Argentina warns US against slandering Buenos Aires over debts
Press TV – November 1, 2014
Argentina’s President Cristina Kirchner has warned the United States against the serious consequences of what she called US officials’ slandering Buenos Aires over its debts.
In a harsh five-page letter on Friday, the Argentina president criticized US President Barack Obama’s choice of hire for a high-level advisory position in his administration.
“Could this be a case of namesakes?” Fernandez asks her American counterpart, referring to Nancy Soderberg, a politician who Obama appointed as head of a board at the Public Interest Declassification Board (PIDB), while also holding co-chair position at the American Task Force Argentina (ATFA), the most prominent well-funded lobby group in opposition to Argentina’s debt refinancing efforts.
According to the letter, the ATFA, which has spent millions of dollars lobbying against Argentina, is “an entity specifically created to attack and slander the Argentine Republic and its President.”
The Argentina president said it is a conflict of interest for Soderberg to give sound advice to the president and other US officials because Soderberg’s organization has received payments from one of the vulture funds.
“If confirmed by you, [this] would have grave implications for relations between our two countries,” Kirchner wrote in her letter.
“As you are certainly aware, the functions of the PIDB encompass sensitive issues of national security and include giving advice to the president and to other US executive branch officials,” she added.
Argentina is currently contesting its disputed debts in US courts.
US Court Rejects Argentina’s Appeal in Vulture Funds Case
teleSUR | October 23, 2014
The ongoing saga between Argentina and the vulture funds continues after a U.S court rejects Argentina’s appeal to allow the country to pay its creditors.
A United States appeals court has dismissed the Argentine appeal of an order directing Bank of New York Mellon to hold on to US$539 million dollars that Argentina deposited to pay its bondholders.
The appeals court said that it lacked jurisdiction over the appeal as an earlier ruling by U.S. District Judge Thomas Griesa was a clarification rather than modification of his earlier rulings on the matter.
In Griesa’s original ruling, the judge ruled that Argentina deposit with Bank of New York Mellon to pay bondholders who had renegotiated their debt with Argentina was “illegal,” and ordered the bank to hold on to the funds.
No progress has been made in talks between the country and hedge-fund holdouts, led by Elliott Management and Aurelius Capital Management.
Griesa has also scheduled another hearing on December 2 to weigh arguments over whether Citigroup Inc (C.N) should be allowed to process an expected interest payment by Argentina on bonds issued under its local laws following its 2002 default.
The hearing comes less than a month before an interest payment by Argentina on the bonds is due on December 31.
The hold outs, commonly referred to as vulture funds, had previously rejected all Argentina’s past restructuring offers on the country’s debt, most of which was incurred under Argentina’s military dictatorships and neoliberal governments. Ninety-two percent of creditors accepted the offer, and Argentina has been taking steps to continue to pay them back in spite of Judge Griesa’s ruling.
Argentine President Hardens Stance Toward United States
By Martin Hacthoun | Prensa Latina | October 1, 2014
Buenos Aires – President Cristina Fernandez has taken a harder stance against the United States, even issuing a warning against groups inside Argentina confabulating with foreign forces to topple the government, after the ruling by New York judge Thomas Griesa that decreed Argentina in contempt.
“Don’t think for a moment that this is simply an isolated action by a senile judge in New York,” she said in four speeches last night at government headquarters, the first at the Bicentennial Women’s Hall, where she announced policies to encourage public works and urban renewal.
The other speeches were delivered at each of the three courtyards at the presidential palace where young political leaders and union members were gathered.
In response to a request from the vulture funds, Griesa declared Argentina in contempt for its non-compliance with his previous ruling that demanded the country pay the speculative groups $300 million.
Fernandez asked who would ever bet on Argentina again “if we ruin everything” for the 92.4 percent in order to favor the one percent, alluding to the vulture funds who launched the litigation under the protection of the U.S. judicial system.
“The absurdity has never gone so far, and yet the absurdities continue to mount. What a coincidence that the ruling came out the day before we were to make our second payment (of the year) to our creditors,” she pointed out.
Fernandez charged that the real motive is to throw the entire restructuring of Argentina’s restructured debt out the window and return the country to forced debt payments in the billions.
