------------------------- Via Workers World News Service Reprinted from the Feb. 7, 2002 issue of Workers World newspaper -------------------------
ARGENTINA: GROUND ZERO FOR ANTI-IMF MOVEMENT By Andy McInerney The global capitalist economic system--the system where a handful of billionaires can privately profit from the wealth that billions of working people socially create--is in deep crisis, and that is having dire political consequences. Nowhere is that more evident today than in Argentina. One month after mass protests forced two governments out of power in Argentina, tens of thousands of people are in motion again. Demonstrations against the economic program of newly appointed President Eduardo Duhalde took place in cities across the South American country on Jan. 26. The new protests are a sign that the maneuvers within the Argentine ruling class cannot resolve the deep political crisis provoked by economic depression and International Monetary Fund-sponsored austerity. The growing organization of the Argentine mass movement raises the prospect that the workers can confront the state with their own organs of power--the first signs of a revolutionary situation. The Jan. 26 protests, known in Argentina as "cacerolazos" or pot-banging demonstrations, involved simultaneous actions in over 100 cities and towns. The German Press Agency DPA estimated that in the capital city of Buenos Aires 100,000 people converged on the Plaza de Mayo. They demanded the unfreezing of bank accounts and an end to the government's devaluation efforts, and condemned the nine-member Supreme Court for approving Duhalde's financial measures. Banks were boarded up and thousands of police were mobilized. Battles broke out after midnight between cops and demonstrators; over 30 were wounded by police tear gas and rubber bullets. Duhalde warned of "civil war." Until recently, Argentina was held up as a model for economic development. The Central Intelligence Agency estimated that in 2000 its 37 million people had a per capita gross domestic product of $12,900--the highest in Latin America and higher than all the countries of Eastern Europe, Russia included. The vast majority of the population--at least 80 percent--live in cities or towns. Today, the country's economy stands in ruin. It is a testament to the devastation cloaked behind words like "globalization" and "neoliberalism." Half the population now lives below the poverty line. People are bartering compact disks and electronic kitchen goods for potatoes. Officially, 20 percent of Argentine workers are unemployed. Unofficially, estimates of unemployment and underemployment go as high as 50 percent. It is the worst economic depression Argentina has ever experienced--even beyond the impact of the Great Depression of the 1930s. VICTIMS OF THE IMF The crisis in Argentina is first and foremost a crisis of production. The depression that began in 1998 has meant that factories across the country have gone idle. Production in Argentina declined by 11 percent in 2001 alone. Overproduction in the auto and steel industries has hit the country especially hard. But the impact of this crisis--a reflection of the world capitalist economic crisis that stretches across every continent--has been exacerbated by the International Monetary Fund's draconian demands as a condition for making loans. The IMF and other international banks have tied loan packages to demands to cut social spending in areas like social security and health care. Public institutions like electricity and water had to be sold off. That leaves the Argentine workers especially hard hit by the crisis. Any hope for a "safety net" is gone. The Argentine ruling class racked up a foreign debt of $132 billion. But that money was never destined to build up the infrastructure. On the contrary, those loans were made only for schemes that would maximize profits for the foreign-owned corporations and banks, mostly from the U.S. For example, the last loan that the IMF granted to the Argentine government was for $8 billion in August 2001. Of that $8 billion, $5 billion were designed to "shore up the Argentine currency reserve." That means the only effect of over half the August loan was to maintain the one-to-one currency exchange rate between the U.S. dollar and the Argentine peso. CAPITALIST RULE WEAKENS Caught in a deadly vise between the demands of the IMF and the anger of the working class, the Argentine ruling class is desperately grasping at straws to solve its crisis. In December, then-Finance Minister Domingo Cavallo froze bank accounts to prepare for a currency devaluation. That move triggered a Dec. 19-20 mass uprising now known as the Argentinazo. Cavallo and President Fernando de la Rua were forced out, as was de la Rua's short-lived successor, Adolfo Rodriguez Saa. Notably, the United States government did not intervene to save its lackeys in Argentina--despite de la Rua's efforts over the past two years to accommodate every political and economic demand made of him. Sensing that there was a vacuum of political leadership in the working class, and taking advantage of the crisis to deal an economic blow to European capitalists who had invested heavily in Argentina, the U.S. government was sending a clear message to the Argentine ruling class and its political establishment: your existence depends on us. Duhalde, from the Peronist Justicialist Party, took power amid