-Caveat Lector- <A HREF="http://www.ctrl.org/"> </A> -Cui Bono?- from: http://www.aci.net/kalliste/ Click Here: <A HREF="http://www.aci.net/kalliste/">The Home Page of J. Orlin Grabbe</A> ----- Money Laundering Mexican Bank Bailout: Payoff to Politicians? How it works: take out a loan; let taxpayers pay it off. MEXICO CITY (AP) -- A Mexican congresswoman says public funds helped bail out relatives of the two top candidates for president, putting an old controversy over a nearly $100 billion bank rescue into the center of the campaign. In broadcast interviews Thursday and Friday, Dolores Padierna of the leftist Democratic Revolution Party said there was evidence that a program to rescue Mexico's banking system covered part of the debts of the brothers of Francisco Labastida of the governing Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) and Vicente Fox of the center-right National Action Party. Padierna also released a long list of other wealthy business figures who she said have had massive debts covered with taxpayers' money. Most of the debtors helped by the program were victims of the 1995 crisis that saw variable-rate interest loans soar to above 100 percent as the peso rapidly sank, she told the Televisa network on Friday. But ''a few we have selected are linked to power, are part of great economic groups who have been enriched by taking credits and then not paying,'' she said. The bank bailout has been a political volcano, erupting periodically in a congress that in 1997 had opposition parties outnumber PRI deputies for the first time. The controversy has been fed by government refusals to name most of the companies with loans in the program, as well as by a series of scandals revealing that some government-rescued banks had made massive loans to companies owned by their top officers or their friends. Opinion polls before the July 2000 presidential election show Labastida and Fox far ahead of Cuauhtemoc Cardenas, who is from Padierna's Democratic Revolution Party. Labastida earlier said Fox's family had been aided by the bailout. Padierna charged on Friday that one of Labastida's brothers, as well, had been helped by the program and said several members of his campaign team were listed as still having outstanding debts. In a news conference in eastern Mexico, Labastida did not flatly deny the allegation, but said, ''At this time, that and any other topic will be used as a means to justify political attacks, many of them sadly not well justified.'' Padierna said her staff had assembled a list of names and debts by cross-referencing several official reports and an outside audit. National Action's congressional leader, Carlos Medina Plascencia, accused Padierna of ''very grave irresponsibility'' and said she had gotten some of her data -- including allegations involving him -- wrong. Padierna accused Medina of being part owner of a family company that benefitted from the program. The government has argued that providing names would violate banking secrecy laws. But Medina said he would favor releasing names on a now-confidential list of irregular or illegal loans. National Action spokesman Abel Vicencio admitted that some members of the party had seen their debts restructured under the program, but said they were among many thousands of Mexicans who also had been helped after being caught in the 1995 crisis. The Associated Press, March 18, 2000 ------------------------------------------------------------------------ ----- Aloha, He'Ping, Om, Shalom, Salaam. Em Hotep, Peace Be, All My Relations. Omnia Bona Bonis, Adieu, Adios, Aloha. Amen. Roads End <A HREF="http://www.ctrl.org/">www.ctrl.org</A> DECLARATION & DISCLAIMER ========== CTRL is a discussion & informational exchange list. Proselytizing propagandic screeds are not allowed. Substance—not soap-boxing! These are sordid matters and 'conspiracy theory'—with its many half-truths, misdirections and outright frauds—is used politically by different groups with major and minor effects spread throughout the spectrum of time and thought. That being said, CTRL gives no endorsement to the validity of posts, and always suggests to readers; be wary of what you read. CTRL gives no credence to Holocaust denial and nazi's need not apply. Let us please be civil and as always, Caveat Lector. ======================================================================== Archives Available at: http://home.ease.lsoft.com/archives/CTRL.html http:[EMAIL PROTECTED]/ ======================================================================== To subscribe to Conspiracy Theory Research List[CTRL] send email: SUBSCRIBE CTRL [to:] [EMAIL PROTECTED] To UNsubscribe to Conspiracy Theory Research List[CTRL] send email: SIGNOFF CTRL [to:] [EMAIL PROTECTED] Om
