Timeline Argentina
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Argentina is about 3/10 the size of all 50 US
states.
(SSFC, 10/9/05, Par p.27)
The capital is Buenos Aires. In 2005 Buenos Aires accounted for 32%
of Argentina’s GDP and 40% of its people.
(SSFC, 7/20/03, p.C6)(Econ, 11/19/05, p.81)
The 24 provinces include: Buenos Aires, Cordoba, Corrientes, Entre
Rios, Jujuy, Salta, Misiones, Neuquen, Santa Cruz, Santa Fe,
Tucuman, and Tierra del Fuego.
(SFC, 8/14/99, p.C1)
Daro Roca founded La Plata, the provincial capital of Buenos Aires
province.
(WSJ, 8/21/01, p.A1)
230Mil BC A
small 4-foot-long, 10-15 pound dinosaur, later named Eodromaeus
(dawn runner), inhabited South America. Its fossils were discovered
in the 1990s in northeastern Argentina.
(SFC, 1/14/11, p.A6)
180Mil BC-70Mil BC Dinosaur fossils of this age
were later found in the El Chocon region of Patagonia. They included
the plant-eating Gasparinisaura.
(NG, 12/97, p.123)
135Mil BC A fierce marine crocodile, with a
dinosaur head and a fish-like tail, inhabited a vast southern ocean
that covered much of what became Argentina. Discovery of a fossil
skull with 52 jagged teeth was reported in 2005 for a 12-foot
specimen nicknamed “Godzilla” and chico malo.” It was named
Dakosaurus andiniensis.
(SFC, 11/11/05, p.A2)(WSJ, 11/11/05, p.A1)
100Mil BC In 2000 It was
reported that researchers had unearthed a pack of large predatory
dinosaurs in Patagonia that dated back to this time. The fossils
were found in Neuquen province and were named Mapusaurus roseae.
(SFC, 3/11/00, p.A1)(SFC, 4/18/06, p.A3)
90Mil BC Mudstone of this age from Plaza Huincul
in Patagonia revealed fossil pieces in 1996 of the huge Megaraptor.
(NG, 12/97, p.134)
90Mil BC Scientists in 2005 announced the
discovery in Argentina of a rooster-size fossil named Buitreraptor
gonzalezorum. It dates back 90 million years and closely resembles
fossils from the North. It was part of the class called dromaesaurs
believed to have originated 180 million years ago in Laurasia. The
new find was evidence that dromaesaurs originated in Pangea, before
it broke apart to form Laurasia and Gondwanaland.
(www.livescience.com/animalworld/051012_new_dino.html)
90Mil BC The fossil of a snake that lived in
Patagonia at this time was found in 2006 with 2 small rear legs. The
snake, under 3 feet long, was named Najash rionegrina.
(SFC, 4/20/06, p.A2)
88Mil BC In 2000 Scientists in Argentina began
uncovering the skeleton of what is believed to be a new dinosaur
species, a 105-foot plant-eater that is among the largest dinosaurs
ever found, has been uncovered in Argentina. They named it
Futalognkosaurus dukei after the Mapuche Indian words for "giant"
and "chief," and for Duke Energy Argentina, which helped fund the
skeleton's excavation. The skeleton dated to 88 million years BC.
(AP, 10/15/07)
80Mil BC Fossil eggs and embryos of titanosaurs
and apatosaurus of this age were later found in the Patagonian
badlands of Argentina.
(SFC, 9/28/01, p.D8)
15Mil BC The fossil of a large bird from this time
was found in Patagonia, Argentina, in 2004. The skull of the
10-foot-tall, flightless predator measured 28 inches and was
identified in 2006 as an offshoot of the phorusrhacids (terror
birds).
(SFC, 10/26/06, p.A8)
3.3Mil BC A mile-wide asteroid hit the coast of
what became Argentina. It may have abruptly cooled the climate and
caused the deaths of 36 species of huge animals, that included giant
armadillos and sloths.
(SFC, 12/11/98, p.D11)
8000BC The 15-foot, 3-toed Macrauchenia, a native
of Patagonia, went extinct about this time. It had a body like a
camel, a neck like a giraffe, and a flexible nose like an elephant’s
trunk. Its fossil was discovered by Charles Darwin during his trip
to the region (1833-1834).
(SFC, 4/2/10, p.C5)
c1500 In northern Argentina 3
Inca children were sacrificed. In 1999 a team of archeologists
discovered their frozen mummies on Mount Llullaillaco.
(SFC, 4/7/99, p.A11)
1515 Juan Diaz de Solis,
Spanish navigator, reached the Rio de la Plata in South America and
discovered Argentina.
(TL-MB, p.11)
1516 Juan Diaz de Solis,
Spanish explorer, was killed on the coast of Argentina.
(TL-MB, p.11)
1520 Oct 21, Ferdinand Magellan
arrived at Tierra Del Fuego (Argentina-Chile).
(MC, 10/21/01)
1535 Spanish conquistadors
attempted to create a settlement in the Buenos Aires area but were
driven away by the Karandias Indians.
(SSFC, 10/14/01, p.T5)
1535 The Spaniards founded a
temporary settlement on the banks of the Rio de la Plata that 45
years later becomes the city of Buenos Aires.
(TL-MB, 1988, p.15)
1536 Feb 2, The Argentine city
of Buenos Aires was founded by Pedro de Mendoza of Spain. The
memorial Column standing at the center of Buenos Aires, gives the
date as 1500.
(AP, 2/2/97)(MC, 2/2/02)
1577 In Cordoba, Argentina, the
Iglesia Cathedra Plaza San Martin was started.
(SSFC, 7/20/03, p.C6)
1580 A 2nd Buenos Aires was
founded near the mouth of the Rio de la Plata.
(SSFC, 10/14/01, p.T5)
1770-1779 Blacks were 1st brought to Argentina in
the 1770s to toil on large haciendas and work as domestic servants.
(SSFC, 11/27/05, p.A24)
1774 Spain established a small
settlement on the Falkland Islands, which lasted to 1811. An
Argentine outpost was established in the 1820s.
(Econ, 4/7/07, p.36)
1778 Feb 25, Jose Francisco de
San Martin (d.1850) was born in Argentina. He liberated Argentina,
Chile and Peru. Protector of Peru (1821-1822).
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jos%C3%A9_de_San_Mart%C3%ADn)(ON,
10/09, p.8)
1778 A census in Argentina
showed that about 30% of the 24,363 residents of Buenos Aires were
African.
(SSFC, 11/27/05, p.A24)
1806 Jun 27, Buenos Aires was
captured by British. [see Jul 5]
(SC, 6/27/02)
1806 Jul 5, A Spanish army
repelled the British during their attempt to retake Buenos Aires,
Argentina.
(HN, 7/5/98)
1810 May 25, Argentina declared
independence and began its revolt from Napoleonic Spain.
(AP, 5/25/97)(HN, 5/25/98)
1810 Aug 29, Juan Bautista
Alberdi (d,1884), Argentine politician, writer, was born.
(www.taringa.net/posts/21963/Juan-B.-Alberdi---El-Gran-Pensador.html)
1810-1817 Colonial revolts against Spain started
in Chile in 1810 and ended in victory in 1817 under the leadership
of Bernardo O‘Higgins and Argentina‘s Jose de San Martin.
(HNQ, 3/30/00)
1813 Argentina was the first
country in the Americas to abolish slavery.
(Hem., 1/96, p.11)
1814 Jose Francisco de San
Martin (1778-1850) became general in chief of Argentina’s Army of
the North. His primary mission was to protect Argentina against
Spanish royalists in Peru.
(ON, 10/09, p.8)
1815 Jose Francisco de San
Martin, governor of Cuyo, Argentina, founded a militia and prepared
for an attack on Spanish royalists in Chile.
(ON, 10/09, p.8)
1816 Jul 9, Argentina declared
independence from Spain. Argentina assumed that the Malvina Islands
(Falkland Islands) were included.
(AP, 7/9/97)(SFC, 6/19/98, p.A12)
1817 Jan 17, Jose Francisco de
San Martin led a revolutionary army from Argentina over Andes into
Chile.
(ON, 10/09, p.10)
1817 Feb 12, Argentina’s Jose
de San Martin, having led a revolutionary army over the Andes into
Chile, helped defeat the Spanish forces at Chacabuco.
(www.gdws.co.uk/chacabuco.htm)(Econ, 4/25/09,
p.87)
1820 Oct, Argentina’s Jose de
San Martin blockaded Lima, Peru, and urged the people of Peru to
join in the uprising against Spain.
(www.gdws.co.uk/chacabuco.htm)(Econ, 4/25/09,
p.87)(ON, 10/09, p.10)
1821 Jul 28, Peru declared its
independence from Spain. Lima had been the seat of the Spanish
viceroys until this time. Jose Francisco de San Martin of Argentina
had blockaded Lima and forced the Spanish viceroy to abandon the
city. Martin returned to Argentina in 1822
(SFC, 12/20/96, p.B4)(AP, 7/28/97)(ON, 10/09,
p.10)
1826 In Argentina Bernardino
Rivadavia (1780-1845) was chosen as the first president of the
United Provinces of La Plata. He was forced to resign in 1827. His
political opponents called him the “Chocolate Dictator.”
(www.infoplease.com/ce6/people/A0841998.html)(SSFC, 11/27/05, p.A24)
1833 Jan 3, Britain ousted
a small group of Argentine settlers and seized control of the
Malvina Islands (Falkland Islands) in the South Atlantic. In 1982
Argentina seized the islands, but Britain took them back after a
74-day war.
(AP, 1/3/98)(SFC, 4/3/02, p.A7)
1833 Sep 20, Charles Darwin
rode a horse to Buenos Aires.
(MC, 9/20/01)
1833 Oct 1, Charles Darwin
reached Rio Tercero, Argentina.
(MC, 10/1/01)
1833 Dec 13, HMS Beagle and
Charles Darwin arrived in Port Deseado, Patagonia.
(MC, 12/13/01)
1833 Dec 25, Charles Darwin
celebrated Christmas in Port Desire, Patagonia.
(MC, 12/25/01)
1834 Apr 13, HMS Beagle
anchored at river mouth of Rio Santa Cruz, Patagonia.
(MC, 4/13/02)
1834 Apr 29, Charles Darwin's
expedition saw the top of Andes from Patagonia.
(MC, 4/29/02)
1834 May 5, Charles Darwin's
expedition continued at Rio Santa Cruz.
(MC, 5/5/02)
1842 Italian revolutionary
Garibaldi married Anita Ribeiro and joined the Uruguayan navy in a
war against Argentina.
(ON, 10/06, p.5)
1845 Bernardino Rivadavia
(b.1780), the first president of the United Provinces of Argentine
(1826), died under exile in Spain.
(www.rarebooks.nd.edu/exhibits/riverplate/09-biographies/rivadavia.shtml)
1850 Aug 17, Jose Francisco de
San Martin (b.1778), Argentine-born South American revolutionary
hero, died in France. In 2009 John Lynch authored “San Martin:
Argentine Soldier, American Hero.”
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jos%C3%A9_de_San_Mart%C3%ADn)(Econ,
4/25/09, p.87)
1851 May 25, Jose Justo de
Urquiza of Argentina led a rebellion against his former ally, the
absolute ruler Juan Manuel de Rosas.
(HN, 5/25/99)
1853 Argentina abolished
slavery.
(SSFC, 11/27/05, p.A24)
1862-1868 Bartolomé Mitre served as
Argentina’s 1st constitutional president.
(WSJ, 1/9/02, p.A14)
1865 Some 153 settlers from
Wales arrived on the ship Mimosa and founded the coastal city of
Puerto Madryn, named after Sir Parry Madryn, a nobleman who assisted
them.
(SFEC, 5/9/99, Z1 p.6)
1865 Leonardo Villa made the
first attempt at oil exploration and production. Since the
subsurface resources were owned by the government he had to seek a
permit and was denied.
(WSJ, 10/4/96, p.A9)
1865-1870 South America’s War of the Triple
Alliance saw Argentina, Brazil and Uruguay aligned against Paraguay.
The Triple Alliance believed Paraguay was undermining the region’s
political stability. The war ended in crushing defeat of Paraguay.
(HNQ, 6/22/99)
1876 Feb 26, Agustin P. Justo y
Rolon, President of Argentina (1931-38), was born.
(SC, 2/26/02)
1877 The 1st shipload of frozen
beef was carried to France from Argentina.
(Econ Sp, 12/13/03, p.7)
1880 Buenos Aires was divided
into 4 quadrants.
(SSFC, 10/14/01, p.T5)
1884 Jun 19, Juan Bautista
Alberdi (b.1810), Argentine politician, writer, died in Paris. His
writings inspired Argentina’s 1853 constitution.
(www.taringa.net/posts/21963/Juan-B.-Alberdi---El-Gran-Pensador.html)(Econ,
3/10/07, p.35)
1884 Ushuaia was founded in
southern Argentina as a remote penal colony.
(SSFC, 4/30/06, p.G5)
1885 Avenida de Mayo opened in
Buenos Aires.
(SSFC, 7/20/03, p.C6)
1887 In Argentina the last
census to include blacks as a separate category indicated that about
2% of the population in Buenos Aires was African.
(SSFC, 11/27/05, p.A24)
1889 Argentina established a
reputation for having a troubled currency. After a few years Finance
Minister Ernesto Tornquist put the country on a gold standard and
limited the issue of money to the holdings in the treasury. The
economy expanded to become one of the leading economies in the
world.
(WSJ, 2/28/97, p.A15)
1890 Argentina defaulted on its
foreign debt and caused a near-collapse to Barings Bank.
(WSJ, 1/11/99, p.R48)
1892 May 29, Alfonsina Storni,
Argentine poet (La inquietud del rosal), was born.
(SC, 5/29/02)
1895 Oct 8, Juan Peron,
Argentinean dictator, was born. He served as President from
1946-55 and 1973-74.
(HN, 10/8/98)(MC, 10/8/01)
1896 Argentina became the first
nation to adopt fingerprint identification.
(SFC, 6/30/96, Z1 p.5)
1897 Jan 14, The 6,960-m
(22,834') Cerro Aconcagua in Argentina was 1st climbed.
(MC, 1/14/02)
1899 Aug 24, Jorge Luis Borges
(d.1986), Argentine poet and philosophical essayist, was born in
Buenos Aires.
(WUD, 1994, p.171)(WSJ, 9/21/98, p.A26)(AP,
8/24/99)
1900 The 3 major businesses in
Argentina at the turn of the century were corn and beef, railways,
and prostitution.
(SSFC, 10/14/01, p.T5)
1901 Jun, Robert Leroy Parker
and Harry Longabaugh, known as Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid,
settled in the Cholila Valley of southwestern Argentina after
fleeing US Pinkerton agents. They bought a 12,000-acre ranch with
stolen loot.
(SFC, 1/19/98, p.A10)(http://tinyurl.com/p5amt)
1903 Jan 10, Argentina banned
the importation of American beef, because of sanitation problems.
(HN, 1/10/99)
1905 Robert Leroy Parker and
Harry Longabaugh, known as Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, held
up a bank in Santa Cruz province.
(SFC, 1/19/98, p.A10)
1907 Feb 8, Revolution broke
out in Argentina.
(HN, 2/8/98)
1907 Jun 1, In Sarmiento,
Argentina, a South American record of -27 degrees F (-33 degrees C)
was recorded.
(DT, 6/1/97)
1907 Dec 13, The Ministry of
Agriculture struck oil while drilling for water in Comodoro
Rivadavia.
(WSJ, 10/4/96, p.A9)
1907 Robert Leroy Parker and
Harry Longabaugh, known as Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, held
up another bank. They sold their ranch in Patagonia to a beef
syndicate and went to Bolivia where they were gunned down by
soldiers after robbing a mine payroll.
(SFC, 1/19/98, p.A10)
1908 May 25, Argentina’s opera
house Teatro Colon, modeled after Milan’s La Scala opened in Buenos
Aires. In 2006 it closed for refurbishment. A 2008 finish date was
missed and officials hoped to have it reopen in 2010.
(Econ, 7/12/08, p.48)
1912 Calle Florida, the premier
shopping street in Buenos Aires, opened.
(SSFC, 7/20/03, p.C6)
1913 Ricardo Roth Schutz, a
guide of Swiss descent, began leading groups of tourists across
Lakes Crossing (Cruce de Lagos), linking Bariloche in northern
Argentina to Puerto Varas in Chile’s Lakes District.
(SSFC, 1/6/08, p.G4)
1914 Citibank, USA, opened a
branch in Buenos Aires, Arg. “The history of Citibank” was written
by Phillip L. Zweig in 1996 and titled: Wriston: Walter Wriston,
Citibank, and the Rise and Fall of American Financial Supremacy.
(WSJ, 3/28/96,p.A-12)
1916 Apr 11, Alberto E.
Ginastera, composer (Panambi), was born in Buenos Aires, Argentina.
(MC, 4/11/02)
1919 May 7, Eva (Evita) Peron,
first lady of Argentina, was born. She helped her husband, Juan,
achieve office.
(HN, 5/7/99)
1919 “Economic Development of
the Argentine Republic in the Past 50 Years” was published by Banco
Tornquist.
(WSJ, 2/28/97, p.A15)
1923 Jorge Luis Borges
(1899-1986) published his first book of verse: “Fervor de Buenos
Aires."
(SFEC, 4/18/99, BR p.3)
1928 May 14, Ernesto “Che”
Guevara Serna (d.Oct 9, 1967) was born to an aristocratic family in
Misiones province, Argentina. A biography was written in 1997 by Jon
Lee Anderson: “Che Guevara: A Revolutionary of Life.” Ernesto “Che”
Guevara, chief lieutenant in the Cuban revolution and active in
other Latin American revolutionary movements, was born Ernesto
Guevara de la Serna in Rosario, Argentina. “Che” was a nickname
meaning “pal.” He played a leading role alongside Fidel Castro in
the overthrow of Cuban dictator Fulgencio Batista in 1959, wrote the
book Guerrilla Warfare in 1960 and, as Cuban Minister of Industries
from 1961-‘65, led the nationalization of industry and agriculture.
He left Cuba in 1965. In 1967 he was tracked down and executed by
the Bolivian army.
(SFC, 6/16/97, p.D3)(HNQ, 12/2/98)(HNQ, 2/10/00)
1928 Dec 11, Police in Buenos
Aires thwarted an attempt on the life of President-elect Herbert
Hoover.
(AP, 12/11/97)
1928 Argentina established a
212-sq. mile national park at the Iguacu Falls site on the Brazil
border.
(SFEM, 10/8/00, p.15)
1929 Jorge Luis Borges
(1899-1986) authored his poem: “The Mythical Foundation of Buenos
Aires."
(WSJ, 1/15/02, p.A14)
1930 Jul 2, Carlos Menem,
president of Argentina (1989-1999), was born. He had Muslim ancestry
and ties to the Syrian-Lebanese community.
(WP, 6/29/96, p.A20)(SFC, 7/22/02, p.A6)
1931 Feb 4, Isabel Peron,
[Maria Martinez], dancer, president of Argentina, was born.
(MC, 2/4/02)
1932 Jun 21, Lalo [Boris]
Schifrin, composer, was born in Buenos Aires, Argentina.
(MC, 6/21/02)
1934 The private sector was
producing 62.5% of the country’s crude oil output.
(WSJ, 10/4/96, p.A9)
1935 Jun 24, Carlos Gardel,
Argentine tango singer, died with 17 others, including three of his
guitarists, when the propeller plane they were traveling in collided
with another on takeoff from Medellin, Colombia, and burst into
flames.
(AP, 6/25/05)
1935 New laws pushed the
private sector out of the upstream development of natural resources.
(WSJ, 10/4/96, p.A9)
1935 Carlos Gardel, musician
and composer, died.
(SSFC, 10/14/01, p.T5)
1936 Feb 14, Fanne Foxe,
[Annabella Battistella], (Wilbur Mills companion during
Congressman’s drunken romp in the fountain), was born in Argentina.
(MC, 2/14/02)
1941 Oct, Eduardo Duhalde,
chosen as president in Jan, 2002, was born in Lomas de Zamora.
(SFC, 1/2/02, p.A5)
1941 Jorge Amado (1912-2001),
Brazilian Communist novelist, was exiled to Argentina.
(SFC, 8/9/01, p.D2)
1941 Natalio Botana, Argentine
newspaper magnate, died.
(SFC, 2/13/99, p.A24)
1942 Jan, Chile and Argentina
were the only two Latin American countries that did not comply at
once with the Rio de Janeiro Conference recommendation to those
countries who had not already done so to sever diplomatic and
commercial relations with the Axis powers, Germany, Italy and Japan.
Chile eventually broke Axis relations in January 1943 and Argentina
complied in January 1944. The conference of Western Hemisphere
foreign ministers also called for suppression of pro-Axis activity
in the Americas, establishment of an Inter-American defense board
and economic cooperation within the hemisphere.
(HNQ, 9/24/00)
1942 Nov 15, Daniel Barenboim,
Israeli pianist and conductor, was born in Buenos Aires, Argentina.
(HN, 11/15/00)(MC, 11/15/01)
1942 Camilo Jose Cela (d.2002),
Spanish author, published “The Family of Pascual Duarte” in
Argentina because it was considered too violent and crude for Spain.
Cela won the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1989.
(SFC, 1/19/02, p.A23)
1943 Jun 4, In Argentina, Gen
Rawson and Col. Juan Peron led the military coup that overthrew
Ramon S. Castillo.
(HN, 6/4/98)(MC, 6/4/02)
1943 Laszlo Biro, fled his
native Hungary to Argentina, where he patented his ballpoint pen.
England soon manufactured some 30,000 pens for use by RAF navigators
in unpressurized cockpits, where fountain pens failed.
(SFEC, 5/23/99, p.B7)
1944 Feb 24, Col. Juan Peron,
Argentine minister of war, staged a coup.
(MC, 2/24/02)
1944 Mar 4, The U.S. declared
the non-recognition of Argentina because of their collaboration with
the Axis.
(HN, 3/4/98)
1944 Argentine writer Jorge
Luis Borges published his collection of stories “Ficciones.”
(WSJ, 9/21/98, p.A26)
1944 Juan Peron met Eva Duarte
(Evita).
(SFC, 1/1/97,p.D1)
1945 Mar 6, Federico Garcia
Lorca's "La Casa," premiered in Buenos Aires.
(MC, 3/6/02)
1945 Oct 17, Col. Juan Peron,
the future president of Argentina, was released from prison after
protests by trade unionists, ending a crisis that began with his
forced resignation from his government posts and his arrest.
(AP, 10/17/06)
1945 Nov 27, Argentina declared
war on Axis.
(HN, 11/27/98)
1946 Feb 24, Argentineans went
to the polls to elect Juan D. Peron (50) their president. He held
the office until 1955.
(PCh, 1992, p.899)(AP, 2/24/08)
1946 Jun 4, Juan Peron was
installed as Argentina's president.
(HN, 6/4/98)
1946 Zvi Kolitz (d.2002 at 89)
wrote the story “Yosl Rakover Talks to God,” for a Jewish newspaper
in Buenos Aires. It became a classic of Holocaust literature.
