The MTD, based in the town of Laferrere in La Matanza, is one of many different unemployed organizations, often with similar names, that have sprung up throughout the country, especially since 1997, when unemployed workers, known as piqueteros, set up road blockades throughout the country. Established in 1992, the MTD here has mostly developed in the past five years.

"Before, we were all facing similar problems," Valle said. "They were cutting off our electricity and gas because we couldn't pay the bills. We got together and realized that the reason we all couldn't pay was that we were unemployed. Instead of it being an individual effort, we organized ourselves to deal with this problem."

A group of unemployed workers met with Militant reporters January 3 at the MTD center in La Matanza. They included a laid-off metal worker, a plastics plant worker, a painter, a construction worker, a cook, an a domestic worker who was previously a cotton farmer in Chaco province to the north.

"Young people are the most affected by the unemployment. My son is 22 years old and he's never been able to find more than an odd job", said Celso Ortiz, 44, a painter who is originally from Paraguay.

"We've organized mass pickets to block Highway 3 to demand jobs," said MTD activist Elvio Pereyra, 28, who previously worked in a ship engine repair shop. The most recent big action was last May. "We had 7,000 people blocking the highway, with tents on the road for several days," he said.

The MTD organizes a training center for jobless workers. They have a workshop to learn sewing skills and another workshop to train bakers.

MTD members took Militant reporters around the area. One place was the trueque, an open-air market where working people buy needed goods or services by barter instead of money--clothing, prepared foods, services such as plumbing and auto repair, and other essentials that people could not otherwise acquire. Prices for most basic items are fixed, and barter transactions are done with special coupons serving as exchange units. A coordinator of the market report that the volume of people using the trueque has tripled in the past year, a sign of the deepening of the social crisis.

Visitors to Laferrere notice that many intersections of the town's unpaved streets are marked by soot. This is from bonfires and barricades that were set up by local residents the night of December 20, when the battle between demonstrators and cops in downtown Buenos Aires was taking place. "The police spread the false rumor that people from a nearby villa miseria [shantytown]-- called were coming to loot private homes here," Pereyra said. "People came out armed to protect themselves, but no looters ever showed up.

"The result was that people here were so focused on defending their homes from an imaginary danger that they were kept from going to Buenos Aires to join the rebellion. We think that was the idea."  
 
Cop violence, polarization
Residents of Laferrere reported regular instances of police brutality. One youth, Néstor Guerrero, 22, was killed on the street by the cops on December 9. Néstor's two sisters Nancy, 21, and Rocío, 12 said police harassment and brutalization of working-class youth is rampant. "It's another case of 'loose trigger,' " Nancy Guerrero said, using the common term for killings by police that often go unpunished. Néstor was a particular target since he was a member of the Communist Party youth, as are both his sisters, his father, and several of his uncles. The family is originally from Paraguay. In Laferrere there is a sizable community of Paraguayan immigrants, who are often hassled by the authorities and scapegoated for the social crisis.

While police violence has been going on for a long time, protests against it have become more noticeable, MTD members noted. The day after Néstor Guerrero's killing, 1,500 local residents blocked Highway 3 to demand justice.

Another sign of the class polarization in Buenos Aires province is the role of ultrarightists such as Aldo Rico, a former paratrooper who took part in a failed 1990 attack on a military garrison. Today Rico is the mayor of the town of San Miguel, a largely middle-class community.

"There are a lot of cops in San Miguel, and Rico mobilizes people around the issue of defending 'private property,'" said Christian Ramírez, 22, an MTD activist. "Rico promotes neighborhood watch committees and, if young people like me--from Laferrere--walk into that town, people from those committees will tell the cops, who detain us as 'suspicious.'"

Meanwhile, demonstrations against police violence have continued in Buenos Aires. Some 7,000 people marched in the working-class area of Floresta January 5 demanding justice for three youths who were killed by a retired cop working as a security guard after one of the three made a comment against the police violence in the Plaza de Mayo the previous week.
 
 
Related articles:
Workers in Argentina protest peso devaluation
Cancel Argentina's foreign debt!
Peronist party in Argentina has weaker political hold on working people today
Interest in Pathfinder, socialist press by workers in Argentina
 
 
 
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