"You are
calling for a mobilization on the 19 and 20 to oust Duhalde,
for a new Argentinazo and a Constituent [Assembly] to replace
the government. How will it be achieved and what will that
Constituent [Assembly] be like?" When Marcelo
Zlotowiajda, on the program Journalists (Periodistas) last
Sunday asked Raul Castells (MIJD – Independent Movement
of Retired and Unemployed Workers) and Néstor Pitrola (Polo
Obrero – Workers' Pole) this question, he was giving a
measure of the political situation.
The journalist
was acknowledging the alternative to power posed by a unified
group of the piquetero leadership, the Popular Assemblies,
the MIJD, and the PO (see PO No. 781) in the face of the
complete failure of the government to overcome social
collapse and find a way out of the political decomposition of
the regime.
In the lapse of a
week the government went from demanding "the dissolution
of the IMF," in the words of Chancellor Ruckauf,
encouraging the "line" of negotiating separately
with the World Bank and the IDB, to admitting that there was
no way of "bridging" the IMF; afterwards it allowed
news to be leaked of a "surprising coincidence
concerning the statistics of the next economic plan" and
again announced the possibility of an imminent accord (daily
La Nacion 12/18). The strategy of according with the IMF has
been the cornerstone of the government's policy: it has
destined 4.8 billion dollars of "fresh funds" to
paying the debt and assigned 22% of the 2003 budget towards
making payments on the interest. But the IMF is chiefly
concerned with conditioning the political process and the
elections themselves.
The government
says that it has put an end to the recession, but after a
drop of 30 per cent an increase of 1 or 2 percentage points
means nothing. There is no possibility of reactivating the
economy in a country where the wages have fallen 30 per cent
and the basic food costs have risen 73.8 per cent in the
course of the year. The government is without a candidate of
its own for the PJ (Justicialist Party - Peronist), another
measure of the crisis.
National
bankruptcy
Due to this acute
turn in the political crisis, the call to occupy the Plaza de
Mayo and all the plazas of the country made by the piquetero
organizations and Popular Assemblies, has acquired such force
and produced such an acute political delimitation. Duhalde's
government, which usurped power with the vote of a
Legislative Assembly explicitly unauthorized by the popular
rebellion, has not been able to comply with the essential
part of the mandate conferred upon it by the capitalist
class: to neutralize and revert the revolutionary situation
created by that rebellion. The installation of the 19 and 20
as a day of mobilization, For all of them to go (Que se vayan
todos), Duhalde out now, and for a Constituent Assembly, is a
political victory for the movement of struggle oriented
towards the overcoming of isolated actions.
The campaign of
the government to assure its survival collides head on with
the national bankruptcy. Three provincial governments (Entre
Ríos, Tucumán, Neuquén), are on the edge of the abyss,
centers of lightning growth in poverty and complete and
absolute political decomposition of the states (municipal
workers have gone unpaid, in the Litoral province since
September). But dozens of cities (Esquel, Berazategui,
Centenario, Salta) are very near to a political explosion.
The Council of
Dialog (Mesa del Diálogo)
Because it is
conscious of facing an unresolved crisis of exceptional
characteristics, the government has appealed to the Church
itself to try to attenuate the tendencies towards
mobilization of the people. The call for a day "for
peace" on December 18 is an initiative aimed especially
against what the press calls "the hard core" of the
piquetero movement. The imposters, which is what they should
be called, act for the government and have received the
support of the CTA (Argentine Confederation of Labor), the
CCC (Combative Class Struggle Current movement of the
unemployed – Maoist) and the FTV (movement of the
unemployed). Luis D'Elía is a prominent spokesperson for
this political maneuver. The FTV and the CCC are politically
active in the camp of the Argentine Dialog, whose great
objective is to monopolize the management of the plans of
social welfare and the resources offered by the World Bank.
Those making the
call on the 18 are calling for days for "peaceful social
co-existence" and say that "peace is built with
justice and with non-violent methods", but they say not
a word of the unpunished crimes of the 43 assassinations
perpetrated since the popular rebellion, a role that is
fitting for those who cover up political crimes, guided, in
the best of cases, by pressure from political power.
Constituent
Assembly
The call for a
free and sovereign Constituent Assembly is a conclusion which
flows obligatorily from the democratic demand par
excellence of the moment: "Que se vayan todos –
All of them have got to go." For the masses, the
bankruptcy of capital, expressed in the daily death of
children through malnutrition, becomes present as a crisis of
political representation. And through this crisis of
political representation, the problem of power is raised. The
slogan of Constituent Assembly puts forward a unification of
aims among the working class in struggle, the Popular
Assemblies, the savings account holders and the confiscated
neighbors, on the basis of an elemental consideration: for
"all of them to go" and for "none of them to
ever return" it is necessary to destroy the power of
Duhalde and the governors, because only by destroying this
power is it possible to choose a new representation of the
people, and not of the old party hacks, belonging instead to
the members of the assemblies, to the
The popular
rebellion has ushered in a new historical stage, which is in
the middle of the process of maturing. On its basis will
emerge an authority having its origin in the movement of
struggle, capable of calling for a sovereign Constituent
Assembly.
©
2001-2008 Argentina Centro de Medios Independientes (( i )). Copyleft: Se permite la copia, distribución y uso
de los contenidos de Indymedia Argentina, siempre y cuando NO se utilice con fines comerciales, a no ser que se obtenga permiso expreso del autor y en todos los casos se reconozca la autoría (poniendo como fuente