With the change of government at the end of the year, Argentina also took an important turn in its relationship with Chavismo, which explains its diplomatic positions in multilateral organizations. The last minute of that drastic turnaround of 180 occurred this Saturday at the OAS, where Argentina, along with six other countries, refrained from condemning the abuses of the Nicolás Maduro regime in Venezuela.
It all happened hours after the head of state himself, in a conversation with Lula da Silva organized by the Faculty of Social Sciences, regretted not having Hugo Chávez and Evo Morales in power.
“Dear Lula, I don’t have Nestor, I don’t have Pepe Mujica, I don’t have Tabaré, I don’t have Lugo, I don’t have Evo, I don’t have Michelle, I don’t have Lagos, I don’t I have Correa. I don’t have Chávez. We are hardly two who want to change the world. One is in Mexico, his name is Andrés Manuel López Obrador and the other is me. And we have a hard time arguing, “sighed Zoom.
This new format was already announced in the electoral campaign of Alberto Fernández, but it materialized in the presidential inauguration of last December 10.
That day, Jorge Rodríguez, Nicolás Maduro’s Minister of Communication, arrived on a private plane. An important part of the Chavista repression apparatus, Rodríguez could not have entered Argentina under the administration of Mauricio Macri who condemned Maduro and also adopted an international list by which Venezuelan hierarchs such as Rodríguez are prohibited from entering certain countries.
That unexpected presence would also mark the relationship with the United States. Well, in fact, that day, Donald Trump’s now candidate to preside over the IDB, Mauricio Claver Carone, told Clarion that Alberto F. had to choose between democracies and dictatorships. And suggestively he recalled the needs of Argentina in the midst of his negotiations with private creditors for the debt swap.
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But since last December, the Government claims to have a Third Position in the face of the Venezuelan drama. But this is nothing more than a “comfort” zone for Maduro, who, as The Economist recounts in detail in her latest issue, works to continue staying in power after this year’s legislative elections.
The official decision to abstain in the face of the recent OAS vote – which approved a resolution condemning “the continued harassment exercised by the regime” against the functions that Venezuelan law grants to the National Assembly and against the operation of political parties and Democratic institutions in Venezuela─ is one of the positions that this fourth edition of the K government has been holding, an ally of Chavismo from the first hour.
Some facts are listed.
-Alberto F. decided not to comply with an initial threat to leave the Lima Group – to follow the Mexican Andrés López Obrador – but he never endorsed his statements.
– On December 21, 2019, deputy Gilber Caro was arrested for the third time, violating his parliamentary immunity. He was in a situation of enforced disappearance for more than a month. The parliamentarian is still detained and Argentina has not spoken, neither about these nor other subsequent arrests.
– On January 10, Argentina abstained from the OAS, which approved a resolution condemning the use of force and intimidating tactics of the regime against the National Assembly and acknowledging the re-election of Juan Guaidó as president of Parliament.
– Alberto F. never recognized Guaidó as “president in charge”, a figure that Mauricio Macri endorsed. And in February, immunities were withdrawn from Elisa Trotta Gamus, appointed Guaidó’s representative in Argentina. This also took away police security.
– The government decided to send as representative to the OAS the combative leader Carlos Raimundi, who, when the Senate treated his specifications as ambassador to the organization, mounted a strong defense of Chavismo.
Alberto Fernández talks to Lula from Olivos.
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In this last vote in which the OAS asked Maduro for “free”, “fair” and “transparent” elections, Argentina shared its abstention with Belize, Granada, Guyana, Mexico, Suriname, Trinidad and Tobago.
The debate and voting had another seasoning. Argentina’s interim representative to the OAS, Graciela Scarnati Almada, crossed paths hard with the Brazilian representative to the agency. The bad relationship between Alberto Fernández and Jair Bolsonaro now leads to unprecedented differences between Brazil and Argentina, which have always played as partners at the multilateral level.
Trotta Gamus showed his annoyance and said Saturday that being neutral was being “on the side of the oppressor.” In the team of Foreign Minister Felipe Solá they said the following to Clarín about the last abstention: “The Project (resolution) was presented late, which left little room for negotiation and agreement. It does not contribute to advancing the situation in Venezuela or Venezuelans, and although it recognizes that it is up to them (Venezuelans) to carry out their institutional process, it presumes to establish in what way it is correct for them to do so. ”
Alberto Fernández was last Friday in a virtual dialogue with former President Lula da Silva. It was organized by the same figures from the Faculty of Social Sciences who managed to cancel a talk by Judge Sergio Moro, who had sent Lula to prison. On that avenue of the “crack” Alberto F. said he felt he was ruling today on a continent with a single ally, in Mexico, for López Obrador. He said that the governments of Néstor Kirchner, Lula, Hugo Chávez, Evo Morales, Rafael Correa, Tabaré Vazquez, Pepe Mujica and Michelle Bachelet, among others, were missed.
It was in this Virtual Dialogue with Lula, full of nostalgia for those who are not, that he accused the United States of breaking Unasur, CELAC and of wanting to break the IDB now. He spoke of nothing more and nothing less than Trump’s candidate to preside over the Inter-American Development Bank: Mauricio Claver Carone, the man who slammed the door of Argentina at the party of Alberto Fernández and Cristina Kirchner last December 10.
