Argentina arrests former dictator's top money man

[Judi Lynn]

Source: ANP/Agence France-Presse

Argentina arrests former dictator's top money man
Published on 5 May 2010 - 3:06am

Former economy minister Jose Martinez de Hoz, the economic brains behind the 1976-1983 military dictatorship, has been arrested after an amnesty law was lifted, a court official has said.

The arrest follows a Supreme Court ruling last week deeming unconstitutional a 1990 presidential pardon granted to Martinez de Hoz and former dictator Jorge Videla, who justice officials said Monday will face a new trial for kidnapping, torture and murder.

The 84-year-old Martinez de Hoz was arrested at his home in Buenos Aires and taken by ambulance to an area hospital after undergoing a medical examination, the court official added. Federal judge Norberto Oyarbide issued the arrest warrant and slapped a 500,000-dollar embargo on Martinez de Hoz's assets. Martinez de Hoz is charged with the five-month kidnapping in 1976 of a textile manufacturer and his son, Federico and Miguel Gutheim.

The government's National Human Rights Secretary Eduardo Luis Duhalde said the arrest of "the person responsible not only for the illegal activities but also of the economic plan that laid waste to Argentina (during the dictatorship) is a milestone."

Read more: http://www.rnw.nl/english/bulletin/argentina-arrests-former-dictators-top-money-man

[FreakinDJ]

1. That was a long time coming

[Liberation Angel]

2. My family lived in Argentina and this is great news: the horrors there were unimaginable

and you know that basically the Nazis relocated to Argentina after WWII (actually they had been relocating there since the early 120's as a fifth column and put Peron into power. Hitler probably made it there too imho.

But the hell of the BFEE fascists in Argentyina and Chile and the whole region is just one facet of fascist world history with links back to Bush, Rockefellers (big oil) et al

This is excellent news

[Metternich1815]

4. Jose Alfredo Martinez de Hoz former Minister of Economy of Argentina

I must remind you that the former minister of Economy from
1976 to 1980 had been judged by a Federal Court under the
Constitutional Government of Raul Alfonsin about this very
same case. The trial lasted several months and at the end, the
Ccourt’s decision was that he had anything to do with the
kidnap of the Gutheim father and son, there were not enough
proves to indict him regarding the case. He even rejected the
amnesty granted by another constitutional government of Mr.
Menem four years later. This is the only case in which Mr.
Martinez de Hoz was accused, and nobody had linked him to any
other crime committed by the military or the navy during that
period of history of our nation. By the way, my family left
Austria after the “Anschluss” to the German Reich persecuted
by the Gestapo, I want to clarify this due to my Austrian
roots, and somebody may say that I must be a “Nazi” or
something similar. I am a convinced supporter of
democratically elected governments, no matter if they are
conservatives, liberals, socialists or so-called Labour in the
UK. I studied many years ago at Harvard and at La Sorbonne in
Paris, I am a PhD in law and I remember that in our Western
World nobody can be judged twice for the same crime “Non bis
in idem”. Which is the case of Mr. Martinez de Hoz right now,
a man who lost his wife just a couple of months ago of cancer,
she died after suffering for the continues attacks and
harassment organized by groups of the far left in Argentina,
most of them had received money and support for our
administration, which according with Transparency
International is one of the most corrupted regimes in South
America, they use “progressive speeches” but they are
extremely authoritarian, they want to suppress our freedom of
press, which is a constitutional right. Our Supreme Court has
to decide in the next months about the law enacted in a total
irregular way by the Congress, which violates not only the
Argentine Constitution but even the regulations of both houses
of Congress. 

[Judi Lynn]

8. I searched your screenname: Metternich: Success or Failure?

Metternich: Success or Failure?
by Nick Pelling. Charterhouse
new perspective. Volume 4. Number 2. December 1998

Summary: Metternich was skilled in the arts of contemporary diplomacy and image-making. For a while, he preserved and strengthened the Habsburg Empire but only in appearance. Metternich was unable to prevent the growth of the forces that weakened and ultimately destroyed the Habsburg Empire.

Prince Clement Wenceslas Lothair von Metternich, chancellor and foreign minister of the Austrian Habsburg Empire, was the longest-serving first minister in the nineteenth century and, arguably, one of the most successful. And yet in terms of the numbers of A-Level students writing essays about him he is a long way down the historical hit parade, trailing after such apparently more exciting figures as Napoleon, Bismarck, Cavour, Gladstone, Lenin, Stalin and of course Hitler. So why does Metternich lack pulling power? The answer I feel lies in the fact that no one is quite sure how to interpret Metternich. He is often associated with reconstructing the ancien régime after the revolutionary and Napoleonic eras but he is also seen as the man who was destroyed by the revolutions of 1848. Thus creating a disconcerting confusion as to whether he should be seen as a success or a failure. Given that A-Level examiners often ask students to decide whether Metternich succeeded or failed, what can be said?

