MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Buenos Aires Councillors oust mayor over nightclub tragedy

Buenos Aires City Council fired Tuesday Mayor Anibal Ibarra for “poor performance of his duties”, a charge stemming from a December 2004 discotheque blaze that killed 193 and injured more than 700 people.

In a gruelling three hours session, 10 of the 15 Councillors who judged Ibarra voted to oust him, four to absolve him and one abstained. However, the committee which heard testimony from over 100 witnesses during the course of the 40-day impeachment trial, did not ban him from holding public office in the future as requested by prosecutors earlier in the trial. Mr. Ibarra said he would appeal the verdict.

"We're going to go to the courts and, above all, to the people" he said minutes after the verdict was handed down. "... This does not end today or here. Our commitment to Buenos Aires City remains unchanged" he remarked. The former mayor stressed that the verdict had been reached "by politicians who respect the popular will, when it suits them".

A centre left politician, at one time close to President Nestor Kirchner, Ibarra had been suspended from office three months ago. He arrived in City Hall to hear the verdict along with hundreds of relatives and friends of the "Cromagnon Republic" discotheque fire victims who cheered and broke into tears when the decision was finally announced.

Councillors on the special committee also complained about the "climate" of tension and "intense pressures" that prevailed during the hearings.

Over 500 police and anti riot forces were deployed round City Hall, although only minor incidents were reported.

The next of kin said that the city's Mayor was one of several people fully responsible for the tragedy, but Ibarra described the impeachment process as an "institutional coup ... staged by the right". "The whole process has been marked by the instilling of fear, threats and violence" he said upon entering the legislature on Tuesday and insisted that the "political manipulation of the tragedy (must) never again be permitted".

On December 30, 2004, thousands of young people, mostly from low income neighborhoods, were attending a rock concert at the overcrowded Cromagnon Republic disco when fire broke out.

The nightclub was functioning with an expired licence, lack of basic safety measures and with emergency exits chained and locked to prevent people from sneaking in. In the midst of the music, alcohol and chaos, someone in the crowd fired several flares into the cloth-draped ceiling, and the death trap toll was devastating: hundreds killed, trampled and injured. City rescue services were also appallingly slow and incompetent.

During the course of the judicial proceedings 31 people were charged including the rock band members, former policemen, firefighters, former Buenos Aires municipal officials and Omar Chaban, the owner of the nightclub and the only person actually indicted and arrested.

Ibarra, a former prosecutor and human rights activist who was considered to have a promising political future, became Buenos Aires City Mayor in 1999 and was reelected in 2003.

Last November he was replaced by his deputy Jorge Telerman, who will complete the mandate of his former boss, which expires in 2007.