Paramilitaries and corruptos captured in Venezuela

maduro-tweets

For anyone wondering if the fight in Venezuela against corruption and paramilitary terrorism is going to let up now that Chavecito is no longer there, wonder no more. It’s still going strong, and it’s turning up criminals all over the place:

The president of Venezuela, Nicolás Maduro, announced on Sunday that state security forces had captured two paramilitary bands intending to attack Venezuela.

On his Twitter account, @NicolasMaduro, he wrote: “We have captured two paramilitary bands which came to attack our Venezuela, one in Táchira and the other in Portuguesa. Details to come.”

Later, he wrote: “Justice Minister Rodríguez Torres will give more information on Monday. Congratulations to our security forces. We must remain alert for our nation’s peace.”

On Sunday, Maduro also announced that an anti-corruption operation by defence forces had dismantled a band which was extorting the proprietors of commercial establishments. He also thanked the people for their denunciations, and added that “corruption is a disease of the antivalues of capitalism,” and called upon all the country to confront it.

Translation mine.

And here’s one big example of how serious the Maduro government is about fighting against corruption: they’re not about to spare civil servants or government appointees caught with their hands in the cookie jar, either:

Authorities detained the national director of inspections for the Institute for the Defence of Persons in Access to Goods and Services (INDEPABIS), Trino Martínez, member of a gang which had been extorting proprietors of businesses in Caracas.

In an exclusive broadcast on VTV, the subject was apprehended in El Valle by police agents. A large sum of money and a firearm were seized.

Martínez was advisor to the former president of INDEPABIS, Consuelo Cerrada, who was fired on Sunday.

The president of the Republic, Nicolás Maduro, announced via Twitter (@NicolasMaduro): “Early this morning we began an anticorruption operation in Indepabis against a group of extortionists. We’ll get to the bottom [of this in the fight] against corruption.”

Again, translation mine. Here’s the video of that arrest going down:

The new director of INDEPABIS is Eduardo Samán, who has occupied that position before. His prior experience should stand him in good stead; he knows the agency inside and out. He’s also an outspoken critic of the “bolibourgeois” corruptos, and that bodes well for his dedication to the task at hand. When a government agency in charge of making sure that people get access to the goods and services they need is eaten from within by those who would deny them that access, a radical approach is needed, and Samán’s radicalism is just what the doctor ordered. The time for so-called realpolitik is over.

Samán’s words from three years ago ring true now: “To believe that we have to strengthen a bourgeoisie to develop capitalism in order to later go to socialism is to jump over hurdles. I think this is incorrect because we’ve had a dose of it and we have gone backwards. Here, the Bolivarian bourgeoisie was strengthened and look what the results have been.”

Indeed. A director fired, her advisor arrested…and that’s just the tip of the iceberg. Add to it the usual assortment of imported Colombian mercenaries, serving some really bourgeois right-wing politicians and land- and business owners, and you get corruption networks all across the board. Maduro’s got his work cut out for him, but this is a very good start.

PS: Photos of the captured paramilitaries and their seized contraband here.

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Quotable: Toni Morrison on rape

toni-morrison-on-rape

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The Bolivarian campaign against homophobia

sexodiverso

“I am gay. I am lesbian. I am bisexual. I am transsexual. I am heterosexual. I am like you. I am human.”

Add another stripe to that banner, one that reads “I am Bolivarian”. The LGBT movement in Venezuela has the support of no less than the president himself:

On Saturday, Venezuelan president Nicolás Maduro reflected before the Great Patriotic Pole “Simón Bolívar” about the conduct of those who discriminate against others, and exhorted the revolutionary political groups to strengthen their socialist values of respect and inclusion.

“The worst discriminator is the one who denies his own nature and, with that, discriminates against himself. He is like the overseer on a slave estate, who was black like all the others, and was more of a slave-driver than the owner of the estate,” said the president, paraphrasing the words of Ingrid Varón, the spokesperson for the sex-diversity group.

During the swearing-in of the GPP in the Caracas Poliedro, Maduro spoke of the initiatives of the political coalition, which consists of 26 national organizations, among them the sex-diversity collective.

