Menem founds new Peronist faction

[Judi Lynn]

Menem founds new Peronist faction


Mr Menem pledged to create a united Peronism
Former Argentine President Carlos Menem has launched a new political group within the Peronist party and vowed to return to Argentina soon.
Mr Menem, now living in Chile, sent a recorded message to supporters, saying his new People's Peronism group would try to reunite the party.

He also accused current President Nestor Kirchner of dividing Peronism in order to create his own party.

Mr Menem faces possible fraud charges if he returns to Argentina.
(snip/...)

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/3809265.stm

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

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.
(snip/...)

http://www.globalresearch.ca/articles/SIM202A.html


Bush, Menem



Former Argentinean president Carlos Menem with his girlfriend,the

former Miss Universe Cecilia Bolocco of Chile, Las Vegas, Jan. 12, 2001

Dirty Money, Big Banks
and the Mafia State
by Ana Simo

FEBRUARY 27, 2001. It has all the ingredients of a best-selling thriller. A fearless, crusading legislator, execution-style murders at a luxury beach resort, billions in dirty money, a nosy U.S. Senate subcommittee, a country's tottering economy, drug cartels, arms dealers, bribes, and even a golf partner of former President George Bush. It's Argentina's widening money-laundering scandal, now entering its last and most convoluted chapter.

The Mafia State
The anti-corruption crusader is 46-year old Elisa Carrió, a tough politician and mother of four who represents El Chaco, a poor, landlocked province bordering Paraguay in Argentina's north.

For the past few months, La Gorda (the Fat One), as Argentineans fondly call her, has relentlessly unearthed and exposed a complex, 10-billion dollar web of money laundering from drug and arms sales, and political corruption going back at least a decade. In the process, she has become something of a folk hero in her country.

Carrió says that Argentina is "a mafia state," riddled by systemic corruption, where high-level impunity is the rule. She has accused the country's banking and financial establishment, including members of the powerful Argentinean Bank Association, with abetting this rotten system.
(snip)

...Menem's administration was reputedly one of the most corrupt in recent Argentinean history.
(snip/...)

http://www.thegully.com/essays/argentina/010227corruption.html

[davidinalameda]

1. don't cry for him Argentina

he's living in luxary in Chile

I want to be an exiled 3rd world dictator

[HuckleB]

2. Shades of "A Funny Dirty Little War."

Oh, God. That's the first thing that popped into my head when I read this.

Instead of taking individual responsibility, coming back to face the charges against him, this man is willing to divert attention by dividing the nation. Menem deserves no tears, as he works to tear down Argentina's recovery. A recovery aimed at all classes, rather than just the elite that he served so well.

[MisterP]

3. didn't Menem do whatever the IMF demanded to the banks,

Reaganize them; Palast notes that the Argentine ecomony imploded thanks to the IMF...

[HuckleB]

4. It certainly would be interesting to know who Menem is in contact with.

Kirchner continues to work to end corruption in Argentina, which is no small task. If Menem is going to divide the nation, it's quite clear who will join his side.

The elite sure don't like it when Kirchner does the right thing...

Grisly Murder in Argentina Ends Province's Reign of Terror
http://www.voanews.com/article.cfm?objectID=C474D0CA-B21E-4C1E-9347BAF7F09B839F

"After a year of popular protest in the poor northern province of Santiago del Estero, Argentine President Nestor Kirchner has sent an intervention government there and placed the governor and her husband under house arrest on charges ranging from espionage to embezzlement. The move was sparked, in part, by the alleged complicity of politicians, judges, and businessmen in the gruesome murder of two young women there last year. The murder scandal appears to have put an end to the fiefdom that has existed in Santiago del Estero for the past half-century.

Every week for the past 16 months, Younes Bshier has marched the six blocks from the Santiago del Estero cathedral to the government house, carrying a large sign stapled to a stick with a photo of a young woman with big eyes and olive skin that reads simply "Justice for Leyla." He says, "Leyla was very young and very pretty. She liked music and liked to dance with her friends, but to be a young, pretty and humble girl in Santiago del Estero is a curse."

A curse that Bshier's 22-year-old daughter Leyla paid for with her life. In January 2003, investigators say she was murdered during a drug-fueled orgy attended by some of Santiago's most powerful people, many of whom have strong ties to long-time political boss Carlos Juarez and his wife."

[suegeo]

5. ugh. menem.

Someone please call Buffy the Vampire slayer already.

Somewhere on the net there was a picture of this Menem crook partying down at Shrub's coronation party, Katherine Harris was all dolled up, standing next to him, yucking it up.

Menem is Bush Crime Family. Something about a resort/casino deal that poppy put pressure on menem to fix...Also, an Enron deal gone bad here too. And wasn't the pipeline deal that Jr. screwed up just before 9.11.01 involved somehow with Argentine oil firm "Bridas."

All their crimes sorta start to run together after a while.

[HuckleB]

6. Kirchner has a 70 percent approval rating. Menem is done.

It's difficult to see why he would even try such a ploy.

This is a great piece on the situation in Argentina. It derives from a source that is rather conservative, though eclectic, in its editorials, and middle of the road to moderate conservative in its journalism. Yet, this piece is quite complementary of Kirchner and quite an indictment against Menem.

Becoming a serious country
http://www.economist.com/surveys/displaystory.cfm?story_id=2704457

[AP]

8. Never underestimate the ability of the right wing to manipulate people

through the use of the media into believeing things that aren't true.

With enough money, and promises of sharing the plunder if they take over, they could probably get their lies out into people's heads.

It's frightening that he's doing this. I'm sure he wouldn't even start this if he didn't have some reason to think it will work. The right wing really doesn't like risk, and don't embark on projects unless they think they can pull strings that will guaranatee profit.

[Commie Pinko Dirtbag]

9. He has? That's great!

Lula is kind of struggling -- no more and no less than any of the past Presidents, but people get this feeling that "everything is staying the same".

But considering that some frothing-at-the-mouth wackos were predicting the entire country would be sucked into the pits of Hell as soon as Lula stepped foot into the Alvorada Palace, it's actually swell.

[HuckleB]

7. A kick for Argentina.