Sunday, October 4, 2026
News and Views from the Global South
POLITICS-ARGENTINA: Five Killed in Provincial Protests
Marcela Valente
- The capital of Argentina’s Corrientes province was a powder keg Friday after five people were killed when security forces moved in against demonstrators – primarily government employees – who are demanding payment for months of back-wages.
The Government Workers Association announced a national strike for Monday, with demonstrations in several cities to protest the violence unleashed by authorities against the thousands of people who took over a bridge linking Corrientes and Chaco provinces.
Friday’s repression resulted in at least five deaths from gunshots and tear-gas. The military police say they did not kill anyone, and claimed there were snipers firing 22-calibre weapons from nearby buildings.
The social, economic and political crisis in Corrientes, in northeast Argentina, sparked the takeover of the Belgrano bridge a week ago, the same day centre-leftist Fernando de la Rúa took office as the nation’s new president.
But the crisis began several months ago. In this province of nearly one million people, 60 percent of the workforce are public employees, and the government owes them five months of wages. The workers have not been paid for December 1998, nor for May, June, July and November of this year.
The economy, which lacks industrial development, is practically at a standstill and many families have had their basic utilities – water, electricity, gas – suspended because they cannot pay the bills.
Children in Corrientes did not attend school for seven months this year due to a teachers strike, but the provincial government promoted all to the next grade by decree.
Also among the public employees are doctors and nurses, who have reduced their services, attending to emergencies only.
“This is a non-government,” say the protesters. “We are tired of dialogue, of walking the halls of government ministries, we want solutions now,” declared a leader of the teachers union.
Accusations fly back and forth between political leaders for not resolving the financial crisis of such a small province, but now president De la Rúa is working on a federal intervention plan.
The Corrientes administration is to be taken over by the national government for the fourth time in 10 years, the most federal interventions in the nation’s history.
The federal military police, sent to Corrientes last Monday by judicial order, evacuated the Belgrano bridge by force early Friday morning – after De la Rúa had already designated a federal mediator to resolve the province’s ongoing crisis.
The mediator Raúl Mestre, former governor of Córdoba, will fly to Corrientes Monday with 30 million of the 90 million dollars owed to the workers, but his designation and assurances of payment were not well received by the demonstrators.
In Corrientes, protesters point out that Mestre implemented harsh adjustment measures for public employees in his province, including the lay-offs of hundreds of teachers. They also claim that the money Mestre is delivering is not enough.
After the demonstration of public employees on the bridge had been dispersed, clashes between civilians and military police continued on city streets until provincial police placed themselves between the two fronts – 12 hours after repression against protestors began.
Political tensions in the province grew worse Wednesday when an interim governor was designated before the acting governor was ready to give up his post, meaning there are now two governors, but neither is legitimate.
Waving white flags Friday, the provincial police – who themselves are on the verge of rebellion due to lack of payment – tried to contain the demonstrators as they threw rocks at the military police.
Corrientes, with its population of nearly one million, has a debt of 1.5 billion dollars and a deficit of 90 million. The De la Rúa government fears that if the public accounts are not cleaned up, the money that does make it to Corrientes will ultimately be squandered.
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