JEB in Argentina, IMF loan to Argentina, Political and economic oppression on the rise in Argentina - and JEB sees enormous potential for Florida business - it's "Service First" for Argentina
Real-time updates on the situation in Argentina in Espanol - some features in English
Read IMF'S FOUR STEPS TO DAMNATION by Gregory Palast for an insider's view of how the IMF and World Bank create and capitalize on situations exactly like what we see happening now in Argentina. 8/25/01
Then scroll down this page and follow the tale through IMF loans, social and economic destabilization, exotic visions of plunder... travel back to GW and Enron in Argentina, 1988 ... it's Service First for Argentina...JEB's Carpet-bags 'R Us.
Who Shot Argentina? The Finger Prints On the Smoking Gun Read ‘I.M.F.’
And news this week in South America is that Argentina died, or at least its economy. One in six workers were unemployed even before the beginning of this grim austral winter. Millions more have lost work as industrial production, already down 25% for the year, fell into a coma induced by interest rates which, by one measure, have jumped to over 90% on dollar-denominated borrowings.....(entire article)
....Gregory Palast - Inside Corporate America - Guardian (London) - Sunday, August 12, 2001
IMF expedites loans to Argentina, Brazil - 8/4/01$1.2 billion loan to Argentina and establish a $15 billion line of emergency credit for Brazil
The article and alert below highlights the plight of the people of Argentina and sheds light on US corporate slash and burn business practices at home and abroad. And we wonder why people are protesting corporate globalization all around the world? We should wonder why we aren't told the whole story in our news.
Indy Media Alert of July 6 notes an increase in the repression of dissent in Argentina just prior to the Bush visit and before the announcement of the IMF loan referred to above. The Indymedia article following this alert gives a more human look at the "economic problems" JEB referred to on his return from Argentina - the ones he said offer Florida companies "enormous potential in those markets" The corporate globalization protests have been trying to tell us in the US that these IMF loans come on the backs of their people... 8/12/01
ALERT3. STOP THE REPRESSION OF THE POLITICAL ACTIVISTS IN ARGENTINA --- by Stop 11:11am Fri Jul 6 '01This post presents a petition to stop the repression of political activists in Argentina. "Over the last few weeks the national and local governments in Argentina have stepped up the repression of workers and political activists, and their organizations. The response to the justified demands of unemployed and employed workers has been police raids and the imprisonment of their leaders and activists'." For current coverage, see global IMC center column: http://www.indymedia.org
ARGENTINA PROTESTS AUSTERITY BUDGET Aug 10 2001 Roads Blocked, Workers Strike in Response To Budget Tightening
The Argentine Government announced its new austerity budget at the end of July, in order to be able to continue to pay its foreign debt. Public workers and pensioners are to lose 13% of their salaries, in a plan proposed by President Fernando De la Rua and approved by the Argentine Senate on Monday. These measures came along with the tightening of the budget for the provinces, the shutting down of public offices and more severe control over tax collection. Thousands of demonstrators have convened in Buenos Aires and throughout the country against these new "Zero Deficit" laws. Thirty thousand students, public workers, the unemployed and other people participated in the massive protest in front of the presidential office in Plaza de Mayo (Buenos Aires) on August 8.Since 1991, Argentina's currency has been pegged to the US dollar, meaning that they have had to keep US$25 billion on reserve in order to prevent their currency from slipping. Currency devaluation would make it more difficult for Argentina to pay off its US$128 billion debt. Argentina is seeking billions of dollars of additional loans from the IMF to help it deal with the crisis. The austerity measures are meant to cut this year's expected US$1.5 billion national budget deficit.
A good explanation of Argentina's austerity program
Special report about the repression in Salta (en espagñol)
Petition to stop the repression (read and sign)
11/10/01 UPDATE - Argentina sinks into squalor as financial crisis deepens - As Argentina struggles to pay its debts, salaries shrink, unemployment soars and misery is a constant for its citizens.