“And if that means doing away with sovereignty, international respect, they have no problem with that, except that afterwards, they cloak themselves in the gorgeous robes of defenders of the law,” she criticized, insisting that “sovereignty is not negotiable.”
“I wouldn’t be the least surprised to see them insist on economic sanctions 20 days from now,” in relation to the possible fine threatened by Griesa.
With respect to the confabulations against the national and popular plan that she is pushing forward, she warned that “they are exerting pressure on the exchange rate so that the currency can be devalued and collective agreements liquidated.”
Fernandez said that economically and politically powerful groups are looking to unleash an internal crisis. “This is not an economic problem; these are concentrated sectors that want to overturn the government,” she denounced.
In the same vein, she warned about the interference from the interim Charge D’Affaires at the U.S. embassy in Argentina, Kevin Sullivan, even calling the alleged threat against her from the terrorist Islamic State group, published in the opposition newspaper, Clarin, a tall tale that has no factual basis.
“If something happens to me, no-one should look east; look northward instead,” Fernandez emphasized, in a clear allusion to the United States of America.
US Judge Claims Argentina ‘in Contempt’ of Court
teleSUR | September 30, 2014
U.S. Judge Thomas Griesa, who has repeatedly sided with vulture funds, has declared Argentina in contempt of court for its attempts to pay back over US$200 million in interest to creditors.
The Argentinian debt case reached a new landmark on Monday, as U.S. Judge Thomas Griesa ruled Argentina “in contempt” of court for attempting to pay back the debt it owes to bondholders.
Argentina defaulted in 2001 but reached debt exchanges with nearly all the creditors in 2005 and 2010, with a tiny minority refusing the deal.
Griesa justified his latest decision by saying the country is taking “illegal” steps to avoid his orders. Griesa had previously ruled that hold out creditors, known as vulture funds, had to be paid before other creditors could be settled with.
“These proposed steps are illegal and cannot be carried out,” Griesa said, during a court hearing in lower Manhattan, referring to the steps that Argentina has taken to pay back bondholders.
The judge also rejected any recognition of the newly approved law on Sovereign Debt in Argentina, passed by both its Congress and Senate.
In a further extraordinary rejection of Argentine sovereignty, Griesa warned that he will impose unspecified penalties on Argentina.
Argentine Foreign Minister Hector Timerman said in a statement late on Monday that the judge’s decision was a “violation of international law” and would have no impact other than to embolden the vulture funds against Argentina.
“The Argentine government reaffirms its decision to continue defending national sovereignty and asking the U.S. government to accept the jurisdiction of the International Court of Justice to resolve this controversy between both countries,” he said.
Argentina passes law to reclaim default debt from New York
RT | September 5, 2014
Argentina’s Senate has passed a law that will let the country continue paying off its default debt by transferring international bond payments from New York to local banks, which would let other investors buy Argentine debt.
The scheme, to get around a US judge’s order to immediately pay back $1.6 billion to “vulture” hedge funds in Manhattan, is the initiative of President Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner. The bill passed by a vote 39 to 27.
The initiative proposes to begin challenging payments through third parties, and allowing them to trade their bonds for new debt issued under Argentine law. Argentina’s state Banco de la Nacion could become the trustee for payments, replacing the Bank of New York Mellon. Another proposal is to make Paris a main destination for debt payments.
The US district court that ruled on Argentina’s debt maintains this is illegal.
Next week the law will be discussed in Argentina’s lower house Chamber of Deputies.
It is a brazen move against the ‘vulture’ funds that sent the country into default in July after demanding the immediate payment of $1.6 billion ($1.3 billion plus interest) in restructured debt, instead of the planned $539 million to bondholders. The ruling banned Argentina from making interest payment on restructured debt before settling with the New York hedge funds. The hedge funds had rejected Argentina’s requests to restructure the debt in 2005 and 2010.
“Sometimes there are court decisions that cannot be followed,” Miguel Angel Pichetto, head of the government’s Victory Front coalition in the Senate, said on Thursday.
Argentina has said it will take the US to the International Court of Justice for judicial malpractice.