(SFC, 10/12/02, p.A21)
1946 Carlos and Jorge Companac
begin the family business with borrowed money used to buy used US
Navy landing craft. Business expands to become Argentina's second
largest oil and gas producer with major holdings in other publicly
traded energy companies.
(WSJ, 12/12/95, p.A-15)
1947 Astor Piazzolla (d.1992),
bandoneon player, recorded his album “El Desbande” with Orquesta
Tipica in Buenos Aires.
(BAAC, 1/96, p.4,5)(Esq., 5/91, p.60,61)
1949 Constitutional amendments
nationalized all energy resources.
(WSJ, 10/4/96, p.A9)
1951 Apr 17, Olivia Hussey,
actress (Romeo and Juliet, Death on Nile), was born in Buenos Aires.
(MC, 4/17/02)
1951 Dec 23, Benito Lynch (66),
Irish-Argentine writer (Palo Verde), died.
(MC, 12/23/01)
1952 Apr 25, President Juan
Peron of Argentina won re-election.
(HN, 4/25/98)
1952 Future revolutionary Che
Guevara took a 4,000-mile moped trip alone through northern
Argentina and in the next two years traveled throughout South
America on a 500cc motorcycle nicknamed "La Poderosa" (The Powerful
One). On these trips he directly observed the lives of workers and
peasants and ultimately changed the direction of his life. He was
captured and executed by the Bolivian army on October 8, 1967.
(HNQ, 12/2/98)
1952 Evita Peron (b.1919), the
first lady of Argentina, died of cancer at age 33. Her biography:
“Eva Peron” was written by Alicia Dujovne Ortiz. “Santa Evita” was a
(1996) novel by Tomas Eloy Martinez based on the fate of her corpse.
Eva wrote a little book “Mi Mensaje” (My Message, or In My Own
Words) that was unfinished and lost until 1987 and published in
English under the title “In My Own Words.” “My Mission In Life” was
ghostwritten under Eva’s name by Manuel Penella de Silva.
(SFEC, 8/18/96, PM p. 8)(SFEC, 11/3/96, BR
p.1)(AP, 7/26/97)
1955 May 20, Argentine
parliament accepted the separation of church & state.
(MC, 5/20/02)
1955 Jun 16, Pope Pius XII
excommunicated Argentine President Juan Domingo Peron. The ban was
lifted eight years later.
(AP, 6/16/98)
1955 Sep 19, President Juan
Peron of Argentina was ousted after a revolt by the army and navy.
The military leaders confiscated the body of Eva Peron to keep
opposing political forces from using her body to rally the masses.
(TMC, 1994, p.1955)(SFC, 12/24/96, p.A8)(AP,
9/19/97)(SFC, 2/3/98, p.A15)
1955 Oct 11, All Peron feast
days were abolished in Argentina.
(MC, 10/11/01)
1955 Nov 3, Argentine
ex-president Peron arrived in Nicaragua.
(MC, 11/3/01)
1955 Nov 21, Argentina asked
Panama for the return of ex-president Peron.
(MC, 11/21/01)
1955 Nov 30, Argentine
government disbanded the Peronist party.
(MC, 11/30/01)
1956 Col. Hector Eduardo
Cabanillas (d.1998 at 84), head of military intelligence, was
ordered by junta leader, Gen’l. Pedro Eugenio Aramburu, to transport
the embalmed body of Eva Peron to Italy for burial in a secret grave
in Milan.
(SFC, 2/3/98, p.A15)
1957 Argentina signed a treaty
with the Vatican that created the post of military bishop.
(Econ, 4/2/05, p.34)
1959 Fidel Castro visited
Argentina following his revolution in Cuba.
(AP, 7/22/06)
1960 May 11, Israeli soldiers
captured Adolf Eichmann in Buenos Aires as he returned home from his
job at the Mercedes factory. Eichmann, the Nazi war criminal, was
nabbed by Peter Malkin. Eichmann was taken to Israel where he was
tried, found guilty and hung in 1962.
(SFEC, 11/3/96, Par. p.13)(WSJ, 4/28/97,
p.A17)(HN, 5/11/98)(MC, 5/11/02)
1960 May 23, Israel announced
Israeli agents had captured former Nazi official SS Lt. Col. Adolf
Eichmann in Argentina. Eichmann was tried in Israel, found guilty of
crimes against humanity, and hanged in 1962. [see May 11]
(WSJ, 4/28/97, p.A17)(AP, 5/23/02)
1960-1970 Around this time Rodolfo Barra, later
minister of justice, belonged to a neo-Nazi organization, Tacuara,
that committed acts of anti-Semitic brutality.
(SFC, 7/12/96, p.A14)
1961 Jorge Luis Borges, a blind
librarian, shared the Prix Formentor with Samuel Beckett. English
translations appeared in 1962.
(SFEC, 12/13/98, BR p.1)
1962 Feb 25, Maria Ludovica De
Angelis (b.1880) died in Argentina. She helped expand hospital
services for children. In 2004 she was beatified by Pope John Paul
VI.
(AP, 10/3/04)
1963 Feb 12, Argentina asked
for the extradition of ex-president Peron.
(MC, 2/12/02)
1963 Nov 15, Argentina voided
all foreign oil contracts.
(HN, 11/15/98)
1966 May 25, Peru and Argentina
soccer fans fought in Lima and 248 died.
(SC, 5/25/02)
1968 Astor Piazolla
collaborated with poet Horacio Ferrer on the work “Maria,” a
succession of tangos, waltzes and a fugue, that tells the story of a
prostitute in Buenos Aires. The tango had originated from the sultry
milonga and the older habanera in the brothels of Buenos Aires.
(WSJ, 10/27/98, p.A20)(SFC, 12/9/99, p.B1)
1970 Feb 1, In Buenos Aires,
Argentina, an express train rammed stationary commuter train and 236
people were killed.
(SFC, 6/4/98, p.A15)(AP, 2/18/04)
1970 In Argentina the Montonero
Peronist Movement formed about this time as a radical terrorist,
leftist, nationalist, and catholic guerrilla group. The Movimiento
Peronista Montonero was active during the 1970s. Its motto was
venceremos ("we'll win"). Their activity provided a pretext for the
1976 military coup.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Montoneros)
1971 Mar 23, In Argentina
General Alehandro Lanusse seized power in a bloodless coup from
General Roberto Levingston. He proceeded to re-establish ties with
China and allowed Juan Domingo Peron to return to Argentina after 17
years of forced exile.
(SFC, 8/27/96, p.A17)(WUD, 1994, p. 1688)
1971 May, Jacobo Timerman
founded the La Opinion newspaper.
(SFC, 11/12/99, p.D6)
1971 Jul 1, Great Britain and
Argentina signed an accord on sea and air links to the Falkland
Islands, which later caused a war (1982).
(www.bartleby.com/67/2791.html)
1971 Jul 22, Salvador Allende
and Alejandro Lanusse, Presidents of Chile and Argentina, signed an
Arbitration Agreement formally submitting the dispute concerning the
territorial and maritime boundaries between them and the title to
the islands Picton, Nueva and Lennox near the extreme end of the
American continent to binding arbitration under auspices of Queen
Elizabeth II of the United Kingdom.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beagle_Channel_Arbitration)(SFC,
8/27/96, p.A17)
1971 Aug 22, A coup led by Col.
Hugo Banzer Suarez deposed leftist army Gen’l. Juan Jose Torres, who
had created a Soviet-style legislature. Torres fled to Argentina.
(WUD, 1994, p. 1688)(SFC, 3/15/97, p.A11)(SFC,
11/23/99, p.A16)
1971 Oct 9, In Argentina an
armed uprising challenged Gen’l’. Lanusse but he secured the backing
of the Navy and Air Force and broke the challenge.
(SFC, 8/27/96, p.A17)(http://tinyurl.com/5ubr76)
1971 Hoof-and-mouth disease hit
Argentine cattle.
(SFC, 6/15/00, p.A16)
1972 Aug 15, In Argentina 22
members of guerrilla groups escaped from prison in the city of
Rawson and took over the airport in nearby Trelew, about 800 miles
south of Buenos Aires. Military forces guarding the airport managed
to arrest 19, while three escaped by plane to Chile. 19 guerrillas
were transferred to the base Almirante Zar. On August 22 they were
machine-gunned in their cells. Alberto Camps, Mary Berger and
Ricardo Haidar survived the attack and reported the crime, only to
disappear in the late 1970s during the military dictatorship that
lasted from 1976 to 1983. In 2008 federal police arrested two
retired military officers in connection with the massacre of the 16
leftist guerrillas. In 1973 journalist Tomas Eloy Martínez
authored “The Passion According to Trelew.” It was banned by the
Argentine dictatorship.
(AP, 2/10/08)(
www.bither-terry.org/latinamerica/?cat=20)
1972 Nov 17, Juan Peron
(1895-1974) returned to Argentina from Spain for a short time after
17 years of exile.
(www.jstor.org/pss/2502592)(www.mofa.go.jp/policy/other/bluebook/1972/1972-1-11.htm)
1973 Mar 12, Argentina held
elections. Pres. Gen’l. Lanusse (1918-1996) called elections and the
Peronists led by Hector Campora (1909-1980) and Vicente Solano Lima
returned to power.
(http://openweb.tvnews.vanderbilt.edu/1973-3/1973-03-12-CBS-8.html)(SFC,
8/27/96, p.A17)(WSJ, 11/14/96, p.A20)
1973 May 25, Argentine Peronist
Hector Campora (1909-1980) was installed as president.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/H%C3%A9ctor_Jos%C3%A9_C%C3%A1mpora)
1973 Jun 20, Juan Peron
(1895-1974) returned to Argentina.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Juan_Peron)(SFC,
12/24/96, p.A8)
1973 Sep 23, Juan Peron was
re-elected president of Argentina after being overthrown in 1955.
His second wife, Isabel, became vice president, the first woman vice
president in Latin American history. She succeeded him when he died
10 months later.
(AP, 9/23/97)(HN, 9/23/98)
1973 Oct 12, Juan Peron was
inaugurated as president of Argentina.
(http://vietnamnews.vnagency.com.vn/2004-10/12/Columns/In%20History.htm)
1973 Antonio Berni (1905-1981),
an Argentine artist, made his mixed media piece "La Gallina Ciega,"
(The Blind hen). In 1997 it sold for $607,500.
(SFC,11/26/97,
p.A9)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antonio_Berni)
1973 Colonel Cabanillas
returned to Italy to oversea the exhumation of the body of Eva Peron
and its return to Buenos Aires.
(SFC, 2/3/98, p.A15)
1974 May 11, In Argentina
leftist liberation theology priest Carlos Mugica (b.1930) was killed
by ultra-right groups.
(AP,
11/4/08)(http://news.notiemail.com/noticia.asp?nt=10955952&cty=200)
1974 Jul 1, Juan D. Peron
(b.1895), president of Argentina (1946-55, 73-74), died. Isabel
Peron succeeded her husband Juan as president.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Juan_Per%C3%B3n)
1974 Sep 30, Argentina passed
the economic-subversion law that provided prosecutors with a legal
umbrella to pursue anyone suspected of undermining public disorder.
It was repealed in 2002 under IMF pressure.
(WSJ, 5/31/02,
p.A7)(www.glin.gov/view.action?glinID=93488)
1974 Sep 30, Gen. Carlo Prats,
a former Chilean army chief, was killed with his wife by a car bomb
in Buenos Aires. In 2000 an Argentine judge called for the
extradition of Augusto Pinochet for the slaying. In 2000 Enrique
Arancibia Clavel was sentenced in Argentina to life in prison for
his role in the murder.
(SFC, 10/28/00, p.A14)(SFC, 11/22/00, p.C6)
1976 Jan 13, Argentina ousted a
British envoy in dispute over the Falkland Islands War.
(HN, 1/13/99)
1976 Mar 24, In Argentina the
military overthrew the government of Isabel Peron. Gen. Jorge Rafael
Videla led the military coup. Jose Siderman, a Jewish businessman,
was forced with death threats to leave the country. He filed suit in
the US in 1982 in the first trial of a foreign government for
human-rights abuses and won a default settlement. Argentina won a
reversal in an appeals court but in 1996 Argentina dropped
opposition to the suit.
(SFC, 9/14/96, p.A9)(AP, 3/23/97)(SFC, 6/10/98,
p.A10)
1976 Mar 24, Emilio Eduardo
Massera (1925-2010), Argentine military officer, was a leading
participant in the argentine coup d'état. After the end of
the dictatorship in 1983, he was tried for human rights violations
and sentenced to life imprisonment and the loss of his military
grade. On December 29, 1990, he was pardoned by then-President
Carlos Menem. In 1998 Massera was arrested for his role in stealing
babies from killed leftists during the “dirty war” (1976-1983) In
1999 former Pres. And Gen'l. Reynaldo Bignone was also arrested for
his role in the baby thefts. In 2000 retired Gen. Juan Sasiain was
arrested for his role.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emilio_Eduardo_Massera)(WSJ, 11/25/98,
p.A1)(SFC, 1/21/99, p.A14)(SFC, 3/17/00, p.D2)
1976 Mar 24, Argentine Sen.
Guillermo Vargas Aignasse disappeared on the day of a military coup.
In 2008 an Argentine court convicted retired Gens. Antonio Bussi and
Luciano Menendez for the murder of the senator and sentenced them to
life in prison. They were found guilty of kidnapping, torturing and
murdering.
(AP, 8/29/08)
1976 Mar 26, In 2006 an NSA
transcript from this day indicated that US Sec. of State Henry
Kissinger was informed in the meeting by then-Assistant Secretary
for Latin America William D. Rogers, that if the Argentine military
regime succeeded (March 24 coup), it would make a "considerable
effort to involve the United States — particularly in the financial
field." Kissinger, the NSA's transcript further stated, responded,
"Yes, but that is in our interest."
(AP, 3/24/06)
1976 Apr 15 In Argentina
Floreal Avellaneda (14), the son of a Communist trade union leader
of Greater Buenos Aires, was kidnapped from his house with his
mother, by an Army contingent looking for his father. On May 14,
1976, Floreal’s corpse was found on the coast of Montevideo,
Uruguay, hands and feet bound and with signs of torture. Iris
Pereyra, the boy’s mother, was released after three years. In 2009
former general Santiago Omar Riveros (86) and 4 others were found
guilty of involvement in the boy’s murder.
(www.cidh.oas.org/annualrep/87.88eng/chap5.htm)(AP, 8/12/09)
1976 May 18, Zelmar Michelini
and Hector Gutierrez, prominent Uruguayan lawmakers, were seized
from their homes in Buenos Aires, Argentina. Their bullet-riddled
bodies were found days later along with those of suspected rebels
suspected guerrillas William Whitelaw and Rosario Barredo.
(AP, 11/17/06)
1976 May, Monica Mignone (24)
was arrested at her family home and never seen again. Her father
Emilio Mignone (d.1998), founding rector of a university in Lujon,
became a leader of the Permanent Assembly for Human Rights. He also
founded the Center for Legal and Social Studies. He wrote
"Dictatorship and the Church," in which he criticized the inaction
of the church during the "dirty war."
(SFC, 12/26/98, p.A23)
1976 Jun 2, Gen’l. Juan Jose
Torres (b.1920), ousted as president of Bolivia in 1971, was
kidnapped by a death squad in Argentina and killed. He was a victim
of the Condor Plan, a South American military pact between
Argentina, Brazil, Bolivia, Chile and Paraguay to exchange
intelligence information and help each other hunt down suspected
leftists.
(SFC, 11/23/99,
p.A16)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Juan_Jos%C3%A9_Torres)
1976 Jun, US ambassador Robert
C. Hill cautioned Argentina’s new government over wholesale
violations of human rights. Sec. of State Henry Kissinger responded:
“In what way is it compatible with my policy?”
(SFC, 10/1/04,
p.A18)(www.nytimes.com/2004/10/01/politics/01kissinger.html)
1976 Aug 24, In Buenos Aires a
government task force kidnapped Marcelo Gelman (20) and his pregnant
wife Maria Claudia Garcia Irureta (19). Marcelo was shot and killed
2 months later and packed in cement in an oil drum. His wife
disappeared after giving birth in a military hospital in Uruguay.
Juan Gelman, the poet father of Marcelo, later campaigned in search
of his grandchild and authored the book "Not Even God's Feeble
Pardon." In 2008 the granddaughter of Argentine poet Juan Gelman
urged Uruguayan courts to reopen a probe into the 1976 disappearance
of her dissident mother, weeks before her grandfather was scheduled
to receive the Spanish-speaking world's most prestigious literary
prize.
(SFC, 12/9/99, p.A16)(AP, 2/27/08)
1976 Sep 16, Secretary of state
Henry Kissinger sent a cable canceling a US warning against carrying
out international political assassinations that was to have gone to
Chile, Argentina and Uruguay just days before a former ambassador
was killed by Chilean agents on Washington's Embassy Row. The
document was not made public until 2010.
(AP, 4/10/10)
1976 Oct 15, French-Argentine
citizen Marianne Erize (22) was kidnapped and disappeared. In 2008
retired army major Jorge Antonio Olivera was arrested for the
"forced disappearance, kidnapping and torture" of Erize when Olivera
was a lieutenant in the 22nd Mountain Infantry Regiment. In August
2000, Olivera was detained in Italy at the request of French
authorities, but was freed after presenting what was later found to
be a falsified death certificate saying Erize had died on Nov. 11,
1976 — 26 days after being illegally detained.
(AP, 11/4/08)
1976 Nov 11, In Argentina
journalist Claudio Adur (26) disappeared. This marked the beginning
of a large number of journalists who disappearing following the
March military coup.
(www.rsf.org/article.php3?id_article=16842)
1976 Carla Rutila was abducted
as a baby in Bolivia, where her parents were fighting as leftist
guerrillas with the National Liberation Army, or ELN. Her father,
Uruguayan Enrique Luca Lopez, was killed, and her mother, Argentine
Graciela Rutila Artes, disappeared after being taken to a secret
torture center in Buenos Aires, the Automotores Orletti garage. At
age 10 she discovered her true identity through DNA tests advocated
by the human-rights group Grandmothers of the Plaza de Mayo. In 2010
Rutila (35) testified against Eduardo Ruffo, the agent who adopted
her, and said that from the age of 3 until she was rescued at 10,
Ruffo physically and sexually abused her. Ruffo was not arrested
until 2006, when a judge found sufficient evidence to charge him
with human-rights violations.
(AP, 8/19/10)
1976 Four members of a Spanish
family were killed in Rosario. Pres. Gen’l. Leopoldo Galtieri was
later accused of being responsible by a Spanish court. In 1999
Spanish Judge Baltasar Garzon named former Argentine Pres. Leopoldo
Galtieri in an indictment along with 95 other military officers, who
presided over the "Dirty War" (1976-1983).
(SFC, 1/1/98, p.A14)(SFC, 11/3/99, p.C3)
1976-1983 In 1998 prosecutors identified 4
ex-military men as holders of Swiss bank accounts pillaged from
political prisoners of this era. Former Gen’l. Antonio Bussi, former
Sergeant Carlos Vega, former Lt. Alfredo Astiz, and Col. Roberto
Roualdes (d.1995), were cited.
(SFC, 2/24/98, p.A11)
1976-1983 Mass killings marked these years known
as Argentina’s “Dirty War” period. At least 9,000 people, suspected
by the government of being leftist dissidents, were arrested,
tortured and never seen again. In 1997 Adolfo Scilingo, a former
naval officer, testified in Spain that as many as 1,500 Argentine
navy officials participated in death flights, where people were
hurled into the ocean. In 1998 Marguerite Feitlowitz published “A
Lexicon of Terror,” covering the “Dirty War.” In 2000 an Italian
court convicted 7 Argentine officers in absentia for kidnapping and
killing Italian citizens in the “dirty war.” The military and police
operated about 10 detention centers during the dictatorship in La
Plata, a city of universities south of Buenos Aires where the
crackdown's toll on college students was particularly severe.
(SFC, 10/10/97, p.D2)(SFC, 7/1/98, p.A8)(WSJ,
12/7/00, p.A1)(AP, 12/9/08)
1977 Jan 17, In Argentina Abel
Madariaga last saw his wife, a surgeon who treated the poor in a
Buenos Aires suburb, being pushed into a Ford Falcon by army
officers dressed as civilians as she walked to a train. He and
Silvia Quintela (28) were members of the Montoneros, a leftist group
targeted for elimination by government death squads. Quintela gave
birth to a son the couple had planned to name Francisco in July
1977, while imprisoned in the Campo de Mayo, one of the notorious
clandestine torture centers in suburban Buenos Aires. A military
intelligence officer, Victor Alejandro Gallo, brought the baby, his
umbilical cord still attached, home to his wife, Ines Susana
Colombo. Silvia disappeared shortly thereafter. In 2010 Abel was
reunited with his son and Gallo was arrested on suspicion of illegal
adoption.
(AP, 2/24/10)
1977 Mar 9, Activist Elisabeth
Kaesemann (30), a German sociologist, was abducted in Argentina. Her
bullet-riddled body was later found dumped on the outskirts of
Buenos Aires.
(www.hrw.org/reports/2001/argentina/argen1201-08.htm)
1977 Mar 25, In Argentina
political writer Rodolfo Walsh was murdered one day after writing
the “Open Letter to the Military Junta” on the first anniversary of
the military coup. He had reported on tortures, mass killings, and
thousands of disappearances. In 2011 Alfredo Astiz (59), a former
navy spy known as "the Angel of Death," was convicted in the
kidnapping and disappearing of Rodolfo Walsh.
(http://americas.irc-online.org/am/3170)(AP,
10/26/11)
1977 Apr 15, Some 20 armed men
broke into the home of journalist Jacobo Timerman. He was seized and
held for over a year with beatings, electrical shocks and solitary
confinement.
(SFC, 11/12/99, p.D6)
1977 Apr 30, In Argentina 14
women whose children had disappeared went to the Plaza de Mayo to
demonstrate their cause. Police said they could not stay there so
they began to walk around the pyramid in the center of the plaza. In
2006 they completed their 1,500th and last demonstration [see Dec
1977].
(SSFC, 2/26/06, p.E3)
1977 Jul 11, In Argentina
Bishop Carlos Horacio Ponce de Leon (b.1914) died in a car accident
while driving with Victor Oscar Martinez to deliver evidence of
junta crimes to the Vatican’s representative. The evidence
disappeared.
(SFC, 4/21/11,
p.A2)(http://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carlos_Horacio_Ponce_de_Le%C3%B3n)
1977 Nov, In Argentina Hilda
Palacios, Humberto Brandalisi, Carlos Laja and Ruben Cardozo were
kidnapped. Prosecutors later said they were taken to the clandestine
prison and torture center known as La Perla on the outskirts of
Cordoba and killed the following month. Their bodies were then
dumped in the street to make it look like they died in a shootout
with officials. In 2008 former army chief Luciano Benjamin Menendez
(81) was convicted of kidnapping, torturing and killing the
left-wing militants. He was sentenced to life in prison.
