Corruption as a way of life

Luis Roldán Ibáñez is a free man today, having spent 15 of a 30 year prison sentence in jail. At age 66 he is entitled to receive a pension although he has never returned the €10million he stole as the first civilian to head the Guardia Civil. "I have paid dearly for what I did," he says, "but there are those who got away scot free."

Of course there are, lots of them, but none as corrupt as this head of one of the country's principal police forces from 1986 to 1993 - plenty of time to steal plenty of money. He stole taxpayers' money, amassing a fortune estimated at €30million; he received large 'commissions' from the builders of thousands of Guardia Civil buildings; he escaped justice for 11 months and was eventually caught in Bangkok; he falsified university diplomas throughout his career; he created fictitious companies in Spain and Switzerland to hide his ill-gotten gains; he evaded taxes (well, he would, wouldn't he?), his case contributed largely to the fall of the PSOE government of Felipe González.

Not bad for the son of a taxi driver.

The man blames former spy Francisco Paesa for his misfortunes, for giving him away in Thailand, and says Paesa has the missing millions. Paesa has never been brought to court, which supposedly pains Roldán immensely. It is widely believed, however, that they are 'compinches', in cahoots to this day.

Roldán was originally condemned to 31 years in prison but Spain's new Penal Code had this reduced to 20. He spent the last five at a Centro de Inserción Social in Zaragoza, a sort of half way house in his native city.

And now he is a pensioner. With €10 million in the (Swiss?) bank.

(c) Alexander Bewick 2010

Rotten apples of all colours

I’m not sure why my friend Prospero at JimenaPulse posted an item about corruption in the Axarquía region of Málaga, given that his blog is about the Campo de Gibraltar. The only connection I can think of is that similar charges are rife all over the area in which I live, too. Indeed, my other blogging friend, Sancho at Tilting at Windmills, has written extensively on the subject as well.

In any case, it is a fact that corruption charges are at the height of fashion right now. On the national scene, there is an ongoing scandal that has the Partido Popular (PP) and the PSOE (Socialists) flinging accusations at each other all over the media. The PP is under investigation by former PSOE minister Judge Baltasar Garzón, about which I wrote at length in the previous item. On a more local scale, there are several cases in various courts involving not only these two parties, but also the Partido Andalucista (PA); Ronda, Gaucín, Jimena, La Línea, Los Barrios and Algeciras are merely those that come immediately to mind.

Perhaps the re-resurgence of these cases has to do with the present global financial crisis. Or with the habit of all political parties of pointing fingers at each other as a way to avoid dealing with what really concerns the voters: unemployment (Spain has the highest in the EU at 14.8%), immigration (boatfulls of sub-Saharan refugees, many dead, keep turning up in the Canary Islands), etc. etc.

The trouble is that corruption affects each and every one of us, unlike those issues above that tend to be more selective. Corruption is present, in larger or smaller measure, in all aspects of our lives, in all countries and throughout history. Like prostitution, it is one of those things we tend to ignore until it touches us personally, as it were. But corruption is also a form of prostitution: in one of its definitions, the Oxford English dictionary says that a prostitute is “a person who debases himself or herself for personal gain.”

Prostitution in Spain is illegal but ignored to a large extent (Prospero posted an item that said that the sex industry has lost 20,000 direct or indirect jobs thanks to the crisis). Not so corruption, lately anyway. But then, smokescreens are useful political tools and there are rotten apples in every barrel. Somehow, I would almost say that prostitution is ‘cleaner’.

(c) Alexander Bewick 2009