Assembly calls on Congress to Suspend Payments and then Investigate the Debt


MEMBERS OF THE NATIONAL CONGRESS:
You need to reverse the order of the factors. These should be:

FIRST: Suspend payments and investigate the debt accumulated since 1976
SECOND: Pay in a sustainable way, only the debt that is legitimate and legal
  
With regard to the bill for the "Sovereign Payment of the Foreign Debt", sent by the Government to the Congress and now under consideration in the House of Representatives, the Assembly for the Suspension of Payments and Investigation of the Debt and in Defense of our National Patrimony and the Commons, composed of a wide range of Argentine organizations and popular leaders, expresses its deep indignation and rejection.

Far from contributing to solve the serious problem of eternal debt, this bill is a hurried affront to the rights of people and nature. We must remind Members of Congress that the people are the only true sovereign and that you are only their representatives and therefore cannot act against the interests of the people.

We denounce that is against the interests of the people that the Congress declare to be in the "public interest", the payment of a debt whose origins and subsequent negotiations the very same bill orders to investigate, and about  which the Argentine judicial system has already proven its illegality and illegitimacy in Judge Ballestero's ruling on the Olmos case (2000) that was then remitted to the National Congress. Far from complying with its Constitutional mandate to manage the debt, the Congress of which you are members has kept the Ballestero ruling shelved for 14 years, and as a result, until now, the debt keeps our people chained colonially. Payment of this debt violates fundamental human rights and is a tool to impose an extractive and expulsive model of development.

We urge Congress to declare to be in the public interest the payment of the only legitimate debt: the debt to the sovereign people, our national heritage and the commons.

We reject parliamentary approval of a new and unconstitutional transfer of our sovereignty and jurisdiction, approving a bond issue that would be governed not by Argentine law but by French law. Instead we demand the annulment of laws, treaties and agreements (including bond issues), participation in the International Centre for the Settlement of Investment Disputes (ICSID) and more than 50 treaties protecting vulture- investors, that are the real check to the sovereignty of our country.

The debt was imposed via blood, fire, and disappearances by the civilian-military dictatorship, and then renegotiated and restructured again and again against the interests of the people. After years and years of denying the possibility of an audit and investigation, it is noteworthy that the government has now included in the bill the creation of a "Bicameral Commission of Inquiry".

While this could be considered something of an advance in response to popular demands, it must be recognized that it is nothing more than blatant hypocrisy that does not withstand the most superficial scrutiny. The bill that you have now in your hands, emanating from the Executive and already approved by the Senate in which the government has a majority, first declares paying the debt to be in the "public interest" - meekly obeying maneuvers proposed by the Executive to continue forcing the people to pay - and then hypocritically proposes creating a "Permanent Commission" to investigate the debt from its origins to today. The height of hypocrisy is the fact that this commission is charged with issuing a "Final Report" in just 180 days. Even on the basis of the 477 cases of irregularities and illict acts proven more than a decade ago in Judge Ballestero 's ruling, investigation of remaining period would be impossible in the allotted. As proof of this it would be sufficient to see how long it took the sister republic of Ecuador to audit its debt after the historic decision of a government that was thinkng in terms of the good of its people.

The Argentine people and their social and human rights organizations have been able to confront and defeat the vultures of the criminal dictatorship, overcoming  due obediences, pardons and full stops. As Members of Congress, you should have no doubt that we will also know how to confront, defeat, try and punish, wherever they are, the vultures and predators that, thirty years later, are still colonizing and pillaging our country, together with all those who whether through acts or omissions, have acted and act as their accomplices.

ASSEMBLY FOR THE SUSPENSION OF PAYMENTS AND INVESTIGATION OF THE DEBT AND FOR THE DEFENCE OF OUR NATIONAL HERITAGE AND COMMONS

Buenos Aires, 09/09/14

To defend our Country is to not pay illegitimate debt. The People are the only true creditors. Suspend Payments and Investigate the Debt. Defend our National Heritage and the Commons.