Tag Archives: Argentina

Support Argentina in the struggle against Vulture Funds

Posted on by

Diálogo 2000, member of Jubilee South America, has released the statement “The real debt is to the rights of the people of Argentina“ in defense of the rights and sovereignty of the people of Argentina in the face of recent vulture funds actions.

The retention of the frigate Liberty in Ghana, and the recent New York court decisions ordering the country to pay new multimillion dollar sums to Vulture Funds, reveal the persistence of a serious debt problem that continues to condition the present and future of Argentina. As the Dialogo 2000 statement reads “in the most immediate, what is at stake is a new payment equivalent to more than the entire Argentinian national budget for housing and urban development during the year 2013, to speculative funds that never invested in the people´s welfare nor did they accept to restructure their claims after the economic collapse and suspension of debt payments in 2001″. This is a new case, among many, of “unethical and unscrupulous” actions of so-called vulture funds. In 2010 a US judge froze Argentinian central bank assets in New York when ruling on another Vulture Fund case against Argentina. In another recent case, the UK’s privy council surprisingly ruled against vulture fund FG Hemisphere in a case brought against the Democratic Republic of Congo’s state mining company.

Dialogo 2000 rejects the decisions of the New York court “that does not take into consideration the fraudulence, illegality, and illegitimacy of the process of Argentine indebtedness, totally unrelated to the interests of the people”. The statement calls for a public, comprehensive and participatory debt audit; the cancellation of unconstitutional contracts and agreements that establish the resignation of national sovereignty  the confrontation of speculators challenging the illegitimacy of their claims; and the prosecution and punishment of those who illegitimately and unconstitutionally issued bonds, renouncing the country’s sovereignty and the rights and heritage of its people.

The statement, released on the Human Rights Day, December 10th, has got 158 endorsements from civil society organisations and personalities from all around the world. Organisational endorsements to the statement may still be sent to: dialogo2000@jubileosur.org

Read the statement in english

El manifiesto está también disponible en español 

Argentina still ‘owes’ UK dictator debt for Falklands arms

Posted on by

Eurodad member Jubilee Debt Campaign has uncovered documents which show that Argentina still owes debts to the UK government based on arms sales to the Argentine junta in the years leading up to the Falklands War.

The archives, which include a letter from then Foreign Secretary David Owen, show the British government keenly aware of the odious nature of the Argentina regime  - describing it as ‘worse’ than Pinochet’s Chile – and that conflict over the Falkland Islands was possible. However, Owen states that “complete consistency in our approach” towards Argentina was not possible.

Argentina’s £45 million restructured debt includes loans for two Type 42 Destroyers and two Lynx helicopter which were used in the invasion of the Falklands.

The debt overhang left by Argentina’s military junta was not cancelled, despite a court case in 2000 finding that loans to Argentina under the dictatorship were part of “a damaging economic policy that forced on its knees through various methods … and which tended to benefit and support private companies – national and foreign – to the detriment of society”. These loans ultimately helped fuel Argentina’s economic crisis in the early 2000s.

Nick Dearden, Director of Jubilee Debt Campaign said: 
“Lending the military junta money to buy British weapons was illegitimate and odious. The newly uncovered documents show that then Foreign Secretary David Owen knew the UK government was lending money for arms to an abhorrent regime. The Liberal Democrats must stick to their pledge to rule invalid loans recklessly given to dictators”.

“This is not the only occasion in which debt has been run up supplying arms to a regime which British soldiers would soon be fighting. The anniversary of the Falklands War should force the government to question the way it does business. Business Minister Vince Cable must implement Liberal Democrat policy and stop subsidising war through the backing of loans to other governments to buy weapons.”

A briefing on Argentina’s debt to the UK and the arms sales is available here.