ARGENTINA: COUNTRY IN TURMOIL Dec 3 2001 Workers Stand Strong As Economy Falters
In the face of a worsening economic crisis, Argentina's working and poor people are mobilizing for action. The newly-unemployed are joining road blockades around a "Workers' Area" in La Matanza and the southern area of Buenos Aires. Teachers and government workers are resisting plans for privitization, delayed salary, and payments in bonds. And mine workers in Río Turbio have occupied their mine in solidarity with their fired co-workers.
In Neuquén, striking workers from the Zanón ceramics factory are meeting with the area's landless and unemployed in order to reopen their plant under worker control. The Zanón workers and their supporters were violently attacked by police forces on Friday. Workers were shot in the face with rubber pellets, chased into a nearby hospital and hunted down over a 15-block radius. The workers had been demonstrating in front of the Government House, demanding the reinstatement of 380 workers of the Zanón Ceramics plant and Cerámica del Valle fired the previous day. The two-month old strike began when the company tried to roll back benefits won by the workers in a bitter struggle just one year ago.
[ Update Dec. 4 '01 | Zanon Strike Background | Argentina IMC [es] ]
MESSAGE FROM THE GOVERNOR on Argentina trip (Taken from MyFlorida.com release) 7/27/01"This week I returned to Tallahassee after spending last week in the company of more than 180 Florida businessmen as we promoted our state's world-class business climate in Chile, Argentina and Uruguay. Although the region is experiencing some economic difficulties, we believe that there is enormous potential for Florida companies in those markets, and we are confident that these initial contacts will prove fruitful in the near future."TALLAHASSEE Governor Jeb Bush will lead a "Team Florida" mission to Santiago, Chile and Buenos Aires, Argentina, July 14-21, in an effort to strengthen business ties with two of Florida's top trading partners. In 1999, Florida exported $1.9 billion to Argentina and over $1 billion to Chile, making Argentina and Chile Florida's number four and number eight trading partners respectively. (from Myflorida news release 3/7/01)
JEB goes to Argentina - but it's not the first Bush visit - lots of Bush history here....
FEBRUARY 27, 2001. It has all the ingredients of a best-selling thriller. A fearless, crusading legislator, execution-style murders at a luxury beach resort, billions in dirty money, a nosy U.S. Senate subcommittee, a country's tottering economy, drug cartels, arms dealers, bribes, and even a golf partner of former President George Bush. It's Argentina's widening money-laundering scandal, now entering its last and most convoluted chapter. http://www.thegully.com/essays/argentina/010227corruption.html
Don't Cry for Bush, ArgentinaGeorge W. may not recall the names of world leaders, but when it comes to foreign affairs, he knows the value of his own family's name.by Louis Dubose and Carmen Coiro March/April 2000 (Mother Jones)Texans watched with interest last winter as Governor George W. Bush was home-schooled on international affairs by former Secretary of State George Shultz and other veterans of his father's foreign-policy team. Even Carl Bildt, the former prime minister of Sweden, was brought in for a tutorial at the governor's mansion, in the hope that his recent U.N. experience in the Balkans could help Bush understand that Kosovars are not "Kosavarians" and that Greeks are not "Grecians."But no one had to prepare a prompt card to remind him who stepped down as president of Argentina in December. Shortly before Bush announced his own campaign for president, he had received a visit from Carlos Saul Menem, the right-wing leader of Argentina for the past decade. The two men retired to an Austin country club, where they were joined by Bush's father. Governor Bush had the flu, so he contented himself with riding along as the former president and Menem played a round of golf.The capitol press corps trailed along, dutifully recording the governor's cordial relationship with a visiting head of state. Unknown to the assembled reporters, however, was the story of how Bush and his family became immersed in Argentine politics. The little-known tale begins with George W. making a phone call to secure a $300-million deal for a U.S. pipeline company -- a deal that provoked a political firestorm in Argentina, drawing scrutiny from legislators and a special prosecutor. The episode marked one of George W.'s first ventures into foreign affairs, demonstrating the fundamental rule by which the Texas governor and his family conduct business: Always know that the Bush name is a marketable commodity.Bush first made his presence felt in Argentina in 1988, shortly after his father was elected president. At the time, the junior Bush's political career was just beginning -- and the political career of Raúl Alfonsín, who was approaching the end of his term as president