Argentine Navy chief replaced over training ship seizure

[TimothyC]

15 October 2012 Last updated at 21:01 ET
Argentine navy chief replaced amid Libertad row

The head of Argentina's navy has been replaced following the seizure in West Africa of a naval training ship and its 300 crew amid a debt dispute.

The Argentine government is holding an inquiry into who was responsible for allowing the Libertad to stop in Ghana two weeks ago.

Creditors say they will not release the ship until Argentina repays money owed to them from a default in 2001.

An Argentine delegation is in Ghana trying to resolve the stalemate.

Navy chief Carlos Alberto Paz has been replaced and two other senior naval officials suspended, Argentina's defence ministry said on Monday.

A statement said the navy's former organisational chief, Alfredo Mario Blanco, had changed the ship's itinerary and was now being investigated. It said Admiral Luis Gonzalez, the navy's secretary general, had also been suspended and was under investigation.

President Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner's government has demanded the ship's release, saying it cannot legally be held by creditors because of its military nature.

The Libertad - a three-masted tall ship - was detained in the Ghanaian port of Tema on 2 October under a court order obtained by NML Capital.

The firm says Argentina owes it more than $300m (£186m) and it will only release the ship if the country pays it at least $20m.

NML Capital is a subsidiary of US hedge fund Elliot Capital Management, one of Argentina's former creditors.

Argentina defaulted on more than $100bn (£62bn) of debt in 2001 and 2002, the biggest default in history.

Most of these loans were restructured in 2005 and 2010, giving creditors about 30% of their money back.

However, some creditors including Elliot chose to hold out, pursuing the Argentine government through the courts to recover the full amount.

Someone screwed up, and someone wants their money back.

[Sea Skimmer]

You can't seize commissioned naval vessels, Argentine will be getting her back; if the country wasn't such a basket case they'd already be sending a destroyer to blockade Tema harbor until the ship was released. Might happen anyway.

[White Haven]

'Can't' only applies until someone does it anyway. *checks the article* Oops. About that...

I have to admit, the sheer cheek of acquiring collateral after the fact appeals to me. It's almost like this house-of-cards practice of unsecured international debt is risky as fuck and no one wants to call it.

[cosmicalstorm]

You can't seize commissioned naval vessels, Argentine will be getting her back; if the country wasn't such a basket case they'd already be sending a destroyer to blockade Tema harbor until the ship was released. Might happen anyway.

I couldn't tell from the linked article but it sounds like they already did seize the ship? What am I not getting?

[Batman]

'it cannot legally be held by creditors because of its military nature.' You can absolutely physically seize the ship, but you're breaking international law by doing so.

[Spoonist]

It's claimed to not be a naval vessel due to its use in training.
It's just politics and pressure.

http://www.forbes.com/sites/afontevecch ... [quote]The crew consists of 200 men including 69 Argentine sailors, 15 Chilean, 8 Uruguayan, and one each from Bolivia, Brazil, Paraguay, Suriname, Peru, South Africa, and Venezuela.[/quote]
So they are using that as an argument that it is not really a military vessel.

[Irbis]

You can't seize commissioned naval vessels, Argentine will be getting her back; if the country wasn't such a basket case they'd already be sending a destroyer to blockade Tema harbor until the ship was released. Might happen anyway.

Well, even if you can't, it's not like people won't try - Sedov, Russian naval training vessel had to run from EU ports several times, same with Russian warplanes that had to quickly hightail it from international shows twice

[ChaserGrey]

What's interesting is that these guys aren't getting axed just because the ship was seized, but because apparently it wasn't originally supposed to stop in Ghana, and somebody high up in the Navy added that port visit. Be interesting to check their bank balances and phone records. A sufficiently ruthless international lender might consider setting this all up with a few bribes to be part of their collection costs...