(AP, 5/27/08)(AP, 7/24/08)
1977 Dec 8, In Argentina Leonie
Duquet, a French nun, was abducted in a commando-style operation by
state security agents. Alice Domon, another French nun, was abducted
later this month, but her remains were never recovered. They were
killed after befriending mothers of detained dissidents, who were
among the first victims of a crackdown on dissent against the
1976-83 dictatorship. In 2011 an Argentine court charged three
former police officers with killing five women, including Duquet and
Domon, during the country's 1976-1983 "dirty war" by throwing them
out of an airplane while still alive. In 2011 Alfredo Astiz (59), a
former navy spy known as "the Angel of Death," was convicted in the
disappearances of French nuns Alice Domon and Leonie Duquet.
(AP, 12/9/07)(AFP, 6/3/11)(AP, 10/26/11)
1977 Dec 10, In Argentina
Azucena Villaflor, along with mothers Esther Ballestrino de Careaga
and Maria Eugenia Ponce de Bianco, were kidnapped by state security
agents. In 2005 Investigators recovered the remains of Villaflor and
2 colleagues at a rural cemetery. Villaflor had founded the Mothers
of the Plaza de Mayo, the legendary protest group against
Argentina's Dirty War. In 2011 Alfredo Astiz (59), a former
navy spy known as "the Angel of Death," was convicted in the
disappearance of Azucena Villaflor.
(AP,
7/8/05)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Azucena_Villaflor)(AP,
10/26/11)
1977 Dec 20, Bodies of women
began to wash up on a beach in southern Argentina. They were among
the leaders of the "Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo" representing
relatives of thousands of disappeared. The US soon learned that the
ruling junta was responsible. The Carter administration went on to
authorize $120 million in military sales and approved over 30
training slots for Argentine officers at US military installations.
(SFC, 12/17/02,
p.A9)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alice_Domon)
1977 In Argentina Carlos Perez
Companac, head of Perez Companac SA, died. His adopted son Goyo
manages to steer the company forward.
(WSJ, 12/12/95, p.A-15)
1978 Jun 25, Argentina, host to
the World Cup, beat Netherlands in the soccer World Cup championship
in Buenos Aires. It was later alleged that the ruling military junta
bribed an opposing team to ensure Argentina’s progress and eventual
victory.
(SFC, 2/4/97,
p.A12)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1978_FIFA_World_Cup)(Econ,
8/15/09, p.32)
1978 Sep 25, Jacobo Timerman
was released by Argentina’s ruling junta under international
pressure. His citizenship was stripped, his newspaper confiscated
and he was put on a plane for Israel.
(SFC, 11/12/99, p.D6)
1979 Jan 9, The Act of
Montevideo was signed in Uruguay pledging Argentina and Chile to a
peaceful solution and a return to the military situation of early
1977. Cardinal Antonio Samore (1905-1983), Vatican representative,
mediated the Beagle conflict.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beagle_conflict)
1979 Marta Minujin (b.1943),
Argentine artist, made her monumental "The Obelisk of Raising
Bread." It was made of 40,000 panetone and was later distributed to
the crowd.
(WSJ, 4/15/98, p.A20)
1980 Dec 25, The paintings "La
route" (Bend of the road) by Paul Cezanne, "La tete de jeune fille
au Ruban bleu" (Portrait of a Lady) by Auguste Renoir, and "Le cri"
(The cry) by Paul Gauguin were among nearly 2 dozen stolen from the
Argentine National Fine Arts Museum in Buenos Aires. The art works
were located at a Paris gallery in 2002, where they had been brought
by a Taiwanese man claiming to represent a Chinese investor. The
investor said he bought them from a Brazilian senator who said he
inherited them from his family.
(AP,
11/25/05)(http://cpprot.te.verweg.com/2003-July/000215.html)
1981 Mar 29, General Roberto
Eduardo Viola was sworn in as the President of Argentina.
(HN, 3/29/98)
1981 Jul 10, Isabel Peron,
ex-president of Argentina, flew in exile to Spain after being
paroled following conviction for corrupt practices.
(http://tinyurl.com/3bygk7)
1981 Jacobo Timerman (d.1999 at
76), Argentine journalist, published "Prisoner Without a Name, Cell
Without a Number" from Israel.
(SFC, 11/12/99, p.D6)
1982 Apr 2,
Several thousand troops from Argentina seized the disputed Falkland
Islands, located in the south Atlantic, from Britain but Lady
Thatcher had Britain take them back the following June. Britain
fought with Argentina in the Falkland Islands War, also known as the
Falklands War, the Malvinas War and the South Atlantic War. The
short, undeclared war between the two nations was fought over claims
to the Falkland Islands (Islas Malvinas) and neighboring islands.
Argentina had laid claims to the territories since the 19th century,
but spurred by a related dispute on South Georgia island and
political expediency, the military government of Argentina invaded
the Falkland Islands. A British naval task force was assembled and
headed towards the war zone by late April. British forces
established a beachhead on the Falklands in late May. With the
surrender of the Argentine garrison at Stanley on June 14, the
conflict was essentially over.
(TMC, 1994, p.1982)(AP, 4/2/99)(HNQ, 1/10/01)
1982 Apr 3, Britain dispatched
a naval task force to the south Atlantic to reclaim the disputed
Falkland Islands from Argentina. The UN Security Council demanded
Argentina withdraw from Falkland Islands.
(AP, 4/3/02)
1982 May 2, In the Falklands
War the Argentine cruiser General Belgrano was sunk by the British
submarine Conqueror, killing more than 350 men. Some 600 Argentine
sailors were killed when the Belgrano was sunk. Lord Terence
Thornton Lewin (d.1999 at 78), British military commander, was
regarded as the one who persuaded Margaret Thatcher to order the
sinking.
(SFC, 1/25/99, p.A20)(http://tinyurl.com/gbplz)
1982 May 4, The British
destroyer HMS Sheffield was hit by Exocet rocket off the Falkland
Islands. 20 men died and a further 24 were injured in the sinking of
the Sheffield, the first British warship to be lost in 37 years.
(http://tinyurl.com/htt3d)
1982 May 21, During the
Falklands War, British amphibious forces landed on the beach at San
Carlos Bay.
(AP, 5/21/07)
1982 May 23, The British HMS
Antelope was attacked. It sank the next day after an unexploded bomb
detonates. Ten Argentine aircraft were destroyed.
(www.yendor.com/vanished/falklands-war.html)
1982 Jun 14, Argentine forces
surrendered to British troops on the disputed Falkland Islands. 970
people were killed including 255 British soldiers. Argentine
dictator Leopaldo Galtieri led the initial attack in the 72-day war.
The dead in the ten-week war included 712 Argentines, 255 Britons
and 3 islanders. In 2003 it was revealed that some British ships
carried nuclear depth charges. In 2005 Lawrence Freedman authored
“The Official History of the Falklands Campaign, Volumes I and II.
In 2007 Hugh McManners authored “Forgotten Voices of the Falklands:
The Real Story of the Falklands War in the Words of Those Who Were
There.”
(AP, 6/14/97)(WSJ, 12/8/03, p.A1)(Econ, 7/16/05,
p.81)(Econ, 5/19/07, p.88)
1982 Jun 17, Pres. Galtieri
resigned after leading Argentina to defeat in Falkland Islands War.
(www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/B189501.htm)
1982 Jul 1, General Reynaldo
Bignone (b.1928) was sworn in as president of Argentina following
the Falklands War.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reynaldo_Bignone)(SFC, 1/21/99, p.A14)
1982 Aug 26, The Argentine
government lifted a ban on political parties.
(RTH, 8/26/99)
1983 Apr 28, Argentine
government declared all 15-30,000 "missing persons" dead from "Dirty
War."
(www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB85/)
1983 Sep 23, The so-called Law
of National Pacification was issued two weeks before the election
that brought President Alfonsín to power. Argentina’s
military regime gave a blanket amnesty to military and political
killers and torturers.
(www.cidh.oas.org/annualrep/83.84.eng/chap.4.htm)
1983 Oct 30, Argentina held
general elections. The democratic government of Raul Alfonsin
replaced the 7-year-old military junta and formed a national human
rights commission. The first act of the government was to annul the
amnesty rushed through by the junta just before it fell.
(www.cidh.oas.org/annualrep/83.84.eng/chap.4.htm)(SFC, 8/25/00,
p.D4)(Econ, 4/14/07, p.40)
1983 Nov 18, Argentina
announced its ability to produce enriched uranium for nuclear
weapons.
(HN, 11/18/98)
1983 In Argentina shortly after
the restoration of democracy Gen’l. Reynaldo Bignone ordered the
burning of all documents regarding the disappeared. As president
from 1982 to 1983, it fell to Bignone to protect the military as
Argentina returned to democracy. He granted amnesty to human rights
violators and ordered the destruction of documents related to
torture and disappearances of political opponents before agreeing to
transfer power to the democratically elected Raul Alfonsin. In 2003
Bignone was charged for holding ultimate responsibility for cases of
torture, illegal break-ins and deprivations of freedoms from 1976 to
1978. His trial in open court began in 2009.
(SFC, 1/1/98, p.A18)(AP, 11/2/09)
1983 Wenseslao Bunge, a lawyer,
established himself as a informal bridge between the US and
Argentina and founded the Argentine-American Forum. He later became
the confidant and intermediary for Alfredo Yabran.
(SFC, 2/28/98, p.A7)
1984 The Argentine writer,
Julio Cortazar, died. His novels included “Final Exam” “Cronopios
and Famas,” and “Hopscotch.” The English translation of Cronopios by
Paul Blackburn was published in 1962 and reissued in 2000.
(SFEC, 4/2/00, BR p.8)(SFEC, 8/6/00, BR p.12)
1985 Argentine army
commander Jorge Rafael Videla (b.1925), former president (1976-1981)
was sentenced to life imprisonment for his role in the death squads
during a 7-year dictatorship. He was pardoned by Pres. Menem in
1990. He was arrested and indicted again in 1998 for covering up the
identities of abducted children. In 2006 a federal court judge ruled
that the presidential pardon was unconstitutional.
(SFC, 6/10/98, p.A10)(SFC, 7/15/98, p.C12)(AP,
9/6/06)
1985 Marcelo Carvalho de
Andrade (26) of Brazil, mountain climber, former model and surgeon,
came up with a plan to help protect the rain forest while waiting
out a storm on the north face of Argentina’s Aconcagua mountain, the
highest peak in South America.
(SFC, 7/7/99, p.A8)(http://tinyurl.com/22ekjj)
1986 Apr 29, Raul Prebisch
(b.1901), Argentine policy maker and economic diplomat, died in
Santiago, Chile. In 2009 Edgar J. dosman authored “The Life and
Times of Raul Prebisch.”
(Econ, 3/7/09, p.90)(http://tinyurl.com/cgd359)
1986 May 16, Argentine
ex-president Galtieri (1926-2003) was sentenced to 12 years.
(www.cnn.com/almanac/9805/16/)
1986 Jun 19, Argentina beat
West Germany 3-2 in soccer's 13th World Cup in Mexico.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1986_FIFA_World_Cup)
1986 Jun 14, Jorge Luis Borges
(b.1899), Argentine author (Book of Sand), died in Geneva. In 1998 a
new English translation by Andrew Hurley of his "Collected Fictions"
was published. In 1999 Alexander Coleman edited "Selected Poems."
Also in 1999 Eliot Weinberger edited "Selected Non-Fictions." In
2004 Edwin Williamson authored “Borges: A Life.”
(SFEC, 12/13/98, BR p.1)(SFEC, 4/18/99, BR
p.3)(WSJ, 8/17/99, p.A18)(WSJ, 8/5/04, p.D8)
1986 The band Los Fabulosos
Cadillacs began with bassist Flavio Oscar Cianciarulo and
keyboardist Gabriel Fernandez Capello (Vincentico). They did their
first gig as Los Cadillacs at a pub called the Blues in Buenos
Aires.
(SFEC, 4/26/98, DB p.52)
1987 Apr 19, Argentina’s
President Raul Alfonsin obtained the surrender of dozens of armed
rebel soldiers who had been holed up at a military base for three
days.
(AP, 4/19/97)
1987 Jun, Prominent politicians
in Argentina received a letter with a message that robbers had made
off with the hands of General Juan Peron, deceased since 1974, and
demanded $8 million for their return. No deal was made and numerous
people related to the investigation died in strange circumstances.
(WSJ, 4/6/95, p.A-1, A-5)
1987 Argentina legalized
divorce. Prior to this Argentineans went to Uruguay for divorces and
continued to go there for legal abortions.
(WSJ, 5/16/02, p.A14)
1987 A law was passed that
absolved most military personnel of their alleged crimes on the
grounds that they were only following orders.
(WSJ, 2/28/96, p.A-1)
1988 Dec 4, The government of
Argentina announced that hundreds of heavily armed soldiers had
ended a four-day military revolt.
(AP, 12/4/98)
c1988 The band Los Reconditos
de Ricota (The Little Rolls of Ricotta - cheese) began performing.
They became wildly popular and at the same time rejected
commercializing their work.
(SFEC, 2/22/98, Z1 p.5)
1989 Jan 23, Vital Gaguine,
leftist Argentine guerrilla, during a rebel attack on a military
barracks in Buenos Aires. He was later identified as the bomber
hired by the Sandinistas to kill Eden Pastora Gomez (May 30, 1984),
a Nicaraguan anticommunist revolutionary.
(AP, 8/26/11)
1989 Feb 7, In Argentina
devaluation caused a wild panic in the financial district of Buenos
Aires.
(www.studybuddy.nl/english/start.html)
1989 May 7, Guy Williams
(b.1924), actor (Zorro, Lost in Space), died in Argentina. He was
born as Armando Catalano in NYC.
(www.absoluteastronomy.com/g/guy_williams)
1989 May 14, Peronist candidate
Carlos Saul Menem won Argentina's presidential election with Eduardo
Duhalde as VP. He was a Muslim who converted to Catholicism, which
was previously a requirement for the presidency. The annual
inflation rate was 5000%.
(WSJ, 12/12/95, p.A-15)(Hem., 1/96, p.11)(SFC,
12/24/96, p.A8)(AP, 5/14/99)
1989 May 19, In Argentina
shortly after the presidential elections, stores and supermarkets in
several cities were looted.
(www.studybuddy.nl/english/start.html)
1989 Jul 8, Carlos Saul Menem
was inaugurated as president of Argentina in the country's first
transfer of power from one democratically elected civilian leader to
another in six decades.
(AP, 7/8/99)
1989 Oct, Pres. Menem issued
pardons to 277 of those already convicted or indicted for crimes
during the rule of the military junta, including nearly 40 generals
and several guerrilla leaders.
(Econ, 4/14/07,
p.40)(www.hrw.org/reports/1989/WR89/Argentin.htm)
1989 Alberto Calderon
(1920-1998), born in Argentina, won the Wolf Prize, the highest
award in mathematics. He contributed to developing singular
integrals and with his mentor, Antoni Zygmund, founded the Chicago
school of analysis.
(SFC, 4/21/98, p.A26)
1989 Argentina broke with the
past and positioned itself as a US ally. Castro’s Cuba was denounced
and frigates were sent to support Desert Storm.
(SFC, 10/12/97, p.A15)
1989 The central bank of
Argentina suffered losses in Q2 worth 23.5% of GDP.
(Econ, 4/30/05, p.74)
1989-1999 Carlos Menem served as president. He
raised the number of Supreme Court justices from 5 to 9 with
personal supporters and questioned credentials.
(WSJ, 2/19/02, p.A20)
1990 Apr, Argentina’s Congress
under Pres. Carlos Menem added 4 new seats to the 5-member Supreme
Court.
(Econ, 10/8/05, p.46)
1990 Jul 8, West Germany won
the World Cup soccer championship by defeating Argentina, 1-to-0.
(AP, 7/8/00)
1990 Sept 10, In Catamarca,
Argentina, the body of 17-year-old Maria Soledad Morales was found.
She had been tortured, mutilated and killed. Her murder was covered
up by local authorities and as of 1996 no one had yet been charged.
(WSJ, 4/16/96, p.A-1)
1990-1999 The Funa movement developed in Argentina
where it was known as escrache. Protesters marched to the homes or
workplaces of former military agents involved in “disappearances,”
where they chanted “If there isn’t any justice, there’s La Funa!”
The movement expanded to Chile especially after Pinochet was
arrested in 1998.
(SSFC, 11/11/01, p.F1)
1991 Mar 26, The Treaty of
Asuncion established the southern common market: (Mercado Comun del
Sur) Mercosur, between Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay and
Uruguay. They were later joined by associate members Chile (1996),
Bolivia (1997), Peru (2001) and Venezuela (2004). Mexico was granted
observer status in 2004.
(www.itcilo.it/english/actrav/telearn/global/ilo/blokit/mercoa.htm)
1991 Mar 29, Argentine soccer
star Diego Maradona was suspended by the Italian League for testing
positive on March 17 for cocaine use.
(http://tinyurl.com/e34y9)
1991 Apr 1, Argentina
maintained a currency board regime this day through January 6, 2002,
under which the Argentine peso was pegged one for one to the U.S.
dollar.
(http://www.frbsf.org/publications/economics/letter/2002/el2002-25.html)
1991 Pres. Carlos Menem signed
an accord to open secret government files to researchers of the
Delegation of Jewish Argentine Associations (DAIA).
(SFC, 4/25/97, p.A12,15)
1991 Carlos Bastos took over as
energy secretary. The first thing he did was to divide the utilities
into 3 discreet lines of business: generation, transmission and
distribution.
(WSJ, 6/19/96, p.A1)
1991 Domingo Cavallo, economic
minister, instituted a convertibility program that required each
Argentine peso in circulation be backed by a dollar in reserves.
(WSJ, 7/29/96, p.A8)
1991 Argentina passed
legislation that required 30% of candidates on party lists for
Congress to be women.
(Econ, 12/15/07, p.44)
1991 Argentina’s overall
government spending was $47.3 billion.
(WSJ, 8/2/96, p.A13)
1991 Eduardo Duhalde resigned
as VP and was elected as governor of Buenos Aires. He served 2 terms
and ran for the presidency in 1999.
(SFC, 1/2/02, p.A5)
1991-1995 Argentina shipped weapons to Ecuador and
Croatia. The guns were initially shipped to Panama and Bolivia and
the Argentine government later blamed arms dealers for their
diversion. In 1996 Oscar Camilion stepped down as defense minister
for his roll in the arms shipments. In 1998 Horacio Estrada, a
retired navy captain, was found shot to death. Four days earlier
prosecutors had begun questioning him about the 1991-1995 arms
shipments.
(SFEC, 10/25/98, p.A24)
1992 Mar 17, A truck
bombing at the Israeli Embassy in Buenos Aires, Argentina, killed 29
people. Iran denied any role. Hezbollah leader Imad Mughniyeh was
suspected of involvement. Islamic Jihad claimed responsibility.
(AP, 3/17/97)(WSJ, 11/24/97, p.A1)(WSJ, 9/19/01,
p.A14)(NYT, 10/8/04, p.A12)
1992 Argentina privatized its
natural gas industry.
(Econ, 5/12/07, p.40)
1992 Astor Piazzolla, Argentine
Bandoneon player and composer, died. His albums included : “El
Desbande” (1947), “The Vienna Concert” (1981), “Tango Zero Hour”
(1986), “The Lausanne Concert” and “Five Tango Sensations” (1989),
and “The Rough Dancer and the Cyclical Night.”
(BAAC, 1/96, p.4,5)(Esq., 5/91, p.60,61)
1993 Argentina’s Pres. Menem
made a deal with congress known as the Olivos Pact. The
congressional opposition allowed him to run for re-election and
changed the constitution to make lawful decrees that he had issued
in exchange for a term reduction from 6 years to 4 along with a
reduction in influence over other branches of government.
(Econ, 8/12/06, p.29)
1993 Gen’l. Lanusse was place
under house arrest for after he accused Pres. Carlos Menem of being
“frivolous” and a “womanizer.”
(SFC, 8/27/96, p.A17)
1993 In Argentina Father Julio
Grassi became widely known after starting the "Happy the Children"
Foundation, opening several homes for poor children and doing other
charitable work.
(AP, 6/11/09)
1993 In Argentina Santa Cruz
province, under Gov. Nestor Kirchner, acquired shares in YPF, a
privatized oil company, in lieu of unpaid royalties. The shares were
sold for a big profit in 1999 and the proceeds were held abroad.
Some of the money returned to the province but Mr. Kirchner has not
revealed what happened to the rest.
(Econ, 2/27/10, p.28)
1994 Jan 21, In Argentina a
fire near Puerto Madryn killed 25 fire cadets.
(http://members.virtualtourist.com/m/tt/75ea/)
1994 Jul 18, In Buenos Aires a
terrorist attack killed 85 people at the city’s Jewish Center, the
Argentine Israelite Mutual Aid Society (AMIA). Some 300 people were
injured. In 1996 three senior policemen and a retired officer were
charged in connection to the bombing. Iran denied any role. Police
inspector, Juan Jose Ribelli, accepted a $2.5 million several days
before the attack for providing the car in which the bomb exploded.
It was later revealed that he and his colleagues sold protection to
car thieves in return for stolen goods. In 2000 Ahmad Behbahani (32)
told a 60 Minutes journalist from a refugee camp in Turkey that Iran
was behind the 1994 bombing in Argentina. In 2002 it was reported
that Iran paid Pres. Menem $10 million to cover up Iran’s
involvement. In 2004 a federal court acquitted 5 men of being
accessories to the bombing. [see Nov 9, 2005] In 2009 a court ruled
that Carlos Alberto Telledin, accused of loading the van with
explosives, should be tried again for his participation in the
bombing.
(WSJ, 8/1/96 p.A1)(WSJ, 11/24/97,
p.A1)(SFC,12/9/97, p.B10)(HN, 7/18/98)(SFC, 6/6/00, p.A10)(SFC,
7/22/02, p.A1)(SFC, 9/3/04, p.A18)(NYT, 10/8/04, p.A12)(SSFC,
12/20/09, p.A31)
1994 Aug 20, Buenos Aires
Archbishop Quarracino called for a zone of exclusion for all
homosexuals in Argentina.
(http://tinyurl.com/b87et)
1994 Sep 30, Roberto Viola,
Argentine general and president (1981), died at 69.
(MC, 9/30/01)
1994 The main postal office was
privatized. A proposed split for control was made between Alfredo
Yabran and Domingo Cavallo. Economy Minister Cavallo refused to
grant the concession to Yabran.
(SFC, 2/28/98, p.A7)
1994 Argentina under
conservative Pres. Carlos Menem began to allow private retirement
funds as an alternative to state pension funds. As of 2008 the funds
yielded an average return of 13.9%. In 2008 the government proposed
to nationalize the private pensions in order to meet debt payments.
(WSJ, 7/30/02, p.A11)(WSJ, 10/22/08, p.A8)(Econ,
10/25/08, p.47)
1994 Economy Minister Domingo
Cavallo accused Alfredo Yabran, a courier company magnate, of
heading an organized crime ring. The accusations cost Cavallo his
job in 1995.
