ARGENTINA: Social Activists Proclaim Meeting a Success

By Marcela Valente Reprint | | Print |

Marcela Valente

BUENOS AIRES, Aug 26 2002 (IPS) - The organisers of an Argentine meeting of anti-globalisation activists decided Monday to name a commission to compile the alternatives set forth at their gathering, after underlining the high quality of the debate on the crisis of the neo-liberal model in this Southern Cone country.

Thousands of people called together by around 500 mainly Argentine organisations took part in the Argentina Thematic Social Forum Thursday through Sunday.

The gathering, which consisted of around 300 seminars, panels, workshops and cultural events, was organised by the World Social Forum (WSF), which met in early 2001 and 2002 in the southern Brazilian city of Porto Alegre as a sort of counterpoint to the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland.

“These meetings always help us make significant leaps, but this time much more progress than expected was made due to the richness of the debates and the contacts established between organisations working on the same issues,” Clara Algranati, with the WSF Mobilisation Committee in Argentina, told IPS.

The “thematic” meeting was specifically dedicated to analysing Argentina’s current social, economic and political collapse, under the title “the crisis of the neo-liberal model in Argentina and the challenges for the global movement”.

The activists, academics and political leaders who took part in the gathering agreed that the present debacle in Argentina is a demonstration of the devastating effects of the neo-liberal policies dictated by the multilateral lending institutions like the International Monetary Fund.

They also said that solutions to pulling the country out of the crisis would help demonstrate the truth of the WSF slogan: “another world is possible.”

But Argentine sociologist Atilio Borón warned that the potential that emerged in December, when a broad protest movement toppled the government of Fernando de la Rúa (1999-2001), “runs the risk of dissipating if it is not organised.”

“The government changed, but the policies remain the same,” said Borón, the executive secretary of the Latin American Council on Social Sciences (CLACSO).

“The question of organising ourselves is urgent,” argued the activist. “It is the pressing issue of the moment, and if we resist thinking about it, we will lose the battle, because the enemy is powerful and very well organised.”

Professor Ana Ceceña with the Autonomous National University of Mexico agreed that “a revolutionary theory without good practice” is useless.

The participants in the four-day meeting, which was held on the University of Buenos Aires campus, closed the discussions and debates Sunday with a general assembly in which the conclusions of the various groups were presented, and with a series of cultural and artistic activities.

“We weren’t planning on putting out a final document, but the conclusions were so rich that the panel coordinating Sunday’s assembly proposed that the work continue, in order to produce, in two months, a joint document reflecting all of the ideas set forth at the meeting,” said Algranati.

The participants also decided to support next Friday’s demonstration in Buenos Aires, in which activists will demand that the early elections scheduled for Mar 30 cover all elected posts, including legislators and governors, rather than just the presidency.

The prominent participation by indigenous organisations also led the WSF to decide to organise activities on Oct 12, the anniversary of Christopher Columbus’ arrival to the Americas. The venue has not yet been decided.

Lastly, the general assembly agreed that Argentine organisations should actively take part in the protests that will surround the meeting of economy ministers of the future hemisphere- wide Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA) in October in Quito.

Opposition to the FTAA was one of the chief banner cries of the meeting here. Predictions of the negative effects of the projected free trade area emerged in virtually every workshop and seminar, and were the sole focus of an assembly that drew thousands on Saturday.

In the assembly, which lasted nearly 12 hours, participants criticised the secrecy surrounding the governments’ negotiations on the FTAA, discussed the negative impact that the free trade area will have on the economies of Latin America, and agreed on concrete actions to be taken to increase public knowledge of the issues being negotiated.

Representatives of Brazil’s anti-globalisation movement presented the details of the call for a plebiscite to be held in October, in which Brazilians will be able to express themselves in favour of or against the FTAA.

Delegations from Brazil, Colombia, Ecuador, Mexico, Peru, Uruguay and the United States took place in the meeting, which “built up momentum for the next WSF in Porto Alegre,” said Paulo Ferreira, a leader of Brazil’s leftist Workers’ Party, whose presidential candidate, Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, is front-runner in the polls.

The participants also discussed the growing burden of the foreign debt, which they said was contracted under “illegitimate” conditions. In addition, they said that the crisis of the neo-liberal model has been characterised by a constant trampling of people’s rights.

Most of the conference-goers agreed on the need to strengthen social movements rather than political parties.

Algranati said that although Argentina’s current crisis is extreme, activists believe solutions must be discussed at the margins of the campaign for the early elections in March, when the successor to caretaker President Eduardo Duhalde will be chosen.

Only two Argentine politicians were invited to participate in the debates: socialist Deputy Luis Zamora and centre-left Deputy Elisa Carrió, who are at the forefront of the movement demanding that all elected posts come up for renewal in March.

The participants from other Latin American countries expressed their shock over Argentina’s collapse. “We have always looked at this country with admiration, and we can’t believe what is happening here,” said Juan Gorriti, secretary-general of Peru’s Confederación General del Trabajo, a central trade union.

However, according to sociologist Alcira Argumedo, “in the short-run, times of enormous worries are on the horizon. But in the medium-term, there will be a way out for Argentina.”

Argumedo, who took part in one of the panels, presented a proposal for recuperating privatised energy companies, creating jobs and putting an end to the terrible hunger and poverty that this country is suffering.

With regards to the question of capitalism, she said that in industrialised countries in Europe, “democracy and capitalism have shown themselves to be highly compatible.”

Nevertheless, she added, “Argentina has experienced a ‘simulacrum’ of democracy for years, but in reality there was a government of mafias, a ‘mafiocracy’ that catered to the interests of economic groups, and controlled the institutions, the Supreme Court, the media and the security forces.”

Argumedo said Argentina’s traditional political parties have been “coopted and corrupted,” have stopped representing the people, and thus ceased to be democratic.

CLACSO’s coordinator of international relations, José Maria Gómez, said the neo-liberal model is “essentially anti- democratic, because people vote, but they don’t choose, and the pressing questions of day-to-day life are left out of the voting.”