Argentina
Arie Pres - 21.06.2002 01:03
In Argentina, day of heavy street protests against IMF and government attempts to rescue slumping.
BUENOS AIRES, 20 June 2002 - Laid-off workers, labor activists and retirees by the thousands poured into the streets Thursday to protest the government and the IMF.
Downtown Plaza de Mayo in Buenos Aires, 20 June 2002.
The protests, albeit scattered, were reported from the northernmost province of Salta to the Atlantic coast resort of Mar del Plata, as well as in the capital and other major cities nationwide.
Protesters briefly scuffled with riot police in Salta, leading to 26 arrests, but no other violence was reported late Thursday after some 6,500 people demonstrated peacefully on the capital´s Plaza de Mayo.
Most were protests against the government´s inability to enact programs to end the economic slump that has left the country devalued, in default and in despair after four years of recession.
"We have a problem, social genocide, which is threatening leave 23 million Argentines below the poverty line by the end of the year," charged Luis D´Elia, a leader of thousands of jobless workers who marched into the capital.
Speaking of Duhalde, D´Elia criticized what he saw the country´s attitude of "submissiveness" before the international finance community and lending groups like the IMF.
The protesters, who blocked highways with their march, wended their way to the president´s offices in the pink Government House in downtown Buenos Aires for an afternoon rally. Some brandished stout sticks.
A separate group of leftist demonstrators also planned to demonstrate later Thursday against the IMF, whose team has been staying at a local luxury hotel that was guarded by riot police with shields and tear gas.
The motley group of protesters included jobless picketers from poor outlying districts, leftist labor groups, public schoolteachers, as well as retirees and neighborhood groups.
"The IMF has come to take the last bit we have," charged one state union worker, Pablo Micheli. (AP)
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