La Nacion
Argentina seeks international support over the Frigate
Wednesday, October 17, 2012
By Martín Dinatale
Deploy strong international pressure on Ghana, negotiate in situ at the diplomatic level and exhaust all judicial options. This is the plan that Argentina launched yesterday to urgently rescue the Frigate Libertad, held for 14 days in the port of Tema by judicial order in the African country, which backed a demand by the vulture funds.
Beyond the hermetic meeting - and without concrete results in sight - yesterday in Accra between the Argentine mission and Ghana’s authorities to try to settle the conflict, the Foreign Ministry began in the last hours to reach out to more than 12 countries to pressure the African country. The idea is to try to reverse, on the political level, the embarrassing situation where for the first time a state asset has been subject to bondholder demands. According to what high sources at the Palacio San Martín told LA NACION, confirmed by various foreign diplomats, Argentina asked for help from Brazil, Russia, Nigeria, China, Chile, Bolivia, Uruguay, Paraguay, Venezuela, Peru and South Africa, among other countries.
In some of those countries the request of help from Argentina finds a logical explanation: the Frigate has several sailors from those countries among the 300 crew members stranded in the port of Tema. In other cases, the international pressure that Argentina seeks to exercise over Ghana involves countries that have a very important trade flow with Accra and where the African country has a strong economic dependence.
"We’re asking for a little logic and we are going to show Ghana that the entire world is on our side,” said a noted source from the Foreign Ministry to LA NACION yesterday. The international pressure could widen to the 20 African countries that surround Ghana and upon which the Argentine embassy in Nigeria represents interests in. But this part of the plan was not clearly confirmed yesterday.
For now, there is strong support from various countries of whom help was asked and there may be a joint statement from various Latin American countries over Argentina’s complaint in Ghana. An ambassador from one of the countries with sailors on board the Frigate Libertad said yesterday in a blunt manner: “The request for attachment on Argentina is nonsense and our country will let Ghana know that,” he said. Another foreign diplomat based in Buenos Aires said that “there will be no order for the sailors to abandon the Frigate,” which suggests that international support is certain, while it isn’t known what will be the concrete result in Africa.
So far, yesterday it was not clear if the efforts of the Argentine mission with Ghana’s authorities have achieved any result. Thousands of kilometers from the internal fights shaking the government over this scandal, Vice Foreign Minister Eduardo Zuain, Vice Minister of Defense Alfredo Forti, and the Argentine ambassador in Nigeria, who traveled to Accra, Susana Pataro, met with Ghanaian authorities.
The intent of the government is to undo through the diplomatic route the decision by Judge Adjei Frimpong, of the Commercial Court of Accra, which sided with a request for attachment from the fund NML Capital Ltd., a branch of the firm Elliott Management. This American investor group is demanding collection of some US$370 million in bonds in default from Argentina.
"The meeting between the delegation from Argentina and officials of the Ministry of Foreign Relations is already under way,” said a source from the Ghana foreign ministry to AFP. There was no more information on the matter. The Argentine foreign ministry, different from other opportunities, didn’t issue any statement about those efforts and in the government they are limiting themselves to saying “One must have patience, but there will be progress.”
Sources close to the negotiations that are taking place in Ghana explained that every day that passes there is greater desperation because an immediate solution is not being found and the sailors are losing patience. “These efforts could take one to six months at a minimum,” a diplomat commented to LA NACION.
On the judicial level, Argentina doesn’t believe it has much of a chance. Ghana’s courts understood that the detention of the Frigate does not constitute a violation of the Vienna Convention and it found that the military ship doesn’t enjoy diplomatic immunity. The government argues all to the contrary. In fact, it has refused to pay a bail of US$20 million. For that, it believes that undoing the conflict through the justice system means they will have to take the matter to the international courts. But they admit that in that case the timing could last longer than planned.
Clarin
Hardship management in Ghana to free the Frigate
Wednesday, October 17, 2012
By Natasha Niebieskikwiat
With few cards to play, except for the international antipathy that speculative investment funds generate, the government is putting all its bets now on a political negotiation to release the Frigate Libertad which was started yesterday in Accra by an official from the Defense Ministry and another from Foreign Relations. The goal: to reverse via the diplomatic track an adverse ruling for Argentina in the Ghanaian courts last Thursday which sided with a request from the U.S. group NML, a creditor of the Argentine state, which asked for the attachment of the emblematic teaching vessel.
Joining the efforts of said officials, Defense Secretary for International Affairs Alfredo Forti and Euardo Zuain of Foreign Relations, will be Hector Timerman. He will be in New York tomorrow, for the international vote on the UN Security Council, where unless something unexpected happens Argentina will win a non-permanent seat for 2013 to 2014. Timerman will take advantage of the international forum to denounce in public or in private – no one from the ministry would confirm which to this newspaper on deadline – the unusual situation put forth for international law.
