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This week's SchNEWS: http://www.schnews.org.uk/
WAKE UP! WAKE UP! IT'S YER ARGI-MENTATIVE
SchNEWS
Friday 12th 2002 | Issue 350!
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TAKING THE PESO
Last December, the people of Argentina rose up in fury against the
economic disaster wrought on them by their government, hand in hand with
big business, banks and the International Monetary Fund (IMF). The world
watched on TV as pictures of supermarkets and food shops being looted
showed a country at breaking point. On the evening of the 19th of
December President De la Rúa appeared on Argentinean TV, refusing to
resign and instead imposing a state of emergency. Within minutes of his
broadcast, the people took to the streets. In Buenos Aires, an estimated
million people left their homes and headed for the main Plaza de Mayo,
banging pots and pans, chanting 'El estado de sitio, que se lo meten en
el culo' (the state of emergency, they can stick it up their arse), and
demanding the resignation of De la Rúa and the whole government. 'Que se
vayan todos!' (out with them all!) quickly became the main slogan, and
after two days of protest and repression which left some 35 people dead,
President De la Rúa duly obliged and fled.
Since then, Argentina has been through an astonishing time.TV news has
become a surreal portrait of a country turned upside down - a
Congresswoman's house is set on fire by a mob outside after her son
shoots a protestor from inside; a group of artists hold a 'mierdazo' - a
shit-throwing demo - on the steps of Congress under the slogan 'Putting
the shit where it belongs'; farmers bring hundreds of chicks they can't
afford to feed to the steps of a provincial government house - when
another march, of piqueteros, arrives, they scoop up the chicks and take
them away to eat. Popular assemblies have sprung up in barrios
(neighbourhoods) all over the country, and the unemployed workers'
movement, the piqueteros (picketers), have stepped up their road-blocking
activities. As these two currents of protest form tentative links, the
loan sharks of the IMF, despised by the people, are in town again to
impose their will on a government desperate for more 'assistance' and
still willing to go to any lengths to get it.
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Eyewitness Account...
An eye-witness account of the uprising of the 19th December, posted on
indymedia
" I was watching television, seeing the lootings and the uprisings in the
country's interior. Suddenly the president appeared on the screen, he was
talking about differentiating between criminals and the needy. He spoke
quietly, almost elegantly, trying to sound in charge. He said he had
announced today the state of emergency. I knew that it is
unconstitutional in Argentina for the president to declare a state of
emergency, only the congress can do that. I was disgusted and I turned
off the TV.
I started hearing a sound...a very quiet sound, but growing. I went to the
balcony of my apartment and looked out - people on every balcony banging
pots and pans. The sound got louder and louder... it was a roar, and it
wasn't going to stop. I saw some people on the corner of the street I
live, no more than 10. I put on a shirt and went down. On every corner I
could see people gathering in small groups. This is a comfortable middle
class neighbourhood, but everybody's been fucked by what's going on, and
it's been going on for far too long. On the corner of the next street
people had started gathering on the middle of the streets. Banging spoons
against pans, waving flags...in a few minutes we were something like 150
people.
We started walking. Nobody seemed to know where we were going or what was
gonna happen...an hour had gone by since the banging started and the noise
wasn't stopping, coming from every corner of the city. As we walked,
people were joining us, it was exciting, almost manic. The feeling of
regaining your own power. I looked back and suddenly this spontaneous
demonstration was a couple of blocks long. I could see people in suits
and people in working uniforms. I could see young girls in nice clothes
and senior citizens in old clothes. I could see the small businessman who
is suffering from higher and higher taxes and it's about to lose his
house from his bank loans and the young man who has been excluded by the
system and couldn't get a job for 4 years. Everybody was represented. It
was amazing. People cheered from the balconies, small pieces of shredded
paper falling slowly to the streets...singing, banging, marching.
