First paragraph (Teaser):

This disruption of science will bring about unthinkable consequences in politics, journalism and the “progressive intelligentzia” of the country that it will overwhelmingly outweigh the damages recently rediscovered in the energy self-sufficiency (YPF) or the territorial vindication (Falkland-Malvinas). Moreover, the result of all this jurisprudence and false legal vacuum has contributed to a spiraling moral emptiness and brain drain that has mortally hurt the so much needed honesty in the search for knowledge.

Rest of the text:

Leviathan Harassment to Argentine Science
A Bureaucratic-Judicial Conspiracy tied to Multinational Corporations and International Credit Agencies

Index

I.- Introduction
II.- Science Subordination to Philistine Politics
III.- The Infiltration of Junk Science, Pathological Science, and Fraud
IV.- The Claims on Patents and Subsidies
V.- A Bureaucratic-Judicial Conspiracy to file the Complaints
V-a.- Impunity in Prosecutor Noailles’ Resolution
V-b.- Concealment in Judge Martínez de Georgi´s Ruling
V-c.- Denial of the Argentine Legal Platform
V-d.- Concealing Ratification of the Court’s Ruling (Irurzun, Cattani and Farah)
VI.- The Abdication of Law and the Innocuousness of the Supreme Court
VII.- The Imposition of a Historical Vacuum
VIII.- The Window of Power and the Building of a Mercenary Mandarinate
IX.- Conclusion
X.- List of Appendices
XI.- Bibliography

I.- Introduction

The linkage between knowledge and democracy in a profoundly unequal world has a lot to do with the kind of treatment provided to scientific research, from the treatment of patents and university exchanges to the distribution of scholarships and research subsidies.

All these cultural deals have been shockingly characterized by the World Trade Organization (WTO) as “tradable goods,” for mass consumption and not as personal rights or social goods, thus stressing the mercantilization and corruption of culture on a global basis, and threatening to convert western science into junk science, recently sentenced by the statements about the Integrity of Scientific Research held at Singapore (2010) and Brussels (2011) as an extreme danger to freedom, the economy, and the future of mankind (Drenth, 2009).

http://www.ellibrepensador.com/2011/03/23/la-mano-invisible-del-mercado-...

II.- Science Subordination to Philistine Politics

Patronage, clientelism, prebendalism, and factionalism are among the persistent elements that make the corruption of culture possible. These ancient and structural elements were, in turn, the pillars of a sick and increasing subordination of Argentine modern science to philistine politics or, in other words, irrational, populist and mercantilist politics (Furedi, 2004).

Likewise, they were the decisive factors which made possible that public officers and international credit agencies encouraged with impunity the privatization of the evaluation system of science (Innova-T and Ubatec S.A.), the embezzlement and appropriation of public funds for scientific research, and what is even more cruel, have increased a moral emptying of the scientific community, whose deep negative impact on the quality of human resources far exceeds the loss of energy self-sufficiency (YPF) or territorial sovereignty (Falkland-Malvinas issue).

In Argentina, the National Agency for Scientific and Technological Production or ANPCYT-FONCyT (acronym in Spanish), --an agency reporting to the National President, conceived in 1997 under the wing of the World Bank (WB) supposedly to prevent the monopoly of the National Council of Scientific Research (CONICET - acronym in Spanish)-- by subsidizing personal research projects instead of investing in scientific and artistic infrastructure (laboratories, libraries, archives, museums, observatories, conservatories, theaters, auditoriums, documentation centers, digital repositories, scanned catalogs and collections, etc.) irrationally altered the order of strategic priorities.

This alteration resulted in an irreparable loss, which is the real origin of the spiral of decay, as the nation-state failed to invest in order to expand the (documentary, graphic, sound, and digital) cultural base. As evidence of this harmful situation, the collective resources to support research that the Argentine cultural institutions are offering on the web, compared with those being offered in the neighboring countries such as Uruguay and Brazil, or in Europe (NORFACE Transnational Research Program), reveal an alarming backwardness and an absolute lewdness, that shows how distant from a full democracy –on the cultural level- is the administration of knowledge.

