Argentine sailors abandon Libertad ship in Ghana
Argentina's naval cadets are arriving home tomorrow on a flight from Accra. The ARA Libertad stayed behind.
"Let the boat stay with them, but not our freedom," President Cristina Fernández de Kirchner said in a speech yesterday in Buenos Aires, making a pun on the name of the military training vessel, a 3-mast tall ship that was overhauled in 2007. The ship was built in 1953 by orders of a military-led government and has made 40 sails.
The Libertad was midway through this year's six-month, trans-altantic travel when it stopped at the port of Tema, Ghana, Oct. 1. It was detained there by a court order. Three weeks later, the 220 cadets on board the ship and most of the crew were ordered to abandon ship.
Foreign minister Timerman hopped a flight to New York to make the case to the United Nations that the vessel was protected with military immunity by the Vienna convention. A judge in Accra Oct. 11 ruled Argentina had explicitly waived that right in the language of the contract signed with N.M.L., a wholly-owned subsidiary of Elliott Capital, a U.S. hedge fund, in order to sell bonds on which it later defaulted.
Meanwhile, Tema, a port that serviced about 750,000 shipping containers last year and is the primary port for three neighboring landlocked West African countries, is left with a 104-meter (30 feet) long boat the weighs about 3,765 metric tonnes, or over four tons. The Ghana port authority director asked the court to remove the ship so it does not interfere with commerce or blight the port's reputation.
"Let the boat stay with them, but not our freedom," President Cristina Fernández de Kirchner said in a speech yesterday in Buenos Aires, making a pun on the name of the military training vessel, a 3-mast tall ship that was overhauled in 2007. The ship was built in 1953 by orders of a military-led government and has made 40 sails.
The Libertad was midway through this year's six-month, trans-altantic travel when it stopped at the port of Tema, Ghana, Oct. 1. It was detained there by a court order. Three weeks later, the 220 cadets on board the ship and most of the crew were ordered to abandon ship.
Foreign minister Timerman hopped a flight to New York to make the case to the United Nations that the vessel was protected with military immunity by the Vienna convention. A judge in Accra Oct. 11 ruled Argentina had explicitly waived that right in the language of the contract signed with N.M.L., a wholly-owned subsidiary of Elliott Capital, a U.S. hedge fund, in order to sell bonds on which it later defaulted.
Meanwhile, Tema, a port that serviced about 750,000 shipping containers last year and is the primary port for three neighboring landlocked West African countries, is left with a 104-meter (30 feet) long boat the weighs about 3,765 metric tonnes, or over four tons. The Ghana port authority director asked the court to remove the ship so it does not interfere with commerce or blight the port's reputation.
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