Nestor report reformatted

[Louis Proyect <lnp3@xxxxxxxxx>]

Dear cdes.,

I have ended a very long day's work. Before I go to have some rest
(tomorrow the routine will be a couple of hours at the office, later on we
shall see what happens on the streets), I would like to send you my last
impressions of this day. 

It is only fair that I take some minutes of my sleep to carry you some word
of tranquility.

First of all: what seems to have actually happened.

During the whole week before June 26th, the govm"t had been warning that it
would not accept road blocks any more. This was, of course, somehow a
provocation, but what else could be expected from a govm"t which did not
know what to do in order to regain some "normalcy" in social relations
while "striving to find a way out of the disaster". Moreover, a month or so
ago, the IMF had begun to press on the govm"t the new imposition that the
wave of unrest had to be curtailed and finished for good.

As stupidly as if advised by some loyal disciple of Radcliffe Brown, the
govm"t tried then to foster the conservative feelings of the petty
bourgeoisie and the "established" -working- workers against the constant
mood of mobilization and unrest by the piqueteros and the jobless. Most of
these understood that it was the time to slow down and to resort to
different methods. Some did not. Among them the cdes. in the Coordinadora
Aníbal Verón. Of course, this is hardly the moment and place to debate
tactics. There are two more dead now, and whatever differences within the
people's camp, these dead are _ours_.

The govm"t tried to combine the big stick with some alluring promises of
"reasonable" wage rises: Strong repression had been attempted (but with no
wounded or dead) in the towns of Salta and Tucumán during the last days. A
very small wage rise -Argentine $100, something around US$ 25 at today's
exchange rate- for the formal workers in the private sector was announced
(as an agreement between the bosses and the workers, _with no intervention
from the state_, something that the Min. of Economy had praised). State
employees might expect to be returned the last 13% wage cut that was
imposed by Cavallo months ago, at some moment in the near future. The
commercial press began to bang heavily the drum of "social unrest", while
the banging of another, still stronger drum, spoke through various
mouthpieces, including many of the heads of the Cabinet, informing the
population that unrest would begin to meet an answer from above.

As a beautiful touch of humanity in this whole circus, some Police
officials began to explain that the only way to solve the problems of
insecurity lay in turning the shantytowns into enclosed enclaves
(preferably with barbed wire, I suppose), while others -the topmost cherry
of the cake- explained that civil divorce (which began in Argentina only in
1983, though there was a time during the early 50s when Peronism imposed a
law of divorce which lasted until 1955) was the origin of all this social
sickness.

The stage was set for a provocation. The provocation took place today. As I
stated above, this is not the moment nor the place to debate the
responsibilities of the organizers of today's blocking of Pueyrredón bridge
(which acts in Buenos Aires as some kind of Hudson Tunnels in New York),
but the fact is that they swallowed hook and line. The policemen answered
to a very angry mass of demonstrators with ruber bullets, tear gas and the
usual clubbing, but from some still unidentified point in a railway station
where a portion of the demonstrators had chosen to take refuge against
brutality, two very precise shots (with metal bullets, not rubber bullets)
hit two young demonstrators (one of them straight in the head, the other
one - Darío Santillán- was leaning to help a wounded boy and was caught by
the bullet at the bottom of his spine) and killed them instantly.

Four more demonstrators were seriously wounded, around 90 injured or
wounded, and more than 100 imprisoned. Later on, during the afternoon, the
visitors who went to Fiorito Hospital to ask about their relatives were
either dispersed or also imprisoned. A bus driver denounced on the TV news
that during the events a man with an Ithaka gun boarded the bus and forced
everybody down. Afterwards, the bus was put to fire. As you all may guess,
it is not the unemployed who can afford to own a brand new anti-mutiny gun
in Argentina...

My impression, at first, is that it might have been somebody else, not the
Police, who shot the two boys (Darío a much beloved friend of cdes. of a
brother group to mine). Maybe our own "intelligence", maybe the CIA?
Although his declarations should be taken with some skepticism, the fact is
that the chief of the local police, who was at command of the troops,
insisted in that his people had rubber ammo and that by no means could they
have shot the two boys so precisely, something I tend to believe since he
did not say anything to dismiss the accusation that those same troops had
invaded private homes and a local Communist Party branch in search of road
blockers. So that who knows.

It would be silly to blame Duhalde for this. Of course, the political
course he adopted, particularly after the 14 Points Agreement, takes to the
road of repression and bloodshed. But this time he also is, in a sense, the
first political victim of the whole drama. His responsibility stems from
his idiotic cowardice, but the fact is that a few hours after the events,
all those who were in prison were immediately released, and the Minister of
Government of the Province of Buenos Aires (it was PBA policemen who
"enforced order" in such a sympathetic way) was summoned to the National
House of Government. Raúl Castells, the piquetero leader, delivered a
speech at a press conference from his home (where he is living under
arrest) where he said that this "has been the political death of Duhalde",
which sounds very reasonable to my ears.

Tomorrow we shall have a demonstration which I guess that will be peaceful
and will not be harassed. The wave of indignation that flowed all around
the city (and most probably the country over) demonstrates that if Duhalde
decides to follow the road which takes to another December 20th, his future
may be even bleaker than the future of De La Rúa. Duhalde will probably
think it twice before he tries to divide the popular camp around the
piquetero (road blockers) issue again.

Who is to benefit, then? Lou Pr., quoting the NYT on the Marxmail list, has
offered an explanation: those who support the model , Duhalde included. It
is not _exactly_ so. In fact, Duhalde's Minister of Economy, Lavagna, is
waging some kind of distorted but actual struggle with the monetarist gang,
particularly entrenched in the Central Bank. This is the reason why Blejer
left (tomorrow, a request will be presented by A. Rodríguez Saá at court,
requesting that Blejer be not allowed to leave the country and to put him
to trial for treason: he simply allowed 15 billion dollars of the
Argentinean reserves to evaporate, keeping with IMF orders, which brought
Arg. reserves from 25 bn to 10 bn in a few weeks).

Lavagna is trying to put reins on the Central Bank by means of Piganelli
(the new President of the Bank) and of Camarassa, a bourgeois economist who
is frontally against monetarists, whose appointment at the Bank's board of
directors came through direct pressure from Lavagna. He is trying to
negotiate with the IMF, but trying to have some control of at least the
main financial institution of Argentina.

So that, who would win most with chaos? The IMF, of course, and behind the
IMF that arch-son-of-a-bitch Menem. Duhalde is the great loser today, but
he has killed himself long ago, so that it is not his death which I will
mourn. We have more dignified deaths to mourn here today...

Well, I am so tired that I really need a good night's sleep.



Louis Proyect
Marxism mailing list: http://www.marxmail.org



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