CONGRESSIONAL RECORD—
Extensions of Remarks E653Linda Meyer, the excellent staff and all of the
members of United Bay City Credit Union a
most joyous 50th anniversary, with many more
successful ones to come.
f
HONORING LOU MATARAZZO AND
RON DEVITO
HON. GARY L. ACKERMAN
OF NEW YORK
IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
Wednesday, April 14, 1999
Mr. ACKERMAN. Mr. Speaker, I rise in
honor of Lou Matarazzo, president of the New
York City Patrolmen’s Benevolent Association,
and Ron Devito, 2nd vice-president of the
New York City Patrolmen’s Benevolent Association.
They are being honored on April 15,
1999, at the Terrace in the Park in Flushing
Meadows, NY, on the occasion of their retirement.
Their leadership in the New York City
Policy Department and as officers of the PBA
is truly inspirational to all New Yorkers.
Well known for his devotion to his fellow officers
and for being ready, willing and able to
help a colleague in need, under any circumstances.
Matarazzo has combined a
hands-on approach with a thorough knowledge
of police and human affairs. He began
his career in law enforcement as a rookie patrolman
in 1964. In 1969, he was elected a
PBA delegate from the 108 Precinct and held
that position for 9 years, serving on both the
Negotiating and the ‘‘Cop of the Month’’ Committees.
In 1977, he was elected the PBA
Queens Trustee and soon began serving as
chairman of the board of trustees and chairman
of the Law Committee. In February 1991,
he became the PBA Recording Secretary and
in June 1991, he was elected treasurer. He
has held his current position as PBA president
since 1995.
Matarazzo served as a member of the Police
Pension Board, and is an expert in the
field of disabilities. He is also a member of
many civic and police groups, including the
Columbia Association, of which he was a recent
‘‘Man of the Year.’’ He has been cited for
excellence by the Police Honor Legion, the
New York Shields, the Nassau County Shields
and the Holy Name Society. Currently, he
serves as Chairman of the Public Employees
Conference in New York States, which has
over one million members.
A resident of Nassau County, Matarazzo
has been married to his wife, Fran, for 36
years. Together they have 5 children and 6
grandchildren.
A 42-years veteran police officer, Ron
Devito has been a PBA delegate since 1972.
He joined the force in 1957 and was assigned
to the 103rd precinct where he worked in uniform
for 20 years, before being elected to the
Executive Board of the Policeman’s Benevolent
Association.
In 1977, he was elected as the Financial
Secretary for Queens County, Treasurer, and
then 2nd Vice President of the PBA. During
his time with the PBA, Devito has served on
the Pension Board, the Tellers Committee;
was an original member of the Committee on
Political Action; was director of the ‘‘Cop of the
Month’’ Committee and served as the Chairman
of the Board of Directors Executive
Board.
Devito has been awarded one exceptional
Merit Citation, two Meritorious Police Citations,
four excellent Police Citations and the Nassau
Shields ‘‘Cop of the Month’’ Award.
A former sergeant in the U.S. Marine Corps,
Devito is marred to the former Patricia Guinan.
They have three children and three grandchildren.
Mr. Speaker, I ask my colleagues to join
with me in honoring these two outstanding
men.
f
ARGENTINA’S DEMOCRACY FACES
STRUGGLES
HON. EDOLPHUS TOWNS
OF NEW YORK
IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
Wednesday, April 14, 1999
Mr. TOWNS. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to
share with you my concern towards the struggles
that a young democracy in Latin America
is facing. I am referring to Argentina and its
questioned judicial system, still so tainted by
the memories of past dictatorships. I would
like to talk to you about a small Buenos Aires
based non-governmental organization that has
to bear the harassment and persecution of a
corrupt judiciary. I hope that after I share with
you my concerns you will then be in a better
position to discharge our responsibility of expressing
some words of caution to our citizens
and U.S. based corporations that are considering
whether to make investments in Argentina.
