Sep 29, 2005 | 1:33PM
Argentina Senate Ejects Menem-Appointed Supreme Court Judge
BUENOS AIRES -(Dow Jones)- Argentina's Senate voted late Wednesday to force Justice Antonio Boggiano off the Supreme Court, removing the fifth - and last - of the judges appointed by former President Carlos Menem from the court.
Boggiano faced 14 charges and two-thirds of the 56 senators found him guilty on six of those charges. Lawmakers also voted to ban him from public office for the rest of his life.
The primary case against Boggiano centers on Meller SA, a company contracted to print telephone directories for former state telephone company Entel. A 1998 arbitration ruling had ordered the state to pay Meller $28 million, an amount that eventually ballooned to $400 million once interest was taken into account. In 2002, the case reached the Supreme Court, which declined to review the arbitration ruling and thus upheld the judgment against the state. Kirchner later issued a decree prohibiting that payment.
The Meller case had also been the source for accusations against the other four justices, who together with Boggiano became known as the "automatic majority" when Menem appointed them as part of his 1989 expansion of the high court from five to nine members. The Supreme Court became seen as a deeply corrupt institution that Menem used for his own political ends. When President Nestor Kirchner took office in May 2003, he acted immediately to purge the court of his predecessor's allies. Political pressure from the Kirchner administration forced Supreme Court Justice Julio Nazareno, a former law partner of Menem's brother, to step down in June 2003. A second judge, Guillermo Lopez, resigned in 2003 after the Senate voted to begin impeachment proceedings. In late 2003, the Senate voted to eject Moline O'Connor. Then, in September 2004, Adolfo Vazquez resigned before the end of his impeachment proceedings.
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http://www.international.na">~~~~ link ~~~~
Menem in the Hot Seat
Ana Simo
theGully.com 7 June 2001
Centre for Research on Globalisation (CRG), globalresearch.ca, 13 February 2002
Bush Friend Arrested for Illegal Arms Trafficking
JUNE 7, 2001. A long-time friend of former U.S. President George H. Bush was arrested today on charges of illegal arms trafficking. If found guilty, he could face a jail term of up to ten years. Only a phone call from the new Bush White House might spare him the indignity, he thinks. But the phones aren't ringing.
The friend in trouble is the former President of Argentina, Carlos Menem, a golfing partner and business benefactor of the elder Bush. He is suspected of having illegally sold 6,500 tons of arms to Croatia and Ecuador between 1991 and 1995, in violation of international arms embargoes. Menem, who was put under house arrest today by a Buenos Aires federal judge, said in his defense last weekend that the U.S. knew all about the arms sales.
State Department spokesman Richard Boucher gave Menem the cold shoulder on Monday. He was unaware, he said, of any action by the U.S. government entailing approval or encouragement of Argentinean arms sales to Croatia. Given how profitable the Menem connection has been for the Bushes, one might imagine Boucher was frostily putting interests of state ahead of the Bush family, until you realize that, with a Bush in the White House, they are essentially one and the same.
In 1988, a few months before Menem was elected for his first term, George W. Bush, the then oilman son of a sitting U.S. President, had tried to pressure the administration of outgoing President Raúl Alfonsín to favor Enron, the Houston-based company, over other, more qualified bidders to build a gas pipeline in Argentina. He was unsuccessful, but the Bushes hit it off with the high-rolling, big-spending Menem from the start. One of Menem's first acts as President was to give Enron a $300-million sweetheart deal on the pipeline project.
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http://www.globalresearch.ca/articles/SIM202A.html~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~Don't Cry for Bush, Argentina
News: George W. may not recall the names of world leaders, but when it comes to foreign affairs, he knows the value of his own family's name.
By Louis Dubose and Carmen Coiro
March/April 2000 Issue
Texans watched with interest last winter as Governor George W. Bush was home-schooled on international affairs by former Secretary of State George Shultz and other veterans of his father's foreign-policy team. Even Carl Bildt, the former prime minister of Sweden, was brought in for a tutorial at the governor's mansion, in the hope that his recent U.N. experience in the Balkans could help Bush understand that Kosovars are not "Kosavarians" and that Greeks are not "Grecians."
But no one had to prepare a prompt card to remind him who stepped down as president of Argentina in December. Shortly before Bush announced his own campaign for president, he had received a visit from Carlos Saul Menem, the right-wing leader of Argentina for the past decade. The two men retired to an Austin country club, where they were joined by Bush's father. Governor Bush had the flu, so he contented himself with riding along as the former president and Menem played a round of golf.
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http://www.motherjones.com/news/feature/2000/03/argentina.html
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