Minister visits ‘Switzerland of South America’
Minister visits ‘Switzerland of South America’
By Isobel Leybold-Johnson
May 28, 2016 - 18:21
Swiss Foreign Minister Didier Burkhalter has wrapped up his trip to South America by meeting the descendants of Swiss immigrants in the Uruguayan city of Neuva Helvecia and telling them: “you are Swiss at heart”.
The minister had been in South America for three days to strengthen bilateral relations with Argentina, which he visited first, and Uruguay. He returned to Switzerland on Saturday afternoon.
“The aims of the visit could be fulfilled,” the Swiss foreign ministry told swissinfo.ch on Saturday. “The talks with Vice President [Gabriela] Michetti and Foreign Minister [Susana] Malcorra in Buenos Aires allowed a new chapter in bilateral relations to be opened, which will allow for cooperation in several different areas.”
A boost to bilateral relations with Uruguay came with a joint declaration signed with Uruguay Foreign Minister Rodolfo Nin Novoa, the ministry explained in written comments.
. . .
Uruguay is often known as “the Switzerland of South America” and there are a large number of decedents of Swiss emigrants there, Friday's official media release on the visit explained.
Swiss immigrants founded the city of Nueva Helvecia in the 19th century, and later developed the dairy industry, imported modern farming equipment and founded the cheesemaking industry in the country.
More:
http://www.swissinfo.ch/eng/burkhalter-abroad_minister-visits--switzerland-of-south-america-/42186630
[center]
Spotted Lucía Topolansky, front row, 5th from the left. She's married to fellow rebel,
Uruguay's former President, José Mujica, and they are both extraordinary people.[/center]
= new reply since forum marked as read
rather than for the small Swiss community therein (certainly not for its geography!).
This policy arose out of necessity. When wool prices collapsed in the 1950s, no country was hit harder in the world than Uruguay. It was then that its policymakers decided to make it into a tax haven, and over the next 50 years it became very popular as such among upper-middle class tax dodgers in Brazil and Argentina (the elite preferred Switzerland).
It's a very pretty and serene little country; one would be hard pressed to find people who've visited Uruguay and think otherwise.
[center]
Uruguay's famous hand in seaside Punta del Este - a (perhaps) unwitting nod to the country's status as the continent's preferred tax haven.[/center]
I have never heard that Uruguay has ANY of the scenery I have seen on the internet of both Argentina and Chile, resembling Europe.
How would it look if the fundie Christian Oral Roberts University in Oklahoma donated its giant praying hands statue to Punta del Este, to place beside the giant hand. Would they turn up their noses, or open their arms to some more hands?
[center]
[/center]
They could have also had this tasteful Jesus statue planted nearby, from Monroe, Ohio, had it not be smitten by lightening and vaporised. (Someone was an art lover upstairs, apparently.)
[center]
[/center]
Thanks for informing us of the lesser known tax haven!
By the way, a DU poster who used to be a UPI reporter long ago was sitting in a tea room or something similar in Motevideo one morning, and looked up to suddenly recognize a German Nazi monster, Klaus Barbie, sitting right there in the same place, big as life. He said it was really odd. You may recall that Klaus Barbie then went on to Bolivia, and was very connected to German Bolivian President Hugo Banzer, was involved in interrogation and terrorism for that fascist, worked with him intensely, and was also deeply involved in cocaine trafficking.
So much has happened in South America, and we only know the tiniest of scratches on the surface.