III.- The Infiltration of Junk Science, Pathological Science, and Fraud

In that sense, corruption in the field of science, and the political, judicial, and academic indifference to the same, sooner or later, will negatively reverberate, namely produce a negative feedback loop, not only in the excellence of scientific production which may, eventually, lead to the vicious circle of junk science and fraud scandals, as was the case of Crotoxin in Argentina (1996), but also –as a result of the domino or Matthew Effect-- in the quality of political democracy, journalism and political parties (Cattaneo and Corbellini, 2011).

In order to defend science and scientific research in Argentina, and considering the biased and politicized controls and audits conducted by international credit agencies (IDB), CONICET Advisory Committees and Science Secretariats of National Universities, one may wonder: are there any assurances in place to prevent junk science and fraud from infiltrating in pure science? Has the Crotoxin case been an isolated case? And who can assure that no other unknown Crotoxin which has not yet reached the public opinion actually happened or might happen? Or that the already existing Crotoxin and runaway patents have been fraudulently hidden?

http://laterminalrosario.wordpress.com/2009/09/29/la-crotoxina-un-engao-...

IV.- Claims on Patents and Subsidies

In the design of a cultural strategy, the claims against research institutes, which so far have been a taboo, should have deserved top priority from political parties, independent journalism and international credit agencies, even to be discussed at a parliamentary level. But, what is the reason for these topics to become a taboo? Why is corruption in science not discussed among scholars? Why is it a forbidden topic? Why wasn’t the call for debate made (4) years ago by the Forum on Research Integrity (2008), organized by the European Science Foundation accepted? Perhaps politicians, journalists, and “progressive” intellectuals have been polluted by the Matthew Effect that sociologist Robert K. Merton talks about? (Jiménez, 2009)

In Argentina, criminal complaints were filed against the theft of royalties//patents and against the distribution of research subsidies to public officers who belonged to the Secretariat of Science and Technology. The Board of Directors of CONICET was also accused of failing to report patent appropriation and sale. The relevant complaint was unsuccessfully filed with the Court in charge of Judge Romilda Servini de Cubría. (Appendix I).

http://argentina.indymedia.org/news/2012/04/812214.php

In turn, the claims against the distribution of subsidies were filed against the Agency or ANPCYT. These complaints have referred to the large research subsidies --1.24 billion US dollars from a loan given by the Inter American Development Bank (IDB), which were wasted in some sort of embezzlement for thirteen years (1997-2010). The complaint was finally filed by a ruling of the Argentine justice, after seven (7) years of litigation, and in the middle of the most absolute indifference from local journalists, political parties, “progressive” scholars and international credit agencies (IDB).

These officials, unsuccessfully accused since 2005 in the prosecution offices (General Attorney, Auditor, Defense Office, Anti-Corruption Office), and since 2010 in the federal court, were more than a hundred managers of scientific and technological agencies (Agency coordinators-FONCYT, board members and advisory committees from CONICET and the National Commission of University Evaluation and Accreditation [CONEAU] and secretaries of public universities), identified by full name. These directors, who, handled by the then Science and Technology Secretary and current Minister Lino Barañao and the Boards of the Agency, CONICET, and CONEAU, acted as judge and interested party in the orchestration of an intellectual mafia network (among many others Politis, Beaugé, Salvarezza, Astini, Coira, Ceccatto, Gigolo, Mroginski, Anón, Beccaria, and Frías, among others) and, therefore, were flagrantly engaged in crimes of public action (nobody can judge his/her own case), now scandalously unpunished. (Appendix II).

http://bahianoticias.com/the-mafia-network-in-argentine-science-and-univ...
www.er-saguier.org/articulos_ampliacion.php?id=13
V.- A Bureaucratic-Judicial Conspiracy to file the Complaints

The order to file the judicial complaint, restarted in November 2010, was the sad end of a bureaucratic-judicial conspiracy orchestrated by means of a late and complicated proceeding, with the well-known lies, secrets, hypocrisies and impunities, and where the lack of transparency and free access to public information prevailed. Just once I decided in 2010 to make the legal complaint in Comodoro Py courts, the General Prosecutor Guillermo Felipe Noailles, in a burst of delayed guilt or to cover himself from eventual complaints, quickly reactivated the initial complaint of 2005, which was deliberately dormant, in order to bring it to a fatal close with a concealing ruling full of fallacies, sophisms, and self-fulfilling prophecies.