The president rejected the right-wing campaign to paint him as a “homophobe”.

“You know that the fascist J.J. Rendón, public enemy of Venezuela, launched a campaign saying that I was homophobic, but the truth is that the people cannot be homophobic, because we do not discriminate against anyone, much less our brothers and sisters of sexual diversity, whom we invite with dignity to come here to work for the nation,” said Maduro.

“You of the sex-diversity movement can count on our support, accompaniment and love,” Maduro added.

Translation mine. Linkage added.

So we see, too, that our old pal Jota-Jota is up to his old dirty tricks, slamming the big guy on sexual grounds this time. Too bad for him that Nicolás Maduro is a strong supporter of LGBT rights, like Chavecito. There is nothing there for that mud to stick to.

On the other hand, I’ve often heard it said that Henrique Capriles Radonski is gay. (I know for a fact that JAVU leader Julio Rivas is.) If that’s true, it’s a tremendous irony, since he has chosen to align himself with the most fascistic and homophobic elements in the country. And it’s quite possible that Maduro too has heard those rumors and is alluding to them in the interest of making his point: that a servant of fascism will deny his own identity in order to gain power over others at any cost.

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Music for a Sunday: Prism is a BAND.

And they’re Canadian, too:

And they always killed it in concert:

And yes, like the recently uncovered spy program that shares their name, they do paranoia well, too.

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Wankers of the Week: Hey, hey, NSA…

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Crappy weekend, everyone! And a special load of chicken crap for our “friends” in the NSA, who probably heard every keystroke as I was typing this. Yes, they’ve been listening in on everyone in the US, and Bog only knows where all else. Terra! Terra! Terra! Whether they actually heard anything of import to national security was another matter. (PS: Ha, ha.) But never fear, they’re still listening. And so am I, and this is who I heard this week…playing with themselves and generally getting up to no good, in no particular order:

1 and 2. Sarah and Todd Fucking Palin. Yes, this time it’s the two of them, fapping à deux. Apparently Google Glass isn’t good enough for them to try unless there’s “something in it” for them. Something spelled M-O-N-E-Y, no doubt.

3. Mark Fucking O’Mara. Not all lawyers are slimeballs, but this one seems fully bent on justifying the stereotype. Yeah, sure, Trayvon Martin will be proven to be the aggressor, and civil rights will accordingly take a bullet to the head. Except that he’s not the one on trial, and he’s not the one who had the police record for playing cop without a badge, and he’s also not the one who was heard to say “fucking coon” on a 911 tape. So there’s that.

4. Ben Fucking Stein. So, caring about a clean environment and water that’s fit to drink, and wanting your world not contaminated with bituminous sludge and chemicals, not to mention having a social safety net that works, makes one “mentally diseased and defective”, now? Only in the fever swamp of a greed-ridden pissbucket’s Swiss-cheese brain. Yeah, that’s right, kiddies…Benny-boy is projecting all his vile bile onto the rest of us, as usual.

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5. George W. Fucking Bush. Well, looky here…Dubya crawled out of his spider hole and made the cut this week. Paying lip service to disabled veterans is the most breathtakingly cynical thing he can do, short of forbidding the media to show the caskets of the dead coming home. (Which he HAS done, as well.) Dubya, it all means worse than nothing coming from you, since you’re the one who sent them to kill, die or get limbs blown off (not to mention their brains rattled in their skulls, not to mention PTSD), and then cut their VA benefits when they came home in something other than a box. Honestly, you’re lucky they didn’t bionically kill your smirking ass.

6. Geoffrey Fucking Miller. OMG, these evol-psych profs. I can’t even. Isn’t it hilarious that he thinks that fat people have no self-restraint…and he just HAD to take to the tweeter to express it? And then later to backtrack, saying he’d been too impulsive? More likely, whoever was in charge of deciding his tenure had seen it. Dear Impulsive Idiot: Learn to think before you tweet. PS: Oh dear. Ha, ha.

