Argentina's Menem faces July trial (George H. W. Bush friend)

[Judi Lynn]

Source: Agence France-Presse

Argentina's Menem faces July trial
May 14 2008 at 08:22AM

BUENOS AIRES (AFP)--Former two-term president Carlos Menem will go on trial July 8 for allegedly smuggling weapons to Ecuador and Croatia from 1991 to 1995, a charge that can send him to prison for 12 years, a court official said.

Menem, 77, as senator for his birth province of La Rioja, enjoys immunity from imprisonment but not from prosecution. Any sentence he might incur would not be served until his senate term expires in 2014, unless he resigns or is fired by his peers.
(snip)

Menem's charges stem from the 1991-1995 sale of 6,500 tons of weapons to Venezuela and Panama that were secretly diverted to Ecuador and Croatia. Menem signed three decrees allowing the shipments of rifles, cannons, mortars, rockets and munitions.
(snip)

Menem's controversial presidency has also landed him separate corruption charges, including receiving kickbacks in prison construction contracts and failing to report some $650,000 in Swiss bank accounts.




Read more: http://www.iol.co.za/index.php?set_id=1&click_id=3&art_id=nw20080514075909736C868635

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More on Menem from an earlier story:

Bush Friend Arrested for Illegal Arms Trafficking
by Ana Simo

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.

http://www.thegully.com/essays/argentina/010607bush_menem.html

[peacetalksforall]

1. But Jr. didn't (doesn't) know Ken Lay - how could he have helped Enron?

Someone else must have been running Enron at that time. Right?

"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. "

Menem committed a no-no, tattling on the U.S. under HW Bush and Clinton, unless Clinton didn't know what had started under HW Bush.

"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." This article is dated 2001.

6,500 TONS TONS of weapons - 1991-1995. Pipeline for Enron. And now he is saying the U.S. knew.

[AlphaCentauri]

2. a master mind behind the Argentinas ecomic crisis

If you don't cry, you don't get fed,
and if you don't steal, you're an idiot.

—Argentine tango composer Enrique Santos Discepolo, “Cambalache” (“Junk Shop”), circa 1935





A Muslim who converted to Catholicism as a young adult, Menem led the Peronists to power on a campaign strongly critical of the IMF. In what seemed an echo of the nationalistic regime of Juan Domingo Perón in the 1950s, Menem also promised to revolutionize Argentine industry, and with it, Argentine society. But once in power, Menem's main economic legacy was his sale of cumbersome government-owned enterprises at bargain prices. Despite the influx of fresh capital from those sales, the government failed to initiate badly needed infrastructure projects. Instead of the industrial “revolution” Menem promised, Argentina got such a severe liberalization of import barriers that those industries that remained intact began tottering during his term.

Menem was only recently released from jail, held on charges that he profited from arms smuggling to Croatia during the 1999 war in the Balkans. Before leaving office two years ago, he spent considerable sums attempting to get re-elected. During his last year in power, the Argentine economy was already slipping into recession. To deal with the economic downturn he advocated—and continues to advocate—dollarizing the country’s economy.

To keep the Peronists from winning yet another term in office, Fernando de la Rúa patched together a coalition of centrist and left-wing parties and campaigned on promises to rid the government of corruption. But De la Rúa quickly ran into trouble. Multi-million dollar interest payments on Argentina's debt were coming due. Brazil, Argentina's largest trade partner, devalued its currency. There were few state-owned enterprizes left to sell. The coalition began to crumble.

http://www.worldpress.org/Americas/180.cfm

[Judi Lynn]

3. Great article. I am so glad to have read this!

From your link:

The anti-communist military junta that seized power in a 1976 coup and ruled Argentina until 1982 propelled the country’s foreign debt to unheard-of levels. Left-leaning Argentines assert that much of the money lent by international banks was side-tracked to tax havens, placed in secret bank accounts, or ended up in the swollen pockets of the rich.

Likewise, they argue, much of the foreign aid Argentina received during this period was squandered on the military junta's disasterous war against the Falkland Islands. A statement from the Maoist Revolutionary Communist Party printed in the Nov. 18 edition of left-wing Buenos Aires newspaper Hoy asserted that "there is no other way to avoid the total emptying out of the country, no other way to deal with hunger and unemployment than to default on ... fraudulent foreign debt." Conservative observers admit that the loans did little to develop the Argentine economy.

“What do I think about the situation?” José, a high school student in Buenos Aires, asked rhetorically. “What can you expect if an elected government puts Domingo Cavallo as Economy Minister?” Cavallo worked for the military junta as an economic adviser and was the author of a program that converted the debt of private companies into government debts. He then reappeared in 1989 as Economy Minister under the civilian administration of Peronist Carlos Menem.

These fascists all get the same results, don't they? My God.

[AlphaCentauri]

4. They keep repeating the same formula over and over

now that they have their international movement with Vargas Llosa in the leadership they won't admit that they have mess up the latin american economies

[ronnie624]

5. Very interesting, Judi Lynn.

From your second link, reading about the hobnobbing power elites with their bribes and networking soirees, assuring that political capital and the worlds resources remain in their hands, tends to bring an automatic sneer to one's lip. The photo of Catherine Harris adds an illustrative touch. They all think they're blue-bloods, deserving of their extravagance at the expense of the world's working classes. Sickening.

Thanks for the links.

[Judi Lynn]

7. Yeah, that image of Catherine Harris really made me ill, too. You know this is going on,

that the _Bushes have been exactly thick as thieves with Menem for years, all of them, but to see that hag celebrating right alongside this twisted dwarf could send you running for a barf bag. It's way too much evil in one place at the same time.

[Judi Lynn]

6. When it rains, it pours, right, former President Menem?

Divorce is final for former Argentine president
The Associated Press
Article Last Updated: 05/20/2008 11:02:03 AM EDT


SANTIAGO, Chile—Former Miss Universe Cecilia Bolocco says her divorce from former Argentine President Carlos Menem is complete.
"Everything is finished and in order," Bolocco told reporters outside her home where she hosted her 43rd birthday party late Monday.

Menem sued for divorce in Buenos Aires last year after magazines published photographs of Bolocco kissing an Italian businessman friend and sunbathing topless in Miami.

Menem, 77, and Bolocco married in 2001 after she interviewed him. They have been separated for more than two years. Their son Maximo, now 5, reportedly stays with Bolocco while Menem has ample visiting rights.

http://yorkdispatch.inyork.com/yd/nationworld/ci_9321286



Carlos Menem and his blushing bride. He divorced his first wife
in order to find eternal bliss with this one, Cecilia Bolocco.