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DE RUEHBU #1333/01 2682253
ZNR UUUUU ZZH
R 242253Z SEP 08
FM AMEMBASSY BUENOS AIRES
TO RUEHC/SECSTATE WASHDC 2104
INFO RUCNMER/MERCOSUR COLLECTIVE
RUEHLO/AMEMBASSY LONDON 1259
RUCNDT/USMISSION USUN NEW YORK 0242
RUEHUNV/USMISSION UNVIE VIENNA 0191
RUEKJCS/SECDEF WASHINGTON DC
RHMFIUU/HQ USSOUTHCOM MIAMI FL
RHEFDIA/DIA WASHINGTON DC
RUEATRS/DEPT OF TREASURY WASHINGTON DC
RHMFIUU/DEPT OF JUSTICE WASHINGTON DC
RUCPDOC/DEPT OF COMMERCE WASHINGTON DC

UNCLAS BUENOS AIRES 001333 
 
SENSITIVE 
SIPDIS 
 
E.O. 12958: N/A 
TAGS: ECON EFIN PHUM PREL PTER IR AR
SUBJECT: ARGENTINA: PRESIDENT'S TOUGH UNGA SPEECH 
OVERSHADOWED BY ANTONINI-WILSON 
 
REF: A. A) 07 BUENOS AIRES 1931 
     ¶B. B) BUENOS AIRES 1330 
     ¶C. C) BUENOS AIRES 1264 
     ¶D. C) BUENOS AIRES 1287 AND PREVIOUS 
 
¶1. (SBU) Summary: Argentine President Fernandez de Kirchner 
used her September 23 speech to the UNGA to appeal to a 
number of domestic constituencies, encapsulating a number of 
Kirchner governance themes and putting them in the context of 
a multilateralist, anti-neo-liberal framework.  The speech, 
foreshadowed September 22 by her remarks at the Council on 
Foreign Relations, was critical of U.S. unilateralism and 
highlighted supposed inconsistencies in U.S.-promoted 
economic orthodoxy based on the U.S. Government's unfolding 
reaction to the financial crises.  She paired her critique of 
liberal economic policies with what was undoubtedly intended 
as a reassuring description of Argentina's renewed efforts to 
negotiate with holdout bondholders (reftel B).  She described 
Latin American nations as overcoming differences to approach 
regional crises in an effective, multilateral manner, and she 
called for a restructuring of multilateral institutions, 
including the United Nations and international financial 
institutions.  Fernandez de Kirchner included in her remarks, 
as her husband had done in his 2003-07 UNGA addresses, a 
strong demand that Iran hand over to Argentina for a fair and 
transparent trial those individuals under international 
warrant through Interpol for the bombings of the 
Argentine-Israeli Mutual Association (AMIA) in 1994.  She 
also included an appeal to the United Kingdom to accept 
repeated Argentine calls to begin negotiations over the 
future of the Malvinas Islands (Falklands).  President 
Kirchner's speech appeared designed to appeal to several 
constituencies, including a hard left that is critical of any 
international debt repayment by Argentina.  Her remarks also 
reflect her genuine world view regarding Latin American-led 
multilateralism and state management of the economy. 
 
¶2. (SBU) This speech was clearly important to the Casa Rosada 
(presidential palace), which posted the transcript within 
hours on its website.  It was likely perceived as a key to 
the President's efforts to regain leadership following the 
reverses caused by the government's conflict with the farm 
sector and ongoing revelations of Venezuelan contributions to 
her campaign.  The fact that the star witness in the Franklin 
Duran prosecution, Guido Antonini-Wilson (A-W), was brought 
to the stand later that same day in Miami, overshadowing 
Kirchner's speech in local press coverage, likely causing 
more consternation in the GOA.  The press gave greatest 
coverage to A-W's claim that he had been told there was 
another USD 4.2 million on the flight from Venezuela on 
August 4, that he had been to the Casa Rosada following his 
arrival in country (contradicting subsequent GOA denials), 
and that he had taken responsibility for the discovered 
suitcase with USD 800,000 on behalf of former GOA Ministry of 
Planning official Claudio Uberti.  End Summary. 
 
