MASSIVE MEMORY DAY
So many people converged on Plaza de Mayo last Tuesday to mark the 50th anniversary of the 1976 military coup that their numbers may well have reached seven digits, topped only by celebrations of the 2022 World Cup. While the main banners kept their focus on the coup, with allusions to the fate of those who went missing during the subsequent dictatorship, there were some calls for the release of ex-president Cristina Fernández de Kirchner with the Kirchnerite militant grouping La Cámpora making a detour to the flat of her house arrest to greet her on the balcony. Criticisms of President Javier Milei’s administration were also widespread. The government’s response was a video against the “vindictive bias” of Kirchnerism consisting of two testimonies – Miriam Fernández, a victim of baby snatching born at the ESMA concentration camp but preferring her adopted to her real families, and Arturo Larrabure, son of an Army colonel kidnapped and murdered by ERP leftist terrorists in 1974.
ADORNI FACES MUSIC
An embattled Cabinet Chief Manuel Adorni gave a press conference on Wednesday (only his second this year) in which he claimed that he had “nothing to hide,” having accumulated all his assets in the private sector, but refused to enter into details on the grounds that this would prejudice the court investigation. Adorni further commented on the previous day’s 50th anniversary of the 1976 military coup and announced a government determination to increase military spending. The Cabinet chief also announced that the government was sending a list of 60 judges and prosecutors for “urgent” confirmation by the Senate with 364 of the 1,002 federal benches vacant. Meanwhile, the intensive media probe of his properties continued with reports that he had moved into a flat in the Caballito neighbourhood without selling his previous residence in Parque Chacabuco while reportedly owning a house in an Exaltación de la Cruz gated community – a scrutiny beginning with the inclusion of his wife on the presidential aircraft bound for Argentina Week in New York, following on a flight aboard a private aircraft to a Carnival long weekend in Punta del Este.
MILEI ON THE DANUBE
President Javier Milei was in Budapest last weekend to attend a CPAC Conservative Political Action Conference, also meeting up with his local Hungarian counterpart Tamás Sulyok and with premier Víktor Orban, the country’s real leader who faces a tricky election within the next fortnight against the pro-European liberal Peter Magyar – the two iconic leaders of the global far right held a lengthy huddle in Buda’s famous Carmelite monastery. Milei was accompanied by Presidential Chief-of-Staff Karina Milei and Foreign Minister Pablo Quirno.
EU-MERCOSUR AGREEMENT
The European Commission confirmed last Monday that the free-trade agreement between the European Union and Mercosur will enter provisionally into force on May Day, while the European Court investigates the validity of the agreement with several EU members objecting to the pact. Foreign Minister Pablo Quirno took pride in Argentina being the first Mercosur country to ratify the agreement. Total ratification from the national parliaments of the EU members is still pending. The agreement creates a market of over 780 million consumers with tariff reductions lowering export costs on both sides of the Atlantic.
EXPORTS ON RISE
Argentina’s exports have risen 9.6 percent in the first two months of this year to total US$13.2 billion, according to a report by Politikon Chaco based on data from the INDEC national statistics bureau, a growth driven by both volume and better world prices. Almost two-thirds of exports continue to come from the pampas region despite a slowdown there.
CONFEDERATE STATES OF ARGENTINA?
Argentina was one of just three countries voting last Wednesday against a resolution of the General Assembly of the United Nations ruling slavery to be "the most grievous crime against humanity" in history, joining the two staunchest allies of the Javier Milei administration, the United States and Israel. Voting in favour were 123 countries backing a resolution presented by a coalition of 60 African, Caribbean and Latin American countries who have been at the receiving-end of slavery over the centuries, while 52 mostly Western countries abstained. The resolution places slavery beyond the statute of limitations since its consequences continue to affect millions of people throughout the world. The General Assembly urged a reinforced coordination of the commemoration of and research into slavery and its sequels. On Thursday, the Javier Milei administration struck a further blow against progressive opinion when it gave official backing to commemoration of the Day of Unborn Children, which occasioned pro-life marches in this city.
MESSI 1, PERON 0?
The government has ordered the removal of a 1948 portrait of Juan Domingo Perón and Eva Duarte de Perón from the Casa Rosada, pleading “structural flaws.” This initiative was reportedly spearheaded by Presidential Chief-of-Staff Karina Milei, who also wants a painting of the glacier Perito Moreno removed. Football superstar Lionel Messi is a strong candidate to fill the gap alongside 19th-century statesmen Domingo Faustino Sarmiento and Manuel Belgrano while the Iguazú waterfalls could be replacing the Perito Moreno glacier. The withdrawal of the portrait comes on top of the systematic removal of images of Eva Perón and ex-president Néstor Kirchner from public spaces in the past two years.
CIA NOD TO SIDE
SIDE intelligence service chief Cristian Aguadra held a midweek meeting in Langley (Virginia, just outside Washington DC) with CIA director John Ratcliffe, who extended institutional recognition to his Argentine counterpart to be formally delivered as of next month. This recognition reportedly arises from the results obtained in recent joint operations, ongoing training programmes and the creation of the National Anti-Terrorism Centre (CNA in its Spanish acronym), considered a unique initiative within the region. The meeting was also attended by representatives of Mexico, Ecuador, Paraguay, Colombia, the Dominican Republic and Panama with drug-trafficking and money-laundering the focus.
RACIST IN RIO
Agostina Páez, the Argentine lawyer held in Rio de Janeiro since January on charges of racism in an Ipanema bar, last Tuesday managed to strike a deal with the court enabling her to elude prison with prospects of returning home sometime next month but the sum of compensation for the three targets of her racist insults has yet to be defined. She also remains liable for a prison sentence of two years, which can be replaced by community service in Argentina. Since 2023 the laws against racism have been stiffened in Brazil to carry a maximum prison sentence of 15 years.
PAYNE DEALERS FREED
Brian Nahuel Paiz and Ezequiel David Pereyra, accused of delivering drugs to former One Direction singer Liam Payne in October, 2024 with fatal consequences, were released from house arrest last Wednesday but still await trial, delayed by a jurisdictional battle between national and City courts. Both suspects were employees at the Hotel CasaSur in Palermo, where Payne under the influence of alcohol and drugs fell to his death from his third-floor room.
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