Frigate Libertad:
Pagina/12: “You don’t Profit from frights”
La Nacion: “Guarantees that provisions will not be lacking on the Frigate Libertad”
Ambito Financiero: “Government believes that the frigate will be released”
El Cronista: “Lorenzino uses the detention of the Frigate Libertad to demand measures against the vulture funds”
· The Frigate and the coast guard/federal police protests show that the government is rife with internal conflicts
· The U.S. will not intervene in the Libertad case – Mike Hammer simply told Silvia Pisani it’s a matter between Argentina and Ghana and has nothing to do with the US.
· The Navy says it came up with the itinerary jointly with Foreign Relations (but this piece is now kind of out of date already because Puricelli just fired two top navy officials this afternoon, blaming them for the itinerary…)
Economy:
La Nacion: “The BCRA’s debt, an unpayble bill” (Editorial)
PAGINA/12
“You don’t Profit from frights”
Sunday, October 14, 2012
(Note: the meaning of this headline translates into a play on words with Ghana and ‘gana’ which means ‘profit’ – i.e. “you don’t profit from frights”)
In a decision as unexplained as it is suspicious, the Navy decided that the Frigate Libertad would not dock in Nigeria but in Ghana. The vulture funds that want to collect on bonds at nominal value which they bought for pennies were waiting with a complaint that included even the calculating of interest. This is a consequence of the reborn military independence that Defense Minister Arturo Puricelli agreed to. It’s essential to clarify the reasons behind the decision.
by Horacio Verbitsky
The stop by the Frigate Libertad in Ghana was decided by the Navy on May 14, invoking “operational reasons” that were not specified. The original itinerary included instead the port of Lagos, capital of Nigeria. So says a note re-printed in this edition, signed by the Director of Organization and Doctrine of the Navy, Marine Commodore Alfredo Blanco, who reported the change to the Defense Ministry, which then sent it without comment to the Foreign Ministry. Defense Minister Arturo Puricellli didn’t even try to find out what was behind this curious inclusion of Ghana on the itinerary, something that is now impossible not to ask. The Frigate docked in Tema on October 1 and offered a reception on board, with the assistance of the highest authorities of the country. The next day, an attorney representing the vulture fund “NML Capital” of the financial speculator Paul Singer, filed before the high commercial court of Ghana a request that the ship be detained in the port. As if there was any doubt that the vultures were informed in advance about the Libertad’s arrival, the complaint reported what pier it was anchored at and included a calculation of the interest demanded from Argentina to the same day, October 2. The detention in that country of such an ostensibly symbolic cargo has thus become another consequence of the new independence of the Armed Forces agreed to by Puricelli, who tried to throw off responsibility with a common press operation in the friendly newspaper, La Nacion, to which, due to its own phobias, Clarin joined.
The colonization of the ministry
In its edition yesterday, La Nacion included this headline on its cover: “The Frigate’s itinerary sets off an internal fight in the government” and the sub-editor of Clarin, Ricardo Roa, asked: “And now who gets the blame for Ghana?” Both newspapers, associated in Papel Prensa and Expagro, pointed at the Foreign Ministry and its head, Hector Timerman. In La Nacion, Mariano de Vedia wrote that the two ministers “disagreed over the convenience of the ship stopping on those coasts.” He added that “the Navy didn’t want to go to Ghana. There is almost no exchange between the military forces of both countries, there is no navy nor military attaché and the terrain is not known,” a phrase that was attributed to “a source that was with Puricelli in recent hours, who shared the position of the Navy.” It is worth recalling that Puricelli designated as National Director of Military Strategic Intelligence one Lourdes Puente Olivera, a graduate of Catholic University and with a post-graduate degree from the U.S. Center for Hemispheric Defense Studies, the successor to the School of the Americas. Before that, Lordes was Civil Intelligence personnel from the Navy, which by this route the ministry was colonized by Puricelli. Puente Olivera is also a niece of Secretary for Strategic and Military Affairs Oscar Cuattromo, who didn’t intervene in the itinerary of the frigate, despite it being directly in his area. Without a doubt, he had no objections. According to La Nacion, “the naval leadership counseled the Foreign Ministry at that time against adding ports in Senegal, Ghana and Angola to the itinerary of the frigate, detained 11 days ago by court order. However, the political decision prevailed to prioritize the outreach to those countries, as a prolongation of the trade outreach that the government promoted this year with the Angolan regime. While in the Defense team they blamed the decisions on the route on the Foreign Ministry, last night Vice Minister Eduardo Zuain and Defense Vice Minister Alfredo Forti finally departed for Accra with the mission of avoiding the attachment of the ship that is stranded with 289 Argentine sailors, together with 23 graduates from Uruguay and Chile and 13 special guests.” In Clarín, Roa wrote that “to the two ministries, but above all the Foreign Ministry, they made the mistake of not seeing the embarrassment coming: they mapped out the itinerary without taking into account the risk that the stop in Ghana implied,” a country that, one recalls, is within the sphere of influence of the United Kingdom. The note from the Navy on May 14 is a strong bit of evidence that puts forth a very different scenario from these news stories or parties to the Psychological Action.
