Bain, Romney, spooks and death squads (Remember the nuns killed in El Salvador)

[flamingdem]

http://cannonfire.blogspot.com/2012/07/bain-romney-spooks-and-death-squads.html

Lots of links and info in this article

excerpt:

Bain and death squads. It has been well-known for decades that the CIA has had close ties to the 14 families -- mostly late 19th century immigrants from Europe -- who financially commandeered El Salvador and who, for more than a hundred years, have run the place like feudal lords. In 1987, former CIA officer John Stockwell gave a talk that may have some relevance to the Vanity Fair piece referenced above.

Now we're pouring money into El Salvador. A billion dollars or so. And it's a documented fact that the... 14 families there that own 60% of the country are taking out between 2 to 5 billion dollars - it's called de-capitalization - and putting it in banks in Miami and Switzerland.

Markos Moulitsas, of Daily Kos fame, comes from a wealthy family in El Salvador, although his is not one of the fourteen. He also has a strange background with the CIA. Nevertheless -- and we must give credit where due -- Daily Kos published, back in 2008, a seminal work on Romney's connection to the Poma family and the death squad backers.

Link to KOS article:
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2008/01/28/444617/-Mitt-Romney-s-ties-to-El-Salvador-s-death-squad-backers

---- excerpt from this article:
Thugs, supported by the U.S. administration, often in spite of American law, in the name of "anti-communism," have given us a sordid legacy throughout Central America. Of course, part of the reason for this support was the profits derived from U.S. corporations and investors who were financially and ideologically tied to these regimes of brutality; Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney, a candidate who regularly invoked the holy Republican name of Reagan, is one such profiteer.

If you're my age, you'll remember the death squads, whose murderous depredations outraged and politicized quite a few young Americans. (Including myself.) The Salvadoran terrorists created some extremely ugly headlines around the world, especially when they assassinated Archbishop Romero. They also murdered American nuns, as documented in the photo seen here.

[snappyturtle]

1. OMG! I just don't see how Rmoney keeps his candidacy.nt

[patrice]

2. K&R & Don't forget those millions of guns flowing across our southern border? Where are they going?

[flamingdem]

3. Bottom Line: Bain = money laundering for paramilitaries and covert ops

* No wonder Mitt is motivated - he's the fascist right wing - not just a moderate repuke, no no he is more ideological than we thought, I believe, as can be noted by the companies and company he keeps



I'm looking forward to more reporting on from Cannonfire:

Bottom line: It is looking very much as if Bain was set up (in 1984) to help American and Israeli intelligence launder money for paramilitary aid and covert operations.

[deldemocrat]

7. Meaning of Bain Captal

Bain is actually a french word that means wash...ie..salle de bain= wash room...bain de bouche =mouthwash

mitt speaks french fluently....Capital means money......so BAIN CAPITAL in essance means washing money OR money laundering

tells you everything about the company

[Judi Lynn]

4. So glad you've spotted this information. It absolutely must be known. Disgusting.

Would you consider cross-posting it also in the Latin America forum?

Those threads don't disappear so quickly, and it really deserves a LOT of eyes.

Thank you for the chance to see this.

[flamingdem]

5. Hi Judy

I meant to do so, so you'd be sure to see it. Unbelievable that Romney is a part of that history

[Judi Lynn]

6. Still reading the linked material in your article. This information is necessary education

for anyone hoping to have any grasp of US relations with Latin America, and clearly those ties between Romney and El Salvador and his Miami contacts are critically important.

Have already found links from the original article I had to save for future use.

[Judi Lynn]

8. Thomm Hartmann discussed this article this week. Just heard it in a repeat show on Sirius.

He said it's a big story and one to look for in the future.

I wondered when I heard it if he saw your thread, since he does read D.U., as he mentions in his shows.

It's a really UGLY story. A good person wouldn't want to do business this way.

[flamingdem]

9. I don't know exactly who started the research

Cannonfire credited TPM but there were many other links.

It's a good place to research and I hope it gets to be a bigger story.

I'll check for the Hartmann show, very interesting.

[yardwork]

10. Rec

[Judi Lynn]

11. Families of Bain Capital's original investors had ties with El Salvador's infamous death squads

Wed Aug 08, 2012 at 01:09 PM PDT.

Families of Bain Capital's original investors had ties with El Salvador's infamous death squads

by Meteor Blades

When Mitt Romney decided to take up the offer to launch Bain Capital in 1983, he initially found financing difficult to come by. And so, after some initial misgivings were conveniently overcome, he flew to Miami to meet with some Salvadorans. And he returned with pledges of $9 million, 40 percent of Bain's start-up capital. Thus did the Bain buccaneer lay the foundation for his fortune.
The families of some of those investors had ties to the death squads that plagued El Salvador at that time. Ryan Grim and Cole Stangler at the Huffington Post are the latest reporters to take on the story of those investors, following on the heels of reporting by Joseph Tanfani, Melanie Mason and Matea Gold at the Los Angeles Times in mid-July, by Justin Elliott at Salon in January and by Mitchell Zuckoff and Ben Bradlee Jr. at the Boston Globe in August 1994.

