Ethically challenged Romney seeded Bain

Sporting a crisply starched, long-sleeved Cuban guayabera atop prestigious LDS “endowment” undergarments (literally signaling his “Annointed One” persona) while on an overt Latino community pander mission, Mitt revisited fertile fundraising grounds, where he had made well documented lucrative deals with despotic El Salvadoran death squad financiers back in the early 80s.  According to “The Real Romney” author, Harry Strachan, Mitt had been worried about possible ties the Salaverria, Poma, de Sola and Dueñas families had to “illegal drug money or right-wing death squads," but not enough to stop him from accepting over $9 mil in 1984, a sizeable chunk of Bain’s original “outside funding.” 

At a 2007 presidential campaign fundraiser, Romney admitted, “I owe a great deal to Americans of Latin American descent,” then did a little name-dropping while listing his original Bain “partners,” including, “Ricardo Poma, Miguel Dueñas, Pancho Soler, Frank Kardonski, and Diego Ribadeneira," and giving a shout out to de Sola and Salaverria founding families as well.  These same “friends” continue their Bain investments to this day and, as recently as May, participated in investor board meetings.  Naturally, the company cites “confidentiality” issues when declining to provide specifics, but insists it doesn't take in blood money.  Not so fast. 

The death squad connections were thoroughly examined in 1994 by the Boston Globe, and again in 1999 by the Salt Lake Tribune.  The Tribune reports, “By 1984, the media had thoroughly exposed connections between the death squads and the Salvadoran oligarchy, including the families that invested with Romney. The sitting U.S. ambassador to El Salvador charged that several families, including at least one that invested with Bain, were living in Miami and directly funding death squads. Even by 1981, El Salvador’s elite, largely relocated to Miami, were so angered by the public perception that they were financing death squads that they reached out to the media to make their case. The two men put forward to represent the oligarchs were both from families that would invest in Bain three years later. The most cursory review of their backgrounds would have turned up the ties.”

El Salvador’s civil war torturous death squad mass murders racked up 75,000 fatalities between 1979 and 1992 (including the assassination of Catholic priests).  Human rights publications began condemning their activities as early as 1982 and by the early 90s, 85% of these had been attributed to right-wing political parties with whom these families had documented ties.  In 1984, US ambassador Robert White testified in a congressional hearing about his knowledge of two Salaverria family members involvement with death squad activities that dated back to 1981 while resisting land reforms.  The de Solas and Pomas were heavy contributors to the winger ARENA death squad party.  Virtually all Bain "family ties" to the atrocities have been confirmed, leaving us all to wonder just how much of Bain's other "outside investors" funneled blood money into the coffers, not to mention why they continue to maintain such a low bar of ethical standards set by its founder back in the day. 

For those eager to attack the veracity of the claims and portray them as a phoney lib outrage that’s “no biggie,” end comments sections from one article I read elicited nearly 26,000 entries in 10 hours.  On the other hand, no one is expecting Bain to be anymore forthcoming with exposing its entrepreneurial exsanguintors than its former CEO has been with his tax return disclosures, once again leaving this field of factual inquiry open to wild voter speculation and imaginations running amok.   

http://articles.latimes.com/2012/jul/19/nation/la-na-bain-creation-20120719

http://www.usip.org/publications/truth-commission-el-salvador

http://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=1291&dat=19810416&id=kQJVAAAAIBAJ&sjid=HJQDAAAAIBAJ&pg=4520,3295537

http://www.unhcr.org/refworld/country,,HRW,,SLV,,467fca32c,0.html#P471_122033

http://blogs.miaminewtimes.com/riptide/2012/08/mitt_romney_founded_bain_capit.php