To good port
Since 1964, the Frigate Libertad has had 37 voyages bringing thousands of sailors to more than 500 ports in 60 countries in America, Europe, Asia, Africa and Oceania, during which it participated in international regattas and parades. In 2010, ex-Defense Minister Nilda Garre limited the itinerary of countries to South America, alleging that the Argentine naval missions never would go to further seas (nor more turbulent ones, from the political and economic point of view). The ports of UNASUR were the only ones that were secure of any attachment threatening the ship, according to evaluations delivered to Garre. This dubious turn by the navy this time was not advised. Foreign Minister Hector Timerman traveled yesterday to Japan, so he could not be consulted on the matter. The decision by Garre created anger among the sailors, which considered their six months of tourism at the expense of the state as an acquired right. They invoked Decree 727/01, by which President Fernando de la Rúa designated the Frigate as “Ambassador of the Republic with honorific distinction and exclusively protocol effect.” The Navy gives that an interpretation that excedes this honorific and protocol-linked character and in its official documents states that in addition to completing the professional training of sailors, “it contributes to the increase in maritime and nautical knowledge and their training in the teamwork culture and creation of future natural leaders,” and the Frigate has a mission of “contributing to the foreign policy of the Nation representing the Argentine Republic showing the virtues of its geographic, cultural and productive reality” and “fomenting international naval relations”, none of which is contemplated in current legal orders. Another argument that ex-chief Jorge Godoy which Garre opposed was the traditional participation of the Frigate in international sporting events. Garre responded that they would go to a regatta in Chile. And it went that in 2010 that both countries orgnized a continental maritime event to evoke the Bicentennial, the International Encounter and Regata of Great Sailboats “Velas Sudamérica 2010”, in which frigates, brigs and scooners of different nationalities – civilian and military – participated, navigating around the Atlantic and pacific oceans and the Caribbean Sea. The itinerary included ports in Brazil, Colombia, Ecuador, Mexico, Peru, the Dominican Republic, Uruguay and Venezuela. In December 2010, President CFK created the Security Ministry and designated Nilda Garre to run it. Puricelli was designated for Defense, who until this time had been leading Military Manufacturing. Puricelli was the first governor elected in Santa Cruz after the military dictatorship, who Nestor Kirchner had to beat to take over the leadership of the Justicialist Party in his path to government. The Navy insisted to the new minister, who this year authorited it to make 16 stops in 13 countries, without worrying about the fluttering of the vultures after arrival. The itinerary that the navy reported on its website, http://www.ara.mil.ar , included Brazil, Suriname, Guyana, Venezuela, Portugal, Spain, Morocco, Senegal, Nigeria, Angola, Namibia, South Africa and Uruguay. On May 14, Nigeria was switched to Ghana, without any explanation.
The law of the sea
The trip of the vice ministers of Defense, Alfredo Forti, and Foreign Relations, Eduardo Zuain, to Ghana has various goals. One ostensible one is to lend necessary assistance to the personnel on board. But also, to make efforts before the government of Ghana. Both countries are signatories of the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea, approved in 1982 and in force since 1994, when 60 states ratified it. Ghana was the 6th to do so in 1983 and Argentina was 43rd, in 1995. According to Article 32 of Subsection C of the convention (“Rules applied to war ships and other ships of State destined to non-commercial ends”), such ships are protected by sovereign immunity and consequently free of requisitions and attachments. The Argentine officials will demand that Ghana’s authorities honor that article of the Convention, which obliged the lifting of any restriction of movement on the Frigate. When the judge of the Commercial Court of Accra, Richard Adjei Frimpong, rejected the appeal filed by the Argentine government, the Foreign Ministry announced that Argentina would “exhaust all judicial levels in Ghana and international courts in defense of its sovereignty, against the vulture funds, and those who try to impose a global system where the people live subject to speculative capital.” If the Ghana government doesn’t accept the demand, its decision would be to turn to the International Court of the Law of the Sea, a judicial organ created by the Convention, headquartered in Hamburg, Germany. It is made up of 22 specialists in independent sea law, which serve for nine years in their posts. There cannot be two members of the same nationality nor less than three per geographic group recognized by the UN. It’s current members are eight Europeans (give of them from Western Europe), five Asians, give Africans, and four from Latin America and the Caribbean.
