BY GREG MCCARTAN  
Workers are taking to the streets again in Argentina, demanding food, back payment of wages, and measures to address rising unemployment as the government of Eduardo Duhalde appears on the brink of collapse.

In the province of San Juan, near the border with Chile, state workers have taken over public buildings to demand three months’ back wages. The provincial governor responded by saying he would print 50 million pesos worth of bonds, call huarpes, to pay workers, a step opposed by Washington and the International Monetary Fund which it controls. Police used tear gas and rubber bullets against the protesters on April 23.

Press reports indicate that in many provinces the peso is becoming rare, and governments are printing a variety of paper bonds to pay workers. In the province of La Riora transactions are carried out with bonds called lecops.

On April 23 1,000 people marched in Duhalde’s hometown to demand the government give them food, and pickets blocked an important highway outside the northeast city of Santa Fe.

Demonstrations and clashes with police have taken place in the provinces of Chubut, Chaco, Córdoba, and Jujuy, and labor unions say they are planning large-scale actions to demand wage increases in the coming weeks. In many provinces the government is the largest employer and the capitalist crisis in the country has led to severe layoffs and nonpayment of wages for tens of thousands of working people.

Duhalde, a leader of the Perónist party, had been counting on receiving renewed loans from the International Monetary Fund in order to keep the banking system afloat and relieve the breakdown in government finances. Argentina suspended payments on its $141 billion foreign debt in December. Duhalde was appointed president by Argentina’s congress January 1 after a nationwide eruption of protests forced the resignation of President Fernando de la Rúa December 20.

IMF officials, however, rejected granting Argentina any further aid at a weekend meeting in Washington April 20–21, demanding that Buenos Aires carry out stark austerity measures. These include sharply reducing funds sent to the provinces, a measure government officials say would lead to the dismissal of 450,000 people from their jobs; amending a bankruptcy law that makes it hard for creditors to collect debts; and scrapping a measure from the 1970s which has been used by judges to "persecute" bankers.

In early April one U.S. official told the press that what is needed from the Duhalde government in implementing the IMF dictates is "action, not just words." For a decade leading up to the crisis which erupted late last year, Buenos Aires followed the advice of Washington and the IMF, pegging its currency to the dollar on a one-to-one basis, selling off state enterprises, and carrying out other measures. The government’s approach was hailed as a model by the imperialist financial institutions.

Today, official unemployment stands at more than 20 percent and the buying power of working people and the middle class has been devastated with the decline of the peso by nearly 70 percent and inflation on the rise.

In a desperate attempt to stem the outflow of capital and the collapse of the banking system, Duhalde ordered an indefinite bank holiday April 19, preventing people from withdrawing money from accounts and halting all foreign exchange transactions. He also sent a measure to the Argentine Senate to turn $12.5 billion of bank deposits into low-interest, long-term bonds. The Senate has refused to consider the legislation, leading to the resignation of Duhalde’s economy minister. The government carried out a similar move in 1989 and the bonds quickly lost half their value.  
 
 
Front page (for this issue) | Home | Text-version home