5232 x 3572 px | 44,3 x 30,2 cm | 17,4 x 11,9 inches | 300dpi
Lieu:
LA RIOJA, ARGENTINA
Informations supplémentaires:
Carlos Saul Menem was born into the Muslim family of Saúl Menem and Mohibe Akil, Syrian immigrants in the small town of Anillaco, in the Argentine province of La Rioja. He was trained as a lawyer at the University of Córdoba and became a supporter of Juan Perón. Menem campaigned for political prisoners and was arrested in 1957 for supporting violent action against the dictatorship of Pedro Eugenio Aramburu. Notwithstanding Menem's conversion to Catholicism—until 1994 the Constitution of Argentina required the President to be a Roman Catholic—his ties with his parents' homeland remained strong. In 1964, he travelled to Syria, where he met Zulema Fátima Yoma, another Syrian-Argentinian, whom he married in 1966 (she remained a Muslim). He was also a president of the Syrian-Lebanese Association of La Rioja. Menem divorced Zulema Yoma in 1991. Their daughter Zulema María Eva Menem fulfilled the role of First Lady at formal occasions for the remainder of her father's presidency. In 1995, his son Carlos Saúl Facundo Menem Yoma died in a helicopter crash. Even though it was declared an accident, conspiracy theories calling the accident an assassination abound. In May 2001, Menem married Chilean television host and model Cecilia Bolocco (Miss Universe 1987), who is 35 years younger. The couple had a child, Máximo Menem. Carlos Menem was elected governor of La Rioja in 1973, a prominent post that left him exposed after the overthrow of President Isabel Martínez de Perón in March 1976. He was imprisoned by the junta in Tandil, Buenos Aires, until 1981. In October 1983, with the collapse of military rule, Menem was elected once again as governor of La Rioja. In 1989 he was elected President of Argentina.