(SFC, 10/2/97, p.A13)(SFC, 2/28/98, p.A7)
1994-1995 It was alleged that IBM offered
government officials up to $21 million to win a contract with the
Banco de la Nacion.
(SFEC, 10/25/98, p.A24)
1995 Feb, Carlos Menem Jr. (27)
was killed in a helicopter crash. It was later reported that the
copter was shot down. A number of witnesses and people involved in
the investigations were also killed. His mother, Zulema Yoma, later
pressed for an investigation and in 1997 staged a sit-in a police
headquarters in Buenos Aires to get a report released that indicated
sniper fire in the crash.
(SFC, 7/24/97, p.A13)
1995 Nov 8, An air force Fokker
27 crashed in central Argentina’s mountains and killed all 57 on
board.
(SFC, 11/1/96, p.A18)
1995 Nov 21, Former Nazi Capt.
Erich Priebke was extradited from Argentina to Italy to face trial
for his role in the Ardeatine Caves massacre. A court found him
guilty in 1996 but released him because too much time had elapsed
since the crime. There was a major uproar and he was again arrested
and a 1997 trial convicted him and co-defendant Major Karl Hass.
Priebke was sentenced to 5 years in prison. Hass was convicted but
released due to mitigating circumstances. face charges in the
massacre of 335 Italian civilians in Nazi-occupied Rome.
(AP, 3/23/97)(WSJ, 10/3/95, p.A-21) (WSJ,
11/21/95, p.A-1)(SFC, 7/23/97, p.A9)
(AP, 11/21/02)
1995 Dec, Dow Chemical was to
take control of Petroquimmica Bahia Blanca SA. Dow would own 70% of
the company it designed in the late 60s and was forced to turn over
to the military.
(WSJ, 12/20/95, p.A-10)
1995 Carlos Menem was
re-elected to a 4-year term.
(SFC, 12/24/96, p.A8)
1995 Antonio Domingo Bussin was
elected governor of Tucuman province. Under a prior stint as
governor twenty years ago, a civil rights commission found that Mr.
Bussin oversaw a campaign of terror against a band of left wing
guerrillas and that he ordered the detention of at least 387 people,
all of whom remain missing.
(WSJ, 2/28/96, p.A-1)
1995 The overall government
spending was $47.3 billion.
(WSJ, 8/2/96, p.A13)
1995 Pres. Carlos Menem
expropriated 54,000 acres of Tabacal land for the Kolla Indians.
(WSJ, 11/14/97, p.A1)
1995 Argentina and Chile signed
an energy agreement that allowed Argentina to cut supplies in an
emergency, but only in the same proportion as they are restricted at
home.
(Econ, 5/15/04, p.34)
1996 Feb 15, In the Toronto
Globe and Star there was a report by Peter Whelan that “pesticides
sprayed on fields in Argentina were killing tens of thousands of
wintering Swainson’s hawks that nest on the Canadian prairies and
the adjacent US Great Plains.”
(NH, 10/96, p.51)
1996 Jul 7, The average cost of
a Big Mac in Argentina was $3.
(SFC, 7/7/96, Parade, p.17)
1996 Jul 11, The minister of
justice, Rodolfo Barra, resigned his post due to his past
association as a teen-ager in the 60s with the anti-Semitic group,
Tacuara.
(SFC, 7/12/96, p.A14)
1996 Aug 12, Economy minister
Roque Fernandez announced a new round of austerity measures that
included higher fuel prices and tax boosts on everything. Cash will
be raised by selling commercial airports, military installations,
nuclear power plants and cracking down on tax-evasion.
(WSJ, 8/13/96, p.A7)
1996 Aug 26, Alexander Lanusse,
military president of Argentina (1971-73), died.
(http://encyclopedia.thefreedictionary.com/Alejandro+Agust%edn+Lanusse)
1996 Oct, Director Juan Carlos
Desanzo produced his film “Eva Peron.”
(Hem., 1/97, p.106)
1996 In Argentina Maria
Lamadrid founded “Africa Lives,” a black rights group based in
Buenos Aires.
(SSFC, 11/27/05, p.A21)
1996 Oscar Camilion stepped
down as defense minister for his roll in the 1991-1995 arms
shipments to Ecuador and Croatia.
(SFEC, 10/25/98, p.A24)
1996 Argentina, Brazil and the
US acted to forestall a coup in Paraguay.
(Econ, 6/12/04, p.35)
1996 The Argentine oil firm
Compania General de Combustibles (CGC) received a contract to drill
for oil in Sarayaca, Ecuador, home to some 2,000 Quichua Indians.
Natives fended off oil drilling well into 2004.
1996 It was reported that
hantavirus in Argentina had caused the death of 12 people this year.
(SFEC, 9/21/97, p.A27)
1997 Jan 4, In Argentina
thieves tunneled into a Buenos Aires bank and robbed as much as $25
million.
(SFC, 1/16/96, p.A12)
1997 Jan 25, In Argentina
Noticias photojournalist Jose Luis Cabezas was found murdered in the
Atlantic resort of Pinamar. He had been handcuffed, tortured and
burned alive near a meeting place of the Justicialist Party. It was
later revealed that police officers carried out the murder under
orders from Alfredo Yabran. In 2000 a tribunal found 3 former
provincial police officers guilty in the murder along with a former
security guard and 4 civilians.
(SFC, 3/27/97, p.A15)(SFC, 10/2/97,
p.A13)(SFC,12/9/97, p.B10)(SFC, 2/28/98, p.A7)(SFC, 2/3/00, p.A13)
1997 Mar 27, It was reported
that former economy minister Domingo Cavallo claimed that Alfredo
Yabran, the country’s most successful businessman, led an
all-powerful mafia of businessmen, politicians and judges.
(SFC, 3/27/97, p.A14)
1997 Apr 17, The government
announced the formation of a commission to “clarify what happened in
Argentina in the last years of WW II and the postwar.”
(SFC, 4/25/97, p.A12)
1997 Apr 24, The Argentine film
"Wake Up Love" opened at the SF film festival.
(SFC, 4/25/97, p.D6)
1997 Apr, The sci-fi thriller
"Moebius" was made by students at the Univ. of Cinema in Buenos
Aires at a cost of $250,000.
(SFC, 5/3/97, p.E1)
1997 May 31, It was reported
that high joblessness (17.3%) was causing riots in various provinces
outside the capital. Neuquin, Jujuy, Salta and Santa Fe had all
experienced riots.
(SFC, 5/31/97, p.A13)
1997 Aug 7, Pres. Eduardo Frei
of Chile and Argentine Pres. Carlos Menem opened a $325 million
pipeline for natural gas from Argentina to Santiago.
(SFC, 8/8/97, p.E3)
1997 Aug 14, Public sector and
opposition unions called for a 24-hour strike to protest the
nation’s 16.1% unemployment rate and proposed labor reforms.
(SFC, 8/15/97, p.A15)
1997 Aug 15, It was reported
that the country would issue bonds to pay indemnities to the
relatives and descendants of the 1970s “dirty war.” As many as
30,000 people disappeared and about 8,000 families have applied for
payments authorized at $224,000 per victim.
(WSJ, 8/15/97, p.A1)
1997 Aug, Argentine beef was
allowed to be imported fresh to the US market.
(WSJ, 5/26/98, p.B1)
1997 Sep 5, A group headed by
Sociedad Macri SA took over the postal service with an offer to pay
the state about $102 million annually for 20 years.
(WSJ, 9/8/97, p.A15)
1997 Sep, Adolfo Scilingo, a
former navy officer, had his face slashed by unknown assailants in a
Buenos Aires street. He and Horatio Verbitsky wrote “El Vuelo,” (The
Flight), a best -seller about the death flights during the “dirty
war.”
(SFC, 1/1/98, p.A18)
1997 Oct 10, Adolfo Scilingo
was jailed in Spain after appearing to voluntarily testify on his
crimes. He admitted to hurling 30 prisoners from airplanes during
the “dirty war.”
(SFC, 1/1/98, p.A18)
1997 Oct 10, An Argentine DC-9
with 75 people crashed in Uruguay. All 74 were killed when the plane
crashed during a torrential rainstorm.
(SFC, 10/11/97, p.A10)(SFC, 10/12/97, p.A16)
1997 Oct 16, Pres. Clinton
designated Argentina a “non-NATO ally” during a speech in Buenos
Aires.
(SFC,10/17/97, p.A25)
1997 Oct 26, In congressional
elections in Argentina the opposition coalition led the Peronists
46% to 36%. The opposition Alliance, led by Fernandez Maijide, was
composed of the centrist Civic Radical Union and the left-leaning
Frepaso coalition.
(SFC,10/27/97, p.A8)(SFC,10/28/97, p.A8)
1997 Oct, Alberto Pedroncini
filed a suit on behalf of relatives of 13 “disappeared” people. He
argued that the government pardons of military officials were
illegal because forced kidnapping is an ongoing offense since the
victims have never been found.
(SFC, 1/1/98, p.A14)
1997 Dec 30, A Spanish judge
accused 36 Argentine military and police officers of involvement in
torture and the disappearance of 600 Spaniards during the dirty war
from 1976-1983. Most of those named served in the ESMA, a torture
center used by the military regime.
(SFC,12/31/97, p.A9)
1997 Dec, Alfredo Yabran sold
his main businesses to a Cayman Islands-based holding company known
as EXXEL for $600 million. He was believed to be the head of a
powerful mafia empire. Former US ambassador Terence Todman was a
representative of the EXXEL group. Todman was US secretary of Latin
American Affairs in 1990 and called off the US Drug Enforcement
Agency from pressuring Yabran, whose operations included airport
customs operations, duty-free shops, cargo transportation and
armored car services.
(SFC, 2/28/98, p.A1,7)
1997 Federico Andahazi,
Argentine psychologist authored "The Anatomist." The novel was about
a 16th-century Italian anatomist who became interested in the
function of the clitoris while examining corpses and of his
subsequent attempts to research the subject in bed with Venetian
prostitutes. The book was virtually unknown before the scandal but
went to the top of the best-seller list. It won the prestigious
Fortabat Foundation prize for the best first novel by an Argentine.
But the award ceremony was canceled by the sponsor, Amalia Lacroze
de Fortabat, a wealthy businesswoman, leading to a national debate
over freedom of expression.
(www.literatura.org/Andahazi/anatomista/faanatnyt2.html)(NYT,
5/16/97)
1997 The New Order Party, a
fascist political group, was founded by Alejandro Franze.
(SFC, 6/8/98, p.A10)
1997 Paleontologists found an
area in Patagonia over a mile square that was once a dinosaur
nesting site estimated from 70-90 million years old. Fossilized
embryos revealed a delicate skin of reptilian scales.
(SFC, 11/18/98, p.A4)
1998 Jan 23, Pres. Carlos Menem
ordered the navy to expel Alfredo Astiz, a former death squad
officer. Astiz was sentenced in absentia to life in prison in France
for the murder of 2 nuns and was wanted in Sweden for the murder of
Dagmar Hagelin, a teenage girl. Astiz surrendered to Interpol in
2001. In 2009 Astiz went on trial for the deaths of 2 French nuns, a
journalist and 3 founders of a human rights group.
(SFC, 1/24/98, p.A10)(SFC, 7/3/01, p.A7)(SFC,
12/11/09, p.A2)
1998 Feb, Eduardo Eurnakian
(65), head of a billion dollar media empire, won a 30-year
concession to run 33 of Argentina’s main airports.
(WSJ, 2/24/98, p.A18)
1998 Mar 27, Argentina, Brazil
and Paraguay signed a pact to heighten security on their triple
frontier.
(SFC, 3/28/98, p.A9)
1998 Mar, In Buenos Aires a law
was repealed that granted police wide authority to arrest
prostitutes and drunks. A new law allowed prostitutes on the
streets.
(SFEC, 4/5/98, p.T13)
1998 May 20, Alfredo Yabran, a
businessman wanted in connection with a 1997 murder, committed
suicide in Entre Rios province.
(SFC, 5/21/98, p.A14)
1998 Aug 25, In Argentina
Horacio Estrada, a retired navy captain, was found shot to death.
Four days earlier prosecutors had begun questioning him about the
1991-1995 weapons shipments to Ecuador and Croatia.
(SFEC, 10/25/98, p.A24)(http://tinyurl.com/9r9z7)
1998 Sep 15, For Argentina a
World Bank loan of some $4.5 billion was almost completed to help
stabilize the economy.
(WSJ, 9/16/98, p.A19)
1998 Oct 4, Marcelo Cattaneo,
the younger brother of Pres. Menem’s former deputy chief of staff,
was found hanging by the neck outside Buenos Aires. He had been
named 2 months earlier as the man who tried to bribe former
directors of the Banco de la Nacion. A newspaper article on the
1994-1995 IBM-Banco de la Nacion bribery scheme was stuffed in his
mouth.
(SFEC, 10/25/98, p.A24)
1998 Nov 10, A 160-nation
conference on global warming met in Argentina.
(WSJ, 11/11/98, p.A1)
1998 Nov 11, Argentina and
Kazakhstan pledged to abide by the treaty to cut emissions of gases
that cause global warming. This put a crack in a united front of
developing nations opposed to cuts before 2012.
(WSJ, 11/12/98, p.A1)
1998 Nov 14, In Argentina
negotiators from 150 countries agreed to set a 2 year deadline for
adopting operational rules for cutting emissions of industrial waste
gases that were believed to cause global warming.
(SFEC, 11/15/98, p.A21)
1998 Dec 28, Ruben Franco, a
former Admiral, was arrested on charges of being a central organizer
of the baby kidnappings during the dirty war.
(SFC, 12/31/98, p.D2)
1998 The anthropologist, Julie
Taylor, published “Paper Tangos,” a personal account of the elements
of the dance and the “diffuse nature of violence.”
(SFEC, 9/6/98, BR p.9)
1999 Jan 15, A Liberian tanker
collided with a German vessel and leaked over 65,000 gallons of
crude oil near the Rio de la Plata, 50 miles north of Buenos Aires.
(SFC, 1/23/99, p.C1)
1999 Jan 22, A federal judge
indicted 7 former military officials for the disappearances of over
200 babies during the 1976-1983 dictatorship.
(SFC, 1/23/99, p.C1)
1999 Feb 14, A blackout began
in south and central Buenos Aires. At the height of the outage some
500,000 people were without power.
(SFC, 2/23/99, p.A9)
1999 Feb 18, Protests occurred
in Buenos Aires by residents angry over 4 days of power outages.
(SFC, 2/19/99, p.A17)
1999 Feb 25, The power outage
in Buenos Aires ended. Edesur, the Chilean electricity distributor,
blamed the outage on power lines, but cable supplier, Italy's
Pirelli, denied responsibility.
(SFC, 2/26/99, p.E2)
1999 Mar 16, In northern
Argentina a team of archeologists discovered 3 frozen Inca mummies
on Mount Llullaillaco. The mummies were of children sacrificed about
500 years ago.
(SFC, 4/7/99, p.A11)
1999 Mar 28, In Paraguay Pres.
Raul Cubas resigned and ended a week of political turmoil. Senator
Luis Gonzalez Macchi was sworn in as president. Gen'l. Lino Oviedo
was granted asylum in Argentina.
(SFC, 3/29/99, p.A9)(SFC, 3/30/99, p.F2)
1999 Jul 12, In Argentina
stocks fell nearly 9% as investors worried over the local political
and economic factors.
(WSJ, 7/13/99, p.C16)
1999 Jul 26, Brazil said it
would temporarily suspend all trade talks with Argentina after
Argentina moved to curb certain Brazilian exports.
(WSJ, 7/28/99, p.A20)
1999 Aug 13, Protests and riots
raged out of control in Neuquen province where unemployment was 40%.
Skirmishes were also reported from Tucuman, Cordoba, Corrientes, and
Tierra del Fuego.
(SFC, 8/14/99, p.C1)
1999 Aug 31, In Argentina 72
people were killed, including 5 on the ground, when a Lapa Airlines
Boeing 737 crashed after takeoff from Jorge Newberry airport in
Buenos Aires. There were 26 survivors.
(SFC, 9/1/99, p.A12)(WSJ, 9/1/99, p.A1)(SFC,
9/2/99, p.A14)(WSJ, 9/3/99, p.A1)(AP, 8/31/00)
1999 Sep 17, A botched holdup
in Villa Ramallo left 2 hostages dead and a 3rd wounded. A gunman
was also killed and 2 arrested in the 20-hour standoff that was
covered live on TV.
(SFC, 9/18/99, p.A11)
1999 Oct 24, Elections were
scheduled with Buenos Aires Gov. Eduardo Duhalde as the candidate
for the ruling Peronists. Fernando de la Rua (62) of the center-left
Alliance led with a 48% to 38% margin.
(WSJ, 8/3/99, p.A1)(WSJ, 10/22/99, p.A1)(SFC,
10/25/99, p.A10)(WSJ, 10/26/99, p.A1)
1999 Nov 2, Spanish Judge
Baltasar Garzon named former Argentine Pres. Leopoldo Galtieri in an
indictment along with 95 other military officers, who presided over
the "Dirty War" from 1976-1983.
(SFC, 11/3/99, p.C3)
1999 Nov 11, Argentine
journalist Jacobo Timerman died in Buenos Aires at age 76.
(AP, 11/11/00)
1999 Nov, Peronist Eduardo
Duhalde lost the presidential elections to Fernando de la Rua.
(SFC, 1/2/02, p.A5)
1999 Dec 10, Pres. Fernando de
la Rua was inaugurated. His campaign promised to revive the economy.
(SFC, 5/20/00, p.A8)(WSJ, 8/23/01, p.A9)
1999 Dec, The offices of the
National Pensioners Health Care Agency under Victor Alderete were
raided and evidence was found for fraud in the hundreds of millions
of dollars.
(SFC, 3/14/00, p.A8)
1999 The Argentine comedy film
"Silvio Prieto" was directed by Martin Rejtman.
(SFEC, 4/11/99, DB p.37)
1999 In Morón,
Argentina, Martin Sabbatella (28) was elected mayor and began an
active campaign against corruption. His predecessor was convicted in
2000 of misappropriating public funds.
(WSJ, 7/1/03, p.A1)
2000 Jan 12, An Argentine a
tour bus crashed into a 2nd local bus in Brazil and 42 people were
killed.
(WSJ, 1/13/00, p.A1)
2000 Feb 15, In Argentina it
was reported that a Pres. Fernando de la Rua had ordered a purge of
the military and civilian intelligence apparatus and that over 1,500
agents had been fired or retired. Fernando de Santibanes, the new
head of the Secretariat of State Intelligence (SIDE), fired a third
of his 3,100 member staff a week earlier due to budget cuts.
(SFC, 2/16/00, p.A8)
2000 Mar 11, It was reported
that researchers had unearthed a pack of large predatory dinosaurs
in Patagonia that dated back to about 100 million years BP.
(SFC, 3/11/00, p.A1)
2000 May 12, At least 23 police
and 22 protestors were injured in the province of Salta where
thousands of jobless workers had blocked a federal highway for 10
days to protest welfare cuts.
(SFC, 5/13/00, p.A9)
2000 May, The $5.6 billion beef
industry won its 33-year battle to control hoof-and-mouth disease
and was declared free of the illness by the Paris-based World
Organization for Animal Health.
(SFC, 6/15/00, p.A14)
2000 Jun 9, In Argentina
millions of workers went on strike to protest the economic austerity
policies of Pres. Fernando de la Rua and the 14% unemployment rate.
(SFC, 6/10/00, p.A14)
2000 Jun 13, Pres. Fernando de
la Rua apologized for his country’s role in providing sanctuary to
Nazis after WW II.
(SFC, 6/14/00, p.A13)
2000 Aug 24, Ricardo Miguel
Cavallo, a suspected torturer from the Argentine “dirty war,” was
arrested in Mexico after former political prisoners identified him.
Cavallo was extradited to Spain in 2003 and charged with genocide
and terrorism.
(SFC, 8/25/00, p.D4)(AP, 6/30/03)
2000 Sep 1, A judge moved to
strip immunity from 8 senators who allegedly received bribes from
the administration of Pres. Fernando de la Rua for votes on labor
reform.
(SFC, 9/2/00, p.C16)
2000 Sep 18, In Buenos Aires 2
men, suspected in the assassination of Paraguayan Vice Pres. Luis
Maria Argana, escaped from jail.
(SFC, 9/19/00, p.A10)
2000 Oct 6, Vice President
Carlos Alvarez resigned amid a fallout over a corruption scandal and
a Cabinet shake-up.
(SFC, 10/7/00, p.A12)
2000 Dec 14, It was reported
that unemployment stood at 15% as the country faced a 3rd year of an
economic slump. Workers had begun staging road blocks in the
provinces to protest their plight.
(SFC, 12/14/00, p.C4)
2000 Dec 18, The government
announced a $39.7 billion financial rescue package led by the IMF.
(SFC, 12/19/00, p.B4)(WSJ, 8/23/01, p.A9)
2000 Dec 28, Government
officials announced plans to spend $20 billion on public works
programs.
(SFC, 12/29/00, p.B5)
2000 Argentine composer Osvaldo
Golijov composed his “La Pasión Según San Marco.” It
was commissioned for the 250th anniversary of Bach’s death and made
its NYC premiere in 2002.
(WSJ, 11/5/02, p.D8)
2001 Feb 14, Buenos Aires Gov.
Carlos Ruckauf declared that he would be the next president.
(WSJ, 2/16/01, p.A9)
2001 Mar 3, Pres. Fernando De
la Rua asked his entire cabinet to submit their resignations a day
after Economy Minister Jose Luis Machinea submitted his resignation.
(SSFC, 3/4/01, p.A27)
2001 Mar 6, Federal Judge
Gabriel Cavallo struck down amnesty laws that protected hundreds of
soldiers accused of torture, murder and kidnapping during the
dictatorship of 1976-1983.
(SFC, 3/7/01, p.A9)
2001 Mar 16, Ricardo Lopez
Murphy, the Economy Minister, proposed $4.5 billion in budget cuts
over the next 2 years to revive the economy.
(WSJ, 3/20/01, p.A19)
2001 Mar 17, Colombia suspended
meat and livestock imports from Argentina for 60 days due to fears
of foot-and-mouth disease. Only Israel and Russia still imported
Argentine meat.
(SFC, 3/19/01, p.A9)
2001 Mar 19, Ricardo Lopez
Murphy, the Economy Minister, resigned.
(WSJ, 3/21/01, p.A1)
2001 Mar 20, In Buenos Aires
thousands demonstrated against plans to cut government spending.
Domingo Cavallo was named to succeed Ricardo Lopez Murphy as economy
minister.
(SFC, 3/21/01, p.A14)
2001 Mar 29, Domingo Cavallo
won congressional approval of his emergency financial package. He
was expected to soon announce tax decreases.
(SFC, 3/30/01, p.D3)
2001 Apr 28, A plane crash
killed 10 people near Roque Perez.
(WSJ, 4/30/01, p.A1)
2001 May 17, In Argentina a
Fokker F27 air force plane crashed on takeoff in Medoza and all 5
officers aboard were killed.
