Editor's Note: We republished following article in February, 2011. We bring it back as a reminder, relative to an article we featured today, Argentina: Why President Fernandez Wins and Obama Loses, by James Petras. - LMB

"Argentina accuses the U.S. of trying to smuggle in things that were not included in the cargo manifesto like firearms, communications and surveillance equipment and narcotics, all these in an U.S. Air Force cargo plane that arrived last week in Bunos Aires."

Argentina: In 1946 Peron vs. Braden, in 2011 Cristina Fernandez Kirchner vs. Obama?

President Fernandez outraged by US attempts to smuggle contraband into Argentina.

BUENOS AIRES— In order to gain the next elections, the President of Argentina Cristina Fernandez is following the lessons of argentine political history. Cristina Fernandez is following the steps of Juan Domingo Peron. Hopefully, the U.S. Ambassador in Argentina will not do the same mistakes as the american ambassador in 1946.

Perón’s candidacy on the Labor Party ticket, announced the day after the October 17, 1945, mobilization, became a lightning rod that rallied an unusually diverse opposition against it. In a bid to support the campaign of the opposition against Peron, the U.S. Ambassador Sprulle Braden published a document accusing Perón of Fascist ties and, fluent in Spanish, addressed oppostion´s Democratic Union rallies in person. Braden’s move backfired, however, when Perón seized on this to make the election a choice between “Perón or Braden”, a nationalist move that contributed to his decisive victory in 1946.

Now, in 2011 something very similar could happen in argentine politics. This time the Ambassaor has a latino name Vilma Martinez. She was confirmed as U.S. Ambassador to Argentina by the U.S. Senate on July 24, 2009. Ambassador Martinez presented her credentials to former Foreign Minister Jorge Taiana on September 18, 2009. Hopefully she will not publicly intervene in the incident between U.S. and the argentine government.

Why?

A diplomatic row between Argentina and the U.S. escalated today, with Argentina rebuffing Washington’s demands to return communications and other equipment that the South American country confiscated from a U.S. plane.

Argentina accuses the U.S. of trying to smuggle in things that were not included in the cargo manifesto like firearms, communications and surveillance equipment and narcotics, all these in an U.S. Air Force cargo plane that arrived last week in Bunos Aires.

The mission of the plane was to deliver material for a U.S.-sponsored hostage-rescue course for Argentine police officers. U.S. officials called those allegations preposterous. “I want to emphasize the need for our equipment to be returned promptly by the government of Argentina regardless of what motivated this inexplicable behavior,” Paul Stockton, the assistant secretary of defense for the Americas, said on Tuesday.

Argentine officials, specially the president of Argentina Cristina Fernandez and its Cabinet Chief Anibal Fernandez, transformed the incident in a nationalist and anti imperialist manifesto and they responded that the U.S. needed to learn that Argentina has its own laws that need respect.

“Just imagine what would have happened if an Argentine aircraft had taken the same kind of material to the United States. [The Argentines] would all be in Guantanamo in orange overalls,” Anibal Fernandez, President Cristina Kirchner’s cabinet chief, said in an interview with local broadcaster Radio La Red.

Amid the diplomatic altercation over the cargo of the US military aircraft, President Cristina Fernández de Kirchner yesterday called on all Argentines to “defend the national sovereignty” and the “interests of the people.”

The President stated, in what was read as a covert reference to the episode, that during the last eight years of Kirchnerite government, since her late husband Néstor Kirchner took power in 2003, “we have demonstrated that we can take our own decisions,” without the intervention of foreign countries.

Fernández de Kirchner asked her fellow-citizens to “think of Argentina, think of your country because national defence cannot have political colours or flags,” during a ceremony held to commemorate the 134th anniversary of the baptism of the Argentine Lake in El Calafate, in Santa Cruz province.

The training had been scheduled at the request of the Argentine government, and was meant to be a follow-up to a September 2009 exercise, according to Frank Mora, the U.S. deputy assistant secretary of defense for Western Hemisphere affairs.

Source: The Americas Postes