this pressure from the U.S. But the Justicialist Party is deeply divided into factions, and is despised by the masses for its corruption and obedience to Wall Street. Now Duhalde is offering the same economic program that caused the uprising against his predecessors: currency devaluation and more IMF loans. The Jan. 26 Associated Press reported that his government was planning to appeal for a massive $15 billion loan from the IMF--a loan that would undoubtedly carry with it conditions for deeper austerity measures. A four-person team that includes a representative of the U.S. Treasury Department is overseeing Duhalde's economic plans. The combination of economic crisis, contradictions with U.S. imperialism, and crisis within the Argentine ruling class establishment adds up to what Marxists call a pre-revolutionary situation. SPONTANEITY AND LEADERSHIP Mass struggle has already brought down two governments in Argentina. Mobilizations are continuing. Can the Argentine workers find a way out of the current crisis? The Dec. 19-20 Argentinazo was by all accounts a spontaneous uprising. Millions of people were propelled into motion by the growing misery of daily life combined with the arrogance of the ruling class. The energy released by this spontaneous uprising was enough to shake up the political establishment. But without leadership and organization, even the most powerful movement cannot carry out the changes that would fulfill the demands of the millions making up the movement. That was the reason why the hated and corrupt Justicialist Party held onto power in the stormy days after the Argentinazo. Leadership has two components: which class will lead and which organization will lead the class? The movement that is developing in Argentina today involves all classes, from the workers to the disenfranchised middle classes to sections of the ruling class. But the groundwork for the mass movement was laid over a period of months by the working class. The main force in this respect is the growing piquetero, or picketers' movement--committees of organized, unemployed workers that have staged a series of militant roadblocks and other protest actions around the country since last summer. These committees have grown up outside the bounds of the traditional trade unions, and have energized the entire Argentine working class movement. The three main trade union federations have not been known for their militancy. But they have responded to the economic crisis with a series of general strikes, including one just one week before the Argentinazo. These mass actions involving millions of workers have emboldened the broader masses to take to the streets. In order to lead the movement to power, an organization needs above all the confidence of the workers in the streets. It needs to show its capacity to channel spontaneous protest into effective action. It needs to be oriented toward replacing the power of the exploiters with the power of the exploited. The need for such an organization in Argentina is more desperate than ever, given the tremendous surge of mass organization and protest. BEGINNINGS OF POPULAR POWER A sign of the growing organization of the mass movement in Argentina is the growth of Neighborhood Assemblies. These committees have sprung up in neighborhoods across the country. They were the organizations that called for the Jan. 26 demonstrations against Duhalde. "The demonstrators, who in early January gathered in their local streets or outside banks, have begun holding massive neighborhood assemblies," reported the Inter Press Service on Jan. 23. "We are not Peronists, or Radical [Party] members, or socialists," the leader of one Buenos Aires neighborhood assembly said. (Agence France Presse, Jan. 26) "We are just the hungry people who for the first time have organized themselves and know their own strength." These committees represent a feature common to every revolution: the development of popular committees to organize the struggle. These committees form the basis for a genuine revolutionary struggle that can replace the rule of the exploiting classes with the rule of the oppressed classes. In addition to the Neighborhood Assemblies, the piquetero movement is beginning to organize assemblies as well. "We do not bang on pots and pans, because we have none," one piquetero told IPS. These unemployed workers are organized into groups like Class Conscious and Combative Current, Workers' Pole, the Combative Workers' Front, and others. Argentina has become ground zero for the movement against the IMF and the rule of the bankers and corporate giants. - END - (Copyright Workers World Service: Everyone is permitted to copy and distribute verbatim copies of this document, but changing it is not allowed. For more information contact Workers World, 55 W. 17 St., NY, NY 10011; via e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] For subscription info send message to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Web: http://www.workers.org) ------------------ This message is sent to you by Workers World News Service. To subscribe, E-mail to: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To unsubscribe, E-mail to: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To switch to the DIGEST mode, E-mail to <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Send administrative queries to <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
