Buenos Aires, Argentina the history, culture and people
I have found that to get the best out of the great historical city of Buenos Aires it helpful to understand the history of Argentina. In my experience, it is history that moulds a people and their culture, more so Buenos Aires than any other city I have visited over the last 30 years. The summary you read here gives just a glimpse of important historical milestones from the early XVI century to recent times:
• Amerigo Vespucci may have visited the region now called Argentina in1502 and discovered that this massive continent that went further south than ever imagined, he may of thought the impressive Rio del la Plata a sea giving passage to the Pacific ocean. His accounts led to much controversy, as seafarers of the period crossing the south Atlantic thought they would reach Asia (the Indies).
• Christopher Columbus had found great fame for his discovery and it has often been cited that the Spanish throne looking to protect its interests in the region may have suppressed Vespucci’s ship’s log and diaries before full publication.
• It is telling that Vespucci never went to sea again and a new and grand title of Chief Navigator of Spain was bestowed upon him.
• In 1507 Martin Waldseemüller produced an incredible work of the time (Universalis Cosmograpiae), a world map on which he named the new continent America using Amerigo Vespucci’s first name. His book published as reference to the map was said to hold ‘dubious information.’ Even if he failed to publish contemporaneous logs and diaries, his work would still prove rather accurate. He later dropped the name ‘America’ from later works.
• Juan Díaz de Solís was an accomplished Portuguese seafarer and traitor to his Country. He fled to Spain before his treachery was uncovered by British Agents in 1504. On the death of Vespucci he became the ‘Pilot Major’ in the Spanish navy and planned a major expedition to South America.
• Solis sailed straight for the east coast of South America and navigated to one of its largest and most important estuaries (natural port) arriving1516 and naming it the Rio del la Plata. It was said that his expeditionary force went inland and perished after an attack by local tribes, some accounts suggest the men were eaten alive. More likely, this traitor, who may have stolen Vespucci’s thunder, was killed by mutiny or maybe to order.
• I have read found accounts of trade between the ancient tribes of the Pampa and Patagonia none found these peoples either warlike or cannibalistic.
• Spain’s Pedro Mendoza founded a small settlement on the site that is now modern day San Telmo in 1536, first called Ciudad de Nuestra Señora Santa María del Buen Ayre (literally City of Our Lady Saint Mary of the Fair Winds).
• The settlement was attacked by unified local tribes and burnt to the ground. The expedition was saved by Mendoza’s brother Gonzalez came to the rescue. Mendoza returned home in 1537, and like his predecessor, died before reaching Spain. The settlement was abandoned just a few years later.
• The area known as the Pampa was initially settled overland from Peru.
• Buenos Aires would wait until 1580 for permanent settlement by Juan de Garay.
• Buenos Aires would be part of the Viceroyalty of Peru, an office set up in 1542 to administrate Spanish South America.
• Lima was the most important city in South America, at that time Lima was South America.
• The natural port of the Río de la Plata was not allowed to trade because all communications and commerce were meant to go through the port of Lima so Spain could control both taxes and the distribution of resource.
• This made the early settlers angry and kept them poor. Buenos Aires fast became a centre for contraband, piracy and much discontent aimed at Spanish crown.
• Spain faced a number of problems both in Europe and in the Americas -Great Britain on the seas, expansionist France on its home borders and in South America, Portuguese expansionism and the growing power and discontent within their Viceroyalty of Peru.
• New Viceroyalties sort to divide the Viceroyalty of Peru’s powerbase and toughen Spain’s administration of this growing region, this ‘divide and rule’ politicking was achieved in the guise of awarding viceroyalties to other regions. The fourth and final Viceroyalty is most important to us.
• One of the key concerns of Lima and Spain was the growing port economies of the Rio del la Plata, which prospered with no administration and whose wealth came from contraband and trade much trade with Spain’s enemies.
• The Viceroyalty of the Río de la Plata (Virreinato del Río de la Plata) was established in 1776. This short-lived Viceroyalty comprised of modern Argentina, Uruguay, and Paraguay, as well as much of present-day Bolivia.
