DEVELOPMENT-ARGENTINA: Images of a Shipwrecked Nation

By Marcela Valente Reprint | | Print |

Marcela Valente

BUENOS AIRES, Mar 27 2002 (IPS) - The sinking of Argentina is leading impoverished women and men to take desperate measures, selling their hair or blood, jumping on an overturned cattle truck to butcher the animals on the spot, or taking money to hold a place in a queue outside a bank all night long.

These cases, which occurred within the last week, have traits in common. They involve desperate, spontaneous, improvised and massive reactions that are caused by the basic need to obtain food. In December, the same necessity led crowds to plunder supermarkets.

An owner of a wig factory in Rosario, in the northeast province of Santa Fe, commented in a radio interview that the devaluation of the Argentine peso had made imports too expensive and his company could no longer purchase the materials needed to create artificial hairpieces.

His solution was to announce the purchase of human hair. The public’s reaction went far beyond what Beauty Centre’s proprietors ever imagined.

“Entire families arrived, some had travelled 30 km on bicycle with their children. They brought their hair already cut, or asked us to cut it off for them,” said Ana Dúran, co-owner of the company. Each person left with 10 to 15 pesos (three to five dollars).

Some 400 people showed up in two days. One man said he was selling his hair “in order to make the payment” on the car he bought recently.

Payment was 300 pesos per kilo of hair (approximately 100 dollars). But nobody could offer much more than 30 grams. Though it was not the intention, the company purchased in two days enough material to manufacture wigs throughout the next year. Most of the wigs are sold to people who lose hair as a result of chemotherapy.

“We paid for hair that was of poor quality, that we knew we would throw out, but we did it because the people were desperate. The said they didn’t have money to buy food, and they offered us the hair of each of their children. They were even willing to let us cut it just like that, but we hired a stylist,” Durán said.

Argentina’s economic recession began nearly four years ago and continues to deepen. Poverty has increased dramatically, and now affects 44 percent of the population of 37 million, according to official figures. Unemployment now stands at 24 percent of the work force, according to private studies.

The currency devaluation that began in January led to a price rise for the basic monthly family food basket, while salaries dropped for those who still have jobs. Purchasing power has been reduced for everyone, but the hardest hit are those who receive the meagre government subsidy for unemployed heads of household.

Many of the unemployed are offering to hold a place in the long queues for customers who are waiting to purchase dollars, sold at regulated rates and in limited amounts by banks and exchange houses. The price for this service ranges from 15 to 100 pesos, depending on the place in the queue and the fluctuations in the currency market.

Thirteen percent of the people standing in the long lines – some extending 600 metres – admitted to the IBOPE polling firm that they were holding a place for someone else.

One man who was among the first in the queue outside the state- owned Banco Nación said he had been there all night and had already received partial payment from the client for whom he was saving a place in line. He was a former employee of Aerolíneas Argentinas who worked for the airline for 22 years, until he was laid off two years ago.

The man, 40, with three children, said he has only found work doing odd jobs. “Once I get paid, I am going to donate blood. They offered 15 pesos,” he said. The woman paying him to hold a place in the queue for her until the bank opened had told him she had to accompany a hospitalised family member.

The communications media highlight such episodes as a new manifestation of the social crisis that three months ago meant supermarket looting and violent street demonstrations, with a death toll of 30. That wave of social unrest precipitated the resignation of president Fernando de la Rúa Dec 20.

A Buenos Aires radio station on Tuesday telephoned economist Marcelo Lascano, adviser to multilateral financial organisations, to ask him about the lack of confidence that has led thousands of people to stand in long queues outside banks, waiting their turn to change pesos for dollars.

Lascano responded with another question: “And what do you think about people brutally killing animals to eat them?”

The economist was still amazed after having seen televised images of hundreds of people who butchered and cut apart cattle in a truck that overturned near Rosario, Argentina’s second most populous city.

There were 22 animals in the truck. The driver was taken to the hospital, while residents of the area wasted no time in surrounding the accident site.

While the ambulance personnel and the police worked to clear the accident, the people gathered asked permission to put the animals out of their misery and to butcher them for their meat.

The cattle, which had been on their way to the meatpacking plant, were handed over after some arguments and shoving.

In this improvised circumstance, some 400 men and women went to work, with three to five people cutting up each animal.

“There are 30 in my family and none of the men work,” said a desperate-sounding woman, whose clothes were bloodied by the butchery.

One young man aimed his criticism at Argentina’s political leaders, who he said have failed to provide the solutions demanded by the crisis. “They live well and eat well, they don’t have any problems. Meanwhile, we are dying of hunger, but we help each other and are going to share all of this,” he said, pointing to the butchered cattle.

Residents of Deán Funes, a town in the central province of Córdoba, gathered Wednesday outside a supermarket and retail centre to ask for food, while several guards stood outside the building. The shops closed their doors and handed out bags of food to appease the crowd.

Marta Martínez, a middle-class retiree, 75, told IPS she has never experienced a crisis like the one afflicting Argentina today. She said she was not talking about her personal situation, but about the distressing cases she sees around her and the numerous families who do not have the basic necessities to survive.

Martínez gets together regularly in Buenos Aires with a group of retired women to sew clothing to be donated to people in the provinces. But she says she knows it is not enough, a comment that is repeated by social assistance organisations, which have seen donations plummet while requests for food and clothing have jumped.

“When I was a child I experienced the crisis of 1930, and the people talked a great deal about that and the lack of work. But never – never – did it compare to what we are seeing now, a situation as desperate and distressing as this,” she said, her voice breaking with her feeling of powerlessness.