Socialist Action /April 2002
New Serge in Argentina's Social Crisis
By GERRY FOLEY
The economic crisis in Argentina took another jump at the end of March,
as the peso at one point plunged to four to a dollar. The government barely
managed to bring it down to three at the end of trading before the Easter
holiday-and probably not for long. Even at this shaky plateau, Argentines
have already lost two thirds of the value of their savings.
The hyperinflationary spiral that the devaluation of the peso was expected
to touch off has apparently begun.
Savers returned to turbulent lines in front of the banks trying to recoup
what they could. Looting of supermarkets by hungry crowds resumed. In the
city of Rosario a famished crowd pounced on a truck transporting cattle
and slaughtered the animals right there, dividing the meat among themselves.
In its editorial, Prensa Obrera, the weekly newspaper of Politica
Obrera, the largest Trotskyist party, noted, "Less than a week ago,
the president of the central bank and the minister of economics agreed that
if the dollar went above 2.5 pesos and there were no agreement with the
IMF, the government's entire economic plan would be inviable."
The editorial referred to the calls for a coup d'etat raised in capitalist
circles, specifically in the March 25 issue of the business magazine Ambito
Financiero, which declared, "there is no solution without a state of
siege." But it pointed out that the mass revolt in the country has
reached the point where a coup would be a perilous undertaking. Former
President de La Rua tried to declare a state of siege in December and found
himself driven from office by huge infuriated crowds.
As fate would have it, March 24 is the anniversary of the last military
coup that launched a "dirty war" against the left and the workers'
movement, which cost the lives of 40,000 people.
The March 22 on-line journal of the Movimiento al Socialismo (MAS), another
Trotskyist organization, noted that the finance minister, Remes Lenicov,
told an IMF representative that the unemployment rate is now 33 percent.
Some 600,000 jobs have already been lost this year alone; 40 percent of
the population of the country is now estimated to be living below the poverty
line.
On March 17, the first national assembly of people's assemblies met in
Buenos Aires, combining representatives of the people's assemblies in Greater
Buenos Aires with those from the big cities of the interior. Over 3000 people
participated. The MAS journal pointed out that at one time in the Greater
Buenos Aires area, one in every three persons was involved in the local
people's assemblies and in the pot-banging demonstrations.
The MAS journal said that the movement had reached a crossroads, where
the number of assemblies was increasing and there were more and more attempts
to federate them, but at the same time the absolute number of those involved
was less. The movement had prepared for a new expansion.
In addition to a series of economic demands, such as nonpayment of the
national debt and the expulsion of the IMF from the country, the national
assembly of people's assemblies called for a government based on the people's
assemblies, the unemployed, and the employed workers' organizations.
March was also marked by a series of marches called by the national assembly
of piqueteros [the neighborhood organizations of the unemployed] on Feb.
17. Initial reports indicate a high level of mobilizations throughout the
country.
Although the ground is getting hotter and hotter under their feet, the
Argentine capitalists are still taking advantage of the crisis to make piratical
profits and therefore aggravating the decline. For example, the government
agreed to pay the debts owed to exporters in dollars (700 million worth).
In the plunge of the peso, it was forced to borrow this money from the exporters
at higher interest rates in order to try to stop the rise of the dollar,
thereby offering them a huge windfall.
As unemployment and poverty are rising disastrously, so are prices. One
of the cruelest exactions is a 50 percent increase in the cost of medicines.
Even in the most extreme circumstances, the capitalists put enriching
themselves above the minimum social responsibility. And the imperialist
financial institutions are not showing any higher level of altruism. They
seem to have decided to let the Argentine economy collapse as a lesson to
other Third World countries crushed by debt of what happens when they stop
paying tribute to the capitalist financial centers.
So, far neither the Argentine nor imperialist capitalists seem to have
learned anything from the sad fate of the cattle captured by a crowd of
hungry people outside Rosario. But if the mass movement continues to deepen
and organize itself, they may have more disturbing prospects to think about-that
is, a furious and desperate people will take their cash cows out of their
hands and begin putting these enterprises into the service of the people
who do the work.
Socialist Action /April 2002 |