MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

The Kirchners under increased international isolation

President Cristina Fernandez and her husband former Pte. Nestor Kirchner

Argentina’s ruling couple, the Kirchners growing international isolation has been highlighted by Buenos Aires political analysts. The only leader who seems to visit Buenos Aires quite often is Venezuela’s Hugo Chavez, while differences accumulate with neighbouring Brazil, Chile, Uruguay, Bolivia, with the more distant Mexico and Israel and there seems to be a growing distancing from the Obama administration.

In effect local observers claim President Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner is definitively “out of Obama’s agenda”, while Argentina’s strategic partner, Brazil’s Lula da Silva has already been to the While House and next June 23 neighbouring Michelle Bachelet from Chile will be in Washington on a special invitation.

Meantime in Buenos Aires an anti-Semitic rampage of hooligans on celebrations for the state of Israel’s creation day motivated a strong protest from the Israeli government. The news travelled round the world and it is known that the catch-all grouping that surrounds the Kirchners has many admirers of Iran and the Middle East fundamentalist extremist groups.

Joaquin Morales Solá, a leading political analyst, writing a column in La Nacion enumerates other fumbled decisions: the disdainful and cold cancelling of flights to Mexico alleging the swine flu; unending trade disputes with Brazil which have Mercosur on the brink; compulsory unilateral energy rationing to Chile; the blocked international bridge with Uruguay (over two years running) and the latest financial decree which virtually bans financial exchanges alleging Uruguay is a fiscal paradise; banning the crossing of Bolivian and Paraguayan soybeans through Argentine territory.

Mr. Morales Solá recalls that there have been no major foreign visitors to Argentina for over two years, precisely since then President Nestor Kirchner left the Queen of Holland waiting at an official ceremony; he never turned up and never apologized. The only and sporadic “business” visits have been from Chavez, Lula da Silva and Bolivia’s Evo Morales.

With the return of the Democrats and President Barack Obama, Cristina Kirchner was expecting closer relations. It needs to: Argentina has no access to global financial markets and would like access to the more flexible IMF loans, but husband Nestor has made the IMF the mother of all evils befallen upon Argentina, and continues with the same tune in the campaign for mid term elections.

Morales Solá also points out that Obama recently named as his man in the region, Arturo Valenzuela, Chilean born, US educated but a brilliant interpreter of both cultures. It’s hard to see a Chilean accepting that the Argentines have suddenly become good neighbours.

US diplomacy also has present the discourtesy and diplomatic scandal when the 2005 Summit of the Americas in Mar del Plata. Then President Kirchner was most rude with US leader George Bush before the thirty odd peers present. The US State Department was also convinced that a counter summit, with Chavez and Morales, in Buenos Aires had been organized by President Kirchner.

Although the Argentines denied it, a notorious pickets’ leader shunned by Kirchner recently confessed he had been sent to Cuba and Venezuela to help organize the “free peoples of the Americas summit”, on instructions from Mr Kirchner himself.

Furthermore Obama is not Bush, he’s one of the most popular world leaders and Chavez short of oil revenue can’t attack the US president. Nevertheless says Morales Solá, the only leader visiting Argentina is heading for the perfect dictatorship: a ban on the import of books and only official Chavez, Bolivar and Marx texts at school. The leader of the Venezuelan opposition and elected mayor of the country’s second largest city was forced to take refuge in Peru; the nationalization of industries, confiscation of companies and land advances since “private property” can’t be an impediment for the revolution. Chavez is determined to end with the independent media and has virtually broken relations with Israel and the local Venezuelan Jewish community.

And as some Argentine media and from Spain pointed out with a touch of irony: this time Mr. Chavez, --distrustful of his messengers... was back in Buenos Aires to personally give his full support to the Kirchners battling to retain congressional majority next June 28.

During the previous election when Cristina succeeded her husband in 2007, one of his envoys was surprised by local Buenos Aires Customs with a suitcase full of dollars (800.000) for the Kirchner campaign which became an international scandal involving United States.

In effect a very flimsy cover-up operation trying to coerce the Miami resident messenger to admit his personal guilt, ended with five prison convictions by a US federal court. The messenger, a regular Buenos Aires and Montevideo visitor, fearing revenge, had turned into an FBI informer, trapping the group of five working on instructions from Venezuelan intelligence.