When I got to Congress, a couple of thousand people were already there
and I could see more people coming in from every corner. It felt like a
party. The flags waving, the chants, the clapping. A guy at the top of
the steps lit some sort of smoke-flare - pink smoke all over the place. I
looked around, I don't know why but I started feeling tense. People kept
on coming and we started marching to the Casa Rosada. Things didn't feel
exciting anymore, it felt tenser and tenser. I could see some fire on the
street ahead - a small trashcan on fire. I kept on walking. Some people
were quietly singing and clapping but I saw other small fires. I had
entered a column that came from a tougher neighbourhood than mine. I
don't blame them - they've been fucked way harder than anybody else and
hunger breeds anger. A young guy was banging a stick against a street
sign, and this thirtyish guy, skinny and dressed in really old jeans and
shirt, holding a young girl in his arms, said something to him. The young
man looked back, he saw the columns of people. I could catch this phrase
from the skinny guy "Look at how many we are". I looked back. I saw and
felt what I felt at the beginning. Everybody was there, everybody was
represented, we were so many.
When I got to Plaza de Mayo a couple of thousand were there and they kept
on coming. People started coming in on cars as well as marching. Young
people, old people, families - the people. I walked around. Amazed. I was
thinking that not many days you go to the balcony to check the noises
coming from the streets and you end up being a witness to a presidential
deposal by social uprising. Suddenly I was pushed in the back by
somebody. When I regained balance I saw people running away. Somebody was
yelling "Sons of bitches" right next to me. Out of instinct I started
running with them. I ran half a block, stopped and looked back. I saw
thousands of people running.
Somebody passing me said something about the police. I couldn't quite
understand...my nose started itching. I looked back - in the plaza, 500
metres back, I could see smoke. People's eyes, they were reddening. My
throat hurt. I ran. People were going off in all directions away from the
plaza. The smoke got higher and higher, I took off my shirt and covered
my nose and mouth. My eyes itched. I got pretty far and looked around.
This guy in a Miami Florida T-shirt, absolutely middle class, said he now
understood what the piqueteros felt. I suddenly realized I was crying. I
didn't know if it was from the tear gases or from impotence and anger.
* Serious street fighting followed, that night and the next day, and 35
people were killed during the two-day insurrection; 5 were shot dead by
police in and near the Plaza de Mayo, and many others were killed by
police and shop-keepers during lootings.
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REBEL ALLIANCE - Wed 17th April @ Hobgoblin, Brighton 7PM sharp
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Que Se Vayan Todos (out with all politicians)
The following is a condensed version of eye-witness reports sent to
Schnews from Buenos Aires in January.
Fri, 18 Jan 2002
The streets are emptier in Buenos Aires at night, than I have ever seen
them. In the centre of the city in the daytime it's as crowded as ever.
Queues for exchange bureaux stretch around blocks. There's a feeling in
the air of anxiety and barely-surpressed anger. Walking down the main
pedestrian avenue, Florida, I heard a woman laugh too loud, and everyone
jumped and shot her alarmed stares. 'Ladrones usureros' - usurers,
thieves is scratched onto the marble plaque outside the Bank of Boston.
The Lloyds and HSBC banks have put up enormous metal panels over their
windows; in the provinces, banks are being ransacked every day. The TV
news shows protest after protest; today in Santiago del Estero, in the
North, there are barricades in the streets and brutal police repression
of the mostly middle-aged working men who are demanding 'Dignidad para el
obrero' - dignity for the workers. In La Quiaca, , people are crucifying
themselves every day, 5 hours each in the hot sun, while the children
hold signs saying 'pan y trabajo' (bread and work) and 'luchamos contra
el hambre' (our struggle is against hunger). Yesterday, after a
cacerolazo outside the Supreme Court to demand the resignation of its 9
judges, the people went to the home of one of the judges and continued
there. Politicians and judges can't walk the streets in case they are
recognized - a friend was queuing at a bank the other day when a judge
drew up in a car and tried to go in. Everyone started abusing him -
'ratta!' (rat), 'corrupto', 'hijo de mil putas' (son of a thousand
whores), until he took refuge in his car and left.
