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Continued controversy over Kirchner's desire to control the newspapers

August 24, 2010

Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner will hold an event at the Casa Rosada today that could plunge Argentina into its most serious political crisis since the battle with the farmers in 2008. She will release a lengthy government report entitled, "Papel Prensa: The Truth", about the 1976 purchase of the Papel Prensa printing press, which produces nearly all of the publications of Clarin Group and La Nacion the nation's two leading independent news outlets, which have both become highly critical of the Kirchner government. The press was acquired jointly in 1976 at the beginning of the military regime by Clarin, La Nacion and the former La Razon newspaper (owned at the time by Jacob Timerman, father of Foreign Minister Hector Timerman), with the national government retaining a minority share. Cristina will allege that the acquisition was made under duress against the financially distressed owners at the time, who she will allege were tortured in order to give up control of the operation; therefore, the acquisition was illegal, and she will go to court in order to appropriate all of its shares and make it state-controlled.

Anticipating the report, La Nacion and Clarin published a joint statement on their front pages this morning calling the allegations "lies" and saying that the Kirchner government is "inventing a story" in order to "go against the independent press" and exert control against its critics: "cto control paper is to control information, and that is what the government is trying to do through various tools: official advertising, the media law, control of access to information, the militant management of public media and the multiplication of para-official media."

Gustavo Caraballo, ex-Argentine ambassador to UNESCO, who was familiar with the terms of the sale in 1976 and was detained in 1977 by the dictatorship at the same time as the former owners of Papel Prensa the Graiver family, who sold the operation in the 1976 deal said the allegations to be announced by Cristina today are not true. He released a public letter stating that he had direct contact with the Gravier family at the time of the sale in 1976 and afterwards, knew the details of their financial situation before and after the sale, and was detained and tortured at the same time as the Gravier family in 1977, and that the detention was months after the sale and "had nothing to do with the sale at all". "They were in a desperate financial situation (in 1976), the businesses had plunged, in New York they were counseled to sell their shares, as any attorney would recommend upon learning of the issue. In that context, they sold Papel Prensa. The detention was months later and had nothing to do with the transfer," he wrote.

The Papel Prensa conflict will unfold in a climate of heightened tension after the government announced the cancellation of the license by Clarin-owned Fibertel to provide internet service to subscribers, and the pro-government trucking union blockade of Siderar's factories in an intensifying labor dispute, which Clarin reports not only threatens the viability of the unit of Techint Group, but the regional economy of San Nicolas, where the operations are concentrated. The Industrial Union of Argentina (UIA) issued a statement expressing its "strong worry and rejection of the illegitimate use of force for the seventh consecutive day" against Siderar.

El Cronista reports that the government is exerting heavy pressure on the country's top business leaders to be present at the Casa Rosada this afternoon for Cristina's Papel Prensa announcement. Most of the major business organizations, for fear of reprisals, will send high-level representatives. Many were called by Commerce Secretary Guillermo Moreno, who the paper reports told some that they should "bring a pretty tie for the photos". Telam reported definitively that "the majority of important business leaders that days ago participated in the meeting between the UIA and the AEA will be present" at Cristina's event.

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