Ford sued over Argentine abuses (BBC)

[bobthedrummer]

During the 70's-80's Argentine citizens (mostly union members and activists) employed by Ford were allegedly abused on company property on the orders of managers given to the military.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/4746236.stm

Hey, remember that Henry Ford received the highest civilian award from Hitler's Third Reich-The Order of The German Eagle, Henry bought a newspaper to spout his own anti-semitic junk, remember that Ford's German subsidiary (Ford Werke) quietly settled "allegations" of producing Nazi war material and using slave labor from the camps, now Ford has closed many plants and put a lot of working families futures in doubt.
Some of us don't forget. Woe.

[mom cat]

1. K&R ...Thanks for posting this important information!

[ellie]

2. Kicking. Thanks for posting this

Fuck Ford.

[madrchsod]

3. he is one of the aryan nations heroes

along with lindberg. nazism has never gone away now has it..

[Judi Lynn]

4. Thank God these people are FINALLY speaking out.

Isn't it interesting how familiar their treatment sounds, by now. And what WAS their unpardonable crime? Being union workers. Ford also got violent with American union workers long ago. Looks as if they haven't changed their ways, and will do it anywhere they can get by with it.

From the article:

The civil suit against Ford Motor Company and Ford Argentina also calls for four former company executives and a retired military officer to be questioned.

The former union activists allege that Ford managers plotted and executed a precise plan to violently get rid of union activities at the plant 40km (25 miles) north of Buenos Aires.

One of the plaintiffs, Pedro Troiani, alleges: "Some of us were kidnapped by the military inside the factory and taken to a clandestine, makeshift detention centre near the factory's sports centre.

"There we were hooded, beaten, forced to face mock firing squads and tortured. Some were given electric shocks."
(snip)

Human rights groups say that 30,000 people were killed under military rule in Argentina between 1976 and 1983 in what became known as the Dirty War.
(snip/)

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~`

For anyone who wonders where the U.S. stood in relationship to the Dirty War, the torture, disappearances, people thrown out of airplanes, prisoners' children given to the families of Argentinian military officers, etc., etc., here's some light reading:

Kissinger approved Argentinian 'dirty war'

Declassified US files expose 1970s backing for junta

Duncan Campbell in Los Angeles
Saturday December 6, 2003
The Guardian


Henry Kissinger gave his approval to the "dirty war" in Argentina in the 1970s in which up to 30,000 people were killed, according to newly declassified US state department documents.
Mr Kissinger, who was America's secretary of state, is shown to have urged the Argentinian military regime to act before the US Congress resumed session, and told it that Washington would not cause it "unnecessary difficulties".

The revelations are likely to further damage Mr Kissinger's reputation. He has already been implicated in war crimes committed during his term in office, notably in connection with the 1973 Chilean coup.

The material, obtained by the Washington-based National Security Archive under the Freedom of Information Act, consists of two memorandums of conversations that took place in October 1976 with the visiting Argentinian foreign minister, Admiral César Augusto Guzzetti. At the time the US Congress, concerned about allegations of widespread human rights abuses, was poised to approve sanctions against the military regime.
According to a verbatim transcript of a meeting on October 7 1976, Mr Kissinger reassured the foreign minister that he had US backing in whatever he did.
(snip/...)

http://www.guardian.co.uk/usa/story/0,12271,1101121,00.html

[bobthedrummer]

5. Kissinger was originally named to head the 9/11 Commission.

He did serve in the US Army Counterintelligence Corps (CIC) during WWII.
Kissinger stayed on in West Germany after the war, he was assigned to the 970th CIC Detachment (later known as the 66th CIC Detachment) "whose functions included support for the recruitment of ex-Nazi intelligence officers for anti-Soviet operations inside the Soviet bloc." )p.26; The Price of Power: Kissinger in the Nixon White House; S.M. Hersh; Summit Books 1983).

When Kissinger returned he attended Harvard in 1947 as a 24 year old undergrad, his connections to military intelligence were retained by being a Reserve officer. In 1950, as a graduate student, he took a part-time job as a Defense Department consultant to the DoD's Operations Research Office "That unit, under the direct control of the JCS, conducted highly classified studies on such topics as the utilization of former German operatives and Nazi partisan supporters in CIA clandestine activities.

In 1952, Kissinger was named a consultant to the director of the Psychological Strategy Board, an operating arm of the NSC for covert psychological and paramilitary operations." (p. 27; The Price of Power).

[Judi Lynn]

7. Never heard this before now. He would have been quite the asset

to planners of the "Dirty Wars." From what I've heard, people who've lived through that era in Argentina still can't get the images of the unbearable brutality out of their minds, including some U.S. citizens who were there. One of them reads D.U. from time to time.

Scilingo, a former lieutenant commander, had previously confessed to taking part the dirty war, saying in Argentina in 1995 that as many as 4,500 prisoners were drugged, chained and thrown into the Atlantic Ocean from planes.

At least 9,000 people were kidnapped, tortured and never seen again during the Argentine military's war on leftists and political dissidents.

The statement caused an uproar and led the Argentine military to admit publicly for the first time that it used ``illegal means'' during the repression.

``When we were given the go-ahead the back doors would open -- it was a Hercules-type plane which has a large door at the back -- the door would open about 40 centimeters and from there we would drop them one by one into empty space,'' Scilingo told Associated Press Television last year.

Scilingo apparently chose to speak out to come clean about his involvement. Last September, he said he was kidnapped and slashed by people trying to silence him.

``It shouldn't be him testifying'' Scilingo's wife Marcela Valles in said Buenos Aires on Tuesday. ``It should be the Argentine navy. They should have to acknowledge the disaster they caused.''