Peoples' fury at their inability to access their savings, due to banking
restrictions, is worsened by news of 386 trucks stuffed with cash, which
ferried an estimated 26 billion dollars to the airport after banking
restrictions had been imposed, for transfer to Uruguay and beyond. Given
the numerous stories of massive 'capital flight' over the early days of
this crisis, and of businesses and banks which mysteriously took out
fortunes before and during the strict new measures, people think most of
their money will never be seen again. There are many for whom the
corralito means nothing - they have nothing in the bank. Unemployment is
over 20%, and there is hunger in many areas. Pensioners are badly
affected. They have had no pensions since November - millions of workers
are going unpaid. The state medical system, PAMI, has collapsed due to
lack of funds. There is an extreme shortage of insulin and other common
drugs, because they are imported and because many drugs were withdrawn
from the shelves by pharmaceutical companies, to protect prices. In the
outlying, poorest barrios people have arms and use them, but actual
robberies are outstripped by paranoia and vigillanteeism, born of
government disinformation about supposed widespread looting of homes.
Many people are trying to leave the country, reluctantly but seeing no
future in Argentina - when it was reported this week that Poland was to
join the EU, a queue formed immediately at the Polish embassy. Thousands
of the large Chilean population of Mendoza have gone home, as have many
of the Bolivian, Peruvian and Paraguayan migrant workers. People talk
bitterly of institutional corruption from top to bottom. Now, as well as
blaming the IMF, the free market economy forced on them by Menem (the
whole-sale selling off and privatisation), and the constant flight of
capital abroad, people are beginning to blame themselves. It's bitter and
humiliating.
Mon, 21 Jan 2002
Yesterday we went to the general assembly, the 'Interbarrial', of the
almost 100 neighbourhood ('barrio') assemblies of Bs. As. in Parque
Centenario, and attended by about 2,000 people. There were speeches from
each barrio, telling of their experiences, listing actions they planned
and putting forward proposals. There was a lot of talk about the Supreme
Court and continuing the protests against it until all the judges
resigned - or to go in and boot them out themselves. The media was
denounced by many speakers for its lies and distortion; meanwhile, the
news that there were TV crews from Japan, Spain, UK and Finland present
at the assembly was greeted with cheers, while the mention of a US TV
crew met with angry whistles and boos. There were no Argentinian TV crews
present at all. Speakers suggested that anyone who had held a political
post in the last 30 years should be disqualified from ever doing so
again. They denounced the new budget and banking reforms due to be
announced this week as measures that were bound to suit the 'yanquis'
(USA) - the new economy minister is a veteran of 20 years' service to the
IMF. It was agreed that the visitors from the IMF due here on Tuesday
should be greeted with a 'cacerolazo'. A speaker proposed that 'we stay
in the streets till they have all gone' and commented on the importance
of showing that it's not just the corralito they are against; that they
want to change it all. There was a minute's applause for those who died
during the repression which followed the first cacerolazos of the 19th
and 20th of December and chants of 'Policía Federál, la verguenza
nacionál' - the Federal Police, a national disgrace. Barrio after barrio
made its proposals, and when the voting through of the main proposals
went ahead they were:
* Que se vayan todos (that all politicians should go)
* No to payment of the external debt
* Justice and punishment for the murderers and repressors
* Nationalisation of the bank and the privatised companies
* The Supreme Court - out!
* Return the money to depositors.
Tue, 29 Jan 2002
On Friday night, the 25th January, a national 'cacerolazo', agreed at the
assembly, began at 8pm with the sound of pans clanging from balconies and
in the streets and parks of the capital. By 10pm, the enormous Plaza de
Mayo was starting to fill and the noise was already deafening,. Along the
Av. de Mayo a steady stream of people was pouring into the square;
'asambleas barriales' (neighbourhood assemblies) arriving from the
barrios, hundreds of families and thousands of old people. The rain was
coming on and off in the heat, but everyone acted like they hadn't
noticed as the square filled with banging, chanting people. Over the
rhythm of beaten pans, chants were constantly breaking out; the favourite
chant, sung by nearly 20,000, football-style: 'Que se vayan todos, que no
quede ni uno solo' (that they all go, that not a single one remains).