V-a.- Impunity in Prosecutor Noailles’ Resolution (November 2010)

The opinion of the Prosecutor’s Office of Administrative Investigation [FIA – acronym in Spanish] in terms of the Agency’s research projects reveals that “…in 59.25% of the reviewed files (this is only a sample selected by this FIA) have a conflict of interest. Note that, an area coordinator (or joint coordinator) submitted a project, whether as project leader or member researcher, to receive financing.” Likewise, neither could, for example, “…the existence of transparent and efficient challenging and excuse mechanisms be confirmed, nor the actual existence of records on project evaluators (which, naturally, are not attached hereto) or the availability to request them upon evaluated people’s claims.” And in connection with the procedures applied upon a conflict of interests, the FIA stated that “…they are not clear or accurate, there being no control mechanisms necessary to provide the process with the required transparency that should be paramount in this type of situations.”

Notwithstanding that, in his forgiving resolution the Administrative Prosecutor Noailles concluded that: “…no specific situation justifying the filing of a disciplinary action could be found.” Contradictorily, Prosecutor Noailles –after former Prosecutor Garrido had taken statement to seven (7) witnesses (among them, Dr. Roberto Gargarella) between 2009 and 2010 in his prior term- found “…a procedure that does not seem to meet the basic requirements ensuring the necessary transparency in managing public funds” in the Agency’s subsidy management.

More paradoxically, Prosecutor Noailles’ resolution held that one could be aware of this vicious protocol of the Agency when noticing “…the lack of a clear mechanism that would allow explaining how financing of certain projects was approved, and if people with counter interests have participated in this procedure (coordinators or joint coordinators choosing peers who may have evaluated projects submitted by the coordinators or joint coordinators themselves)” one could be aware of this vicious protocol of the Agency once it has been seen (Appendix III).

http://argentina.indymedia.org/news/2012/04/812226.php

As per the Argentine criminal proceedings, the sole well grounded suspicion of unlawful behavior forces the prosecutor, after being served notice on the complaint, to file a criminal action against the defendants and to summon all those who appear to have responsibility in said unlawful actions, or actions that violate civil servants’ duties in order to file a deposition.

In this connection, the law assumes that the enrichment of a civil servant during their term in office is an indication of unlawful behavior that can only be proved otherwise in a proceeding where the civil servant should account for said enrichment or equity growth. The same Argentine criminal law considers that a civil servant cannot act as both judge and interested party in acts of property disposal, and there are regulated procedures in place for every act; therefore, a report stating that certain civil servants who, in their capacity as public servants, have acted as jurors of a government agency in order to grant subsidies to scientific research, and that, in such capacity, got self-awarded subsidies is sufficient grounds to file a criminal action since, in that case, fraud and violation of public servants’ duties appear to be evident, at first sight.

Article 18 of the National Constitution, the Law on Administrative Proceedings, the Criminal Code, and even the budget law –with its stringent system of prohibitions as to the use of public money allocated by the state to public agencies of the national government- provide for the basic principles of the Argentine law. Regulations specific to the entity the public servant belongs to are not applicable in this case as they are secondary and complementary rules. Against this background, which is also the only way to understand the practice of law under the government of laws, it becomes clear that the prosecutor has not complied with his duties.

http://www.salta21.com/Dictamen-de-la-Fiscalia-en-la.html

http://argentina.indymedia.org/news/2010/11/762627.php

V-b.- Concealment in Judge Martínez de Georgi’s Ruling (April 2011)

Being the reporter forced to file a criminal complaint and to appear as accuser in order to bring forward an action that is the public prosecutor's office duty, the first trial court pending on the matter, which did not act pursuant to law, hence breaching the basic principle of law that demands consistency between the official action and the law, ended up ordering the file of the case. Six (6) months after the ruling of the Prosecutor’s Office of Administrative Investigations (April 2011), the order to close the report file was issued by a judge from the Federal Criminal Court (Martínez de Georgi), whose ruling stated that it was clearly proved “…that the subsidies objected by the reporter were granted pursuant to law and did not fail to comply with any regulation whatsoever.”