7. Heath Fucking Campbell. Neo-Nazis really shouldn’t be allowed to breed, much less name their kids. I feel sorry for this guy’s brood. Especially since there are four of them. Imagine growing up with such an asshat for a father…ugh…teh FACEPALM. Let’s hope that whoever ends up raising them lets them pick better names for themselves.

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8. Glenn Fucking Beck. No, Biff, no civil rights leaders are listening to you…except, maybe, to laugh and shake their heads at what an up-your-own-ass fucking rube you are. And also, what a fucking RACIST.

9. Mark Fucking Regnerus, AGAIN. Gasp! A religious rightard? With an ugly chinbeard? I never would have guessed. And what is that whooping noise? Dang, dude set my gaydar off. Must have been the smell of mothballs he exudes. PS: Ha, ha.

10. Maggie Fucking Gallagher. Figures that she’s right behind Wanker #9, coaching him with audible stage whispers. If you ever need proof that religion should have no place in politics OR science, look no further.

11. Tony Fucking Blair. If he says there is “a problem within Islam”, then there’s an even bigger one within Dubya’s Poodle. I guess what I’m trying to say here is, GET STUFFED, TOADY BLIAR.

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12. Tucker Fucking Carlson. Oh, Bowtie Boy says an atheist monument “will be vandalized”? Well, if it is, we’ll all make a note of who led the charge to scrawl that ugly graffiti. It’ll be a smug, smirky, superannuated frat boy with floppy hair, who was born with a silver spoon up his ass. And who is more than old enough to know better.

13 and 14. Rick Fucking Wiles and Larry Fucking Jacobs. No, Russia’s anti-gay laws are not protecting anyone from anything. Gay kids are getting beaten up because of them. But do THEY care? NOOOOOO! That’s “pro-family” for you…it’s not what they’re FOR, it’s what they’re AGAINST.

15. Bob Fucking Paulson. Harassment within the RCMP is “a game of cat and mouse”? No, dipshit, it’s not a “game”. It’s a seriously toxic work environment, and it is impeding law enforcement and numerous invstigations! Honestly, where do they find all these dim bulb apologists?

16. Marsha Fucking Blackburn. More proof that if you’re a female conservative, you’re a conservative first, and a woman dead last. No, idiotess, women don’t want “recognition” more than equal pay. Equal pay IS recognition…that our work is of equal value. And when you’re voted out of office, you’ll see just what value YOUR work has.

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17. Bill Fucking Dombrowski. California trying to recoup what Wal-Mart is costing its taxpayers is a “job-killer”? Tell it to your rivals at Costco, Bill. They pay THEIR employees enough that none of them need state aid…in ANY state. Why, I bet their employees are even helping to keep the state afloat! And good luck trying to use nasty-wasty union bosses for a smokescreen, too. As though that tactic were not already old as the hills, and tired as hell.

18. Erick Fucking Erickson, AGAIN. Oops, looks like stats and facts have proven him and all his sexist co-religionists wrong. Gee, what are the odds?

19 and 20. Shelly Fucking Glover and James Fucking Bezan. Failing to file your election paperwork is a major democratic no-no. It will be so much fun to see Harpo’s so-called majority shrink by two seats…and there will surely be more to come, too.

21. Preston Fucking Manning. Naheed Nenshi rhymes with menschy, and that’s no coincidence. Preston Fucking Manning rhymes with banning, and THAT’s no coincidence, either.

22. Saxby Fucking Chambliss. Again with the rape culture, and the idea that it’s “natural”? Dude, talk to me about nature when you get that splintery broom handle out of your ass, after Karma gets through with you. PS: Ha, ha.

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23. Cindy Fucking Jacobs. Actually, Native people have NOTHING to repent, atone or apologize for, much less renounce…unless it’s falling for the lies of missionaries who brainwashed them with the same racist, bigoted bullshit that YOU are now spouting. (And even then, it’s the preachers who should apologize…to THEM.)

24. Gareth Fucking Morgan. I can only hope that when this sadistic bastard kicks the bucket, his corpse will be savaged by marauding cats. IN NEW ZEALAND.

