Socialist Action /July 2002
From Argentina to Venezuela, Struggles
Head Toward a Showdown
By GERRY FOLEY
The long-drawn-out crisis in Argentina has rebounded with a vengeance
as a result of a failed attempt by the government to "restore order"
by police repression. The new explosion is coming in the context of spreading
social turmoil in a number of key Latin America countries. This includes,
not least, Brazil, Argentina's neighbor and main trading partner, the largest
country in Latin America and the ninth largest economy in the world.
In Venezuela also, social unrest seems rapidly headed toward a showdown.
In its June 29, issue, the authoritative Paris daily Le Monde reported
that the wealthy suburbs on the hills around the capital city of Caracas
have become reactionary armed camps.
On the other hand, on June 29, a million people reportedly rallied in
defense of the populist president Hugo Chavez. The Mexico City daily La
Jornada described the demonstration as a "sea of dark faces,"
since the poor in Venezuela are largely Black or mulatto.
Chavez, who is far from a socialist, has been trying to reassure the
Venezuelan ruling classes and imperialism, but apparently with little effect.
It is not Chavez that they are afraid of. They know that their rickety capitalist
system can be overthrown quickly, if what they call the "mob"
ever gets out of hand.
Protesters killed by Argentine cops
In Argentina, the "forces of order" evidently decided to make
an exemplary display of force at a demonstration of a thousand unemployed
who were blocking streets in a Buenos Aires suburb, June 26. Two young protesters
were shot to death. The official cover story was that the march had been
"infiltrated" by gunmen.
However, not only numerous witnesses but also photographers were able
to establish what really happened. The chief inspector of the police, Alfredo
Franchiotti, had ruthlessly gunned down a 21-year-old demonstrator, Dario
Santillan, as he was trying to aid another demonstrator, Maximiliano Costeki,
25 years old, who had been shot in the chest.
The British Guardian reported the witnesses' account in its
June 29 issue: "While Mr. Santillan was kneeling over Costeki, witnesses
say, the chief inspector burst in wielding an automatic rifle, heading a
group of armed policemen. 'Don't shoot,' begged Mr. Santillan as he got
up to run away, only to be shot from behind by Mr. Franchiotti.
"They said Mr. Santillan, bleeding copiously, was dragged outside
the railway station by Mr. Franchiotti's men and that the officer hurled
insults at him."
Pictures taken by a number of photographers confirmed the witnesses'
account and totally destroyed the police story. La Jornada reported
June 29: "The sequence filmed by a photographer from Clarin
[one of the two major Buenos Aires dailies] was conclusive. It showed Santillan
next to a youth who managed to flee trying to help the wounded Costeki,
and then in front of him is Franchiotti with another two officers aiming
a shotgun at him.
"Then Santillan got up and tried to run away, you see him fall,
shot in the back. You still see him alive pleading for help as Franchiotti
approaches him and shakes him and then tries to get him to walk. But since
he can't walk, they drag him out to a newspaper kiosk. Then you see Franchiotti
again with his shotgun trying to see if Santillan is dead or alive."
The police must have finished off Santillan, as well as Costeki. Another
cameraman got a picture of a police bullet casing lying next to Santillan's
body. La Jornada reported that tests had shown that the two demonstrators
killed were shot at point-blank range.
The police atrocity was obviously part of a premeditated attack on the
mass movement. La Jornada reported June 26: "Reactions continued
in various quarters to the statements of Chancellor Carlos Ruckauf, who
told a group of officers at the Higher War School that he 'would not hesitate'
to sign another decree like the one he signed in 1975, as a minister in
the government of Isabel Peron, to order military intervention and the 'annihilation'
of subversion.'"
The repressive assault on the mass movement that was started by the regime
of Isabel Peron was continued and extended by the military government that
took power in 1976. The military regime proceeded to wage a large-scale
"dirty war" for more than a decade, which claimed the lives of
more than 40,000 people. The issuance of such a threat by Ruckauf was, thus,
extremely sinister.
