Argentina expresses deep unease with Mujica's comments.
The President of Uruguay called Argentine President Cristina Kirchner "old" and her husband, former President Néstor Kirchner (2003-2007), who died in 2010, "one-eyed"; this is the second diplomatic incident between the countries, provoked by an open microphone. In 2002, then-President Jorge Batlle called Argentinians "a bunch of thieves."
Monica Yanakiew
Correspondent for Agência Brasil/EBC
Buenos Aires – The Argentine government today (4) expressed its “deep unease” with the “derogatory comments” made by the President of Uruguay, Jose Pepe Mujica, regarding President Cristina Kirchner and her husband, former President Néstor Kirchner (2003-2007), who died in 2010. “That old woman [Cristina] is worse than the one-eyed man [Néstor Kirchner]. He was a politician; she is stubborn,” said Mujica, in the middle of a conversation with a Uruguayan mayor, about the difficult relations between his country and neighboring Argentina. The two were waiting for the start of a press conference and did not realize that the microphones were open and capturing the president's speech.
Mujica's comments were immediately picked up by the press and social media. Faced with the backlash, he explained to journalists that he was "talking about Lula [former president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva] and Brazil" and that he had never publicly mentioned Argentina. "I'm not going to pay any attention, nor am I going to travel the world clarifying anything," Mujica said.
At the beginning of the conversation with the mayor of the Uruguayan city of Florida, Mujica said that "to get anything from Argentina, it was necessary to resort a little to Brazil," before explaining his difficulty in negotiating with Cristina and comparing her to her husband Nestor, whom he called one-eyed because of his strabismus.
The Argentine Foreign Ministry reacted with a strongly worded statement, deeming the offensive comments against the memory of Néstor Kirchner "unacceptable," especially coming from someone he considered his friend. However, it stated that the president would not comment on the criticisms directed at her. The "historical relations" between the two countries "should not be affected" by the episode, the statement concluded.
This is the second diplomatic incident between Uruguay and Argentina caused by an open microphone. In 2002, then-Uruguayan President Jorge Batlle made a rant at the end of an interview, thinking the television camera had been turned off: "The Argentinians are a bunch of thieves, from the first to the last," he said. At the time, the Argentine crisis was affecting the Uruguayan economy. Batlle traveled to Buenos Aires to apologize to then-President Eduardo Duhalde (Néstor Kirchner's predecessor).