From: "aiaif" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Date: Fri, 18 Jan 2002 19:35:38 +0530 Subject: Mass Upheaval In Argentina Proletarian Era Organ Of Socialist Unity Centre of India (SUCI) Vol. 35 No. 11 January 15, 2002 Mass Upheaval In Argentina Globalization Leads to Extreme Economic Crisis The worst effects of globalization have now hit Argentina. The economic meltdown in Argentina has caused a mass upheaval bringing about unprecedented political turmoil in the country. The severe government repression resulting in death of 27 persons besides injuries to hundreds of other people and arrest of more than 3000 people only added fuel to the fire of mass wrath. As a consequence of the popular mass movements it is seen that four Presidents of the country had to quit office in quick succession within the span of a few days. De la Rua, the former President who took office in December 1999 had to face an ignominious exit from presidentship with 132 billion dollar debt burden on the country and tried to flee the country when he was debarred from doing so by two Argentine judges, pending the investigation into suppression of anti-government protest. Peso, the Argentine currency, which was pegged to dollar through the creation of a currency board had to be devalued by 30 per cent causing a heavy erosion of the real monetary net worth of the people. When Manmohan Singh, the high priest of globalization was initiating in our country the new economic policy in early nineties, the bourgeois ideologues, the capitalist controlled media, the bourgeois politicians and their henchmen were all hilarious in praising and welcoming this new economic policy. They were then citing the examples of the South East Asian countries, which were then projected as 'Asian Tigers'. But these 'tigers' soon turned into cats with the Asian crisis of 1997. The balloon of the economic prosperity of Japan of the eighties was also pricked in the nineties. Japanese capitalist economy is in throes of one of its greatest post-war set back, Brazil and Mexico also met the similar fate as a result of globalization of their economies. And now it is the turn of Argentina which was flaunted till recently by the IMF as a success story. But despite all these glaring examples of disastrous fallout of globalization the protagonists of globalization of our country are keeping their eyes shut and pushing the country to inevitable doom by vigorously pursuing the policy of globalization. What ails Argentina? Three Presidents, Raul Alfonsin, Carlos Menem and Fernendo Du La Rua each aggressively pursued the policy of globalization reversing the existing economic structure. The policy of structural adjustment, privatization and free market economy has been pursued for a decade and a half. The people were subjected to face the onslaught of the market driven economic order. During the regime of Carlos Menem the privatization process was in full force, causing extreme hardship and pains to the people. The lucrative PSUs, Argentine economic jewels were handed over to Argentine and foreign capitalists at a price far below their market value. Thousands and thousands of workers were retrenched and became jobless. In the big working class suburbs the unemployment was 30 to 50 per cent and underemployment 40 to 50 per cent as the great majority of the household fell below the poverty line. Even as per official version the overall unemployment figure in the country was 18.2 per cent. To pacify the growing discontent the ruling class of Argentina tried to embroil the people in a two party parliamentary system, the two major parties being the Radicals and the Peronists. These two parties tried to distribute the largesse among their loyal followers who helped in forming the clientelistic electoral machines. The major trade unions, particularly the CGT have been run by a group of highly paid repressive bosses who are closely aligned with the Menem regime and unwilling to confront the regressive policies of the government. These trade unions resort to occasional denunciation and even general strike to confuse the workers, but the main motive is to 'blow off steam' and to submit to the government. After symbolic protest the leaders of these trade unions negotiate with the state and the employers behind closed doors, reaching agreements that ignore workers' main demands and then impose these agreements on the workers. These leaders prefer to secure half an hour appointment with the minister of labour in order to form a tripartite committee to discuss the measures to cushion the austerity programme and ensure the governability. The fact is that all these major trade unions in Argentina are only concerned with the ties with the official parties and have become totally irrelevant. The protagonists of the new economic policy asked the people to swallow the bitter pill of privatization and assured them that the tide of globalization would raise the boats of both the rich and the poor. But it is experienced by the people that while the boats of the rich have been raised to a new height, those of the poor have been sinking. There has been a dramatic sharpening of social inequalities. The growth of poverty was abnormally high. Wealth and income gaps widened dramatically as a result of the market driven economic order. To curb the growing discontent of the people the De La Rua government turned to violent repression. But the demonstrations mobilized thousands in protest against job cuts, plant shut downs and high electricity rates charged by the private power companies. The government failed to meet its promise for alternative employment as a result of budget cuts to meet IMF conditionalities. The government resolved to harsher austerity policies like massive retrenchment and 12 per cent cut in salaries of the public employees as proposed by the IMF and supported by the US and the European private bankers. The government, having failed to stem the tide of recessionary pressure, now in its fourth year hardened its resolve