(C) ARGENTINA: TAIANA TRIES TO EXPLAIN CFK'S

C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 02 BUENOS AIRES 000927 SIPDIS E.O. 12958: DECL: 08/13/2029 TAGS: PREL MASS SNAR PTER PARM PGOV CO AR SUBJECT: (C) ARGENTINA: TAIANA TRIES TO EXPLAIN CFK'S MACHINATIONS ON COLOMBIA-US DCA REF: A. BUENOS AIRES 0911 ¶B. STATE 82581 ¶C. QUITO 715 Classified By: CDA Tom Kelly for reasons 1.4 (b) and (d). ¶1. (C) Summary: The GOA confirmed August 12 President Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner's (CFK) August 10 invitation to South American heads of government to an August 28 UNASUR meeting on the Colombia-U.S. negotiations of a Defense Cooperation Agreement (DCA). CFK made the invitation during UNASUR discussions in Quito on August 10, where she also repeated her criticisms of the DCA, calling it a destabilizing development in the region. Foreign Minister Taiana and other MFA sources tell us that CFK's offer to host was an impromptu decision, and Taiana insisted to the CDA that we should view as sincere CFK's position that she wants to be a moderating force and honest mediator. At the same time, however, CFK revealed her propensity to utter anti-American rhetoric when she concluded "we cannot permit that in addition to exporting to us the economic crisis and the (H1N1) influenza they now establish a situation of belligerence in the region." Although Argentine press reported that Brazilian President Lula had undertaken to invite President Obama to meet with UNASUR leaders and explain the DCA, Taiana told us that invitation would not be to attend the August 28 meeting but might be sought for the margins of UNGA in September. End Summary. Taiana on the GOA's Strategy -------------- ¶2. (C) Foreign Minister Jorge Taiana reviewed the upcoming UNASUR summit on August 13 on his return from Ecuador and Venezuela. Taiana took pains to insist that CFK's offer to host the summit in Argentina was intended to contain bellicose Bolivarian rhetoric in the wake of the emotional discussions in Quito (ref C). Despite Lula's call for a meeting with President Obama, Taiana said that CFK wanted to bring UNASUR members together first to try to find some common ground. Argentina was the natural government to play this role, he argued, because of its low level of military spending and its good relations with both Bolivian and non-Bolivarian countries. ¶3. (C) According to Taiana, upon her return to Buenos Aires August 12, CFK called Colombian President Alvaro Uribe. In what Taiana claimed was a cordial conversation, CFK secured Uribe's agreement to attend the summit on the condition that the agenda would enable him to address Colombia's security concerns. With Uribe's agreement to participate in hand, she then called the other UNASUR leaders on August 12 and 13. Taiana said that the GOA now had commitments from all participants to participate in the August 28 summit in the Argentine resort town of Bariloche. ¶4. (C) Noting the USG's position on the DCA's limited and targeted scope, CDA pressed Taiana to articulate what the GOA expected to achieve by bringing together such a motley crew of governments. Taiana admitted that the GOA's expectations for concrete outcomes from the summit were limited. He observed that relations between Colombia on one hand and Venezuela and Ecuador on the other could not be worse, and the personal enmity between Rafael Correa and Uribe was particularly intense. No consensus on the DCA was likely from the summit, he conceded. Nonetheless, he said, the GOA would seek to win UNASUR support for confidence-building measures concerning the DCA and related security issues that could serve to reduce regional tensions. If the discussion succeeded in that regard, he continued, UNASUR leaders would seek to engage President Obama, perhaps on the margins of the upcoming U.N. General Assembly meetings. Impromptu Decision -------------- ¶5. (C) In separate conversations, others in the MFA went off script to describe the UNASUR summit's improvised origins. Raul Ricardes, General Coordinator for Multilateral Affairs at the Argentine Foreign Ministry, told CDA on August 12 that CFK's August 10 offer in Quito to host a Union of South American Nations (UNASUR) summit on the U.S.