(SFC, 5/18/01, p.D4)
2001 Jun 7, In Argentina former
Pres. Carlos Menem was arrested for leading a conspiracy to sell
$100 million worth of weapons to Croatia and Ecuador while in office
in 1991 and 1995. He was indicted July 4.
(SFC, 6/8/01, p.A16)(WSJ, 6/8/01, p.A13)(SFC,
7/5/01, p.A8)
2001 Jun 19, Argentina adopted
a dual exchange rate.
(WSJ, 6/20/01, p.A12)
2001 Jul 10, Former army
commander Jorge Rafael Videla (75) was indicted again for conspiring
to eliminate political opponents in the 1970s.
(SFC, 7/11/01, p.A8)
2001 Jul 12, Argentine stocks
plummeted with growing worries on the country’s ability to maintain
debt payments.
(SFC, 7/13/01, p.B1)
2001 Jul 17, Pres. De la Rua
signed a plan to slash the deficit.
(SFC, 7/18/01, p.C4)
2001 Jul 19, Workers staged a
nationwide strike due to government spending cuts.
(SFC, 7/20/01, p.A17)
2001 Jul 30, The Senate passed
a tough austerity package supported by Pres. de la Rua.
(SFC, 7/31/01, p.A7)
2001 Aug 8, Thousands of state
workers, students and jobless marched on Buenos Aires for a 2nd day
to protest government plans to cut wages and pensions.
(SFC, 8/9/01, p.A9)
2001 Aug 10, In Buenos Aires
nearly 1 million people gathered to pray to St. Cayetano, patron of
work and bread, for an easing of the economic crises that has left 1
in 3 Argentines in poverty. The government struggled to keep from
defaulting on a $127 billion debt.
(SFC, 8/11/01, p.A8)
2001 Aug 21, It was planned to
begin the use of the patacon, a negotiable bond, as legal tender in
the Buenos Aires province. The IMF announced plans to add $8 billion
to a $14 billion Argentine rescue package.
(WSJ, 8/21/01, p.A1)(WSJ, 8/22/01, p.A3)
2001 Oct 14, Elections for
Congress were scheduled. Rev. Luis Farinello led the Social Pole
Party with an anti-globalization message. The midterm elections
handed a decisive defeat to Pres. Fernando de la Rua’s coalition.
The Peronist Party led nationwide results.
(SFC, 10/12/01, p.D4)(SFC, 10/15/01, p.E3)
2001 Oct 20, It was reported
that record flooding around Buenos Aires had damaged some 8.6
million acres of prime farmland. The area was declared a national
disaster and losses were estimated at $300 million.
(SFC, 10/20/01, p.A17)
2001 Nov 5, Domingo Cavallo,
the economy minister, said Argentina planned to restructure $95
billion of debt to avoid default.
(SFC, 11/6/01, p.B11)
2001 Nov 14, Provincial
governors agreed to drastic spending cuts.
(WSJ, 11/15/01, p.A22)
2001 Nov 20, The Supreme Court
ruled that prosecutors failed to prove that former Pres. Carlos
Menem had led a conspiracy to smuggle weapons to Croatia and Ecuador
while in office.
(SFC, 11/23/01, p.A21)
2001 Nov 22, Former Pres.
Carlos Menem (71) announced a bid for the presidency in 2003.
(SFC, 11/23/01, p.A21)
2001 Dec 3, The government put
a 90-day partial freeze on bank accounts to help stem a run on
banks. Weekly withdrawals were limited to $250.
(SFC, 12/4/01, p.A3)(WSJ, 12/4/01, p.A12)
2001 Dec 5, Domingo Cavallo
changed the bank rules to allow $1,000 withdrawals once per month
and for travelers to remove up to $10,000.
(SFC, 12/11/01, p.A6)
2001 Dec 9, Domingo Cavallo
announced that he would annul $4 million in business tax cuts and
push for the release of $1.3 billion IMF loans.
(SFC, 12/11/01, p.A6)
2001 Dec 13, Argentine workers
staged a strike, the 8th one against the 2-year-old administration
of Pres. de la Rua. Unemployment was reported to have risen to 18.3%
in October from 16.4% in May.
(WSJ, 12/14/01, p.A11)
2001 Dec 19, In Argentina Pres.
de la Rua declared a state of siege as looters ransacked shops and
markets in Buenos Aires and across the north. Domingo Cavallo,
economy minister, resigned.
(SFC, 12/20/01, p.A1,3)(WSJ, 12/20/01, p.A1)(WSJ,
12/21/01, p.A9)
2001 Dec 20, Argentine
President Fernando De la Rua resigned, hours after his economy
minister, following two days of anti-government unrest that left 22
people dead and more than 200 injured. The foreign debt stood at
$132 billion.
(SFC, 12/21/01, p.A1)(AP, 12/20/02)
2001 Dec 21, Ramon Puerta, head
of the Senate, became president following an extraordinary session
of both houses.
(SFC, 12/22/01, p.A1)
2001 Dec 23, In Argentina
Adolfo Rodriguez Saa, governor of San Luis province, was sworn in as
the new interim president until elections on March 3. He said he
would not devalue the peso. Saa said he would suspend payment on the
foreign debt.
(SSFC, 12/23/01, p.A13)(SFC, 12/24/01, p.A3)
2001 Dec 24, In Argentina Pres.
Saa planned a new works program to create a million jobs.
(SFC, 12/25/01, p.A3)
2001 Dec 26, Argentina planned
a new currency, the argentino, to circulate along with the peso and
dollar.
(SFC, 12/27/01, p.A3)
2001 Dec 28, Thousands of
people flooded banks in Buenos Aires as the government eased a 5-day
bank holiday. Demonstrations ensued and riot police used rubber
bullets and tear gas to quell violence at the Government House known
as Casa Rosada.
(SFC, 12/29/01, p.A5)
2001 Dec 29, In Argentina at
least 12 police officers were injured during protests in Buenos
Aires. The entire cabinet offered to step down.
(SSFC, 12/30/01, p.A12)
2001 Dec 30, In Argentina Pres.
Saa resigned after one week in office. Senate leader Ramon Puerta
resigned his post so as not to become interim president again.
Eduardo Camano, Peronist lawmaker, was next in line. Saa returned to
San Luis province and with his brother began producing films with
financing from the San Luis Ministry of Progress.
(SFC, 12/31/01, p.A3)(WSJ, 2/24/05, p.A1)
2001 Dec 31, Guido di Tella,
former foreign minister, died at age 70. The helped reconcile
Argentina and Britain after the Falkland war.
(SFC, 1/3/02, p.A16)
2001 Dec, Argentina halted
payments on its $88 billion in bonds. In 2005 Paul Blustein authored
“And the Money Kept Rolling In (And Out),” an account of 2001 the
debt moratorium.
(WSJ, 1/14/04, p.A1)(Econ, 3/5/05, p.82)
2001 In Argentina Doug
Tompkins, founder of Esprit Corp., purchased a 153,000-acre
Patagonian sheep ranch and donated it to the government. Pres.
Nestor Kirchner named it Monte Leon National Park.
(SFCM, 9/10/06, p.12)
2001-2002 Argentina’s financial crisis during this
period involved institutional breakdown, a huge monetary
devaluation, destruction of the financial system and a default on
the public debt.
(Econ, 4/5/08, p.20)
2002 Jan 1, Eduardo Duhalde, a
Peronist and former vice-president, was chosen as Argentina’s new
president, the 5th in less than 2 weeks.
(SFC, 1/2/02, p.A1)
2002 Jan 2, Eduardo Duhalde was
sworn in as president.
(SFC, 1/3/02, p.A6)
2002 Jan 3, Argentina failed to
make a $28 million payment on a foreign loan. A devaluation of the
peso by 30-40% was expected soon. Duhalde named Jorge Remes Lenicov,
former economic chief of Buenos Aires, as his finance minister.
(SFC, 1/4/02, p.A5)(WSJ, 1/4/02, p.A5)
2002 Jan 4, Pres. Duhalde
acknowledged that the nation will devalue the peso.
(SFC, 1/5/02, p.A6)
2002 Jan 6, Argentina devalued
its currency 29% with an official exchange rate of 1.4 pesos to the
dollar and promised to ease limits on cash withdrawals. This ended a
decade-long policy pegging the currency one-to-one with the U.S.
dollar. In the year that followed, the peso lost 70 percent of its
value against the dollar.
(SFC, 1/7/02, p.A3)(WSJ, 1/7/02, p.A3)(AP,
1/6/03)
2002 Jan 10, Thousands of
middle-class families protested in Buenos Aires. The government had
ordered checking deposits of $10k and savings over $3k switched to
fixed-term deposits and out of reach for at least a year.
(SSFC, 1/13/02, p.A17)
2002 Jan 11, The Argentina peso
sank 40% on its 1st day of floating trade.
(SFC, 1/12/02, p.A14)
2002 Jan 15, Protesters rioted
in 3 provinces as the peso fell to 1.95 to the dollar from 1.7
(SFC, 1/16/02, p.A8)
2002 Jan 17, Roque Maccarone,
president of the Central Bank, resigned in a dispute with Economic
Minister Remes Lenicov over ways to preserved the value of the peso.
(SFC, 1/18/02, p.A6)
2002 Jan 24, Argentina approved
a law allowing the Central Bank to print nearly $13 billion in
new money to help pay salaries and bills as citizens protested over
their frozen accounts.
(SFC, 1/25/02, p.A15)
2002 Feb 1, In Argentina the
Supreme Court ruled 5-0 that the banking freeze was
unconstitutional.
(SFC, 2/2/02, p.A7)
2002 Feb 3, Argentina unveiled
a plan to rescue the economy that included a partial easement of the
banking freeze and a free-floating peso.
(SFC, 2/4/02, p.A4)
2002 Feb 11, The Argentine peso
was put to float for the 1st time in a decade and dropped about 5%
to 2.1 pesos to the dollar.
(SFC, 2/12/02, p.A10)
2002 Feb 13, Argentina adopted
a 20% tax on energy exports.
(WSJ, 2/14/02, p.A14)
2002 Mar 22, The Argentine peso
closed down 18% to 3.1 to the dollar. IMF loans appeared distant.
(WSJ, 3/25/02, p.A12)
2002 Mar 25, The Argentine peso
fell to 3.4-3.8 to the dollar. Long lines formed outside banks and
exchange houses in Buenos Aires.
(SFC, 3/26/02, p.B3)(WSJ, 3/26/02, p.A14)
2002 Mar, Michael Mussa, former
IMF chief economist, released a 50-page treatise called “Argentina
and the Fund: From Triumph to Tragedy.”
(WSJ, 4/5/02, p.A9)
2002 Apr 2, Argentina marked
the 20th anniversary of the Falklands War and Pres. Duhalde said the
Falkland Islands would be regained through diplomacy.
(SFC, 4/3/02, p.A7)
2002 Apr 3, Domingo Cavallo,
former economy minister (1991-1996), was arrested for illegal arms
sales to Croatia and Ecuador in the 1990s, diverting 6,500 tons of
weapons worth over $100 million. He was indicted Apr 10 for
“aggravated contraband.”
(SFC, 4/4/02, p.A7)(SFC, 4/11/02, p.A10)
2002 Apr 22, Argentina closed
its banks and foreign-exchange markets indefinitely to stop the flow
of money out of the country.
(WSJ, 4/21/02, p.A1)
2002 Apr 23, Jorge Remes
Lenicov, the economy minister, resigned and the senate refused to
consider legislation to convert bank deposits into low-interest,
longterm bonds.
(SFC, 4/24/02, p.A7)
2002 Apr 26, Pres. Duhalde
enlisted Roberto Lavagna, ambassador to the EU, as economy minister.
Banks gradually re-opened after a 4-day shutdown.
(SFC, 4/27/02, p.A10)
2002 Jun 1, Argentina announced
a plan to phase out the banking freeze that included 3-10 year bonds
for savings account holders.
(SSFC, 6/2/02, p.A12)
2002 Jun 26, In Argentina
police and national guardsmen fired tear gas at hundreds of jobless
protesters trying to blockade highways around the capital. Two
people were killed and at least 90 injured.
(AP, 6/26/02)(SFC, 6/27/02, p.A14)
2002 Jun 27, In Argentina
thousands of government opponents marched in anger after a police
crackdown on jobless protesters a day earlier left two dead and 90
wounded.
(AP, 6/27/02)
2002 Jul 9, Thousands of
unemployed Argentines, university students and labor activists
marched on the presidential palace to protest the government's
failure to end the country's deep economic crisis.
(AP, 7/9/02)
2002 Jul 11, Former Argentina
junta leader Leopoldo Galtieri was arrested for the torture and
execution of leftists during the military dictatorship (1976-1983).
(SFC, 7/12/02, p.A10)
2002 Jul 23, Maria Adela Gard
de Antokoletz (90), one of the founding members of the Argentine
human rights group Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo, died.
(AP, 7/23/02)
2002 Jul 26, In Argentina an
new Evita Museum opened in Buenos Aires on the 50-year anniversary
of her death.
(SFC, 7/26/02, p.A16)
2002 Aug 7, Treasury Secretary
Paul O'Neill urged Argentina to adopt a sound recovery strategy. As
O'Neill prepared to leave Argentina, more than 5,000 people rallied
near the president's downtown offices to protest his visit.
(AP, 8/7/02)
2002 Sep 10, In Argentina
thousands of people staged a 10-minute demonstration in Buenos Aires
to protest a crime wave that has engulfed this country as it falls
deeper into economic crisis.
(AP, 9/10/02)
2002 Sep 13, Argentine police
arrested Luis Ramirez Pineda (77), a retired Chilean army general,
at a Buenos Aires hotel on an international warrant for alleged
involvement in human rights abuses stemming from the 1973 coup in
Chile.
(AP, 9/13/02)
2002 Sep 14, Lolita Torres
(72), a singer and one of the top actresses of Argentina's golden
era of cinema, died of complications from a lung infection.
(AP, 9/15/02)
2002 Sep 16, In Argentina a bus
filled with Catholic pilgrims fell into a deep gorge some 50 miles
from Catamarca, killing 38 and injuring 27.
(AP, 9/16/02)
2002 Nov 3, In Argentina
Leonardo Bertulazzi (51) was arrested. He was believed to be head of
logistics for the Red Brigades, which is blamed for the kidnapping
and assassination of former Italian prime minister Aldo Moro in
1978.
(AP, 11/4/02)
2002 Nov 14, Argentina will not
fully meet an $809 million World Bank debt payment deadline,
resulting in a multilateral debt default that will likely cut off
one of its last avenues to aid.
(Reuters, 11/14/02)
2002 Nov 21, The International
Monetary Fund agreed to Argentina’s request to postpone for a year a
$141 million loan payment due the next day.
(AP, 11/21/02)
2002 Dec 27, Argentine
lawmakers approved the 2003 budget and ratified a new central bank
chief, helping President Eduardo Duhalde's efforts to secure an aid
agreement with the IMF.
(AP, 12/27/02)
2003 Jan 12, In Argentina
former military dictator Leopoldo F. Galtieri (76), who in 1982 led
Argentina into the Falkland Islands war against Britain, died.
(AP, 1/12/03)
2003 Jan 16, Argentina reached
a preliminary agreement with the International Monetary Fund to
avoid default.
(AP, 1/17/03)
2003 Jan 24, The IMF approved a
$6.78 billion land package to Argentina.
(SFC, 1/25/03, p.A5)
2003 Jan, In Argentina Leyla
Bshier was killed during an orgiastic party in Santiago del Estero
and her body was fed to animals at a private zoo belonging to Musa
Azar, a former security chief. Patricia Villalba was killed after
she learned of Bshier’s murder.
(Econ, 3/13/04, p.39)
2003 Mar 5, In Argentina
the Supreme declared unconstitutional a government decree that
converted dollar bank accounts to devalued pesos.
(AP, 3/5/03)
2003 Mar 8, An
Argentine judge asked Interpol to arrest four Iranian diplomats,
accusing them of responsibility in a deadly terrorist attack that
destroyed a Jewish community center in Buenos Aires in 1994.
(AP, 3/9/03)
2003 Apr 21, Luis Moreno Ocampo
of Argentina, currently a visiting professor at Harvard Law School,
was elected as the chief prosecutor of the world's first permanent
war crimes tribunal, headquartered in The Hague.
(AP, 4/22/03)
2003 Apr 27, In Argentina
former President Carlos Menem (72) finished first in presidential
elections but failed to win an outright victory in his comeback bid,
setting up a runoff vote with Nestor Kirchner, governor of
Patagonia.
(AP, 4/28/03)(SFC, 4/28/03, A3)
2003 May 1, Flooding hit
northwestern Argentina and at least 13 people were killed and 50,000
driven from their homes.
(AP, 5/2/03)
2003 May 14, In Argentina
Carlos Menem withdrew from the presidential elections making Nestor
Kirchner, governor of Santa Cruz province, the new president-elect.
(SFC, 5/15/03, p.A12)
2003 May 25, Nestor Kirchner
took office as Argentina's sixth president in 18 months.
(AP, 5/25/03)
2003 Jun 23, The head of the
IMF met with Argentina's new government, opening a 2-day visit to
hear how Pres. Kirchner plans to confront the country's worst
economic crisis in history.
(AP, 6/23/03)
2003 Aug 12, Legislators in
Argentina's lower house voted to throw out amnesty laws that
effectively ended trials over abuses during the country's military
dictatorship.
(AP, 8/13/03)
2003 Aug 21, Argentina's Senate
voted overwhelmingly to scrap a pair of amnesty laws dating to the
1980s that had ended trials for human rights abuses committed during
the country's military dictatorship.
(AP, 8/21/03)
2003 Sep 9, Argentina missed a
$2.9 billion payment to the IMF.
(Econ, 9/13/03, p.32)
2003 Sep 10, Argentina
refinanced $21 billion in debt including $12.3 billion with the IMF.
(Econ, 9/13/03, p.32)
2003 Oct 6, In Argentina newly
released archives of police intelligence, first discovered in 1998
behind a wall in a building that now houses the Commission for
Memory, indicated that police infiltrated unions and dissident
groups before and during the 1976-83 military dictatorship,
monitoring tens of thousands of people for a quarter of a century.
(AP, 10/6/03)
2003 Oct 31, Thousands of
Argentines banged pots and pans on street corners and apartment
balconies across the capital to protest rising crime.
(AP, 10/31/03)
2003 Nov 12, In Argentina
thunderstorms swept across the country, causing widespread damage
and at least 12 deaths from accidents, falling trees and
electrocutions.
(AP, 11/12/03)
2003 In Argentina the
government of Nestor Kirchner approved a law that lifted all
restrictions on immigration from South America and guaranteed access
to public health and education to all migrants, including illegals.
(Econ, 3/10/07, p.35)
2003 In Argentina the
Justicialist Party failed to hold a primary this year leading the
courts to prohibit any presidential candidate from this using this
name.
(Econ, 2/16/08, p.46)
2003 Argentina’s population was
about 36 million. The population of Buenos Aires was some 12
million.
(AP, 4/26/03)(Econ, 11/19/05, p.81)
2004 Jan 2, In Argentina near
Buenos Aires an explosion at a supermarket that sold illegal
fireworks left five people dead and injured more than a dozen
others. A gas leak was blamed.
(AP, 1/4/04)
2004 Jan 12, Juan Barrionuevo,
Argentine legislator from Tierra del Fuego, was arrested and charged
with committing crimes and torture during the 1976-83 military
dictatorship.
(WPR, 3/04, p.26)
2004 Jan 15, In Argentina Pres.
Nestor Kirchner ordered an investigation into charges the army
operated training camps on torture techniques during the mid-80s.
(AP, 1/16/04)
2004 Jan, In Argentina the
Pierre Auger observatory began operating. It covered 3,000 square
km. and was named after the physicist who discovered extensive air
showers induced by high energy cosmic rays.
(Econ, 11/10/07,
p.100)(www.auger.org/news/PRagn/AGN_correlation_more.html)
2004 Mar 10, Argentina and the
IMF signed an accord to release a $3.1 billion loan. Meetings with
creditors were scheduled to re-schedule $82 billion in loans that
the government defaulted on in 2002. Bondholders were being offered
25 cents on the dollar.
(WSJ, 3/11/04, p.A14)
2004 Mar 17, Axel Blumberg
(23), the son of businessman Juan Carlos Blumberg, was seized in
Buenos Aires. Kidnappers demanded a ransom of 50,000 pesos (16,000
dollars).
(www.jang.com.pk/thenews/apr2004-daily/24-04-2004/world/w10.htm)
2004 Mar 19, An Argentine
federal judge declared unconstitutional a presidential decree that
pardoned several high-ranking military officers accused of human
rights abuses during Argentina's Dirty War.
(AP, 3/19/04)
2004 Mar 24, Argentine Pres.
Nestor Kirchner rallied thousands of supporters on the grounds of a
Dirty War torture camp, announcing it would become a memorial to
victims of the past dictatorship. The "Museum of Memory" on the
grounds of the Navy School of Mechanics, the most infamous detention
center of the 1976-83 military dictatorship, marked a new step
toward reconciling the legacy of the repression.
(AP, 3/25/04)
2004 Mar 24, In Argentina Axel
Blumberg (23), the kidnapped son of businessman Juan Carlos
Blumberg, was murdered following an attempt to escape. This prompted
his father to initiate a high-profile public campaign against
impunity for violent crimes.
(Econ, 9/9/06,
p.39)(www.answers.com/topic/2004-in-argentina)
2004 Apr 20, In Argentina a
federal judge issued an international arrest warrant for former
President Carlos Menem who has refused to appear for questioning in
a corruption probe.
(AP, 4/21/04)
2004 Apr, Some 130,000 marched
in Buenos Aires demanding criminal-justice reform.
(Econ, 4/10/04, p.28)
2004 May 26, Argentina said it
is imposing a 20% tax on natural gas exports. Chile, which imports
90% of Argentina’s gas, would be hard hit.
(WSJ, 5/27/04, p.A18)
2004 Jun 25, Martin Cisneros, a
“piquetero” activist from the Land and Housing Federation (FTV), was
shot dead at his home in Buenos Aires.
(WSJ, 6/29/04, p.A12)
2004 Sep 1, An Argentine
Supreme Court justice resigned rather than face Senate impeachment
proceedings, the 4th judge targeted in a high court purge led by
Pres. Nestor Kirchner.
(AP, 9/1/04)
2004 Sep 28, In southern
Argentina a student (15) drew a handgun and opened fire in a
classroom, killing 3 classmates and wounding 5 at the Islas Malvinas
Middle School No. 2.
(AP, 9/30/04)
2004 Nov 1, Roberto Lavagna
unveiled a plan to restructure, at about 30% the original debt, $100
million of sovereign bonds that Argentina defaulted on 3 years
earlier.
(Econ, 11/6/04, p.40)
2004 Dec 16, An Argentine judge
struck down an arrest warrant for former President Carlos Menem, who
was wanted for questioning in a federal court probe of
multimillion-dollar accounts in Switzerland.
