(continued) This was an impossible dream. Argentineans, that is the mass of Argentinean working class, did not share the illussion of those newcomers. They wanted to exercise the right to vote for Perón (Cámpora had been a transitional candidate to dodge the proscriptive clause -set by the military regime of Lanusse as the only condition to retreat- according to which Perón could not be candidate), not for an _ersatz_. Perón himself, very old and ill, was not very eager to be a President again. But he could not escape his destiny which, like Greek tragedies, was overwhelming and abiding. He had lost control of his own fate on October 17, 1945. His proscription was not a personal issue, it was the proscription of a whole country. He _had_ to become President again. During the process that ended up with the September elections, dramatic struggles arose within Peronism on the issue of the Vice Presidency (please take into account that in those times, "dramatic" in Argentina might well mean "by the shotgun"). In order to smother these struggles, he decided that Isabel would go with him on the ticket. But in so doing, he was half-consciously paving the way for imperialist intromission (and rule) in the popular government. Isabel was in the hands of one of the unclear types that had usually marked Perón's intimate circles: José López Rega. A former Police officer, head of an esoteric sect, strongly linked with the darker sides of different intelligence services, the rightmost wing of Peronism, and the P2 logia (yes, the one of the scandal in the Banca Ambrosiana), López Rega, through Isabel, was the forerunner of the 1976 coup _within_ the government that had begun with Cámpora and Perón. The situation slowly became a Hell of massacres and crime. The economy began to shake, and the bourgeois programme established by José Ber Gelbard (a secret affiliate to the Communist Party and a succesful bourgeois who had drafted a bourgeois programme for Argentina whose political carreer had always been supported by Perón since 1953) proved too timid to counter reaction. Gelbard was fired by Isabel who chose a conservative economist (though still a Peronist) to replace him. Worker's militancy made it impossible to estabilize the economic system through a cut in wages. Popular anger was expressed through many ways, and terrorist groups (from the right and the "left") made life in Argentina more or less like crossing an avenue in Chicago during a showdown between the guys of Elliot Ness and Al Capone. Finally, a "cold" coup was attempted by the gorilla military. They secluded Isabel at the Naval Base of Mar del Plata (more precisely, in the Lighthouse, a postcard view of this seaside resort), and no pressure was spared to have the President of the Senate -successor of Isabel in the chain of acephaly- Italo Argentino Luder declare her incompetent, and become the new President (with the support of the military and, of course, the Radical party who logically expected to destroy Peronism on the 1977 elections --but wanted to have elections!). Luder resisted the move, which speaks to his praise in fact, and the military had to release Isabel and allow her to return to power. In the meantime, the bands of López Rega, the terrorist groups and the groups of state terrorism were turning everyday life in a nightmare. Unions boiled over at inflation, and new salaries were negotiated week after week. Finally, Isabel decided to entrust Argentinean economy to an economist who was to be the Proceso before the Proceso: Celestino Rodrigo. Rodrigo immediately imposed a plan as tremendous as those that, after the Coup, would become the regular prescription of economic policy for Argentina. He lasted a couple of weeks. An immense popular mobilization, on June 27, 1975, forced his resignation and forced López Rega to abandon the country. Isabel was now helplessly alone in power. The union leaders, who had been the generators of the mobilization (in the same way that they had been the generators of the general strike which, in 1969, had started the Cordobazo and the series of popular upheavals in the Inland Country that would put the military government of 1966 to an end), did not transform this massive strike into a "porteñazo". This would have been too much for a Peronist union leader of the time. A "porteñazo", that is a massive popular upheaval in Buenos Aires City, would have meant civil war around next corner, and socialism after the other street. Thus, they were content to oust the Minister of Economy and obtain a general hike in wages that would stop the effects of the brutal and massive devaluation by Rodrigo. Economy began to turn chaotic. Direct sabotage by the managers of the large firms, petty-bourgeois misery, financial squeeze, foreign pressure, all at the same time answered this last moment of glory of the Argentinean working class such as had been born in 1945. In a few days, the country was beginning to be prepared for the psychological campaign that would precede the coup. Isabel would not remain to the end of her mandate (it was to be finished within less than a year, the Radicals -a ballot box in their heart, as always- nervously reminded their military friends). The economic plan of imperialism could not accept the possibility that a "democratic" government gave the working classes to defend their own rights. The die had been cast. On December 1975, a ridiculous coup, led by a hydrophobic Fascist Air Force Commander, gave