Iran Called Out, Human Rights 
----------------------------- 
 
¶3. (SBU) In her September 22 speech to the Council on Foreign 
Relations (CFR) in New York and her address at the United 
Nations General Assembly (UNGA) the following day, President 
Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner (CFK) laid out a forceful 
Argentine agenda within the multilateral system.  She 
encouraged states to ratify the International Convention for 
the Protection of All Persons from Enforced Disappearances, a 
convention important to Argentina given its tragic history 
under military dictatorship and for which Argentina currently 
was just one of four parties.  In this context, she lauded 
the work of the Grandmothers of the Plaza de Mayo (now part 
of the pro-Kirchner base) for their efforts to identify the 
children of disappeared political prisoners from the 1970s 
and early 1980s.  She noted the work of the Argentine 
Forensic Anthropology Team (EAAF), as well as similar teams 
in Guatemala and Peru, in developing a blood bank to help 
identify the remains of political dissidents who were killed 
in those countries (but negelected to mention that the USG 
had provided EAAF USD 1.4 million for the effort). 
 
¶4. (SBU) CFK made a strong demand that Iran surrender for 
prosecution in Argentina those individuals suspected of 
 
involvement in the 1994 bombing of the Argentine-Israeli 
Mutual Association (AMIA).  She noted that Argentina had gone 
through INTERPOL to generate international warrants, and she 
pledged to Iran that the individuals would receive fair and 
transparent public trials in Argentina, "with the guarantees 
offered by a democratic system."  Argentina's Jewish 
community reacted immediately, with the Delegation of 
Argentine-Israeli Associations (DAIA) issuing a laudatory 
statement.  The President's statement on Iran amplified a 
similarly strong message by her husband, then-President 
Nestor Kirchner, at the UNGA in 2007 (reftel A) and previous 
years.  DAIA, on September 24, qualified its praise by 
pointing out its displeasure with growing trade between 
Argentina and Iran (see Ref C). 
 
The New Multilateralism 
----------------------- 
 
¶5. (SBU) Although CFK did not explicitly criticize the United 
States in her two speeches, our country was clearly the 
object of her critical commentary in much of the speech.  At 
the CFR, she argued that the "violation of multilateralism" 
in the U.S. reaction to September 11 had "made the world more 
insecure" and that "universal and multilateral" decisions 
were required to legitimize the war on terror.  She 
characterized as positive the political evolution of South 
America, describing leaders like President Evo Morales of 
Bolivia and Lula Ignacio da Silva in Brazil as more 
representative of the majority of their citizens.  She noted 
at the UNGA that despite differing perspectives on governance 
among the Latin American capitals, the region's countries 
were increasingly coming together to address challenges to 
peace and security, first in the Rio Group's intervention in 
the tension between Colombia and Ecuador following Colombia's 
cross border attack on a FARC base and then via UNASUR to 
deal with internal tensions in Bolivia this September.  "I 
want to emphasize with these examples that for us the 
commitment to multilateralism is not just rhetoric, but a 
profound conviction," she said, "and also a concrete 
political mechanism that can produce results in what is 
normally called the developing world -- that we are able to 
offer examples on the use of multilateralism to overcome 
conflicts." 
 
¶6. (U) At the CFR, Kirchner was more specific about calls to 
reform the United Nations and the Security Council, calling 
for the inclusion on the latter of new regional actors to 
create a more balanced and stable international system. 
Asked what she hoped to see from the next American President, 
CFK said "we hope for the reconstruction of multilateralism," 
which in her view would give renewed legitimacy to the fight 
against terrorism and narco-trafficking and better serve 
global and U.S. interests. 
 
We Told You So -- But It Gives Us No Pleasure 
--------------------------------------------- 
 
¶7. (U) The heart of CFK's remarks centered on a description 
of Argentina's management of its own financial crisis, 
culminating in the GOA's consideration of a deal with several 
banks representing remaining bond holdouts -- on more 
favorable terms for Argentina than before, she claimed (ref 
B).  She drew sharp lessons from the U.S. financial crisis, 
noting that "today they can't talk of a tequila, a caipirinha 
or a rice effect, or of whatever effect they name it based on 
the developing country from which it came and spread toward 
the center.  Today, if we had to give it a name, perhaps it 
would be the jazz effect." "This doesn't make us happy or 
give us satisfaction," she insisted, "but offers a chance to 
revise policies and behaviors where previously, during the 
period of the Washington Consensus, the nations of South 
America had been told that the State was not necessary, that 
state interventionism was a throw-back by those groups that 
didn't understand modern economics."  Instead, she 
emphasized, "the largest state economic intervention in 
memory has been generated in the very place where they told 
us that the State was no longer necessary." 
 
¶8. (SBU) Building further on these points, CFK included a 
short discourse on economics, suggesting that only those 
profits built on the production of goods, services and 
 
knowledge were legitimate or sustainable, implicitly in 
contrast to capital accumulation.  "Money alone does not 
produce more money," she said, arguing that the world's 
financial crisis had grown out of a "casino" or "fictional" 
economy in the United States. 
 