(AP, 12/16/04)
2004 Dec 22, Former Argentine
president Carlos Menem returned to Argentina following months abroad
to avoid arrest. Menem announced he would run again for the
presidency after an Argentine judge last week dismissed a warrant
against him.
(AP, 12/22/04)
2004 Dec 30, In Argentina a
flare lit during a rock concert ignited the foam ceiling of the
Cromagnon Republic nightclub in Buenos Aires packed with teenagers,
starting an inferno that killed 194 people. Omar Chaban, promoter
and owner of the club, later faced charges of manslaughter. In 2006
the Buenos Aires city council sacked Mayor Anibal Ibarra for failing
to root out a culture of bribery and bureaucratic sloth. In 2009
judges convicted the concert promoter, three city officials and a
band manager in the fire. The court absolved the Callejeros band of
criminal responsibility for the blaze caused by fans' fireworks.
(AP, 12/31/04)(AP, 12/30/05)(Econ, 3/11/06,
p.35)(AP, 8/20/09)
2004 The extreme poverty rate
in Argentina fell to15% compared to 20.5% in 2003.
(WSJ, 3/16/05, p.A23)
2005 Jan 1, Argentina was
forecast for 4.4% annual GDP growth with a population at 39.1
million and GDP per head at $3,800.
(Econ, 1/1/05, p.92)
2005 Jan 3, Thousands of
Argentines angered over safety lapses at a nightclub where a fire
killed 183 people, many of them teenagers, marched through capital
streets holding pictures of the victims and demanding the
resignations of key city officials.
(AP, 1/4/05)
2005 Feb 10, In central
Argentina a riot broke out at the San Martin Prison housing 2,000
prisoners, leaving at least three inmates dead and two dozen guards
hostage.
(AP, 2/11/05)
2005 Feb 25, Argentina’s debt
swap offer, to cover a total debt of $102.6 billion, closed.
Argentina planned to issue $35.2 billion in new bonds to those who
accepted the swap. Owners of 76% of the 2001 defaulted bonds
accepted the swap losing 65% of their investment. In 2008 a proposal
was in the works to settle with the remaining holdouts.
(WSJ, 3/28/05, p.A14)(Econ, 9/27/08, p.49)
2005 Mar, Pres. Nestor Kircher
stripped Bishop Baseotto of the state salary he received as chaplain
to the army following scathing anti-abortion remarks directed at
health minister Gines Gonzalez.
(Econ, 4/2/05, p.34)
2005 Apr 11, In central
Argentina a riot broke out in a crowded prison after a fight between
rival gangs, killing 13 people.
(AP, 4/13/05)
2005 Apr 19, A Spanish court
convicted Adolfo Scilingo (58), a former Argentine naval officer, of
crimes against humanity for throwing 30 naked and drugged prisoners
from planes during his country's "dirty war" more than two decades
ago. It sentenced him to 640 years in prison. During the trial,
Scilingo insisted he fabricated the taped testimony to trigger an
investigation into Argentina's "dirty war."
(AP, 4/19/05)
2005 May, Energy ministers from
Argentina, Brazil and Venezuela agreed to develop a field in
Venezuela’s heavy-oil belt in the Orinoco, a refinery in Brazil’s
north-east and an oil and gas venture in Argentina under the name
Petrosur.
(Econ, 7/30/05, p.33)
2005 Jun 14, The Argentine
Supreme Court struck down 2 amnesty laws passed in the 1980s.
Hundreds of people could be charged with torture, disappearances and
babynapping during Argentina's "Dirty War" against dissidents.
(AP, 6/14/05)(Econ, 6/25/05, p.39)
2005 Jul 18, Argentina issued
dollar bonds for the 1st time since its massive default in 2001.
(Econ, 7/23/05, p.34)
2005 Jun 21, In Argentina
retired Gen. Guillermo Suarez Mason (81), a former junta commander
under arrest in connection with probes of suspected illegal
adoptions dating to the past dictatorship.
(AP, 6/21/05)
2005 Jul 26, In Argentina
provincial Sen. Victor Hugo Luna offered a bill that would
confiscate 196,000 acres from US rancher Peter McBride’s Taco Pampa
property in La Paz in order to recognize land rights of local goat
herders. McBride had purchased his 286,000 acres for $500,000.
(WSJ, 8/23/05, p.A9)
2005 Aug 8, Milan Lukic, a
former Bosnia Serb paramilitary leader, was captured in Argentina.
He was wanted by a U.N. tribunal on charges of crimes against
humanity.
(AP, 8/8/05)
2005 Aug 11, Argentina and
Venezuela signed an accord to set up a joint trust fund aimed at
providing export financing to small businesses. Presidents Kirchner
and Chavez signed a series of accords during the Chavez visit that
included an expansion of Venezuelan fuel oil imports. Kirchner
thanked Chavez for the purchase of $500 million of Argentine
government bonds over the last few months.
(WSJ, 8/12/05, p.A7)
2005 Aug 24, Strong
thunderstorms rolled through Argentina and Uruguay, slowing air
traffic, felling trees and leaving at least eight people dead.
(AP, 8/24/05)
2005 Sep 19, Rescue teams
searched for two Argentine men whose snowmobile plunged into a deep
ice crevasse in Antarctica over the weekend, but hopes of pulling
them out alive were fading.
(AP, 9/19/05)
2005 Sep 28, Argentina’s Senate
removed Antonio Boggiano from the Supreme Court finding him guilty
of arbitrary, biased and inconsistent rulings. He was last of
justices left from the 1990 Supreme Court additions made under Pres.
Menem.
(Econ, 10/8/05, p.46)
2005 Sep 30, South American
presidents committed themselves to establishing a continental free
trade zone. The South American summit was attended by the presidents
of Chile, Bolivia, Peru, Paraguay, Ecuador, Venezuela, Brazil and
Argentina.
(AP, 10/1/05)
2005 Oct 13, Scientists
announced the discovery in Argentina of a rooster-size fossil named
Buitreraptor gonzalezorum. It dates back 90 million years and
closely resembles fossils from the North. It was part of the class
called dromaesaurs believed to have originated 180 million years ago
in Laurasia.
(www.livescience.com/animalworld/051012_new_dino.html)
2005 Oct 13, Argentina and
Chile suspended imports of Brazilian meat, joining 28 other
countries with similar bans after an outbreak of foot-and-mouth
disease.
(AP, 10/13/05)
2005 Oct 16, In Argentina a
fire apparently set by rebellious inmates swept through a prison
southeast of Buenos Aires, killing at least 17 inmates.
(AP, 10/16/05)
2005 Oct 23, Argentina's ruling
party dominated midterm elections seen as a test of President Nestor
Kirchner's two-year-old government, with his Peronist party picking
up support in Congress and his wife winning a Senate seat. Christina
Fernandez de Kirchner won 46% to 20% over Hilda Gonzalez de Duhalde
to represent the province of Buenos Aires.
(AP, 10/24/05)(Econ, 10/29/05, p.37)
2005 Oct 28, In Argentina
indigenous leaders from around the Americas met in Buenos Aires to
draft a declaration of rights to present to world leaders at next
week's Summit of the Americas.
(AP, 10/28/05)
2005 Nov 2, In Argentina
thousands opposed to Pres. Bush held a massive rally at a basketball
arena just days before he arrives at Mar del Plata for the Summit of
the Americas.
(AP, 11/2/05)
2005 Nov 3, Leaders from across
the Americas headed to Argentina in another attempt to end Latin
America's chronic poverty, with Washington promoting liberalized
trade and opponents fearful that it will allow corporations to
dominate the poor.
(AP, 11/3/05)
2005 Nov 4, In Argentina crowd
of 10,000 people chanting "Get out Bush!" swarmed the streets of Mar
del Plata, hours before the hemisphere's leaders sat down to debate
free trade, immigration and job creation at the fourth Summit of the
Americas. Pres. Bush worked to smooth the United States' troubled
image in Latin America, commending Argentina's efforts to improve
its damaged economy. More than 1,000 masked, anti-US demonstrators
clashed with police, shattered storefronts and torched businesses.
(AP, 11/4/05)(AP, 11/5/05)
2005 Nov 4, In Argentina
Mexico’s Pres. Vicente Fox said that a majority of nations in the
Western Hemisphere will consider moving forward with negotiations to
create a huge new free trade zone without the participation of
dissenting countries like Venezuela.
(AP, 11/4/05)
2005 Nov 5, Leaders from across
the Americas ended their tumultuous 2-day summit in Mar del Plata,
Argentina, without agreeing to restart talks on a US-favored free
trade zone stretching from Alaska to Chile. 5 of 34 participating
countries thwarted the Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA). They
included Argentina, Brazil, Uruguay, Paraguay, and Venezuela.
(AP, 11/6/05)(SSFC, 11/6/05, p.A15)
2005 Nov 9, Argentine
prosecutors said a Hezbollah militant has been identified as the
suicide bomber who flattened a Jewish community center in 1994,
killing 85 people in Argentina's worst terrorist attack. Hussein
Berro, a 21-year-old Lebanese citizen who "belonged to Hezbollah,"
was driving the van packed with explosives July 18, 1994. He was
identified by friends and relatives in Detroit, Mich., from a
photograph.
(AP, 11/9/05)
2005 Nov 21, In Venezuela Pres.
Chavez pledged to help build a natural gas pipeline stretching from
Venezuela to Argentina during talks with Argentine leader Nestor
Kirchner.
(AP, 11/21/05)
2005 Dec 30, In Argentina Pepe
Eliaschev, radio broadcaster and government critic, was informed
that management had ordered his show to be dropped.
(Econ, 1/14/06, p.44)
2005 In Argentina lawmakers
approved a plan to extend to migrants most rights enjoyed by
Argentine citizens, while reducing black market labor and
registering immigrants. Implementation of the plan began in 2006.
(SFC, 5/6/06, p.A6)
2006 Jan 3, Argentina repaid
$9.57 billion in debt to the International Monetary Fund, a measure
officials depicted as a means to help reclaim Argentina's economic
independence.
(AP, 1/3/06)
2006 Jan, The presidents of
Venezuela, Argentina and Brazil met in Brazil and promised to come
up with the first set of preliminary studies in March for a $20
billion, 5,000-mile gas pipeline, stretching from Venezuela to
Argentina.
(AP, 1/26/06)
2006 Feb 9, Spanish police in
Madrid arrested Ricardo Taddei (63), a former Argentine police
officer, wanted in connection with kidnappings and torture during
his country's "dirty war" against leftist dissidents.
(AP, 2/9/06)
2006 Feb 20, Milan Lukic, a
Bosnian Serb war crimes suspect who had been indicted by a UN
tribunal in connection with atrocities during the former war in
Bosnia, was extradited from Argentina to The Hague.
(AP, 2/20/06)
2006 Feb 24, It was reported
that Uruguay’s Pres. Tabare Vazquez backed two enormous plants that
would produce the raw material for paper on Uruguay's border with
Argentina while protesters, worried about the plants' impact on
Argentina's environment, have repeatedly blockaded border bridges,
stalling crucial truck and tourist traffic.
(AP, 2/24/06)
2006 Mar 7, In Buenos Aires,
Argentina, Mayor Anibal Ibarra was removed from office over
allegations that poor government safety regulation contributed to
the death of 194 people in a December 2004 nightclub fire.
(AP, 3/8/06)
2006 Mar 8, Argentina suspended
most beef exports for at least 180 days to prevent surging int’l.
beef prices from pushing local prices beyond the power of Argentine
families. Exceptions included the EU due to a quota program and
countries with bilateral beef-import accords.
(WSJ, 3/10/06, p.A15)
2006 Mar 9, In Argentina Raul
Castells opened a soup kitchen in the posh Puerto Madero section of
Buenos Aires near an outlet to the River Plate, with volunteers
serving fried bread cakes and hot herbal tea to about 600 people.
(AP, 3/10/06)
2006 Mar 9, An Argentine air
force plane providing aid for Bolivian flood victims crashed outside
of La Paz, killing all six people on board.
(AP, 3/9/06)
2006 Mar 21, Argentina's naval
chief said he has ordered all in-country intelligence operations by
the navy to be temporarily suspended while officials probe reports
of spying at the southern Admiral Zar naval air base.
(AP, 3/21/06)
2006 Mar 22, In Brazil the US
Embassy said agents from the US Department of Homeland Security will
soon be helping Brazil, Argentina and Paraguay combat money
laundering and terrorism financing.
(AP, 3/23/06)
2006 Mar 28, Spain’s ENCE said
it will suspend construction of a controversial pulp mill in Uruguay
to allow Argentina and Uruguay to resolved their differences over
the environmental impact of the project. In October ENCE announced
that it was abondoning the project.
(FT, 3/29/06, p.8)(Econ, 10/7/06, p.46)
2006 Apr 5, Britain reiterated
its sovereignty over the Falkland Islands and rejected Argentina's
claims in a letter to Secretary-General Kofi Annan.
(AP, 4/5/06)
2006 Apr 26, Argentina’s
President Nestor Kirchner announced plans for a high-speed train
from Buenos Aires to Cordoba. A contract for construction was signed
in 2008.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buenos_Aires-Rosario-C%C3%B3rdoba_high-speed_railway)
2006 May 4, Brazil’s President
Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva met with Argentina’s Pres. Nestor
Kirchner, Venezuela’s Pres. Chavez and Bolivia’s Pres. Morales in
response to Bolivia’s decision to nationalize its oil and gas
industry. Morales offered to refrain from cutting off supplies and
to negotiate prices.
(Econ, 5/13/06, p.43)
2006 May 8, Argentina requested
the extradition of five former Uruguayan military officers and a
former police officer wanted in the 1976 disappearance of Maria
Claudia Garcia, the missing daughter-in-law of poet Juan Gelman.
(AP, 5/8/06)
2006 May 11, Environmentalists
and authorities said about 100 oil-coated penguins have turned up
dead in recent weeks off the coast of Argentina, most in a nature
reserve near the frigid southernmost tip of Patagonia. The source of
the oil was not known.
(AP, 5/11/06)
2006 Jun 10, Argentina
reaffirmed its claim of sovereignty over the Falkland Islands, known
here as the Malvinas, and said it was ready for talks with Britain
over the issue. Argentina and Britain have disputed the sovereignty
of the remote south Atlantic islands since 1833.
(AFP, 6/11/06)
2006 Jun 29, Argentina’s
President Nestor Kirchner met Bolivian counterpart Evo Morales and
agreed to a 47% price hike for the Bolivian natural gas Argentina
needs to fuel South America's second-largest economy.
(AP, 6/29/06)
2006 Jul 21, Venezuela formally
entered Mercosur, increasing the South American trade bloc's
economic might and vowing to transform the policy organization into
a force for profound social change. Cuba’s Fidel Castro signed a
modest trade at the 2-day Mercosur meeting in Cordoba, Argentina.
(AP, 7/21/06)(Econ, 7/29/06, p.36)
2006 Aug 4, In Argentina Julio
Simon, a former police officer, was sentenced to 25 years in prison
for human rights abuses in connection with the 1978 disappearance of
Chilean Jose Poblete and his Argentine wife, Gertrudis Hlaczik,
during the military dictatorship.
(AP, 8/5/06)
2006 Aug 9, In Buenos Aires
Raul Antonio Guglielminetti, a former intelligence agent and two
retired military officers, were arrested in connection with human
rights abuses dating to Argentina's "Dirty War" against political
dissent.
(AP, 8/11/06)
2006 Aug 23, Argentina
announced an ambitious plan to expand its nuclear program to meet
rising energy demands, including extending the life of existing
plants and possibly resuming uranium mining.
(AP, 8/23/06)
2006 Aug 31, In Argentina tens
of thousands gathered in the central square of Buenos Aires for one
of the biggest anti-crime rallies ever seen there. It was organized
by Juan Carlos Blumberg, a businessman and leader of the
law-and-order movement.
(Econ, 9/9/06, p.39)
2006 Sep 5, A federal judge in
Argentina ruled unconstitutional a 1990 presidential pardon extended
to Jorge Rafael Videla, who led Argentina's military junta during
the worst periods of the so-called "Dirty War" crackdown on
dissidents between 1976 and 1983. A day earlier the same judge ruled
that pardons for Albano Harguinday, the interior minister under
Videla, and Jose Martinez de Hoz, the economy minister under Videla,
were also unconstitutional.
(http://tinyurl.com/0)(Econ, 9/16/06, p.47)
2006 Sep 19, In Argentina
Miguel Osvaldo Etchecolatz (77) a former police investigator, was
sentenced to life in prison in connection with the disappearance of
six people during the so-called "Dirty War" against political
dissent.
(AP, 9/19/06)
2006 Sep 22, Enrique Gorriaran
Merlo (65), a former Argentine rebel, died. He claimed that he led
the squad that killed exiled Nicaraguan dictator Anastasio Somoza in
1980.
(AP, 9/22/06)
2006 Oct 8, In northern
Argentina a bus carrying high school students home from a charity
event in an impoverished community collided head-on with a truck,
killing at least 12 people.
(AP, 10/9/06)
2006 Oct 25, Argentine
prosecutors asked a federal judge to order the arrest of former
Iranian President Hashemi Rafsanjani and seven others for the 1994
bombing of a Jewish cultural center that killed scores of people.
(AP, 10/25/06)
2006 Nov 10, Iran's state media
paid scant attention to an Argentine's judge request for the arrest
of former President Hashemi Rafsanjani and other officials for the
1994 bombing of a Jewish cultural center in Buenos Aires.
(AP, 11/10/06)
2006 Nov 25, In Argentina Nora
Dalmasso (51) was strangled in her Buenos Aires suburban home. In
2007 her son, Facundo Macarron (20), was charged with her murder and
aggravated sexual abuse.
(SSFC, 6/17/07, p.A16)
2006 Nov 17, In southern
Argentina President Nestor Kirchner inaugurated Puerto Belgrano
naval base, a new military academy. The old Navy Mechanics' School
in Buenos Aires, a prestigious school founded in the late 19th
century and chief torture compound during Argentina's Dirty War, is
now is being converted into a museum honoring Dirty War victims.
(AP, 11/17/06)
2006 Nov 28, A protest against
Argentina's former military dictatorship turned into a clash in
Buenos Aires between police with tear gas and rubber bullets and
demonstrators with Molotov cocktails.
(AP, 11/29/06)
2006 Dec 1, In Argentina a
court declared former Iranian President Hashemi Rafsanjani and eight
others fugitives from justice in Argentina, where they are wanted in
connection with the 1994 bombing of a Jewish cultural center.
(AP, 12/1/06)
2006 Dec 29, A key witness in a
human rights trial stemming from Argentina's military dictatorship
was found beaten, two days after he went missing. Luis Gerez (51),
who has accused a former police chief of torturing him during the
1966-73 dictatorship, was found by a police patrol in a street of
Garin, north of Buenos Aires.
(AP, 12/29/06)
2006 Gas reserves in Argentina
fell to fewer than 10 years’ worth of production.
(Econ, 12/23/06, p.52)
2007 Jan 11, An Argentine judge
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. Isabel Peron has lived in
exile in Spain since 1981.
(AP, 1/12/07)
2007 Jan 26, Argentina
authorized officials to reveal state secrets if called to testify in
human rights trials, a move intended to speed up prosecution of
atrocities committed during the country's 1976-1983 military
dictatorship.
(AP, 1/27/07)
2007 Mar 1, Argentine President
Nestor Kirchner trumpeted his government's performance on the
economy and human rights during his state-of-the-nation address, and
also defended his ties to Venezuelan leftist Hugo Chavez. Argentina
under Kirchner had begun doctoring inflation statistics to keep them
in single digits while the true rate this year rose to around 25%.
The government was able to save some $500 million in payments on
bonds linked to the consumer price index, but destroyed its
credibility.
(AP, 3/1/07)(Econ, 9/27/08, p.49)
2007 Mar 8, In Argentina a
federal judge ordered former de facto president Reynaldo Bignone
arrested in connection with human rights abuses stemming from the
1976-83 dictatorship.
(AP, 3/9/07)
2007 Mar 9, Nearly 20,000 fans
gathered at a stadium in Buenos Aires, not to watch soccer but to
hear Hugo Chavez bash George W. Bush.
(AP, 3/10/07)
2007 Mar 14, In Argentina
police clashed with protesters and ousted Gov. Angel Maza from his
offices, after he refused to leave despite his suspension over
corruption allegations. The La Rioja provincial legislature had
voted the night before to suspend him and start impeachment
proceedings over allegations that he manipulated bids for mining
concessions.
(AP, 3/15/07)
2007 Mar 14, In Italy 5 former
members of Argentina's military were convicted in absentia of
murdering three Italians during the Argentina’s "dirty war"
(1976-83).
(AP, 3/15/07)
2007 Mar 15, Interpol said it
plans to issue international requests for the arrest of five
prominent Iranians and a Lebanese militant in connection with the
1994 bombing of a Jewish cultural center in Argentina.
(AP, 3/15/07)
2007 Mar 31, In Argentina
authorities said rising rivers due to 5 days of rain in three
provinces have forced some 38,000 people to flee their homes. The
floodwaters have claimed 7 lives.
(AP, 4/1/07)
2007 Mar, Some 70,000 visitors
descended on Mendoza, the wine capital of Argentina, for the start
of its annual grape harvest. Argentina ranked as the world’s 5th
largest wine producer. Local grapes included Malbec (red) and
Torrontes (white).
(Econ, 3/17/07, p.44)
2007 Apr 4, Argentina's main
teachers' union called for a one-day national strike next week after
protesting colleagues seeking higher pay clashed with riot police in
two provinces.
(AP, 4/4/07)
2007 Apr 9, Thousands of
teachers walked out of public schools across Argentina in a daylong
strike to demand higher pay and justice for a slain colleague.
(AP, 4/9/07)
2007 Apr 17, Argentina said
will not send former junta leader Jorge Videla to Germany to face
charges in the March, 1977, abduction and murder of activist
Elisabeth Kaesemann, a German woman, during the Dirty War. Her
bullet-riddled body was later found dumped on the outskirts of
Buenos Aires.
(AP, 4/18/07)
2007 Apr 25, In Argentina a
federal court threw out amnesties for former military President
Jorge Videla (81) and Navy chief Eduardo Massera, two leaders of the
former military dictatorship, saying they must serve their life
terms in prison for crimes against humanity.
(AP, 4/25/07)
2007 May 8, In Argentina 7
managers of Skanska, a Swedish construction firm, were arrested for
tax evasion. Skanska sacked the managers and paid the tax authority
almost $5 million.
(Econ, 5/12/07, p.42)
2007 May 15, Argentine
commuters in Buenos Aires enraged by delays in evening train service
set fire to parts of a railroad station, looted nearby shops and
clashed with riot police.
(AP, 5/15/07)
2007 May 17, In Argentina
leftist union members shut down the Buenos Aires subway system with
a one-day strike, causing huge traffic jams as commuters drove,
packed buses or struggled to hail taxis.
(AP, 5/17/07)
2007 May, In Argentina a cold
snap late this month and the failure of a power plant caused the
collapse of the power grid and fuel supply system. Service stations
ran out of compressed natural gas, which powers many Argentine cars,
including 90% of the taxis in Buenos Aires.