And, jumping and pointing at the President's Casa Rosada, cut off from
the square by fencing and lines of stony-faced cops, 'A minute's silence
for Duhalde, who is dead'. I look at the faces of the police behind the
fence and I think I see fear and shame; later, I reconsider.
By 11:30pm the rain is pouring down in buckets, but the crowd only bangs
the pots harder and jumps faster, chanting louder, 'Que llueve, que
llueve, que el pueblo ne se mueve' (let it rain, let it rain, the people
are staying here). And suddenly, unexpectedly, almost on the stroke of
midnight, the 'represión' begins. Motorcycle police appear and begin to
fire teargas and rubber bullets, causing panicked running here and there;
as people on their way home along the Avenida de Mayo approach the wide
Avenida 9 de Julio, a line of cops appears and fires teargas and rubber
bullets from the front and from side-streets. In the Plaza, people taking
shelter from the rain in front of the cathedral are fired upon with gas
and rubber bullets. The demonstration had been noisy but entirely
peaceful - on TV reports, there is just a single image of a youth
throwing a molotov cocktail at lines of police who have already emptied
the square. It is an incomprehensible response in already volatile times.
I hear a report on the radio of a woman of 70, on the ground badly
wounded, her legs full of rubber bullets, and a young man with two in his
head. Back home, we watch on TV as 20 people, under arrest, are forced to
lie face down in the rain with their hands above their heads - 'It's just
like during the dictatorship', someone says. There are still 300
demonstrators at Congress, completely surrounded by police. They are
chanting and jumping - 'El que no salta es policía' (whoever's not
jumping is police). We see three young men with their arms over their
heads being thrust towards a police bus. Their t-shirts are pulled over
their heads from the back by police and at least one is bleeding heavily
from the head. A policeman in soaked t-shirt and shorts is directing
uniformed officers as they hustle the lads onto the bus. In the bar
someone says - 'These sons-of-bitches haven't even been paid' (thousands
of people have gone unpaid, some for months). 'No importa', says someone
else '- lo hacen de onda'. (They don't mind - they do it for fun).
PS. This morning, tho' some of the press made the point that the demo had
been entirely peaceful and the police action unprovoked, most of the TV
news, as always, reverted to type and lied. As graffiti here in the
barrio where we are staying says, 'Nos mean y la prensa dice q' llueve'
(they piss on us and the press says it's raining).
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Payback Time
Last year, as the country slipped into total crisis and it looked likely
it was going to default on its eternal (sic) debt, IMF conditions
dictated that the government should make massive cuts in public spending.
State workers' salaries were cut by 13%, as were state pensions, in yet
another round of austerity measures which helped to push people's
patience right to its limit. Argentina has paid and paid for its
addiction to IMF 'assistance', and it looks as if it will be paying for
years, in ways it never thought possible. The deployment of Argentinean
troops to the Gulf War and to Bosnia are examples of favours called in by
the USA, as is the training of Colombian airforce pilots in Argentina. US
and Latin American troops, commanded and financed in Washington, have
carried out exercises in Argentina without Congress's approval, and
despite this being in violation of Argentina's constitution.
Argentina is about to vote, for the third time, against Cuba's human
rights record at the UN, this time as a proposer of the motion. It has
promised Washington to 'work for the liberty of the Cuban people,' to the
disgust of the Argentinean people and Fidel Castro, who has yet again
called the government 'yankee boot-lickers'. Another member of the Cuban
government expressed sympathy for Argentina, locked in to 'carnal
relations' with the USA, for the way the USA is 'humiliating and
pressurizing' Argentina while denying it the funds to resolve the
situation imposed by 'the dogmatic imposition of the neo-liberal model'.
And there's more to come for Argentina. On January 12th, the New York
Times reported US Secretary of Defense, Donald Rumsfeld, as saying the US
might be willing to financially assist the Argentinean government, if
they were permitted to install military bases in Tierra del Fuego, the
southernmost tip of the Americas. The governor of the province has
secretly authorised bases, where the US will be allowed to detonate
underground atomic bombs - but only for 'peaceful ends'. So that's
alright then.