To begin with, it can be admitted that Metternich did not always care what people thought of him. For example, he openly bragged about his ability to bore people into submission and described his conservative philosophy as a set of ‘boring old principles’. Comments hardly designed to sell himself to posterity as a great success.

But Metternich as a personality was anything but dull. Born into the German high nobility in the Rhineland, he had the arrogance of his class and more. In 1819 he said of himself:

There is a wide sweep about my mind. I am always above and beyond the preoccupations of most public men … I cannot help myself from saying about twenty times a day: how right I am and how wrong they are.

More:
http://www.users.globalnet.co.uk/~semp/metternich.htm

~~~~~

http://upload.wikimedia.org.nyud.net:8090/wikipedia/commons/thumb/b/b2/Lieder_Metternich.png/220px-Lieder_Metternich.png

Prince Clement Wenceslas Lothair von Metternich
Wikipedia:

Conservative Order

The Conservative Order is a term applied to European political history after the defeat of Napoleon in 1815. From 1815 to 1830 a conscious program by conservative statesmen, including Metternich and Castlereagh, was put in place to contain revolution and revolutionary forces by restoring old orders, particularly previous ruling aristocracies. In South America, on the other hand, this was a time in which the Spanish and Portuguese colonies gained independence.

Britain, Prussia, Russia and Austria renewed their commitment to prevent any restoration of Bonapartist power and agreed to meet regularly in conferences to discuss their common interests. This period contains the time of the Holy Alliance, which was a military agreement. The Concert of Europe was the political framework that grew out of the Quadruple Alliance, in November 1815.

~snip~
The Congress of Vienna was only the beginning of a conservative reaction bent on containing the liberal and nationalist forces unleashed by the French revolution. Metternich and most of the other participants at the Congress of Vienna were representatives of the ideology known as conservatism. Conservatism generally dates back to 1790 when the best-known figure of conservatism, Edmund Burke, wrote Reflections on the Revolution in France . Burke, however, was not the only kind of conservative; Joseph de Maistre was a very influential spokesperson for a counterrevolutionary and authoritarian conservatism. De Maistre believed in hereditary monarchies because they would bring "order to society," a commodity in short supply in his eyes after the chaos of the French Revolution. Despite differences, most conservatives held to some general principles and beliefs, those being:

• Obedience to political authority
  
• The centrality of organized religion to social order
  
• Hatred of revolutionary upheavals
  
• Unwillingness to accept liberal demands for civil liberties and representative government and nationalistic aspirations generated by French revolutionary era.
  
• Precedence of community over individual rights
  
• Structured and ordered society
  
• Tradition as a guide for an ordered society

Many conservatives, such as Metternich, were not opposed to reforming governments, but said that such changes must be taken gradually, and that radical revolutions are not aimed at benefiting the masses, but rather are simply a power grab by the new middle-class.

After 1815, the political philosophy of conservatism was supported by hereditary monarchs, government bureaucracies, landowning aristocracies and revived churches (Protestant or Catholic). The conservative forces appeared dominant after 1815, both internationally and domestically.

More:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conservative_Order

[Metternich1815]

5. The crimes of the Guerrilla

I am astonish when I read this kind of propaganda for the
extreme left (not liberals) just Marxists and Maoists Guerrila
Warfare, this gentleman ignores that some 2,000 people were
murdered by them, including ministers of democratic
governments, trade union leaders, entrepreneurs, policemen,
civilians and even children. Your ignorance of facts is total,
there are many books that proved what I am saying right now,
many witnesses about these crimes. This doesn't mean that I
share any of the politics followed by the Military in
Argentine, but I am not just one sided, crimes were committed
by both sides in what was a civil war.

[Judi Lynn]

7. It's so important US citizens start realizing to what extent their own government was involved

in this hideous hellish situation. Clearly our own corporate media went to great lengths to keep us all COMPLETELY unaware of any part of it. It's miraculous that we ever hear anything about the trials of the monsters at this late date!

I am sickened that people you know had to live through the nightmare, and I hope a pray there are far more people who will live to a very great age who will be able to pass on the facts about it to people well into the future so they can help keep this from ever happening again. It's so important to keep that kind of human garbage from ever seizing control again.

http://hemi.nyu.edu.nyud.net:8090/cuaderno/politicalperformance2004/totalitarianism/WEBSITE/images/pablo_lasansky.jpg
Argentina's Catholic Church linked to human rights abuses.
By Daniel Graeber
Tuesday, October 16th 2007

