President Cristina Fernández de Kirchner comes under further fire following row over state prosecutor’s murder as she visits China on trade trip

This article is more than 5 years old

This article is more than 5 years old

Argentina’s President Cristina Fernández de Kirchner caused a furore on Wednesday by joking about her hosts’ accents while on a state visit to China seeking badly needed investment.

Fernández tried to mimic a Chinese accent by switching “rs” with “ls” in a tweet in Spanish that translates as: “Did they only come for lice and petloleum.”

Cristina Kirchner (@CFKArgentina) Más de 1.000 asistentes al evento… ¿Serán todos de “La Cámpola” y vinieron sólo por el aloz y el petlóleo? …

A few minutes later, she added: “Sorry, the levels of ridiculousness and absurdity are so high they can only be digested with humour.”

The tweets came as she met with Chinese President Xi Jinping.

As of late Wednesday, there was no official response from China about the comments by Fernández, a prolific tweeter who has 3.53m followers.

Twitter users around the world criticised Fernández for what many considered a racist tweet.

“Cristina Fernández’s lack of tack and respect is incredible,” wrote @FaundezLafarga. “She goes to China looking for (economic) agreements and she makes fun of their accents.”

@GuyChazan wrote: “Faux pas in China. Really, this sort of joke went out of fashion in the 70s.”

The controversy comes as Fernández struggles to distance herself from the mysterious death of prosecutor Alberto Nisman, who was found dead in his bathroom on 18 January, hours before he was to elaborate on allegations that Fernández helped shield Iranians connected to the 1994 bombing of a Jewish community centre that killed 85.

Fernández has vehemently denied the accusations, saying Argentina had nothing to gain from such a deal. She has suggested that rogue elements in the intelligence services ordered Nisman’s death, but has not elaborated.

Earlier this week, just as her visit to China was getting underway, investigators looking into Nisman’s death said they had found a of an arrest warrant for Fernández that Nisman had written up. While he never presented it, the revelations brought Fernández back to the centre of the case.



