"In repudiation for what his presence signifies given the mistreatment meted out to the prisoners at Guantanamo, Alberto Gonzales was not received by any high-level Argentine official. This decision by our Foreign Ministry shows that we are a sovereign nation rather than a subservient republic begging for favors from the strongest."
-- Roberto Follari, Diario Jornada, Argentina, February 16, 2007
---
They hate us for our 'freedom', right?
Showing posts with label Argentina. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Argentina. Show all posts
Sunday, February 18, 2007
Sunday, February 4, 2007
Argentinian critics say an American campaigner is buying up vast wetlands for US strategic goals
Eco-millionaire's land grab prompts fury
Uki Goñi in Buenos AiresSunday February 4, 2007
The Observer
Douglas Tompkinscalls himself a 'deep ecologist'. He is a millionaire on a quest to preserve some of Argentina's last frontier lands from human encroachment by buying them and turning them into ecological reserves.
But Argentina may not permit him such philanthropy. Opponents are branding him a new-age 'imperialist gringo' and claim he has a secret aim: to help the US military gain control of the country's natural resources. Tompkins, who sold his Esprit clothing firm in 1989 for a reported $150m to devote his time and wealth to ecology, takes such attacks in his stride. 'Land ownership is a political act; it arouses passions,' he says.
Tompkins, 63, holds to a very severe brand of environmentalism and is fond of reminding listeners that, unless runaway consumerism is halted, 'we humans will be building ourselves a beautiful coffin in space called planet Earth'.
Yet such statements do not carry much weight with Argentinian nationalists. The heaviest fire has come from radicals in the ruling Peronist party. Left-wing legislator Araceli Mendez introduced draft legislation in Congress a few months ago to confiscate the American's vast holdings. At the centre of the storm is a 310,000-acre estate Tompkins owns in the Ibera wetlands, a labyrinth of marshes, lakes and floating islands of nearly 2 million acres. 'He says he's worried about the birds and the wildlife,' said Mendez. 'But his land is above the Guarani aquifer, one of the most important fresh water reserves in the world, only 700km from an airbase the United States plans to build in neighbouring Paraguay.'
The aquifer is soon to become an issue of strategic defence policy. Argentina's military planners are convinced the country's oil and fresh water deposits could become targets for world powers in an ecologically dark future, and are putting together 'Plan 2025', dividing the country into regions based on their resource potential.
The Argentinian press has suggested Tompkins might be a covert CIA operative securing US access to the aquifer. And even Argentinians who don't share such conspiracy theories are uncomfortable with Tompkins transforming his properties into environmentally pristine but unpopulated and economically unproductive areas.
Tompkins and his wife, Kristine McDivitt, a former CEO of the Patagonia clothing retail chain, first went to Ibera in the late 1990s. After being initially unimpressed - 'it's as flat as a billiard table' - they eventually succumbed to the challenge, putting the accent on restoring the original wildlife.
'Wetlands are not up there in the collective human mind, they get very poor conservation protection, but there is an enchantment in every ecosystem,' said Tompkins. 'The land has been environmentally degraded and many of the indigenous animals have disappeared,' he went on. 'We've started with the marsh deer. Eventually we'll be able to reintroduce the jaguar, the top of the food chain.'
Tompkins expects that in 15 to 20 years he could turn his Ibera estate into a national park. 'It can take that long to generate a change in attitude. Tourism has to become a national priority.'
Tompkins and his wife say they are not old-fashioned imperialists in a new guise. 'All the fears created by the fact that I am American buying land are ridiculous,' said Tompkins. 'My intention has always been to eventually turn over the land to the Argentinian government for a national park.' He has already done so, donating an estate in Patagonia to the National Parks administration in 2004. In the late Nineties he had bought the 155,000-acre Monte Leon sheep farm, including a 25-mile stretch of South Atlantic coast, home to one of the largest Magellan penguin rookeries in the world and also abundant in sea lions, pumas and birds.