• Buenos Aires soon became a flourishing port and wealth poured into the Port and the many rivers and region connected to the Port became wealthy.
• The failed British invasions of the Río de la Plata in 1806 and 1807 had given the portenos a great sense of pride and an ever growing yearning for independence from Spain. They were also very angry that their Viceroy had twice fled Buenos Aires with his garrison.
• The viceroyalty was doomed due to lack of internal cohesion among the many regions and Span’s failing support. It all but crashed when Napoleon overthrew the Spanish monarchy. The thought of Franco-masters in the region was horrifying.
• Buenos Aires kicked out its last cowardly viceroy and formed its own junta on 25 May 1810. This provincial declaration on the road to independence would require the support of many other provinces to birth a nation.
• It must be remembered that the many regions that are part of modern Argentina operated with autonomy, under their own administrations and their own flags and some are now countries such a Uruguay, Paraguay and Bolivia.
• Power-vacuous South America, operating as provinces without any central cohesion or army was going to be a very dangerous place. Forward thinkers of the day knew that centralisation of military, resources and money would be their only salvation in stopping other world powers or Spain regaining a foothold in the region.
• However, reluctance and self interest in the provinces to form a state, and the centralist tendencies of others were to delay a formal declaration of independence. Not least was the self-interest of Carlos Maria de Alvear.
• Carlos Maria de Alvear was successful in forming the constituent Assembly of 1813 and later succeeded in establishing an unpopular Unitarian (centralizing) form of government with his uncle Gervasio Antonio de Posadas as Supreme Director.
• Alvear on 9 Januray 1815 he entered Buenos Aires and forced his appointment as Supreme Director, but he had already lost the support of his uncle and most of the provincial command, his rule lasted only a few months and he was overthrown and exiled.
• The threats both at home and from Spain (1814 the return of Fernando VII to the Spanish throne) needed more cohesion and agreement from all the provinces to maintain independence from Spain. A congress was called on 15 April 1815.
• On 14 March 1816 a congress with the heads of 33 provinces representing a minimum of 15,000 people, which made up much of the former Viceroyalty of the Rio del la Plata gathered at Tucumán (the Congress of Tucumán) and finally issued a formal declaration of independence from Spain on 9 July 1816. Paraguay was already independent and there were other noticeable absences such as Uruguay and provinces that would soon be parts of Bolivia and Brazil.
• Great Britain officially recognized Argentinean independence in 1825, with the signing of a Treaty of Friendship, Commerce, and Navigation. Britain was booming and reaching the height of the industrial revolution and empire, and eyed South American natural resources and export value with great expectation.
• Following the defeat of the Spanish, centralist unitarios waged a lengthy conflict against federalists to determine the future of the nation. The dominant figure of this period was the federalist dictator Juan Manuel de Rosas, who ruled the Buenos Aires province from 1829 to 1852. He was so-called ‘caretaker’ of international relations.
• Rosas was far more concerned with establishing his own dominance in Buenos Aires than with any principled federalism. He developed a paramilitary force of its own, La Mazorca (the Corncob), which earned the federalists the derogatory nickname of mazorqueros (corn pickers), while they preferred to be known as The Holy Federation. This feared band was also nicknamed más horca (more gallows), a homophone of La Mazorca in Spanish.
• General Justo José de Urquiza, a defecting federalist supported by Uruguay and Brazil waged war on Roasa and Argentine national unity was, at least nominally, established and a constitution promulgated in 1853. Unfortunately, history was to repeat itself.
• Native Indians continued to menace the Southern frontier. Local powers eyed Buenos Aires with and the Rio del La Plata with avarice. As Borges has written, Argentina had achieved its independence from Spain, but the Spanish conquest of Argentina was still incomplete. Economically, as Fernand Braudel suggested Argentina exchanged Spanish colonial masters for dependence, on British capital; the end of Spanish rule was clearly over and huge investment in Argentina by the City of London meant that British government offered both ‘friendship’ and ‘support’ to this fledgling nation.
