COFFEE DRINKERS in the popular El Gran Caffe in downtown Buenos Aires shelter under table umbrellas to escape the warm sun. The atmosphere and animated conversation lends the cafe a Mediterranean flavour, although the red British-style postbox close to my table emphasises the many contradictions of life in Argentina. I was reminded of the saying that the Argentinian is a Spanish-speaking Italian with pretensions of being English but who behaves like the French.
To my right, traders compete with economic refugees from Peru and Bolivia, and to my left elegant shops leading down to Plaza San Martin cater for the rich. In Argentina, as in other countries of Latin America, the rich are always with us. Around me the middle classes sip cortados and remain largely invisible. They disappeared from society a decade ago when the "puma economy" destroyed savings and pension funds and quadrupled mortgage repayments.
Hyperinflation, following the 1976-1983 military dictatorship and corrupt governments of the 1990s, threatened to plunge the country into economic chaos. In a desperate attempt to control inflation, the government pegged the peso to the US dollar. Foreign holidays and expensive imports were then within the reach of the middle classes as new banks sprang up offering low interest rates. The International Monetary Fund threw money at an economy that was little more than smoke and mirrors. As the international value of the dollar soared and Argentina’s main trading partners devalued, exports became uncompetitive, leading to widespread unemployment.
A lack of confidence in the economy started a run on the banks and a flight of dollars from the country before the peso was forced into a new valuation of four pesos to the dollar. Bank closures and frozen bank accounts brought reality to a country that had been living beyond its means. In early 2001 the inevitable happened and Argentina defaulted, amid legitimate claims the country had suffered an internal bank heist. Almost 60 per cent of the population, many of them from the middle class, would quickly fall below the poverty line.
As memories of those times flooded back, I picked up a discarded newspaper and noted a photo of Bono meeting Argentina’s president Christina Kirchner prior to the U2 concert in Buenos Aires. On the same page a report noted the refusal of the foreign minister, Hector Timerman, to return communications equipment taken from a US army aircraft that had recently landed in Buenos Aires. Timerman had also accused the US of training Latin American security forces in methods of torture. The foreign minister is the son of the late Jacobo Timerman, a man with whom I shared a very tenuous relationship.
Timerman, founder and publisher of the daily newspaper La Opinion, regularly exposed the horrors of Argentina's military dictatorship. In 1977 he was arrested and his newspaper closed.
Imprisonment and torture followed before international protests secured his release. He describes his ordeal in his book Prisoner without a Name, Cell without a Number. He was also imprisoned and tortured by Pinochet's military regime in Chile. When in Santiago, Timerman was a frequent visitor to La Candela, a small theatre in Bellavista where musicians and singers opposed to Pinochet often performed. A feature of the theatre was the glass of warm wine offered to patrons.
Unable to travel to Chile in the 1990s, Timerman whimsically inquired in his book Chile, Death in the South"whether they still drank warm wine in La Candela". At the time I was visiting the theatre and noticed his query posted on the foyer wall. I would later answer his question in an article I wrote for The Irish Timesand was surprised a couple of years later to see my answer pinned close to his query.
Alas, La Candela is no more and Jacobo Timerman lies at rest in a small Jewish cemetery in Buenos Aires. But the past often merges with the present in Argentina. It was Thursday and time to walk to Plaza de Mayo to join the mothers who have paraded every Thursday afternoon since April 1977, protesting at the disappearance of their children and grandchildren during the military’s “dirty war”.
It is estimated 30,000 people were murdered or disappeared and as many as 500 babies were taken from female prisoners. The babies were then given to childless members of the security forces for adoption. Almost a hundred of these children have now been identified and informed of their tragic history. Many subsequently returned to their biological families, although a high percentage made the difficult decision of staying with their adoptive parents. The search continues.
On the plaza, speakers welcomed the progress made in bringing military abusers before the courts and praised Kerchner for her continued support.
One of the mothers, Estela de Carlotto, complained previous governments had wished to “forget about the abuses” and criticised the laws that had prevented military personnel answering for their crimes.
These laws were rescinded by the late Nestor Kirchner, husband of the current president.
As the trials continue and the economy improves, the people of Argentina appear to say there is life after a military dictatorship, corrupt governments and default to the IMF. But the pain of the past remains.