But pressure to pass an anti-Tompkins bill in Congress could be strong. The presence of other high-profile foreigners fuels passions. The Italian clothing giant Benetton holds 2.2 million acres in sheep farms in Patagonia and has clashed with the indigenous Mapuche people over land ownership claims. And US media magnate Ted Turner likes to go trout fishing on his Patagonian estates.
For Tompkins, it has been a long road from fashion king to 'deep ecologist'. As the founder of North Face and Esprit, he sold hundreds of millions of dollars worth of clothes worldwide every year. All that changed when he became involved in radical environmental projects, what he calls his 'restoration work', returning native animal and plant species to the nation-sized swaths of land he owns.
Tompkins and his wife have acquired properties encompassing Pacific coastal fjords, Patagonian virgin forest and tropical wetlands, a total area of some 2.2 million acres - about the size of Cyprus -in Argentina and neighbouring Chile.
Despite all the difficulties, Tompkins is optimistic about converting opponents to his way of thinking. 'I see an unstoppable wave of environmentalism. Environmental problems arise from the mistaken notion that humans come first. They have to come second. This has not sunk into the political and social leadership.'
Friday, January 12, 2007
Argentine Judge Orders Arrest of Peron
Friday January 12, 2007 1:16 PM
By BILL CORMIER
Associated Press Writer
BUENOS AIRES, Argentina (AP) - The order to arrest former President Isabel Peron marked the widening scope of the investigation into Argentina's past human rights abuses, as scrutiny expands beyond dictatorship-era crimes to the death squads that terrorized the nation prior to the 1976 coup.
An Argentine judge on Thursday ordered the arrest of the third wife of former political strongman Juan Domingo Peron, saying he has questions about her chaotic 20-month rule, a time when shadowy right-wing violence destabilized Argentina ahead of her political downfall.
There was no immediate comment from Isabel Peron, who has lived in exile in Spain since 1981. Spanish police said Friday they were awaiting an Interpol order to carry out the arrest warrant.
The call for her detention followed the recent arrests in Argentina and Spain of two suspected leaders of the ``Triple A'' death squad that human rights groups call a precursor to state-sponsored terror waged by a 1976-83 junta.
Maria Estela Martinez de Peron - known as Isabel - was ordered detained in connection with the disappearance of leftist Hector Aldo Fagetti Gallego one month before she was ousted in the March 1976 coup that ushered in the bloody, seven-year dictatorship, authorities said.
Peron also was wanted for questioning about three decrees she signed calling on the armed forces to combat ``subversive elements,'' the judge's spokesman said on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to address the media.
Political analyst Felipe Noguera noted that dozens of former police and military officers have been summoned for questioning since Argentina's Supreme Court in 2005 annulled a pair of 1980s amnesty laws blocking prosecution of human rights cases.
``What might be different is that her surname is Peron,'' Noguera said. ``So this seems to drive home the point that a lot of violence against the left wing started during the Peronist time before and not during the junta.''
Previously, efforts to bring alleged human rights abusers to justice focused on crime committed during the dictatorship, when thousands of suspected leftists were killed or disappeared.
Peron testified in 1997 in Madrid as a witness in a Spanish case probing crimes during the military dictatorship. She said then she recalled signing a law authorizing the ``annihilation'' of leftist guerrillas, but did not remember details. She also said that she was unaware of human rights abuses that began during her tenure and expanded after the military overthrew her.
Adolfo Perez Esquivel, the 1980 Nobel Peace laureate for his human rights work, told The Associated Press he believed the Triple A, short for the Argentina Anticommunist Alliance, was effectively part of a state structure and thus the beginnings of state-backed terror.
``Once and for all, we have to get to the bottom of this problem and find out how this terrorism was generated by the state,'' Perez Esquivel said. ``The search for the truth must go in every direction.''