An Argentinian Roman Catholic priest was sentenced to life imprisonment for being a “co-participant” in seven killings, 31 torture cases, and 42 kidnappings during the military dictatorship of Jorge Rafael Videla from 1976 - 1983. Christian von Wernich, 69, was the former police chaplain to the Buenos Aires police force who participated in the “disappearances” of at least 13,000 people in a campaign against dissenters to the regime. The Argentine “dirty war” was primarily a campaign meant to deter opposition forces and communist influence in the form of trade-unions and student activists. Human rights lawyers said von Wernich participated in withdrawing information from torture victims at secret detention centers.

Judges visited the former torture centers with some of the survivors, and some 70 witnesses testified during the trial that von Wernich assisted in extraordinary interrogation techniques under the guise of offering spiritual guidance to the detainees.

More follows:
http://warcrimes.foreignpolicyblogs.com/page/3/?s=sentenced

http://www.worldpress.org.nyud.net:8090/images/20091029-argentina.jpg

Former Buenos Aires' Provincial Police Chaplain Christian
Von Wernich listens to the pronouncement of his sentence
in La Plata on Oct. 9, 2007, sentenced to life imprisonment
for collaborating in murders, kidnappings and torture
during Argentina's 1976-1983 military dictatorship.
(Photo: Juan Mabromata/ AFP-Getty Images)

The room turned alarmingly quiet as the court and audience listened to the testimony of Carina Rapaccini. It was the first time in over 30 years that she had testified publicly about the fateful night of her father's disappearance. Though she had been only 9 years old at the time, the memory of the event appeared to be so fresh in her bloodshot eyes, it was as though it had occurred only moments before.

Tearfully she proclaimed, "I don't understand everything that happened. Thirty-three years have passed and still I know nothing. It was a silence so big and still, it goes on. I have no one in my family to speak of this with. I am alone, but I fight for this case, for all of these cases, for the memory of what happened."

Testimonies, such as Rapaccini's, commenced the third week of September and have signified for those injured during the Argentine military junta that their excruciating battle against impunity may finally be coming to an end. For the first time in nearly 30 years, testimonies, to be followed by criminal prosecutions, have been reinitiated against those responsible for the state-sponsored terrorism that occurred between 1976 and 1983.

Beside the victims of this dark history is the human rights organization, La Asamblea Permanente por los Derechos Humanos La Plata (APDH), the Assembly for Human Rights. Lawyers from this organization have been working with and representing victims and their families since the midst of the military junta. They have also been acting as the strong hand against the government to end the impunity that has wreaked havoc on the Argentine judicial system.

APDH La Plata is an organization consisting of lawyers and volunteers from an array of political and educational backgrounds. These individuals have, without rest, been fighting for the rights of those kidnapped, tortured and humiliated during the military junta, and have continually expanded their goals to meet the social and justice challenges that exist in Argentina.

In an interview with one of APDH La Plata's human rights lawyers, Silvina Negrete expressed her sentiments on the importance of the trials and prosecutions from a political context.

Negrete explained, "What has happened here is that there is finally an opportunity to hold people accountable for their actions. Moving forward with these cases is not about bringing shame, or even being able to condemn these people, the cases are important because they represent that we do in fact have a constitutional democracy and that the government of Argentina recognizes that what occurred was state-sponsored terrorism and genocide."

More:
http://www.worldpress.org/Americas/3444.cfm

[Demeter]

3. Hank Paulson, Call Your Lawyer!

Wonder if the Boys from Goldman can get a group rate?

[Judi Lynn]

6. Police arrest, transfer Martínez de Hoz to a clinic

Police arrest, transfer Martínez de Hoz to a clinic

Former Economy Minister during the last dictatorship José Alfredo Martínez de Hoz has been arrested after Federal Judge Norberto Oyarbide ordered as part of the case of the kidnapping of a textile sector businessman and his son in November 1976, and has been transferred in an ambulance to Los Arcos Hospital.

The protective custody ordered by Oyarbide included a 2 million pesos embargo.

Members of the INTERPOL unit arrived in the Kavanagh building located in Retiro neighbourhood, where Martínez de Hoz lives. A group of doctors joined the police in order to check his health.

According to official sources, as the ex minister of the dictatorship was found "bedridden" authorities decided to transfer him to a clinic.

Martínez de Hoz left his home in a stretcher and has been transferred to Los Arcos private hospital in an ambulance watched over with the INTERPOL and Federal Police agents.

A few days ago, Oyarbide ordered that Martínez de Hoz could not leave the country. It was right after the Supreme Court deemed "unconstitutional" the pardons granted by former president Carlos Saúl Menem.

More:
http://www.buenosairesherald.com/BreakingNews/View/32480