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Silver Tongued
Buneos Aires - once known as 'the Paris of Latin America' has now sunk -
along with the rest of Argentina, into what has been called Latin
Americanisation. "It used to be the jewel in the crown, but now has all
the same problems of poverty as the rest of the continent." So who's made
us cry for Argentina? International Monetary Fund, come on down.
Argentina has for the past two and a half decades been the IMF's star
pupil. It sold off everything, down to its "grandma's jewels," with
foreign firms taking over key sectors of the economy and the utilities.
Companies like French multinational Vivendi Universal, which in 1995
bought most of the water system before sacking staff and raising prices,
up 400 % in some areas. Or the Spanish oil company Repsol, which snapped
up the state-owned YPF, sacked thousands of workers and turned the only
oil company in the world not making a profit, into a money-spinner
estimated to have taken $60 billion out of the country. Or the Spanish
Telefónica, which bought up most of the privatised telephone system for a
bargain basement price, then whacked up the prices to way above those
paid anywhere else in the world and made a tidy profit of $2 billion in
its first year.
Argentina obediently deregulated its markets and tried to make its
workforce more 'flexible' (meaning you work longer for less pay.) It has
jumped through all the IMF hoops, with promises of prosperity at the end
of them, yet now finds itself with a $150 billion dollar foreign debt,
with 30% of its GDP going every year to pay off interest payments alone
before December, and is still paying part of it despite having defaulted.
Loan Sharks
The first IMF loans were to the military junta in 1976 and since then,
this 'debt' has been paid off by the Argentinean people many times over -
and not just in pesos. Argentineans used to call their country the
bread-basket of the world, and say that in a country bursting with
natural resources and a huge agricultural sector, nobody ever went
hungry. But now 40% of the people live below the poverty line and up to a
hundred die every day from poverty-related illness, with food parcels and
medicines now arriving from Spain and neighbouring Brazil.
In a ruling two years, ago a federal judge summed it up. "Since 1976 our
country has been put under the rule of foreign creditors and under the
supervision of the IMF by means of a vulgar and offensive economic policy
that forced Argentina down on its knees in order to benefit national and
foreign private firms."
Despite the economy being in free-fall, two documents leaked to
investigative journalist Greg Palast show that, for the deluded
economists at the IMF, what the country really needed to get it back on
its feet was even more structural adjustment! So it's more cuts for state
pensions, salaries, unemployment benefits, education and health, all of
this ensuring that the burden of this so called 'adjustment' falls, as
ever, on those who can least afford it.
Anoop Singh, leader of the IMF delegation currently in the country,
admitted it was "the worst economic crisis any country has had." Then
promptly listed a new set of demands Argentina must implement immediately
before they even get to see how much 'aid' they'll receive. In a veiled
threat he commented, "without an IMF agreement, it will be very difficult
for Argentina to recover." Since 1983 there have been nine IMF
stabilisation plans in Argentina, 'helping' the country out.
But it's not just the IMF that wants more adjustment. Other financial
institutions are still licking their loan shark lips, saying Argentina's
crisis should not be seen as an obstacle but as an opportunity because,
the reasoning goes, the country is so desperate for cash it will do
whatever the IMF wants. "During a crisis is when . . . Congress is most
receptive," explained Winston Fritsch, chairman of Dresdner Bank AG's
Brazil. Meanwhile, a couple of Massachusetts Institute of Technology
economists writing in the Financial Times, go even further. "It's time to
get radical...(Argentina) must temporarily surrender its sovereignty on all
financial issues...and give up much of its monetary, fiscal,
regulatory and asset-management sovereignty for an extended period, say
five years."
When Greg Palast interviewed the former chief economist, Joe Stiglitz -
fired by the World Bank for questioning its economic wisdom - Stiglitz
told him about 'IMF riots' "Everywhere we go, every country we end up
meddling in, we destroy their economy and they end up in flames." He went
on to tell Palast that the IMF even plan for riots, because as the people
revolt, capital drains out of the country (helped by IMF inspired
abolition of currency controls) and whoever's left in charge has to go
begging back to the IMF for more money. They don't mind handing some out,
as long as the country agrees to even more demands, and they turn a blind
eye as politicians fill their pockets in return for their compliance.
