Word: alfonsin
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...military continued its protracted postmortem, Argentina's newly elected civilian President, Raúl Alfonsin, was trying to revive a civil and useful relationship with Britain. For weeks Alfonsin's government and that of British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher have been exchanging messages through Brazilian and Swiss intermediaries regarding a partial rapprochement and resumption of peaceful negotiations over the future of the Falklands. In January the British offered to resume air services between the two countries, to restore trade and financial dealings that were frozen as a result of the war, and to return Argentine war dead...
...disappear. They did what they could: abduct, torture, shoot, behead and bury their enemies in mass and secret graves. What they hoped most recently, since ending their "dirty war" of antiterrorism. was that the issue of the desaparecidos would itself disappear. If the newly elected President of Argentina, Raul Alfonsin, had any sense of custom or propriety, that is precisely what would have happened. But Alfonsin seemed unaware that one does not put the military on trial; and, in any event, graves seemed to be popping up all over the countryside at an alarming rate; and there were those irritating...
...basis of those nothings does Alfonsin hope to make his nation reappear. Working toward nothing, the former leaders got rid of most left-wing terrorism in Argentina, but in terms of a stable government or a content citizenry, they achieved nothing. Perhaps they are most comfortable in the presence of nothing. Perhaps their wish from the start was to survey a wasteland from atop a reviewing stand, exquisitely alone in a world where everyone else has disappeared...
...nine military junta members, including former Presidents Jorge Rafael Videla, Roberto Viola and Leopoldo Galtieri, be brought before the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces, Argentina's highest military court. In court-martial proceedings that began last week, they were accused of mass murder and torture of civilians. Alfonsin also signed a bill repealing an amnesty law proclaimed by the outgoing military government that would have absolved the armed forces of responsibility for the atrocities of the "dirty...
Perhaps the most intractable problem Alfonsin faces, however, is the Argentine economy. The nation's $40 billion foreign debt has pushed it to the brink of international default, while at home Argentines luffer under triple-digit inflation and 15% unemployment. The new government's economic plans are a closely guarded secret, but initial measures are expected to include price controls and selective cuts in spending. Alfonsin's ability to restore a semblance of order to Argentina's tattered economy may be the most imporant barometer of his success...