Garzon has heard testimony from dozens of people as part of his year-old investigation. Last March, he ordered the arrest of former Gen. Leopoldo Galtieri, Argentina's leader from December 1981 until July 1982.

President Carlos Menem of Argentina has ruled out extraditing Galtieri to Spain.
(snip/...)

http://www.mosquitonet.com/~prewett/scilingoarrestspain.html



Former Argentinian President Carlos Menem, who attempted to prevent prosecution of Dirty War criminals is a close friend of the George H. W. Bush family, including sons. He nearly destroyed Argentina.

~snip~
Of all the Latin-American miracle men, none was lavished with more praise than Menem. The Bloomberg news service ran a typical dispatch in 1993, reporting that foreign investors "can't say enough about Argentina these days, calling it the latest free-market miracle of Latin America." At the time, a huge jump in unemployment, along with signs of gross corruption in Menem's privatization program, prompted widespread protests and rioting. In one northern Argentine province, thousands of state employees burned and looted the homes of government officials, the legislative building, and the courthouse. Meanwhile, Menem's decision to slash retirement benefits prompted more than 50 pensioners to commit suicide.

Menem's policies set the stage for Argentina's current economic recession, which has lasted four years, beggared the country's middle class, and led to the near collapse of the banking system. In late December, interim leader Adolfo Rodríguez Saá decided to name former Menem cronies to his administration. Argentines took to the streets, forcing Saá to resign after only a week in office. An elderly demonstrator told The Washington Post: "I didn't like it when he called all the mafiosos and thieves from the previous government."
(snip/...)

http://www.prospect.org/web/page.ww?section=root&name=ViewPrint&articleId=6145

[Greyhound]

6. One of my favorite pictures is one of Ford standing with his arms

folded on the balcony of the Ford Motor Company plant watching his thugs beat the hell out of striking workers with this look of pure satisfaction on his face. Always reminds me of the real effects of capitalism, and keeps me focused when I start to feel like they're not all bad.

[Judi Lynn]

8. Thanks for the info. there's a photo like this out there.

I've long heard about Ford's hiring thugs to harm American workers on strike.

Found this interesting bit of info. on the guy:

~snip~

By this time, Ford had already racked up an abominable labor relations record. Which is a hard thing for many people to believe, since he was famous for instituting the five-dollar minimum wage. What nobody seems to remember is that the Ford company subsequently rescinded that wage. And that it was only available to married WASPs of high moral character who submitted their homes to surveillance by the Ford Motor Company. This didn't exactly endear Ford to the labor unions, and that antipathy was reciprocated. Ford believed the unions were controlled by Jewish Communists, so he did his best to break them.
(snip)

http://www.rotten.com/library/bio/business/henry-ford/

[Greyhound]

9. It was a poster I had on my wall from the Dark Days Before the Internet

I got it in a 'head shop' if you remember what those were, and I know I've seen it since, just can't find it on-line.

[Judi Lynn]

10. Ford sued over Argentine dictatorship kidnappings of union members, worker

Ford sued over Argentine dictatorship kidnappings of union members, workers
02.23.2006, 08:26 PM

BUENOS AIRES (AFX) - Former Ford workers are suing the automaker claiming it had ties to soldiers who in 1976 carried out kidnappings inside a Ford plant.

The US-based Ford Motor Company and its Argentine affiliate, Ford Argentina, were named as defendants in the civil suit, the lawyer filing the claim told reporters, Agence France-Presse said.

The former union leaders who brought the suit said they were kidnapped by soldiers inside the plant located in the town of General Pacheco, outside Buenos Aires, during the 1976-1983 military dictatorship.

In all, 24 union representatives and Ford employees were kidnapped in 1976, after a military coup on March 24, according to the men.
(snip/...)

http://www.forbes.com/business/feeds/afx/2006/02/23/afx2550169.html

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

To Greyhound1966: headshops had WONDERFUL posters. Thanks for the reminder.

[bobthedrummer]

12. I wonder what John Negroponte was doing then.

And Richard Cheney. And quite a few others connected to the current administration.
We know that George H.W. Bush was busy expanding "secrecy contracts" in the public and private sectors back then-in addition to his other "work".

[Judi Lynn]

13. Cheney was working with Nixon and Ford and Kissinger.

From what I could gather in a quick google run, during part of the '70's, he worked as a diplomat at the Paris Peace talks between Nixon's administration and Hanoi. He also served as an ambassador to Greece. His great life's work appears to be what he accomplished for Reagan:

Ambassador Negroponte oversaw the establishment of two military bases in Honduras for U.S. troops, and for Contra terrorist units responsible for 50,000 Nicaraguan deaths and billions of dollars in damages to Nicaragua’s infrastructure (5). After the U.S. Congress placed limits on financing Contras, or Salvadoran soldiers in Honduras, Negroponte convinced the Honduran government to build a Regional Military Training Center on Honduran territory.

When Hondurans began to protest the presence of foreign military forces inside their borders, Ambassador Negroponte, at the very least, was guilty of concealing the human rights abuses committed by the Honduran death squads. Negroponte, and his CIA station chief, Donald Winter, worked closely with the chief architect of the Honduran death squads, General Gustavo Alvarez. Trained in torture and counter-insurgency at the School of the Americas in Fort Benning, Georgia, and having witnessed close up the use “Dirty War” tactics in Argentina in the 1970’s, Alvarez created a special intelligence unit of the armed forces, Battalion 3-16, to eliminate Honduran civilians opposed to the presence of the Contras and U.S. “yanqui” troops (6).
(snip/...)

http://peoplegetready.blogspot.com/2005/03/john-negropontes-betrayal-of-american.html

[bobthedrummer]

14. Thank you.

[Blue_Tires]

11. kicked/recommended n/t