• Two forces combined to create the modern Argentine nation in the late 19th century: the introduction of modern agricultural techniques and integration of Argentina into the world economy. Foreign investment and immigration from Europe aided this economic revolution. Investment, primarily British, came in such fields as railroads and ports, but the foreign owners expected to retain control of these industries that would build a modern country. The migrants who worked to develop Argentina's resources (especially the western pampas) came from throughout Europe.
• By 1859, the unity of Argentina was generally secured, although it would be two decades before the centralists completed their victory over the federalists.
• This is a very complicated period in Argentine history that confuses many as the political sands shifted and those who were federalist became centralists, many would later be hailed as great statesmen.
• Bartolomé Mitre as Governor of Buenos Aires would revolt against Justo José de Urquiza's radical federal system and Buenos Aires would not re-enter the Argentine confederation after a civil war in 1859.
• In 1862, the National Assembly selected the liberal Bartolomé Mitre as president of the Republic of Argentina and national unity was finally achieved. He was followed in 1868 by Domingo Faustino Sarmiento who is famed for many things, but the pink palace, Casa Rosada, was said to be the merging of opposing political colours of red and white (and the blood of 10,000 - vox populi?) to give the Presidents home such an amazing statesman like appearance.
• During this period (1865–1870), the bloody War of the Triple Alliance was fought by Argentina, Brazil, and Uruguay against Paraguay. In the following decade, General Julio Argentino Roca established Buenos Aires's dominance over the pampas and the unitarios victory over the federalists; in 1880, Roca became president.
• The years from 1880 to 1929 brought Argentina intensified economic prosperity and it became South America’s powerhouse with mass export of agricultural commodities, particularly goods like beef and wheat. Growth in domestic industry was hampered by imports of cheap manufactured products. While international demand for Argentine agricultural goods was central to economic development, equally important was the inflow of foreign capital, particularly from Great Britain.
• Argentina received some of the highest levels of foreign investment in Latin America. In the midst of this economic expansion, the Law 1420 of Common Education of 1884 guaranteed universal, free, non-religious education to all children. Fantastic! Modern! Progression that might underpin this countries certain success.
• This enlightened period in Argentine political history seemed to herald certain success as South America’s leading power. Unfortunately, it was also a period of corruption, nepotism and oligarchy that would set the scene for much of Argentina’s later history.
• From about 1900, Argentine nationalism began to identify Argentina with Europe and the United States of America rather than with the rest of Latin America. Conservative forces dominated Argentine politics until 1916, when their traditional rivals, the Radicals, led by Hipólito Yrigoyen, won control of the government. The Radicals, with their emphasis on fair elections and democratic institutions, opened their doors to Argentina's expanding middle class.
• These years of prosperity ended with the Crash of 1929 and the ensuing worldwide Great Depression. The Argentine military forced aged Hipólito Yrigoyen from power in 1930 and ushered in another decade of Conservative rule.
• There are always some lessons in history, reliance on agricultural exports, and almost total reliance on other cheap industrial imports at the expense of home grown industry would be Argentina’s undoing. Imports are only cheap when your currency is strong and your export market buoyant. Economies not underpinned by sensible fiscal management and balanced industrial output, with some parity between imports and exports are fair game in a recession that brings substantial monetary devaluation and a dwindling export market.
• The collapse of international trade led to an industrial growth focused on import substitution, leading to a stronger economic independence (relatively, because oil production in the country was dominated by foreign companies, mostly from the U.S., something that Yrigoyen wanted to stop and one of the reasons of the external support to the military coup).
• At the same time, a climate of increasing political conflict arose, with confrontation between right-wing fascists and leftist radicals, with military-oriented conservatives controlling the government. Thanks to fraudulent polls, Roberto Ortiz was elected president in 1937 and took office the next year, but due to his fragile health he was followed (de-facto in 1940; de-jure in 1942) by his vice-president Ramón Castillo.
• Argentina was officially neutral during most of the World War II; the public remained divided, however the military governments that ruled after 1943 favoured whoever seemed to be winning. The Axis Powers, were favourites in this region until the bombing of Pearl Harbour, when the Axis Powers looked beat, towards the end of the war Argentina entered on the Allied side.
• The governments of the 1930s (retrospectively known as Década Infame, the Infamous Decade) used fraud, election tampering and violence to contain the currents of economic and political reform that eventually bring Juan Domingo Perón to office and herald a political and social revolution that is romanticised and known throughout the world.
• The military ousted Argentina's constitutional government in 1943. Perón, then an army colonel, was one of the coup's leaders, and soon became the government's dominant figure as Minister of Labour.
• Mass protests led to a general election and Perón's victory on 20 Febuary 1946. He aggressively pursued economic reform and gave a political voice to the working classes, greatly expanded the number of unionised workers. In 1947, Perón announced the first five-year plan based on the growth of nationalised industries. He helped establish the powerful General Confederation of Labour (Confederación General del Trabajo, CGT).
• Perón's dynamic wife, Eva Perón, known as Evita, was a former actress from a working class background. Evita was the the voice of the people behind the politician and helped her husband develop strength and popular appeal with labour movements and women's groups. Through her influence, women obtained the right to vote in 1947. Her death from cancer in 1952 cost Perón a key political ally and Argentina a much loved icon.
• In 1949, Perón pushed through a constitutional amendment to allow him to run for a second term, which he won in 1952, but a military coup (Revolución Libertadora) led by Eduardo Lonardi deposed him in 1955. He was forced into exile, eventually settling in Francoist Spain. Even in exile, he remained ever popular with the Argentine masses.
• Eduardo Lonardi held power for a few months and was succeeded by Pedro Aramburu, president from 13 November 1955 to 1 May 1958 and another bloody political struggle ensued.
• In June 1956, two liberal generals, Juan José Valle and Raul Tanco, attempted a coup against Aramburu. His purge of moderates in the army, the abrogation of social reforms and the attacks, disappearance and deaths of many union leaders had signaled that Argentina was fast becoming a dangerous military state. External commercial interests drove much of the politicking of this time as did corruption and self-interest.
• There demands for the liberation of all political and labour activists and the return to the constitutional order were crushed by force and General Valle and his supported were executed; twenty civilians implicated in the coup were arrested at home and their bodies thrown in the León Suarez dumping ground.
• Along with the 1955 Casa Rosada bombing on the Plaza de Mayo, the León Suarez massacre is one of the important events that started a cycle of violence that would last decades and bring some of Argentina’s darkest days in modern history.
• Pedro Aramburu was later kidnapped in 1970 by Fernando Abal Medina, Emilio Angel Maza and later executed
• Mario Firmenich, who would later form the Montoneros movement, a left wing Catholic group that would use terror to open the ballot box and like so many such groups lost its way in a downward cycle of violence.
• In 1956, special elections were held to reform the constitution. The Radical Party under Ricardo Balbín won a majority, although 25% of all ballots were turned in blank as a protest by the banned Peronist party. Also in support of Peronism, the left wing of the Radical Party, led by Arturo Frondizi, left the Constitutional Assembly. The Assembly was severely damaged by that defection and was only able to restore the Constitution of 1853 with the sole addition of the Article 14 bis, which enumerated some social rights.
• Frondizi, UCRI's candidate, won the presidential elections of 1958, obtaining approximately 4,000,000 votes against 2,500,000 for Ricardo Balbín (with 800,000 neutral votes). Peron was getting closer or so it seemed, much closer in fact as he supported Frondizi from Venezuela and called upon his supporters to vote for him.
• Frondizi's government ended in 1962 with intervention by the military, after a series of local elections was won by the Peronist candidates.
• José María Guido, chairman of the senate, claimed the presidency on constitutional grounds before the deeply divided Armed Forces were able to complete their coup de tare. In new elections in 1963, neither Peronists nor Communists were allowed to participate.