the last warning. The _La Razón_ paper, owned by the most oligarchic Peralta Ramos family, began to editorialize in the headlines: "There are n days left". On March 24, 1976, the coup took place. An age had gone forever. Now, many people in that moment, at the obvious and self-evident roguish, nay, reactionary, nay, pro-imperialist, features of Isabel and her entourage, quite reasonably argued that Argentina had already lost any shred of sovereignty, that the recent experience had shown that the time for political strife was over, that we had to chose either to have a popular revolution or become a direct colony. This last proposition, in particular, was very perverse. It was absolutely right, but it was abstract. A mere "child of Reason", which, as Goya stated once, "generate monsters". The concrete fact of the moment was that the last shred of political legitimacy in Argentina lay with this repugnant little woman of dark past and darker present. If we allowed the military to oust them, then things would be still worse. So that what we should have done then was to support her (some in the country, such as yours truly, actually did) against what was obviously to become the dismantling of Argentina at the hands of imperialism. Then, we arrive at today's Argentina, a tragic joke of what it was. A country that does not control its own currency, nor does it control its public utilities, nor anything. A country where, as I commented on PEN-L a short time ago, flags of the supermarkets wave in the squares, instead of the Argentinean flag: a Rolerball country, so to say. This Rollerball country is the consequence of many factors, but certainly one of them is Carlos Saúl Menem, the last Peronist president, who reverted everything that Perón had done and turned Argentina into nothingness. Menem is a particularly roguish type, who would have made Napoleon the Third blush in awe (I can see Napoleon le petit bursting to himself: "How didn't _I_ think of that!"). He has transformed Argentine in a paradise for laudering money from the drug trade. A maffia-type regime has been installed by the financial sectors under his cloak. He destroyed the modest "welfare state" institutions that we Argentineans had been building from long before Peronism. He destroyed our economic independence and substituted lackey-like agreement with the Department of State for the up to him more or less dignified foreign policy that had been a feature of Argentina, save for some terrible periods, ever since 1880. That is, he was the ultimate rogue, wasn't he? Worse still than Isabel, worse still than López Rega. But, know what? Even in the case of these rogues, I would have supported the Argentinean government against an attempt by the imperialist courts to put them to trial and jail. Why? Well, because these courts would of necessity be kangaroo courts... directed against myself and my own people. The source of power of these rogues and the source of power of those courts is one and only source of power, the same source of power: imperialist exploitation of the world. There has never been a case in history where a settlement of accounts between scoundrels has been for the benefit of the victims. The final result has always been (and this is what these settlements of account are made for) a further victimization, a deeper humiliation, a greater exploitation, by the Greater Scoundrel. No, Mark. You are wrong. We have not lost our sovereignty if by that one means the right to wage a struggle against the Empire and its Petains. This right, among others, implies our strong opposition to any attempt by the Empire to settle accounts with the Petains --to our worst fate. The struggle to arrive at the "popular revolution" by which we shall not exactly "retrieve sovereignty", but simply enlarge the microscopic piece imperialists have not been able to snatch from our hands, that microscopic piece that extraterritorial courts are bent on destroying. Be confident in ourselves. We shall judge our rogues, and be reassured that the punishment will be worst than anything imperialist judges can imagine of. In the meantime, may I most friendly and comradely ask you to please oppose with all your strength, with all your unflinching will, to _any_ attempt of your own burgeoisie to substitute their own rule for even the rule of our local rogues? In the confidence that I will move more than one on these lists to reflection, a hug to all, Néstor. N O T E [1] Unfortunately, most Argentinean "Leftists" (particularly the Communists) did not pay attention to this slight issue, and thus their politics tended to systematically range with the Empires at the crucial points in our history [2] In the last case, facts belie Mark's bold assertion: there was an invasion, working class neighborhoods were particularly stormed, and lots of Panamanians fought against the American paratroopers. Many were disappeared, shot and/or tortured, AND, ah, coincidence: all of them belonged to the national-popular side, included the great philosopher Ricaurte Soler [to my knowledge; would love to learn otherwise]. A puppet government was immediately installed, not roguish but more subservient during the moment when the Panama Canal was being transferred to Panamanian sovereignty as a consequence of the Treaties signed by Torrijos. Néstor Miguel Gorojovsky [EMAIL PROTECTED] _______________________________________________ CrashList website: http://website.lineone.net/~resource_base
