Nothing quite as brazen as promoting the perpetrators themselves; but by putting well-known Dirty War apologists, defense lawyers for torturers, and in one case, even one of the ringleaders behind an attempted coup.

His first nominee for representative to the Inter-American Human Rights Commission (IACHR), Carlos de Casas, was a corporate lawyer who defended one of the largest cases of bank fraud in Argentine history (the Opus Dei-linked Peirano Basso brothers, who defrauded depositors of $800 million in 2002).

Macri withdrew de Casas - but then nominated Alfredo Vítolo, a vocal advocate for blanket amnesty for those convicted of human rights abuses as well as staunchly anti-abortion and LGBT rights.

Vítolo had to be withdrawn as well, and Argentina still has no IACHR representative.

The most scandalous was probably Juan José Gómez Centurión, whom Macri appointed head of national Customs despite his leading role in the attempted 1987 coup against President Raúl Alfonsín, the first democratic head of state after the end of the dictatorship in 1983.

Gómez Centurión was quietly "retired" in 2017; but through relatives remains influential in the Macri administration.

No wonder he and Cheeto are such pals.

He went to the list of more of Argentina's most corrupt fascist for these appointments. That's one nasty group of government officials. What a shame for a country which worked so hard, under their progressive parents, to climb out of the deep hole it was in after the treacherous, totally corrupt, inhumane dictatorship and its supporters. Now they have bullied and cheated their way right back into power, and started up their hell on earth again.

Trump has given short shrift to human rights issues, himself, in withdrawing this country from the U.N. Human Rights Council. Sounds as if Macri and Trump have everything in common, except Macri most clearly has more poise, and acts more like a human being in public.

He's as if Trump were stuck in the body of a Mâitre d'.

And thank you for your comments on the Argentine crisis article. Some nerve Macri has, running for re-election.

Unless of course he's counting on electronic vote fraud to get him through - that, and railroading the opposition: https://www.democraticunderground.com/113323509

As long as the US dumps boatloads of US taxpayers' money on the country's leadership, it can use Colombia to invade any of the Central American countries, and a lot of South America. (That money does NOT go to help the poor.)




US Strategic Interests in Latin America: The Militarization of Colombia



. . .

To prolong influence over Colombia, every US administrations from Nixon [1969-1974] to Obama [2009-] embraced a ‘war on drugs,’ [1] or more recently a ‘war on terror,’ as a means to deploy counterinsurgency campaigns to silence antagonistic sectors of said population. It is increasingly clear, when concerning the recent actions of Bogotá and Washington to facilitate seven fortified bases controlled by the United States on Colombian territory, that both states have coordinated a strategic alliance to militarize the region, not simply one country. German Rodas Chavez (2007: 97) suggests that such activities are an attempt to enable the US to stabilize at least a portion of Latin America’s territory. Securing some form of control over Colombia – and subsequently using the country as a centralized outpost – would assist the US to deploy ‘sub-regional military operations’ throughout the domestic and regional geography (Campos, 2007: 31). From this one can view Colombia as a strategic ‘national security’ case for Washington on three fronts:

First, the country’s influential economic and geopolitical placement as the regions gateway to South America: bordering on the Panama Basin and Caribbean Sea, access to both the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans, and neighbouring five nation-states (Panama, Venezuela, Ecuador, Peru, and Brazil).

Second, Colombia is one of the United States’ most important Latin American and Caribbean energy suppliers in both present and future forms via extensive untapped oil/coal reserves and already established pipelines and open-pit mines.

Lastly, both states share a dual goal of eliminating the ideological significance and potential political-military threat of the FARC-EP from creating a successful revolutionary shift ‘from below’.

Supporting such a scenario, John Perkins describes Colombia as the last bastion of US imperial power in Latin America. As a result of the country’s tactical location Washington has attempted to financially and militarily sustain the basis of power in Colombia to ensure that a geopolitical opening remains in the grasp of the US – hence, the importance of the seven bases. [2] If the Colombian state can hold power than Washington still has a hope of regaining regional political-economic authority.

Colombia is the glaring exception to the hemispheric anti-corporatocracy movements. It has maintained its position as Washington’s surrogate. Shored up massive U.S. taxpayer assistance and armies of corporate-sponsored mercenaries, as well as formal U.S. military support, it has become the keystone in Washington’s attempt’s to regain regional domination (Perkins, 2008: 149).

. . .

https://nwoobserver.wordpress.com/2009/11/03/us-strategic-interests-in-latin-america-the-militarization-of-colombia/

Minister of Yellow Corn, Minister of Wheat, Minister of Rice, Minister of Pasta, Minister of Women's Sanitary Napkins.........I think you get the picture. All military generals.

None of this shit authorized by the constitution. Read the linked article, all true. I know. I live it. Every day, all day, 365 days per year.

http://www.cesarmiguelrondon.com/opinion/desde-el-exterior/venezuela-military-trafficking-food-as-country-goes-hungry/

"If Venezuela paid market prices, we'd be able to double our imports", Guiterrez said.

Think about that. Generals in charge of everytihng from butter to rice.

You know, the Colombian ultra-rightist who, in league with Bolsonaro, the Brazilian ultra-rightist, and the ultra-rightists in the White House are attempting regime change in Venezuela.

......the enemy of my enemy is my friend.