to adopt new austerity measures in the hopes of attracting speculative investment from the Wall Street and a new bail out from the IMF. But what sealed the fate of De La Rua government was its decision to implement strict currency control (Peso having made fully convertible) and restriction on cash withdrawals from banks. While the common people were debarred from withdrawing more than 1000 Peso per month the flight of capital by the big sharks was not restricted. As a result central bank's net reserves slumped rapidly. The two institutions that had credibility - the currency board and the central bank, has been weakened beyond repair. The IMF promised a bail out package of 8 billion dollar to Argentina. But in the first week of December 2001 IMF refused to release an installment of 1.26 billion dollar because of noncompliance with the stringent restructuring measures as demanded by it. In a last bid attempt Cavallo, the finance minister announced a further cut of 9 billion dollar in spending which let loose hell in the economy. At a single stroke majority of the Argentine society was reduced to penury. The people who were already restive because of the continued process of privatization, liberalization and globalization burst forth in the streets of cities, towns and suburbs of Argentina. But these outbursts though elicited wide and spontaneous support of the people belonging to all sections of the exploited masses were not however sporadic or unorganized. The Argentine people were reported to be getting organized at the grass root level to throw challenge to the two party elitist electoral system, dubbed as 'democracy' by the bourgeoisie. Movements were being developed for a considerable period of time before this mass upheaval in last December. It is reported that in August 2001 a nationwide mobilization of the unemployed numbering over one hundred thousand people blocked 300 highways in Argentina paralyzing the entire economy. Previous to this road blockade 5 picketers were killed and over 3000 were arrested by the police in violent clashes throughout the country in previous months. By the pressure of such a massive movement the organized unemployed were able to secure thousands of minimum wage temporary jobs, food allowances and other concessions from the state. In September 2001 the unemployed were able to organize massive high way blockade throughout the capital city of Buenos Aires and a successful general strike. The movements drew wide support from a vast section of people because of several reasons. The small and medium sized entrepreneurs and merchants were threatened with closures of their industries or establishments with bankruptcy as consumer power drastically declined because of largescale retrenchment of workforce; thousands of government and municipal employees were not paid for months or paid a paltry amount, public employees and professional people were fired because of drastic budget cut and fiscal austerity measures, pension to the retired people was reduced and public health workers and school teachers confronted with major pay cuts and worsening work condition. As a result of the privatization policy the township locating the PSUs were "ghost town" or "industrial cemeteries", and the people were migrating to other places in thousands in search of livelihood. In this context the role of the IMF, the US controlled financial institution is worth noting. The Times of India editorially commented, "... the IMF would have reacted differently if it felt there was any risk of contagion. Having decided that an Argentine collapse would not endanger the global financial system, the IMF threw it to the wolves." It means that as long as the US interest is not affected, the US can go to any extent to realize the debt service charges of the debtor nations. Lenin long ago wrote in his famous works, "Imperialism, the Highest Stage of Capitalism", - "The supremacy of finance capital over all other forms of capital means the predominance of the rentier and of the financial oligarchy; it means that a small number of financially "powerful" states stand out among all the rest." In the midst of severe crisis of world capitalism the powerful capitalist imperialist countries want to overcome this crisis through a planned framework for management of world trade through the formation of the WTO, thus shifting the entire burden of the crises on to the less developed countries of the world. These countries, while protecting their own internal markets are forcing open the markets of the less developed countries through the policy of globalization so that the big MNCs of these countries can loot and plunder the entire wealth of the world. As a result, most of the people of the world are rapidly getting pauperized. It is heartening that the people of different countries of the world are coming out in the streets and organizing movements to resist the onslaught of globalization foisted by the imperialists. In Latin America alone several countries are in the vortex of movement. The face of Latin America will undergo a change if the people of these countries coordinate their struggles against the imperialist machinations. But while hailing the glorious struggles of Argentina and other Latin American countries we appeal to the people of the countries to be on guard so that these movements are conducted on correct base political line under the correct leadership. If this is not guarded the movement will go astray despite tremendous sacrifices and the reactionaries who are waiting in the wings will take advantage of the situation much to the detriment to the interest of the people. _________________________________________________ KOMINFORM P.O. Box 66 00841 Helsinki Phone +358-40-7177941 Fax +358-9-7591081 http://www.kominf.pp.fi General class struggle news: [EMAIL PROTECTED] subscribe mails to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Geopolitical news: [EMAIL PROTECTED] subscribe: [EMAIL PROTECTED] __________________________________________________
