ECONOMY-ARGENTINA: Protests Intensify with Deepening Crisis

By Marcela Valente Reprint | | Print |

Marcela Valente

BUENOS AIRES, Jun 22 2001 (IPS) - Roadblocks, a form of protest that has become standard in Argentina, mushroomed from an average of four to 71 a month since the second half of 1998, the beginning of the economic recession that appears now only to worsen, and with no end in sight.

The virulence of the protests has increased along with their frequency. Since 1997, seven people have died while taking part in roadblocks, two of them just last week when police tried to break up the protest underway in the northwest province of Salta.

The “situation of unrest extends throughout the whole country,” warned Carlos Reutemann, governor of the central province of Santa Fe, in a Friday address. All the governors he has talked with, he said, share his fear of a “contagion” from Salta.

The looting of supermarkets reported Wednesday in José C. Paz, a populous town in Buenos Aires province, shows that “the people are hungry and they are losing patience,” said mayor Mario Ishii.

Forty percent of the labour force in José C. Paz is out of work and 60 percent of the population lives below the poverty line, while employment and social programmes have proved insufficient, Ishii pointed out.

The protests are attributed to the grave social and economic situation affecting the entire country, though extremist groups and even snipers are blamed for the occasional eruptions of violence.

In 1997, a year when Argentina’s gross domestic product (GDP) grew 8.7 percent, there were an average of 11 roadblocks erected in protest each month, for a total of 132. The blockades are intended to call the attention of political leaders and the media to the population’s rejection of the government’s economic policies.

These figures appear on a report drawn up by the ministries of Economy, Labour and Interior about how the protests are proving to be a measure of Argentina’s economic crisis and high unemployment (15 percent of the work force).

The protagonists of this relatively new method of protest are known here as “piqueteros” (pickets). They are workers whose employers have closed up shop and who have not found a new job, or they are the unemployed who survive on social subsidies, which are threatened by a deepening budget deficit.

Women have proven to be key figures in the protests. They set up tents to care for the protesters’ children and to cook meals for everyone. At night, they head back home, leaving the men to keep watch so that no car or truck passes through the barricades of burning tyres.

“My children play at being ‘piqueteros’,” commented Victorina Ruiz, of Salta. Her husband, former employee of the now-privatised YPF oil company, receives 160 dollars a month under a work plan implemented by the state. They have five children. She points out that she would prefer not to take part in the barricade protests.

Last Sunday, the roadblock in Salta on national highway 34, begun three weeks earlier, ended in tragedy. The police attempted to break up the protest using force and as a result two people were killed and dozens injured.

Unemployment in the province surpasses 40 percent and more than 50 percent of households are below the poverty line. Nevertheless, it is in Buenos Aires province where most of the road barricades take place – 30 percent of the total.

In mid-1998, Argentina’s economic expansion ground to a halt and the final quarter of that year saw negative growth. In 1997 through early 1998, the roadblock phenomenon had fallen from an average of 11 to just four each month.

In 1999, a critical year that began with the devaluation of the currency in neighbouring Brazil – the consequence of Russia’s rouble crisis -, Argentina’s GDP dropped 3.4 percent and roadblocks increased to 21 a month. In 2000, the GDP fell another 0.5 percent, and there were 42 barricades reported each month.

Since last January, with forecasts for a new economic decline by the end of 2001, the number of roadblocks has jumped to an average of 71 a month, for a total of 425 so far this year.

The gravity of the social situation and the tragedy in Salta have prompted the authorities to consider different ways of confronting the problem, though the new formulas have not yet been put into practice.

A group of officials from the economic, labour and social services arenas are waiting for the protests in Salta to calm down. They plan to head to the northwestern province Monday with a programme for setting up micro-enterprises.

If this government initiative is successful, it would become a novel way to resolve the country’s powder-keg conflicts without subsidies – which, in general, prove to be a solution only for the short term.