ARGENTINA ECONOMY
The riches to rags tale of Argentina. It was once touted as having extraordinary promise. Its capital -- BA to the cognoscenti -- became a byword for style -- and it gave the world arguably its raciest dance. Now Argentina is a beggar nation, drowning in a sea of debt and despair. Never mind the tag "land of the tango", the country also celebrated for its gauchos and big steaks has a fresh appellation --the biggest loan defaulter of all time. How did it happen? What can it do? Washington correspondent Tim Lester flew south of the Rio Grande into a frenzy of finger pointing.
Tango dancing school Music 02:00
Lester: Buenos Aires is dealing with debt and its consequences. 02:22
In one part of the city, they practise the steps first danced in Argentine brothels and immigrant districts more than a century ago the tango. 02:29
Music 02:39
Bank rally Lester: In another, they scream at, deface and kick the metal sheeting shielding bank windows. 02:46
Woman Woman: The banks dont want to return us our money . They want to rob our money. 02:53
Man Man: Argentine politicians in Argentina are most of them - 90% - are thieves. 03:04
Lester: Bashing banks that wont release their savings. 03:15
Music
Tango school Lester: And taking free lessons meant to bolster national pride, in a dance their ancestors gave the world. Both are responses to this countrys profound crisis. 03:25
So, too, is a demand here to explain what went wrong; to make sense of how this most educated, resource-rich, European corner of Latin America 03:38
could fail so completely. 03:52
Music
Buenos Aires Architecture Lester: Buenos Aires is a sprawling city of thirteen million full of promise and pretensions. 04:06
Its affluent facades say little about a brutal recent past, and plenty about how Argentines see their capital: a London or Madrid, more than a Lima or Mexico City. 04:14
04:26
Sara Navarette Lester: Sara Navarette lived among Argentinas privileged. 04:34
Sara: We had rooms and toilets for the maids, kitchen, laundry, and a 25-metre hallway
Lester: She trained as an accountant and dance teacher, and had a wealthy grandfather. 04:50
Lester: Was he a millionaire? Sara: Yes. Yes. Lester: A millionaire? Sara: Millionaire, yes. 04:55
Lester & Sara in Shantytown Lester: At forty-six, the money, career, home and marriage have all gone. 05:05
Sacked when her employer went broke, Sara, like one in five Argentines who want to work, is unemployed. 05:14
She lives in Villa Retiro, an inner city slum. 05:24
Sara Navarette Sara: We had to learn to live life by new codes. Ive worked as a maid, as a cleaner, as anything I can find. 05:28
Protest march Lester: In the last quarter of a century, Argentina has lurched from a vicious military dictatorship more than twenty thousand people vanished 05:45
through four-digit hyper-inflation to a new widely praised free market economy. 05:56
- and now, four unrelenting years of recession, the slump so rough Latin Americas recent economic star performer is unable to meet repayments on 150 billion US dollars of foreign debt, the biggest debt defaulter of all time. 06:09
Keene Keene: Ordinary Argentines are very clear. There is no sense whatsoever. We don't owe and we shouldn't pay. 06:30
Lester: Seattle born economist, Beverley Keene, works with an Argentine Human Rights group. 06:38
Keene: What we are living today in Argentina are the results of the kinds of policies that have been put in place since the time of the dictatorship, and particularly since the early nineties -- structural adjustment policies. The kind of basic prescription that the IMF and the World Bank give to countries that are heavily indebted. 06:43
Prof. Atilio Boron Boron: No major economic decision in this country was never made without first getting the green light from the IMF. 07:02
Lester: Another who blames the International Monetary Fund and its free market policies, is author and political science professor, Atilio Boron. 07:10
