DATE=4/9/02

TYPE=INTERVIEW TRANSCRIPT

TITLE=FALCOFF/ARGENTINA

NUMBER=3-122

BYLINE=REBECCA WARD

DATELINE=WASHINGTON

INTERNET=

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HOST: In Argentina, demonstrators greeted a top International Monetary Fund official with protests, after he flew into Buenos Aires. Anoop Singh is on a ten day mission to assess the country's economic situation and discuss a possible aid package with the government. A group of protesters, however, tried to block Mr. Singh's motorcade from leaving the airport. In December, the lending agency withheld more than one-billion dollars from Argentina, saying the government failed to control spending. V-O-A News Now's Rebecca Ward spoke with Latin America specialist Mark Falcoff, of the American Enterprise Institute in Washington. He says the prospects for the I-M-F reaching an agreement with the Argentine government are not very good at this point.

MR. FALCOFF: I think that the goals of the I-M-F and the goals of the Argentine Government are so completely different it is very difficult to anticipate an agreement, at least at an early date. What the Argentine Government wants is 20-billion-dollars just to start, to fund a particularly irrational economic system. The I-M-F wants drastic reforms that, if enacted, would probably lead to the collapse of that government. So it is very difficult to anticipate an early agreement.

MS. WARD: The I-M-F had an agreement, but they held back the 20-billion-dollars?

MR. FALCOFF: Let me explain. The I-M-F had reached an agreement with the previous government, which was based on certain assumptions of what that government would do. That government collapsed at the end of last year. And so the money that was agreed to be handed to them has been held in abeyance and will not be given until the new government agrees to the same conditions, which it has not.

MS. WARD: What are those conditions?

MR. FALCOFF: Well, I do not know. I mean, they are very technical. You are asking me to go through a very, very complicated list of conditions. Basically, it has to do with the fact that the Argentine Government has to start operating as a more rational organization, not simply an organization to distribute goodies to people who happen to be in favor of or affiliated with the ruling party.

MS. WARD: One of the moves that Argentina had taken early on was keeping control of the money in the bank, and so their residents were not allowed to take out a certain amount of money. Is that still ongoing?

MR. FALCOFF: Absolutely. And that amounts, by the way, to an expropriation of the property of the entire Argentine middleclass. So, if there is a little bit of disturbances in downtown Buenos Aires, you can understand why that would be so. And that would be the case in any country - in Sweden, in Switzerland, in the United States - any country where you essentially confiscate 40 or 50-percent of the savings of the middleclass. You would have to expect to see some disturbances on the street.

MS. WARD: Today there were protests, and they were burning the U-S flag at the arrival of the I-M-F representative. Why protesting against the United States?

MR. FALCOFF: They are burning the U-S flag because the U-S Treasury is refusing to endorse a program of writing a 20-billion-dollar check for nothing. ... They can burn as many flags as they want; they will get no money from the United States. I think we are well past the point when the United States has to make decisions on the basis of who loves us and who does not.

And, by the way, the United States is not alone in this. The G-7 foreign ministers met in Ottawa in February, and all of them, including the foreign ministers of France, of Spain, of Italy, all these countries whose presidents say they support Argentina, when it came right down to push comes to shove, the foreign ministers of all of those countries supported the U-S positions. So they might as well burn Italian, Spanish, and French flags while they are at it.

HOST: Latin America specialist Mark Falcoff of the American Enterprise Institute in Washington spoke to V-O-A News Now's Rebecca Ward.

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