PAIN WITH SPAIN
Michael Soltys
Buenos Aires Herald, Argentina
al/editorial_english.jsp?idContent=490343
April 30 2008
A seminar on "Women in the Alliance of Civilizations" sounds supremely
abstract but somehow the Monday event contrived to become the focus
of a cluster of problems with Spain, coinciding with the Spanish
courts’ refusal to extradite ex-president MarÃa Estela "Isabel"
MartÃnez de Perón on the same day. The event itself suffered from
various absences, including an extremely weak presence on the part
of the Turkish co-sponsors of the "Alliance of Civilizations" series
(perhaps hypersensitive over the Cristina Fernández de Kirchner
administration’s love of the term "genocide" in general and its
application to the Armenian massacres of 1915-23 in certain Argentine
official resolutions in particular) and the absence of Spanish deputy
premier MarÃa Teresa Fernández de la Vega (despite sharing both
the gender and surname of her presidential host). Instead the reasons
for the latter’s absence became the issue and was used by President
Cristina Kirchner to continue her domestic feud with the press in
contempt of the international occasion — the Spanish socialist was
quoted as being affronted by the alleged misreporting of ClarÃn
in giving as the reason for her suspension of the trip her presumed
ire over the Argentine government’s pressures to "Argentinize" the
Spanish-owned AerolÃneas Argentinas.
Yet this denial is belied by the concern over these pressures
explicitly transmitted by Spanish Ambassador Rafael Estrella to
Transport Secretary Ricardo Jaime and in any case AerolÃneas has
some very serious problems quite irrespective of attendance at the
"Women in the Alliance of Civilizations" seminar. With only half of
its fleet in the air and interminable union problems, AerolÃneas
is rapidly sliding back to its parlous state of 2002 when it was
the object of what can only be called a privatization in reverse —
i.e. the Argentine state paid the Spanish tourism company 700 million
dollars to take charge of the airline after selling 90 percent of
the shares for a single dollar. The current "Argentinization" (this
clumsy term must be used because the government is not attempting any
direct nationalization of the airline but rather an acquisition by
crony capitalist interests) is flying in the face of world trends —
do the Kirchners really want to take a leaf out of Silvio Berlusconi’s
book with his anachronistic bid to keep Alitalia national?
Even if Spanish Foreign Minister Miguel Angel Moratinos dutifully
painted the brightest picture of bilateral relations, Spanish
concern extends not only to AerolÃneas but to all Spanish-owned
utilities and their artificially low rates. And then there is the
refusal to extradite Isabel Perón — the Spanish courts not only
seem unconvinced of the evidence of her direct links with the Triple
A far right terrorist organization but also whether the Triple A
qualified for state terrorism and hence crimes against humanity. The
refusal to extradite Isabel Perón is less hostile than it seems and
possibly even a favour to ex-president Néstor Kirchner since the
return and trial of his predecessor would undoubtedly create rifts
in the Peronist movement he is set to chair. The problems with Spain
certainly should not be exaggerated but neither can they be ignored.
–Boundary_(ID_a7VvALxom1N2DPyR94iNYg)–