Re: [A-List] Brazil: an Argentinian journalist's view

["Julio Fernández Baraibar" <julfb@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

I can answer about what I know.
I ignore who Ezequiel Burgo is, but after his article he has a big
confusion about argentinian politics.

He begin with a general and superficial affirmation:
>
> With Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva as Brazil's new president, Latin
America is
> knocking on the door of leftwing politics. Lula's election is part of
a
> broader trend in the region, where Hugo Chavez has seized power in
Venezuela
> and leftist colonel Lucio Gutierrez looks likely to gain control of
Ecuador.
> This swing has been mirrored in the Argentinean polls, and heralds a
wind of
> discontent in Latin America after a decade of market-orientated
reforms.

But this paragraph expressed a real equivocation:

> The experience of Argentina's former president, Fernando de la Rua,
offers
> an example of this bias. Although De la Rua made efforts to show that
his
> government had aligned with the IMF, he was never fully backed by
investors.
> The presence in his cabinet of leftwing radicals who opposed market
policies
> diminished his image.

Fernando de la Rua was a conservative and reactionary president,
impossible to compare with Lula. He did not only make efforts to show
that he was aligned with the IMF. He accepted IMF's directives, he named
the ultraliberal Lopez Murphy, first, and Domingo Cavallo, then, as
Economy Ministers, and there were not leftwing radicals in his cabinet.
The author pretends that back of the problems of de la Rua as president
was the presence of IMF and investors. The problem was that de la Rua
was absolutely unable to manage the crisis that 25 years of neoliberal
economics had created in the country and investors knew that his petty
bourgeois regime could not resist the masses offensive, what the history
showed as a correct affirmation.
>
>>
> Like De la Rua, Lula will have to offer some jobs to the most radical
> sectors of his coalition.

There were not "most radical sectors" in the coalition of de la Rua. The
"progressive wing" was a kind of timid moral reformists, without links
with work class and poor people.

> He also needs to tend to the demands of his people
> in a context of social and political turmoil.

And this is a complete lie. The government of de la Rua killed 35 people
during his lamentable two years. All of them were workers claiming for
his rights. And the massacre of Plaza de Mayo 19 and 20 december,
produced by his resistence to renounce is the clearest proof on the
nature of his regime.
Every comparison of de la Rua with Chavez or Lula is, in the best case,
an expression of desire or, in the worst, a lie.


Julio Fernández Baraibar
julfb@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx