Buenos Aires
Argentina’s President
Cristina Kirchner on Tuesday charged in an emotional address that domestic and US interests were pushing to topple her government, and could even kill her.
Domestic business interests “are trying to bring down the government, with international (US) help,” she said.
Kirchner said that on her recent visit to fellow Argentine Pope Francis -- whose help she has sought in Argentina’s ongoing debt default row -- police warned her about supposed plots against her by rebels of what is called the Islamic State.
“So, if something happens to me, don’t look to the Mideast, look north” to the United States, Kirchner said at Government House.
Just hours after the US embassy here warned its citizens to take extra safety precautions in Argentina, an aggravated Kirchner said “when you see what has been coming out of diplomatic offices, they had better not come in here and try to sell some tall tale about ISIS trying to track me down so they can kill me.”
The president said local soybean producers unhappy with prices, other exporters and car company executives, all were involved since they would benefit from a devaluation of the peso, which is being pushed lower by her government’s selective default. “Exporters who have lost money have Argentina in a vise ... so do the car company executives who tell consumers they have no inventory when they do ... What they are all waiting for is a devaluation.”
Argentina exited recession with 0.9-per cent economic growth in the second quarter, national statistics institute Indec said on Wednesday, a rare bit of good news amid the country’s new debt default.
But with inflation estimated at more than 30 per cent and the value of the peso tumbling, Latin America’s third-largest economy is still mired in a slowdown after averaging 7.8-per cent annual growth from 2003 to 2011.
Argentina is still struggling with the aftermath of a default on nearly $100 billion in debt in 2001, with the two hedge funds it labels vultures battling the country in US courts.
But it has been blocked by US federal judge Thomas Griesa, who has ordered the country to first repay two hedge funds demanding the full $1.3 billion face value of their bonds.
Griesa ruled on Monday that Argentina was in contempt of court after it passed a law allowing the government to repay creditors in Buenos Aires or Paris -- skirting the New York judge’s freeze on the bank accounts it previously used to service its debt.
Argentina has been locked out of international financial markets since its 2001 default. More than 92 per cent of its creditors agreed to take losses of up to 70 per cent on the face value of their bonds in 2005 and 2010 to get the country’s debt repayments back on track.
But the two hedge funds, US billionaire Paul Singer’s NML Capital and Aurelius Capital Management refused to accept the write-down and took the country to court.
Agence France-Presse