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April 26, 2005

"Argentina's No. 1 Enemy"

By Peter Orsi

Imagine that you owe $20 to a man named Kenneth Dart. Dart has a highly successful pedigree; his father started a thriving container manufacturing business in Michigan currently worth $2 billion to $6 billion, with annual revenues of $464 million. But Dart made most of his fortune speculating in the financial markets. He presently resides in the Cayman Islands -- he moved there several years ago, reportedly to avoid paying taxes in his home country. Few people on the island have seen him in the last few years. When he's not on his multimillion-dollar yacht equipped with armor and an anti-missile system, he lives in a sprawling beachfront mansion, protected by armed guards. You, meanwhile, lost your job four years ago when your country fell into financial chaos. Your savings lost two-thirds of their value overnight, and your entire country is struggling to recover from financial ruin.

You might not feel like paying sending that $20 bill to the Caymans.

Now imagine that everyone on your block, everyone in your city, everyone in your country of some 40 million people (roughly equal to the population of California) owes $20 each to Kenneth Dart. This is the reality on the ground in Argentina today.

In Spring 2004 I covered a Buenos Aires protest against on the one-year anniversary of the U.S. invasion of Iraq. The demonstration was just as big and noisy as the similar protests around the world that day. But mixed in with the antiwar signs and chants was a great deal of anger at what is perceived as U.S. complicity in Argentina's financial woes. Dart, Argentina's largest private creditor -- he's seeking to collect some $725 million from the country, plus four years of interest, about $130,000 a month -- is perhaps the poster child for this anger.

Argentina's leading newspaper, Clarín, is running a special on Kenneth Dart, whose case against the Argentine government was heard yesterday by an appellate court in New York. "The fortune and prosperity of millions of Argentines is these days in the hands of Kenneth Dart," says the multimedia presentation. If you can read Spanish, it's worth checking out in its entirety – especially since there's not much about the case in the U.S. press. To understand Dart's story is to understand why many Argentines feel that some of the richest people in the world's wealthiest country have taken their entire nation for a ride.

More parts of the Dart package:
* "The enigmatic holder of the vulture fund who hides out on the Grand Cayman"
* "The secret history of the lawsuit Dart initiated in the United States"
* "The intriguing business of the firm Dart founded in Pilar, Argentina"

Further Reading:
* Despair in Once-Proud Argentina (Washington Post, from 2002; good background piece on Argentina's financial collapse).
* Argentina Fends Off Vultures (AmericanFreePress.net; describes how Argentina is working to emerge from debt; some info about Dart and other "vulture fund" creditors).

Posted April 26, 2005 02:07 PM

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