Word: alfonsin
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...last Wednesday, a bomb exploded in the posh Belgrano district of Buenos Aires, shattering the windows of an apartment building. Less than 19 hours later, President Raul Alfonsin gazed somberly into a television camera and addressed the people of Argentina. "Professionals of violence," he claimed, were attempting to undermine his government by "creating insecurity, the sensation of impunity, generating the idea that democracy is incapable of defending its citizens." Over the previous six weeks, he charged, these "demented phantoms" had been responsible for 1,806 bomb warnings and 42 explosions. But, he warned, they would not prevail...
Argentine President Raul Alfonsin annulled the amnesty in 1983, but it remains a subject of legal debate...
...core of Alfonsin's program is a new national currency. The 104-year-old Argentine peso is being replaced by the austral, which at the moment is worth 1,000 old pesos or $1.25. Since the currency bears the same name as one domestic airline, whose emblem is a penguin, the austral was immediately nicknamed the "pinguino," the Spanish word for penguin. To maintain the value of the austral, the government vowed that it will no longer simply print money to cover expenses. In addition, it proclaimed a freeze on all wages and on the prices of 31 food items...
...changes, and when they reopened last Wednesday, many people expected chaos. But while the lines at several banks stretched over blocks, the scenes were orderly. Said one teller at Banco de la Nacion, the country's largest financial institution: "Customers were much calmer than we expected." Concluded President Alfonsin: "We are getting a magnificent response from the people...
American bankers, who have $8 billion in outstanding loans to Argentina, applauded Alfonsin's program. A syndicate of more than 300 banks might extend an additional $4.2 billion to the country. Declared Terence Canavan, an executive vice president at Chemical Bank: "This is the most daring reform I have seen in Latin America since the start of the debt crisis...