CFK sends Timerman to UNASUR meeting

President Cristina Fernández de Kirchner sent Foreign Minister Héctor Timerman to Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, to take part in an “urgent” Unasur meeting summoned by Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff to discuss the tense political situation in Paraguay.

After the meeting it was reported that the members of the Union of South American Nations decided yesterday afternoon to send a delegation of foreign ministers to Paraguay to ensure that the “democratic order is respected,” after the Paraguayan Congress said it will begin impeachment of President Fernando Lugo for his alleged role in a deadly clash involving landless farmers.

Amid a mounting crisis in Argentina involving a strike called by teamster leader Hugo Moyano, Fernández de Kirchner first decided to cut short her visit to Brazil for the Rio+20 UN Conference on Sustainable Development and then opted to send Timerman to deal with Paraguay’s crisis. Nonetheless, the President stayed most of the day at the Olivos presidential residence where she met with “aids” and she did not address the teamsters union conflict publicly.

According to an official press release, Rousseff “contacted the head of state yesterday morning to request Argentina’s presence in the meeting to be held in Rio de Janeiro, in order to analyze the steps to be followed, given that an impeachment has been decided against Paraguayan President Fernando Lugo.”

Fernández de Kirchner spent six days abroad this week. On June 14 she delivered a speech to urge Argentina’s sovereignty claims over the Malvinas Islands before the UN’s Special Committee on Decolonization in New York and then she attended the G20 summit held at Los Cabos, Mexico. The President was supposed to address the political leaders gathered at the Rio+20 meeting but she returned to Argentina a day ahead of schedule to deal with the teamsters’ strike.

— Herald with DyN, Telam, AP