25. Sean Fucking Parker. Rivendell is a place out of fiction, you stupid fuck. Leave it the hell in the book where it belongs, and don’t fuck with the environment. Just because you’re stinking rich doesn’t make you a fucking king, you know.

26. John Fucking Hembling. Some of the good folks at Manboobz call him John the Otter (in reference to his nom de fume, John the Other), but I think that’s being entirely too nice to him, and unconscionably mean to otters (who, unlike this silly old fart, are absolutely adorable). How about John the Bothered, since he’s such a delicate widdle fish egg and so easily offended by anyone who won’t dance nicely in line with masculist/male supremacist shithead theory? Yeah, I think I’m gonna go with that when referring to him from now on.

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27. Younis Fucking Makhyoun. If anyone ever wonders why Ethiopia is always so famine- and drought-ridden, or so under-developed, you need look no further than across its borders. Or up the Nile, as it were. That’s where you’ll find the foreign politicians who keep fucking Ethiopia up. And who keep embarrassing Egypt, Sudan, and God only knows who all else.

28. Joe Fucking Francis. So who says there’s no such thing as Karma? There is, and She (yes, SHE) has just opened a can of whoop on his ass. Everybody, on my count: One, two, three…BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAAHAHA!

29. Vladimir Fucking Putin. Even his long-suffering wife has finally had enough of Pooty-Poot. I wonder what did it…work-related separations, all the rumored affairs, or just the sight of his virile naked man-boobs galloping around on horseback one time too many? Unfortunately, nobody who would know is talking, and that can only mean one thing: The KGB has threatened to kill them.

30. Peter Fucking Munk. Gang rape is a “cultural habit” in Papua New Guinea? No, it’s a “cultural habit” only wherever male workers are concentrated in inhumane working conditions, and local women aren’t valued by the corporate ownership either. In short, it’s only a “cultural habit” wherever Barrick Gold is raping the landscape. (See what I did there? Okay, now SIGN.)

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31. Simon Fucking Lokodo. And while we’re on the subject of local rape cultures, how about this Ugandan politician? I guess raping girls is supposed to cure Teh Ghey, or something? I can’t make a particle of sense out of his shit-ridiculous argument that there is a “right kind of child rape”. Uh, rape is ALL wrong. ALL OF IT. End of discussion!

32. Pamela Fucking Wallin. Oh me, oh my. Looks like Pammy-pie is gonna have to go to Harpo’s secret bagman to pay back her false expense claims, too. Although she made more than enough as a corporate director to pay it all back with interest, frankly…

33. Chuck Fucking Klosterman. Fuck honor codes! Want to cheat “ethically”? Ask him how. Just don’t be surprised if the two or more profs to whom you submitted the same essay actually know each other and start comparing notes. Because, you know, collegiality is very collegial in colleges, and all that.

34. April Fucking Sims. She made racist remarks on Facebook (she was an emergency operator in Dallas), and then she “stands by every word” and “does not apologize”? Well, good. That means she can be unceremoniously fired. And that the local 911 can stand by that, and not apologize to HER, either.

35. Rand Fucking Paul. Some libertarian HE turns out to be, apparently neither knowing nor caring that the NSA has been spying on US citizens (and who knows who all else) for the past 7 years. Turn in your card, Randy…and your copy of Atlas Shrieked, too.

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36. Mitt Fucking Romney. No, Willard, the IRS and Hurricane Sandy did NOT cause you to lose to Obama. Your own robotic personality, tax evasion, and blatantly out-of-touch rich bastard attitude did that. Now STFU already, you sore fucking loser.

