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NEWS August 20 2001
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| Argentines protest at ‘austerity’ measures Protests and strikes have rocked Argentina in the light of IMF-ordered reforms which penalise public sector workers. On August 8th, thousands marched in Buenos Aires at the height of a two-day strike which disrupted the civil service, hospitals and transport. The cuts mean state employees’ salaries and pensions are being cut by 13%, state health insurance is being ‘reformed’ (i.e. reduced) and more tax revenue will be diverted to paying off international creditors. This is only the latest round of cuts – earlier strikes and protests have been met with violent repression – last November a former bus driver, Anibal Véron, was shot dead by military police while taking part in a road blockade, and human rights group the Peace and Justice Service (Serpaj) is documenting cases of torture of protesters by police. Argentina is already in recession, with industrial output down 25% this year, and official figures showing one in six of the working population is unemployed, following three years of economic stagnation, and the trade unionists, unemployed groups and other opponents of the plan point out that cutting expenditure and increasing taxes in the middle of a recession is a strange way of boosting economic activity. The pay-off is a promise of $26bn in IMF loans to cover existing debt payments. The strikers are angry that it is ordinary people, rather than the mainly foreign owned banks banks which have profited from the debt crisis, who are being forced to pay. The crisis is made worse by the governmnent’s insistence on maintaining the ‘peg’ fixing the exchange rate of the peso to the US dollar at 1 to 1, effectively preventing Argentinian exports from gaining any ground and encouraging ‘capital flight’ as rich savers panic and move their money into safe US$. Good news for the US bankers like Citibank and Fleet Bank, then who stand to take home most of the money from the IMF bailout, bad news for Argentina’s poor and unemployed, who face only the prospect of a long struggle for economic justice. Sources: BBC, ‘Argentina workers angry at austerity bill’ 30/7/01 http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/world/americas/newsid_1464000/1464100.stm BBC, ‘Argentines protest against pay cuts’ 8/8/01 http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/world/americas/newsid_1481000/1481313.stm Observer, ‘Time to cry for Argentina’, Gregory Palast 12/8/01 http://www.guardian.co.uk/Archive/Article/0,4273,4237656,00.html |