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Argentina's Debt Museum Is Set
To Tackle Woeful Financial Past
By Suzelle Tempero
of Dow Jones Newswires
The Wall Street Journal
Wednesday, December 8, 2004
BUENOS AIRES -- When tourists in Buenos Aires tire
of the usual museum fare of tango, Evita, and Argentine
art, they can delve into a more academic topic: the
country's staggering external debt.
Set to open in March at the University of Buenos Aires,
the Museum of Foreign Debt will document the country's
long history of living beyond its means, according to
organizers.
"Argentina's debt is huge. It's grown over the years, and
all people know is that it's there," said head curator
Simon Pristupin, also a professor of education and
economics at the university.
Argentina's debt isn't just there -- it's in default and
has been so for nearly three years.
The December 2001 default -- generally considered the
biggest in history -- is still unresolved. Argentina owes
an estimated 500,000 foreign bondholders some $103
billion in principal and unpaid accrued interest. And in
the latest setback to its contentious plan to
significantly reduce that burden, the government was
last month forced to further delay its long-awaited
restructuring offer.
It has been a similar story at the debt museum, whose
debut has been delayed at least twice due to a lack of
funds.
The city government, tangled in red tape, doesn't have
spare cash, Mr. Pristupin says, while individual donors
have offered little more than empty promises thus far.
Finally, with the university's own money supplemented
by funds from a few other sources, including local
Banco de Credito Cooperativo, the project is well on
track for its early 2005 launch.
The new museum will occupy two rooms in the elegant
Georgian-style building that houses the university's
economics department, and consists of exhibits using
timelines, old photographs, modern cartoons, and
theatrical productions aimed at educating visitors.
"We university economists realized that the academic
world isn't doing enough with books and articles to
explain the debt," Mr. Pristupin said.
"The museum explains the complicated problems of
the debt in everyday language," he said. "For instance,
Argentina is like a house, and the owner of the house
has borrowed against the house and now needs to pay
back the loans."
Exhibitions in the main room will change every six
months and focus on topics ranging from the
much-despised "pesification" decree, which converted
dollar-denominated bank deposits into devalued
Argentine pesos in February 2002, to Argentina's first
default on debt payments in 1827, shortly after its
independence from Spain.
For red-ink enthusiasts and policy wonks who want to
dig deeper, the investigation and Documentation
Centers will contain the most extensive collection of
debt-related materials in Argentina, Mr. Pristupin said.
The enormous accumulation includes everything from
defaulted bond contracts to videos of key events, such
as the 2001 speech in which former President
Rodriguez Saa calmly stated: "We are going to take
the bull by the horns. I announce that the Argentine
State will suspend payments on the foreign debt."
"There are so many possible topics, we've got a lineup
of exhibits that goes for years," Mr. Pristupin said.
"Some of the best will be those that compare
Argentina to other countries, like Brazil and Ecuador,
because Argentina is always the most shocking."
The first exhibit will be a sort of introduction to
Argentina's tortured debt history, starting with the
1827 default and moving through four subsequent
defaults to the most recent in 2001.
Mr. Pristupin says the museum will strive to remain
neutral on its topic, which is one that sparks heated
debates in this politically opinionated country of
more than 37 million.
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