• Arturo Illia of the Radical People's Party won these elections; regional elections and by-elections over the next few years all favored Peronists.
• Worker unrest, this led to another coup in June 1966, which established general Juan Carlos Onganía as de facto president.
• This led to a series of military-appointed presidents. The last of these, Alejandro Lanusse, was appointed in 1971 and attempted to re-establish democracy amidst an atmosphere of continuing Peronist worker protests.
• On 11 March 1973 Argentina held general elections for the first time in ten years and there seemed to be a political renaissance. Perón was prevented from running, but voters elected his stand-in, Dr. Hector Cámpora, as President who took office on 21 May 1973, which was saluted by a massive popular gathering of the Peronist Youth movement, Montoneros, FAR and FAP (Fuerzas Armadas Peronistas) in the Plaza de Mayo. Cámpora assumed a strong stance against right-wing Peronists, declaring during his first speech: La sangre derramada no será negociada (Spilled blood will not be negotiated).
• Political prisoners were liberated on the same day, under the pressure of the demonstrators. Cámpora's government included progressive figures such as Interior Minister Esteban Righi and Education Minister Jorge Taina, but also included members of the labor and political right-wing Peronist factions, such as José López Rega, Perón's personal secretary and Minister of Social Welfare.
• Hector Cámpora's government followed a traditional Peronist economic policy, supporting the national market and redistributing wealth. One of José Ber Gelbard's first measures as minister of economics was to augment workers' wages. However, the 1973 oil crisis seriously affected Argentina's oil-dependent economy. Almost 600 social conflicts, strikes or occupations occurred in Cámpora's first month.
• Amidst escalating terror from right and left alike, Perón decided to return to Argentina to fight an election.
• On a cold and windy day on 20 June 1973, two million people waited for Peron at Ezeiza airport. From Perón's speaking platform, camouflaged far-right gunmen fired on the masses, shooting at the Peronist Youth movement and the Montoneros. This barbaric act cemented support for Peron and became known as the Ezeiza Massacre.
• Cámpora and Vice-president Solano Lima resigned and Raúl Alberto Lastiri assumed a caretaker presidency to organize elections.
• On 23 Spetmber 1973 Perón won the elections with 61.85% of the votes, with his third wife, María Estela Isabel Martínez de Perón, as vice-president assumed the Presidency in October 1973. His presidency was overshadowed by continuing violence and political unrest that led to draconian legislation and special powers to detain without trial. Many see this as the beginning of the end for a democratic Argentina. Perón died on 1 July1974. His wife succeeded him in office, but her administration was undermined by economic downfall (inflation was skyrocketing and GDP contracted), Peronist intra-party struggles, and growing acts of terrorism by insurgents led by Mario Firmenich, cautiously decided to go underground after Peron's death. Isabel Perón was removed from office by a military coup on 24 March1976.
• Following the coup against Isabel Perón, the armed forces formally exercised power through a junta led consecutively by Videla, Viola, Galtieri and Bignone until 10 December1983. These de facto leaders termed their government programme ‘National Reorganisation Process.’
• The ruling junta tried to start economic recovery by favouring some pro-market reforms and deregulation. The aim was also to attract foreign investment.
• Using the tactics adopted by the Montoneros (left-wing Peronists) and Trotskyist Ejército Revolucionario del Pueblo (Revolutionary Army of the People or ERP) as justification the junta etsblished the Batallón de Inteligencia 601 and SIDE to stamp out insurgency.
• The ‘ideological war’ of the Argentine military focused on the elimination of any group or individual that opposed the regime. In practice, that actually meant the deaths of those involved in peaceful protest such a students, intellectuals and labour organisers, none of whom had ties to the guerrillas, if one does not assume guilty until proven innocent and execution without trial.
• By the end of the 1970s, such tactics had suppressed the insurgents, but Argentina suffered terribly from consequentialism adopted by the military and Teoría de los dos demonios.
• The cost of the "Dirty War" was high in terms of lives lost and human rights violations.
