In the same province, 11 children died of malnutrition in the first two weeks of November.

Pictures of skeleton-like kids in Tucumán have recently appeared in newspapers around the world. While signs of widespread malnutrition in Argentina’s provinces were already being reported in the mid-1990s, the situation has rapidly worsened in the last six months with the virtual collapse of Argentina’s economy. Record unemployment, skyrocketing prices of food and medicine, and government cutbacks in social services have taken a terrible toll on working people.

"This is not Africa, this is Argentina, where there are 50 million cattle and 39 million people, but where we have a government that is totally out of touch with people’s needs," said Dr. Oscar Hillal, deputy director of the children’s hospital in Tucumán. Working people in Argentina, who for decades had relatively higher living standards than those in many other Latin American countries, are stunned to witness the sharp rise in infant malnutrition and deaths.

Since last December the devaluation of the national currency has gutted workers’ wages and bosses have carried out mass layoffs. Almost half a million have been thrown out of work since January. Imperialist bankers and government officials are pressing the government to pay on its $141 billion foreign debt. The International Monetary Fund is demanding deep cutbacks on social spending in order for the government to receive new loans. On December 1 President Eduardo Duhalde signed a decree raising gas and electricity rates as part of this austerity package.

Meanwhile, 20,000 children in Tucumán province are starving. Sixty children a month in the province are being taken to the hospital with severe malnutrition, and 400 are being treated on an outpatient basis. The reason: the parents cannot afford to buy enough food and cover other basic needs. Two-thirds of Tucumán’s 1.3 million inhabitants live in conditions defined by the government as "extreme poverty."

Héctor Ariel, 21, a sugar-cane cutter in rural Tucumán province, told reporters that six months ago his $100 monthly wage had been slashed nearly in half, while prices for staple foods doubled or tripled. The company said it was hit by dried-up credit and a plunge in consumption. Ariel now earns just over $1.50 a day--not enough to feed the family. He and his wife, Beatriz Orresta, 20, have two children who suffer from malnourishment. The seven-month-old baby lies listless in his mother’s arms. The two-year-old, wire-thin, keeps losing clumps of hair, she says.

Orresta expressed frustration about not being able to make ends meet. "The food is there, in the grocery store, but you just can’t afford to buy it anymore."  
 
11,000 children die every year
A similar situation exists in other provinces outside the capital city of Buenos Aires. In Misiones, 49 children have died of malnutrition this year. In Santa Fe, 134 people, in their majority elderly, have died from hunger this year--triple the number for 2000. Nationally, more than 11,000 children die every year, in their majority from malnutrition or other preventable causes.

Infant mortality rose last year in nine of Argentina’s 24 provinces. While infant mortality in the country as a whole was 16.3 per 1,000 live births, the death toll was 24.5 per live births in Tucumán, and in Formosa, to the north, the figure rose to 28.9. Statistics have not yet been released for this year, the worst period of economic crisis.

While the rural provinces are the most affected, major industrial regions have also been devastated by the social crisis. In Mar del Plata, which has one of the highest unemployment levels, 13 percent of babies born in public hospitals weigh less than 5.5 pounds. In one major hospital maternity ward, half of the mothers suffer from severe anemia, protein deficiency, or other health problems that contribute to infant mortality.

The recession that began in Argentina a few years ago became an economic meltdown late last year. On December 19-20 it sparked a social explosion that forced the resignation of President Fernando de la Rúa. In January Congress appointed Eduardo Duhalde, a Peronist, as president. One of Duhalde’s first actions was to devalue the Argentine peso, which for a decade had been pegged to the U.S. dollar.

With the plunge in the peso, workers’ wages have lost 70 percent of their purchasing power. Prices for basic necessities have shot up. According to a report by the Argentine Workers Federation (CTA), the monthly cost of a "family shopping basket" has risen to 716 pesos, but most wage workers earn less than 500 pesos a month (US$143).

As a result of the ongoing wave of layoffs and plant shutdowns, unemployment has reached a record 21.5 percent. If "underemployment" is counted, four out of 10 workers in Argentina have no steady job.

The health crisis is caused not only by the slashing of living standards but the collapse of the public health-care system. More than 90 percent of hospitals in Argentina today face a shortage of basic supplies and equipment such as surgical gloves, syringes, and catheters. They often have to resort to re-sterilizing disposable supplies and rationing X-rays. Many pharmacies, clinics, and hospitals lack antibiotics and other medicines, the prices of which have skyrocketed.

In face of this catastrophe, big-business politicians and commentators have been long on words and short on action. Many have expressed shock at the photos of emaciated children with bloated stomachs. They have voiced concern that this happens in a country that is the fourth-largest food exporter--and that actually increased its exports of meat, wheat, corn, and soy beans this year.

Argentine government officials, however, indignantly refuse to take responsibility for the nutrition and health crisis, blaming it on "mismanagement" by provincial authorities.

"We are not Biafra," huffed Hilda Duhalde, who is in charge of the national government’s social welfare programs. To allay critics, the government sent her to Tucumán for three days to launch a new emergency aid program called "Operation Rescue." One of the high points of her visit was the delivery of 350,000 pounds of beef to needy families.

Duhalde acknowledged the donated food was contraband meat, seized at the border by Customs police, that otherwise would have been destroyed. "It’s in excellent condition--it’s from Europe and Brazil," a Duhalde aide volunteered, in case anyone wondered how long the meat had been stored at Customs.

The First Lady then rushed back to the capital, where the government is busy negotiating a deal with U.S. and European bankers to obtain more loans in exchange for squeezing workers and farmers even further.

A few days earlier, 2,000 jobless workers in Tucumán rallied in front of the provincial government house and carried out several road blockades. They denounced the impending deal with the International Monetary Fund and demanded jobs.  
 
 
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