MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Argentina will not jeopardize growth, president says

“Argentina is a symbol of human rights throughout the world,” Alberto Fernández said

President Alberto Fernández Friday said his country will not accept any imposition which may put growth at risk when negotiating with foreign creditors. The Argentine head of state made those remarks from a stage in front of Casa Rosada he shared with former Presidents José Mujica of Uruguay, Luiz Inácio Lula Da Silva of Brazil and Cristina Fernández de Kirchner, Argentina's current Vice President.

 The regional leaders convened in Buenos Aires to celebrate International Human Rights Day as well as the 38th anniversary of the return to democratic rule in Argentina following the military dictatorship of the Juntas (1976-1983). 

President Fernández stressed “the Argentina of adjustment” was “history” and promised that in the ongoing negotiations with the International Monetary Fund (IMF) the country's growth and social development will not be endangered.

Fernández also recalled former President Néstor Kirchner had paid back in full Argentina's debt to the IMF in 2005, but the country borrowed again from it under Mauricio Macri. “We are not the ones who do not want to pay our debt, we are not the ones who take it, we are the ones who have to take care of the debt that they leave us,” Fernández underlined.

The President also said that “for this democracy that we live today there were thousands of Argentines who gave their lives, who were disappeared, subjected to torture, exile and who suffered unjust imprisonment.” He called on his followers at Plaza de Mayo to take care of democracy “in vindication of all of them.”

“Argentina is a symbol of human rights throughout the world,” Fernández went on. He also vowed “to do everything necessary for the last culprit to be held accountable for ”the blackest night Argentina lived“ through. 

Fernández also warned that ”under the label of libertarians appear the xenophobes“ and insisted democracy was also about not forgetting the ”genocidal ones“ and those ”who put us in debt.“

Fernández assured his government would do ”everything necessary for each Argentine to have a decent job,” while no pensioner will need to pay for their medication. The head of state also highlighted the legalization of the Voluntary Interruption of Pregnancy (IVE) during his presidency.

Vice President Cristina Kirchner warned that the International Monetary Fund “has conditioned Argentine democracy in recent decades” and now, after the government of Mauricio Macri, they are “back inside” the country to “check the accounts.”

“We need the Fund to help us recover billions of dollars that have gone to tax havens,“ the former President went on, as she instructed Alberto Fernández ”so that every dollar you find abroad, of those who took it [there] without paying taxes,“ goes to the IMF.

Cristina Kirchner pointed out that Alberto Fernández ”found the return of the IMF to Argentina, with the gift of 44,000 million dollars“ in the red.

”I remember when President [Raúl] Alfonsín took office 38 years ago on a day like today, and received a country that had quintupled its foreign debt, without reserves in the Central Bank, with military riots every so often, with 30,000 disappeared and who in 1989 could not finish his term,“ she went on.

Meanwhile, Lula assured he will always be ”by the side of Argentina“ and advocated fighting for a ”more just and egalitarian“ democracy and for recovering the spirit of the first decade of this century, when ”democratic and progressive“ governments ruled in Latin America.

“This is a very special day. We are commemorating the recovery of democracy in Argentina; we are commemorating the day of human rights,” said the former Brazilian president in “Portuñol” (a mixture of Spanish and Portuguese).

Former Uruguayan President José “Pepe” Mujica considered that democracy is not perfect but “there is no better system” and asked the Argentine people to “take care of it.”