37. Roy Fucking Costner the Fourth. Yes, there were three more where he came from, and in due course there will probably be a Fifth. And I’m willing to bet he’ll be just as self-righteously obnoxious as his old man was at his high-school graduation this week, when he “protested” a perfectly constitutional end to unconstitutional graduation prayers by ripping up his “inspirational” speech and recited the same mealy mouthful of gibberish I recall dutifully blurbing my way through, every damn last school day, from Kindergarten through Grade 13. (And sometimes, later on, merely bowing my head and not bothering to blurb.) Honestly, if the intent here was to show piety and devotion, it’s a fail. If you’re really THAT big on praying, Roy, go do it where Jesus said to: IN YOUR LITTLE CLOSET. (I prefer to do it silently, out in nature where nobody but the trees can see me, but then again, I also don’t have that pious-prick thing going on.) PS: Oh dear. What have we here? A liar? Jesus doesn’t like it when you lie, Roy.

38 and 39. Michael Fucking Savage and Allen Fucking West. Yes, let’s all trivialize sexual assault in the military. How better to make sure that it goes right on happening unchecked?

40. Mark Fucking Zuckerberg. Care to explain why your carefully-worded denial reads suspiciously identical to the Google guys’ also-carefully-worded denial that they were collaborating with the NSA on the Prison — er, PRISM — project? PS: Oh, wait. Never mind!

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And finally, to the New York state senate. Yes, all of them. Or at least all of them who voted to make it a felony to “harass” a cop. I predict that this piece of ham-handed legislation, like “Stand Your Ground”, will promptly be abused by some blowhard with an ax to grind, a bone to pick, a beef with whomever, or just a perfectly legitimate, peaceful protest to quash — and will help them to get away with murder should it ever go to trial or a civil lawsuit. WTF, NY? Just when I thought you had a kind of cool state there, you fucking blew it. It’s really a toss-up between this and PRISM as to which is a greater infringement on civil rights and liberties. At this rate, I’m going to have to start spelling those words with asterisks, because they no longer mean what I thought they meant.

Good night, and get fucked!

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Festive Left Friday Blogging: Chavecito ascends the heights

chavecito-cloud

‘Scuse me while I miss this guy.

Add another high achievement to Chavecito’s already impressive list of gains. He’s been given a place of honor on a mountaintop in Cuba:

Today a group of Cubans and Venezuelans placed a bust of the late president of Venezuela, Hugo Chávez, on Caracas Peak, in the Sierra Maestra of southeastern Cuba, considered one of the highest elevations on the island.

The sculpture is the work of artist Andrés González, who modelled it out of resin and glass fibre.

In front of the two-metre-high pedestal with the bust of Chávez is a plaque with his phrase: “Those who love their country, come with me.”

The figure of the Bolivarian Revolution’s leader, who died on March 5 in a Caracas hospital, was placed next to a bust of the Liberator, Simón Bolívar, by the same sculptor, at 1,234 metres above sea level.

Among the participants at the tribute were the Venezuelan ambassador to Cuba, Edgardo Ramírez, and René González, one of the five Cubans arrested in 1998 in Florida, where they were monitoring the actions of violent anti-Cuban groups in Miami.

On various mountain peaks of the Sierra Maestra, there are other busts, such as that of the Cuban national hero, José Martí, the mythical Argentine-Cuban guerrilla commander Ernesto “Che” Guevara, and Carlos Manuel de Céspedes, considered the father of the nation by Cubans.

The Sierra Maestra was the principal staging point of the Cuban Revolution, which Fidel Castro led, starting in December 1956, against the dictatorship of Fulgencio Batista, and which concluded with the revolutionary triumph of January 1, 1959.

Translation mine.

Caracas Peak figures in Che Guevara’s Reminiscences of the Cuban Revolutionary War, which should be required reading in history class, and hold pride of place on any leftist/Latin Americanist’s bookshelf. Here’s a map of the Sierra Maestra showing its location:

sierra-maestra-map

You’ll find Caracas Peak between and just below the R and the A of “SIERRA”.

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Quotable: Ann Richards on woman blaming

ann-richards-on-women

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Saving Beatriz

beatriz-right-to-life

“Beatriz has the right to life”.

Yes…yes, she does. NOW.

Beatriz, the woman in grave condition whom the Supreme Court of El Salvador had denied an abortion, received a premature Caesarian section on Monday.

The 22-year-old, who already has a son, had asked to end her pregnancy because her life was in danger due to lupus and kidney problems.