Malvinas 
-------- 
 
¶9. (U) Building on her theme of multilateralism, CFK also 
included a full appeal to the United Kingdom to begin 
negotiating with Argentina over the status of the Malvinas 
Islands (Falklands).  She couched the appeal as a 
continuation of the United Nations' historic work of 
de-colonization and emphasized that Argentina's claim of 
sovereignty over the Malvinas as "state policy," transcending 
politics and parties. 
 
Speech Reaction and Antonini-Wilson Revelations 
--------------------------------------------- -- 
 
¶10. (SBU) Online papers and the television news on September 
23 quickly highlighted CFK's term "jazz effect", identifying 
the speech as a major critique of U.S. unilateralism and 
financial management.  The President's mid-day speech, 
however, was soon chased out of the news cycle by the 
testimony in the late afternoon of Venezuelan-American Guido 
Antonini-Wilson (A-W).  The A-W revelations dominated most 
headlines (Pagina 12 kept the CFK speech, with picture and a 
quote, front and center, but La Nacion and Clarin put A-W 
above the fold while CFK's discourse barely made the front 
page).  La Nacion further provided a play-by-play of the 
Kirchners' movements and gestures in a New York hotel lobby 
as the A-W revelations emerged. 
 
¶11. (U) Garnering the greatest sustained attention from the 
Duran trial was A-W's statement that Venezuelan State 
Petroleum Company (PDVSA) Vice President Diego Uzcategui had 
told him another USD 4.2 million had been on the plane, 
presumably moved through customs in other suitcases without 
inspection.  In addition, A-W contended that GOA Highway 
Tolls Commissioner Claudio Uberti, the only official to lose 
his job over the scandal, had thanked him for taking 
responsibility for the USD 800,000 when it was discovered by 
airport security.  He also affirmed that he had been in the 
Casa Rosada following the incident at the airport and was 
briefly greeted there by Planning Minister Julio De Vido, 
something that De Vido and the GOA have denied. 
 
¶12. (SBU) GOA reaction to the revelations out of Miami were 
muted.  In Buenos Aires, Cabinet Chief Sergio Massa focused 
on the need for A-W to testify in Argentina, noting that A-W 
was, however, presently "collaborating with U.S. justice in a 
criminal case against Venezuela for espionage" in a U.S. 
federal court in Miami.  Massa said Argentina had three times 
requested A-W's extradition so that he could help clarify the 
purpose of the $800,000, and that he would welcome any 
contribution that A-W's testimony might make in sending the 
responsible parties to prison.  Also in Buenos Aires, 
Interior Minister Florencio Randazzo dismissed A-W's 
presentation in Miami as "not very serious" and said the GOA 
did not find any merit in A-W's statements.  Randazzo 
questioned A-W's claim that he had acknowledged to GOA 
authorities ownership of the suitcase only because he was in 
a hurry to get out of the airport on August 4, 2007. 
Randazzo said A-W had no evidence to prove that there was 
another $4.2 million on the same flight.  In New York, 
Argentine Ambassador Hector Timerman told "Clarin" that "I 
still think that A-W will say any garbage to keep from 
getting extradited to Buenos Aires.  For me, it's like 
getting Gordo Valor (a locally well-known head of a criminal 
organization currently in prison) to testify." 
 
Comment: Subdued GOA Reaction Thus Far 
-------------------------------------- 
 
¶13. (SBU) Comment: We interpret CFK's provocative remarks, as 
well as last week's schadenfreude-laden remarks regarding 
U.S. financial difficulties (Buenos Aires 1309), as an 
attempt by this populist government to appease its base with 
left-leaning rhetoric while its economic policy becomes 
 
increasingly orthodox.  Over the past two weeks, on the 
high-profile issues of the Paris Club, holdouts, and utility 
tariff increases, GOA policy is moving in exactly the 
direction that the "Washington Consensus" would prescribe. 
We are certainly not out of the woods yet on the GOA's 
reaction to Miami, but do take some satisfaction from the 
fact that the initial comments described in para 13 seem 
relatively subdued, and that CFK went ahead with 
participation in the Secretary General's dinner on September 
23 with the knowledge that A-W was already on the witness 
stand in Miami.  Photos of CFK with President Bush were 
published in most papers and may be viewed as an indicator of 
GOA intentions to maintain the bilateral relationship, albeit 
one in which criticisms of U.S. policy are freely given.  End 
Comment. 
KELLY