Argentina Government Officials

Federal courts in Argentina, narrowly beating a midnight deadline, ordered trials for more than 100 military officers accused of human rights abuses. President Raul Alfonsin proposed the deadline to lift the "unending suspicion," as he called it, that has hung over the armed forces since 1983, when military rule ended.

The interim president of Argentina resigned late Sunday after just a week in office, saying lack of support from members of his own party prevented him from leading his country out of its profound economic and political crisis. The resignation of Adolfo Rodriguez Saa, who took power after riots brought down Fernando de la Rua, came after a weekend of demonstrations on the streets of this capital city and fighting within the leadership of the ruling Peronist party.

In federal court on Monday, as a small group of Argentine emigres looked on, a balding, paunchy and mustachioed man identified as former Gen. Carlos Guillermo Suarez Mason was ordered held without bail, pending extradition to Argentina. Suarez Mason, said to be the most infamous Argentine military leader still untried for the disappearance of thousands of dissidents during the 1970s and '80s, was arrested on Saturday, after an intensive eight-day search that took U.S. agents from Long Island, N.

Defense Minister Italo A. Luder resigned after President Carlos Saul Menem sided with army Chief of Staff Gen. Isidro Caceres in a growing feud between the two officials. Luder had reprimanded Caceres because the army chief had organized two dinner meetings with Menem and other ministers last week without informing or inviting him. Menem told reporters that Luder should not have aired his differences with Caceres in the press. Luder had been the defense minister since July 8.

The attackers had targeted the home of one of Argentina's most powerful men: Sen. Eduardo Menem, a leader of the ruling Peronist party and the brother of President Carlos Menem. Just before midnight a week ago, gunmen--short-haired, 25- to 35-years-old--stormed the garage of the senator's red-brick, two-story house in the exclusive suburb of Nunez. They confronted five federal police bodyguards using the garage as a command post.

A U.S. prosecutor representing Argentina urged a federal judge Monday to extradite the last remaining general who has not been tried for torture and murder committed during the Argentine military's reign. Retired Gen. Carlos G. Suarez Mason sat impassively during the daylong hearing at which he was accused of complicity in scores of murders and illegal arrests while he was commandant of the army in Buenos Aires during the so-called "dirty war" against government opponents.

Argentine Defense Minister Oscar Camilion resigned Tuesday amid a scandal over the secret sale of weapons to Ecuador and Croatia last year, becoming the second minister to quit in a week. The resignation came 1 1/2 years after the scandal first broke and a few hours after a federal judge asked for the minister's parliamentary immunity to be lifted to clear the way for him to be questioned.

The Peronist government announced measures to curtail state spending and cut taxes on food imports in a bid to brake frantic price markups as Argentina suffered its second bout of hyperinflation in seven months. Among other measures to reduce state spending, Economy Minister Antonio Erman Gonzalez said, the salary of President Carlos Saul Menem will be reduced 20% and set as the top wage for federal employees.

Zulema Menem, estranged wife of Argentine President Carlos Saul Menem, moved out of the presidential estate in suburban Buenos Aires rather than face eviction. By law, the president has the sole right to say who may live there.

Swiss and Argentine authorities are investigating an allegation that former Argentine President Carlos Menem received a $10-million bribe from Iranian agents to cover up Tehran's alleged role in an anti-Semitic terrorist bombing in Buenos Aires in 1994, officials said Wednesday. Swiss authorities opened an inquiry in Geneva last week based on a request from Argentines investigating the van bomb attack that killed 85 people at the Argentine-Israelite Mutual Assn.