(Econ, 6/16/07, p.47)
2007 Jun 13, Heavy snows hit
the Andean border region of Argentina and Chile, forcing the closure
of a key mountain highway connecting the two countries and idling
thousands of trucks.
(AP, 6/13/07)
2007 Jun 24, Argentines in
Buenos Aires voted for a new mayor. Pre-election polls suggested
most would swing right and elect Mauricio Macri (48), the president
of Argentina's most popular soccer team.
(AP, 6/24/07)
2007 Jun 29, Mercosur, South
America’s biggest trade block (Brazil, Argentina, Paraguay,
Uruguay), held a presidential summit in Asuncion, Paraguay.
(Econ, 7/7/07, p.40)
2007 Jul 1, Argentina’s
official government news agency said President Nestor Kirchner has
tapped his wife to take his place as the ruling coalition candidate
in October presidential elections.
(AP, 7/1/07)
2007 Jul 9, Buenos Aires
experienced its first major snowfall since June, 1918.
(WSJ, 1/10/07, p.A1)
2007 Jul 16, Argentina’s
President Nestor Kirchner's economy minister resigned after a
prosecutor ordered her to testify about $64,000 in cash that was
found in a bag in her office bathroom. Kirchner accepted Felisa
Miceli's resignation and appointed economist and Industry Secretary
Gustavo Peirano as her replacement.
(AP, 7/16/07)
2007 Aug 7, Venezuelan
President Hugo Chavez said Venezuela would invest in a
regasification plant for liquid natural gas for Argentina, which is
weathering an energy crisis. Chavez was in Argentina as part of a
regional tour.
(AP, 8/8/07)
2007 Aug 8, Argentine
authorities said they were investigating why Venezuelan businessman
Antonini Wilson was carrying $800,000 in undeclared cash aboard an
executive jet charted by Argentina's state energy company. In
December US prosecutors said that the suitcase full of Venezuelan
cash was intended to finance the presidential campaign of Cristina
Kirchner.
(AP, 8/8/07)(AP, 12/13/07)
2007 Aug 25, In Buenos Aires an
Argentine couple captured the stage category at the World Tango
Championships, followed by Chilean and Japanese pairs.
(AP, 8/26/07)
2007 Oct 9, In Argentina former
police chaplain Christian von Wernich was found guilty of being a
"co-participant" with police in seven homicides, 31 torture cases
and 42 kidnappings, ending a trial that has focused attention on the
church during the 1976-83 military rule.
(AP, 10/10/07)
2007 Oct 23,
Fernando de la Rua, Argentina’s former president (1999-2001),
was charged with manslaughter in connection with bloody street riots
in 2001.
(WSJ, 10/24/07, p.A1)
2007 Oct 28, In Argentina
Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner, the other half of the power couple
credited with the country’s rebound from an economic collapse,
overshadowed 13 rivals as voting opened in Argentina's presidential
elections. Cristina Fernandez, claimed victory in the country's
presidential election; she became the first woman elected to the
post.
(AP, 10/28/07)(AP, 10/28/08)
2007 Oct 29, In Argentina
partial results indicated voters had elected a female president for
the first time and launched their country's most powerful political
dynasty since Juan and Evita Peron. President Kirchner and first
lady Cristina Fernandez were poised to switch jobs in December.
(AP, 10/29/07)
2007 Nov 4, In Argentina a fire
apparently set as part of an escape attempt swept through a prison
cellblock and killed at least 30 inmates in the central province of
Santiago del Estero.
(AP, 11/5/07)
2007 Nov 7, Argentina's Pres.
Nestor Kirchner unveiled a memorial in Buenos Aires to victims of
the so-called Dirty War that claimed some 13,000 lives during the
country's military dictatorship, using the occasion to urge judges
to speed human rights trials.
(AP, 11/8/07)
2007 Nov 7, Interpol put Ali
Fallahian, Iran’s former intelligence chief, Mohsen Rezai, a former
leader of Iran's Revolutionary Guards, Ahmad Vahidi, a Revolutionary
Guards general, and 2 other Iranians and Imad Mugniyah, a Lebanese
militant on its most-wanted list for a 1994 bombing that killed 85
people at a Jewish center in Argentina.
(AP, 11/8/07)(WSJ, 1/15/08, p.A6)
2007 Nov 10, Some 20,000
demonstrators marched to Argentina's river border with Uruguay to
protest the impending startup of a paper pulp plant they fear will
pollute the environment. The cellulose mill in Fray Bentos was built
by Metsa-Botnia, a Finnish company, at a cost of $1.2 billion.
Construction was completed in October and Uruguay’s Pres. Vazquez
ordered it opened in November despite protests from Argentina.
(AP, 11/10/07)(Econ, 12/8/07, p.44)
2007 Dec 10, Cristina Kirchner
was sworn in as president of Argentina. Hector Febres (66), accused
of kidnapping and torturing dissidents during Argentina's past
military dictatorship, was found dead in his cell at a navy brig
four days before an expected verdict in his high-profile case. On
Dec 14 police detained the wife and two grown children of the former
coast guard officer hours after an autopsy found cyanide in his
blood.
(WSJ, 12/8/07, p.A1)(AP, 12/14/07)
2007 Dec 11, US officials in
Florida arrested 4 people, 3 from Venezuelan and one from Uruguay,
and accused them of being agents of the Venezuelan government.
Prosecutors later said the 4 were seeking to silence Guido Alehandro
Antonini Wilson, a citizen of both the USA and Venezuela. In August
Wilson was detained in Argentina for carrying $800,000 in a
suitcase, which prosecutors said was intended to aid the campaign of
Cristina Kirchner. Franklin Duran, multimillionaire owner of
Industrias Venoco CA, was one of the arrested Venezuelans. In 2008 a
federal jury convicted Duran on charges that he was a foreign agent
involved in a conspiracy.
(WSJ, 12/13/07, p.A16)(WSJ, 3/10/08, p.A5)(SFC,
11/4/08, p.A4)
2007 Dec 13, Argentina's new
president reacted furiously to accusations by US prosecutors that an
intercepted suitcase full of cash from Venezuela was meant to
finance her election campaign, calling the charge "garbage in
international politics."
(AP, 12/14/07)
2007 Dec 16, Argentina and
Brazil successfully launched a rocket into space in the first joint
space mission by the two South American nations. The VS30 rocket,
which carried experiments from both countries, blasted off from
Brazil's Barreira do Inferno launch center in northern Rio Grande do
Norte state.
(AP, 12/17/07)
2007 Dec 18, In Argentina 7
former army officers and an ex-police official were convicted and
sentenced to at least 20 years in prison for human rights abuses
during Argentina's bloody dictatorship.
(AP, 12/18/07)
2007 Dec 18, The leaders of
Argentina and Venezuela closed ranks against the United States,
rejecting US court charges in a campaign cash scandal as one more
example of Americans treating their nations like subservient
colonies.
(AP, 12/19/07)
2007 Juan Gelman (b.1930),
Argentine poet, won the Cervantes Prize, the most prestigious award
for Spanish-language literature.
(AP,
8/28/09)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Juan_Gelman)
2008 Jan 12, At Argentina's
main airport frustrated passengers smashed ticket counters and threw
objects at airline staff after the country's flagship airline
canceled international flights for a 2nd day due to delays caused by
a baggage handlers strike and a walkout by ticket counter workers.
(Reuters, 1/12/08)
2008 Jan 25, In Miami Moises
Maionica (36) of Venezuelan pleaded guilty in a scheme to cover up
the source of $800,000 seized in a suitcase in Argentina that was
allegedly sent by Venezuelans as a donation to Cristina Fernandez's
presidential campaign.
(AP, 1/25/08)
2008 Feb 23, The presidents of
Argentina, Brazil and Bolivia gathered in Buenos Aires to try to
agree on how to divide scarce supplies of Bolivian natural gas.
(WSJ, 2/23/08, p.A6)
2008 Feb 25, In Argentina the
body of Paul Alberto Navone, a retired army officer, was found dead
of a gunshot in an apparent suicide. He had been called to testify
about the fate of twins born to a political prisoner in 1978.
(AP, 2/27/08)
2008 Mar 9, In Argentina a
passenger train slammed into a bus at a rural rail crossing before
dawn, killing 18 people and leaving at least 47 others injured.
(AP, 3/9/08)
2008 Mar 25, Argentina’s
President Cristina Fernandez refused to ease tax hikes on
agricultural exports, facing down angry farmers embroiled in a
nationwide strike that has all but halted production in one of the
world's biggest beef-exporting nations. The tax on soybeans had been
raised to 40%, up from 27% in 2007.
(AP, 3/26/08)(Econ, 3/29/08, p.49)
2008 Apr 1, Argentina’s
President Cristina Fernandez blasted striking farmers at a rally of
20,000 supporters, comparing their nearly three-week-old protest to
a 1976 strike that sowed chaos one month before a military coup.
(AP, 4/2/08)
2008 Apr 2, Argentine farmers,
rebelling over soaring export taxes on their crops, declared a
30-day truce suspending a three-week-long strike that has stripped
grocery shelves of beef and produce, granting Cristina Fernandez a
reprieve in the first major crisis of her presidency.
(AP, 4/3/08)(WSJ, 4/3/08, p.A1)
2008 Apr 4, In Argentina a
court sentenced the adoptive parents of a baby born to a missing
political prisoner to up to eight years in prison for concealing the
child's identity, in a landmark case with roots in Argentina's
dictatorship.
(AP, 4/4/08)
2008 Apr 11, Runners surrounded
by rows of security carried the Olympic flame past thousands of
jubilant Argentines in the most trouble-free torch relay in nearly a
week.
(AP, 4/11/08)
2008 Apr 19, In Argentina
President Cristina Fernandez surveyed more than 200 raging brush
fires by air as a thick cloud of smoke covered Buenos Aires for a
fifth day. She vowed to prosecute anyone who lit the blazes that
have sent smoke clouding highways and grounding jetliners.
(AP, 4/19/08)
2008 Apr 24, In Argentina
authorities detained Luis Abelardo Patti, a politician and former
police officer targeted in a Dirty War-era human rights probe in
Argentina, just hours after Congress barred him from taking up a
seat that would have afforded him immunity.
(AP, 4/25/08)
2008 Apr 29, Argentina’s
government signed a $3.7 billion contract for a high-speed train
from Buenos Aires to Cordoba.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buenos_Aires-Rosario-C%C3%B3rdoba_high-speed_railway)
2008 May 19, Argentine farmers
announced plans to suspend a 13-day strike and resume grain sales,
paving the way for talks with the government to end contentious
export restrictions.
(AP, 5/20/08)
2008 May 27, Argentine farm
groups vowed to suspend grain exports and meat sales, resuming
protests against controversial export taxes a day after talks with
the government stalled. DNA tests established the identity of an
Argentine woman taken from her parents during the country's military
dictatorship, the 90th such child identified by a group of
grandmothers searching for their missing relatives.
(AP, 5/27/08)(AP, 5/28/08)
2008 May 29, Argentina's
government set a ceiling on variable grain export taxes, but farmers
said the change wasn't enough to make them lift a weeklong
suspension of beef and grain exports.
(AP, 5/30/08)
2008 Jun 10, In Argentina a new
consumer price index came into effect. Under the new methodology
every time a product’s price rises too sharply, it will be removed
on the ground that consumers will switch to other goods. The
official current inflation was in single digits, as the true figure
soared above 20%.
(Econ, 6/14/08, p.48)
2008 Jun 14, Argentine police
in riot gear broke up a farmers' highway blockade, briefly arresting
19 demonstrators including a prominent leader of a three-month
protest against an increase in grain export taxes.
(AP, 6/14/08)
2008 Jul 5, Argentina's lower
house of Congress approved a package of grain-export taxes that have
sparked nationwide farm protests and food shortages.
(AP, 7/5/08)
2008 Jul 15, Tens of thousands
of Argentine farmers and government supporters staged dueling
protests ahead of a Senate vote on a package of grain-export taxes
that generated months of bitter farm strikes.
(AP, 7/15/08)
2008 Jul 17, Argentina's Senate
narrowly rejected a grain-export tax package, a government-backed
proposal that has led to nationwide farm strikes and regional food
shortages.
(AP, 7/17/08)
2008 Jul 18, Argentina’s
President Cristina Fernandez canceled a widely protested farm export
tax hike following months of protest and a stunning rejection by the
Senate. She issued a resolution reducing the export taxes to their
previous level.
(AP, 7/18/08)(Econ, 7/26/08, p.43)
2008 Jul 28, Hernan Arbizu,
former JPMorgan Chase & Co private banking executive, was
arrested in Argentina following an indictment on charges of
embezzling about $5.4 million. He fled to Argentina before being
fired in June.
(Reuters, 7/29/08)
2008 Aug 2, Perez Celis
(b.1939), a prestigious Argentine muralist, painter and sculptor,
died in Buenos Aires.
(AP, 8/3/08)
2008 Aug 13, Argentine senators
approved a bill declaring obesity and other eating disorders
diseases covered by the nation's public and private health care
programs.
(AP, 8/13/08)
2008 Aug 18, Argentina
announced its first nationwide gay-rights measure: granting same-sex
couples the right to claim their deceased partners' pensions.
(AP, 8/19/08)
2008 Aug 28, An Argentine court
convicted two former generals for the murder of a senator during the
country's seven-year military dictatorship and sentenced them to
life in prison. Retired Gens. Antonio Bussi and Luciano Menendez
were found guilty of kidnapping, torturing and murdering Sen.
Guillermo Vargas Aignasse, who disappeared March 24, 1976, the day
of a military coup.
(AP, 8/29/08)
2008 Sep 2, Argentina’s Pres.
Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner promised to repay $6.7 billion that
Argentina owed to the Paris Club of 19 foreign governments following
its 2001 default, It will use part of its $47 billion in foreign
currency reserves to pay the debts. The government still refused to
negotiate with private holders of $20 billion of its bonds, who held
out against the 2005 debt restructuring.
(WSJ, 9/3/08, p.A12)(Econ, 9/6/08, p.45)
2008 Oct 11, It was reported
that the population of adult hake fish off Argentina’s coast has
declined by 70% in the past 20 years. Skippers reportedly paid some
$2-3 million in bribes to inspectors and routinely underreported
their catches.
(Econ, 10/11/08, p.53)
2008 Oct 21, Argentina proposed
to nationalize the private pensions in order to meet debt payments.
The nationalization of the private pension funds took place in
December.
(WSJ, 10/22/08, p.A1)(Econ, 2/27/10, p.28)
2008 Oct 22, The DJIA tumbled
514.45 to close at 8519.21, its 7th biggest point drop in history,
as investors believed that the global economy is heading into a deep
recession. Hungary’s central bank raised interest rates by 3 points,
from 8.5% to 11.5%, to prevent a run on its currency. Argentine and
Brazilian stock markets each fell about 10%. Former Fed Chief Alan
Greenspan said he was wrong to think that financial markets could
police themselves.
(WSJ, 10/22/08, p.A1)(SFC, 10/24/08, p.C1)(Econ,
10/25/08, p.33)
2008 Nov 17, Algeria and
Argentina signed an agreement to boost cooperation over civil
nuclear energy as part of Argentine President Cristina Kirchner's
tour of northern Africa.
(AFP, 11/17/08)
2008 Nov 21, Mario Ferreyra
(63), an ex-Argentine police commander, committed suicide in front
of rolling television cameras as he was about to be arrested for
alleged human rights violations during the country's dictatorship.
(AP, 11/22/08)
2008 Nov 28, In Argentina a
three-judge panel formally charged former President Carlos Menem
with arms trafficking as he watched on live video from hundreds of
miles away because doctors say he is too ill to travel.
(AP, 11/29/08)
2008 Dec 9, In Argentina
officials announced that 10,000 bone fragments had been unearthed
between February and September, inside the once-secret Arana
detention center in La Plata. Political dissidents were tortured and
killed there during the 1976-1983 “Dirty War.”
(AP, 12/10/08)
2009 Jan 7, In Argentina an
Italian climber and an Argentine guide both died when a storm
trapped five mountaineers just below the summit of the Aconcagua
peak, the highest mountain in the Americas. The three others
survived.
(AP, 1/8/09)
2009 Jan 10, In Argentina 6
children died in Buenos Aires after a fire ripped through a former
bank being used as a home by poor families.
(AP, 1/10/09)
2009 Jan 18, The Polar Mist
unexpectedly sank 25 miles (40 kilometers) off the Argentine coast,
near the mouth of the Straits of Magellan, as it was being tugged to
dry land. 8 crew members had been rescued 2 days earlier. The owners
of its cargo said nearly $22 million in unrefined gold and silver
went down with it, and they asked insurer Lloyd's of London to foot
the bill for the costly recovery operation. Argentine news media and
maritime experts asked whether the precious metals were aboard at
all. On July 14 divers recovered nearly a ton of unrefined silver
from the ship easing suspicions about insurance claims on the
vessel. Divers concluded their mission on August 2 to retrieve 9.5
tons of unrefined gold and silver.
(AP, 4/8/09)(AP, 7/16/09)(AP, 8/3/09)
2009 Jan 26, Argentina's Pres.
Cristina Fernandez declared an agricultural emergency in the
nation's breadbasket provinces, responding to a key demand by
powerful farm organizations amid the worst drought in decades.
(AP, 1/27/09)
2009 Feb 9, In Argentina the
ultraconservative Society of St. Pius X said British Bishop Richard
Williamson, whose denials of the Holocaust led to Vatican demands he
recant, has been removed as the head of an Argentine seminary. On
Feb 19 the bishop was ordered to leave Argentina within 10 days.
(AP, 2/9/09)(AP, 2/20/09)
2009 Feb 9, In Argentina at
least 12 people were missing and over 1000 evacuated after a
mudslide swept away a railroad bridge and homes in the northern
border town of Tartagal.
(SFC, 2/10/09, p.A2)
2009 Feb 27, In Argentina a new
rule took effect in which members of the armed forces, related to
crimes under the 1976-1983 military dictatorship, will be tried by
civil courts rather than military tribunals.
(SFC, 2/28/09, p.A2)
2009 Mar 6, In Argentina
Claudio Lifschitz, a criminal attorney who accused former President
Carlos Menem of covering up the nation's worst terrorist attack, was
kidnapped and tortured by masked gunmen seeking information about
the case.
(AP, 3/12/09)
2009 Mar 8, In Argentina
Matthew Lizotte (25) of Aspen, Colorado, died while scaling the
11,411-foot (3,480-meter) Mount Tronador in Nahuel Huapi National
Park. Two unidentified students were injured when the ice bridge
they were crossing broke.
(AP, 3/9/09)
2009 Mar 30, Banking officials
meeting in Colombia said Argentina and China have tentatively agreed
to swap $10 billion worth of their currencies to enable South
America's second-largest economy to avoid using dollars in trade
between the nations.
(AP, 3/30/09)
2009 Mar 30, Argentina’s health
minister acknowledged that the country was in the middle of a dengue
fever epidemic with nearly 8,000 people infected. Neighboring
Bolivia had about 51,000 cases reported, while Brazil counted some
40,000 cases.
(http://ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=46371)(SSFC,
4/19/09, p.G3)
2009 Mar 31, Raul Alfonsin
(b.1927), former Argentine president (1983-1989), died. He guided
his country's return to democracy following a military dictatorship
that left thousands missing.
(AP,
4/1/09)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Raul_Alfons%C3%ADn)
2009 May 7, Argentina and
Brazil confirmed five swine flu cases within their borders as the
virus affects more nations in South America.
(AP, 5/8/09)
2009 May 29, In Argentina Swiss
architect Peter Zumthor (66) received the 2009 Pritzker Architecture
Prize. He compared his creative process to the arc of a love affair.
(AP, 5/30/09)
2009 Jun 9, In Argentina judge
Rodolfo Canicoba Corral asked Interpol to detain Samuel Salman (43),
who is believed to be living in Lebanon, for involvement in the July
18, 1994, bombing of a Jewish cultural center in Buenos Aires that
killed 85 people.
(AP, 6/9/09)
2009 Jun 10, In Argentina
Father Julio Grassi (52), a Roman Catholic priest who won fame
running an Argentine foundation for poor youths (1993), was
convicted of sexually molesting a boy who participated in the
program. He was sentenced to 15 years in prison. Grassi continued to
proclaim his innocence, saying he was "the victim of an injustice."
(AP, 6/10/09)
2009 Jun 28, Argentina's first
couple suffered a stunning setback in an election seen as a
referendum on their political dynasty, losing control of both houses
of Congress. The loss weakened President Cristina Fernandez's
government two years before she leaves office by diminishing her
ability to push legislation through Congress. Former President
Nestor Kirchner, lost a bid for a seat from Buenos Aires province.
Allies of the first couple also lost key races in the election in
the city of Buenos Aires and Cordoba and Santa Fe provinces.
(AP, 6/29/09)
2009 Jun 30, Authorities in
Argentina's capital and Buenos Aires province declared health
emergencies and extended school vacations as the nation's swine flu
death toll surged to 35.
(AP, 6/30/09)
2009 Jul 1, In Argentina Juan
Luis Manzur, a doctor and vice governor in Tucuman province,
replaced Health Minister Graciela Ocana, who resigned on June 29 as
concerns over the virus rose. He announced plans to boost public
health spending by $263 million this year and said pregnant women
could miss work for 15 days to avoid contracting swine flu.
(AP, 7/2/09)
2009 Jul 7, Spanish police
arrested Jorge Alberto Soza (72), an ex-Argentine police official
suspected of human rights abuses committed during the South American
country's dirty war. Soza was wanted in Argentina in connection with
18 cases of kidnapping and torture between 1975 and 1977 when he was
an assistant Federal Police commissioner and chief delegate in the
southern Argentine city of Neuquen.
(AP, 7/24/09)
2009 Jul 10, Millions of
Argentines stayed home from work, churches in Bolivia canceled Mass
and Ecuador announced its first fatalities from swine flu, as the
virus continued its spread during the South American winter season.
(AP, 7/11/09)
2009 Aug 12, In Argentina
Retired Gen. Santiago Riveros and four other members of the military
were convicted and sentenced to long prison terms in the 1976
killing of Floreal Avellaneda (14), the son of a communist activist.
(www.cidh.oas.org/annualrep/87.88eng/chap5.htm)(AP, 8/12/09)
2009 Aug 12, Argentina’s
customs service confiscated a total of 4.2 metric tons (4.6 tons) of
pseudoephedrine, chemical that can be used to make methamphetamine,
at several government warehouses at the port in Buenos Aires during
an investigation into drug traffickers with ties to Mexico.
(AP, 8/13/09)
2009 Aug 24, Argentine federal
police uncovered four tons (4,200 kilograms) of ephedrine worth
millions in oil drums and boxes to be sent to Mexico and the US. The
lead investigator called it the largest illegal shipment of the
methamphetamine precursor ever seized there.
(AP, 8/24/09)
2009 Aug 25, Argentina's
Supreme Court ruled out prison for pot possession, saying the
government should go after major traffickers and provide treatment
instead of jail for consumers of marijuana.
