MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency
Argentine: Gov't justifies K skipping pope burial
Vatican spokesman Joaquín Navarro Valls, speaking in his own name, said that the Vatican may declare Argentina a country with “religious restrictions.”
The Argentine delegation which will attend the burial at the Vatican includes Vice-President Daniel Scioli, Foreign Minister Rafael Bielsa, Cults Secretary Guillermo Oliveri and Argentine Ambassador to the Vatican Carlos Custer.
Scioli said that Kirchner was "deeply moved" by the pope's death and that "no other interpretation should be made."
The pope visited Argentina in 1982 and 1987 and many Argentine officials credit him with having avoided a war Chile in 1978-9 by sending in mediator Cardinal Antonio Samoré when the two countries were on the brink of an armed conflict.
The Foreign Ministry said that of the Southern American presidents only those of Bolivia (Carlos Mesa), Ecuador (Lucio Gutiérrez) and Brazil (Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva) will attend. It added that Lula will do so "according to what the Brazilian president said, due to a personal debt" to the late pope. Other leaders attending include Cuban President Fidel Castro, Spanish King Juan Carlos and British Crown Prince Charles, who postponed his planned marriage for that purpose.
Custer, one of the officials who praised the late pope for averting a war with Chile, told radio Mitre that some leaders are only a two-hour flight from Rome. "For instance, Spain's King Juan Carlos was not going to the funeral of Juan Pablo II and now has changed his mind." Custer also justified Kirchner's absence, saying that the delegation he was sending to the funeral "was not low-ranking" and neither was the official presence at a mass in Buenos Aires Cathedral downtown on Monday evening when Buenos Aires Cardinal-Archbishop Jorge Bergoglio ? tipped as a possible pope ? offered a mass for the eternal rest of the pope.
Attending the mass were Scioli, First Lady Cristina Fernández de Kirchner, Interior Minister Aníbal Fernández and Economy Minister Roberto Lavagna, but not the President.
Kirchner has been at loggerheads with the influential Catholic church since he took office in May, 2003, mainly in what many see as a biased persecution of military men who violated human rights during the 1976-1983 dictatorship, and his nomination of a pro-choice judge (Carmen Argibay) to the Supreme Court. Kirchner was criticized by both his own allies as well as the opposition.
Peronist Deputy Hilda "Chiche" González de Duhalde told radios Continental and Rivadavia that "even Fidel Castro is attending" and that "all presidents should attend." Pope John Paul II made "an enormous effort" to avert war with Chile, she added.
"Chiche" is the wife of former caretaker president Eduardo Duhalde, who is a main ally of Kirchner despite being locked in a dispute with the President over the control of the Peronist party.
Angel Rozas, the chairman of the opposition Radical party, said that Kirchner's absence from the papal funeral "is another failure of our diplomacy." Making clear that he was giving an opinion not as a Radical leader but simply as a common citizen, he told private news agency DyN that if Kirchner "has any justification, he should make it public." Rozas spoke before the Foreign Ministry issued its statement.
Patricia Bullrich, the head of the centre-right Union for All Party, said that she could not say whether Kirchner was skipping the pope's funeral due to the conflict with the Vatican over Baseotto but said: "It's not OK for him not to go." Controversy over K skipping burial
The pope died on Saturday at age 84. Kirchner, a centre-left maverick Peronist, ordered three days of national mourning in this traditionally Catholic country.
But last month he deprived military chaplain-general Antonio Baseotto of his salary and status as deputy secretary of state after the Vatican turned down his request that Baseotto be removed for suggesting that Health Minister Ginés González García should be thrown into the sea with a millstone tied to his neck for favouring the legalization of abortion in certain cases. (BAH)
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