Stella Calloni
Correspondent
The newspaper La Jornada
Saturday, July 20, 2024, p. 23
Buenos Aires., During an interview, President Javier Milei accused the director for the Western Hemisphere of the International Monetary Fund (IMF), Rodrigo Valdés, of not wanting that Argentina does well, to maintain relations with the former Minister of Economy of the previous government, Sergio Massa, (also former presidential candidate of Union for the Fatherland), and to belong to the Sao Paulo Forum and the Puebla Group, which for him are left-handeda word used to refer to those who have a left-wing political ideology.
He claimed that his government has complied with everything, but (those from the IMF) They are putting up objections all day longand tried to end doubts about debt payments and the status of international reserves, while the weight of Treasury bonds in banks’ assets soared.
Now, the president is preparing to travel to France – having already made 13 trips for personal reasons in just over six months of government – after having fired 54 officials, many of whom were highly trusted, for criticizing his management, as his authoritarianism has reached new high limits.
Before traveling, she had to resolve another problem, and that is that Vice President Victoria Villarruel, in response to the protest from the French government over the chants, which she considered racist, by the Argentine national team players as Copa America champions, replied that Argentines did not have to respond to a country colonialistamong other harsh terms.
This has aggravated internal divisions within the government and Milei has sent her sister, Karina Milei, secretary general of the presidency, to apologize to the French ambassador, Romain Nadal, as she plans to meet with President Emmanuel Macron on this trip.
Shady accounts of the Minister of Economy
In addition, the Minister of Economy, Luis Caputo, had to admit that he quietly took gold reserves from the Central Bank (BCRA) to deposit them abroad, in response to the request for accountability – within the framework of the Law of Access to Public Information – made at the beginning of this week by the deputy and leader of the banking union Sergio Palazzo in order for the Executive to explain this maneuver, warning about the seriousness of this action, since the gold reserves could be seized if a legal claim were made against Argentina. Caputo argued that If you have the gold outside, you can get a return (profit) from itand The country needs to maximize returns on its assets; that is, speculating behind the population’s back.
Among his arguments he maintained that Having gold in the Central Bank is like having a property inside a building, you can’t use it for anythingwhile if you deposit it in an entity abroad it can be used as collateral and, in exchange, the Argentine State obtains part of the profits.
A very dangerous game, as critics of this decision point out, since it is all about speculation. The minister did not respond to Palazzo’s request to explain how much of the reserve metal was taken out of the country, nor the amount or the currency in which the operations would be carried out, given estimates that the amount of gold that left the country is 450 million dollars.
In addition, the Economy official tried to convince that everything it is getting betterwhile warning that the Argentines They will have to take out the dollars they have saved to pay taxes.
Hunger and violence
Yesterday, 500 social organizations marched throughout the country, under the slogan Violence is hungerand held an event at the Obelisk, headed by the Nobel Peace Prize winner, Adolfo Pérez Esquivel.
This is happening in the midst of another scandal, when the Chamber of Deputies is requesting that six legislators from the ruling party La Libertad Avanza (LLA) not continue in their seats, who on the 11th made prison visits to several of the military personnel convicted of crimes against humanity during the last military dictatorship.
In this case, the Provincial Commission for Memory, filed a criminal complaint against the deputy of LLA, Beltrán Benedit, for the crime of apology of crime, since he was the promoter of the visit and supported the detainees in the Ezeiza prison. Benedit considers them fighters who fought battles against Marxist subversionand asked: “How old were these prisoners at the time the charges were brought against them? Have the charges been proven? Aren’t many of them fabricated? We are going to write a document that will say that human rights are not being respected, because those who were part of it (terrorists) today they set themselves up as judges and rule based on revenge, ideology and business.”
Among those visited are the sailors Alfredo Astiz, Ricardo Cavallo –extradited from Mexico– Adolfo Donda and Antonio Pernías, among others, all of them prosecuted in open trials, with their rights respected and approved throughout the world.
Distribute food
On another matter, federal judge Martin Cormick decided to use the judicial recess (annual recess of the Judiciary) to execute a precautionary measure previously issued by the judge Walter Lara Correa, which obliges the government to comply with the current food programs of the Ministry of Human Capital.
The matter is now in its third term in office, with the courts ordering compliance with the distribution of thousands of tons of food that correspond, duly and fairly, to the soup kitchens, as the previous government had determined.