“To pay the vulture funds would be very dangerous,” Pichetto said.
Ghosts of Olavarría: Human Rights Trial in Argentina Seeks Justice for Victims of Military Dictatorship
By Nick MacWilliam | Upside Down World | August 26, 2014
The central quarter of the Argentine city of Olavarría, with its leafy main square, whitewashed church, and historical architecture, merits its National Heritage status. Thanks to mineral extraction of the rock on which it stands, Olavarría is a prosperous and tranquil place, and home to the social science and engineering schools of the University of Buenos Aires Province. Now, however, this seemingly pleasant city has become the latest battleground in Argentina’s ongoing struggle to bring justice to those guilty of crimes during the military dictatorship of 1976–1983.
Olavarría, a city of around 100,000 inhabitants, is the setting for the upcoming trial of several ex-army officials accused of human rights abuses during the dictatorship. A high level of public interest surrounds the proceedings, due to one of the defendants’ alleged involvement in a case which has dominated national media in recent weeks.
In early August, the human rights organization Grandmothers of the Plaza de Mayo announced that the long-lost grandson of its president Estela de Carlotto had been identified and was living in Olavarría under a different name. Guido Montoya Carlotto had been taken from his detained mother in 1978 when just a few hours old, one of hundreds of babies born in captivity and then raised by families linked to the military authorities. In most cases, their biological parents were murdered by the military. The Grandmothers of the Plaza de Mayo have campaigned since the 1970s to reunite the stolen babies with their natural families and to expose the guilty parties.
Estela de Carlotto The recent news, a welcome dose of positivity on front pages of the country’s newspapers, has received intense media interest. Estela de Carlotto is highly-respected within Argentine society for her tireless campaigning as president of the famous headscarf-wearing Grandmothers. But, as the story has moved on from its initial feel-good element, there are now many questions over who was responsible for taking Guido from his mother, Estela’s 22-year-old daughter Laura Carlotto, who was killed soon after giving birth. The father, Walmir Montoya, abducted alongside his pregnant partner, had been murdered several months earlier.
The spotlight has shifted to Olavarría, location of the impending trial and the city in which Guido Montoya had lived until recently as Ignacio Hurbán. Although the trial date was set several months ago, it is now alleged that one of the accused participated in the transfer of Laura Carlotto’s baby to an adoptive family. Laura, who was handcuffed to a stretcher throughout the entire labor and birthing process, spent only a few hours with her newborn before being returned to her cell at the La Cacha detention center in La Plata.
On September 22, a court will begin listening to evidence against a number of ex-military officials charged with crimes against humanity, including kidnapping, torture and murder, committed at the Monte Peloni detention center in Olavarría. The officials on trial are: the local commander, Ignacio Verdura; Chief of Intelligence, Walter Grosse; Officer Horacio Leites; and Sub-Officer Omar Ferreyra. All of them are currently serving sentences for earlier convictions. While the trial is not directly connected to the removal of the Montoya Carlotto baby, it is suspected that Verdura was involved in the appropriation of babies.
For the last few years, the Grandmothers of the Plaza de Mayo have claimed that an Olavarría businessman, Carlos Francisco Aguilar, acted as an intermediary between the military and adoptive families. Aguilar, who died earlier this year, owned the land on which Guido Montoya’s adoptive parents worked and was known to have strong links to the armed forces and the church. As a wealthy landowner, he moved in the same social circles as high-ranking military figures, such as Ignacio Verdura, the then-chief of the regional 2nd Tank Regiment.
Throughout the 1970s, Olavarría was a site of left-wing militant activity, which brought the city to the military’s attention. State repression began with worker organizations before targeting the lawyers representing them, and later moving on to the student movement. Those who felt the heavy hand of the state included striking workers at the Loma Negra (Black Hill) cement company. The company’s response to the strike was to call in the military to end the dispute with detentions and other suppressive tactics.
Carlos Moreno was a lawyer who represented the Loma Negra workers. He was detained in Olavarría and tortured before being killed in May 1977. A trial in 2012 exposed links between the military and civilians who had allowed their property to be used for detaining prisoners. The trial also ordered an investigation into the role of Loma Negra, whose president was Amalia Lacroze de Fortabat, one of the world’s wealthiest women until her death two years ago at the age of 90.