Since the reported actions of the accused people and the resulting conflicts of interests were not considered within the framework of the aforementioned basic principles, the Judge Martínez de Georgi dismissed the case, safe-locking outside the law the attitudes of the accused people as well as the conflicts of interests. He dealt with the complaints practically outside the Argentine legal platform, i.e., the Constitution, the Criminal Code, and the Law on Administrative Proceedings, considering them within a limited scope of the subsidy granting program and as per the secondary rules of said subsidy program, thus starting a vicious legal circle. But as in such Agency program the Judge Martínez de Georgi did not see provisions that generically govern a system of incompatibilities, and given the absence of any “…violation of the provisions for specific cases,” the Judge concluded “…that it can be stated that no crime whatsoever has been committed and that no criminal objection can be filed by the undersigned [the judge].” If, according to the Judge Martínez de Georgi, said regulation does not state anything in connection with the conflicts of interest, there would be no room for complaints whatsoever. Moreover, for judge Martínez de Georgi “…the fact that subsidy granting to said officials is not subject to any prohibition or restriction excludes the possibility of the undersigned [Martínez de Georgi] to request a value judgment.”

http://argentina.indymedia.org/news/2012/04/812227.php

To support the statement that the Judge cannot solve the case, i.e., that he cannot request a value judgment, Judge Martínez de Georgi –while ordering the file of the case-- had to assert that there was no rule whatsoever, in other words the existence of a legal vacuum. Judge Martínez de Georgi’s procedural excuses and fallacies to hinder the investigation and conceal the impunity driven by Prosecutor Noailles multiplied on purpose. Judge Martínez de Georgi tried to counteract the critical statements of the seven (7) witnesses called by the Prosecutor’s Office back in the days of Attorney Manuel Garrido, especially those of Roberto Gargarella, Mónica Mendoza y Pedro Manfredo Alexander. In order to reject such critical statements, Judge Martínez de Georgi required the statement of a single witness, whom he turned into the oracle and the new source of rules alien to the Argentine positive law that the same judge uses in a negative sense by asserting that there are no rules. However, the person who states that there are no rules in terms of the accusations that gave rise to the criminal case is, in turn, the only witness. And Judge Martínez de Georgi gave forensic credibility to what was stated by this single witness: FONCyT-Agency’s Director, Lic. Carlos Cassanello.

However, a significant and paradoxical detail of such sole statement or negative feedback of the vicious circle (Matthew Effect) was that it belonged to a document that Cassanello suspiciously fails to mention but which had been issued three years before, in March 2007, by the Science and Technical Ethics Committee (CECTE - acronym in Spanish) of the Ministry (González Cappa, Kornblihtt, Parodi, and Vainstok), titled “Conflicts of Interest in Small Scientific Communities.” That document, expressly hidden, drafted by CECTE at the request of the then Science and Technology Secretary and current Minister, Dr. Barañao, was the first justifying antecedent of a vicious legal circle and the continuation of a spiral of silence in the scientific community, that finds a more remote source in the foundation of the Agency and in the recipes of the World Bank in 1997. At the time it was written such document was prepared back then with the sole purpose of rejecting the public accusations against his performance in terms of the subsidies created by the Agency, and, therefore, to exonerate him from any responsibility in the case and to ensure his impunity.

The lack of critical rigor revealed by that initial document is confirmed as such document supports the unproven hypothesis that conflicts of interest take place simply because of “…the small size of the Argentine scientific community.” To lessen the dangerous effects of such baseless hypothesis, the document adds –as a mitigating factor- that while a conflict of interest “… does not necessarily involve inappropriate behavior,” on the contrary, it poses “…a risk that such conflicts might eventually arise.”

Bluntly speaking, the CECTE’s document, which content –full of prejudices- repeats the same old story about the single witness, Cassanello, and which the Judge states in his ruling with no benefit of inventory whatsoever, and confirmed by the Federal Court, would legitimate the reason why the Agency authorities have distorted their arbitral function, manipulating the mechanism adopted to appoint entity Coordinators, so far as to incur in criminal behaviors, until today dangerously unpunished.

V-c.- Denial of the Argentine Legal Platform

Such a lengthy vicious circle or bureaucratic-judicial conspiracy, planned for the systematic concealment of the criminal acts committed, involved four acts whose authors were four institutions, two administrative, and two judicial levels (the ruling of CECTE in March 2007, Prosecutor Noailles’ ruling in November 2010, Judge Martínez de Georgi’s ruling in April 2011, and, the Federal Court's ruling in October 2011). Its termination was possible by twisting the legal platform of the Argentine positive law, which has been replaced by the statement of the only witness called by Judge Martínez de Georgi.