• Only 1,500 deaths may be attributed to various guerrilla attacks and assassinations.
• The 1984 Commission on the Disappeared documented the disappearance and probable death at the hands of the military regime of about 11,000 people.
• About 900 more disappeared during the right-wing Peronist government prior to the coup. Human rights groups estimate that over 30,000 person disappeared (i. e. arrested and secretly executed without trial) during the 1976–1983.
• Few dared to speak out, except the courageous Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo (god bless our mothers). Brave and resolute Mothers of the dead and disappeared, who began holding vigils in April 1977, demanding justice for these crimes.
• Serious economic problems, mounting charges of corruption, public revulsion in the face of human rights abuses and, finally, the country's 1982 defeat by Great Britain in the Falklands War all combined to discredit the Argentine military regime. Under strong public pressure, the junta lifted bans on political parties and gradually restored basic political liberties.
• Argentines went to the polls on 30 October 1983 and to choose a president; vice-president; and national, provincial, and local officials.
• The country returned to constitutional rule after Raúl Alfonsín, candidate of the Radical Civic Union (Unión Cívica Radical, UCR), and received 52% of the popular vote for president. He began a 6-year term of office on 10 December 1983.
• Five days later, he created the National Commission on the Disappearance of Persons (CONADEP), led by Argentine writer Ernesto Sábato. However, it was also under Alfonsín's presidency he neutered the commission with Ley de Punto Final (Full Stop Law), granting amnesty to all acts committed before his election.
• In 1985 and 1987, large turnouts for mid-term elections demonstrated continued public support for a strong and vigorous democratic system. The UCR-led government took steps to resolve some of the nation's most pressing problems, including accounting for those who disappeared during military rule, establishing civilian control of the armed forces, and consolidating democratic institutions.
• However, constant friction with the military, failure to resolve endemic economic problems (such as chronic inflation), and an inability to maintain public confidence undermined the effectiveness of the Alfonsín government, which left office six months early after Peronist candidate Carlos Saúl Menem won the 1989 presidential elections.
• As President, Carlos Menem launched a major overhaul of Argentine domestic policy. Large-scale structural reforms dramatically reversed the role of the state in Argentine economic life. Ironically, the Peronist Menem oversaw the privatisation of many of the industries Perón had nationalized. A decisive leader pressing a controversial agenda, Menem was not reluctant to use the presidency's powers to issue "emergency" decrees (formally decretos de necesidad y urgencia) when the Congress was unable to reach consensus on his proposed reforms. Those powers were curtailed somewhat when the constitution was reformed in 1994 as a result of the so-called Olivos Pact with the opposition Radical Party.
• That arrangement opened the way for Menem to seek and win reelection with 50% of the vote in the three-way 1995 presidential race. Carlos Menem's neoliberal policies were heavily contested, giving rise to the Piquetero movement.
• The 1995 election saw the emergence of the moderate-left FrePaSo political alliance. This alternative to the two traditional political parties in Argentina was particularly strong in Buenos Aires but lacked the national infrastructure of the Peronists and Radicals. In an important development in Argentina's political life, all three major parties in the 1999 race espoused free market economic policies. In October 1999, the UCR-FrePaSo Alliance's presidential candidate, Fernando de la Rúa, defeated Peronist candidate Eduardo Duhalde(the former Governor of Buenos Aires). Having taken office in December 1999, De la Rúa not only continued the previous administration's free market economic policies but followed an IMF-sponsored program of government spending cuts, revenue increases, and provincial revenue-sharing reforms to get the federal fiscal deficit under control.
• De la Rúa pursued labor law reform and business-promotion measures aimed at stimulating the economy and increasing employment, but with catastrophic results.
• The effects of these measures were the absolute opposite of what was expected. The recession that had started during the last part of Menem's term grew deeper. It is these policies and the IMF’s interference that has left Argentines furious with the IMF and it perceived master the United States of America – I get that.
