International
High-profile murder trial shines light on Argentine discrimination
January 28 | By AFP | Philippe Bernes-Lasserre |
The shocking story of a teenager beaten to death by eight young rugby players has opened old wounds and shed light on class, race and gender discrimination in Argentine society.
Eight friends, now age 21 to 23, are facing life in prison if convicted of the premeditated murder of Fernando Baez three years ago in a popular seaside resort.
The trial is under way in Dolores, 200 kilometers (125 miles) south of Buenos Aires, and has gripped the nation, as did the original murder that sparked protests in several cities.
In the early hours of January 18, 2020, a fight broke out in a nightclub in Villa Gesell, a resort city popular with young people.
After those involved were evicted from the club, their quarrel continued in the street, but Baez, then 18, became isolated from his friends and surrounded by the eight defendants, who beat him so severely that he died of his injuries.
The trial opened three weeks ago but precious little light has been shone on who did what that night.
Some defendants have even denied hitting Baez.
The matter of who, or what, exactly was responsible for Baez’s death has inflamed social media debates.
“The question of class plays an important role in this case,” said sociologist Guillermo Levy, a professor at the universities of Buenos Aires and Avellaneda.
“Most of the rugby players are from rich, rural families.”
Some have pointed the finger at rugby itself, and the culture that surrounds it.
“It’s true that it is a cocktail of violence, racism, machismo, alcohol, etc. But I’m going to add the component of rugby training,” Facundo Sassone, a sociologist at the University of San Martin who is also a junior rugby coach, told AFP.
He said the “herd” mentality nurtured within a team environment had a role to play.
‘Why did rugby values fail?’
For all its positive publicity as a sport where respect and camaraderie are integral, rugby has a dark side in which gratuitous violence, and sometimes deeply inappropriate pranks, are commonplace and unquestioned.
“If we… say that it is a sport of values and friendship, why did it fail?” asked Sassone.
“Some issues can be misunderstood by rugby players and can generate situations of violence away from the pitch.”
Some former professional players have spoken out on the matter.
Former Argentina captain Agustin Pichot was one of the people to hit out at his sport after meeting Baez’s family in 2021.
He said rugby had “normalized bad things” by failing “to differentiate good from bad” in some of the practices that have developed within and around the sport.
Rugby by no means has a monopoly on violence — barely a year goes by without a death related to clashes between rival football fans, while drink-fueled fights outside nightclubs are commonplace.
It is a minority sport in Argentina, whose popularity pales compared with football.
But it stands out because it is traditionally played and watched by a wealthy elite.
And that is why this case has captured the public’s imagination in a way that violence between poor people would not, said sociologist and writer Alejandro Seselovsky.
The wealthy white “who kills, that’s like ‘a man bit a dog’, it’s newsworthy,” said Seselovsky.
‘Society needs to reflect’
The racial aspect of this murder is also forcing Argentine society to confront an awkward truth it would rather brush under the carpet.
According to witnesses, the defendants called Baez — whose parents, a bricklayer and a caregiver, are both Paraguayan immigrants — a “shitty black” while beating him.
“You cannot escape the reference to Fernando’s blackness in the assault,” sociologist Sebastian Bruno, an immigration specialist, told AFP.
The “racism and classism” is obvious, said Bruno, although Levy points out that it “doesn’t mean they wouldn’t have attacked him if he weren’t” Paraguayan.
In a country where the majority of the population is descended from white Europeans, mostly from Spain, Italy or Germany, the term “black” has been widely used to describe indigenous people or migrants from neighboring countries viewed as inferior, said Bruno.
“We need to reflect on the society that produced this,” said Levy.
International
Austrian man arrested in Croatia with deceased woman as passenger in his car
A 65-year-old Austrian citizen was arrested at a border checkpoint in Croatia after attempting to enter the country in his car with a deceased woman sitting as a passenger, police announced on Tuesday.
The man was detained in a routine check in late November in Gunja, a border area separating Bosnia from Croatia, the police told AFP. Suspicious because they saw “no consciousness or movement” from the passenger, Croatian officers called a doctor, who confirmed the death of the 83-year-old woman, also Austrian, according to her identification.
The woman’s relationship to the suspect is unknown. She had died in Bosnia, and the man intended to repatriate her body to Austria to “avoid the formalities related to transporting a corpse,” according to the police. Croatian media reported that the man was her legal guardian.
Once her death was confirmed, a funeral service took charge of the body.
International
Colombian nationals arrested for human trafficking and disappearance of migrant boat
Colombian authorities arrested two nationals accused of the illegal trafficking of migrants to the United States and of endangering lives due to the disappearance of a boat with 40 people aboard, U.S. Department of Justice officials reported on Tuesday.
Hernando Manuel de la Cruz Rivera Orjuela, 52, and Luis Enrique Linero Pinto, 40, both Colombian citizens, were arrested on December 13 in Colombia at the request of the United States for their alleged involvement in a “transnational human trafficking operation,” the department said in a statement.
According to the charges, the detainees were transporting migrants to San Andrés Island in the Caribbean, where they would then be taken by boat to Nicaragua. The goal was to reach the United States through Central America and Mexico.
The accused are said to have advised the migrants on how to reach San Andrés Island, where they personally received them, arranged accommodations, and “took them to the boats that transported them to Nicaragua so they could enter the United States illegally,” the statement reads.
“These defendants put several migrants on the boat that disappeared off the coast of Nicaragua in 2023,” said Deputy Attorney General Nicole M. Argentieri, head of the U.S. Department of Justice’s Criminal Division, as cited in the statement.
Both men are “directly and personally responsible for the illicit trafficking of migrants on that vessel,” according to the indictment dated October 23.
International
Homemade landmine explosion in Michoacán kills two soldiers, injures five
Two soldiers were killed and five others were injured by the explosion of homemade landmines planted by a criminal group in a mountainous area of the Mexican state of Michoacán (west), the Secretary of Defense reported on Tuesday.
The attack occurred on Monday morning in the municipality of Cotija, a border area between Michoacán and the state of Jalisco, when the military was conducting a reconnaissance mission after receiving information about an armed camp in the area, explained Secretary General Ricardo Trevilla.
“At that moment, an improvised explosive device detonated. Unfortunately, two soldiers lost their lives, and five others were injured,” the military leader detailed. The affected soldiers were airlifted to hospitals in the region by a military helicopter, while the rest of the team continued with the reconnaissance of the area.
Trevilla stated that before the explosion, the military unit had located the dismembered bodies of three people, and upon continuing the mission, they confirmed the camp was abandoned.
Asked about the individuals responsible for placing the explosives, the general suggested they could be criminals linked to the local group Cárteles Unidos, which operates in Michoacán and uses these tactics in their territorial dispute with the Jalisco New Generation Cartel, one of the most powerful criminal organizations in the country.
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