Miguel Bonasso (Argentina is no paradise, 20 December) fails to recognise the true significance of the new course pursued by his country under former president Néstor Kirchner and his widow and successor Cristina Fernández. The Kirchners have not only restored stability and growth with improved social welfare, they have made Argentina a key player in the Latin American project of regional integration based on sovereignty, social justice and fair trade represented by Mercosur, Alba (the Bolivarian Alliance) and Celac, the new Community of Latin American and Caribbean States.
Independent of Washington – whose outdated and self-centred policies have largely destroyed its influence in the region – this integrationist project of concentric and overlapping regional associations has achieved significant redistribution of wealth, improved popular welfare and democratic empowerment in several member states. It represents the clearest alternative in today's world to the prevailing trend of austerity, depression and growing inequality.
Cristina Fernández cannot do every–thing at once, hence the continued Argentine reliance on soya and maize exports. She faces ferocious opposition from the very elites that benefit from this export model. Indeed, the apparent suicide of the brilliant young economist Iván Heyn, recently appointed Argentine deputy trade minister and found dead in mysterious circumstances on Tuesday in his hotel room in Montevideo during the Mercosur summit, has to be regarded as suspicious.
But as Cristina declared hours later – despite being visibly distressed by this tragic event – Mercosur is not just an economic project, "everything is based on politics and on the will to do things". We in the UK and Europe could surely learn from this example.
Diana Raby
Liverpool