Speaking to the Página 12 newspaper, Moreno’s son Matías said companies such as Loma Negra reaped the benefits of military rule.
“Before the dictatorship, Loma Negra was suffering losses, but its profits tripled under the dictatorship. The abduction of my father was intended as a disciplinary measure, after which there was a fall in labor costs,” said Matías. This was the aim of all the abductions.”
He also revealed that Commander Verdura lived next-door to the Moreno family. Any neighborly recognition, however, was irrelevant when it came to the military eliminating its opponents.
The Monte Peloni detention centerThe Monte Peloni detention center, where the majority of those detained in the zone were held, was a farmhouse in the countryside near Olavarría. Several prisoners, many of whom remain disappeared, passed through the center, which was administrated by the 2nd Tank Regiment of Ignacio Verdura.
Among the crimes that Verdura and his cohorts stand accused of are the disappearance of a young couple, Isabel Gutiérrez and Juan Carlos Ledesma, the detention of Isabel’s father Francisco Gutiérrez, and the murders of Jorge Oscar Fernández and Alfredo Serafín Maccarini. The latter was a prison guard whose rumored empathy for political prisoners made him a target for the military. Another ex-prisoner, Lidia Araceli Gutiérrez, who was raped and tortured in Monte Peloni, is to give evidence at the trial.
The Olavarría trial is the latest step in the legal battle to hold those involved in the abuses of the dictatorship accountable. As many as 2,000 people connected to the dictatorship have been accused of complicity in abuses, as, according to Human Rights Watch, Argentina has made “significant progress in prosecuting military and police personnel for enforced disappearances, killings and torture during the country’s ‘Dirty War.’” Yet the fact remains that a great many of those who willingly participated in dictatorship abuses have yet to answer for their crimes.
The stealing of babies from people who were subsequently killed continues to be a matter of great sensitivity, as the majority of stolen babies are now unidentified adults living normal lives in Argentine society. The Guido Montoya case was the 114th positive identification of a baby forcibly removed from its biological parents. However, it is estimated that there are hundreds of other citizens now approaching middle-age with little idea of their true identities. For families of the disappeared, the discovery of lost relatives can serve as an act of closure for their longstanding grief. Having spent decades dwelling on the past, they are finally able to look ahead.
In 2012, the dictator Rafael Videla, already serving a life sentence for human rights abuses, was given a further 50 years for his part in the systematic transfer of babies from prisoners to families linked to the military regime. Several other officials, including the country’s last military leader Reynaldo Bignone, have been convicted and imprisoned for their involvement in abuses. Bignone, who like Videla had already been found guilty of torture and murder in earlier trials, was said by the court to be complicit in “the crimes of theft, retention and hiding of minors, as well as replacing their identities.”
But the campaign of forced removal was perpetrated at all levels of the military hierarchy. As Guido Montoya Carlotto said in a recent interview with the newspaper El Popular de Olavarría, in his hometown “there are people who have to thoroughly explain themselves … I hope that people learn to question that which has been covered up, so that this not only represents my restitution but also the restitution for other people experiencing doubts.”
As Argentina continues to come to terms with the traumas of military rule, stories like the Carlottos’ provide inspiration for the justice movement to keep fighting. Yet, this is a journey that is unlikely to ever be fully resolved. The entrenched political system of brutality and repression was too widespread to hold all the guilty to account. But each small step signifies progress. Many will be closely watching the Olavarría trial in the hope that Argentina continues on its path toward redemption.
Nick MacWilliam is a British freelance writer and editor based in Buenos Aires.
US refuses to recognize UN court jurisdiction on Argentina’s debt
RT | August 9, 2014
Washington has refused to allow the UN International Court of Justice (IJC) to hear Argentina’s claims that US court decisions on the country’s debt have violated Argentina’s sovereignty.
“We do not view the ICJ as an appropriate venue for addressing Argentina’s debt issues, and we continue to urge Argentina to engage with its creditors to resolve remaining issues with bondholders,” the US State Department told Reuters in an email.