Super: Atilio Boron. Boron: We have been the country which follow strictly all the recommendations issued by the major international financial institutions, like the IMF and the World Bank, and everybody knows those recommendations do not work. They do not work. And so this is Argentine tragedy is the tragedy of a very good pupil who follow all the rules of the teacher, but the teacher was dead wrong, and now we are paying the bill. 07:17
Night marches to Plaza de Mayo Lester: In the small hours of any Saturday morning these days, streets leading to the Plaza de Mayo channel thousands of middle class, educated Argentines into one bubbling hub of frustration. 07:53
Protest crowd in Plaza de Mayo Drums 08:04
Lester: They bang pots and drums and chant of a popular revolt, of seizing the streets and overthrowing at least the government, perhaps the system. 08:08
Argentines sifting through garbage Lester: And in the shadows nearby, poor, less educated Argentines sift through garbage. 08:27
Not two or even five thousand; an estimated fifty thousand live this way, night after night, in Buenos Aires alone. 08:37
Salvaging paper for recycling and the five dollars a night it can earn them -- and finding their food. 08:51
Vanesa Vanesa: I walk all night walking, looking for garbage bags and trying to find or collect anything I can. 09:06
Argentines sifting through garbage Lester: Vanesa Aladin is seventeen. She has mixed feelings about the nearby protests applauds their motives, but they interrupt garbage hunting. 09:14
She needs the money from paper, and the food for her family. 09:24
Vanesa Vanesa: First we smell the food and we also check if theres an expiry date. We have to be careful with the food we are going to give the little ones. If the food doesnt; have an expiry date , we taste to before we give it to the little ones, because little children also come here with us. 09:29
Argentines sifting through garbage Lester: Could the economic wisdom of the nineties really have brought Argentina and its thirty six million people, to this? 09:51
Music 10:00
Driving to La Rioja Lester: for those willing to make the 1,000 kilometre journey North West of Buenos Aires and through the desolate mountains of La Rioja province, the champion of IMF policies in Argentina, will talk. 10:07
This is Menem country. 10:25
Lester & Menem Lester: Nice to meet you.
Lester: Home to the man twice elected President, the only President of 17 Argentinas had since the fifties, who served a full term. 10:32
And the President who faithfully implemented the IMF blueprint for a decade before losing office three years ago. At 71, Carlos Menem makes wine 10:42
Menem: You will see how good is our wine. Lester: What is your specialty grape? Menem: Cabernet Sauvignon 10:53
Lester: dresses in the gaucho outfit of the Argentine cowboy, and enjoys the life of a newly wed. 11:01
Lester: Salud.
Cecilia Bolocco dancing Music 11:11
Lester: His bride; Cecilia Bolocco starred at the opening of this Chilean festival the week before our interview.Their marriage is the stuff Latin American tabloids are made of. 11:16
She's 37, a former Miss Universe turned journalist. And he's older than his father in law. 11:29
Menem & Bolocco Menem: But in life, dear Tim, one has the age of the person he loves I have Cecilias age (laugh) 11:45
Protest march Lester: On his countrys turmoil 11:58
Menem Menem: (sigh) It is dramatic, so deep and dramatic. 12:01
Cecilia Cecilia: Unfortunately, I see very anguished people. I see a lot of pain. I see a lot of agony, and a lot of uncertainty and discomfort. 12:06
Protest march Lester: On whos to blame? Its not the IMF; rather the government that took power from him in 1999. 12:21
Menem & Bolocco Menem: it was a real disaster. It was the Waterloo of the Argentinean politics. 12:28
Protest march Lester: And on that staggering foreign debt, more than half built up under his government? 12:33
Menem Menem: In 1989, we had a Foreign Debt, which was ninety percent of the Gross National Product, and we left it as a 42% of the Gross National Product.
Aerolineas Jet Lester: To pull Latin Americas third largest economy out of hyper-inflation, Carlos Menem pushed the IMFs free market model to full throttle. 13:18
It worked inflation plummeted and economic growth took off but only with a withering burst of privatisations.
