Editing Jacobo Timerman (section)

===Dissident once more===
Timerman was an early critic of [[Carlos Saúl Menem]] of the [[Justicialist Party]], who became a presidential candidate after serving as governor of La Rioja Province. In 1988, during the presidential campaign, Timerman criticized Menem's plan to establish a [[free port]] at [[Isla Martin Garcia]], saying it would encourage drug trafficking and money laundering. Menem filed a libel suit against the journalist that year. Timerman was acquitted in the trial, as well as in an appeals trial.<ref name="3trials">[http://elpais.com/diario/1996/03/30/internacional/828140409_850215.html Juan Jesús Aznarez, "El Supremo argentino manda detener a Timerman, denunciado por Menem"], ''El Pais'', 30 March 1996, accessed 4 June 2013</ref> Timerman opposed Menem during his [[Argentine general election, 1989|election campaign in 1988]].<ref>{{cite news |id={{ProQuest|398104543}} |last1=Cohen |first1=Roger |title=Peronist Lead Narrows in Argentine Race --- Leftist Attack Hurts Menem's Presidential Chances |work=The Wall Street Journal |date=14 February 1989 }}</ref><ref>{{cite news |id={{ProQuest|110475042}} |last1=Timerman |first1=Jacobo |title=Peronism, Without Violence |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1988/07/28/opinion/peronism-without-violence.html |work=The New York Times |date=28 July 1988 }}</ref>

Menem was elected with 47.5% of the vote, defeating the [[Radical Civic Union]] candidate. In 1991 he pardoned major figures who had been convicted of kidnapping, disappearances and torture committed during the Dirty War and sentenced to prison. Timerman condemned Menem for giving the pardons. He wrote in a 1991 editorial:

<blockquote>In April 1977, General Carlos [[Guillermo Suárez Mason]] ordered my kidnapping in Buenos Aires. A few days ago this man, the cruelest leader of the dirty war, was released from prison, pardoned by President Carlos Saúl Menem. Argentina had obtained his [[extradition]] from the US, charged with 43 murders and the kidnapping of 24 people who have since [[forcibly disappeared|disappeared]]. During those months of 1977, Colonel [[Ramon Camps]], the most brutal torturer of the dirty war, was in charge of the torture I suffered during interrogation. A few days ago he too was set free, pardoned by Mr. Menem. He had been accused of 214 extortionist kidnappings; 120 cases of torture, 32 homicides; two rapes; two abortions resulting from torture; 18 thefts; and the kidnappings of 10 minors who have disappeared.<ref name=Timerman1991>{{cite news |id={{ProQuest|187242914}} |last1=Timerman |first1=Jacobo |title=Once more into a gory spiral: Now that Menem has pardoned the schemers of genocide in Argentina Jacobo Timerman, a victim of the cruellest torturers, predicts that the Peronist democracy is well down the dictatorial road again |work=The Guardian |date=10 January 1991 |page=19 }}</ref> </blockquote>

Timerman warned that Argentina was slipping back into totalitarianism, and wrote "I hardly live in Argentina anymore" due to fear of meeting a former torturer.<ref name=Timerman1991 />
"Almost all the torturers were free before this latest batch of pardons", wrote Timerman, "but now the leaders who conceived, planned, and carried out the only [[genocide]] recorded in Argentinian history are also at large."<ref name=Timerman1991 />

In 1992 Timmerman testified against Menem in a case regarding the citizenship of arms dealer [[Monzer al-Kassar]].<ref>{{cite news |id={{ProQuest|187376781}} |last1=Chaudhary |first1=Vivek |title=Menem 'had links with terrorist' |work=The Guardian |date=13 November 1992 |page=14 }}</ref> The journalist began spending more time outside the country. His health was failing; he had a heart attack and later surgery after a stroke.<ref name="3trials"/>

In 1996, with journalist [[Horacio Verbitsky]], novelist [[Tomás Eloy Martínez]], and others, Timerman co-founded a press freedom organization in Buenos Aires known as ''Periodisitas''.<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Belejack |first1=Barbara |title=Latin American Journalists Under the Gun |journal=NACLA Report on the Americas |date=July 1998 |volume=32 |issue=1 |pages=6–10 |id={{ProQuest|74869493}} |doi=10.1080/10714839.1999.11722750 }}</ref>

In March 1996, the Supreme Court ordered a new trial in the libel case first opened in 1988 by Menem and twice won by Timerman. Menem's attorneys had alleged procedural errors. Timerman had written to the Court, declining to defend the case again, from Uruguay, where he had retired. Timerman said there was no arrest warrant against him and that he had been persecuted and condemned to "a second exile." He said he had not written for years, nor appeared on TV or in lectures, and had been ill. He noted that the President of the Supreme Court was an associate of Menem's in their law practice in La Rioja. ''Periodistas'', the Association for the Defense of Independent Journalism, protested the order for the trial.<ref name="3trials"/>