ARGENTINA: Huge Demonstration Demands Political, Economic Change

By Marcela Valente Reprint | | Print |

Marcela Valente

BUENOS AIRES, Dec 20 2002 (IPS) - Hundreds of thousands of people in Argentina held a peaceful march Friday to demand changes in the country’s economic policy and political leadership, a year after the massive protests that toppled the government of Fernando de la Rúa.

”People are tired of the current way of doing politics. The government (of Eduardo Duhalde) has to go,” Jorge Ceballos, the national coordinator of the ”Barrios de Pie” movement, told IPS as he marched towards downtown Buenos Aires along with thousands and thousands of other demonstrators.

Barrios de Pie (Neighbourhoods on their Feet), an organisation that groups unemployed families from slums and lower-income neighbourhoods, was one of the many social organisations and leftist parties which called the two-day march that set out Thursday from Argentina’s main cities.

The calm surrounding the protests was a far cry from the climate that reigned a year ago, when demonstrators took to the streets spontaneously, expressing their outrage at the leaders of the traditional parties, who they blamed for the country’s economic collapse.

Analysts said the change of attitude was due largely to the gradual lifting of the year-long freeze on bank accounts, the broader distribution of stipends to unemployed heads of households, and the lid kept on inflation in the past few months, although serious problems like soaring unemployment and poverty persist.

The march was organised by the Central de Trabajadores Argentinos (CTA) central trade union, which also held a 24-hour strike; Barrios de Pie; the Corriente Clasista y Combativa (Combative and Classist Current); the Federación de Tierra y Vivienda (Land and Housing Federation); and the Bloque Piquetero Nacional, a group of unemployed who mount roadblocks.

Also taking part in Friday’s protest were the neighbourhood assemblies that have been meeting over the past year, human rights groups, university students, pensioners, farmers, and leftist parties.

The slogan of the demonstration, which included artistic presentations, was ”Out with the Lot of Them!” – a reference to the alternation in power of the two traditional parties, the Justicialista (Peronist) Party and the Radical Civic Union (UCR).

The demonstrators also demanded urgent changes to the economic policies followed by Duhalde’s Justicialista government since Congress appointed him on Jan 1 to complete the four-year term of the UCR’s de la Rúa.

”To resolve the problem of hunger and unemployment, we need them all to go,” said Juan Carlos Alderete, the leader of the Corriente Clasista y Combativa (CCC), another group that represents unemployed workers.

The differences in political strategy between the myriad groups, which were not expressed Friday, lie in the steps they believe should be taken to bring about the change in politics in this Southern Cone country of 37 million, Latin America’s third-largest economy, which is experiencing its worst economic and social crisis ever.

The CCC and the Bloque Piquetero Nacional propose that a ”people’s assembly” be held to decide on the policies that they will demand of the new government to emerge out of the early elections scheduled for April.

Other groups, however, want to get directly involved in politics. That is the case of the CTA labour confederation, which was created by the unions of public employees and teachers as an alternative to the powerful Justicialista-affiliated Confederación General del Trabajo central trade union.

Some 10,000 delegates meeting in a two-day congress this month organised by the CTA decided to create a political movement aimed at forming a coalition with other social organisations and parties, to seek elective posts in the coming elections.

The caravans that set out this week from several different provinces converged Friday on the Plaza de Mayo, outside the seat of government in the capital. No incidents were reported.

The peaceful climate contrasted sharply with the heavy security operation mounted by the government, which included fences thrown up around the seat of government and Congress, out of fear of a repeat of last year’s looting and rioting.

”They fanned the fears of local business owners, and said we were going to start looting. But the shopkeepers along the main avenues waved at us and applauded because they know it isn’t the ‘piqueteros’ who are to blame for their problems, but the neo-liberal economic policies that have sunk this country,” said Ceballos.

Several weeks ago, the unemployed movement denounced that local political leaders had offered them money to stage incidents of looting during the demonstration.

City councillors from neighbourhoods in the greater Buenos Aires confirmed the reports, and pointed their fingers at followers of former president Carlos Menem (1989-1999), who they said were trying to recreate the atmosphere of chaos that reigned a year ago today.

On Dec 19, 2001, thousands of impoverished residents of Buenos Aires, tired of four years of recession and high unemployment, looted supermarkets and grocery stores. The rioting and the subsequent police repression left more than 20 dead and many more injured.

After de la Rúa declared a state of siege, tens of thousands of mainly middle-class residents of Buenos Aires began to bang on pots and pans on their balconies and in their homes.

They later converged on the Plaza de Mayo, where they remained, along with unemployed protesters and workers, until the wee hours of the morning of Dec 20 to demand that the president resign.

Weakened by the economic crisis, which was becoming unmanageable, the first to hand in his resignation was economy minister Domingo Cavallo. Shortly afterwards, de la Rúa did so himself, abandoning the government palace in a helicopter while the police cracked down brutally on demonstrators in the Plaza de Mayo, where six were killed by police bullets.

The two days of rioting, looting and protests marked the start of a political crisis in which the country went through four different presidents in less than two weeks. Although the political turmoil finally let up when Duhalde was appointed by Congress, the social unrest continued for months.

ARGENTINA: Huge Demonstration Demands Political, Economic Change

By Marcela Valente Reprint | | Print |

Marcela Valente

BUENOS AIRES, Dec 20 2002 (IPS) - Hundreds of thousands of people in Argentina held a peaceful march Friday to demand changes in the country’s economic policy and political leadership, a year after the massive protests that toppled the government of Fernando de la Rúa.
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