Boron Boron: Argentina sold out all its governmental enterprises almost with no parliamentary discussion. 13:40
Sara Sara: The first Menem speech, I will never forget. I was stupid to vote for him. He said Argentina rise up and walk, and I promise you a revolution of production. 13:49
Lester: Sara Navarrete says Menem would have privatised the air if hed found a buyer. 14:02
Sara: What he did not say was that he was going to sell the whole country, and that at 35 years of age, I was going to find myself without any work. 14:07
Prof. Jorge Castro Castro: The privatisation process was the key issue to attract foreign direct investments. 14:17
Lester: Former President Menems strategic planning secretary, Professor Jorge Castro, insists the IMF backed economic liberalisation succeeded. 14:24
Castro: You have to know that during the last ten years, we attract more than two hundred billion dollars of foreign direct investments, and we do it because first we privatise all, practically all the public enterprises. 14:34
Streets of Buenos Aires Lester: Some privatisations worked. No longer do Buenos Aires residents wait three years to get a phone connected. 14:59
Aerolineas Jet And some didnt work, like the sale of Argentinas well-equipped, profitable national airline, to Spanish carrier Iberia. 15:07
Boron Boron: And they paid just peanuts for that. Not even three hundred million dollars. 15:15
Aerolineas Jet Lester: then promptly sold the assets, including all but one of its twenty-eight jets and flew Aerolineas to the brink of liquidation. 15:22
Boron Boron: And then after eight years they say, okay we are going home because the company is bankrupt. The legacy of the Menem years is something absolutely terrible. 15:32
Menem Menem: There were a couple of privatisations that didnt work out, but that wasnt the presidents fault, it was the fault of those controlling the privatisations. 15:46
Buenos Aires post office Lester: Carlos Menems great fire sale included Argentinas postal business. 16:02
Baistrocchi in Buenos Aires post office Lester: Did your company pay too much money for the post office? Baistrocchi: I could say yes. We imagined a postal market, a different postal market. 19:10
Lester: In fact many people thought it was too much when Guillermo Baistrocchis company offered eighty million US dollars a year, for thirty years. 16:22
Baistrocchi: Yes, too much. 16:32
Lester: Problem is, five years on, the company hasnt even paid its first instalment not a single Argentine peso. 16:35
It took the Post Office from Menem, and now its taking the government to court to renegotiate the contract. 16:43
Baistrocchi: They will do it. Lester: Are you sure? Baistrocchi: Yeah.Lester: Why? Baistrocchi: Because it is necessary to be, to have a good service, have a profitable business. 16:50
Boron Boron: The one who is in this business of the postal service is a good friend of President Menem and then you know, this explains a lot of things. 17:01
Music
Tango dancing school Lester: And that leads to a very different diagnosis of Argentinas sickness; one that says IMF policies arent the problem; rather this is a society rotten with graft and greed. 17:16
Music/cheering
17:40
Carrio Carrio: I started my struggle against corruption knowing I needed to get into the mud to fight with the mafias. Its something I accepted. 18:18
Lester: Elisa Carrio was once a slim, pretty law lecturer. 18:27
Supporters now know this devoutly Catholic mother and opposition party leader as Lilita or La Gorda the fat lady.
Lester: But then she seems to be everything politicians havent been dresses plainly, talks bluntly, worries about the poor a picture of several constituents hangs on the apartment wall a reminder. 19:05
Lester: Which one person more than any other shoulders blame for whats happened in this country? 19:20
Carrio Carrio: The boss of the political mafia , the most unscrupulous man , who did enormous cultural damage to Argentina, the boss of the political mafia in its worst expression of culture and robbery, his name is Carlos Saul Menem. 19:25
Lester: Menem?
Menem & Cecilia Lester: Have you ever committed a corrupt act? 19:48
Menem: No. Absolutely not. Until the opposite is proved, I state my innocence. 19:52
Cecilia Cecilia: he never, ever defended himself. He never came to me, Cecilia dont you ever believe what theyre saying. This is like this. Er, theyre lying, theyre He stayed as you see him. Very sad, very, very, very sad. I saw in his eyes a lot of pain because its very difficult to accept such hatred. 20:04
Bielsa Bielsa: It was a Pizza with champagne culture. 20:38
Lester: Auditor General for the administration that followed Carlos Menem, Rafael Bielsa, scrutinised the previous governments books. 20:40
Bielsa: There were so many corruption cases under the Menem administration its not possible to count them. 20:48
Streets of Buenos Aires Music 20:56
Lester: He says those in power ripped off Argentina repeatedly for their own wealth: theft of public money on such a scale, commentators called it not so much a democracy as a kleptocracy. 21:01
One example, Bielsa found in the fine print of the Aerolineas privatisation a line item eighty million US dollars on negotiations. 21:15
Bielsa Bielsa: meaning the bribe is explicit. This shows clearly a structure intended to confuse public wealth, public negotiations with the particular benefits of servants sand politicians. 21:26