“The meeting of the Argentine delegation and officials of the Ministry of Foreign Relations is already under way,” said a source in the Ghana foreign ministry, who asked for strict anonymity, Agence France Presse reported yesterday from Accra. For its part, EFE reported the same from the African capital. In Buenos Aires, no official spokesman made any comment.
It also came out that they will try to meet with the Ghanaian judge in charge of the case.
And Clarin learned from sources in Santiago, like in Montevideo, that not only are the Argentine sailors prohibited from talking to the press, but also the foreigners, among them the Chilean and Uruguayan marines.
Forti and Zuain are assisted in Accra by Susana Pataro, the ambassador in Nigeria, who is also in charge of Ghana, where there is no embassy. The government has such a timid presence in these countries of Africa that, Clarin learned, it even had to strengthen its base in Nigeria where an official was urgently sent so that it would not be empty. For its part, the government has hired a local law firm, whose cost was also not disclosed. To have the Frigate in the port of Tema is costing the Argentine state US$49,000 a day, and it has spent 15 days there already.
Shaken by the buck-passing from the carelessness of the Foreign and Defense ministries that ended up with the Frigate detained in the port of Tema on October 2, Minister Arturo Puricelli yesterday found himself in the functional post of Vice Admiral Daniel Alberto Martín as the new chief of the Argentine Navy. Puricelli decided to assume the responsibilities over the carelessness in this African route that ended with the Frigate detained, but at the time it was set up from the trade area of the Foreign Ministry and the secretary of Commerce – without objections from Puricelli and Timerman – to be in line with Argentina’s new markets. An article appeared in Pagina/12, which exempted Timerman from any responsibility, ending with the resignation of Admiral Carlos Alberto Paz and two subordinates.
The fund NML is asking for US$20 million in bail for the Frigate to be released. Until now Argentina has said “no”.
Pagina/12
The boarding of the frigate
Wednesday, October 17, 2012
The Argentine representatives have already made contact with the Foreign Ministry of Ghana demanding the release of the Frigate Libertad, detained over a demand from the vulture funds.
Under strict reserve, the high-level delegation led by Vice Foreign Minister Alfredo Forti and Vice Defense Minister Eduardo Zuain (sic), negotiations began yesterday with officials of the Foreign Ministry of Ghana to achieve the release of the Frigate Libertad, detained in the port of Tema of that African country since October 2. The meeting between the Argentina delegation and officials of the Foreign Ministry is under way,” was the brief information that the government of Ghana offered to an international news agency from Accra, the center of the unusual episode provoked by the decision of a high court to side with the demand of a vulture fund headquartered in the Cayman Islands, which is demanding collection of US$370 million on bonds defaulted on in 2001.
The source of information in Accra didn’t confirm if the vice ministers that are leading the Argentine mission participated in this first meeting. Nor was there information from the Argentine government. What there is no doubt about is the instruction that was given to the representatives of the country to take to those responsible in the Ghanaian Foreign Ministry: to complain that the detention of the teaching vessel of the Argentine navy constitutes a violation of the Vienna Convention, which grants diplomatic immunity to all military ships.
The legal representative before the Accra courts for the vulture fund NML Capital – which filed the attachment request – had said, before the press, that Argentina had previously renounced the immunity referred to in this case, which was called a “fallacious argument” by Argentina. As an alternative way out, the fund that is the plaintiff in the case had offered that Argentina should deposit US$20 million as bail in exchange for the Frigate Libertad to be allowed to set sail, but this supposed solution was also rejected by Buenos Aires. The Argentine government demands that the right of diplomatic immunity be recognized by, also, it is not prepared to validate in any way the legitimacy of the demands of the vulture funds.
On the internal front, the decision to include Ghana as a stop on the voyage of the ship has already provoked a crisis and resignations in the Navy, given that it is suspected in an engineered maneuver to deliver the teaching vessel as prey for the vultures. It has become known that there were even attempts to negotiation with the Argentine government by representatives of these speculative funds before the “capture” of the ship in Ghana, as was reported on Sunday.
This is nothing more than the usual story of the actions of the so-called vulture funds, who obtain sovereign debt bonds from countries in collapse to then litigate in courts over which they have influence to obtain favorable rulings. Argentina, with two swaps over these defaulted bonds, which left an adhesion level equal to 93% of the total owed amount, has resolved to fight against these speculative funds, denouncing them publicly. The detention of the Frigate Libertad is nothing more than the reflection of the lobby capacity of these financial groups and their lack of scruples. For Argentina, it’s a demonstration of the rival that it is fighting back against.
