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bananas

(27,509 posts)
Tue Nov 24, 2015, 10:08 PM Nov 2015

'Dirty War' editorial shocks Argentines, including paper's own reporters

Source: Washington Post

The first news cycle after the election of Mauricio Macri as president of Argentina included an unusual contribution from La Nacion, one of the country's top newspapers: an editorial headlined "No More Vengeance."

The gist of the instantly controversial piece was that the time had come to forget about the crimes committed during Argentina's 1976-1983 military dictatorship. The editorial argued that the old regime's leftist opponents were "ideologically committed to terrorist groups" and acted in a way "no different" from the militants who attacked Paris earlier this month. It also bemoaned the "shameful" treatment of regime officials imprisoned for human rights crimes despite their "old age."

<snip>

The piece provoked swift condemnation by many Argentines, including many of the newspaper's own reporters. They took to social media to disavow the unsigned opinion piece, and the newspaper published a photo of dozens in the newsroom holding up signs that said, "I condemn the editorial."

<snip>

The editorial waded into especially sensitive territory — the legacy of the "Dirty War," in which tens of thousands of people were killed or made to "disappear" by government forces, and ongoing human rights trials against the perpetrators.

Part of the concern was the timing, as it prompted fears that the newly elected Macri government might be more open to forgiving these crimes than voters had been led to believe. As Jonathan Watts and Uki Goñi wrote in Britain's Guardian newspaper, "Many middle- and upper-class Macri supporters want the trials to end. They prefer to speak of 'reconciliation', a catchword for amnesty, now that hundreds of former officers have been convicted — many of so advanced an age that about 300 are estimated to have died so far in jail, either serving their sentences or pending trial."

<snip>

Read more: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/worldviews/wp/2015/11/24/dirty-war-editorial-shocks-argentines-including-papers-own-reporters/

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'Dirty War' editorial shocks Argentines, including paper's own reporters (Original Post) bananas Nov 2015 OP
Deep regret over Macri's election is going to set in sooner than thought. Dawson Leery Nov 2015 #1
And unless he restrains himself, he'll be the author of his own undoing. forest444 Nov 2015 #2

forest444

(5,902 posts)
2. And unless he restrains himself, he'll be the author of his own undoing.
Tue Nov 24, 2015, 11:14 PM
Nov 2015

As much as Macri's callous attitude toward human rights and social issues in general might hurt his political capital, it will ironically be the ire of the business sector that may do him in. How?

Because a steep devaluation and austerity policies of the kind Macri's has already promised his agroexport and financial sector backers would sharply increase costs for most other businesses, while at the same time hurting sales once their clients and the public in general feel the sting in their wallets.

The Buenos Aires Stock Market - contrary to all media predictions - is sliding on these very fears. And what's worse, local wholesale prices are reportedly already rising fast on the mere anticipation of Macri's IMF-style policies - in a country that already has 25% inflation to deal with.

This, btw, is exactly how the last dictatorship (whose laissez faire economic policies were similar to Macri's) collapsed in 1983. The Falklands fiasco had a key role, of course - but its real undoing was economic.

Once employers and the middle class realized that the dictatorship would stick them with the bill for the wave of speculative bad debts left by the financial and landowning elites, they quickly turned against the dictators they had once thought of as a guarantor of stability and even a "Godly administration."

I still want to believe Macri will go easy on the IMF policies. For in Argentina, those who forget history...

really are doomed to repeat it.

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