Lunch with the Menems Lester: In fact, Carlos Menem spent his recent honeymoon under house arrest, denying he knew the destination of illegal arms shipments potentially worth tens of millions for those behind them. 21:55
Investigations by Buenos Aires anti-corruption lawyer, Ricardo Monner Sans show the then President signed off on the shipments that ultimately went to Ecuador and Croatia, when both were under international arms embargos. 22:06
Monner Sans Monner Sans: The president of the Republic signed false decrees that permitted the shipment of arms to a false destination 22:20
Menem Menem: I take responsibility for my signature in the decree, but not what followed because a President cant be there. A President cannot be at a port or at an airport controlling where the arms go. 22:33
Argentinas Supreme Court Lester: Argentinas Supreme Court most of the Judges are Menem appointees -- has released the former President, though three of his close colleagues remain in prison. 23:01
White House There's even murmuring about this scent of corruption around Carlos Menem in far off Washington. Menem has been particularly close to former U.S. President, George Bush. Bush Snr once called Menem a visionary, and is said to have visited him at least eight times. The link has continued. 23:15
Music
Giler Giler: I believe Argentina never will succeed because of this kind of mentality. 23:41
Lester: This belief that a rottenness condemns Argentina to always fail, has taken hold among the very professionals the country needs if its to recover. 23:48
Giler: It is like a vicious circle where the state deceives the citizen and the citizen cheats the state. 24:00
Deby Giler and husband Oscar Lester: In a country where poverty has driven up crime, piano teacher Deby Giler and husband Oscar who works in computer graphics, have been attacked four times. 24:06
The shock of one armed hold-up ended Debys first pregnancy. 24:17
Now, theyre planning to emigrate to Canada or Australia, joining tens of thousands trying to get out. 24:23
Oscar Oscar: Among our friends, I would say eighty percent want to leave. 24:29
Lester: Do you love this country?
Deby Deby: No I, no for me is not important to live here. The only important thing I lose is the affection of my loved ones. I do not identify myself with this country. It is not a country that helps me or defends me and respects me. I say this with pain, only because if I leave, my love ones will remain. 24:36
Lester: And yet Argentina is your home isnt it, in a way? 25:10
Deby: No.Lester: Where is home?Deby: I don't know where is. My home is my husband, my daughter. 25:14
Deby Giler and husband Oscar Lester: This despair suggests many Argentines dont believe the IMFs economic prescription explains their problems; even the grand scale corruption may be more symptom than cause. 25:26
So Wheres the leader to deliver the change?
Lester: Who will be the next President of Argentina? 25:45
Menem Menem: Carlos Menem. Lester: Are you sure? Menem: Yes. 25:49
Lester: Yes, the grape grower who guided Argentina out of one crisis through prosperity back into crisis, who sold virtually every government owned enterprise, yet doubled the countrys debt, is steadying his ego for a third tilt at the top job next year. 25:55
Menem: great men, and Im not saying I am a great man, awake great hates and great loves. Even Jesus, among others, was no exception to this. 26:14
Cecilia Bolocco dancing Lester: This time his campaign has a royal feel, an enchanting would-be first lady, and perhaps a baby. 26:36
Lester: Do you want to be a father again? 26:47
Menem & Cecilia Menem: Yes, Cecilia and I are working towards that. We are trying hard. 26:51
Carrio Lester: Then, theres the candidate making a mark as un-Menem like as she can. 26:57
Lester: President Lilita Carrio. Is it possible, even likely?
Carrio: I am the person with a good image for a long time already, despite a negative campaign against me that brought me down from an excessive ninety percent popularity to the fifty or sixty percent I have now. It is possible. 27:06
Sara Sara: I believe there is going to be a civil war here, like weve never seen before. 27:26
Music
Tango dancing school Lester: And then theres the millions failed so often by the system before now, and the question of whether theyll give Argentina another chance to make good. 27:33
Music
ARGENTINA ECONOMYReporter: Tim LesterCamera: David MartinSound: Jason RackiEditor: Woody LandayProducer: Vivien Altman 27:50
Supers:Beverley KeeneHuman Rights Economist
Prof. Atilio BoronUniversity of Buenos Aires
Prof. Jorge CastroInternational Relations specialist
Prof. Atilio BoronUniversity of Buenos Aires
Guillermo BaistrocchiArgentina Post Office
Cecilia Bolocco
Deby GilerDeparting resident
Prof. Jorge CastroInternational Relations specialist
The riches to rags tale of Argentina. It was once touted as having extraordinary promise. Its capital -- BA to the cognoscenti -- became a byword for style -- and it gave the world arguably its raciest dance. Now Argentina is a beggar nation, drowning in a sea of debt and despair. Never mind the tag "land of the tango", the country also celebrated for its gauchos and big steaks has a fresh appellation --the biggest loan defaulter of all time. How did it happen? What can it do? Washington correspondent Tim Lester flew south of the Rio Grande into a frenzy of finger pointing.
