Raul Bassi & Federico Fuentes
On June 29, under the headline "US concerned by piqueteros advance", Argentina's main daily newspaper, Clarin, quoted an anonymous "high level source from the US state department" voicing "concern" over the government's failure to repress the unemployed piquetero movement.
The source was later confirmed to have been Roger Noriega, the US assistant secretary of state for Western Hemisphere affairs. Noriega's comments followed statements by former Argentine president Carlos Menem and Argentina's economy minister, Roberto Lavagna, accusing the piquetero movement of plunging Argentina into "semi-anarchy".
Argentine President Nestor Kirchner has refused to be intimidated, reiterating that his government will not use force to stop social protest. Some have argued that his strong stance, combined with his record in power, indicates that his government represents the triumph of the popular revolt that began in Argentina in December 2001.
Legacy of an uprising
Between December 19 and 21, 2001, a massive uprising in Argentina threw the country's capitalist system into question. Within a week, four presidents had been deposed, factories and workplaces were put under workers' control, and popular neighbourhood assemblies organised demonstrations all over the country.
The real motor force behind the uprising were the piqueteros: groups of workers who had lost their jobs under the neoliberal globalisation process started during the 1970s military dictatorship and accelerated under presidents Raul Alfonsin and Carlos Menem in the 1980s and 1990s.
The piqueteros movement started outside of big cities, particularly in the northern region of the country, where industry had been mainly under state control until brutal privatisation resulted in massive job losses. Many unemployed workers expressed their anger through road blockades that cut the circulation of goods.
As the economic crisis escalated, the piquetero movement expanded throughout the country. To combat increasing poverty, some piquetero groups began to organise pickets of supermarkets, which were only lifted with the granting of food or necessity products to unemployed workers.
This movement included workers with extensive trade union and political experience, and in many cases opposed to traditional capitalist parties. With the eruption of anger amongst the working and middle classes, whose savings had been frozen as the economy went into meltdown at the end of 2001, the piqueteros helped to bring down a number of government within days.
Pickets and pots
With the December 2001 uprising the key slogan "piquete y cacerola, la lucha es una solo" (pickets and pots, the struggle is the same) was born. Cacerolazos were the characteristic protest of the middle class, who would bang pots and pans out on their balconies and on the streets.
As the different classes and groups united to demand democratic and economic changes, the country's corporate elite ensured that a quick election was called, as part of a strategy to undermine and divide the protesting alliance. Kirchner's government is another part of this strategy.
The first year of the new government was marked by a clear policy to win the support of the middle class. Kirchner made some important democratic concessions to the movement: formally rejecting demands from the International Monetary Fund; prosecuting the main representatives of corruption in government; and repealing laws that indemnity to army personnel responsible for the killing of thousands of people in the 1970s and 1980s.
He also made economic concessions: the return of some of the savings lost in the crisis, and some economic reactivation, particularly in the service area. Economic growth in 2003 reached 8.7%, with industrial production increasing 33% between March 2002 and January 2004.
These concessions, however, never reached the most impoverished Argentinians. So while official unemployment fell 5.9% in 2003, part-time workers increased from 13.8% of the adult population to 16.6%. Kirchner also eliminated from the statistics more than 20,000 unemployed, whom the government claims are ineligible to receive the US$50 per month subsistence payment under the labour contracts scheme. For the 2 million who are eligible for the scheme, life is still very hard.
Still hard
One year after Kirchner's rise to power, despite the economic "recovery", 51.7% of the population continue to live in poverty, a decline of only 2.6%, whilst the level of absolute poverty has increased 0.5% to 25.2%. Piqueteros opposition has continued — demonstrations, street blockades and occupations of government offices are daily occurrences in Argentina.
Claudio Katz, professor of economics at University of Buenos Aires and member of Economists of the Left stated in an article published in the March edition of Enfoques Alternativos, "[The piqueteros] presence on the streets is a visible sign of the misery of all of society, counterbalancing the feelings of resignation and forcing a discussion on the social tragedy that half of the population has to endure... They bring together the demands of other exploited sectors, which is why they become points of reference for the popular resistance".
In response, right-wing politicians, the US embassy, business organisations, and, most especially, mainstream media, have made strong public calls to declare the social protests illegal. They claim the unemployed protests are part of a crisis of "law and order" — in a country where robbery and kidnapping are commonly caused by inefficient or corrupt police!
Kirchner has refused to stamp down on the piqueteros, preferring to rely on the carrot rather than the stick. There are good reasons for this: the response to the murder of two protesters at Puente Pueyrredon in mid 2002 — with mobilisations condemning the violence across the country — has made some in the government hesitant to use overwhelming force.
Instead, well-directed concessions to the "soft" political organisations, and trying to play on tactical differences between "soft" and "hard" piqueteros organisations, have caused some fractures in the opposition.
Since the right-wing campaign against them began, the piqueteros have increased their actions. The continuing economic crisis means that many feel there is no future, particularly among young people who compose 52% of the unemployed and are most frequently targeted by the police. This has provoked more active attacks on police stations and public offices.
The eruption of workers into the political scene has begun to make the landscape more complicated for the government. Industrial action is spreading in the country. Steel workers in the north, oil and coal workers in the south and transport and state workers in Buenos Aires are beginning to take the initiative. Militant union leaders are getting elected in those and another workplaces.
Only by coming back to the spirit of the protests of 2001, with unity of the unemployed and employed workers and winning the middle class to the struggle, can the policies of the right-wing, US imperialism and the so-called "progressists" be defeated.
[The authors are members of the Australian Socialist Alliance.]
From Â鶹´«Ã½ Weekly, August 25, 2004.
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