Hebe de Bonafini, an activist of the Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo, said the courts must cast light on a ``part of our history that was dark, obscure and papered over.''
Isabel Peron was sworn in as president in 1974 after the death of her husband, the father of Argentina's ruling political party and three-time president. She struggled to hold on to power as Argentina was convulsed by violence from leftist guerrillas and reprisals by death squads.
Human rights groups blame Triple A for at least 1,500 killings of government opponents from 1973 to 1976. The dead included leftists, trade activists, opposition lawmakers and intellectuals.
Some victims were abducted off streets and never seen again while others were found dead of bullet wounds, some with their hands hacked off or burned.
The violence set the stage for the dictatorship's crackdown on dissent, a campaign known as the ``dirty war.'' Nearly 13,000 people are officially listed as dead or missing from the 1976-83 junta, but human rights groups say the total is closer to 30,000. Civilian rule was restored in 1983.
---
Associated Press writers Mayra Pertossi in Buenos Aires and Mar Roman in Madrid, Spain, contributed to this report.
Wednesday, December 20, 2006
Latin America's secret slave trade
Oliver Balch reports from the triple frontier of Brazil, Paraguay and Argentina, where humans have become the most sought-after contraband.
Wednesday December 20, 2006
Guardian Unlimited
Sit by the swimming pool of the exclusive Iguazú Jungle hotel and you can watch the "contrabandistas" emerging from the undergrowth.
All day, an army of smugglers can be seen passing along the mountainous path that separates Argentina from Brazil. Locals know it as the "pique". It is just one of a dozen or more unofficial crossing points on the so-called triple frontier, the name given to the porous border area where Argentina, Paraguay and Brazil meet.
Everything from fake branded clothing to Class A drugs are ferried back and forth along these clandestine routes. The list of contraband goods now also extends to human beings.
The human-trafficking business is estimated to be worth over £10bn a year, making it the world's third most profitable criminal activity after drug-smuggling and gun-running.
Many of those trafficked through the triple frontier are destined for the illegal labour market in Brazil or Argentina. The trade in babies for adoption is also widely reported. But a large proportion end up as sex workers. Many end up in brothels across the region, although a high number are destined for the triple frontier's own thriving sex industry.
Children are particularly vulnerable to human traffickers. Charities working with at-risk children in the border region estimate that as many as 3,500 young people could be involved.
"Many girls are trafficked via the pique. It's all highly organised", explains Marcelina Antunez, director of Luz de Infancia, a children's care centre in the Argentine town of Puerto Iguazú.
Driving the trade is the flood of foreign tourists who come to visit the world famous Iguazú waterfalls. Much of the demand for prostitution is casual. Yet the region also attracts a hardened group of sex tourists.
The region's reputation for prostitution is not new. In the late 1970s, around 40,000 workers flooded into the triple frontier to help build the colossal Itaipú hydroelectric dam. Around 97% of the new workforce were men. As the dam went up, so too did the demand for paid-for sex.
"The triple frontera is the Bangkok of Latin America...after the tsunami, many sex tourists started coming here instead of Asia," notes Cynthia Bendlin, director of the International Organisation for Migration (IOM) for the triple frontier area.
IOM runs a number of awareness programmes to highlight the dangers of the trafficking trade. But it is an uphill struggle. Many of the children most at risk either live on the street or come from very impoverished families, Ms Bendlin explains.
In some cases of extreme destitution, children are even contracted out by their parents. There is a blind beggar in Puerto Igazú, for example, who walks the streets hand-in-hand with a seven year-old girl. He makes his living by renting her out for sex. She is his neighbour's daughter.
The situation is complicated further by the "recruiters". Often known to the victims, they promise the opportunity of work across the border. When the fictitious jobs never materialise, the victims finds themselves trapped and unable to return home.