In fact, when Judge Martínez de Georgi was forced to close the case, six (6) months after the FIA’s opinion (April 2011), he based his decision on a false budget (which provides for no rules or “control mechanisms for such situations where conflicts of interests occur,” put forth as the Prosecutor’s hypothesis.) But then, Judge Martínez de Georgi obtained Cassanello’s statement, who argued that “…there is no general rule whatsoever, apart from those included in each public call, setting incompatibilities to become a recipient of subsidies granted by the Agency.” In such statement, Judge Martínez de Georgi confessed having discovered the same ghostly reality that the prosecutor had put forth as his hypothesis: there is no general rule whatsoever. In this case, such repeated denial mechanism and legal vacuum become a sort of a self-fulfilled prophesy, namely the fact that the absence of a rule (the prosecutor’s negative hypothesis), was not real has become real due only to witness Cassanello’s assertion; which the judge included in the reasons for his ruling and, certainly, in its consequences, such as the judicial decision to file the complaint due to absence of crime (Thomas Theorem, rediscovered by Robert Merton.)

With respect to the content of the admitted testimony, the proceeding enforced by Judge Martínez de Georgi is absolutely forbidden by what is known as the due process, because the person who should declare the law is the judge, rather than the witness. The witness can only report on the facts in which he/she has been directly involved, and cannot be allowed to make conclusions regarding regulations during a due process. And the Judge must declare the law abiding by the principle that it should always precede the event of the process, unlike in this case where the governing law is a product of a self-fulfilling prophecy, a sophism with false legal aspects, declared in court by witness Cassanello in December 2010, with the aggravating circumstance that he declared it hiding the fact that it was plagiarized from a ruling issued by CECTE three years before.

In turn, the confirmation of such reversion or distortion of the positive legal order weakens the principle of the internal ethics of the law that demands consistency between the official action and the law. And if that essential consistency disappears, the legal order simply vanishes or breaks down, thus resulting in the reign of arbitrariness and, moreover, of the ‘might makes right’ principle, which -in this particular case- is the law of the single witness Cassanello, i.e., the law of the bureaucrat civil servant who controls the subsidy system, the resources, and the money of such subsidies within the National Public Administration (Meabe, 1994).

While it seems unconceivable, as Judge Martínez de Georgi’s arbitrary ruling has already been issued, and was confirmed by the Federal Court, it is not surprising that the old saying “every law has a loophole” becomes true given the evil jargon prevailing in the Argentine legal bureaucracy. Hobbes also stated that while for jurists law can never be against reason, the problem is to find out “whose reason it is that shall be received for law”(Hobbes: Leviathan, Chapter XXVI, paragraph 7.)

That is, Judge Martínez de Georgi did not care to find out if the National Constitution, the Criminal Code, and the Law on Administrative Proceedings set forth any rules applicable to the case and punish the violation of the duties of civil servants and their eventual embezzlement. Judge Martínez de Georgi did not turn to the rule provided for in Article 18 of the National Constitution, with the triple guarantee of equality before the law, due process, and right to defense. It is impossible to ensure equality before the law if one acts as both judge and interested party. Moreover, there is no room for a due process if the interested party is the one in charge of passing sentence; and no right to defense can be ensured if the interest of one party prevails as such interested party becomes judge as well.

Moreover, the Law on Administrative Proceedings demands that every administrative conduct must be justified, grounded, and pursuant to law. Besides, the National Budget Law does not allow using public funds but under regulated procedures. In said procedures, the recipient is excluded from any possibility of being involved in the award process since this would simply be an infringement to the detriment of public administration, and the infringer would be involved, at first sight, in an unlawful behavior. But Judge Martínez de Georgi did not notice all that. That is to say, the Judge has disregarded the government of laws and the rule of law, and he has breached the basic principle of law morals that demands consistency between the official action and the law. As he failed to consider the case pursuant to law, which is a must of civic decency, Judge Martínez de Georgi and the Court Judges who confirmed his ruling, have gone too far in terms of justice administration, which would offer sufficient grounds for an immediate impeachment.

