Feature Page: Tensions remain high in Argentina
2004Gerry Foley 2004-01The page as the paper published it (Wayback Machine) →
From the paper's own web edition, recovered from the Internet Archive: the text as the paper put it online, not machine-read. The printed issue of January 2004 is not held.
By GERRY FOLEY
Socialist Action International Editor Gerry Foley was in Buenos Aires on a political fact-finding tour in November.
Despite the relative stabilization that followed the election of a populist demagogue, Nestor Kircher, as president of Argentina in May, social tensions and the mobilization of massive sections of the huge army of the unemployed are continuing.
The anniversary of the Dec. 20, 2002, uprising that brought down the openly neoliberal government of Fernando de la Rua was marked by a demonstration of 70,000 piqueteros (unemployed activists) in the country’s capital, Buenos Aires. The tensions were marked by the explosion of a bomb along the route, which injured a number of the demonstrators.
The terrorist act was reminiscent of the gangster attacks on left organizations carried out by the right wing of the Peronist movement in the mid-1970s, attacks that prepared the way for the military coup of 1976 and the “dirty war” against left and trade-union activists that claimed 30,000 lives. It was a reminder that the conservative forces within the society are on the outlook for opportunities to attack the mass movement of the unemployed, which is the main radical force in the country.
The neoliberal capitalist offensive in Argentina resulted in massive layoffs of workers from privatized industries and local manufacturing concerns wiped out by imperialist competition. Economists estimate that there are no jobs for half of the economically active population.
The movement of the unemployed takes two forms: the piqueteros who are unemployed and organized on a neighborhood basis, whose main weapon is blocking roads and the occupation of factories abandoned by their bosses.
Within the piquetero movement, there is also a division between those forces that are fighting mainly for social benefits and those forces that are fighting for the creation of real jobs.
Two Trotskyist parties lead large piquetero fronts, the Workers Party (PO) and the Movement toward Socialism (MAS). They are respectively Polo Obrero, with about 10,000 followers, and the Frente de Obreros Combativos, with about 5000.
In the province of Neuquen, in western Argentina, a Trotskyist party, the Partido de Trajadores Socialistas (PTS, Socialist Workers Party) is leading the occupation of the Zanon factory, a manufacturer of ceramics. But the state governor, Jorge Sobsich, is a holdover from the era of Carlos Menem, the right-wing Peronist president who preceded de la Rua. Sobisch also received a gold medal in 1977 from the then military dictator General Jorge Videla.
On Nov. 25, the Neuquen police launched a brutal attack on unemployed workers in which dozens of workers were injured. In its Nov. 29 issue, the Mexico City daily La Jornada reported that local human rights organizations accused the police of targeting leaders of the workers movement and torturing persons arrested. It noted that after the police attack thousands of workers had staged protests in the province.
At the same time, the right in Argentina has started a campaign against President Kirchner, claiming that he is a dangerous radical who is surrounding himself with former urban guerrillas. In all, the situation in Argentina remains explosive and it is important for defenders of human rights and workers’ rights to remain attentive to dangers of repression there and ready to offer their support to victims of it.