Weekly Report - 23 December 2003

It was the Uruguayan newspaper La República that drew attention to an appointment that seem designed to irritate Argentine President Néstor Kirchner: that of navy Captain Juan Craigdallie (accused of having been a torturer in the period 1973-85) as naval attaché in Buenos Aires. Argentine diplomats had been working quietly to dissuade the Batlle government, and several Uruguayan senators had done likewise. Kirchner described this as `disrespect'. Matters were made worse when President Jorge Batlle's human rights adviser publicly accused Kirchner and his Brazilian peer Lula da Silva of `acting as agitators or guerrilla sympathisers, as they were in the past' (because while the Mercosur summit was taking place they had attended a function at the Montevideo city council organised by the FA mayor). The incident was last week declared `closed', but Argentina has said it still rejects the appointment.