On Tuesday the IMF did just that, agreeing to give Argentina $5 billion
of its promised, frozen $22 billion loan programme. And where will that
money go? To where it's really needed - paying the interest on the debt.
The debt gets bigger, the cuts get harsher - and the money doesn't even
have to leave Washington. The people of Argentina know the IMF aren't
there to help them. The only people the IMF dish out their dollars to are
those who in their view really need it; the banks and big business, the
rich and the powerful. For them, the Argentina experiment has been a
stunning success - Shame about the people though, eh?
* Greg Palast's 'The Best Democracy Money Can Buy' (Pluto Press, 2002)
www.gregpalast.com
* www.corpwatch.org
* www.50years.org
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Money For Sale
The banking restrictions, known as the corralito (meaning the corralling
or ring-fencing of bank deposits), was imposed at the beginning of
December, when nervous savers, feeling disaster approach, started to
withdraw their money from the banks. Since then, its rules have changed
almost daily, allowing a certain amount to be withdrawn each month, but
also forcibly converting most savings, 80% of which had been deposited in
dollars for security (!) into pesos at extremely unfavourable rates.
Those who insisted on keeping their deposits - which exist on paper only
now as the money is no longer in the country - in dollars, have been
forced to accept bonds which may or may not be repaid in the next year or
so, and almost certainly not in dollars. And those with pesos can only
watch as the peso falls from one-to-one with the dollar, where it had
been artificially pegged for eleven years, to a low of 4 a few weeks ago.
The hated Supreme Court, in a manoeuvre calculated to save its own skin
from moves in Congress to impeach them and from the angry threats of the
people to go in and kick them out, decreed the corralito unconstitutional
on the 1st of February. Some savers laid down their pots and pans to
queue at the court for individual court orders to their banks to return
their deposits, but banks have generally ignored these. Those with a lot
of money or influence routinely skip out of the corralito with their
money, either on the nod from their banks or through clever dealings with
shares in Argentinean companies on the New York stock exchange.
It's a different story for businesses, which have been generously
compensated by the (bankrupt) state for the peso-fication of their debts
in dollars. Plans for the peso-fication, at one-to-one despite the
plummeting peso, of debts contracted in dollars was intended to help
individuals with debts like mortgages, who could never dream of repaying
them in the devalued peso, and was going to apply only to debts of less
than $100,000. But an investigation by reporters on the TV news show
'Telenoche Investiga', who were all sacked and their programme never
broadcast, uncovered the truth about how the debts of big business came
to be included in the rescue plan. On the 12th January, heads of large
Argentinean corporations held a secret meeting with President Duhalde and
three other members of the cabinet. They were told by the president that
it might be possible for their massive debts to also benefit from
conversion at one to one, if they were willing to make a 'contribution'.
Even the millionaire CEOs were taken aback at the size of the bribe he
was soliciting - it was to be $500 million dollars, in dollars and in
cash. The reporter was told that the money was to be divided between
members of Congress and the Senate ($200 million) who would have to
approve it, $175 million for Mendiguren, Lenicov and Capitanich, the
cabinet members present that day, and a tidy $125 million for Duhalde.
One empresario refused and is now under investigation by the DGI (General
Tax Direcorate). The overall saving to businesses is estimated to be in
the region of $20-30 billion dollars (YPF-Repsol oil, for example, has
been able to halve its $310 million debt); the money will have to come
from more cuts in public spending.
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Bourgeois Block
An email to Schnews describes bizarre scenes as the 'bourgeois block',
gangs of enraged savers denied access to their money, strikes again:
"Tearing off the metal cladding, they invaded the bank lobbies and in
full sight of the police, without a mask or black hoody to be seen,
proceeded to destroy the cash machines. Women with perms, golden
bracelets and high heels kicked at the windows, lipstick grins spreading
as they watched the glass shatter. Every armoured security van the mob of
300 people came across was surrounded. Men in business suits proceeded to
unscrew the wheel-nuts, while others prised open the bonnets, tearing out
wires from the engines. Soccer mums jumped up and down on top of vans,
smashing anything that could be broken, wing-mirrors, lights, number
plates..."
