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quarta-feira, 20 de fevereiro de 2013

OSCAR PISTORIUS CASE: THE BLONDE IS THE VICTIM HERE, BLADE



If you have just accidentally shot dead the woman you love, what do you do? Is it:
a) Dial 999 and summon an ambulance
b) Call your girlfriend’s parents and beg forgiveness
c) Go to a church and pray hard
d) Hire a leading PR to manage your reputation.

Call me a foolish romantic, but I would rule out “d” right away. If you were innocent and grief-stricken, why would your thoughts turn to “crisis communications”? Yet this is exactly what Oscar Pistorius did within hours of the violent death of his girlfriend Reeva Steenkamp at his home in Pretoria.
The 26-year-old Paralympian called up Stuart Higgins, the former editor of The Sun and now a public relations expert. Pistorius’s PR team lost no time in relaunching his website to put the most positive spin on what they variously describe as “these tragic events” and “this terrible, terrible tragedy”. Looking at the website, with its stirring pictures of the Blade Runner in action, you notice that the words murder and death do not feature. For, lo, we have entered the soothing land of PR euphemism, where world-famous disabled heroes do not gun down.
Among those paying tribute to Oscar is his uncle, Arnold Pistorius. “Words cannot adequately describe our feelings,” says Arnold. “The lives of our entire family have been turned upside down for ever by this unimaginable human tragedy and Reeva’s family have suffered a terrible loss.”
Observe that it is the Pistorius family which has suffered “an unimaginable human tragedy” – their golden boy faces a career-wrecking charge of premeditated murder. The family of Reeva Steenkamp, the victim of the crime who appears to have been shot three times while in the toilet, has merely suffered “a terrible loss”.
Reeva’s irrelevance to the main event was confirmed by a tabloid headline. “Blade Slays Blonde”, it proclaimed, not bothering to give her the dignity of a name. On Tuesday, as a hearse took Reeva’s body to the crematorium, Oscar Pistorius sobbed throughout a bail hearing. It was an affecting performance. One might almost call it Oscar-winning. Commentators began to admit they felt a sneaky sympathy for the stricken track star. Even the magistrate asked him if he was feeling all right.
And so, very cunningly, the tragedy is appropriated from the dead woman and becomes the tragedy of the man accused of killing her. The fact that, according to a neighbour, he silenced Steenkamp’s screams with two further gunshots, is of little consequence to Pistorius’s supporters.
“I didn’t have my prosthetic legs on. I felt vulnerable,” explained Pistorius, playing the disability card for the first time in a life that has, until now, been remarkably free of self-pity. He was explaining why he fired at a locked bathroom door behind which he was convinced there was a burglar. Because burglars always lock themselves in bathrooms, don’t they? To steal the soap and the hand towel. Just as girlfriends always lock the door when they need a pee in the middle of the night. And men who think there’s a burglar in the bathroom never bother to shout out first and give their girlfriend a chance to say, “Baby, put the gun down, it’s only me.”
Pistorius’s story has more holes than a colander. I don’t feel an ounce of pity for him. Of course, his PR man, Stuart Higgins, begs to differ: “Our job is to capture some of the support that Oscar is receiving from all over the world, lots of positive messages from people who still believe in him,” explained Higgins.
Fame – that is, real global fame of the kind Oscar Pistorius enjoys – has its own protective forcefield. You can believe in a star even when you no longer believe the story they’re trying to peddle. That’s why Michael Jackson kept selling records. That’s why, even now, there are Lance Armstrong fans who have clung to the faith. When fans say they still “believe” in a celebrity, what they mean is: “I refuse to let any unpleasant facts interfere with the noble image I have of you.” Even if those unpleasant facts include the corpse of a 29-year-old model and law student who was, by all accounts, as lovely as her face.
At the height of the Jimmy Savile scandal, the entertainer’s niece told ITV’s This Morning that her relatives were angry when she decided to speak out about what creepy Uncle Jimmy had done to her. “Without his fame, they’d be nothing,” explained the niece.
Fame can do that. It zips people’s lips and mortgages their hearts. Only weeks ago, Oscar Pistorius fired a gun in a restaurant. The bullet narrowly missed a friend’s foot, but police were not called. If a complaint had been made, maybe the testosterone-fuelled athlete might have realised he was not above the law. But the restaurant owner was happy to accept that no gun had been fired because Oscar’s friends lied to protect his reputation.
The obvious comparison here is with O J Simpson, who went on trial in Los Angeles in 1995 for the murder of his ex-wife Nicole Brown and her friend Ron Goldman. Like Pistorius, Simpson had form when it came to domestic violence. The prosecution thought it had a solid case. But, also like Blade Runner, O J was a good-looking sports god who had overcome considerable odds to find fame, fortune and a beautiful blonde. Race was a complicating factor, but it was O J’s celebrity that turned a vicious murder case into the Trial of the Century. Last September, 18 years after Simpson was sensationally acquitted, Kato Kaelin (a TV personality and witness at the trial) was asked if Simpson killed Brown and Goldman. Kaelin replied: “The statute of limitations has now passed… so I can now say… yes, he did it.”
Asked why he let O J Simpson get away with murder, Kaelin said: “I was too scared. I was terrified… People hated me. I’ve been spat upon. They threw gum in my coffee.”
Fame can do that, too. Never underestimate the human desire not to know the worst about our heroes.
Let me leave you with a piercing irony. Just days before Reeva Steenkamp was killed, she sent tweets offering her support for female victims of violence. Her country has a deplorable record in that area. On average, a South African woman is killed every eight hours by her partner or relative.
After her funeral, Steenkamp’s Uncle Mike told reporters that his niece wanted to be an activist for ending abuse against women. “Unfortunately, it has swung right around, but I think that the Lord knows that her statement is more powerful now,” he said.
It certainly is. When Oscar Pistorius’s case comes to court, it should be the man who faces the murder charge, not the sporting legend. Gold medallists can be made of baser metals. There is only one victim of unimaginable human tragedy here. Her name was Reeva Steenkamp.
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domingo, 3 de fevereiro de 2013