La Nacion
Guarantees that provisions will not be lacking on the Frigate Libertad
by Mariano De Vedia | LA NACION
Monday, October 15, 2012
Lesson in the morning and free time in the afternoon, with recreational leave, preferably in groups but no more than for a half hour. That’s the new routine that the 289 Argentine crew members and 36 foreign guests are adjusting to on board the Frigate Libertad, docked for the last 12 days in the port of Tema, Ghana, impeded from navigating, after a local demand from the U.S. vulture funds was successful in a local court.
So explained Rear Admiral Luis María González Day, director general of the navy, to LA NACION yesterday, in the first official information from the naval forces about the conflict on the African Atlantic coast. “Communication with the families is permanent, and it’s guaranteed. We’ve placed a wireless router on the ship so everyone can talk to their homes,” said the naval chief, with the intention to calm the sailors’ families.
In the same direction, the Navy reported that the frigate “has available all of the necessary supplies to ensure the well-being of its personnel and material operations for the ship.” He especially insisted that the provision of food and refueling is guaranteed for various months.
The unease in the navy to lower the drama around the mishaps coming from the forced detention of the ship in the port of Tema coincided, yesterday, with the arrival in the capital of Ghana of the political mission from the Argentine government, led by Vice Foreign Minster Eduardo Zuain and Defense Vice Minister Alfredo Forti.
Despite the bilateral efforts that both officials will carry out in Accra, inside the government there is a growing perception that they will not be able to avoid the deadlines by the court.
So said yesterday the head of the White Helmets Committee, Gabriel Fuks, who confirmed that the Argentine government will turn to international courts to settle the conflict.
"While it takes time, there will be a turn to the international court arenas,” said Ambassador Fuks, in harmony with what was reported on Thursday by the Foreign Ministry and the Defense Ministry. “It’s clear that the first point is that the vulture funds continue operating and attacking Argentina,” said the head of the White Helmets.
According to the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea, which Ghana signed in 1983 and Argentina ratified in 1995, the party states can chose to submit their controversies to the International Court of the Law of the Sea, the International Court of Justice in the Hague or an arbitration tribunal.
Despite the predictions of a prolonged conflict, Rear Admiral González Day said that there is no Plan B to try to get the crew back early, since there is “confidence in the political mission reaching a good port.”
The naval chief dismissed, also, any disagreements between the Foreign and Defense ministries over the inclusion of Ghana among the stops on the 43rd voyage of the Frigate Libertad, according to what LA NACION reported yesterday. “The Navy initially fixes the proposed ports for the itinerary and presents an executive summary to the Defense Ministry, which then passes it to the Foreign Ministry. But all of this is done in a climate of agreement and not confrontation,” said González Day.
Taking into account, he said, the invitations that are sent by foreign countries, the naval secretary general still couldn’t say precisely if the Argentine ship had received a formal invitation from Ghana.
Consulted specifically if the Navy had included the port of Tema in its initial proposal, González Day responded: "In the proposal there were various African countries and, then, in the inter-ministerial cooperative work, it was decided which countries to be visited.”
Ambito Financiero
Government believes that the frigate will be released
by Edgardo Aguilera
Monday, October 15, 2012
Without indications of the quick release of the teaching vessel, the authorities of the Navy began to reprogram the itinerary of the 43rd teaching voyage of the sailors. The Frigate Libertad has been held for 14 days in the port of Tema by order of Judge Richard Agyei Frimpong, of the Superior Court of Accra, which took place at the request of the fund NML-Elliott in demand of unpaid Argentine bonds. The original journey stated that between October 11 and 13, the ship would make an official visit to Luanda, Angola, the country that was the destination of an advanced trade mission by Commerce Secretary Guillermo Moreno. The stop is past due.
«We are making a bilateral effort with Ghana and afterwards we will follow the path that is set forth for us by international law,” Argentina’s Defense Minister Arturo Puricelli said in a radio interview.