Tango dancing school Music 02:00
Lester: Buenos Aires is dealing with debt and its consequences. 02:22
In one part of the city, they practise the steps first danced in Argentine brothels and immigrant districts more than a century ago the tango. 02:29
Music 02:39
Bank rally Lester: In another, they scream at, deface and kick the metal sheeting shielding bank windows. 02:46
Woman Woman: The banks dont want to return us our money . They want to rob our money. 02:53
Man Man: Argentine politicians in Argentina are most of them - 90% - are thieves. 03:04
Lester: Bashing banks that wont release their savings. 03:15
Music
Tango school Lester: And taking free lessons meant to bolster national pride, in a dance their ancestors gave the world. Both are responses to this countrys profound crisis. 03:25
So, too, is a demand here to explain what went wrong; to make sense of how this most educated, resource-rich, European corner of Latin America 03:38
could fail so completely. 03:52
Music
Buenos Aires Architecture Lester: Buenos Aires is a sprawling city of thirteen million full of promise and pretensions. 04:06
Its affluent facades say little about a brutal recent past, and plenty about how Argentines see their capital: a London or Madrid, more than a Lima or Mexico City. 04:14
04:26
Sara Navarette Lester: Sara Navarette lived among Argentinas privileged. 04:34
Sara: We had rooms and toilets for the maids, kitchen, laundry, and a 25-metre hallway
Lester: She trained as an accountant and dance teacher, and had a wealthy grandfather. 04:50
Lester: Was he a millionaire? Sara: Yes. Yes. Lester: A millionaire? Sara: Millionaire, yes. 04:55
Lester & Sara in Shantytown Lester: At forty-six, the money, career, home and marriage have all gone. 05:05
Sacked when her employer went broke, Sara, like one in five Argentines who want to work, is unemployed. 05:14
She lives in Villa Retiro, an inner city slum. 05:24
Sara Navarette Sara: We had to learn to live life by new codes. Ive worked as a maid, as a cleaner, as anything I can find. 05:28
Protest march Lester: In the last quarter of a century, Argentina has lurched from a vicious military dictatorship more than twenty thousand people vanished 05:45
through four-digit hyper-inflation to a new widely praised free market economy. 05:56
- and now, four unrelenting years of recession, the slump so rough Latin Americas recent economic star performer is unable to meet repayments on 150 billion US dollars of foreign debt, the biggest debt defaulter of all time. 06:09
Keene Keene: Ordinary Argentines are very clear. There is no sense whatsoever. We don't owe and we shouldn't pay. 06:30
Lester: Seattle born economist, Beverley Keene, works with an Argentine Human Rights group. 06:38
Keene: What we are living today in Argentina are the results of the kinds of policies that have been put in place since the time of the dictatorship, and particularly since the early nineties -- structural adjustment policies. The kind of basic prescription that the IMF and the World Bank give to countries that are heavily indebted. 06:43
Prof. Atilio Boron Boron: No major economic decision in this country was never made without first getting the green light from the IMF. 07:02
Lester: Another who blames the International Monetary Fund and its free market policies, is author and political science professor, Atilio Boron. 07:10
Super: Atilio Boron. Boron: We have been the country which follow strictly all the recommendations issued by the major international financial institutions, like the IMF and the World Bank, and everybody knows those recommendations do not work. They do not work. And so this is Argentine tragedy is the tragedy of a very good pupil who follow all the rules of the teacher, but the teacher was dead wrong, and now we are paying the bill. 07:17