In the June 27 issue of their weekly paper, Politica Obrera, the largest
of the Trotskyist groups, stressed the killings were obviously planned:
"It was a premeditated crime, because repeatedly government spokespersons
have been stressing the need to reinforce the actions of the provincial
police against the blocking of roads through the intervention of the police
with the support of the army.
"On many occasions, the head of the army, Brinzoni, has warned that
the military is ready 'to act' against rebellion or social 'unrest.' Last
week, Ruckauf went to see the air force commanders to try to persuade them
to support a military coup d'etat."
Any observer with a little knowledge of Argentinian history would know
that the bourgeois authorities are thinking about a drastic crackdown. The
country has been in turmoil for many months, with violent protests against
a galloping economic crisis.
The Buenos Aires daily Clarin estimated in its June 28 issue that
the devaluation of the peso has already cost Argentine savers more than
$66 billion, equivalent to one-half the country's GNP. The unemployment
rate is running over 30 percent.
The British Guardian noted June 29 that there are now frequent
reports of school children fainting at their desks because they have not
eaten in days. The population is desperate, and the bourgeois politicians
are discredited to a degree unprecedented within living memory. Obviously,
therefore, the rulers are desperate also.
However, the guard dogs of the Argentine capitalist class misjudged their
time, as did the Venezuelan bourgeoisie, when it tried in mid-April to overthrow
Chavez. The June 26 murders in Buenos Aires provoked a massive reaction.
Tens of thousands of protesters marched on the presidential palace, demanding
the resignation of Eduardo Duhalde, who replaced Fernando de la Rua-driven
from office by a mass demonstration in December.
Duhalde beat a hasty retreat, denouncing the police repression as "an
atrocious manhunt." The three police officers directly involved in
the killings were arrested. The command staff of the Buenos Aires police
were forced to resign and over a hundred policemen were suspended. The minister
of the interior of Buenos Aires province resigned.
La Nacion, one of the two main Buenos Aires dailies, lamented that the
police force had been "decapitated." Certainly, the capitalist
rulers of Argentina have suffered a major setback that dims their prospects
for controlling the social upsurge. But there is no question that the crisis
in Argentina is heading for a showdown, as appears now in other countries
of the region as well.
The bourgeois politicians are discredited, but the mass movement has
not yet achieved a unified leadership and organization to pose a strong
enough alternative to the established institutions. A race for time is underway
in Argentina, and the mass movement will have to pay a terrible price if
it loses it.
Lula takes lead in Brazil polls
But the crisis in Argentina is no longer isolated. In its June 26 issue,
Le Monde reported that "in the last two weeks, the Brazilian
financial markets have become hysterical. A few days ago, the national currency,
the real, hit an historic low."
The polls are showing the Workers Party candidate for president, Luis
da Silva ("Lula") with a commanding lead, striking fear into the
hearts of the Brazilian bourgeoisie.
Lula has been making every effort to reassure the capitalists, as has
Chavez in Venezuela, including taking a right-wing capitalist as his running
mate-but to no avail. The bourgeoisie has good reason to fear that the working
people will see a victory for him as a victory for themselves, and they
may get out of control.
In Uruguay, meanwhile, in mid-June, the currency lost 28 percent of its
value after the government abandoned the fixed rate. In the southern Peruvian
cities of Arequipa and Puerto Maldonado in recent weeks, there have been
mass uprisings against the plans of the demagogic Toledo government to privatize
utilities.
Mexican financial experts are now saying that Mexico is not immune to
the sort of crisis surfacing in southern Latin America because, like Argentina
in recent years, it has been financing the state out of sales of state industries,
and all the major formerly nationalized industries have now been privatized.
Moreover, Mexico is suffering from the weakening of the U.S. economy, to
which it is closely linked.
Its last issue, Politica Obrera pointed out that it is not the
Argentine crisis that is spreading, but that the contradictions of dependent
capitalist economies are exploding everywhere for the same reasons. It seems
clear that more and more blowups are on the way in Latin America, which
may be followed by bloody capitalist crackdowns if the masses are unable
to create an effective leadership in time to lead them in a determined assault
on their panicked gangster ruling classes.
Socialist Action /July 2002 |