MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Lula da Silva praised the Argentina/Brazil strategic alliance Kirchner helped forge

Maradona in football, Kirchner in politics

Brazilian president Lula da Silva praised the late Argentine president Nestor Kirchner saying he was the leader who helped Argentines recover their self-esteem and marked a historic change in relations between Brazil and Argentina.

Addressing the Mar del Plata Ibero-American summit homage to Mr Kirchner, the Brazilian leader said that historically Brazil and Argentina had had many divergences until Nestor Kirchner and he were elected presidents.

“There were many divergences, a standing dispute between Brazil and Argentina, and we managed to overcome that. And I think Kirchner was crucial in strengthening Mercosur and bringing down the (US sponsored) FTAA project. There was a strong trust relation between us”, underlined Lula da Silva.

“The same way that I have dedicated my life to recover the self-esteem of the Brazilian people, making the Brazilian people love Brazil, Kirchner managed the same for the Argentines. It’s Maradona in football and Kirchner in politics”, emphasized the Brazilian leader.

Argentine history will be for ever marked by ‘a before and after’ Peron (former president Juan Domingo Peron) and now will be signalled by ‘a before and after Kirchner’, added Lula da Silva.

He also praised the “conciliatory spirit” of the former Argentine president. “Many times we overcame our divergences because of that conciliatory attitude which prevailed in Kirchner”. Lula da Silva said that very spirit was also “crucial when Kirchner was Secretary General of Unasur (Union of South American Nations). He always tried to bring sides to an understanding”.

The Brazilian president who steps down next January anticipated that his successor Dilma Rousseff and Cristina Fernandez will have an even better relation than that which he had with Nestor Kirchner who died last October.

“Argentina and Brazil with you and with Dilma will have a better understanding than me with Kirchner” said Lula da Silva looking at the Argentine president.

“Not only have we constructed something new, Latinamerica’s self esteem and we are no longer treated as minors in world politics, but we have also shown that it is possible for women to occupy a space in politics, and this has now also happened in Brazil where a lady has been elected president”, he added.

Finally in the farewell words to his peers, Lula da Silva said that it was his last Ibero-American summit as president and “I will always remember my extraordinary friendship with Argentina thanks to Kirchner and to Cristina with whom we strengthened the bonds that Argentina and Brazil must always march together”.

President Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner (late Nestor Kirchner’s wife) thanked the kind words with reciprocity in what was also a farewell tribute to the Brazilian president. “Both Lula and Kirchner managed to build a completely different South America and forge a deep friendship”.

“Many need to believe that we don’t feel capable. But Lula and Kirchner broke that logic and constructed new paradigms”, said Cristina Kirchner who presented the Brazilian leader with a picture of the two smiling presidents.

“For 200 years it was structured that it was impossible to build strategic alliances with Brazil”, said Cristina Fernandez recalling that “our border provinces with Brazil were banned from developing any basic infrastructure because it was seen as an easy access for Brazil to invade Argentina”.

“That happened as recent as the XXth century” said Mrs Kirchner recalling with special emotion that when “very few believed Nestor could become president, Lula received us as if he was the only candidate that Argentina had, and that was unforgettable”.

After the ceremony Uruguayan president Jose Mujica talking with the press said “indeed it was a historic event, because the two leaders Lula and Kirchner had wiped out two hundred years of mistrust and rivalry (between Brazil and Argentina), and had turned them into an integration project with a massive bilateral trade and complementation, which is almost impossible to turn back”.