-Colombian Defense Cooperation Agreement (DCA) was impromptu, done without any advance planning at the Foreign Ministry. According to press reports, CFK spoke following Brazilian President Lula's call for dialogue on the issue and made the offer to host. In her remarks, she emphasized that Colombia needed to participate, so that it would "not be seen as a BUENOS AIR 00000927 002 OF 002 source of tension," and that the meeting needed to occur somewhere that Colombian President Uribe could meet with his counterparts without a sensation of "hostility against him." Per Ref C, when Ecuadorian President Correa interjected to propose Buenos Aires, CFK immediately accepted and offered to host. (Comment: It is perhaps a measure of the decision's spontaneity that overnight the GOA shifted the venue from Buenos Aires to the legendary Llao Llao resort in the Bariloche ski area. Taiana's chief of cabinet told the CDA that the Casa Rosada made the decision to give a boost to the resort town, which is suffering during through a disastrously sub-par high season, despite the MFA's protests that holding the summit there will prove a logistical nightmare.) ¶6. (C) Despite her expressed desire to mediate, CFK was again critical of the DCA in Quito, consistent with remarks attributed to her following an August 5 meeting in Buenos Aires with Uribe (ref A). She said that because of "endogenous and exogenous factors, they are bringing about an unprecedented ("inedita") and unacceptable situation of hostility." She also said the problem could not be treated by Defense Ministers because it was "not military but political," one that could only be resolved, if at all, by the regional presidents. CFK then set her crosshairs on the United States, saying, "We cannot permit that in addition to exporting to us the economic crisis and the (H1N1) influenza, they now establish a situation of belligerence in the region. This would be highly worrying and damaging to our societies and governments." ¶7. (C) Acting DCM called on MFA Latin American Affairs Director Agustin Colombo-Sierra (ACS) August 13, who also described the Quito ministerial and presidential meetings as exceptionally improvised. ACS confirmed that CFK had followed up her August 10 impromptu invitation with telephone calls to all South American leaders (except Guyana and Suriname),and that all had accepted -- starting with Uribe, whose participation was crucial. ACS confirmed that Brazilian President Lula had undertaken, at the August 10 meeting in Quito, to invite President Obama to meet with UNASUR leaders and explain the DCA. ACS said there were no plans to invite President Obama to the August 28 meeting in Bariloche but that that Lula might seek to arrange a meeting for UNASUR leaders with President Obama in New York on the margins of the UNGA in September. ¶8. (C) ADCM stressed to ACS that the U.S. was not seeking to establish bases in Colombia and that it was wrong to speak of U.S. "bases" in Colombia. He said the U.S. was talking with Colombia about gaining additional access to Colombian military facilities in order to deepen our cooperation against narcotics trafficking and other transnational crimes. But She Means Well -------------- ¶9. (C) Charge d'Affaires discussed CFK's intervention on the DCA issues on August 12 with Gustavo Cinosi (protect),a businessman with close ties to the Kirchners. Cinosi said he had been discussing the matter with Carlos Zannini, Kirchner confidant and Casa Rosada Legal and Technical Secretary. Cinosi said Zannini had emphasized that Argentina did not share Venezuela's ideological position on the DCA and that the GOA truly wanted to be a constructive mediator on the issue. Cinosi suggested we should try to excuse CFK's rhetorical flourishes; she was not a good listener and her "social autism" left her unawares of how some comments might be perceived. In fact, he said, CFK undoubtedly expected the U.S. to be grateful for her standing up to President Chavez's outright condemnation of the DCA and instead pushing for a fair hearing at which Uribe could present his views. Comment -------------- ¶10. (C) Despite Taiana's valiant effort to portray the summit as a well-planned Argentine effort to mediate the regional conflict, we have the sinking feeling that the event will not end well. CFK's continuing propensity to cast Colombia's security problems in Bolivarian terms makes it unlikely that she will identify and build consensus around constructive confidence-building measures that appeal to all sides. As a very heterogeneous group of leaders prepares to converge on Bariloche, we will continue to seek to impress upon the GOA the importance of behaving less tendentiously. KELLY