Successive Uruguayan heads of state are developing a habit of being caught out making inappropriate and tactless remarks about Argentina, which, while delighting the national media, could have an adverse effect on diplomatic relations and bilateral cooperation. President José Mujica continued a trend begun by Jorge Batlle (2000-2005) and continued by his predecessor, Tabaré Vázquez (2005-2010), after he was caught referring pejoratively to Argentina’s President Cristina Fernández and her predecessor and late husband, Néstor Kirchner (2003-2007).
Former president Batlle had to travel to Buenos Aires in tearful contrition after Argentina had decided to default on its sovereign debt in 2001 and he branded Argentines “a bunch of thieves from the first to the very last one of them”, adjuring a journalist from the news agency, Bloomberg, in what he thought was an ‘off the record’ conversation, “don’t you dare compare Uruguay with Argentina”.
Vázquez picked up the baton in October 2011 (admittedly after he had left office) when he candidly told former pupils of a school in Montevideo that he had considered war scenarios with Argentina when the dispute over the construction of a pulp mill on the Uruguayan side of the shared River Uruguay reached fever-pitch in 2007.
Mujica had already ruffled feathers in Argentina while campaigning for president in 2009, when a book entitled Pepe.Coloquios (Pepe.Colloquies) was published by a journalist to whom Mujica believed himself to be speaking ‘off the record’. This included some very forthright criticism of Argentina and its government. He described Argentina as a country of “totally irrational, hysteric, mad, paranoiac reactions [which] has not reached a level of representative democracy, and whose institutions are not worth a damn”. He also pilloried the presidential couple as “lefties, but what a Left, mamma mia, what a gang!”
At least here, however, Mujica would have been able to assure Fernández privately that he had been misquoted. The same could not be said for his latest ill-judged remarks which caused the website of Uruguayan national daily, El Observador, to crash such was the traffic once word of Mujica’s latest gaffe got out.
Mujica has been extended a fair bit of latitude in the past because of his straight-talking style but even he was left fumbling when, unaware the microphone was switched on, he commented to the governor of Florida department, Carlos Enciso, just before a news conference on 4 April, that “this old hag is worse than the one-eyed guy”. He compounded the gaffe by subsequently blustering that he had been talking about Brazil’s former president, Lula da Silva (2003-2010), and his successor, President Dilma Rousseff, if this would somehow make the insult more acceptable.
The Argentine foreign ministry issued a formal complaint later in the day about the remarks referring to Kirchner, who had a lazy eye. In an open letter to the Uruguayan embassy in Buenos Aires, Argentina’s foreign minister, Héctor Timerman, described Mujica’s comments as “denigrating and unacceptable”, adding that they “offend the memory…of a deceased person by someone that Dr. Kirchner considered to be a friend”.
Mujica initially said he had no need to apologise, but with diplomatic channels becoming distinctly frosty he thought better of this. First he made a public apology on the radio, explaining that his comments were the product of his “coarse jail slang”, after spending years as a political prisoner, which he used with friends. He said that he had found it necessary back then to speak adopting nicknames in order to survive.
Mujica went on to express support for Argentina which he said had for years faced “an almost permanent campaign” stating that the country was going to collapse. He said that despite this Argentina had continued to grow and had never had a government that had done so much for the poor. “It has problems, but who doesn’t?” he asked rhetorically. He also said that relations with Argentina were of paramount importance for Uruguay: “When things go well for Argentina, they go well for us and when they go badly for them we suffer”.
Mujica has done far more than either Batlle or Vázquez to preserve strong relations with Argentina in the face of provocative economic policymaking emanating from Buenos Aires. He has faced strong pressure from Uruguay’s domestic political opposition, for instance, to take a much tougher stance in the face of protectionist measures from Argentina, which contravenes the central tenets of the Southern Common Market (Mercosur) treaty. Determined to capitalise on Mujica’s travails (and perhaps concerned that his comments would make it even harder for Mujica to get tough with Argentina over protectionism and other divisive bilateral issues such as deepening the Martín García canal), the opposition suddenly became sententious. Senator Sergio Abreu of the Partido Nacional (PN, Blancos) warned Mujica that his comments could “have consequences” if he did not make amends, and Senator Jorge Amorín, of the Partido Colorado (PC, Colorados) urged him to follow Batlle’s example and “assume responsibility for his serious mistake”.
Mujica’s first apology failed to cut the mustard so he then told the national daily, La República, that he would send a letter to Fernández. Fernández reacted with froideur. The Uruguayan foreign ministry said that she had neither replied nor sent any acknowledgement of receipt of the letter and that she had not been available to take any of Mujica’s calls. Uruguay’s deputy foreign minister, Roberto Conde, travelled to Buenos Aires for a meeting at the foreign ministry: he was not received by Timerman but the deputy for Latin American affairs, Diego Tetamanti, and other junior officials.
Fernández appears to have been intent on letting Mujica squirm for a couple of weeks because on 18 April Mujica was invited to travel aboard Tango 01 presidential plane to attend an extraordinary meeting of the Union of South American nations (Unasur) in Lima, Peru, to discuss post-electoral developments in Venezuela before flying on to Caracas for the inauguration of Nicolás Maduro on 19 April. Mujica’s presumably contrite letter won him an opening and he must have worked his magic in person because Fernández tweeted from the plane: “Yes, I’m a little stubborn and I’m an old hag” adding that “I’m fortunate to get this old. Everything is alright”. The Kirchners have not shown themselves to be the most thick-skinned of politicians in the past, however, so there will be more than a lingering concern in Montevideo that Fernández continues to harbour a grudge.
Uruguay approves same sex marriage
Uruguay has become only the second country in Latin America to legalise same sex marriage after Argentina. Following the approval last year of a bill legalising abortion in the first 12 weeks of pregnancy, congress voted to approve same sex marriage: the lower chamber voted by 71 votes out of 92 in a four-hour session to approve the bill, with the ruling Frente Amplio (FA) legislators (50) joined by a reasonable number of opposition legislators. The bill was approved by 23-8 by the senate a week earlier.
Deputy Sebastián Sabini (FA) argued that if marriage were only for procreation “we would have to ban marriage for certain couples”, a sad lament for Uruguay’s fading demographic. Fernando Amado was one of several deputies from the Partido Colorado (PC) to argue, along with the Roman Catholic Church, that “the foundation of society is the family but not a prefabricated family”.
The new law empowers same-sex parents to choose the order of the surnames of the children they adopt. It also increases the age of consent for sexual relations to 16, from the current threshold of just 12 for women and 14 for men.
- Poverty
Poverty fell to 12.4% in 2012 from 13.7% the previous year, while indigence remained at 0.5%, according to figures released by the national statistics institute (INE). In Montevideo poverty was higher than the national average, at 16.7%. In the interior of the country poverty fell, mainly in localities with more than 5,000 inhabitants, from 12.1% to 10.1%.
- Mujica on Maduro
President José Mujica has also succeeded in putting a few noses out of joint in Venezuela with some of his comments about the Bolivarian Revolution over the years. His reaction to the narrow electoral victory of Nicolás Maduro on 14 April was one of the most nuanced in Latin America. Mujica recognised Maduro’s victory but tempered this recognition with a call for “stability and compromise” in Venezuela, adding that Maduro now had the opportunity to show “his true stature as a leader”. Maduro’s stature currently looks literal rather than figurative: he has yet to show any inclination to reach out to his defeated rival, Henrique Capriles Radonski, who he called a “fascist coup monger”.
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