The fetus had also developed without most of its brain and skull, and was not expected to live.

Although the woman is stable following the Caesarian, her baby, a girl, did not survive.

Last week, the court upheld its decision to prohibit abortion in all circumstances, but the health minister said that a Caesarian would be an acceptable solution.

Translation mine.

Unfortunately, there is still the problem of El Salvador’s restrictive abortion law, which this C-section compromise does not satisfactorily address. Beatriz was lucky; the next woman caught in this situation might not be. And there will always be a next woman, because pregnancy is always a bigger health risk than not being pregnant.

Isn’t it time to let women decide…everywhere?

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Who is J.J. Rendón?

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If you’ve been following Venezuelan politics, you’ve probably seen the handiwork of this man, even if you haven’t seen HIM. And if you find his habit of wearing black melodramatic and more than a little douchey, you ain’t seen nothin’ yet. His campaigns are even more so…and now, their creepy author has been uncloaked:

His name is Juan José Rendón, and he calls himself J.J. Rendón. Although born a Venezuelan, he says he has no country, and in supposed mourning, always dresses in black. Rendón lives in Miami, Florida, and from there has been the creator of the dirty campaigns which have characterized the representatives of the South American right wing.

During the last 27 years, he has advised the presidential campaigns of Enrique Peña Nieto, Juan Manuel Santos, Alvaro Uribe Vélez, and Porfirio Lobo, among others. The discrediting and tarnishing of his clients’ adversaries is his principal strategy.

One strategy, which Rendón has openly admitted to applying, is the “Three Ss”, in which false information concerning the sexuality, health and salary of the targeted individual is created in a campaign of discredit.

In an interview with Colombian journalist María Jimena Duzán, Rendón said that his proposition is to “shatter” the adversary and that it is a business for him, one that brings to the table the latest campaign by sectors of the Venezuelan right.

The dirty campaign against the quality of drinking water, as well as the attacks questioning the health of Hugo Chávez, starting in July 2012 by various opposition parties and media, were the work of J. J. Rendón.

In the same interview with Duzán, Rendón admits to being an anti-ethical advisor because “that ethical thing is for the philosophers.”

As far as Venezuela is concerned, it appears that his only connection with it is his closeness to the opposition, directly with the “Democratic Unity Table” (MUD), for whom he designed campaigns of instigation, destabilization, and discreditation of the national government.

Even if the local opposition has wanted to conceal the intervening hand of Rendón in its constant wave of campaigns to promote destabilization, there is a very close link with Henrique Capriles Radonsky.

“Have you been working in the campaign of Henrique Capriles?” Jaime Bayly asked him, two days before the elections of October 7, to which the “king of black propaganda,” as the Mexican, Ramón Betancour, called him, replied: “What do you think?” “It’s gone very well for you since you’ve taken on the campaign of Henrique Capriles!” commented the Peruvian TV host, who constantly mocked the Venezuelan political process.

The planting of the idea of a supposed “electoral fraud” was another of Rendón’s ideas, and it was precisely that which brought him to public awareness in 2004, as a pusher of that line of propaganda after the opposition defeat in the recall referendum of 2004.

Rendón has worked on 22 campaigns and claims he has only lost one. His most famous defeat was that same recall referendum of 2004, against Comandante Hugo Chávez. After that he abandoned Venezuela to take up residence in the United States.

Translation mine.

Well, now you know why he wears black (and probably doesn’t cast a reflection or a shadow, either). Chavecito pretty much drove a stake through his heart, or rather the shrunken remnant thereof. Yet, perversely, he’s still walking this Earth, while Chavecito has gone on to blessed immortality. Unlike most vampires, Rendón hasn’t yet bitten the dust. But maybe shining a bright light on him will send him scuttling back under the rock from whence he came.

We can only hope, eh?

