MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Rumsfeld arrives in Buenos Aires as part of LA tour.

US Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld arrived in Buenos Aires yesterday evening and is spending around 24 hours here today as part of a Latin American tour. This morning, he is scheduled to meet with his counterpart, José Pampuro.

Government sources said that Rumsfeld will not be received by President Néstor Kirchner, who is spending the Easter week in the Patagonian town of El Calafate.

For security reasons, the U.S. Embassy here did not announce the Pentagon chief's agenda, but it is expected that he will discuss with Pampuro the progress being made on installing radar units to monitor Argentine air space and the possibility that U.S. forces could carry out military exercises in the country, officials said.

The pair will also discuss the situation in Haiti, where Argentine troops are part of the U.N. peace mission, as well as the security measures to be implemented for U.S. President George W. Bush's trip to the 4th Summit of the Americas in Mar del Plata in November.

After landing in March 2004 to halt violence, the U.S. military turned over the mission in Haiti to allies. But the peacekeepers have been criticized for inaction the face of widespread violence. Brazil leads the mission with more than 1,100 troops. Argentina is second-in-command in the operation and has 550 troops there. Guatemala also has sent soldiers.

"I think the forces in Haiti have done a generally a good job," Rumsfeld told reporters en route to Argentina Monday.

Rumsfeld has promoted the Haiti effort as an opportunity for nations in the Americas to work together. But officials fear that foreign commitments of aid are not being fulfilled, leaving reconstruction lagging as fall elections approach.

The Bush administration has encouraged Argentina to increase security in the "triple frontier" region along its borders with Brazil and Paraguay. Rough jungle terrain and lax controls in the area have raised fears of criminal and terrorist elements operating at will. About 629,000 people live in the region stretching across the borders, and authorities say that population includes 23,000 people of Lebanese descent.

Rumsfeld's presence in the South American country was criticized Monday by various social and leftist political groups in a street demonstration in downtown Buenos Aires. At the protest, led by the head of the local communist party, Patricio Etchegaray, demonstrators burned U.S. flags and chanted anti-Bush slogans. Etchegaray said that "the Bush government is trying to get Argentina to join its bellicose course, as well as ensure that U.S. firms" get the contracts to provide radar air space monitoring for Argentina.

The demonstration came just hours after a Citibank branch office here was attacked by the leftist Martin Fierro group, which takes its name from the archetypal gaucho of Argentine literature. The attackers burned tires, broke windows and painted anti-U.S. slogans on the front of the bank office in the Buenos Aires neighborhood of Balvanera. Police said they had yet to make any arrests in connection with the attack.

Monday marked the fourth time in the last year that a Citibank branch in Buenos Aires has been targeted. The most serious incident involved the death of a security guard in the explosion of a homemade bomb.

After the Argentine leg of his tour, Rumsfeld is flying to Brazil and to Guatemala.