LABOUR-ARGENTINA: Social Crisis in Provinces Turning into a Powder- Keg

By Marcela Valente Reprint | | Print |

Marcela Valente

BUENOS AIRES, Jun 19 2001 (IPS) - Violent clashes between protesters and police in northeastern Argentina were still raging Monday after causing two deaths Sunday in the context of a social crisis that is fast becoming a powder-keg.

Around 100 demonstrators in the town of General Mosconi in the northern province of Salta blocked a national highway late last month demanding a wage raise from 1.14 to 2.50 pesos (on par with the dollar) an hour for their work revamping an old hospital in a public works programme aimed at alleviating the soaring unemployment.

In this Southern Cone country of 37 million where unemployment stands at 16 percent nationally and a harsh recession shows no signs of letting up, roadblocks have become a preferred method of protest over the past five years by demonstrators wishing to draw the attention of authorities and the media.

The two fatal victims in Salta were mere passersby. Forty people were also injured in the clashes.

Last week roads were also blocked in the northern provinces of Catamarca and Jujuy, the central provinces of Buenos Aires, Mendoza and Santa Fe, and the southern province of Tierra del Fuego.

Even if the demands set forth by the workers in General Mosconi were met, their monthly income would be less than a minimum salary – 500 dollars a month – in a province where 55 percent of the population lives below the poverty line, according to official data.

A local polling firm, Equis, reported Monday that 68 percent of under 14-year-olds in Salta live in poor households with less than 100 dollars monthly income per person. The protesters in General Mosconi are calling for the 400 dollars a month estimated as the bare minimum needed to support a family of four.

The remodeling of the hospital was part of a package of measures designed to compensate for the loss of jobs caused by the privatisation of the YPF oil company in 1993, which transformed that part of Salta, previously known for the relatively high wages earned by its workers compared to the rest of the province, into an area with 40 percent unemployment.

When a controlling stake in YPF was transferred to Spain’s Repsol, thousands of workers in General Mosconi and nearby Tartagal were left without work, and roadblocks manned by people demanding jobs or unemployment stipends became almost routine.

In the past 10 years, the proportion of income pertaining to the wealthiest 10 percent of the population of Salta grew from 12 to 25 times that of the poorest 10 percent – to 35 percent of total income for the wealthy compared to 1.4 percent for the poor.

Last month the roadblock in General Mosconi was removed by force without the demonstrators’ demands having been met. In response, the protesters set fire to the local town hall, the register office, the tax collection building and the food inspection offices – in a city which has refineries and oil wells.

Not only have the demands for higher wages been ignored, but last week gendarmes arrested trade unionists on court order, in a move that analysts said was aimed at leaving the protests without leaders.

The indifference of national and local authorities compounded the legal system’s offensive, further fanning the ire of the protesters, and violence broke out when police attempted to remove the demonstrators from the road again by force.

Judge Abel Cornejo said Monday that he ordered the Gendarmerie to clear the area after he had received reports that protesters were occupying a refinery holding five million litres of crude.

According to the judge, the police were received with shots fired by armed protesters and snipers. However, demonstrators and gendarmes mutually accused each other of initiating the hostilities.

“The bullet did not come from the picket line, it came from up on top of the tanks of the refinery, where gendarmes were staked out,” said the brother of Carlos Santillán, 27, who was killed Sunday by a bullet to the forehead on his way to the cemetery to visit the grave of his daughter, who was shot dead two years ago by another stray bullet.

The other fatal victim was José Barrios, 17, who was trying to round up his horses after they were spooked by the disturbances. The bullet he received in the hip, combined with the inhalation of tear gas, caused immediate death.

Interior Minister Ramón Mestre repudiated the violence Monday, and said solutions could only be found through dialogue. But so far, each time a roadblock has been staged, dialogue has only begun after an attempt to break up the protest by force.

The clashes between protesters and gendarmes continued Monday, despite the lifting of the roadblock, and nearly 30 more people were arrested. Isolated groups of local residents threw stones at police posted on top of the tanks of the Refinor refinery.

Local authorities claimed the aggressors were heavily armed “guerrillas” who were hiding out in the forest surrounding the refinery and who had the fire power to repel the gendarmes.

Spokespersons for leftist parties and the unemployed battled, meanwhile, with police Monday in downtown Buenos Aires, outside the House of Salta, which represents the province in the Argentine capital. Protesters with shovels and stones broke windows and injured police who were standing behind a fence.

Trade unionist Hugo Moyano expressed his “absolute repudiation” of the violent crackdown on the demonstrators, and warned that “the economic model is leading us to a desperate situation, with the risk of driving us into civil war.”