A row between the Argentine President Cristina Fernández and the only company in the country that produces newsprint has escalated into a legal battle that could see the future of the business decided by the courts.
The row, which has been going on for two year, centres around claims that two leading newspapers, the Clarin and La Nacion, have used newsprint company Papel Prensa to impose media monopolies.
Fernández claims that the newspapers conspired with dictators to control it three decades ago to drive rivals out of business. Now she says that the courts should decide whether Grupo Clarin and La Nacion should face charges.
The companies deny any illegality in the acquisition of the newsprint firm, and accuse the President of trying to control the mechanisms needed to guarantee freedom of expression.
Speaking in a national broadcast, Fernández said; ‘Papel Prensa is the only company that produces newsprint in this country and it’s a vertically integrated monopoly. It determines who it sells to, how much it sells and at what price’.
Human rights groups, which have a prominent role in the government, accuse La Nacion and Clarin of being conspicuously silent about ‘dirty war’ crimes committed against leftists and other opponents of the 1976-83 dictatorship.
Fernández said the newspapers obtained Papel Prensa through a forced sale in 1976 at a time when the military junta was doing all it could to destroy the company’s owner, David Graiver, a prominent banker who was secretly supporting the leftist Montonero guerrillas.
Graiver died in a suspicious plane crash, sending his company into bankruptcy and leaving his widow, Lidia Papaleo, and parents to face the dictators. It is claimed that five days after she signed the papers selling the company she was detained and tortured.
The owners of La Nacion and Clarin deny the accusations, saying Papaleo freely sold the company and that she never formally alleged any forced sale or fraud.
Her brother Osvaldo Papaleo though said in a radio interview that his sister had not come forward before out of fear and she feels this is the first government to promise her protection.
Government lawyer Alberto Gonzalez Arzac said the family had suffered death threats, illegal pressure, kidnappings, illegal detention in clandestine places, the seizure of their property and torture.
‘It has been conclusively verified that the newspapers acted illegally as participants in the transfer of stock, and shows that the truth about Papel Prensa has surfaced in an undeniable manner,’ he added.
