Battle of the oligarchs

In case you missed it: Our president is on a crusade for respect, peace and justice in our tiny nation and of course he can’t use criticism from other rich people who just stand on the sidelines and do nothing. Like I. Roberto Eisenmann, founder of La Prensa, master of Transparency International, chief of Coronado Golf Resorts and what not. He’s always attacking our beloved Martinelli with accusations of corruption and it’s just not fair.

So, il capo decided to send his tax inspectors to Eisenmann’s family business. And then he sent them again, and again, as long as they needed to cook up some flaw in the books, and then they fined Mr. Eisenmann $1.5 million. The result: La Prensa in war-mode with thick fat black headlines, in defense of their oligarch founder. And then Eisenmann made even more accusations, and Martinelli came back with, “prove it!“

Then Martinelli went a bit further and sent a tweet, alluding to another scandal involving Eisenmann yet to be revealed:

Pronto veremos las bellezas de un museo muy caro donde unos supuestos notables malversaron los recursos del estado [Soon we’ll see the beauties of a very expensive museum where some so-called notables misspent resources of the state]

With that, he means the Biodiversity Museum, that pile of rubble on the Amador causeway designed by Frank Gehry that was scheduled to open years ago but still isn’t finished. And Martinelli is right; there has been corruption in this project and Eisenmann, who is a director, knew about it but kept his mouth shut.

Just like Eisenmann has never explained why he resigned as an adviser of president Mireya Moscoso nor revealed what kind of corruption he witnessed there.

This is of course rather strange for someone so prominently involved in Transparency International (TI) and the fourth estate, but totally consistent with what that toothless TI club stands for, which is not to end corruption but to reduce the cost of bribery for its corporate members. And it jives perfectly with how La Prensa is a vehicle to that end too, and serves to protect the interests of the oligarch clique of which Eisenmann is a prominent member as well as the Latin American extreme right. Some will also remember that Eisenmann was a co-founder of the Miami based Dadeland Bank, which was a repository for Medellin cartel drug money.

So! Martinelli is using totalitarian mobster tactics to silence an important opposition voice, but at least he’s doing that against someone with a somewhat shady background as well. Who will win? Probably not Martinelli. He doesn’t have enough power to beat Eisenmann and the clique he represents. But il capo might drag it out long enough to make it a fight worth watching. Lucha Libre!