of Argentina, was ending. Alfonsín had returned his country to civilian rule, prosecuted those responsible for human rights abuses during Argentina's rule by a military junta, and struggled to manage an economy that seemed to defy management. Determined to complete one major private-sector industrial program, he pushed for the development of a "gasoducto" that would connect Argentine gas fields with domestic and foreign markets. And he appointed his minister of public works, Rodolfo Terragno, to oversee the pipeline project.Unlike Bush, Terragno achieved political prominence the old-fashioned way: through a life dedicated to public service. A noted journalist and public official, he was forced into exile for 10 years after the military seized power in Argentina in 1976. Only after Alfonsín restored civilian rule did Terragno return to his homeland, where he went on to serve as minister of public works, a member of congress, and most recently as cabinet chief to the newly elected president, Fernando de la Rua.In 1988, Terragno was considering two proposals for the $300-million pipeline, one from an Italian firm called Ente Nazionale Idrocarburi and the other from Pérez Companc, an Argentine company working in partnership with Dow Chemical. After a year of consideration, the minister was close to making a decision when Enron, the largest pipeline company in the United States, suddenly entered the bidding.At the time, the Houston-based Enron had no experience in Argentina. It had formed a business relationship with Westfield, a small Argentine firm, but Westfield wasn't much of a player either. El Boletín Oficial -- the Argentine equivalent of the Federal Register -- reported that Westfield's only asset in 1988 was $20, its corporate filing fee. Westfield was a prestanombre, literally a "borrowed name" used to provide a domestic front for a foreign firm. Terragno was concerned that a newly formed corporation with no resources was attempting to land a contract that companies with proven track records had been working on for a year. "I had a lot of reservations about Enron because the company wasn't well established in Argentina," Terragno told Mother Jones, providing details of the episode for the first time.The minister recalls that Enron sent him "a one-page outline" proposing a price Terragno now describes as "laughable." Enron wanted to pay "something like 20 percent of the international market price," he says. "It all seemed so inadequate. Enron asked the country of Argentina to practically give them the gas." Terragno was unenthusiastic about the pipeline bid, but Enron initiated a full-scale campaign to pressure him. Pro-business newspapers attacked the minister for blocking the proposal, and Terragno recalls that Ted Gildred, the U.S. ambassador to Argentina, "called me and visited me constantly" to push the deal.Terragno wasn't concerned about the ambassador's lobbying -- that was politics as usual. "It was good that he was representing the interest of his country's businesses," he says. But Terragno found that some of the politics surrounding Enron's campaign were anything but usual.A few weeks after the U.S. presidential election in 1988, Terragno received a phone call from a failed Texas oilman named George W. Bush, who happened to be the son of the president-elect. "He told me he had recently returned from a campaign tour with his father," the Argentine minister recalls. The purpose of the call was clear: to push Terragno to accept the bid from Enron."He was taking a moment to call me because he knew that I was dealing with this," says Terragno, adding that Bush told him that he "viewed with some concern the slow pace of the Enron project." According to Terragno, the president-elect's son noted that a deal with Enron "would be very favorable for Argentina and its relations with the United States."When a brief report on the attempt to influence the Argentine deal appeared in The Nation and the Texas Observer years later, the Bush team reacted angrily. His staff produced a copy of his day planner to show that Bush never placed the phone call, and a top-level adviser personally called reporters to dismiss the story as a fantasy by "some guy in Argentina." Bush's staff continues to deny his involvement, and no other media outlet ever reported on the episode, despite the high-ranking source.More than a decade later, Terragno still recalls details of the phone call clearly -- as well as his outrage. "It looked bad and it surprised me," he says. "There was this political endorsement, apparently from the White House. I don't know if George Bush the father was aware of it, or if it was only a business contact by his son, who hoped that his family name would have some influence."George W. wasn't the only Bush plying the family name in Argentina. His brother Neil had tried to funnel $900,000 in loans from Silverado Savings and Loan, where he served as a director, into a failed attempt to drill for oil in Argentina. The S&L