VZCZCXYZ0021
OO RUEHWEB

DE RUEHBU #1646/01 2341923
ZNR UUUUU ZZH
O 221923Z AUG 07
FM AMEMBASSY BUENOS AIRES
TO RUEHC/SECSTATE WASHDC IMMEDIATE 8991
INFO RHMFISS/CDR USSOCOM MACDILL AFB FL//SCJ2//
RULGPUA/USCOMSOLANT

UNCLAS BUENOS AIRES 001646 
 
SIPDIS 
 
STATE FOR INR/R/MR, I/GWHA, WHA, WHA/PDA, WHA/BSC, 
WHA/EPSC 
CDR USSOCOM FOR J-2 IAD/LAMA 
 
SIPDIS 
 
E.O. 12958: N/A 
TAGS: KPAO OPRC KMDR PREL
SUBJECT: MEDIA REACTION; CHAVEZ-KIRCHNER AND THE SUITCASE SCANDAL; 
WORLD FINANCIAL CRISIS; 08/21/07 
 
 
¶1. SUMMARY STATEMENT 
 
The main weekend international stories are related to the 
implications of the suitcase scandal in the Argentine-Venezuelan 
relationship; and the role played by US vulture funds in the world 
financial crisis. 
 
¶2. OPINION PIECES AND EDITORIALS 
 
- "Santa Cruz, Carris and Chvez against Kirchner" 
 
Joaqun Morales Sol, political analyst of daily-of-record "La 
Nacisn," writes (08/19) "... What kind of unlimited power permitted 
an Argentine aircraft on an official mission to give a seat to a 
foreigner with a suitcase containing 800,000 US dollars that was 
surely illegal?.. And the most important question - what destination 
did those 800,000 US dollars have?.. Was it money laundering or 
narco-trafficking money...? Was it money to pay for bribes or to 
help argentine friends of Chvez? The judicial case has not closed 
yet. 
 
"However, the gist of the political problem lies with Argentina's 
ties to Venezuela, which are not normal... 
Diplomacy should definitely replace the shadowy economic operators 
in dealing with Chvez... 
 
"Chvez does whatever he wants in Venezuela but it would be 
intolerable that he acted as he wanted in Argentina. This now only 
depends on Kirchner. 
 
"The (Argentine) Government has noticed that the Bush administration 
used the suitcase scandal in its confrontation with the Venezuelan 
caudillo. That is not new. It is only natural that Washington use 
such a scandal against Chvez... 
 
"... (Elisa) Carris's insistent denunciation against the most 
influential government officials and important businessmen, the 
problems created by Chvez, the violence in Santa Cruz and also 
inflation shrunk the error margin as the election that will change 
Argentina's president gets closer." 
 
- "Suitcase or sootcase? 
 
An editorial in liberal, English-language "Buenos Aires Herald" 
reads (08/18) "Almost a fortnight after the Venezuelan businessman 
Guido Antonini Wilson tried to pass through Customs at Jorge Newbery 
Airport with a suitcase containing nearly 800,000 undeclared 
dollars, thus triggering a major uproar a few days later, the 
resolution of this scandal seems to be falling slowly into place... 
 
"In fact, various loose ends remaining both legal and political 
terms, even if the proceedings now underway are satisfactorily 
concluded. Various questions await an answer: What was the purpose 
of the 800,000 dollars? How many similar suitcases have Venezuelan 
and other visitors slipped through customs and did the reasons for 
the strict inspection of a weekend flight stem from political 
factors rather than routine control? The various legal questions can 
be multiplied but there is also the question of the relationship 
with Venezuela. The belated mini-purge of Chvez seems ideal for 
letting the Nstor Kirchner administration off the hook because the 
Venezuelan leader thus appears to accept responsibility without 
taking offence unduly. But is salvaging the relationship with the 
controversial Chvez necessarily good news at a time of global 
financial turbulence? Kirchner thought he was defending the 10.6 
percent interest paid out for the debt bonds purchased by Venezuela 
when he said that he would probably have to pay double anywhere else 
but this only underlines the corner into which Argentina has painted 
itself. 
 
"Corruption scandals and sagging money markets might seem to belong 
to different worlds but the distance between the two cannot be so 
neatly compartmentalized - in this context moral and financial 
solvency go together with political scandal and financial collapse 
feeding each other. Even more importantly for the government at 
least, this also applies to opposition prospects in the elections - 
normally fragmentation is an electoral liability but when problems 
have political, ethical, financial and institutional aspects, an 
opposition with a multiple personality can only gain." 
 
- "'Vulture' funds - the best applied qualifier" 
 
Oscar Ral Cardoso, international analyst of leading "Clarn," 
opines (08/18) "According to Scott Baker, a US investor who was 
trapped in his country's outrageous financial crisis, the investment 
funds industry is spoiling the international market and needs to be 
regulated... 
 
"... After all, investors resort to them because the so-called 'free 
investment funds' are ferocious profit machines in spite of the fact 
that their heads are the most expensive financial agents to be 
found. 
 
"... This innate passion to create wealth is unlimited... The most 
recent example is the so-called 'securitization' of the real estate 
financial market, based on an impossible illusion - the belief that 
real estate prices could only go up, never go back. This is one of 
the chimeras on which the prosperity claimed by Washington was based 
during the Bush administration... 
 
"... The malaise has been transferred to the global financial 
system, in which the main world economic power finds out that much 
of its sovereign debt ended up in speculation... No one in the US is 
in a position to assess how much national wealth has been lost in 
the real estate crash." 
 
To see more Buenos Aires reporting, visit our 
classified website at: 
http://www.state.sqov.gov/p/wha/buenosaires 
 
WAYNE