On February 1st, President Clinton responded
to a missive in a salvo of bipartisan
letters from colleagues legislators concerning
the Buenos Aires Yoga School case. Clinton
began his response by observing: ‘‘I share
your commitment to the protection and enforcement
of human rights in Argentina and
around the world.’’ Our U.S. president then
went on to note that: ‘‘Our embassy in Buenos
Aires has been closely monitoring this matter
[the BAYS case] for the past several years,
and has raised it on several occasions with
appropriate officials in the Argentine Ministry
of Justice. Like other cases in the Argentine
judicial system, this case has taken too long to
resolve. While I agree that we cannot intervene
in the Argentine judicial process, we will
continue to follow the case and urge the Argentine
government to resolve it as expeditiously
as possible.’’
The BAYS case has been high on my agenda
and that of many of our colleagues for
much of the past year where we have expressed
our unease over the treatment of this
Argentine group. Many of our colleagues, in
order to seek justice for BAYS, have sent letters
to President Menem calling for his intervention—
never receiving an answer, the case
has achieved significant leverage among us,
U.S. policy makers, as an important component
in the hemispheric policy formulations.
Clinton’s letter about BAYS’s plight pointedly
referred to this highly controversial case. One
which was initiated over six years before when
faculty and students of the Yoga school became
a chosen target for Argentina’s notoriously
flawed judiciary vindictiveness of several
relatives from BAYS members. The philosophical
and culturally-centered educational
institution was accused of ‘‘sexual corruption
of adults’’ and has attracted unprecedented
prosecutorial and judicial misconduct from Argentine
authorities since then. Almost all outside
observers who have examined the case
considered it unfathomable why so much negative
energy has been dissipated against such
a small group which, in fact, has won considerable
renown abroad for its artistic accomplishments
and social programs. One compelling
explanation is that the case has triggered
a bundle of latent and overt ultramontaine,
neo-Nazi and deep-seated anti-Semitic strains
lying just below the surface of Argentina’s historic
memory, which may be fundamental to
why this largely Jewish organization of 300
members has been subjected to its extraordinarily
protracted ordeal. In the playing out of
the case, it was also shown that the indignation
of the Argentine media—to much of which
venality is no stranger—is highly selective and
that the press, in this case, has been revealed
as a lapdog of the political establishment. It
has not shown itself as a forensic lion when it
came to confronting the slavishly purchased
performance of the country’s court system in
general, and its outrageous behavior regarding
the BAYS saga, where under-the-table subventions
must have become the rule in forcing
the prolongation of this case.
Over much of the past six years, members
of BAYS have been experiencing unrelenting
harassment at the hands of Argentine judicial
authorities, including totally unjustified and violent
illegal searches of their homes and offices,
imprisonment of innocent members, the
hectoring of their children, and the seizure of
their personal property which to this day has
not been returned. All this has transpired even
though no compelling incriminating evidence
has been presented by the prosecution
against the Yoga School, the statute of limitations
has since expired, and the Argentine Supreme
Court has nullified the original charges.
Some of the prosecutors and judges engaged
in hounding the BAYS systematically have engaged
in unprofessional behavior, which at
times has included resorting to the use of
scurrilous anti-Semitic remarks made in public
settings—enough to result in the first judge
being impeached by the national legislature. In
this case, reputably, justice has been for sale.
The BAYS affair provides a telling example
of the corrosive role that corruption may have
played in the form of payoffs to court personnel
overseeing such cases as the one involving
BAYS, from several wealthy and alienated
relatives of BAYS members. Even one of
the more controversial judges involved in the
case is ready to acknowledge that the alienated
relatives have a psychological, if not neurotic
need to establish that it was the organization
rather than themselves who had generated
their family’s personal travails. In fact,
a close examination of each of these plaintiffs
conduct reveals that in a number of these
cases, much of the social anomie brought on
by intrafamily strife existed even before the
founding of the organization. The harassment
of the BAYS also provides an insight into the
role played by an extremist ideology in Argentina’s
tainted judicial system, and how little
has changed since the era of military rule beginning
in the 1970’s, when government authorities
murdered, with impunity, upwards of
20,000 innocent civilians in the country. Many
of the judges now on the bench were appointed
to their relatively lucrative positions at
that time, with their modus operandi still reflecting
the low standing that people of their
political persuasion traditionally have accorded
http://bulk.resource.org/gpo.gov/record/1999/1999_E00653.pdf
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