ARGENTINA: New Wave of Violent Protests

By Marcela Valente Reprint | | Print |

Marcela Valente

BUENOS AIRES, Dec 29 2001 (IPS) - Thousands of protesters spontaneously massed outside Congress and the Casa Rosada, the presidential palace, in the Argentine capital Saturday to demand that the new government adopt measures leading to more profound changes than the ones announced so far.

The first week since the installment of the government of interim President Adolfo Rodríguez Saá has been marked by political in-fighting within his Justicialista (Peronist) Party, and by continued uncertainty over how this Southern Cone country will pull out of its acute economic and social crisis.

After closely following the steps taken by the government in its first week in office, residents of Buenos Aires once again began to bang on pots and pans in protest, and an impromptu multitude formed and marched towards the city centre.

Mainly middle-class families with children, elderly persons and young people were the protagonists Friday of a “day of fury” in the banks, many of which were unable to meet account-holders’ demands for cash, or pay pensions. Many senior citizens fainted as they stood in long queues in over 30-degree weather.

“The people will march with their leaders at the head, or with the heads of their leaders,” one local resident said Friday outside the Casa Rosada, recalling a phrase of former president Juan Perón, the legendary founder of the Justicialista Party.

At his side, a woman shouted “They think we’re stupid! They continue fighting for power, and no one does anything for the people!”

An elderly woman, in tears, said: “They fight over the money, which is ours; they make us work and then they take it all for themselves. They are just shameless scoundrels.”

“I don’t have any work. I have a disabled son, and they don’t give me the medicine he needs. They all must go!” said another woman.

Just eight days after Fernando de la Rúa was forced to step down as president by a wave of rioting, looting and protests that left 28 dead and hundreds injured, pot-banging was again heard in the Plaza de Mayo, outside the Casa Rosada.

“They didn’t get it” complained demonstrators, referring to the protests that forced de la Rúa to resign.

“We were asking for new people, honest leaders, and they gave us more thieves. This is just more of the same,” said one protester, while the crowd chanted against the political parties and central trade unions in general.

Another group headed to the Plaza de los Dos Congresos, outside Congress, while other protesters staged roadblocks to clear the way for the march, which continued until Saturday morning, when dozens of people forced their way into the legislature.

After shoving the doors open, protesters set fires inside the building, tore down curtains, shattered windows, destroyed computers and threw furniture down the outside staircase to make a bonfire in the street.

Outside, people made up chants complaining about the salaries of lawmakers, who earn up to 10,000 dollars a month, plus an extra 38,000 to pay their aides and other staff. “They should cut their salaries in half, and work!” shouted one woman.

The police used water houses, tear gas and rubber bullets to disperse the angry crowd, which broke the windows of two fast-food restaurants and six banks as it retreated. At least 12 people were injured and 30 were taken into custody.

The unrest had begun to boil over a few hours earlier, when a strike by railroad engineers who had not received their paychecks infuriated passengers who unsuccessfully demanded that the cost of their tickets be refunded. Nine railway cars were set alight, and windows were broken.

People in the train station explained that they had come downtown to go to the bank, and had to go home with empty hands, unable to cash their paychecks or receive their pensions. They then found out that the trains had stopped running due to the strike. But having already paid their round-trip tickets, they had no money to return home by any other means.

The chants of protesters varied on Friday night. But as the crowds neared the Plaza de Mayo, the complaints focused mainly on the corruption which allegedly persists in the new caretaker government.

The multitude called for the resignation of several of Rodríguez Saá’s close associates, like former Buenos Aires mayor Carlos Grosso, who is seen as a symbol of corruption. Grosso, who had been named the president’s chief adviser, was forced to resign in the early hours of Saturday morning.

A week ago, when he was invited to form part of the new government, Grosso said Rodríguez Saá had chosen him for his “intelligence,” and not for his “track record” – a statement that outraged the public.

The people also loudly protested against the scandal-ridden former president Carlos Menem (1989-99), who met in the Casa Rosada this week with Rodríguez Saá and members of the Supreme Court. In addition, the public accuses the Supreme Court judges of always ruling in favour of the government of the day.

“We want them out, they don’t represent anyone!” shouted a group of protesters Saturday outside Olivos, the presidential residency located on the northside of Buenos Aires, where Rodríguez Saá was meeting with his ministers.

The Peronists, who returned to power when de la Rúa, of the Radical Civic Union, fell, agreed to vote for Rodríguez Saá as interim president, in the plenary session of Congress held last Saturday and Sunday, and to call elections for Mar 3.

Rodríguez Saá, who took office on Dec 23, is to be replaced in early April by the winner of the Mar 3 elections, who will serve out the remaining two years of de la Rúa’s term, until December 2003.

But on Friday, Buenos Aires awoke with its walls plastered over with posters urging Rodríguez Saá to stay on until 2003, and calling for the Mar 3 elections to be cancelled.

Meanwhile, economists close to the interim president said the new currency to run parallel to the peso, announced early this week, would not be issued. Instead, they said, more of the provincial and municipal bonds already being used to pay salaries and utility bills and to purchase goods would be printed.

Another measure announced by Rodríguez Saá was the suspension of payments on the 132 billion dollar foreign debt, the biggest burden weighing down the de la Rúa government. The public debt is equivalent to 45 percent of the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) of Latin America’s third-largest economy, and high interest rates led to crippling debt servicing payments.

The president also stated that the peso would not be devalued, and would remain at par with the dollar as stipulated by the currency-board system in effect since 1991.

The parallel currency, the ‘argentino’, which was to float alongside the peso without being backed by foreign reserves, was conceived of to make good on Rodríguez Saá’s pledge that there would be no devaluation.

The new currency was to allow an increase of the money supply, given that Argentina’s “convertibility” law makes it impossible to print more pesos without a corresponding rise in the Central Bank’s hard currency reserves.

Foreign exchange houses have remained closed since the de la Rúa administration collapsed.