MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Mrs. Kirchner resuscitates ghosts from the 2001/02 default crisis

Redrado the “squatter”; Judge Griesa, the “serial embargo judge”, Judge Sarmiento, “the delivery kid” and Cobos the “conspirator”, according to the Argentine president

Argentine president Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner on Wednesday again attacked the opposition and called for “reflection” from all those sectors involved in the dispute over Central Bank reserves to avoid repeating the “errors of the past”.

“I’m calling on all to reflection, so that we do not commit the errors of the past, particularly those who had such a huge responsibility in how Argentina crash-landed in 2001” when the country was swept into a dramatic social and economic crisis, said the Argentine president during a government event.

Mrs. Kirchner blasted the “vulture funds” which have led a New York state judge to embargo Central bank accounts in the midst of a growing controversy following the refusal of central bank president Martin Redrado to comply with the Executive request to use the bank’s international reserves to pay for the country’s debt.

On Tuesday Mrs. Kirchner called Redrado a “squatter” for disobeying her emergency decree to resign which was repealed by a Judge.

“They are called vulture funds because they go after countries that are at the edge of the cliff and death, as we were back in 2001” said Mrs. Kirchner claiming these funds once again “want to pilfer money from the Argentines”.

She also compared the “vulture funds” with the “Riachuelo rats” (fetid stream of water that crosses parts of Buenos Aires). “The Riachuelo rats remind me of the vultures that once again from outside are on the lookout for a chance to interrupt our political and economic recovery process, the creation of jobs and the elimination of debt”.

She then described New York Judge Thomas Griesa who approved the stand-by embargo of Argentine central bank accounts as “a serial embargo magistrate”.

Mrs. Kirchner insisted in attacking the opposition, aligned behind Redrado against the Executive, accusing them of “playing into the hands of the vulture funds” against the interests of Argentina and recalled that previous governments, currently in the opposition declared the default in 2001/02 and led the country into bankruptcy.

She added that the conflict has not been caused by her “personal enemies” but by interests “enemies of the country and of an economic and social model that has enabled the rebirth of Argentina”.

“I’m leaving in 2011 and somebody else will come, but I can assure you that those interests are ready to ambush and return to the old Argentina. That the future belongs to us depends on all of us and not in that Argentina we all want to forget”.

Mrs. Kirchner also called the Argentine Judge Jose Maria Sarmiento who reinstated Redrado and froze central bank reserves, as a pawn of strange interests, “a delivery kid for the opposition, who says yes to all their requests and never stopped to think that Argentina will have to pay exorbitant interest rates (15% and more) if it does not address the debt issue. That is why we need the Bicentennial Fund”.

Meantime Vice-president Julio Cobos who Mrs. Kirchner openly accused of conspiring against her government, “he wants to be president before 2011” downplayed the insidious style,

“I think the lady is acting in a not too ethical way”, but the President “can be sure that I will leave my post when the legislature is over, next to the president of the republic”, Cobos was quoted by the Buenos Aires press.