When Romney first sought the presidency in 2007, he was back in Miami, and he took note of those early investors:

"I owe a great deal to Americans of Latin American descent. When I was starting my business, I came to Miami to find partners that would believe in me and that would finance my enterprise. My partners were Ricardo Poma, Miguel Dueñas, Pancho Soler, Frank Kardonski, and Diego Ribadeneira."

More:
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2012/08/08/1117948/-Families-of-Bain-Capital-s-original-investors-had-ties-El-Salvador-s-infamous-death-squads?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+dailykos%2Findex+%28Daily+Kos%29

[flamingdem]

12. For sure this gang is well connected with La Loba and her friends in Miami

Not to mention Negroponte, Otto Reich, etc. And we can imagine
they're probably all having a barbacoa this weekend in Coral Gables!

It's really great some reporters are sinking their teeth into this. I
hope they find out much, much more.

[Judi Lynn]

13. Absolutely. The children of the Batistianos, people who support the airline bombers

who bombed the Cubana airliner with 73 souls on board just to terrorize Cuba, those children, like Reps. Lincoln and Mario Diaz-Balart, (whose dad was in the cabinet of Cuban monster right-wing bloody dictator Fulgencio Batista, and formerly United Fruit company lawyer, and Speaker of the Cuban House) would think as highly of these El Salvadoran criminals as they do their own parents, and their generation from pre-revolutionary Cuba.

[center]

Cuban-American Republican Florida Congresspeople Mario,
and Lincoln Diaz-Balart, Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, and their pal.
What an honest-looking bunch of folks, aren't they? <shudder>[/center]

[Judi Lynn]

14. Romney’s Death Squad Ties: Bain Launched With Millions From Oligarchs Behind Salvadoran Atrocities

Romney’s Death Squad Ties: Bain Launched With Millions From Oligarchs Behind Salvadoran Atrocities
Friday, August 10, 2012

Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney is facing new scrutiny over revelations he founded the private equity firm Bain Capital with investments from Central American elites linked to death squads in El Salvador. After initially struggling to find investors, Romney traveled to Miami in 1983 to win pledges of $9 million, 40 percent of Bain’s start-up money. Some investors had extensive ties to the death squads responsible for the vast majority of the tens of thousands of deaths in El Salvador during the 1980s. We’re joined by Huffington Post reporter Ryan Grim, who connects the dots in his latest story, "Mitt Romney Started Bain Capital With Money From Families Tied To Death Squads." "There’s no possible way that anybody in 1984 could check out these families — which was the term that (Romney’s campaign) used — and come away convinced that this money was clean," Grim says.

Video with Amy Goodwin and Ryan Grim:

http://www.democracynow.org/2012/8/10/romneys_death_squad_ties_bain_launched

[Judi Lynn]

15. U.S.-Funded War in El Salvador Casts Shadow over Romney/Ryan Campaign

U.S.-Funded War in El Salvador Casts Shadow over Romney/Ryan Campaign
by Brendan Fischer — August 16, 2012 - 8:39am

Amidst reports that Mitt Romney launched Bain Capital with funds from investors tied to 1980s Salvadoran death squads, his new running mate Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI) is getting foreign policy briefings from a man who actively covered-up some of the worst atrocities committed by those same death squads. The GOP's vice-presidential candidate also earned his political stripes working under neoconservative Republicans who funneled billions in U.S. aid to those military hitmen. Though the war in El Salvador was just one chapter in history, Romney and Ryan's relationship with that war may provide a snapshot into their worldview.

Between 1979 and 1992, an estimated 75,000 people were killed in the conflict in El Salvador and countless others were "disappeared" or displaced, an astonishing number for a country the size of Massachusetts. A United Nations Truth Commission estimated that the right-wing, military-led government was responsible for 85 percent of the violence while the left-wing insurgency fighting against vast economic and political inequality, including farmers, teachers, priests and union activists, was responsible for only 5 percent. Much of the violence was attributable to clandestine military or paramilitary death squads, which committed countless assassinations and acts of brutal violence against suspected political dissidents.

Recent reports suggest that some of the same members of the Salvadoran oligarchy that backed the death squads gave Romney the startup funds for Bain Capital.

Romney's Early Bain Capital Funders Tied to Salvadoran Death Squads

Photo from El Salvador's civil warLast week, the Huffington Post's Ryan Grim and Cole Stangler reported on how Romney went to Miami in 1983, at the height of El Salvador's civil war, to raise $9 million from Salvadoran expatriate families to start Bain Capital. This seed money amounted to 40 percent of Bain's startup funds. Although Romney claimed that he had vetted the backgrounds of the investors, some of their families had been identified by the U.S. ambassador and others as closely tied to either death squads or death squad leader and ARENA Party founder Roberto d'Aubuisson (known as "Blowtorch Bob" for his use of blowtorches to torture political prisoners).

More:
http://www.prwatch.org/news/2012/08/11710/us-funded-war-el-salvador-casts-shadow-over-romneyryan-campaign