~~~~~~~

http://www.thegully.com.nyud.net:8090/essays/argentina/imgs-ar/bolocco_menem_harris.jpg http://4.bp.blogspot.com.nyud.net:8090/_SaOl8se8vOA/SsR2jibjIZI/AAAAAAAAAjU/q0KDRljyetU/s320/Carlos+Sa%C3%BAl+Menem+y+George+W.+H.+Bush.jpg

Carlos Saúl Menem and George H. W. Bush

http://www.thegully.com.nyud.net:8090/essays/argentina/imgs-ar/menem_carlos.jpg

Former Argentine President Carlos Menem in the hot
seat, June 6, 2001 in Buenos Aires. Daniel Luna

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.

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

[Judi Lynn]

9. Wikipedia: José Alfredo Martínez de Hoz

~snip~
Martínez de Hoz, the scion of one Argentina's oldest cattle ranching families, was born in the then-agrarian northern province of Salta. Pursuing higher studies at the University of Cambridge, he returned and in 1955, following the coup against the populist Pres. Juan Perón, he was appointed his province's Minister of the Economy. Though democracy returned to Argentina three years later, the armed forces continued to exercise vetting power over most policy and in 1963, Martínez de Hoz became one of a series of conservative Argentine Economy Ministers during Jose Maria Guido's brief presidency (an interlude marked by squabbles among the military brass and recession).

Becoming an influential lobbyist for Acindar, one of Argentina's largest steel manufacturers, Martínez de Hoz became its CEO in 1968. Seven years later, after union laborers at Acindar's Villa Constitución plant elected a socialist shop steward, Martínez de Hoz retaliated by using his family's long-standing connections with the armed forces to brutally repress them, abducting the new shop steward Alberto Piccinini and about 300 others (most never to be heard from, again).<1>

Work as minister of economy
Having become considerably developed, Argentina, by 1975, was nevertheless in the throes of some of the worst instability since 1930. Argentine public opinion turned to the military, who deposed Isabel Perón's weak regime in a violent coup d'état in March 24, 1976. Inheriting a wave of violence and 700% inflation, the new regime called on Martínez de Hoz, appointing him Minister of the Economy. Anxious to restore business confidence, he announced a plan to further open Argentina's markets, believing that the country's national industry was inefficient and uncompetitive internationally. He quickly moved to lessen Argentina's trade barriers, which he believed to be a cause of economic isolation, and decreed a general freeze on wages. As a result of the changes instituted by Martínez de Hoz, inflation fell sharply; but, many local retailers and home builders became incapable of coping with the fall in (already suffering) demand and declared bankruptcy.<2>

A year into all this, the billion-dollar trade deficit had turned around and business investment had soared by about 25%; but, consumer spending remained weak (the shock might have been worse but for high savings rates) and despite this, inflation revived. Martínez de Hoz responded in June, 1977, with deregulation of the financial markets, removing checks on banks and transferring responsibility for any bad loans to the state, which took charge of their debt as needed. Short-term financial speculation flourished and budget deficits (increasingly "off the books") skyrocketed. Frequent wage freeze decrees continued to depress living standards generally and income inequality increased.

~snip~
Martínez de Hoz was himself indicted in 1988 for his involvement in the human rights abuses at ACINDAR and spent 77 days in jail. Quickly freed, he finally benefitted from a pardon by President Carlos Menem in 1990. Returning to world of high finance despite a 1992 conviction of operating a brokerage with a revoked licence, Martinez de Hoz became a member of the board of directors of the Banco General de Negocios ("General Business Bank").

This bank, now defunct, later helped clients illegally wire up to US$30 billion out of the country prior to its December, 2001, financial crisis.<5>

In 2006, a judge declared the pardon unconstitutional and revoked the suspension of the judicial process dictated before, thus leaving the way open to investigate Martínez de Hoz's alleged involvement in the kidnapping and extortion of Federico and Miguel Gutheim (a local textile mill owner and his son) in 1976, as well as the murder of Juan Carlos Casariego (one his own assistants at the Economy Ministry).

On 5 April 2007, Martinez de Hoz was arrested following a Supreme Court ruling deeming unconstitutional a 1990 presidential pardon.<6>
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jos%C3%A9_Alfredo_Mart%C3%ADnez_de_Hoz

http://revista-zoom.com.ar.nyud.net:8090/local/cache-vignettes/L228xH338/Juan_Carlos_Casariego_del_Bel-0e6e7.jpg

The thoroughly murdered Juan Carlos Casariego,
who was one of his own assistants at the Ministry.
Something about JCC just hacked him off, apparently.