Argentinie-crisis background-info (english)
Wereldsurfer - 03.01.2002 14:47
MASS STRUGGLE TOPPLES ARGENTINE GOVERNMENT
By Andy McInerney
Argentina´s government on Dec. 20 became the latest casualty
of the economic crisis sweeping Latin America. Caught
between the vise of the International Monetary Fund and the
demands of the Argentine masses, President Fernando De la
Rua and his hated Finance Minister Domingo Cavallo resigned
in disgrace.
Ten days later, on Dec. 30, his successor Adolfo Rodriguez
Saa tendered his resignation.
The result is that the third-largest economy in Latin
America is in a free-for-all, and the traditional political
parties of the Argentine ruling class are proving themselves
bankrupt in the face of the crisis. More and more, two
possibilities are taking shape: a return to the military
government that ruled Argentina with an iron fist during the
"dirty war" of 1976-83, or a workers´ government that breaks
the back of International Monetary Fund exploitation.
The resignations followed mass demonstrations on Dec. 19-20
by wide sectors of Argentina´s workers and unemployed.
Supermarkets around the country were sacked. Riot police in
the capital city of Buenos Aires opened fire on the crowds,
killing at least 27. Over 2,000 people were arrested in what
became known as the "Argentinazo."
De la Rua declared a state of siege hours before stepping
down. But the handwriting was on the wall. Urgent requests
to international bankers for emergency economic aid went
unanswered. The government of Argentina was left flapping in
the wind by Wall Street and the U.S. government.
The toppling of the Argentine government represents an
important victory for the millions of workers in that
country who have been waging strikes, blockading roads and
staging mass demonstrations against De la Rua´s and
Cavallo´s IMF-dictated austerity measures. It provides them
with a taste of their social power when they act in a united
way.
But the victory presents an even more vital question: Which
class can lead the country out of the economic depression it
has faced for the last four years?
A SOCIAL TINDERBOX
Argentina has been a social tinderbox for years. Production
has declined for four straight years--falling 11 percent
last year alone. Unemployment is running at an official rate
of more than 20 percent, but unions and social organizations
estimate that figure is closer to 50 percent after factoring
in the underemployed and the marginal economy.
Some 15 million of the country´s population of 36 million
live below the poverty line.
On top of this unstable situation, the IMF has been more and
more strident in demanding harsh austerity measures from
Argentine workers. In early December, the U.S.-dominated
banking outfit withheld a $1.3-billion loan disbursement
until the government cut back further on social services and
spending.
De la Rua had already cut pension payments. Institutions
were privatized. But the financial vultures demanded more.
The immediate trigger for the most recent protests was a run
on the banks beginning Nov. 30. Thousands of Argentines
lined up to withdraw their savings, fearing currency
devaluation. Big investors shifted million of dollars out of
the country. Facing a currency crisis, the government
ordered a limit on withdrawals to $1,000 per month.
Besides being a signal of the government´s bankruptcy, the
move pushed wide sectors of small business owners and others
in the middle class into opposition. Those caught in the
middle between the basic social classes can be hard hit in
an economic crisis, quickly losing whatever property they
had managed to accumulate.
In the midst of this economic crisis, protests have been
steadily growing. Throughout the Dec. 19-20 "Argentinazo,"
the working class was at the center of the movement.
There have been seven general strikes in Argentina since De
la Rua took office in 1999, including a massive strike on
Dec. 13 that shut down the country. The "piquetero" movement-
-organized groups of unemployed workers who have been
staging militant road blockades and other actions--is
growing. Reports are increasing of factory seizures by the
workers.
These were the groups that formed the basis of the movement
that took to the streets in major cities around the country
on Dec. 19. Emboldened by the display of their own strength,
thousands of residents in the poorest neighborhoods of
Buenos Aires and Rosario expropriated dozens of stores and
supermarkets, filled with goods they had been unable to buy.
Workers in Cordoba set the town hall ablaze to protest
government plans to cut wages.