(AP, 8/25/09)
2009 Sep 8, Across northern
Argentina and southern Brazil a violent storm that spawned a tornado
and mudslides killed at least 15 people. Dozens were injured in the
winds and hail as their homes were destroyed.
(AP, 9/8/09)
2009 Sep 22, In Spain Julio
Alberto Poch, an Argentine-born pilot for a low-cost airline, was
arrested during a stopover in a Spanish airport on suspicion of
piloting planes that carried hundreds of dissidents to their deaths
during his country's 1976-1983 "dirty war." He was wanted for
questioning in four probes of more than 1,000 deaths during his time
as a pilot at the Navy Mechanics School.
(AP, 9/23/09)
2009 Sep 30, The 24 members of
UNESCO's Intergovernmental Committee of Intangible Heritage granted
the tango dance and its music protected cultural status at its
meeting in Abu Dhabi. The designation may make Argentina and
Uruguay, which both claim to be tango's birthplace, eligible to
receive financial assistance from a specialized fund for
safeguarding cultural traditions.
(AP, 9/30/09)
2009 Oct 4, Mercedes Sosa (74),
Argentine singer, died. Her music was banned after the generals
seized power in 1976. She had released over 70 albums and turned the
songs of others into great anthems of the left.
(Econ, 10/10/09, p.42)
2009 Oct 7, Pedro Elias
Zadunaisky (b.1917), Argentine astronomer and mathematician, died.
His calculations helped determine the orbit of Saturn's outermost
moon, Phoebe, as well as Halley's Comet.
(AP, 10/7/09)
2009 Oct 10, Argentina's Senate
overwhelmingly approved a law that transformed the nation's media
landscape. President Cristina Kirchner said she would sign it
immediately. The new law preserved two-thirds of the radio and TV
spectrum for noncommercial stations, and required channels to use
more Argentine content. It also forced Grupo Clarin, the country's
leading media company, to sell off many of its properties.
(AP, 10/10/09)
2009 Oct 20, Representatives of
Argentina, Brazil and Paraguay announced a joint plan in Buenos
Aires to establish protected zones to halt deforestation in their
countries by 2020.
(SFC, 10/21/09, p.A2)
2009 Nov 2, The Swiss
government said it has handed banking documents over to Argentina in
a $25 million dollar corruption probe linked to former President
Carlos Menem and French defense company Thales.
(AP, 11/2/09)
2009 Nov 16, In Argentina 2 men
were granted a marriage license in Buenos Aires, breaking ground in
a country and region where laws ban gay marriage.
(AP, 11/17/09)
2009 Nov 18, Argentina's
Congress, valuing truth over the right to privacy, authorized the
forced extraction of DNA from people who may have been born to
political prisoners slain a quarter-century ago, even when they
don't want to know their birth parents.
(AP, 11/20/09)
2009 Nov 25, Officials said
flooding from heavy rains has killed 12 people in Argentina, Brazil
and Uruguay and forced more than 20,000 to flee their homes. Most of
the dead were in southern Brazil, including eight in Rio Grande do
Sul.
(AP, 11/25/09)
2009 Nov 29, In Argentina
Solange Magnano (38), a mother of twins who won the Miss Argentina
crown in 1994, died of a pulmonary embolism after three days in
critical condition following a gluteoplasty in Buenos Aires.
(AP, 11/30/09)
2009 Nov 30, An Argentine judge
issued an order blocking the continent's first gay marriage
scheduled for Dec 1. National Judge Marta Gomez Alsina ordered the
wedding blocked until the issue can be considered by the Supreme
Court.
(AP, 12/1/09)
2009 Dec 28, In Argentina two
men succeeded in becoming Latin America's first same-sex married
couple. Gay rights activists Jose Maria Di Bello (41) and Alex
Freyre (39) took their civil ceremony to the capital of Argentina's
Tierra del Fuego province, where a sympathetic governor backed their
bid to make Latin American history.
(AP, 12/29/09)
2009 Dec 30, An Argentine judge
convicted former Santa Fe Roman Catholic Archbishop Edgardo Storni
of sexually abusing a seminarian in 1992.
(AP, 12/30/09)
2010 Jan 6, Argentine President
Cristina Fernandez ordered the military to declassify all "dirty
war"-related documents.
(AP, 1/6/10)
2010 Jan 7, In Argentina Martin
Redrado (b.1961), governor of the central bank, was dismissed by
Pres. Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner. She signed a decree firing him
for refusing to use currency reserves to pay foreign debt.
(http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/8447428.stm)
2010 Jan 23, Brazil extradited
Manuel Juan Cordero Piacentini, a retired Uruguayan military
officer, to Argentina to face charges of human rights abuses
allegedly committed more than 30 years ago. Under "Operation
Condor," the military dictatorships that ruled much of South America
in the 1970s and 1980s secretly cooperated in the torture and
disappearances of each others' citizens.
(AP, 1/23/10)
2010 Jan 31, In Argentina Tomas
Eloy Martinez (75), author and journalist famed for his writings
about former President Juan Domingo Peron and his glamorous wife
Eva, died.
(AP, 1/31/10)
2010 Feb 22, Latin American and
Caribbean nations backed Argentina's claim of sovereignty to the
Falkland Islands in a growing dispute with Britain over plans to
drill for oil off the islands in the Atlantic. British exploration
company Desire Petroleum PLC said it started drilling for oil about
62 miles north of the disputed islands.
(AP, 2/23/10)(SFC, 2/23/10, p.A2)
2010 Mar 21, In Argentina 2
teenagers died, apparently after police tried to stop them for
riding a motorcycle without helmets. Hundreds of angry residents
torched the Baradero city hall to protest the death of the teenagers
in a police chase.
(AP, 3/22/10)
2010 Apr 12, In Argentina Luis
Caicedo Velandia was arrested as he walked near a Buenos Aires
shopping mall and placed under extremely high security. the
suspected Colombian drug trafficker, who operated under the radar
for years in Argentina, was later described as a ringleader capable
of giving direct orders to Colombia's most-wanted cocaine kingpins
and with close ties to Mexico's feared Sinaloa cartel.
(AP, 6/12/10)
2010 Apr 14, In Argentina
Dmitry Medvedev used the first-ever visit by a Russian president to
Argentina to urge the countries to boost economic ties and cooperate
more on nuclear energy.
(AP, 4/15/10)
2010 Apr 16, Argentina offered
to swap defaulted bonds at a third of their nominal value in a bid
to regain access to financial markets after defaulting on them in
2001. The proposed restructuring involves 20 billion dollars in debt
and nine billion dollars in interest accumulated since 2005 and
should be completed within 40 days.
(AFP, 4/16/10)
2010 Apr 20, Argentina's last
dictator, Reynaldo Bignone (82), was convicted and sentenced to 25
years in prison for kidnappings and torture during the nation's
1976-1983 military regime.
(AP, 4/20/10)
2010 Apr 20, A UN court
delivered a long-awaited ruling rejecting Argentina's claim that an
Uruguayan pulp mill pollutes their shared river. Both sides said the
decision by the International Court of Justice in the Netherlands
gave them what they need to resolve their differences, with
Argentina taking heart from a part of the ruling that said Uruguay
did not properly inform it about the project. Argentine activists
were still blocking the main bridge across the river and refused to
give up their fight. Activists in June voted to lift their four-year
bridge blockade.
(AP, 4/21/10)(AP, 6/17/10)
2010 Apr 30, In Argentina over
2,000 adolescents in schools across the province of Mendoza skipped
classes and met in a plaza in a mass truancy organized on Facebook.
A judge in Mendoza soon ordered Facebook to shut groups created by
minors to organize the truancy.
(SFC, 5/13/10, p.A2)
2010 May 3, In Argentina a
judge widened the case against former dictator Jorge Rafael Videla
(1976-1981) to include an additional 49 cases of kidnapping, torture
and murder. These include victims whose bodies have been identified
by forensic experts.
(AP, 5/3/10)
2010 May 4, Alfredo Martinez de
Hoz (84), the powerful economy minister who ran Argentina's finances
during most of the dictatorship (1976-1983), was arrested and his
bank accounts were frozen. The arrest followed a Supreme Court
ruling last week deeming unconstitutional a 1990 presidential pardon
granted to Martinez de Hoz and former dictator Jorge Videla.
(AFP, 5/4/10)(AP, 5/6/10)
2010 May 4, The leaders of
South America named former Argentine President Nestor Kirchner as
their secretary-general, setting aside their differences in hopes
that the 12-nation Unasur group can consolidate into a regional
force for unity, development and democracy-building.
(AP, 5/4/10)
2010 May 6, Julio Alberto Poch
(57), a pilot who allegedly flew death flights for Argentina's
military dictatorship, was extradited from Spain. Spain acted on
Argentina's request, arresting him in front of his passengers and
family during a stop in Valencia on what was supposed to be his
final flight back to the Netherlands before retiring from Transavia.
(AP, 5/6/10)
2010 May 25, In Argentina some
2 million people and eight heads of state from across South America
took to the streets of Buenos Aires in celebration of 200 years
since its revolution.
(AFP, 5/26/10)
2010 May 26, In Argentina Angie
Sanclemente Valencia (30), a Colombian model accused of leading a
drug-trafficking gang that persuaded pretty young women to smuggle
cocaine to Mexico, was arrested after evading Argentine police for
five months.
(AP, 5/26/10)
2010 Jul 1, In Argentina a
survivor of the former military junta detention centers was reported
to have presented a list of 293 detainees, part of a trove of
evidence he rescued from destruction decades ago and hid away.
There, in neat columns typed by a police functionary, each
"subversive delinquent" is listed alongside a terse decision on
their fate, the letters "DF," military shorthand for "disposition
final" — death. The 1976-1983 military junta killed at least 13,000
people, though human rights groups believe as many as 30,000 died
during what Argentines call the "dirty war."
(AP, 7/1/10)
2010 Jul 8, In Argentina some
of the most notorious figures of Argentina's "dirty war" were
convicted of kidnapping, torturing and murdering 22 people at the
beginning of the 1976-1983 military dictatorship. A judge handed
down the sentences for Gen. Luciano Menendez and former police
intelligence chief Roberto Albornoz: life in prison for crimes
against humanity committed at a secret detention center in
provincial Tucuman. Two former police officers, brothers Luis
Armando de Candido and Carlos Esteban de Candido, were sentenced to
18 and 3 years, respectively.
(AP, 7/8/10)
2010 Jul 15, Argentina
legalized same-sex marriage, becoming the first country in Latin
America to grant gays and lesbians all the legal rights,
responsibilities and protections that marriage brings to
heterosexual couples.
(AP, 7/15/10)
2010 Jul 20, It was reported
that at least 26 people have died in Argentina from exposure, carbon
monoxide inhalation from heaters and other weather-related causes. A
cold front across much of South America was linked to dozens of
deaths, mounting losses for cattle ranchers and other hardships.
(AP, 7/20/10)
2010 Jul 28, Argentina and
Uruguay held a signing ceremony in Buenos Aires on an agreement to a
joint environmental monitoring program along the shared Uruguay
River, ending a seven-year pollution controversy over a Finnish
paper mill on the Uruguayan side.
(AFP, 7/28/10)
2010 Sep 16, Thousands of young
Argentines marched to the presidential palace to protest the quality
of public education, joining a student rebellion that accuses
politicians of neglecting schools and universities that were once
the envy of Latin America.
(AP, 9/16/10)
2010 Sep 30, Argentina granted
asylum to Galvarino Apablaza Guerra, a former leftist guerrilla,
charged in his native Chile with assassinating right-wing Sen. Jaime
Guzman and kidnapping businessman Christian Edwards del Rio in 1991.
Apablaza, who requested asylum in 2004, was an ideological leader of
a branch of Chile's Communist Party that took up arms against
Pinochet.
(AP, 9/30/10)
2010 Oct 27, Nestor Kirchner
(60), former Argentine President (2003-2007) and the husband of
current leader Cristina Fernandez, died after suffering from heart
trouble.
(AP, 10/27/10)
2010 Nov 6, In Argentina
thousands marched in a Gay Pride parade, celebrating the country's
status as the first in Latin America to legalize same-sex marriage
and vowing to campaign for new rights for transgender people. More
than 500 same-sex couples have been married since President Cristina
Fernandez signed the law on July 21. The theme of the parade was
"let's go for more," specifically, a "gender identity" law to enable
individuals to change their gender on birth certificates and
identity cards.
(AP, 11/7/10)
2010 Nov 8, In Argentina 1976
coup leader Emilio Eduardo Massera (85) died after suffering for
years from a heart condition and dementia that left him too ill to
be tried for crimes against humanity.
(AP, 11/8/10)(Econ, 11/27/10, p.98)
2010 Nov 16, In Argentina the
SRZero electric sports car, developed by engineers from Imperial
College London, arrived in Ushuaia, Tierra del Fuego, ending a
70-day, 16,000 mile journey that began on July 3 at Chena Hot
Springs, Alaska. It managed as much as 6 hours and over 250 miles on
a single charge.
(SFC, 11/18/10, p.A19)
2010 Nov 26, In Argentina the
newspaper Clarin published the comments of a woman who has accused
her father of sexually abusing her for 30 years and having 10
children with her, including one who killed himself after learning
that his grandfather was his father. Elvira Gomez (43) did not
report the alleged abuse until her father, Armando Gomez (62), was
recently arrested for robbery.
(AP, 11/27/10)
2010 Nov 28, BP said it has
agreed to sell its 60 percent stake in Pan American Energy to
Argentina-based oil and gas firm Bridas Corporation, as part of
asset sales to pay for the Gulf of Mexico oil spill.
(AFP, 11/28/10)
2010 Dec 5, In Argentina
Spanish and Portuguese-speaking nations wrapped up their annual
meeting by adopting a provision threatening exclusion for any member
country that doesn't abide by democratic process.
(AP, 12/5/10)
2010 Dec 6, Argentina announced
that it recognizes the Palestinian territories as a free and
independent state within their 1967 borders, a step it said reflects
frustration at the slow progress of peace talks with Israel.
(AP, 12/6/10)
2010 Dec 13, In Argentina a
yacht returning from Antarctica smashed ashore in a storm near the
city of Ushuaia, killing two Polish brothers, Marek and Pawel
Radwanski, and injuring five other people.
(AP, 12/16/10)
2010 Dec 22, In Argentina
former dictator Jorge Videla was sentenced to life in prison for the
torture and murder of 31 prisoners, most of whom who were "shot
while trying to escape" in the months after his military coup.
(AP, 12/22/10)
2010 Dec 30, In Greece a
powerful bomb hidden on a parked motorcycle exploded outside two
court buildings in central Athens and a small bomb went off outside
the Greek embassy in Buenos Aires, Argentina, but neither caused
injuries.
(AP, 12/30/10)
2010 Dec 31, In Argentina
thieves dug a 100-foot-long (30m) ventilated and lit tunnel from a
neighboring building into a Buenos Aires bank and spent the weekend
opening and emptying between 130 and 140 of the branch's 1,408
boxes. The robbery wasn't discovered until the bank opened on Jan 3.
(AP, 1/4/11)
2011 Jan 2, Four Argentines
were arrested in Spain for allegedly transporting almost a ton of
cocaine in a private plane. They included Gustavo and Eduardo Julia,
sons of the late former head of the Air Force Jose Julia, and Gaston
Miret, son of Jose Miret, the former Air Force brigadier who was
secretary of planning during Argentina's 1976-1983 dictatorship. The
cocaine was almost pure with a value of more than 30 million euros
(about $39 million).
(AP, 1/7/11)
2011 Jan 13, Thieves in
Argentina stole $68,000 and 17,000 euros in cash that President
Cristina Fernandez was to use on a trip to the Middle East.
(AP, 1/14/11)
2011 Jan 15, Argentina's
government said it would take steps to ensure mills and exporters
paid fixed local wheat prices to farmers and punish those that did
not, as it braced for a growers strike over export quotas.
(Reuters, 1/16/11)
2011 Jan 24, In Argentina a
woman (30) threw herself from the 23rd story of a Buenos Aires hotel
Monday and survived after landing on the roof of a taxi.
(AP, 1/25/11)
2011 Feb 10, Argentine
authorities seized nearly 1,000 cubic feet of undeclared equipment,
describing it as machine guns and ammunition, drugs and spy
equipment. It was on a US Air Force C-17 cargo plane that landed
with material for a training course that a US Special Forces team
had been invited to provide to Argentina's federal police. The
course was canceled and the C-17 flew home with the Special Forces
team. A US State Department official with knowledge of the events
said afterwards that all the key material in the shipment was
properly declared and authorized by Argentina, describing the
undeclared equipment as a minor problem with the plane's manifest
that could have been resolved privately. On March 10 a judge said
Americans committed no crimes and formally closed the case. The
incident cost US taxpayers more than $1 million.
(AP, 2/15/11)(AP, 3/10/11)
2011 Feb 16, In Argentina the
collision of two trains near the San Miguel station, 12 miles west
of Buenos Aires, killed four people and injured about 70 others, 14
critically.
(AP, 2/16/11)
2011 Feb 28, In Argentina
former Argentine dictators Jorge Videla, who headed a military junta
from 1976 to 1981, and the last dictator of the military regime,
Reynaldo Bignone (1982-1983), appeared in court to face charges for
the first time for kidnapping hundreds of babies seized from their
mothers in secret maternity units minutes after birth.
(AFP, 2/28/11)
2011 Mar 31, In Argentina a
court sentenced former Army Gen. Eduardo Cabanillas to life in
prison and three ex-state agents to 20 or 25 years for crimes
against humanity committed at Automotores Orletti, the notorious
torture center of Operation Condor in 1976.
(AP, 4/1/11)
2011 Apr 14, Argentina's last
dictator, Reynaldo Bignone, was sentenced to life in prison for
crimes against humanity stemming from human rights abuses under the
country's 1976-83 military regime.
(AFP, 4/15/11)
2011 Apr 18, In Argentina
Victor Oscar Martinez (52), the sole witness to the 1977 death of
Bishop Carlos Horacio Ponce de Leon, disappeared. He was released
late April 20, hours after the president ordered all federal forces
to search for him.
(SFC, 4/21/11, p.A2)(AP, 4/21/11)
2011 Apr 30, Argentine writer
Ernesto Sabato (b.1911), who led the government's probe of crimes
committed by Argentina's dictatorship, died. His books included "One
and the Universe" (1945), his first novel "The Tunnel" (1948), and
"The Angel of Darkness" (1974).
(AP, 4/30/11)
2011 May 18, In Argentina a
turboprop plane carrying 22 people crashed and exploded in the
southern Patagonia region, killing all on board.
(AP, 5/19/11)
2011 May 23, In Argentina Dr.
Carlos Livio Warter (61) was arrested at his home in a wealthy
Buenos Aires neighborhood, on charges of falsely billing $1 million
in health insurance claims in Hawaii. He worked as a psychiatrist
and led seminars based on his latest book, "Pathways to the Soul."
Warter was charged in August 2009 with 37 state felonies accusing
him of Medicare fraud, each punishable by up to five years in
prison. This February he voluntarily surrendered his medical license
for failure to comply with professional conduct laws. In 1982 Warter
was convicted of falsifying reports in Denver. A 2009 notice from
Washington state's Medical Quality Assurance Commission said "The
conviction was based on your stipulation that you overcharged the
state of Colorado, through the Medicaid system, in the sum of
$44,500." The notice was sent to Warter in denying his application
to practice medicine there.
(AP, 5/25/11)(AP, 5/25/11)
2011 Jun 1, Argentina enacted a
law criminalizing money laundering.
(AP, 6/3/11)
2011 Jun 10, The Argentina
climate satellite Aquarius/SAC-D was launched from Vandenberg Air
Force Base in California.
(SSFC, 6/19/11, p.A4)
2011 Jul 7, Ash from a Chilean
volcano grounded flights across much of South America again,
disrupting travel for thousands of people just as the continent's
premier football tournament got going in Argentina.
(AP, 7/7/11)
2011 Jul 9, Argentine singer
Facundo Cabral (b.1937), one of Latin America's most admired folk
singers, was killed in Guatemala when three carloads of gunmen
ambushed the vehicle in which he was riding. By 1970 became
internationally known through his song "No soy de aqui ni alla" (I'm
Not From Here Nor There). Authorities later said the target of the
attack was Nicaraguan businessman Henry Farinas, who was driving the
singer to the airport when they were ambushed.
(AP, 7/9/11)(AP, 7/31/11)
2011 Jul 14, In Argentina
former Gen. Hector Gamen and Col. Hugo Pascarelli were convicted of
murder, kidnapping and torture at El Vesubio, one of the most
notorious prisons run by the former dictatorship (1976-1983). Both
got life sentences for crimes against humanity.
(AP, 7/14/11)
2011 Jul 15, A former military
doctor was extradited from Paraguay to Argentina to face charges
that include stealing babies from political prisoners during
Argentina's dictatorship. Dr. Norberto Atilo Bianco allegedly helped
run a clandestine maternity ward inside the epidemiology section of
the Argentine army's Campo de Mayo military hospital in 1977 and
1978.
(AP, 7/16/11)
2011 Jul 15, In Argentina
French tourists Cassandre Bouvier (29) and Houria Moumni (20) were
raped and killed by a group of men who followed the academics from
Sorbonne University up a popular hiking trail, the Quebrada de San
Lorenzo, outside the provincial capital of Salta.
(AP, 8/16/11)
2011 Jul 29, In Argentina
French tourists Cassandre Bouvier (29) and Moumni Houria (20) were
found dead in Buenos Aires. They were last seen alive two weeks
earlier. On Aug 6 authorities detained seven people, including the
son and daughter of a high-ranking local police official, for
questioning in the rape and slaying of the two French tourists. DNA
and ballistics evidence later implicated some of the eight suspects
arrested in the case.
(AP, 8/7/11)(AP, 8/16/11)
2011 Sep 13, Former Argentine
President Carlos Menem (81) and 17 members of his government were
acquitted of charges that they violated international weapons
embargoes on Ecuador and Croatia in the 1990s.
(AP, 9/13/11)
2011 Sep 13, In Argentina 11
people were killed and over 200 injured in Buenos Aires in a
rush-hour crash involving two passenger trains and a bus whose
driver who drove around barriers in an attempt to beat them across
the tracks.
(AP, 9/13/11)(AP, 9/14/11)
2011 Sep 26, In Argentina an
explosion wrecked two homes, a business and several cars, killing a
woman and injuring nine people on the outskirts of Buenos Aires. A
search turned up a canister of natural gas with a poor connection to
a pizza oven.
(AP, 9/26/11)
2011 Oct 23, Argentina held
national elections. President Cristina Fernandez appeared to be
headed for a landslide victory over six rivals. Fernandez had 53% of
the vote after three-fourths of the polling stations reported
nationwide. Her nearest challenger got just 17%.
(AP, 10/23/11)
2011 Oct 26, In Argentina a
court sentenced Alfredo Astiz (59), a former navy spy known as "the
Angel of Death," and 11 other former Argentine military and police
officers to life in prison for crimes against humanity committed
during the 1976-83 military dictatorship.
(AP, 10/26/11)
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End of file.