In fact, in the opinion of the shortsighted Judge Martínez de Georgi, both the Agency Coordinators and the Board of Directors that appointed them are exempted from the obligation to comply with the National Constitution, the Criminal Code, and the Law on Administrative Proceedings, as well as with the general principles of law, among which the millenary rule of law that nobody can be both judge and interested party or judge in their own case (“Nemo Iudex in Causa Sua”) acquires an essential and extraordinary significance. As per the legal background of Judge Martínez de Georgi, the simultaneous positions of judge and interested party “… have not failed to comply with any legal provision, but rather they had been adopted pursuant to law, without breaching any regulation whatsoever.” (Appendix IV).

http://argentina.indymedia.org/news/2012/04/812227.php
V-d.- Concealing Ratification of the Court’s Ruling (Irurzun, Cattani and Farah-October 2011)
In furtherance of injustice and lack of respect for the law, the ruling to file the complaint was upheld six (6) months later (in October 2011) in the process of appeal by the II Courtroom consisting of judges Martín Irurzun, Horacio Cattani and Eduardo Farah, which after giving the complainant the capacity of “querellante” confirmed Martínez de Georgi’s ruling.
In its ruling, the II Courtroom (Irurzun-Cattani-Farah) noted “…that the detailed analysis of the facts performed by the lower court's judge [Martínez de Georgi] collating many documents incidental hereto, and upheld by this Court [Irurzun-Cattani-Farah], requires similar efforts by the accuser to prove not only the alleged error but also the insight of the proposed interpretation.”
To the impunity granted by the Court of reviewing the behaviors outside the scope of the National Constitution, the Criminal Code, and the Law on Administrative Proceedings, the Federal Court (Irurzun-Cattani-Farah) had added a new dangerous doctrine. This dangerous doctrine releases the Public Prosecutor’s Office –primarily responsible for filing the criminal action– from the investigation duty and demands the individual accuser to produce the relevant evidence to determine whether the defendants are responsible or not. While the Federal Court (Irurzun-Cattani-Farah) stated that the accuser has not done enough, it does not argue whether or not the prosecutor, the judge, and it have done enough to comply with the National Constitution, the Criminal Code, and the Law on Administrative Proceedings.
Apparently, the Court (Irurzun-Cattani-Farah) ignores that the “…plentiful documentation incidental hereto,” consisting of many lists of subsidy recipients first provided by the accuser who downloaded them from the Web. But aside from the ingratitude not to recognize the investigation credits that the accuser deserves on this subject, for the Criminal Court (Irurzun-Cattani-Farah), the accuser of a crime in Argentina needs to perform all the tasks of a detective, he has to become a sort of local Sherlock Holmes but, of course, without the resources, rights and assurances that British detectives enjoy. Argentine citizens and scientists do not enjoy the right to freedom of information that could allow them to investigate in ministerial archives.
Furthermore, the Federal Court (Irurzun-Cattani-Farah) asserts that “…the list of new criminal hypotheses and the invocation of the request to summon forty one [41] individuals on the belief that “their testimony is essential to determine their responsibilities” is insufficient.” Definitely for the Court (Irurzun-Cattani-Farah) the serious facts regarding the conflicts of interests complained, which are comparable to bribery, do not even deserve a call for witnesses (Appendix V).
http://argentina.indymedia.org/news/2012/04/812228.php
VI.- The Abdication of the Law and the Innocuousness of the Supreme Court

As a result of such three (3) rulings, we reach the conclusion that Prosecutor Noailles, Judge Martínez de Georgi, and the Federal Criminal Court (Irurzun-Cattani-Farah) decided to resign to their jurisdiction, venue, prerogatives, powers, and moral leadership, in order to make a sort of illegal association to cover-up a denial of justice. To appeal to the Supreme Court turn out to be not only very expensive for the accuser but also the useless repetition of actions with a never-ending and innocuous waiting process, and with no support from any lobby, which is the common practice in the Argentine justice system, as clearly evidenced in the current case of the Argentine Vice President Amado Boudou.

