Today, a new plenary meeting of the National Defense and Foreign Relations and Worship Committees of the Senate of the Nation is taking place. It will begin at 1:00 p.m. in the Arturo Illia hall .
The reason is to reconsider File CD 9/24, referring to the bill under review that authorizes the entry of foreign troops into the national territory and the exit of national forces, to participate in the exercises contemplated in the combined exercise program to be held from September 1, 2024 to August 31, 2025 .
The Secretary of International Affairs for Defense, Juan Battaleme , is present, and the meeting is being broadcast through the official channels of the Senate of the Nation .
Let us remember that, as we reported in Agenda Malvinas , the first plenary meeting of both commissions was held on August 20, but during the course of the meeting, questions were raised by Senators Silvia Sapag and María Eugenia Duré . They raised their concerns and questions regarding the exercises mentioned. Having received no answers from the officials of the Ministry of Defense, both senators refused to approve the execution of the exercises “Guinex” and “Vinciguerra” , stating that they would prepare a minority opinion since they were opposed to their execution.
But things did not end there, as Senators Sapag and Duré reported in the session of Thursday, September 12 that they were pressured on repeated occasions, mainly targeting Senator Francisco Paoltroni , former head of the official bloc of La Libertad Avanza and president of the Foreign Relations and Worship Commission , as well as his assistants and collaborators.
The exercises in question
The combined exercises that make up this annual programme are detailed in the annexes to the draft law.
According to the text and the information published on the Parlamentario.com portal, 15 military exercises are planned, of which one corresponds to the Argentine Army, twelve correspond to the Argentine Navy and one corresponds to the Argentine Air Force.
Of the total number of exercises mentioned, six are multilateral, eight are bilateral and one, “Passex” , is opportunistic, and may be bilateral or multilateral depending on the circumstances.
Two of the exercises, “Integration 2024” and “Viekaren” , focus on an emergency or catastrophe situation; six of them, “Acrux” , “Atlasur” , “Fraterno” , “Inalaf” , “Unitas” and “Cruzex” , are exercises within the framework of a hypothetical mission of the United Nations Organization.
Furthermore, “Operation Formosa” proposes the integration of Argentine Navy personnel in the use of weapons systems used by the Brazilian Navy; “Galapex” establishes the organization and use of a multinational force to exercise interoperability in the surveillance and control of maritime spaces of interest, and two of them, “Siforex” aims to increase the level of interoperability and training with a focus on submarine and anti-submarine actions.
Regarding “Arandú” , a planning and simulation exercise is being designed in the office using computer resources from the Brazilian Army platform: Virtual Battle. The “Atlasur” exercise provides an opportunity to share experiences and promote links beyond our region by being carried out with the Navy of the Republic of South Africa.
Regarding the exercise “Passex” , it constitutes a possible “exercise/s of opportunity”, in which basic naval training activities are carried out when a foreign war unit makes a passage along the Argentine maritime coast during its transfer, and therefore does not specify a date of realization, since the planning and execution of this is subject to the possible passage of a foreign war unit through the waters of the Exclusive Economic Zone of the Argentine Republic, as reported by Parlamentario.com .
Finally, the exercises that have been questioned by Senators Sapag and Duré are, firstly, “Guinex” , led by the Brazilian Navy , which involves the Argentine Navy and aims to work in a multinational manner on maritime traffic control within the ZOPACAS (Zone of Peace and Cooperation of the South Atlantic) interacting with navies of the African continent, in the Gulf of Equatorial Guinea and, secondly, “Vinciguerra”, which allows bilateral training of our Marine Corps with the US Marine Corps , exchanging training techniques and tactics in elite units of the Marine Corps, improving the process of planning, preparation and risk management of operations in mountainous terrain typical of the southern scenario of the province of Tierra del Fuego, Antarctica and the South Atlantic Islands .
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