MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

US Congress de-lists Argentina from regional ‘democratic leaderships’

Florida Republican Connie Mack has Argentina in the same bag as Venezuela

For the second time in less than a month the United States Congress has sent a strong message to Argentina warning it “does not belong” to the group of countries that abides by international law and strongly promotes democratic values.

The latest warning was the approval by the US Lower House Foreign Relations committee of a resolution to eliminate Argentina from the list of countries that receive financial support from the State Department for governance and other related programs.

The sponsor of the statement is Florida Republican Representative Connie Mack who is president of the strategic Committee for the Western Hemisphere (Latin America) and who is very critical of countries such as Venezuela, Cuba, Nicaragua, Bolivia and Ecuador that have ‘no interest’ in promoting democratic and freedom values such as those that characterize US ‘friendly countries’.

“Let’s get close to our allies and friends, and stop supporting organizations and countries which perpetuate the destruction of freedom and democracy”, said Mack on supporting his initiative.

Although the statement still has a long way before becoming law, if it finally does, the message is ‘very strong’ coming from the Lower House dominated by the Republicans. Furthermore is was President Obama’s Democrats that the previous week expressed concern and warned about the Argentine government’s attitude towards the media and freedom of expression, “which under regulatory legislation, it is in effect an attempt to control the press”, said Senator Robert Martinez.

On that same occasion Roberta Jacobson, currently responsible for the Latin America Desk at the State Department specifically omitted Argentina from among the “democratic leaderships” of the region.

If the Mack initiative takes hold, Argentina next to Venezuela, Nicaragua, Bolivia and Ecuador, beginning the second half of next year, will not be receiving the 96 million dollars earmarked for governance and development programs.

However not all Democrats approve the proposal arguing that putting Argentina and Ecuador in the same category as Venezuela is “too simplistic” and only pushes those countries into the hands of Venezuela’s Hugo Chavez, according to Representative Eliot Engel. Considered a friend of Argentina Engel helped arrange the Cristina Kirchner/Barack Obama meeting last year.

The poor rating of Argentina both with Republicans and ruling Democrats also gives a boost to the Argentine sovereign bond holders who are suing to have their documents honoured.

“This is evidence that the US congress is loosing its patience with Argentina and its repeated non-fulfilment of promises” said a release from the very active American Task Force Argentina, AFTA, that still is holding on to billions of US dollars in sovereign bonds.

The strong position from the US congress takes place only days after the end of the months-long conflict triggered by the seizure of material and equipment from a US Air Force aircraft by Argentine authorities.

“We expect signals of Argentine interest in improving the bilateral relation, since it is a two ways path” said at the time Arturo Valenzuela, top State Department official for the region.