[A-List] Playing chicken, huh?

["Nestor Gorojovsky" <nestorgoro@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Michael Kearney wrote: 

"Argentina plays dangerous game with IMF
By Alan Beattie
Financial Times: October 30 2002

[...]

"Making an agreement comes down to a matter of political will," says 
one senior Argentine official.

Indeed it does, IMF officials privately say, and argue that without
agreements sufficiently detailed that they can act as an effective
constraint on Argentina's unruly political system, any deal that 
relies purely on trust may well come unravelled.

Argentina seems likely to get its rollover agreement during the 
coming weeks, even days.

But this may owe at least something to the old adage, adapted for the
occasion by CSFB's director of Latin American economics, Lacey 
Gallagher: "If you owe the bank $100, it is your problem. If you owe 
the multilateral institutions $13bn, it is their problem.""

Some comments:

1. The first question should be "dangerous game", for whom?

2. The second question is "whose political will can ensure an 
agreement"? That of the current Argentinean administration? That of 
the IMF or the US? Or *that of the mass of the Argentinean 
population*?

3. The third question is what you mean by "unruly political system", 
Mr Beattie? Is *the system* unruly? Or it is simply we the 
Argentineans who have proved that we cannot "be swallowed down like 
pies", as General San Martín wrote when he praised our resistence 
against the Anglo-French invader in 1848? Wasn't the system unruly 
when it helped the IMF and WB force their lethal medicine through our 
throats, and it is unruly right now? Maybe the system is beginning to 
be tame for the first time in decades, at least from the point of 
view of the Argentineans...

The fact is, what has happened in Argentina isn't simply that _the 
country defaulted_. The country was, technically, in default long 
before the Rodríguez Saá short but bold administration declared to 
whoever wanted to listen that this country would not keep its 
international compromises if they were proven illegitimate by a 
Parliamentary enquiry (this cost Rodríguez Saá the Presidency, he was 
ousted in a Parliamentary coup d'etat immediately afterwards in a 
move that few understood either outside or inside Argentina).
The IMF and WB technicians were ready to run happily along with this, 
in fact they were charmed to see how submissive was this defaulted 
country to whatever they requested from its "political system". 


The problem with Argentina is that popular mobilisation forced the 
"professional politicians" (who hitherto had had ears for the foreign 
"creditors" only) to begin to pay attention to the disastrous 
domestic consequences of IMF and World Bank policies. On December 
19th and 20th they discovered, all of the sudden, that they were 
living on a growling volcano, and that a prairie fire might devour 
all of them if they kept acting as if Argentineans were an old rag 
that could be discarded at will. I will keep the feeling of that 
couple of days forever. It was not the first time I could feel the 
acid itch of tear gas (and I hope it will be the last one), but this 
time I will also keep in my memory the distinct feeling that we were 
making history on the streets. All of us knew that in our bones.

Thus, what the IMF is fearing is NOT the _sluggish_ "chicken game" 
with Lavagna (who, however and all things considered, is not behaving 
so badly), but the social and political consequences that would come 
to the fore if Lavagna _did_ cry "uncle". In fact, the IMF and the 
international system of usury are fearing popular reactions to the 
further imposition of their recipes. This would become a Russian 
roulette and not a chicken game. And they know that.

We Argentineans are standing up, in our particular way (admittedly it 
is not easy for a foreign observer to realize how the spirit of 
December is still alive, because we are not as showy as other Latin 
Americans), against the IMF. That is why we are going to have 
elections soon: because these sepoys cannot remain in power for long 
without risking new upheavals, and because the general trend in Latin 
America will be of new, fresh air into what used to be a closed room 
full of garbage and goblins.

We Argentineans are also known as a haughty people, and it must be 
said that sometimes this is sadly true (particularly with those of 
European origin who despise their fellow countrypeople as well as 
Latin Americans in general, but luckily enough this kind of 
Argentinean is becoming more and more of an antique shop ugly piece). 
Sometimes, however, what passes for haughtiness is simply pride. In 
the end, before we Argentineans took to the streets on December 19/20 
2001 the IMF and WB gangs believed that Latin America was ready for a 
new session of nose punching.

It is they who have begun to bleed now. And the game is only 
beginning. The whole spirit behind the FT piece is completely 
revealing that they are 
beginning to realize what will happen within a few years, not only in 
Argentina but elsewhere in Latin America.
They will be sent off the road, probably to the abyss, by an 
increasingly fierce driver on the competing car.

Néstor Miguel Gorojovsky
nestorgoro@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

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"Aquel que no está orgulloso de su origen no valdrá nunca 
nada porque empieza por depreciarse a sí mismo".
Pedro Albizu Campos, compatriota puertorriqueño de todos 
los latinoamericanos.
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