eventually collapsed, costing taxpayers nearly $1 billion to bail out, and federal regulators banned Neil from certain banking activities.But Terragno was unimpressed by the family connections. He told George W. the pipeline concession would be awarded according to Argentine law. It hardly mattered -- Argentine law was about to change. Time had run out for Raúl Alfonsín. His party lost the election, and he left office four months early to make way for his successor, Carlos Menem. Enron, for its part, couldn't have appointed an Argentine president more favorable to its interests. A right-wing follower of Juan Peron, Menem was eager to open his country to American enterprise -- and his own lavish spending. He took to traveling with a huge entourage aboard Tango-01, his $66- million presidential jet. The Bushes took an immediate liking to him. The day after the 1989 election, Neil Bush arrived in Buenos Aires for a tennis match with the president-elect. The following year, President Bush made the first of eight trips to see Menem, becoming the first U.S. chief executive since Eisenhower to visit Argentina.Several days after the president's trip in 1990, Bush's ambassador to Argentina, Terence Todman, wrote a stern letter to Menem's minister of the economy to follow up on issues that Bush had "intended to address, but failed to do so for lack of time." Todman went on to imply that eight U.S. companies would walk away from their investment plans unless Argentina stopped favoring domestic corporations. The first company on the list was Enron, which the ambassador described as being "poised to invest $250 million" -- as soon as the Argentine government met its demands for tax breaks. Todman closed his letter by warning that the Enron decision was "extremely urgent," as the gas company would make a final decision on its investment in less than a month.Todman prevailed: Menem agreed to the company's terms, signing a presidential decree that included Enron in a national program freeing it from tariffs and valued-added taxes.Reports of the Enron deal outraged Argentines, who had supported Alfonsín's struggle to create a democracy out of what remained after 10 years of military dictatorship. Lawmakers demanded a congressional inquiry, and a special prosecutor launched an investigation. Menem dealt with the scandal in a forthright manner: Since his own justice department was looking into the tax giveaway, he simply fired the investigator. Enron ultimately abandoned the project when gas prices fell, but an Enron subsidiary later bought into the pipeline and now owns almost a third of the gasoducto. Among the subsidiary's board members is Brent Scowcroft, national security advisor to former President George Bush.George W. has certainly benefited from his association with Enron. Kenneth Lay, the company's chief executive, has personally contributed $100,000 to Bush's two gubernatorial campaigns. When Bush announced in 1999 that he was running for president, executives and political action committees connected to Enron contributed $89,650 to his campaign in the first three months. Lay signed on as a "Bush Pioneer," pledging to raise $100,000.The involvement of George W. and Neil in Argentina has become something of an m.o. for the Bush brothers in foreign affairs. The sons of the former president have certainly not been shy about using their family name to enrich themselves and their friends. Jeb sold $74 million worth of water pumps to the Nigerian government in 1988. Marvin tried to sell electronic fences to the defense ministry of Kuwait two years after the Gulf War, while Neil sought contracts to provide oil-field antipollution equipment. And George W. lent his name to tiny Harken Energy to help secure a huge offshore drilling contract in Bahrain (see "Slick W.," page 48).Undoubtedly, the family name will continue to open doors internationally if George W. is elected. Last November, an airplane with Houston registry numbers landed in Buenos Aires; on board was former President Bush, who had arrived to spend the night with his friend, President Menem, 10 days before the end of Menem's final term. The two men attended a dinner at the home of Argentine banker José Rohm, where they were joined by the vice president of Chase Manhattan Bank, the director of Credit Suisse First Boston, the president-elect of Argentina and the former president of Uruguay.What was the purpose of President Bush's visit? "Fishing," says Michael Dannenhauer, a Bush spokesman. But when the Buenos Aires daily, Pagina 12, asked several of the dinner guests why the president was in town, they smiled and quietly replied, "Business." Bush's "real interest," they added, was to learn how the new government would deal with CEI, an Argentine media company whose former chief had fled the country under investigation for fraud. One of CEI's principal investors, the paper noted, is Tom Hicks, "one of the funders of the presidential campaign of Bush's son, George, the governor of Texas."