The resignation to their jurisdiction and venue was a fact, as well as the following concealment and deprivation of justice, since members of criminal courts are exclusively in charge of the prosecution of crimes and criminal conducts which should not and could not be under the opinion of administrative authorities, perhaps interested in making the activity of their own bureaucratic framework lawful. Notwithstanding the above, note that the scope, subject-matter, purpose and duties of the administrative agencies referred to by the lower court’s Judge and the courts of appeals’ Judges (Irurzun-Cattani-Farah) are very different from the ones responsible for the prosecution of crimes and law enforcement. The above “Ethics Committee” (González Cappa, Kornblihtt, Parodi, and Vainstok), is simply a simulation of lawfulness made up of subsidized officials of the ANPCYT itself (Appendix VI)

http://argentina.indymedia.org/news/2012/04/812229.php

VII.- The Imposition of a Historical Vacuum

The vacuum that has been growing in the reality of the Argentine academic, legal and journalistic life is necessarily followed by the interest of the political power to impose official stories within it spheres of hegemony. To the vicious circle of impunities and concealment, both of criminal and moral nature, the present government also tried to intervene in the historiographic world ordering, untimely and without consultation, a new research institute, the Revisionist Institute “Manuel Dorrego.” This Institute pursues to train an academic choir subordinated to the current government's vision of history, a populist vision that recovers Rosas’ dictatorship (1836-1852).

Note that this cultural behavior is very much like the one the so called Proceso (1976-1983) tried to impose when the National Academy of History (acting within the scope of the National Secretary of Culture) at the request of the then Minister of Education (Juan Rafael Llerena Amadeo), ruled that an interpretation of the past that should be exclusively “Western Christian” had to be taught at school (La Nación, 30-V-1980). Not until today has this interpretation –fundamentalist, racist and sectarian, which would have followed a proposal from the Argentine Israeli Mutual Association (AMIA – acronym in Spanish) for “a Jewish education for the nation” (Rodríguez, 2011, 270)- deserved any indictment nor has it been conveniently rectified. Moreover neither the national authorities of the democratic governments –including the present government- nor the independent journalists or the international agencies for human rights asked any amendment whatsoever. (Appendix VII).
http://argentina.indymedia.org/news/2012/04/812230.php
In December 2011, a large group of scholars signed a public protest against this new historical institute.
http://www.lanacion.com.ar/1429787-intelectuales-contra-la-historia-ofic...

VIII.- The Window of Power and the Building of a Mercenary Mandarinate

The embezzlement and prebendalization of the IDB’s loans committed by the Agency Coordinators, with the acquiescence of its Board of Directors, resulted in another gross injustice. While some unscrupulous or indifferent scholars benefited from research subsidies of the so-called Agency or ANPCYT, charging twice for the same job (in CONICET and in the Agency), and pretending that they would go unnoticed within the scientific community; other not too disciplined colleagues joined the list of the ignored and chased, and others more pressed, angry or tired of waiting, fed the unstoppable brain drain to the central metropolis of the world.

Along this line, the signatories of the protest against the Revisionist Institute, belonging to the field of humanities and social and behavioral sciences, include, among others, many eternal recipients of subsidies from the so-called Agency (who also received salaries as researchers of CONICET at an average rate of AR$9,000 or USD 2,000 monthly), who have created some kind of mercenary mandarinate or postmodern nomenclature.

In addition to hiding the corruption reported since 2005 in the administrative and criminal venues, said beneficiaries have not behaved against the person responsible for the embezzlement, the then Secretary and now Minister Lino Barañao, in the same way as they have done against the head of the Revisionist Institute, Prof. Mario Pacho O’Donnell. Even, the signatories include some who belonging to the National Academy of History have not yet rectified the sectarian document signed during the last dictatorship (Appendix VIII).

http://argentina.indymedia.org/news/2012/04/812231.php

The old, sneaky and interested silence of these signatories has shown them as submissive accomplices of the anti-democratic covenant of silence and secrecy –which would, partially, explain the indifference of journalism, political parties and “progressive” scholars who became mercenaries. This intellectual abandonment or indifference is proven by the presence of recipients of these subsidies among those who are advisors to the opposition parties and journalists of the independent press, who regularly publish their articles signed. In turn, their recent challenge collectively displayed showed them fearful of losing hegemony in the current prebendal power and desperate to stop the growing desertion from their own parish.

IX.- Conclusion

The judicial rulings discussed herein gave free rein in the field of science to the continuity of hide and embezzlement, circumstance that has instilled since 2005 a spiral of silence (Noelle-Neumann), a sinister mixture of selfishness, fear and greed –elements that are characteristic of the capitalist market-- within our scientific community. All this mess has so much affected its transparency, competitiveness, and excellence in the international academic world that it can only end up feeding the production of a pathological junk science. This disruption of science will bring about unthinkable consequences in politics, journalism and the “progressive intelligentzia” of the country that it will overwhelmingly outweigh the damages recently rediscovered in the energy self-sufficiency (YPF) or the territorial vindication (Falkland-Malvinas).