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PIQUETE Y CACEROLA, LA LUCHA ES UNA SOLA
The two biggest types of organised resistance in Argentina are the
popular assemblies and the piqueteros, the unemployed workers' movement
which takes its name (picketers) from their trademark tactic of blocking
roads.
The Piqueteros
Rising unemployment in Argentina over the last few years has created the
world's largest concentration of unemployed industrial workers. Many
piqueteros are experienced workplace and union activists. They use the
tactic of blocking roads as a way of disrupting production, setting up
camp right on the asphalt, putting up tents and cooking food. Women and
children are a fundamental part of the movement, and always present. The
piqueteros have stepped up their activities in the last few months,
paralysing the capital a number of times, most recently when the latest
IMF delegation arrived to 'negotiate'. In February they blockaded oil
refineries and depots throughout the country, demanding 50,000 jobs; new,
shorter shifts to employ more workers; no petrol price rises and the
re-nationalisation of the oil industry and all the privatised companies.
They also usually demand food packages, the release of political
prisoners, unemployment benefits and 'work plans' - a type of workfare
scheme worth a meagre 120 pesos a month. An email which arrived at
Schnews last week from a British activist in Buenos Aires:
"There's loads of different piquetero organisations, and a lot of
divisions, partly caused by old left parties. The CCC is the largest, and
the most reformist [despite the name - Classist and Combative Current] -
they are the ones who concentrate on demands for proper social security
payments. Far more militant are independent organisations such as CTA
Anibal Verón, and Movimiento Teresa Rodrigues (both named after
piqueteros murdered by cops during blockades), and the MTD (Unemployed
Workers Movement). They see their struggle as a Latin American one, and
identify with the anti-capitalist movement. They are active, highly
politicised people, and probably number 10,000."
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Repression
Despite the unprecedented changes happening at street level, there's
little new in mainstream politics and government. President Duhalde is an
old political hand, and well known for corruption during his previous
years in office. In his nine years as governor of Buenos Aires, he
amassed support, contacts and experience that now stand him in good
stead, including the use of violent thugs ('patoteros'), both paid and
party political. At his swearing-in as president, hundreds of his
supporters, said to have been paid to come, battled outside and inside
Congress with protestors, and there are even rumours that some of the
looters who precipitated the downfall of President De la Rúa were paid by
the Peronist party. Duhalde has ordered the repression of at least one
cacerolazo, on the 25th January, since taking power, and is now making
use of the thugs of his party apparatus (officially called the
Justicialist Party, aka Peronism) to intimidate a population which still
clearly remembers the fearsome repression, torture and murder of the
military dictatorship (1976-1983), when 30,000 people 'disappeared'. In
the Buenos Aires barrio of Merlo a few weeks ago, the assembly was
attacked one assembly has even been shot at. In the barrio of Avellaneda
last Sunday the assembly, gathered to protest at corruption in the local
administration, was prevented from reaching their destination by a gang
of 300 thugs sent by the local municipal leader. Last Tuesday during one
of the regular savers' protests at the Bank of Boston, a woman was beaten
to the ground, kicked and handcuffed and had teargas sprayed in her eyes
by police, and many of the other protestors were beaten and arrested.