The New York Times
Wednesday, October 17, 2012
By Daniel Politi
Liberty is being held hostage. At the request of N.M.L. Capital, a subsidiary of the investment firm Elliot Capital Management, a judge in Ghana has barred the Argentine Navy’s training frigate, A.R.A. Libertad, from leaving the eastern port of Tema since Oct. 2. The fund, run by the billionaire Paul Singer, seeks payment from Argentina’s record debt default a decade ago and is demanding $20 million to let the 100-meter-long vessel go — a fraction of the more than $1.6 billion it is owed according to U.S. courts.
What was supposed to be a brief stopover in Ghana during a six-month journey to South American, European and African ports is turning into a stark example of the lingering specter of Argentina’s $95 billion default in late 2001. It also illustrates how President Cristina Fernández de Kirchner’s government seems unable to react quickly to unexpected crises and avoids taking responsibility for its mistakes.
The Buenos Aires Herald
Wednesday, October 17, 2012
When John Fowles published his semi-autobiographical novel Daniel Martin 35 years ago, he could not possibly have known that he was anticipating the name of the new Argentine naval chief-of-staff to emerge from the blame game surrounding the cadet training frigate Libertad impounded in Ghana for the last fortnight. This blame game has only just begun but as things now stand, the tendency is to shift responsibility away from civilian branches of the government, whether the Foreign or Defence Ministries, and pin it firmly on the military — something which comes naturally enough to any Kirchner presidency.
World Politics Review
Wednesday, October 17, 2012
By Catherine Cheney
Argentina’s legacy of debt default is back in the headlines this week after a Ghanaian port detained an Argentine navy ship, executing a court order on behalf of the country’s creditors.
The bondholders who seized the ship said they do not plan to release it until Argentina repays at least $20 million of the $300 million they are owed on defaulted debt.
This is the latest example of creditors -- often vulture funds that purchased discounted bonds discarded by investors after Argentina stopped honoring its debts during its economic free fall 10 years ago -- trying to seize the country’s assets.
News24
Wednesday, October 17, 2012
A delegation from Argentina on Tuesday met with Ghanaian officials in an attempt to negotiate the release of a warship being detained outside Accra over a bond dispute, an official said.
The vessel that had travelled to the West African nation for a training mission was seized by port officials this month under a court order secured by a Cayman Islands investment group which claims it is owed more than $370m by Buenos Aires.
"The meeting between the Argentine delegation and the Ghanaian foreign ministry is under way," said the foreign ministry source, who was not authorised to talk to reporters and requested anonymity.
La Nacion
Economy Ministry, far from the solution to the problem
Wednesday, October 17, 2012
By Martín Kanenguiser
The Economy Ministry, which is legally in charge of relations with the creditors and the resolution of the cases of debt in default, appears unknowing in the conflict over the Frigate Libertad.
Sources from the Palacio de Hacienda admitted to LA NACION to not be on top of either the complexity of the problem nor its possible solution, despite the team led by Hernán Lorenzino having ties to the attorneys that are representing the country abroad from the firm of Cleary, Gottlieb, Steen & Hamilton.
Focused on very small central issues and with scarce power, the economic team is observing an almost war tribunal between the Foreign Ministry and the Defense Ministry. “This had to be resolved in the first 48 hours; now there is no way, except if there is some political effort from Ghana,” said an ex-official who was in charge, during Kirchnerism, of the delicate task of avoiding attachments on Argentina abroad. Since Argentina declared the default at the end of 2001 – previously pulling US$20 billion from the U.S. so it would not be attached – a dozen similar episodes like the seizure of the Frigate Libertad were avoided. “There was permanent contact with all the ministries and embassies and the Foreign Ministry played a central role,” he said under anonymity to LA NACION.
The ex-official said that the best chances are in favor of the vulture fund NML, which, despite the conventions that explicitly declare that military ships are not subject to attachment, achieved this measure in Ghana. “Either they bring the ship to New York or London, or the US$20 million bail is paid,” it was lamented. Since 2002, there was a strong control established from the Finance Secretary’s office to watch over every movement by Argentine funds in other countries: from the paying of diplomatic salaries to the resources of public banks, passing by the money from the provinces. And together with Economy, there was another dependency that is also absent now: the Treasury Solicitor.
Both, said another ex-official, will have to focus on “contacting the best law firms in Ghana, instead of sending a political delegation.” Merry, the vulture funds “will now seek to publish information about the funds of Argentine officials abroad, like they did in Congo,” warned another source with great knowledge of the financial world.
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