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Argentina: Neoliberalism versus Human Rights at the CHR

Geneva, Mar 15 (Prensa Latina) Argentina hit a raw nerve today by exposing the damaging results of the structural adjustment programs and the aftermath of the foreign debt on the peoples´basic rights.

Horacio Rosatti, minister of Justice and Human Rights, said the Argentinean people know much about this, as the social and economic crisis weighs on their shoulders due to the enforced neoliberal policies.

Before the plenary of the 61st session period of the United Nations Commission on Human Rights (UNCHR), Rosatti lashed out at the receipes imposed by the international financial institutions which provoked social uprisings in Argentina.

He referred to the "violation of rights and guarantees and their social exclusion consequences" due to the structural adjustment policies, as well as foreign debt and financial speculation that originated it.

Such conditions motivated an increase in unemployment, poverty and misery which the government of Nestor Kirchner confronts from different perspectives compared to previous administrations, he said.

"We can assert here that, although the emergency has not been overcome, Argentina has today 3.2 million persons less under the poverty line and 3.5 million persons less in abject poverty", he said.

He defended the results of the recent exchange of foreign debt titles, aimed most of all to defend and guarantee basic economic, social and cultural rights of the population."

On this issue, Rosatti highlighted that for the first time Argentina carries out a restructuring of the debt that ends with a drastic reduction of the country´s debt.

It has been an operation "compatible with economic growth and development and not at the cost of the Argentinean people´s hunger," he stressed.

Rosatti advanced his delegation will present a draft resolution at the CHR on the right to truth, not only of the relatives of victims of severe rights violations but the Argentinean society as a whole.

He also explained his country´s participation in the redaction of a draft resolution titled "Facultative Protocol for the International Pact on economic, social and cultural rights."

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