SCANDALE BANCAIRE PORTUGAIS: LES VACANCES A RIO DE DIAS LOUREIRO



Le président de la République portugaise Anibal Cavaco Silva a décidé de déferrer au Tribunal constitutionnel, c'est une de ses prérogatives, certaines dispositions d'un budget 2013 d'austérité aggravée parce qu'il a des «doutes» sur le caractère équilibré des efforts imposés à la population d'un pays qui va entrer dans sa troisième année consécutive de récession, une situation inédite depuis la révolution des oeillets de 1974. Des doutes?
Au moment même où ce chef de l'Etat à la réputation personnelle plus que ternie se livrait à cette manoeuvre parfaitement démagogique, on apprenait qu'une des principales figures du «cavaquisme», Manuel Dias Loureiro, passait les fêtes de fin d'année au Copacabana Palace de Rio de Janeiro, où une simple chambre coûte quelque 600 euros la nuit. Soit d'avantage que le salaire minimum du pays. Voilà qui devrait suffire à lever les «doutes» de l'occupant du palais présidentiel de Belem.


Détenteur de portefeuilles ministériels clefs dans les gouvernements PSD dont Cavaco Silva était le chef, ancien membre du Conseil d'Etat, ce saint des saints de la caste politicienne portugaise, Dias Loureiro, «protégé» de Cavaco, est une figure centrale de ce qui devrait être un énorme scandale européen, une affaire d'Etat, la faillite de la banque BPN. Cette faillite frauduleuse pourrait coûter au contribuable portugais, celui là même qui resserre sa ceinture d'un cran année après année, jusqu'à sept milliards d'euros, soit près d'un dixième de l'aide financière internationale que le pays a du demander en 2011, avec comme contrepartie le programme de remise en ordre des finances publiques surveillé par la «troïka» UE-BCE-FMI.

L'activité principale des dirigeants de cette banque du «bloc central» (les partis de centre gauche et centre droit qui alternent au pouvoir depuis la chute de la dictature salazariste) consistait à accorder, par dizaines ou centaines de millions d'euros, des prêts à leurs amis, familiers, clients...et à eux-mêmes. Dans un reportage remarquable, le journaliste de la télévision SIC Pedro Coelho vient de révéler, par exemple, qu'une entreprise de ciment de la galaxie Dias Loureiro avait reçu du BPN un prêt de 90 millions d'euros. Une autre personnalité du «cavaquisme» comme Duarte Lima, ancien chef du groupe parlementaire PSD, emprisonné à Lisbonne et soupçonné de meurtre par la police brésilienne, a détourné 49 millions d'euros. Cavaco lui-même avait bénéficié, dans des conditions suspectes, d'une attribution à prix cassé par le patron du BPN José Oliveira Costa, un de ses anciens secrétaires d'Etat, d'actions de la SLN, holding de tête de la banque, qu'il a pu revendre avec une plus value de 140%. En bref, le scandale du BPN est très largement celui du «cavaquisme». Et ce personnage a des «doutes» sur l'équité de la politique d'austérité ?

Ces milliards d'euros sont considérés comme définitivement perdus...mais par pour tous le monde. Quand le scandale a éclaté en 2009, la presse portugaise a révélé que Dias Loureiro, administrateur de la SLN, avait soigneusement organisé son insolvabilité personnelle en transférant ses avoirs à des membres de sa famille ou des sociétés offshore. De quoi payer la chambre au Copacabana Palace, sans doute ?

Et au fait, qui donc Dias Loureiro a-t-il retrouvé pour les fêtes dans cet hôtel de rêve, jadis favoris des vedettes de Hollywood ? Nul autre que Miguel Relvas, pilier de l'actuel gouvernement PSD, ami proche et «père Joseph» du Premier ministre Pedro Passos Coelho. Relvas, dont le maintien au gouvernement est en soi un scandale, alors qu'il a été convaincu d'avoir obtenu frauduleusement une licence universitaire afin de pouvoir porter ce titre de «docteur» dont la bourgeoisie d'Etat lusitanienne est si ridiculement friande.

Comme Armando Vara, ami intime de l'ancien Premier ministre «socialiste» José Socrates qui a placé le FMI sous la tutelle de la «troïka», Dias Loureiro et les «cavaquistes» du BPN, sont l'illustration que la politique professionnelle est bien, dans certaines «démocraties» européennes, le chemin le plus sûr vers l'enrichissement personnel rapide d'une classe d'aventuriers. En Grèce, en Irlande, en Espagne, au Portugal. Et en France ?

C'est la première leçon. La seconde, c'est que les graves dysfonctionnements de systèmes judiciaires eux-mêmes gangrénés par la corruption et les réseaux d'influence permettent à de tels individus de jouir en toute impunité de biens mal acquis. Il est à noter que les responsables directs des désastres bancaires à l'origine directe de la crise financière globale ont joui jusqu'ici aux Etats-Unis et en Europe, à de rares exceptions près, d'une impunité civile et pénale absolue.

Enfin, cerise sur le gâteau, la surveillance bancaire confiée désormais dans la zone euro à la Banque centrale européenne, y sera sous la responsabilité du vice-président Vitor Constancio, hiérarque socialiste portugais et gouverneur de la Banque du Portugal, le régulateur bancaire, quand les «cavaquistes» du BPN se livraient à leurs acrobaties nauséabondes. Fermez le ban !
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