IOM also works with local government agencies and the police in an attempt to develop coordinated strategies to stop the traffickers. Again, prgress is slow. In Argentina alone, there are at least five separate security agencies operating in the border zone. Between the three countries, the problem of coordination becomes triply complicated, Ms Bendlin admits.
At a national level, there are some signs of encouragement. This week, Argentina's lower house is scheduled to discuss a bill that would officially recognise underage human trafficking in the criminal code.
Victim organisations welcome such measures, but remain sceptical about how much difference they will make on the ground. Argentina, Brazil and Paraguay all have separate laws and legal processes. Add to that the variety of municipal, provincial and national legislation and you have a complex legal web to navigate.
It is a journey that many victims would rather not undertake. In addition to the psychological and financial implications of pursuing a court case, many fear the threat of reprisals.
"Although we know about more than 700 cases of child trafficking, we have only reported 40 in the last three years", confesses Benigno Cáceres, a lawyer with CEAPRA, a children's charity in the Paraguayan border town of Ciudad del Este.
Only one of these complaints resulted in a guilty verdict.
The relative impunity for sex-related crimes is in keeping with cultural attitudes in the triple frontier. The region's strong culture of machismo holds that sex with underage girls is safer and a sign of male virility, says Norma Pereira, a child psychologist in Ciudad del Este.
In addition, the mothers of trafficked children are frequently themselves the victims of abuse or involved in prostitution, she explains: "Families often refuse to recognise the problem. It's as if this new form of slavery has become natural."
· Oliver Balch is a freelance journalist based in Argentina.
o_balch@hotmail.com
Wednesday December 20, 2006
Guardian Unlimited
Sit by the swimming pool of the exclusive Iguazú Jungle hotel and you can watch the "contrabandistas" emerging from the undergrowth.
All day, an army of smugglers can be seen passing along the mountainous path that separates Argentina from Brazil. Locals know it as the "pique". It is just one of a dozen or more unofficial crossing points on the so-called triple frontier, the name given to the porous border area where Argentina, Paraguay and Brazil meet.
Everything from fake branded clothing to Class A drugs are ferried back and forth along these clandestine routes. The list of contraband goods now also extends to human beings.
The human-trafficking business is estimated to be worth over £10bn a year, making it the world's third most profitable criminal activity after drug-smuggling and gun-running.
Many of those trafficked through the triple frontier are destined for the illegal labour market in Brazil or Argentina. The trade in babies for adoption is also widely reported. But a large proportion end up as sex workers. Many end up in brothels across the region, although a high number are destined for the triple frontier's own thriving sex industry.
Children are particularly vulnerable to human traffickers. Charities working with at-risk children in the border region estimate that as many as 3,500 young people could be involved.
"Many girls are trafficked via the pique. It's all highly organised", explains Marcelina Antunez, director of Luz de Infancia, a children's care centre in the Argentine town of Puerto Iguazú.
Driving the trade is the flood of foreign tourists who come to visit the world famous Iguazú waterfalls. Much of the demand for prostitution is casual. Yet the region also attracts a hardened group of sex tourists.
The region's reputation for prostitution is not new. In the late 1970s, around 40,000 workers flooded into the triple frontier to help build the colossal Itaipú hydroelectric dam. Around 97% of the new workforce were men. As the dam went up, so too did the demand for paid-for sex.
"The triple frontera is the Bangkok of Latin America...after the tsunami, many sex tourists started coming here instead of Asia," notes Cynthia Bendlin, director of the International Organisation for Migration (IOM) for the triple frontier area.
IOM runs a number of awareness programmes to highlight the dangers of the trafficking trade. But it is an uphill struggle. Many of the children most at risk either live on the street or come from very impoverished families, Ms Bendlin explains.
In some cases of extreme destitution, children are even contracted out by their parents. There is a blind beggar in Puerto Igazú, for example, who walks the streets hand-in-hand with a seven year-old girl. He makes his living by renting her out for sex. She is his neighbour's daughter.
