Reuters (with additional material by AP and AFP). 25 and 26 January 2002. Thousands of Argentines Protest Over Cash Crisis.
BUENOS AIRES - Tens of thousands of Argentines, from middle class businessmen to the unemployed, took to streets on Friday to bang pots and pans in the biggest protest yet against a new government struggling to end a massive financial crisis. Several thousands people gathered near the presidential palace in the center of the capital signalling their anger by banging on pots and pans in protests organized at local neighbourhood level and without political or labor union leadership. Demonstrators blocked street intersections, sometimes with burning tires, and banged pots and pans under a drizzling rain. Car drivers looked on and many applauded as protesters waved flags and set off fireworks in an almost carnival atmosphere. Many of the capital's main avenues were a sea of protesters marching toward the presidential palace, many rattling Coke cans filled with a few coins. One old man rang a cow bell. Another well-dressed woman carried a poodle in her arms. "This mania for robbing must end," sang some protesters. "We want work; stuff the IMF," shouted other demonstrators in the hot and muggy summer evening. Many in the crowds shouted insults at Argentine politicians and members of the Supreme Court, which has upheld rulings in recent weeks keeping the partial freeze on bank accounts in place. "Get out! Get out!" people chanted, while others complained of corruption by government officials. "They're all thieves!" some shouted. Many protesters were still wearing their business suits from work, while mothers brought out their children. Around 10,000 people demonstrated at the Mar del Plata beach resort, where middle class Argentines take summer vacations. "I am six years old and when I am older I don't want to leave -- because I am the future," said one banner draped over a small girl. Police set up barricades in the capital and extra forces were on call on Friday but most protests were peaceful. Barriers were set up near the presidential palace, while officials said border police were ready to support regular police forces if needed. Small groups of banner-carrying jobless protested peacefully outside several supermarkets in the suburbs, demanding food handouts -- a worrying move for the new government after the looting that helped topple former President Fernando de la Rua in December. Ahead of the protest, workers moved quickly to throw up sheet metal to cover the fronts of dozens of foreign-owned banks in downtown Buenos Aires, worried about renewed attacks against banks and ATMs. Police at the Plaza de Mayo stood behind iron barricades and the government put additional security forces on call as the crowds grew on at street corners around the Argentine capital and the country's biggest cities. The protest was planned for days by loosely knit groups of city residents with the help of the Internet and by word-of-mouth. During the day, demonstrators blocked a key bridge on a highway leading to the southern suburbs of Buenos Aires. In another part of the capital, a crowd of some 100 people from a poor neighborhood went to a supermarket and shouted for food, but the store shuttered its gates. Scuffling and brawling broke out when unemployed Argentines demanding jobs marched in Guaymallen in the western province of Mendoza. Media reports said the jobless protesters clashed briefly with a group of municipal workers. The protests spread beyond the capital and television footage showed hundreds of demonstrators using cooking utensils to punctuate their protests in major cities across the country. "We are not Peronists, nor radicals, nor socialists. We are just the hungry people who for the first time have organized themselves and know their own strength," said Ruben Saboulard, leader of the residents' association of the San Telmo district of Buenos Aires. The protests officially began at 2300 GMT as demonstrators gathered in squares in bustling Buenos Aires and cities across Argentina's 23 provinces, called out by the capital's Interneighborhood Assembly, which has no political or union affiliation. The fact that the protests are spontaneous and not led by political parties or unions was underlined by Argentine historian Felix Luna. "This is a very primitive form of direct action which is not organized by any group," he said. "The demonstrations are a collective display of bad temper against political corruption, the Supreme Court and all those who the demonstrators feel have led the country into crisis." . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Barry Stoller http://groups.yahoo.com/group/ProletarianNews