Popular Assemblies
Popular assemblies, also known as neighbourhood (barrio) assemblies, have
mushroomed in Argentina since December. A recent survey by the newspaper
Página 12 found that 33% of those questioned in the capital had
participated in them. Assemblies are held on street corners or public
spaces, and operate in the most transparent way, with what they call a
'horizontal' structure and no leaders or representatives. Born of the
first cacerolazos, and the fertile coming together of neighbours on the
streets in protest, the assemblies discuss and vote on issues ranging
from non-payment of the external debt to the defence of local families in
danger of eviction for non-payment of rent. They have organised
collective food-buying, soup kitchens, support for local hospitals and
schools and even alternative forms of healthcare. Every Sunday, all the
Buenos Aires assemblies meet in Parque Centenario for the Interbarrial -
the inter-neighbourhood mass assembly. Certain sections of mainstream
politics are attempting to participate in or co-opt the assemblies - like
one proposal made in Congress that the assemblies be given their own
space and resources at the Congress building - but these proposals were
vehemently rejected. Pressure from left-wing parties such as the Partido
Obrero (workers' party), has been harder to resist. At an Interbarrial in
Centenario, a motion was put that "the party militants stop coming along
to assemblies to lay down party lines - that they take the assembly's
position back to their parties instead." The sovereignty of each local
assembly has been reiterated again and again at the Interbarrial and
motions voted there, based on proposals from each assembly, are taken
back to local assemblies to be ratified. Despite this, a controversial
proposal for a Constituent Assembly - an assembly of delegates - which
many felt was an unacceptable move back towards representative politics,
was voted through at the Interbarrial of March 17th.
Despite their differences, an important similarity is that both organise
outside the sphere of work. The assemblies' refusal to negotiate with the
government, under the slogan 'Que se vayan todos' - out with all
politicians - clashed with some sections of the piqueteros. Since the
economy collapsed at the end of last year, the total of Argentineans
living in poverty has risen to some 14 million (pop. 36 million), and the
middle class has been destroyed. The piqueteros' struggle has been going
on for years with little support from the wider public; those who
participate in the cacerolazos and at bank protests are accused of having
acted only when their own pockets were finally rifled. Despite these
contradictions everyone sees the need to link their struggles together;
and many of the piqueteros' demands, which seemed radical just a few
months ago (non-payment of the national debt, for example) have become
the battle cries of the newly-impoverished middle class too. On the 27th
February, a march of some 5,000 piqueteros from the poor Buenos Aires
suburb of La Matanza was met by a number of local assemblies, who
provided breakfasts and then joined the march to the Plaza de Mayo. The
piqueteros were also cheered along the route by the people of Buenos
Aires, who gave out food and drink with some even banging their pots and
pans. A new slogan was born - 'Piquete y cacerola, la lucha es una sola'
(pickets and pot-bangers, the struggle is one). Piquetero demands include
things like the return of savers' deposits, while motions at popular
assemblies almost always include support for the piqueteros, and for
occupied factories under workers' control.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
Check Out...
www.argentinaarde.org.ar (should be online soon)
www.buenosairesherald.com (English language daily newspaper)
http://.argentina.linefeed.org (indymedia Argentina, almost all in
Spanish)
www.rebelion.org (in Spanish)
http://usuarios.lycos.es/pimientanegra/index.htm (Mexican site, in
Spanish)
www.data54.com (excellent Argentinean current affairs magazine, in
Spanish)
www.zmag.org/argentina_watch.htm
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
And Finally...
>From the first night of the uprising, the Argentinian people have shown
utter contempt for politicians, summed up in the slogan 'Que se vayan
todos' - out with all politicians. Not that this disillusionment with
representative politics is new. In last Octobers general elections, more
than 40% of the (compulsory) votes were blank or spoiled - the majority
going to a cartoon character, Clemente the cat politician, who has no
hands so he cannot steal! So while politicians in the West denounce their
own demonstrators as either foolish, indulgent or violent for having the
cheek to fight for a better world, the mass media focuses on protests in
Seattle and Genoa, while burying news of general strikes and mass
protests in countries like Argentina. But we know that it will only be
people around the world working together and linking up with
international struggles, that can defeat capitalism. As one of the
speakers at last year's National Assembly of piqueteros, put it,
"Argentina is part of a world-wide crisis - all over the world piqueteros
are arising. And last week, 300,000 piqueteros invaded the city of Genoa
to say 'no' to world-wide imperialism." Others have taken up the slogan
'Todos Somos Argentinos' - 'We Are All Argentineans' - because people know
that what is happening now in Argentina will be happening in a country
near you soon if the IMF and their big business mates carry on destroying
the planet in their never ending search for profit. Unless of course, we
stop 'em.
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