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The long impunity of Carlos Menem

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If you saw The Take, you’ll no doubt recognize the old man in the picture. Carlos Menem, following the dictates of the IMF, presided over an economic “miracle” in Argentina, which “mysteriously” (to hear certain economists tell it, anyway) turned into a meltdown. More than half the citizens of that once-prosperous country slid below the poverty line during the crash of 2001, which also saw Argentina go through five subsequent presidents in short succession. A year or so later, Menem — the father of the catastrophe — was running for office again, and in a bizarre twist, he was the frontrunner. He actually won the first round of elections, but as there was no clear majority, the election went to a run-off. It was on the second round that the rage and disgust of ordinary Argentines finally caught up to the former president and drove him out of the race. Néstor Kirchner, who got the IMF off Argentina’s neck (with some timely help from Chavecito in Venezuela) became president.

As for Menem, being a pariah didn’t hurt him as much as one might think. He didn’t slink off to obscurity, as might befit a disgraced politician who saw the tide of history roll over all his achievements and grind them into the mud. Nope…Menem is still, unbelievably, in office, as a senator (which is actually just a placeholder position until he decides to try for president again), although it now looks as though he might not stay there much longer:

The prosecuting attorney, Marcelo Agüero Vera, called on Friday for eight years’ imprisonment and the withdrawal of parliamentary privileges for ex-president and now senator Carlos Menem, for illegal arms trading to Croatia and Ecuador during his reign.

The prosecutor also asked that he be banned from holding public office for 16 years. An eight-year sentence was also requested for suspected arms trafficker Diego Palleros, and seven years for the former minister of Defence, Oscar Camilión, and five years and six months for Manuel Cornejo Torino, ex-director of Military Fabrications.

[…]

Menem, 82 years old, had been declared innocent by the Oral Tribunal, due to the events being considered not an “act of contraband”, but as a product of a “decision of exterior politics and a political act not subject to judgment.”

The case was reopened due to “insertion of false destinations (Panama and Venezuela), with intent to conceal from Customs the real destinations” of the weapons, which were bound for Croatia and Ecuador, countries in a state of war.

The ex-president (1989-1999) swore during the trial that he had limited himself to “signing export decrees” of 6,500 tons of weapons, originally destined for Venezuela and Panama, but they were diverted to Ecuador and Croatia, which were under a UN arms embargo.

Most of the weaponry went to Croatia, while the rest was set to Ecuador in 1995, when that country was in conflict with Peru, though Argentina was one of the guarantors in the peace treaty between the two countries.

In 2001, Carlos Menem was under more than five months’ house arrest for illegal arms sales, but the Supreme Court never enforced the sentenced.

Translation mine.

As you can see, Carlos Menem is just another political bastard who benefited for unconscionable years from the culture of impunity in Argetina. The impunity, of course, was highly selective, reserved mainly for dirty politicians and Dirty War military repressors, many of whom have been lounging about for years unpunished while their victims have either fled into exile, died or been killed, or are still living in Argentina, terrified that the past may yet again rise up to trip them. That culture of impunity is also an effective silencing device for any political dissent that might actually accomplish something at a grassroots level. If the same Dirty War militaries who never went to prison for their repressive roles can be hired as police or bank security guards, what do you think might happen to anyone who dared to protest against the government…or the military…or the banks?

That’s why it’s become important to catch these political criminals and jail them in a timely manner. Menem, it seems, will likely pull a Pinochet, claiming he’s too old for prison (never mind that Jorge Videla, just five years Menem’s senior, died recently in prison, as befits a repressor.)

But if the macro details of his reign of corruption will not put him behind bars, the micro ones may yet do the trick. Illicit arms dealing is not a small crime, even if the plausble deniability of “oops, the guns got into the wrong hands, not my fault, haha” gets invoked. Does anyone seriously believe that Menem didn’t know where those guns were actually headed? If you do, I’ve got some lovely ocean-front property I’ll sell you for a song…IN SASKATCHEWAN.

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Posted in Don't Cry For Argentina, Economics for Dummies, Ecuadorable As Can Be, Fascism Without Swastikas, Filthy Stinking Rich, Guns, Guns, Guns, Huguito Chavecito, Isn't That Illegal? | Comments Off on The long impunity of Carlos Menem