Night marches to Plaza de Mayo Lester: In the small hours of any Saturday morning these days, streets leading to the Plaza de Mayo channel thousands of middle class, educated Argentines into one bubbling hub of frustration. 07:53
Protest crowd in Plaza de Mayo Drums 08:04
Lester: They bang pots and drums and chant of a popular revolt, of seizing the streets and overthrowing at least the government, perhaps the system. 08:08
Argentines sifting through garbage Lester: And in the shadows nearby, poor, less educated Argentines sift through garbage. 08:27
Not two or even five thousand; an estimated fifty thousand live this way, night after night, in Buenos Aires alone. 08:37
Salvaging paper for recycling and the five dollars a night it can earn them -- and finding their food. 08:51
Vanesa Vanesa: I walk all night walking, looking for garbage bags and trying to find or collect anything I can. 09:06
Argentines sifting through garbage Lester: Vanesa Aladin is seventeen. She has mixed feelings about the nearby protests applauds their motives, but they interrupt garbage hunting. 09:14
She needs the money from paper, and the food for her family. 09:24
Vanesa Vanesa: First we smell the food and we also check if theres an expiry date. We have to be careful with the food we are going to give the little ones. If the food doesnt; have an expiry date , we taste to before we give it to the little ones, because little children also come here with us. 09:29
Argentines sifting through garbage Lester: Could the economic wisdom of the nineties really have brought Argentina and its thirty six million people, to this? 09:51
Music 10:00
Driving to La Rioja Lester: for those willing to make the 1,000 kilometre journey North West of Buenos Aires and through the desolate mountains of La Rioja province, the champion of IMF policies in Argentina, will talk. 10:07
This is Menem country. 10:25
Lester & Menem Lester: Nice to meet you.
Lester: Home to the man twice elected President, the only President of 17 Argentinas had since the fifties, who served a full term. 10:32
And the President who faithfully implemented the IMF blueprint for a decade before losing office three years ago. At 71, Carlos Menem makes wine 10:42
Menem: You will see how good is our wine. Lester: What is your specialty grape? Menem: Cabernet Sauvignon 10:53
Lester: dresses in the gaucho outfit of the Argentine cowboy, and enjoys the life of a newly wed. 11:01
Lester: Salud.
Cecilia Bolocco dancing Music 11:11
Lester: His bride; Cecilia Bolocco starred at the opening of this Chilean festival the week before our interview.Their marriage is the stuff Latin American tabloids are made of. 11:16
She's 37, a former Miss Universe turned journalist. And he's older than his father in law. 11:29
Menem & Bolocco Menem: But in life, dear Tim, one has the age of the person he loves I have Cecilias age (laugh) 11:45
Protest march Lester: On his countrys turmoil 11:58
Menem Menem: (sigh) It is dramatic, so deep and dramatic. 12:01
Cecilia Cecilia: Unfortunately, I see very anguished people. I see a lot of pain. I see a lot of agony, and a lot of uncertainty and discomfort. 12:06
Protest march Lester: On whos to blame? Its not the IMF; rather the government that took power from him in 1999. 12:21
Menem & Bolocco Menem: it was a real disaster. It was the Waterloo of the Argentinean politics. 12:28
Protest march Lester: And on that staggering foreign debt, more than half built up under his government? 12:33
Menem Menem: In 1989, we had a Foreign Debt, which was ninety percent of the Gross National Product, and we left it as a 42% of the Gross National Product.
Aerolineas Jet Lester: To pull Latin Americas third largest economy out of hyper-inflation, Carlos Menem pushed the IMFs free market model to full throttle. 13:18
It worked inflation plummeted and economic growth took off but only with a withering burst of privatisations.
