Next Tuesday, the Puebla Group will hold an international meeting in support of Cristina Kirchner during the III World Forum on Human Rights. One of the main speakers will be the former president of Ecuador, Rafael Correa, and his arrival in Buenos Aires will take place in the midst of a climate of tension with the Latin American country after the escape of former minister María de los Ángeles Duarte from the Argentine embassy in Quito where she lived in asylum for more than two years.
With the presence of Cristina Kirchner, there will be round tables led by former presidents Evo Morales (Bolivia), José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero (Spain), Ernesto Samper (Colombia) and the Spanish jurist Baltasar Garzón, in addition to the former Ecuadorian president.
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The activity seeks to denounce the lawfare (legal war) against the vice president “in the face of the political-judicial persecution of which she has been a victim since 2015, which was revealed with the recent judicial sentence against her”, as detailed in the statement released by the body that promotes political exchange.
The meeting, which will be called “Popular will and democracy: from the military party to the judicial party, threats to democracy”, will take place on Tuesday, March 21, at the Kirchner Cultural Center (CCK) starting at 5:00 p.m. At the end of the activity, Cristina Kirchner will give a speech.
The meeting will take place at the Kirchner Cultural Center. (Photo: CCK.gob.ar)
The activity had been postponed twice
“Grupo Puebla -a regional political forum of a progressive nature- did not officially report the reasons for the postponement of the event. It has to do with the agenda of various participants so close to Christmas,” said a source familiar with the organization in December 2022.
In the Casa Rosada they indicated that Alberto Fernández had nothing to do with the postponement and in the team of the presidential spokesperson, Gabriela Cerruti, there was no information about the reasons.
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Strictly speaking, the day had already been rescheduled after the vice president was diagnosed with covid. President Alberto Fernández was also going to participate in the event and Kirchnerism had organized a massive mobilization, which in the end did not take place either.
The tension with Ecuador due to the conflict in the embassy
This Friday, the Argentine ambassador in Ecuador, Gabriel Fuks, withdrew from that country amid the controversy over the escape from the diplomatic headquarters of the former functionary of Rafael Correa, María de los Ángeles Duarte. Upon landing in Colombia, the diplomat planned to make statements to give his version of what had happened.
Ecuador expelled the Argentine ambassador in Quito for the flight of the former Correa minister. (Photo: Courtesy Mendoza News)
Fuks had been declared “persona non grata” by the government of Guillermo Lasso, who held him responsible for the ex-minister’s departure from the Embassy. The diplomatic crossing began this week when Duarte left the Argentine headquarters, where she had been a humanitarian asylum seeker since 2020. In fact, the flight triggered a problem between Argentina and Ecuador, and both countries withdrew their ambassadors.
For Argentina, Fuks had no part in the escape of the former Correa minister, although the Lasso government accuses him of having liberated the area so that Duarte could leave without being seen and then travel to Venezuela where she currently remains. It is that when the police asked Fuks for the security cameras of the diplomatic headquarters, he refused to hand them over.