The uncertainty over the result of the political moves by the vice ministers of Defense and Foreign Relations , Alfredo Forti and Eduardo Zuain, with Ghanaian authorities carries the plans for the teaching vessel to also travel to Namibia, or pass by Cape Town, South Africa, between October 27 and November 1 or cross the Atlantic to Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, to then go on to Montevideo, Uruguay and keep to its arrival date in Buenos Aires, scheduled for December 8. Suppositions of an optimistic scenario have no alternative but to evacuate the sailors and foreign guests by a special flight.
Chilean Defense Minister Andrés Allamand communicated by telephone on Friday with Puricelli to coordinate future movements; for now, the 15 Chilean sailors will remain on board the Frigate Libertad. The trans-Andean navy has made its naval attaché in the United Kingdom, Naval Captain Ronald McIntyre, available to accompany the Chilean consul on a visit to Ghana to verify the state of the 15 sailors.
The original proposed trip included Lagos, Nigeria, put was replaced with Ghana because of the piracy and drug trafficking that occurs in the Nigerian port.
The possible complications in the stops of a teaching voyage are analyzed ahead of time by intelligence officers both in the Navy and the Defense Ministry. A paper warned about the inconvenience of exposing the frigate to risk of armed violence. The finding of resolution number 2018/11 approved by the UN Security Council expresses concern over the threat of piracy and armed theft for shipping in the Gulf of Guinea.
In recent years, the region, which occupied the coasts of 13 countries: Senegal, Gambia, Guinea-Bissau, Sierra Leona, Liberia, Guinea, Ivory Coast, Ghana, Togo, Benin, Nigeria, Cameroon, Equatorial Guinea, from Liberia to Angola, has become the scene of a considerable increase in attacks, thefts and kidnappings from international shipping by local pirates.
The threat is a fact of reality, confirmed by the execution of the naval exercise Altasur IX which began September 24 and ended October 10, simulating anti-piracy operations among other war maneuvers and the navies of Brazil, Argentina, Uruguay and South Africa participated in the western waters of Africa.
El Cronista
Lorenzino uses the detention of the Frigate Libertad to demand measures against the vulture funds
The proposal makes up a declaration that Lorenzino presented in the Fund assembly. In the Army they deny that they or Moreno had set up the ship’s itinerary.
EL CRONISTA Buenos Aires
Monday, October 15, 2012
While a delegation of officials from the Foreign Ministry and Defense continue making efforts in Ghana for a solution to the conflict that has left the Libertad paralyzed in the country’s main port, the government used the detention of the Argentine teaching vessel yesterday to demand, during the assembly of the International Monetary Fund (IMF), measures meant to close “legal loopholes” that the vulture funds take advantage of. The call was part of the declaration that, with the signature of Economy Minister Hernan Lorenzino, the Argentine government brought to the Financial and Monetary Committee of the IMF with strong criticism of the vulture funds’ demands.
“Argentina still faces extraordinary demands, at time ridiculous, from creditors known as vulture funds, who want to obtain privileged treatment,” the document said, attributing the situation to “a lack of an international legal framework for restructuring sovereign debt.” The statement, singed by Lorenzino in the name of Argentina, Bolivia, Chile, Paraguay, Peru and Uruguay, with which it sought to show regional backing for the demand, strongly reproached the attitude of “a minority of creditors that impede the completion of the process of debt restructuring” and use for their advantage “the legal loopholes” despite having “acquired sovereign debt at pennies on the dollar,” said the document filed in the midst of the IMF meeting.
The Navy sought yesterday to disconnect its responsibility in the setting up of the itinerary of the Libertad, warning that the inclusion of Ghana in the trip was an “inter-ministerial” decision. “There is a logical sequence in the designation of the ports and the final trip that the Frigate shall make, and all of that sequence is a cooperative, inter-ministerial process. There is a series of back and forth consultations to conclude on the trip that the Frigate will take,” said the secretary general of the Navy, Rear Admiral Luis María González Day, against rumors that pointed blame at the service branch or Commerce Secretary Guillermo Moreno.
On the other hand, in radio statements, the chief of the navy said that an evacuation plan “doesn’t exist” for the return of the sailors to Argentina nor for the Frigate Libertad to escape, absconding from Ghanaian justice. Also, González Day said that “the people are very well, communicating with their families, waiting for the ministerial commission that when to Ghana to be able to arrive at a good end for us to resume the ship’s navigation.”
The Frigate has been detained for 12 days in the port of Tema, in Ghana, impeded from sailing, after the U.S. vulture funds’ legal requests were successful in that country’s courts.
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