SOMETHING HAD TO GIVE
The "Argentinazo" crossed the bounds of private property.
Something had to give. De la Rua and Cavallo stepped down so
that the capitalist system would have a chance of standing.
Despite the vast outpouring of the masses, no political
force was able to channel the social outburst into a battle
for state power. The result was that De la Rua´s resignation
was followed immediately by the re-emergence of the
Justicialist Party (PJ), the main opposition bourgeois
political party.
The PJ--itself divided into numerous factions--installed a
wealthy senator, Carlos Puerta, as acting president on Dec.
21. The next day, the PJ-dominated Congress announced Adolfo
Rodriguez Saa as interim president, ostensibly until
elections could be held on March 3.
Rodriguez Saa announced a series of measures reversing the
economic course charted by De la Rua and his predecessor, PJ
leader Carlos Menem. He announced a moratorium on payments
of Argentina´s foreign debt. He announced a job creation
program aimed at putting 100,000 people to work within one
week and a million more over a longer period. And he
announced a new currency that would not be pegged to the
dollar--essentially easing the move to currency devaluation.
The PJ has a long tradition of populist demagogy. Gen. Juan
Peron created the party in the 1940s. Peron´s government was
based on material concessions to the working class but
brutal defense of private property--a model of what Marxists
call a Bonapartist regime. Peronism stabilized bourgeois
rule while speaking the language of the masses.
Over the years, it moved further to the right, dropping much
of its anti-establishment rhetoric.
With Rodrìguez Saa, a revival of traditional Peronism
appeared possible. But it proved short lived. While the
trade union mobilization stalled after De la Rua´s
resignation, undoubtedly impacted to some extent by
Rodriguez Saa´s demagogy, the petty bourgeoisie continued to
mobilize.
Terrified by the prospect of the new currency and a
potential devaluation--and the corresponding loss of their
savings--middle-class elements took to the streets again on
Dec. 29. While many of the demands were the same--against
corruption, against devaluation--the class composition was
different. The poor and working classes were largely absent
from this second round of mobilizations.
Even though the Dec. 29 demonstrations were smaller and
restricted mainly to the capital city, they intersected with
political maneuvering within the PJ itself. Rodriguez Saa
resigned on Dec. 30, citing "an attitude of pettiness and
haggling." His ouster reflects the strength of the "new"
Peronists, the ones who have functioned as lackeys of
Washington and the IMF.
OPENINGS FOR WORKERS TO TAKE REINS
The traditional bourgeois parties face a fundamental and
ultimately insoluble problem. It is the same problem that
faced and destroyed the De la Rua government. Any government
loyal to the capitalist system must be loyal first and
foremost to the IMF and U.S. imperialism.
The extent to which Argentina´s crisis is linked to the
imperialist world is evident from the reactions following De
la Rua´s resignation.
U.S. President George Bush insisted on Dec. 22 that
Argentina´s government must follow the IMF austerity
measures. "The IMF made some very tough but very realistic
and very necessary demands on the money, and that is that
the government of Argentina must restructure its fiscal
policy and its tax policy," he told the BBC.
Spain´s two largest banks own about one-fifth of the
Argentine banking industry, according to a Dec. 27
Associated Press report. Spanish corporate investment
amounts to 10 percent of the Argentine gross domestic
product and 3 percent of Spain´s. So the ruling class of
Spain stands to take major losses if Argentina´s currency is
devalued.
The role of the middle class--the small business owners and
managers--will depend primarily on the ability of the
working classes and their political leadership to point a
way out of the economic crisis. As the events of Dec. 19-20
show, if the working class exerts a strong leadership, the
middle classes will follow.
But if the working class does not lead, the middle classes
will turn elsewhere. This was the tragic lesson of Germany
in the 1930s and Italy in the 1920s: the despairing middle
classes can form the social base of fascism. In Argentina,
the main force within the ruling class system that still has
the organization and political vision to enforce the IMF
regime is the military.
