Word: menem
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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Farther south, the government of Argentina last week gave B.C.C.I. 48 hours / to pack up and leave the country. Authorities were particularly worried by the appearance of links between President Carlos Saul Menem and Saudi billionaire Ghaith Pharaon, a B.C.C.I. front man who is building a Hyatt Hotel in Buenos Aires and is a friend of Javier Gonzalez Fraga, the former president of Argentina's central bank. "We already know that the next scandal is going to tie President Menem with Ghaith Pharaon," an official said...
...Argentina, where a free fall in the value of the austral threatened to raise inflation astronomically, the central bank was forced to intervene. The appointment by President Carlos Saul Menem of a new Economy Minister, Domingo Cavallo, appeared to restore investor confidence. By week's end the austral had been stabilized -- at a value of roughly 36% less against the dollar than a week earlier -- and investment funds rose 40%. But inflation remains such an endemic problem for the economies of both Argentina and Brazil that the prospect of last week's actions leading to real progress remained doubtful...
President Carlos Saul Menem wanted to "close a black chapter" in Argentina's history. But his decision last week to pardon ex-President Jorge Videla and half a dozen other leaders who had been jailed in 1986 for their role in Argentina's "dirty war" in the late 1970s only rekindled popular outrage. Nearly 50,000 citizens took to the streets of Buenos Aires to protest, and Bishop Jorge Novak called the measure a "humiliating defeat for the democratic system...
...Menem intended the pardons to cool the simmering resentment within the armed forces that has led to four military uprisings since democracy was restored in 1983. The demonstrations signaled, however, that Argentine civilians are far from ready to forgive the military for having killed 9,000 of their countrymen and tortured thousands more in a campaign against leftists. But Videla remained unrepentant, calling for the "full vindication" of the army...
Referring to Argentina's succession of military uprisings, Menem called for an end to "these ridiculous antics that have hurt the country so much." He vowed that the 300 or so rebels would be tried for insurrection and implied that he would seek the death penalty for their leaders. As the insurgents were led away from army headquarters, a crowd chanted, "To the wall!" -- meaning that the rebels should be lined up against a wall and shot. While there was no guarantee that a military minority would not try again to overthrow Argentina's fragile democracy, Menem had reason...