Argentina riots

[Julio Fernández Baraibar <julfb@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Dear comrades:
Here some facts about the repression from yesterday in front of the National
Congress.
As you know I am reporter in the TV show that the Movimiento de Trabajadores
Argentinos (MTA) sponsors in an important cable TV channel. MTA is the group
of peronist trade unions that opossed to the administration of Menem. The
leader of MTA, Hugo Moyano, is today the general secreterare of the CGT
(Labour General Confederation). The government, pressed by the IMF, is in a
hurry for sanctioning a new labour law that, of course, destroys all the
rigths of workers.
The law had been aproved by the Deputies Chamber and has to be discussed by
the Senators Chamber.
Moyano and the CGT had pressed on the peronist senators (who have the
majority of the Chamber) in order to convince them to vote against the law.
In public statements Moyano had afirmed that "the senator who voted the law
was a traitor to the worker class". Of course he knew that it was a moral
pressing, because the senators were going to vote for the law, because the
governors of the principal provinces, as Cordoba and Santa Fe, need the law
in order to decrease the wages and avoid that the bigger companies closed
its plants.
During all the time, Moyano had said that the workers would concentrate
around the Congress Palace when the las was discussed.
Suddenly, the Senate resolved that the law would be discussed today,
wednesday. Hugo Moyano called to concentrate in Congress Square as he had
said all the time. The midnight TV news gave the information. I went to
Congress Square about one o'clock. I don't know if all the member of the
list have the same experience, but this kind of concentrations has been very
peaceful and you go there to express your opinion and to meet friends and
comrades, to talk about the news and to have the wonderful sensation of
being part of a whole.
When I arrived to the Congress there were some eight hundred manifestants,
the main part of the union of Moyano, Truck Drivers, that join, among
others, the trash collectors of Buenos Aires city. You know, this guys that
run about 13 kms. and lift about 8.000 kilos each night, without teeth, poor
as spindels (this is an argentinian expression), and with very little to
lose. They were there singing, jumping and playing drums (by very strange
reasons the typical peronist musical intrument). And all the leaders were
there: Moyano, Palacios (of Buss Drivers), Piumato of Court Employees and
others. It was rainy and cold. The police forces were exaggerated and
nervous. There were some three or four TV cameras from different channels.
The behaviour of the manifestants was absolutely normal and peaceful. Of
course some of them defied the police, jumping and singing in a common
provocative way, as it is a practice in this situations.
I left the place three o'clock in the morning and there were not signals
about what it would happen.
Fifteen, twenty minutes after began the hell. Without motivation and
mentioning an order from some city attorney that nobody saw, the police
began a wild, open and bloody repression. Julio Piumato (see above) was
shooted in a testicle. More than 30 persons were hospitalized. The TV
cameras recorded for the world the police excess. The victims have telling
that the gorillas cried, while they beat: "Dirty negro (in our sense, you
know) trash collector, are you tough now"
This reaction was unexpected but not unthinkable.
As a result, today the senate postponed the discussion of the law to the
next week. The country began the Holy Week holiday. But the government of De
la Rua has showed its nature again. And now in a unchangeable way.
The minister Fedrico Storani, of the "left" of the Radical Party,  told in a
press conference on a absolutely ridiculous plan to occupy the Congress.
In a very good statement, Hugo Moyano mentioned that in the same day that
the argentinian government voted against Cuba in the name of the human
rights, the same government repressed the rigths of the workers to express
their opinion, rights that are expressly protected in the Constitution.
My friends, a new and harder time has began in Argentina. And the workers
are in the forward line.

Julio Fernandez Baraibar


> Dear Lou,
>
> Please send this declaration of my Partido de la Izquierda Nacional to the
> lists. The Argentinian Govm´t, through the Ministro del Interior, Federico
> Storani, has justified the repression (at 3 AM in the morning!) because
there
> were "evidences that there was a plan to close the Congress by force
through
> not allowing Congressmen to enter the House".  Evidence?
>
> a) people were gathering around the building and did not allow passers by
to
> approach the building
>
> b) two trucks had been attacked at different points of the city, both
located
> far away from Congress.
>
> The local newspaper _Cronica_ aptly headlined:  "Labor Law irrigated with
> workers´ blood".
>
> A hug, now I am quitting office and going to see what can I do.
>
> Lic. Néstor M. Gorojovsky
> Dirección de Estadísticas del Sector Primario
> Instituto Nacional de Estadística y Censos
> Argentina
>
> Louis Proyect
> Marxism mailing list: http://www.marxmail.org/
>