There are potential openings in the world political
situation for the workers to take the reins in Argentina.
The economic and political crisis in Argentina exposes a
fundamental contradiction in the world today.
The focus of attention for the world´s biggest imperialist
powers is in the Middle East, where they have resumed their
endless competition for the world´s oil reserves.
But the center of gravity for struggles against the
imperialist economic order is in Latin America. Mass
mobilizations have toppled two governments in Ecuador since
1998. Venezuela, under the presidency of Hugo Chavez, is
embarking on a course opposite the one dictated by the IMF
and Washington. The people of Colombia, facing a depression
for the past two years, are responding with mass strikes and
armed insurrection. Revolutionary Cuba still stands as a
beacon of resistance throughout the hemisphere.
Now the masses have awoken in industrialized Argentina.
Five socialist parties signed a joint statement on Dec. 21
pointing toward a different way out: "the Argentina of the
workers, the one that will expropriate those that have
always exploited us." The task of building that Argentina,
of leading the way, is the order of the day.
==============================================
ARGENTINE LEFT PARTIES SAY:
"WE DON´T WANT MORE OF THE SAME"
[On Dec. 21, five socialist political
parties in Argentina issued a statement on the resignation
of President Fernando De la Rua. The following are excerpts,
translated by Workers World.]
The Argentine people and workers demolished the government
of De la Rua and Cavallo in the streets. It is a gigantic
people´s victory in the face of a crisis that involved the
freezing of salaries, the seizure of the people´s savings
and the generalized bankruptcy of the public finances.
The De la Ruas and Cavallos, the Menems and Duhaldes, the
Ruckaufs, Puertas and Rodriguez Saas are responsible for the
social catastrophe and for the social disorganization that
is destroying the very lives of millions of Argentines.
The parties that control the Legislative Assembly are
equally responsible for this disaster. They have neither the
ability nor the authority to form a government.
This is what the people rose up against, winning the
streets, cutting off the highways, occupying work places,
marching to the very seats of power.
The Argentina of banking and big capital is bankrupt. It is
the final stage of a system of exploitation, of a social,
economic and political organization. Enough!
We declare that there is a way out, but that this way out is
incompatible with those that promote chaos for the benefit
of surrender, for finance capital, for monopoly capitalism,
national or foreign. This is the point. Neither
dollarization nor the devaluation promoted by ruling sectors
will get us out of this endless torment. They are variations
of a new turn of the screw aimed at the confiscation of our
own labor.
They all have to go. We have to put an end not only to De la
Rùa-Cavallo, but also to Rodriguez Saa, the parties that are
looking for an agreement with the plunderers of the IMF.
They are the ones that have to pay for the crisis: the
bankers, the corporations of big capital, and the
privatizing monopolies that have taken over the state
patrimony.
It is necessary to nationalize banking, freeing all salaries
and deposits of the workers and even of the small producers
and merchants. The millions of dollars of funds of the big
bosses, with already $150 billion sent out of the country,
must be frozen. All the privatized services must be re-
statized, and the payments on the foreign debt must be
stopped immediately.
On this basis, it is necessary to reorganize the economy
under a national workers´ plan and so put the paralyzed
production back into motion.
To do this, we need to allow the people to deliberate and
organize themselves amid the struggle. This is an
unavoidable prerequisite for restructuring a power that is
rising up in the face of the present power. Another
Argentina: neither of the Justicialist Party nor of the
Alliance, nor of the failed pseudo-progressives. The
Argentina of the workers, the one that will expropriate
those that have always exploited us.
SIGNATORIES:
Workers´ Party (PO)
United Left (Communist Party and Socialist Workers Movement
MST)
Revolutionary Socialist League (LSR)
Socialist Workers Front (FOS)
- END -
-------------------------
Via Workers World News Service
Reprinted from the Jan. 10, 2002
issue of Workers World newspaper
-------------------------
- END -
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