The situation is complicated further by the "recruiters". Often known to the victims, they promise the opportunity of work across the border. When the fictitious jobs never materialise, the victims finds themselves trapped and unable to return home.
IOM also works with local government agencies and the police in an attempt to develop coordinated strategies to stop the traffickers. Again, prgress is slow. In Argentina alone, there are at least five separate security agencies operating in the border zone. Between the three countries, the problem of coordination becomes triply complicated, Ms Bendlin admits.
At a national level, there are some signs of encouragement. This week, Argentina's lower house is scheduled to discuss a bill that would officially recognise underage human trafficking in the criminal code.
Victim organisations welcome such measures, but remain sceptical about how much difference they will make on the ground. Argentina, Brazil and Paraguay all have separate laws and legal processes. Add to that the variety of municipal, provincial and national legislation and you have a complex legal web to navigate.
It is a journey that many victims would rather not undertake. In addition to the psychological and financial implications of pursuing a court case, many fear the threat of reprisals.
"Although we know about more than 700 cases of child trafficking, we have only reported 40 in the last three years", confesses Benigno Cáceres, a lawyer with CEAPRA, a children's charity in the Paraguayan border town of Ciudad del Este.
Only one of these complaints resulted in a guilty verdict.
The relative impunity for sex-related crimes is in keeping with cultural attitudes in the triple frontier. The region's strong culture of machismo holds that sex with underage girls is safer and a sign of male virility, says Norma Pereira, a child psychologist in Ciudad del Este.
In addition, the mothers of trafficked children are frequently themselves the victims of abuse or involved in prostitution, she explains: "Families often refuse to recognise the problem. It's as if this new form of slavery has become natural."
· Oliver Balch is a freelance journalist based in Argentina.
o_balch@hotmail.com
Friday, December 15, 2006
Argentina and Brazil to move away from dollar in 2007
Original in German
Machine translation
Argentina and Brazil starting from 2007 without dollar
BUENOS AIRES, 13 December 2006 - Argentina and Brazil do not plan to use the US Dollar than intermediary currency for their commercial exchange starting from center 2007 no more. Import export traffic between the largest Mercosur partners is to be completed then directly over the local currencies - Argentine peso and Brazilian material -. The last details are to be clarified at on Friday the taking place conference of central bank of the Mercosur states, are called it from Argentine government circles.
Restaurant economics Felisa Miceli (photo) and its Brazilian colleague Guido Mantega had brought the project in August in rolling. The commercial exchange amounts to at present annual 15 billion US Dollar (U$S). The direct account in peso or material would entail according to expert data the reduction of the transaction costs to the consequence, in addition, a higher demand for the local coins would have.
The central banks of both countries work for some time already on the compensation mechanisms, which are to make the direct account possible of the bilateral commercial stream. Parallel to it the responsible persons prepare also the mechanism of a peso material market for future options.
(© argentinienaktuell.com)
Machine translation
Argentina and Brazil starting from 2007 without dollar
BUENOS AIRES, 13 December 2006 - Argentina and Brazil do not plan to use the US Dollar than intermediary currency for their commercial exchange starting from center 2007 no more. Import export traffic between the largest Mercosur partners is to be completed then directly over the local currencies - Argentine peso and Brazilian material -. The last details are to be clarified at on Friday the taking place conference of central bank of the Mercosur states, are called it from Argentine government circles.
Restaurant economics Felisa Miceli (photo) and its Brazilian colleague Guido Mantega had brought the project in August in rolling. The commercial exchange amounts to at present annual 15 billion US Dollar (U$S). The direct account in peso or material would entail according to expert data the reduction of the transaction costs to the consequence, in addition, a higher demand for the local coins would have.
The central banks of both countries work for some time already on the compensation mechanisms, which are to make the direct account possible of the bilateral commercial stream. Parallel to it the responsible persons prepare also the mechanism of a peso material market for future options.
(© argentinienaktuell.com)
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)