Socialist Action /May 2002
Workers Strike throughout Argentina
as Social Crisis Deepens
By GERRY FOLEY
The economic and social crisis in Argentina took another turn for the
worse in the last month of April. On Tuesday, April 23, the country's populist
("last chance") president, Eduardo Duhalde, had to accept the
resignation of his minister of economics and his team.
Although a new minister was soon appointed, the entire episode was a
resounding declaration of the failure of the government's plan for at least
stopping the country's economic meltdown.
Economics Minister Remes Lesnicov resigned immediately after returning
from negotiations with the International Monetary Fund in the United States,
and the day after militant demonstrations prevented the national parliament
from adopting the president's plan to confiscate the accounts of Argentine
savers and replace them with bonds payable in 10 years.
Claiming that his plan was the last chance to save the country's economy,
Duhalde had threatened to resign if the parliament did not adopt it.
However, on April 22 the legislators found themselves besieged by demonstrators
and were forced to suspend the parliamentary session, preventing the adoption
of Duhalde's economic measures.
According to an April 24 statement from the Socialist Workers Movement
(MST), the second largest Trotskyist group in Argentina, this was the immediate
cause of the resignation of the president's economic team. It was an indication
that his government does not have the political strength to impose the draconian
austerity program demanded by the IMF and the country's major capitalists.
The MST statement also noted a new upsurge of workers' struggles in the
week preceding the fall of Duhalde's economic team. In particular, there
was a wave of teachers' strikes in several provinces protesting against
the government authorities' failure to pay their wages. The IMF's dictates
call for cutting public expenditures to the bone and beyond, and obviously
the largest category of essential government workers are teachers.
In the province of San Juan, thousands of mobilized workers seized the
provincial ministries. In Buenos Aires, there was a pot-banging demonstration
to commemorate those shot down by the police during the Dec. 20 demonstrations
that toppled the previous openly neoliberal government.
"The specter of looting returned," the Mexico City daily La
Jornada wrote in its April 24 issue, "when unemployed workers demonstrated
in several places in the southern part of the [national] capital, especially
in the Buenos Aires suburbs of Loma de Zamora and Quilmes, where they marched
on supermarkets to demand food."
At the same time, Duhalde declared a bank holiday that deprived Argentinians
of access to their bank accounts, leaving even employed workers often virtually
penniless. Stores began refusing to accept payment by credit and debit cards.
For the mass of the population, the banking services they have depended
on are collapsing.
In the same week, a large foreign bank, the Canadian Scotia group, shut
down-leaving its depositors without their money and its employers without
their jobs.
Socialist Action /May 2002 |