POLITICS-ARGENTINA: President Seeks National Accord amidst Crisis

By Marcela Valente Reprint | | Print |

Marcela Valente

BUENOS AIRES, Jan 15 2002 (IPS) - Argentina’s President Eduardo Duhalde decided Monday to convene groups representing a cross-section of society to seek national support for the government’s policies, a move intended to overcome the economic crisis and to prevent a new outbreak of social unrest.

The dialogue, set to begin Tuesday under the auspices of the Catholic Church, is to include the political parties, business leaders, and representatives from labour unions, non-governmental groups and professional organisations. Their objective will be to reach a basic consensus within 60 days, which then would be translated into concrete actions with the approval of Congress.

Duhalde planned to make his appeal in an address to be broadcast on national radio and television Monday evening, according to the president’s press office.

His proposal is similar to that made by the Catholic Church during the final moments of the government of Fernando de la Rúa, who resigned Dec 20. The Church’s efforts were unsuccessful.

Now, Duhalde intends to carry it off, just when social tensions are on the rise due to the lack of clear answers for what is considered to be among the worst economic, social and political crises in the nation’s history.

Social unrest continues to simmer, and violence erupts occasionally, as on Monday, when unemployed workers belonging to the leftist Combative Classist Current clashed with vendors at the Central Fruit and Vegetable Market, the capital’s main produce wholesaler. The protesters threw rocks after vendors refused to hand over free food.

The vice-minister of Economy, Jorge Todesca, compared Argentina’s economic misfortune to the situation of a country at war, and said that resolving the problem of savers’ money being frozen by the banks would be like deactivating a bomb. “If we cut the wrong wire, the bomb explodes,” he said.

“If that bomb is deactivated before midyear and the economy is stabilised, then the (gross domestic) product will stop falling and there would be a very slight recovery by the end of the year, but not growth,” said the official in a message with dramatic flair similar to that of Duhalde in his speech a day earlier.

Todesca said the government is attempting to loosen the restrictions on bank transactions that were imposed last Thursday and triggered new protests. Thousands of Argentinians took to the street that night and the massive banging of pots and pans, known as a ‘cacerolazo’, was deafening in at least 60 Buenos Aires neighbourhoods.

“Economic destruction occurs at a much faster pace than reconstruction. We are not convinced that we will be able to deactivate the bomb, we only know that we are doing our best to prevent it,” said the vice-minister.

To be successful, “we need broad consensus,” Todesca stressed prior to the presidential call for unity, an effort that will have the technical assistance of the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP).

Catholic bishops involved in the process said that the points to be discussed in Tuesday’s dialogue will be “the things society is demanding,” such as the independence of justice authorities, help for the most vulnerable and an end to politicians’ privileges, among other matters.

In the last days of the De la Rúa presidency, the Argentine Catholic Church had called for a broad-based dialogue. De la Rúa even organised a meeting with bishops, politicians, UNDP delegates, business executives and union leaders on the eve of his resignation, when protests and looting had already erupted.

On that occasion, the dialogue’s participants recommended that De la Rúa remove then-minister of Economy, Domingo Cavallo. But the president, who was elected in 1999, refused, and left the conference saying that he had “other commitments”.

As he walked out of the building where the meeting was held, on Dec 19, a group of protesters shouted insults and someone threw a rock at him.

De la Rúa’s time was running out, as was that of the multi- sector dialogue. Shortly afterwards, the looting of businesses and massive protests, which drew the participation of Argentina’s large middle class, prompted both Cavallo and De la Rúa to step down.

The Catholic Church has been working since then to relaunch a national dialogue, but now proposes that Duhalde take the lead, in an attempt to shore up support for his government. Duhalde, Argentina’s fifth president in two weeks, was designated by Congress on Jan 1 and is to remain in the post until December 2003.

With a strong following among the poorer sectors and an extensive network for social assistance – which is currently swamped by the heavy demand – the Church is attempting to deactivate the underlying social tensions that manifest themselves in daily incidents of violence – such as Monday’s clashes at the Buenos Aires central market.

“There is going to be a bloodbath here, because if they attack us, we can turn very violent,” stated the president of the Fruit and Vegetable Association of Buenos Aires province, Jorge Basile. The protesters withdrew after one of their number was seriously injured, but threatened to return with their demands for food for some 8,000 families.

On another front, the employees of the Spanish-Argentine-owned oil company Repsol-YPF demanded payment of their December wages and year-end bonus. They set up a roadblock on the highway that passes by the refinery in La Plata, capital of Buenos Aires province.

A similar protest in demand of back-wages was staged by teachers in the same province, outside the provincial government building, while housewives from the poor suburbs of the Argentine capital threatened to amass outside supermarkets banging pots and pans if food prices continued to rise.

All sorts of violent incidents occur that are thought to be related to the nation’s crisis, though many go unnoticed. An 18- year-old youth was shot by police Sunday after stealing the coins from an automatic bus ticket dispenser in a town outside the capital.

In La Matanza, also near Buenos Aires, a grocery store owner, 83, who said he has slept with a gun under his pillow since the looting started in December, shot and killed a 28-year-old man who attempted to enter the store to steal food.