President Néstor Kirchner has broken away from this trend within weeks of assuming office. His new foreign minister, Rafael Bielsa, could not have been blooded on a trickier assignment.
Speaking at the UN on 16 June, Bielsa made it clear that Argentina expected to talk to Britain about the future of the islands. This tactic differs sharply from that employed by the Menem and De la Rúa administrations over the last decade. Both focused on a 'hearts and minds' campaign designed to win over the inhabitants of the Falklands, known as Kelpers, to the benefits of Argentine sovereignty.
Bielsa indicated that Argentina expected to talk to Britain, without the Kelpers being present. He may have been encouraged here by the success that Spain has had in talking directly to Britain about sovereignty over Gibraltar. Bilateral talks have taken place without the presence of Gibraltar's chief minister, Peter Caruana, and Britain ignored a referendum held by the rock's inhabitants, which declared their desire to remain British.
Bielsa preferred to compare his government's agenda to that of the pre-war policy, which ran from 1966 to 1982, under which Britain and Argentina had negotiated over the sovereignty of the islands.
The more nationalistic elements of the British press rallied to the cause of Gibraltar's inhabitants. They can be expected to ratchet up their efforts if there is any whiff of the Falklands being handed over to Argentina against the wishes of the Kelpers.
Negotiations could, however, prove to be harmonious. Bielsa was congratulated by two of the members of the Falklands Island council who were at the annual decolonisation committee meeting at the UN. Bielsa responded to them, unlike his predecessors who had ignored the council members at the UN. The Kelpers, reportedly, wished him good luck in all but one of his policies.
PARAGUAY/Cubas released. Disgraced former president Raúl Cubas Grau has been released from house arrest while he stands trial for complicity in the assassination of his Vice-President, Luis María Argaña, on 23 March 1999.
Cubas, who served just seven months between August 1998 and March 1999, is also charged on two further counts: ordering snipers to fire on a crowd demonstrating against Argaña's murder, killing seven youths in the process, and arranging the release from imprisonment of his éminence grise, General Lino Oviedo, on 28 March 1999, shortly before he resigned the presidency.
Oviedo, who remains in exile in Brazil, was serving a 10-year sentence for taking part in the attempted overthrow of President Juan Carlos Wasmosy in 1996.
Cubas returned from exile in Brazil in February 2002.
URUGUAY/Extradition request. A Uruguayan judge has requested that two Argentine bankers who participated in the million-dollar fraud that led to the demise of Compañía General de Negocios in Montevideo be extradited to face trial before the Uruguayan courts.
Marcelo Muiño and Julio César Tielens were managers at the bank. They were arrested in Buenos Aires by Interpol on charges of embezzlement and falsifying public documents. Previously, Uruguay had requested the extradition of the owner of the bank, Carlos Rohm, currently on trial in Argentina for fraud committed at the now bankrupt Banco General de Negocios. His brother, José, has so far evaded capture.
The judge has summonsed David Mulford of Crédit Suisse First Boston, Brian O'Neill of JP Morgan and Holger Sommer of Dresdner Bank to testify. The three international banks were majority shareholders of the Rohm brothers' banking group after partially rescuing Banco Comercial in February 2002.
The Rohm brothers are accused of masterminding the fraud, which ran to hundreds of millions of dollars. Bank officials are said to have helped cover up the money trail. The crisis dates back to January 2002, when it emerged that about US$250m was missing from the Rohm brothers' banks in Argentina and Uruguay.
Comercial had been the biggest private sector bank in the country before it failed. It was rescued by the government last August, and has since been merged with two other failed banks and reopened as Nuevo Banco Comercial. The embezzlement served to aggravate a run on deposits that had been triggered by the economic crisis in neighbouring Argentina.
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