• Towards the end of 2001, Argentina faced grave economic problems. The IMF pressed Argentina to service its external debt, effectively forcing Argentina to devalue the Argentine peso, which had been pegged to the U.S. dollar. During November 2001, as people feared that the peso would again be devalued, it caused a run on the banks and massive currency movements from Pesos to Dollar and other European currencies.
• Economic minister Domingo Cavallo passed regulations severely limiting withdrawals, effectively freezing the peso-denominated assets of the Argentine middle class, while the dollar-denominated foreign accounts of the wealthy were shielded from devaluation. (The freezing of the bank accounts was informally named corralito.)
• The overall economy declined drastically during December 2001. The resulting riots led to dozens of deaths. The Minister of Economy Domingo Cavallo resigned, but that did not prevent the collapse of De la Rúa's administration.
• The actors in this farcical final scene of the De la Rúa administration jockeyed for position, none of them really wanting to be president and then resigning in quick succession, whilst the countries problems deepened leaving the power in the hands of president of the Chamber of Deputies (as the Senate was undergoing their annual renovation of its president) as interim.
• Finally, the National Congress elected the Peronist Eduardo Duhalde, a losing candidate in the most recent presidential election, as president.
• The peso was first devalued by 29%, and then the dollar peg was abandoned; by July 2002, the national currency had depreciated to one-quarter of its former value.
• President Duhalde faced a country in turmoil.
• He has to be admired, as his administration had to deal with a wave of protests (middle-class cacerolazos and unemployed piqueteros), and did so with a relatively tolerant policy to minimise conflict and the use of the military. His actions may have prevented ‘stronger’ military intervention in the political arena.
• As inflation became a serious issue and millions of Argentineans sank into unemployment and poverty, Duhalde chose a moderate, low-profile economist, Roberto Lavagna, as his Minister of Economy. The economic measures worked to control prices, and encouraged import substitution to provide jobs, re-create the industrial base of the country, and provide basic goods and services. Duhalde in the face of great adversity did a good job and has received little thanks.
• After a year, Duhalde deemed his tasks fulfilled and, pressured by certain political factors, called for elections, which in April 2003 brought Néstor Kirchner to power.
• President Kirchner took office on 25 May 2003.
• Kirchner is part of a XXI century group of Latin American leaders whose hostility to the United States in unprecedented. Many view Washington’s interference in South America as both underhanded and fuelled self-interest, when you chart Argentina’s political history American interests in the region often propped up military rule that devastated the Country. The American’s arrogance in the region, ‘it’s our backyard’ attitude has backfired and much work is needed to mend the fences of a backyard that is fast over-growing.
• So-called ‘speculation’ has emerged in the media about a possible anti-U.S. coalition of Latin American countries including Brazil under Lula, Cuba under Castro, Venezuela under Chávez. I am not sure where the word ‘speculation’ comes from; these countries see themselves as allies and want to counter their powerful neighbours influence region.
• Kirchner's victory was clearly a vote of dissatisfaction by impoverished Argentines who were sick of previous presidents' pro-American, free-market reforms. However, Argentines are more pragmatic and educated than many of South America’s voters and anti-American, ‘band-wagon politics’ will not take voters minds off the real issues at home.
• Kirchner is a voice of reason. He does attempt to strike a balance has great finesse as a statesman, in contrast to the puffed-up bluster of Chavez.
• I was unfortunate enough to see the overbearing Chavez on a podium with another arrogant twit, Ken Livingston, Mayor of London some months ago. I was not impressed and felt cheated that I left my pint on a bar to listen to complete rubbish.
• October 2006: Where are we today? Well, women in Argentinean politics are a historical factor one should not ignore – either as the power behind the man or his deputy, or de-facto la Presidente – my betting, and I am a betting man, is another Kirchner will find her way to higher office sometime in 2007.
Soler 3820, Capital Federal 1425, Buenos Aires
Our bilingual team is available Monday to Friday 10 AM to 6 PM local time (10 to 18 GMT-3) at the following number (54-11) 4807 9046