Boron Boron: Argentina sold out all its governmental enterprises almost with no parliamentary discussion. 13:40
Sara Sara: The first Menem speech, I will never forget. I was stupid to vote for him. He said Argentina rise up and walk, and I promise you a revolution of production. 13:49
Lester: Sara Navarrete says Menem would have privatised the air if hed found a buyer. 14:02
Sara: What he did not say was that he was going to sell the whole country, and that at 35 years of age, I was going to find myself without any work. 14:07
Prof. Jorge Castro Castro: The privatisation process was the key issue to attract foreign direct investments. 14:17
Lester: Former President Menems strategic planning secretary, Professor Jorge Castro, insists the IMF backed economic liberalisation succeeded. 14:24
Castro: You have to know that during the last ten years, we attract more than two hundred billion dollars of foreign direct investments, and we do it because first we privatise all, practically all the public enterprises. 14:34
Streets of Buenos Aires Lester: Some privatisations worked. No longer do Buenos Aires residents wait three years to get a phone connected. 14:59
Aerolineas Jet And some didnt work, like the sale of Argentinas well-equipped, profitable national airline, to Spanish carrier Iberia. 15:07
Boron Boron: And they paid just peanuts for that. Not even three hundred million dollars. 15:15
Aerolineas Jet Lester: then promptly sold the assets, including all but one of its twenty-eight jets and flew Aerolineas to the brink of liquidation. 15:22
Boron Boron: And then after eight years they say, okay we are going home because the company is bankrupt. The legacy of the Menem years is something absolutely terrible. 15:32
Menem Menem: There were a couple of privatisations that didnt work out, but that wasnt the presidents fault, it was the fault of those controlling the privatisations. 15:46
Buenos Aires post office Lester: Carlos Menems great fire sale included Argentinas postal business. 16:02
Baistrocchi in Buenos Aires post office Lester: Did your company pay too much money for the post office? Baistrocchi: I could say yes. We imagined a postal market, a different postal market. 19:10
Lester: In fact many people thought it was too much when Guillermo Baistrocchis company offered eighty million US dollars a year, for thirty years. 16:22
Baistrocchi: Yes, too much. 16:32
Lester: Problem is, five years on, the company hasnt even paid its first instalment not a single Argentine peso. 16:35
It took the Post Office from Menem, and now its taking the government to court to renegotiate the contract. 16:43
Baistrocchi: They will do it. Lester: Are you sure? Baistrocchi: Yeah.Lester: Why? Baistrocchi: Because it is necessary to be, to have a good service, have a profitable business. 16:50
Boron Boron: The one who is in this business of the postal service is a good friend of President Menem and then you know, this explains a lot of things. 17:01
Music
Tango dancing school Lester: And that leads to a very different diagnosis of Argentinas sickness; one that says IMF policies arent the problem; rather this is a society rotten with graft and greed. 17:16
Music/cheering
17:40
Carrio Carrio: I started my struggle against corruption knowing I needed to get into the mud to fight with the mafias. Its something I accepted. 18:18
Lester: Elisa Carrio was once a slim, pretty law lecturer. 18:27
Supporters now know this devoutly Catholic mother and opposition party leader as Lilita or La Gorda the fat lady.
Lester: But then she seems to be everything politicians havent been dresses plainly, talks bluntly, worries about the poor a picture of several constituents hangs on the apartment wall a reminder. 19:05
Lester: Which one person more than any other shoulders blame for whats happened in this country? 19:20
Carrio Carrio: The boss of the political mafia , the most unscrupulous man , who did enormous cultural damage to Argentina, the boss of the political mafia in its worst expression of culture and robbery, his name is Carlos Saul Menem. 19:25
Lester: Menem?
Menem & Cecilia Lester: Have you ever committed a corrupt act? 19:48
Menem: No. Absolutely not. Until the opposite is proved, I state my innocence. 19:52
Cecilia Cecilia: he never, ever defended himself. He never came to me, Cecilia dont you ever believe what theyre saying. This is like this. Er, theyre lying, theyre He stayed as you see him. Very sad, very, very, very sad. I saw in his eyes a lot of pain because its very difficult to accept such hatred. 20:04
Bielsa Bielsa: It was a Pizza with champagne culture. 20:38
Lester: Auditor General for the administration that followed Carlos Menem, Rafael Bielsa, scrutinised the previous governments books. 20:40
Bielsa: There were so many corruption cases under the Menem administration its not possible to count them. 20:48
Streets of Buenos Aires Music 20:56
Lester: He says those in power ripped off Argentina repeatedly for their own wealth: theft of public money on such a scale, commentators called it not so much a democracy as a kleptocracy. 21:01
One example, Bielsa found in the fine print of the Aerolineas privatisation a line item eighty million US dollars on negotiations. 21:15
