Argentina: Another Example of IMF Policies at Work

["Jay Moore" <research@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Argentine officers suspended after clashes with unionists
By Gilbert Le Gras, Reuters, 4/20/2000

BUENOS AIRES - Argentine police clashed outside Congress with unionized
truckers and garbage collectors protesting a labor reform plan yesterday,
prompting authorities to suspend 12 officers for excessive use of force.

Police clubbed union members outside the Congress building in downtown
Buenos Aires and one officer slashed a man with a knife, prompting calls for
an official inquiry into the conduct of the officers. Fourteen people
remained hospitalized after the clashes, reports said.

Hundreds of members of trucker and garbage-collector unions staged a 12-hour
protest outside Congress and managed to halt discussion of labor reforms
demanded by the International Monetary Fund that they contend will not cut
six years of double-digit unemployment, as the center-left Alliance
government hopes.

Television images showed five police officers clubbing one protester who lay
sprawled on the sidewalk with blood pouring from his head. Another TV
station showed a police officer pulling a knife from one protester who had
been wrestled to the ground and slashing him across the back.

''Without a doubt those violent episodes are absolutely prosecutable, and
everyone who has committed a crime should be tried, like those who used
inappropriate weapons, which is an abuse of force,'' Justice Minister
Ricardo Gil Lavedra said.

A police statement said 43 people were arrested while Interior Minister
Federico Storani said 12 police officers were suspended for excessive use of
force.

Hundreds of truckers and garbage collectors gathered in front of the
Congress building and by mid-morning had blocked the main roads leading to
Congress.

Police erected chain-link fences around Congress that protesters kicked and
rammed, then hurled garbage at police.

''This government is so desperate to meet its IMF commitments it's willing
to use force on its own people,'' said one woman as protesters waved
''United Left'' and ''Down with antiworker labor reform'' banners behind
her.
The legislation that prompted the protest would reduce severance packages
and cut costly red tape involved in hiring workers, update labor contracts
and simplify wage talks. The protesters said the measure would cut their
wages, not speed economic recovery, as the government claims.

After the clashes, senior members of the opposition Peronist Party said the
vote on the measure would be delayed for now. The bill already was passed by
the lower house of Congress and was before the Senate, where the Peronists
hold a majority.

This story ran on page A14 of the Boston Globe on 4/20/2000.
© Copyright 2000 Globe Newspaper Company.