Word: argentina
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Most members of Argentina's besieged business community have known one or more of the 170 people-many of them foreign executives-who were kidnaped last year. All gratefully noted that only one foreigner had been killed; the rest were released after ransom had been paid. Now the situation has changed. The dwindling community of foreign businessmen in Argentina is frightened by a change in terrorist tactics that could not only lead to a number of deaths but also further damage Argentina's wobbly economy...
Their fear was caused by an announcement by the Marxist-Leninist People's Revolution Army, or E.R.P., which kidnaped an Esso Argentina executive, Victor Samuelson, 36, a month ago. The terrorists have said that he will be "tried" to determine the "crimes" of multinational corporations. The implication was that if found guilty, Samuelson would be executed. The guerrillas added that Exxon, Esso's U.S. parent company, owed $10 million in "back taxes," payable to E.R.P. Last week Esso was still negotiating with the guerrillas on payment of the ransom, believed to be the largest ever demanded in Argentina...
...kidnaping climaxed months of terrorist activity in which the emotions of Argentina's businessmen have been violently whipsawed. On Nov. 22, leftist guerrillas ambushed and brutally shot to death John Swint, the American general manager of a Ford Motor Co. subsidiary. Eight days later, Ford got a call indicating that unless $4,000,000 was paid to the guerrillas, more lives would be "jeopardized." As a result, 22 executives of the company and their families left Argentina immediately. Ford, the country's largest carmaker, seriously considered closing its plants, which employ about 10,000 people...
Razor-Thin Profits. The terrorists' increasingly flagrant acts have finally spurred aging President Juan Peron, 78, to action. And well they should. One high American executive estimated that the kidnapings have already caused 60% of the foreign businessman in Argentina to leave the country in the past year. If the abductions continue, they could jeopardize an economy already deeply troubled by razor-thin profits and lack of capital investment by private industry. Prodded by such concerns, Peron reversed his benign neglect of Argentina's frightened foreigners and made a point of receiving the Ford vice president for Asia...
Born in France, Ricord was a pimp, dope peddler and Gestapo collaborator before he emigrated to Argentina and became naturalized. Then he moved to neighboring Paraguay and entered a syndicate that piped more than five tons of heroin into the U.S. Although he had never set foot in the U.S., he was convicted last year in the U.S. District Court in Manhattan. For a year and a half he had fought the U.S. extradition demand. But impoverished Paraguay, threatened with the loss of U.S. aid (currently $9,000,000), finally gave him up. The State Department insists there was nothing...