Chile asks Argentina to return San Martin's letter to O. Higgins that Vladimir Putin handed over to Cristina Kirchner

The O. Higginiano Institute has asked the Chilean authorities to take formal steps so that the letter sent by José de San Martín to Bernardo O. Higgins will return to Chile.

The historical document sent by the Argentine liberator to his father of the Chilean homeland in 1835 was found last year during a raid on the residence of former president Cristina Fernández de Kirchner in El Calafate . in custody of the general archives of the nation in Buenos Aires by decision of Judge Claudio Bonadio.

"She said to me, this is for you, President." When I opened the box and I could see San Martin's original letter to O. Higgins, I almost died. "I looked at him and asked," And this? "Did they remove it?" The answer was immediate and even surprised me more: "We sent it to buy for you in New York" "Fernandez wrote in his memoirs.

Consulted by the newspaper MercuryThe historian and general secretary of the O. Higginiano Institute, Yerko Torrejón, said that "it is desirable that a document of this nature be returned to Chile".

The letter – which was part of the archives of the writer, historian and politician Benjamín Vicuña Mackenna (1831-1886) – was lost during a move made in 1979 to documents from the National Archives of Chile, says an article from the agency ANSA.

The Secretary General of the Institute O. Higginiano said: "We hope that there will be a formal initiative of the government bodies for their recovery."

The journalist Alfredo Sepúlveda, author of the biography of Bernardo O. Higgins, did the same. "This type of documents must belong to a public fund, in Chile or Argentina, but not to private companies."

In Argentina, the Director of the General Archives of the Nation, Emilio Perina, based in Buenos Aires, also made statements Mercury: "In my opinion, from an ethical point of view, if a president receives such gifts, the first thing he has to do is call the General Archives of the nation and hand them over." detention."

Regarding the version that Putin acquired in New York, Perina said: "Confirm that our letter has long circulated in illegal markets, that it could have been sold in New York or at any other auction I know archives in Chile in the seventies and the document has disappeared. "

Regarding the fact that the letter goes back to Chile, he replied: "If it's up to me to decide, the letter will return to Chile, good archival practices indicate that we have already digitized it and available it to the citizens."