The layers, conflicting, controversial and opaque, of Argentina’s traumatic history are all too visible in the latest attack by President Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner on her opponents in the press. According to news reports the Kirchner administration is planning to seize the stakes held by the country’s two main (conservative) newspapers in Papel Prensa, Argentina’s largest newsprint mill.
On the face of it, this seems just like another step in Kirchner’s attempt to cripple her most significant media opposition, but then we read that the confiscation will be based on allegations that these holdings were the result of improper pressure (to use an inadequate euphemism) by the country’s then military dictatorship on the Gravier family to sell its stake. Under the circumstances, overturning the sale starts to look very reasonable, but then we read this from Montevideo-based Mercopress (I’ve tidied up the English a little):
According to La Nacion [one of the two newspapers] “it was always clear” that the Gravier family “were free at the moment of the sale” on November second 1976, and “had not been subjected to torture or death threats by the military regime”.
“The fact of the matter is that the shares were purchased from the Gravier Group in November 1976 by newspapers Clarin, La Nacion and La Razon when the group was facing serious financial and partnership problems, following the collapse of two overseas banks, and when the group was unable to continue with the construction of the plant”, argues Clarin in its editorial.
Clarin adds that at the time the members of the Gravier family were free and under no threat from the military regime, and at the moment of the transfer of assets, nobody was aware of the links of the Gravier Group with the armed guerrillas Montoneros…
Suddenly matters start to look a little less clear — and a lot more Kirchner.