you listen to the discussions in the United States it is incredible, it is just war and debates about how many we kill. Obama, who was elected president against the war, believed that the Iraq war was bad and that the Afghanistan war was good, and he validated and legitimized it. And, because it’s Obama, and it’s good, and it’s black and it’s liberal, we buy it. -Is the golden age of international Justice yet to arrive? -There is always injustice. Argentina is still chaotic, but there is no more dictatorship, and there is no more systematic repression. That is progress. You fix one problem and another comes. You never win: you lose. The day you stop fighting for Justice is the day the story ends. Therefore, the advice is ‘never give up’. “When you listen to the discussions in the United States it is incredible, it is just war and debates about how many we kill” – And so we arrive at Venezuela. What do you think of Zapatero’s role? -Maduro lost and used his power to imprison more than a thousand opposition supporters or electoral prosecutors, and two criminal prosecutors who refused to imprison the electoral prosecutors. Obviously, the repression this time is very clear, the Maduro regime is a dictatorship. Perhaps mediation is needed, but mediation has to be different, because if we get to this point… -And the International Criminal Court? -The Court can intervene. It has jurisdiction and has an open investigation into Venezuela, and if the prosecutor’s hand did not tremble to request the prosecution of Putin or Netanyahu, I do not see why his hand would tremble to request the prosecution of Maduro. That can happen, but we still need a political agreement, we need people who are in charge of harmonizing Venezuela, and that is what there is not. We need to help those from outside. Can Zapatero help? When I talk about Zapatero, my Venezuelan friends insult me, they are furious with me, but I don’t see many people who have the confidence of the regime, and we will have to see if they can do something to respect the rights of the people and of María Corina Machado.- Is it necessary to offer some way out for Maduro? -Yes, for Venezuela, not only for Maduro. It has to be a negotiation where María Corina Machado plays an important role, which is going to be complicated for Maduro. -And the Government of Spain? -Spain has a role there, but what seems absurd to me is that Maduro is considered a problem for the left or that the left can support him. There is no left or right for crimes against humanity, that is everyone’s thing. Let’s hope something changes.
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