Bielsa Bielsa: meaning the bribe is explicit. This shows clearly a structure intended to confuse public wealth, public negotiations with the particular benefits of servants sand politicians. 21:26
Lunch with the Menems Lester: In fact, Carlos Menem spent his recent honeymoon under house arrest, denying he knew the destination of illegal arms shipments potentially worth tens of millions for those behind them. 21:55
Investigations by Buenos Aires anti-corruption lawyer, Ricardo Monner Sans show the then President signed off on the shipments that ultimately went to Ecuador and Croatia, when both were under international arms embargos. 22:06
Monner Sans Monner Sans: The president of the Republic signed false decrees that permitted the shipment of arms to a false destination 22:20
Menem Menem: I take responsibility for my signature in the decree, but not what followed because a President cant be there. A President cannot be at a port or at an airport controlling where the arms go. 22:33
Argentinas Supreme Court Lester: Argentinas Supreme Court most of the Judges are Menem appointees -- has released the former President, though three of his close colleagues remain in prison. 23:01
White House There's even murmuring about this scent of corruption around Carlos Menem in far off Washington. Menem has been particularly close to former U.S. President, George Bush. Bush Snr once called Menem a visionary, and is said to have visited him at least eight times. The link has continued. 23:15
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Giler Giler: I believe Argentina never will succeed because of this kind of mentality. 23:41
Lester: This belief that a rottenness condemns Argentina to always fail, has taken hold among the very professionals the country needs if its to recover. 23:48
Giler: It is like a vicious circle where the state deceives the citizen and the citizen cheats the state. 24:00
Deby Giler and husband Oscar Lester: In a country where poverty has driven up crime, piano teacher Deby Giler and husband Oscar who works in computer graphics, have been attacked four times. 24:06
The shock of one armed hold-up ended Debys first pregnancy. 24:17
Now, theyre planning to emigrate to Canada or Australia, joining tens of thousands trying to get out. 24:23
Oscar Oscar: Among our friends, I would say eighty percent want to leave. 24:29
Lester: Do you love this country?
Deby Deby: No I, no for me is not important to live here. The only important thing I lose is the affection of my loved ones. I do not identify myself with this country. It is not a country that helps me or defends me and respects me. I say this with pain, only because if I leave, my love ones will remain. 24:36
Lester: And yet Argentina is your home isnt it, in a way? 25:10
Deby: No.Lester: Where is home?Deby: I don't know where is. My home is my husband, my daughter. 25:14
Deby Giler and husband Oscar Lester: This despair suggests many Argentines dont believe the IMFs economic prescription explains their problems; even the grand scale corruption may be more symptom than cause. 25:26
So Wheres the leader to deliver the change?
Lester: Who will be the next President of Argentina? 25:45
Menem Menem: Carlos Menem. Lester: Are you sure? Menem: Yes. 25:49
Lester: Yes, the grape grower who guided Argentina out of one crisis through prosperity back into crisis, who sold virtually every government owned enterprise, yet doubled the countrys debt, is steadying his ego for a third tilt at the top job next year. 25:55
Menem: great men, and Im not saying I am a great man, awake great hates and great loves. Even Jesus, among others, was no exception to this. 26:14
Cecilia Bolocco dancing Lester: This time his campaign has a royal feel, an enchanting would-be first lady, and perhaps a baby. 26:36
Lester: Do you want to be a father again? 26:47
Menem & Cecilia Menem: Yes, Cecilia and I are working towards that. We are trying hard. 26:51
Carrio Lester: Then, theres the candidate making a mark as un-Menem like as she can. 26:57
Lester: President Lilita Carrio. Is it possible, even likely?
Carrio: I am the person with a good image for a long time already, despite a negative campaign against me that brought me down from an excessive ninety percent popularity to the fifty or sixty percent I have now. It is possible. 27:06
Sara Sara: I believe there is going to be a civil war here, like weve never seen before. 27:26
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Tango dancing school Lester: And then theres the millions failed so often by the system before now, and the question of whether theyll give Argentina another chance to make good. 27:33
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ARGENTINA ECONOMYReporter: Tim LesterCamera: David MartinSound: Jason RackiEditor: Woody LandayProducer: Vivien Altman 27:50
Supers:Beverley KeeneHuman Rights Economist
Prof. Atilio BoronUniversity of Buenos Aires
Prof. Jorge CastroInternational Relations specialist
Prof. Atilio BoronUniversity of Buenos Aires
Guillermo BaistrocchiArgentina Post Office
Cecilia Bolocco
Deby GilerDeparting resident
Prof. Jorge CastroInternational Relations specialist