The State Department sent an email with the same content to one of Argentina’s leading newspapers, the Clarin.
Argentina complained against Washington’s decisions on its debt to the International Court of Justice in The Hague on Thursday.
But according to existing norms, Buenos Aires needs Washington to voluntarily accept the ICJ’s jurisdiction for the proceedings to begin.
The US withdrew from compulsory jurisdiction back in 1986 after the UN court ruled that America’s covert war against Nicaragua was in violation of international law.
Since then, Washington accepts International Court of Justice jurisdiction only on a case-by-case basis.
On Friday, US District Judge Thomas Griesa, who oversees Argentina’s legal battle with hedge funds, threatened that a contempt of court order may be implemented.
Griesa said it will be put forward if Argentina continues to “falsely” insist that it has made a required debt payment on restructured sovereign bonds.
The warning caused confusion, as the judge didn’t specify who will face the punishment – Argentina or its lawyers.
It will be quite difficult to sanction the Argentinean state, as US federal law largely protects the assets of foreign governments held in the US, said Michael Ramsey, a professor of international law at the University of San Diego.
“You can’t put Argentina in jail, so I’m not sure what he’d have in mind besides monetary sanctions,” Ramsey said.
Later on Friday, Argentina’s economy ministry issued another statement, accusing the US judge of “clear partiality in favor of the vulture funds.”
“Judge Griesa continues contradicting himself and the facts by saying that Argentina did not pay,” the statement said.
Previously, Argentina announced the restructuring of 93 percent of its 2001 debt, but creditors holding the other seven percent of the bonds demanded full payment and initiated a legal battle.
A New York court ruled that Argentina had to pay $1.33 billion to the hedge funds, blocking the transfer of $590 million that Buenos Aires forwarded in order to cover its restructured debt.
The judge said Argentina had to start talks with the lenders that didn’t approve the debt restructuring and negotiate to postpone the payment with those who did agree.
With lenders unable to receive payment, international regulators and rating agencies announced Argentina’s ‘selective’ default.
Argentina files lawsuit against US over debt dispute
Press TV – August 8, 2014
Argentina has attempted to sue the United States at the International Court of Justice (ICJ) in The Hague, the UN’s highest court, over a debt dispute.
The lawsuit was filed on Thursday after a US judge blocked Argentina from servicing its restructured debt, with Buenos Aires accusing Washington of violating Argentinean sovereignty.
New York District Judge Thomas Griesa has ruled to freeze Argentina’s June debt payment of $539 million in a US bank because two American hedge funds are demanding a full repayment of their money.
The two hedge funds, NML Capital and Aurelius Capital Management, have been described by Argentina as “vulture funds” that are seeking profit out of the country’s financial misery.
“Given that a state is responsible for the conduct of all the branches of its government, these violations have generated a controversy between the Republic of Argentina and the United States, which our country submits to the ICJ for resolution,” President Cristina Kirchner’s office said in a statement.
However, the ICJ declined to take any action, claiming that it is powerless to act “unless and until the United States of America consents to the court’s jurisdiction.”
Argentina’s 2001 economic collapse caused the country to default on more than $100 billion in debt. Argentina is still fighting to deal with the crisis.
Last week, Argentinean Economy Minister Axel Kicillof went to New York to try to resolve the impasse on the eve of his country’s default. There, he slammed the US judge for his ruling.
“A judge in one jurisdiction can’t be allowed to block the debt payments of an entire country,” he said. “There’s something called sovereignty.”
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In 2007, Michael Parenti Called Out The Greater Israel Project
The Dissident | January 28, 2026
In my last article, I covered the left-wing scholar Michael Parenti- who passed away at the age of 92 this week- and his prophetic writings on the Ukraine proxy war in 2014.
Parenti’s writings on the Israel lobby and the greater Israel project were equally prophetic.
In his 2007 book “Contrary Notions” Parenti called out “Israel First” Neo-cons and Israel’s role in the Iraq war, and predicted to a tee the future Israeli/American wars in the Middle East in service of Greater Israel and the ethnic cleansing of Palestine.
In a section of the book aptly titled “Israel First”, Parenti wrote… continue
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