The result of all this jurisprudence and false legal vacuum has contributed to a spiraling moral emptiness and brain drain that has mortally hurt the so much needed honesty in the search for knowledge. Those who –full with opportunism- have “arena where scratching” took full advantage of such widespread impunity that were encouraged and covered up by local and international agencies.

Finally, having the appeal at the Supreme Court been withdrawn, the manifest denial of justice and the abdication of the law by judges who are prosecuting scientific issues show how cultural democracy, scientific transparency, judicial independence and free access to public information are threatened in Argentina. These behaviors reveal a very deep deterioration that affects the society as a whole, and that in this particular case, in the legal arena, proves the urgency with which law and public freedoms must be restored.
For that purpose, it does not remain in Argentina any other alternative than to interpellate the international academic opinion, especially those scholars who had been attending the Conferences about Scientific Integrity and Scientific Research held in Brussels and Singapore, in order to reflect on and discuss research conditions in emergent countries. Among those conditions, one might ask whether world academic public opinion must act in defense of: a) academic freedoms, b) equal opportunities in the access to scientific research, c) policies to restrain the brain drain and royalties on patents and scientific discoveries, and d) the due process in those trials where academic freedoms are at stake, or where law have been abdicated or justice denied during the process to pass judgment on and try corruption in science and scientific research.
Or moreover, to interpellate the global academic community about whether it is possible to help situations where unfair judicial trials which violated the right to academic freedoms and equality could be reopened, or judges involved in abdication of law and unfair rulings where the above freedoms and equality are at stake could be impeached, or international agencies involved in loans given to scientific research, such as the Inter American Development Bank (IDB), be induced to thoroughly audit their loans, avoiding their dilapidation by indebted bureaucracies.
All these interpellations have been prepared in the hope to establish new, fairer practices which can balance the distribution of academic intelligence and research at a world scale.

X.- List of Appendices

Appendix I Criminal report against the Board of Directors of CONICET for failure to report inappropriate use and sale of patents
Appendix II The Mafia Network in Argentine Science and Universities
Appendix III Opinion of the Prosecutor’s Office of Administrative Investigation [FIA – acronym in Spanish]
Appendix IV First Trial Court ruling to file the complaint
Appendix V Federal Court’s Ruling ratifying the file of the complaint
Appendix VI Brief Story of Deprivation of Justice in Argentina
Appendix VII Academic opinion on the Education Law (La Nación, 5/30/1980)
Appendix VIII List of Social Scientists Subsidized by the Agency or ANPCYT (2002-2009)

XI.- Bibliography

Cattaneo, Elena y Gilberto Corbellini (2011): Science under politics. An Italian nightmare, EMBO reports, 12, 19-22.

Drenth, Pieter J.D. (2008): A European Code of Conduct for Research Integrity, Organisation Forum on Research Integrity (Madrid, 2008).
Furedi, Frank (2004): Where Have All the Intellectuals Gone?: Confronting Twenty-First Century Philistinism, Continuum International Publishing Group, 2004.
Jiménez, J. (2009) El efecto Mateo: Un concepto psicológico. Papeles del Psicólogo; 30(2): 145-154.
Meabe, Joaquín E. (1994): El derecho y la justicia del más fuerte (Corrientes: ITGD, 1994);
Merton, Robert K. (1995): The Thomas Theorem and The Matthew Effect.. Social Forces, December 1995, 74(2):379-424
Noelle-Neumann, E. (1974). The spiral of silence: a theory of public opinion. Journal of Communication, 24, 43-51
Rodríguez, Laura Graciela (2011): Los nacionalistas católicos de Cabildo y la educación durante la última dictadura en Argentina, Anuario de Estudios Americanos (Seville, Spain), 68, 1, 253-277.

Eduardo R. Saguier, PhD-1982
ID 4.394.928
CONICET Researcher
Museo Roca
Email: sagu...@ssdnet.com.ar
http://www.er-saguier.org
Mobile (+ 54 9 11) 33573721