April 24, 2023
So Command General Laura Richardson
Strong statement from Argentine human rights organizations, political and trade union leaders repudiating the visit of US Southern Command General Laura Richardson.
Figures of human rights, political and union organizations repudiated the visit to our country of the Head of the US Southern Command. “We repudiate the presence in Buenos Aires of Laura Richardson, a new visit that coincides with that of the Vice Chancellor, Wendy Sherman, and the President of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission of the same country, a visit -the latter- whose public objective is to prevent the concretion and start-up of the Atucha III Nuclear Power Plant equipped with a Chinese reactor”, they denounced in a statement pointing to the US political pressure on the national government.
“We recall that the Head of the Southern Command has publicly confessed the importance for Washington of the strategic natural resources of Latin America, especially the lithium triangle located in a territory shared by Argentina, Bolivia and Chile”, the organizations emphasized in the statement of repudiation against the presence of the official “and its implications”. They also pointed out that her statements also reveal the U.S. interest in the region’s natural wealth, such as “the largest concentration of oil reserves; gold and copper; the lungs of the world, the Amazon, and 31 percent of the global fresh water reserve”.
Among the signatories are the Peace and Justice Service, the Instituto Espacio por la Memoria, the American Association of Jurists, the REDH space, Red de Intelectuales y Artistas en Defensa de la Humanidad Capítulo Argentina, the Liga Argentina por los Derechos Humanos, the Frente Patria Grande and the Llamamiento Argentino Judío, among others. Also supporting the document were former Supreme Court Judge Eugenio Raúl Zaffaroni, Nora Cortiñas of Madres de Plaza de Mayo Línea Fundadora, political scientist Atilio Borón, philosopher Fernando Buen Abad, Francisco “Paco” Olveira of the Curas Opción por los Pobres and the Secretary General of the CTA Autónoma, Hugo “Cachorro” Godoy, among many other signatories.
In the declaration they denounced that the presence of the US Southern Command “is part of the US offensive suffered by our country, since the policies announced to be implemented seriously threaten the economy and security of Argentina, since Brazil, in the first place, and China, in the second, are our main commercial partners, and therefore central for our present and future development”. At the same time they assured that “we are a sovereign country, and our autonomy as a people must prioritize its sustainability within the framework of an economic exchange with diversification, in a regional integration without subordination, with complementarity and multipolarity, without dependence of any kind with the U.S. domestic policy, or that of any other country”.
In the declaration they point out “the urgent need for Argentina to abandon its status as an extra NATO ally”, because “it is not possible to be an ally of those who have appropriated strategic resources for the survival of current and future generations”.
Source: Pagina 12, translation Resumen Latinoamericano – English