FORA-AIT: Report about the social situation

One year after the events on the 19 and 20 December 2001, the balance of
the Eduardo Duhalde president following the Fernando de la Rua and all
the former provisional presidents loud falling, leaves us a calamitous
economical situation that falls upon blocked salaries, strong increase in
official tariffs with the excuse of the peso/dollar devaluation rate, and
price rise -on the same level as in dollars- in all main consumption goods
being the most affected the products for family basics. The result of it
all is a big increase in undernourishment, chronic diseases, infant
mortality (when we all know that this country produces food for 360 million
people), an accelerated increase of poverty since, already half a year ago,
indicators gave the unbelievable figure of more than half of the population
under the line of poverty and reaching up to 8.3 million people under the
age of 18 out of a total population of 12.5 million.

To this we have to add the unemployment of half of the active population,
wage shortage and work casualisation.

To counteract unemployment, the government implemented a new sort of
subside called “plan for family bosses” whose salary is of 150 $ -face to a
family expense of 1000 $ (two children included)- and this does not even
reach the income statistically established for an indigent (200 $). Even
though the situation is critical, the government has got ways to control
and repress the small social struggles since, in addition to the police
apparatus with its brutal force, they also have all the media that persuade
the discontent underlining all words about insecurity and violence which
derives in heavier police presence, policemen in trains, controls in gates,
permanent police operation and also the attempt to impulse militarist
education projects.

SOCIAL MOVEMENTS

Social organisations appear to face the unrest; the most significant
example is the picket movement that is growing with the increasingly
worsening unemployment. These organisations have different attributes, some
of them are left wing political parties arms, others remain autonomous from
parties, some of them claim for employment plans, others for food or
houses, all of them request for job and state subsidies.

They also differ in their different organisation methods. There are groups
that propose horizontal organisation and others that display a hierarchical
structure. A clear example of the first are the comrades from Bariloche
(city in Rio Negro) who, sick of suffering from hunger, organised and
formed M.A.L.O. (Anarchist Movement for Worker Liberation). There are 50
families from two different districts (El Frutillar and 34 Hectareas)
participating in this movement. These comrades have developed actions such
as the seizure of a storehouse full of stuff (blankets, milk, plates, etc)
belonging to the church, road blocks, supermarket claims, expropriation of
a baby clothes truck... and they are considering the possibility of
expropriating a plot of land in order to make a common garden and orchard
and they have the idea of getting anarchist books so that they can make
propaganda amongst the people in the area.

Another example are the seized factories that, when the economy went down
and the bosses withdrew, were maintained by the workers who decided to keep
the companies’ production. Some ended up as co-operative companies and
others are trying to belong to the state, all count on the support from
sectors of the left.

After all that happened in December 2001 part of the inhabitants from
different districts began to organise in assemblies. At the beginning one
of the main characteristics was the ideological heterogenity and that they
were out of any party framework. After a time, and given the continuous
attrition they suffered from the leftist parties, most of them dissolve or
adopted party instructions (even the secretary general to the communist
party admitted, in a press report, that if the left hadn’t interfered in
the assemblies, these would still exist). The ones that did not suffer such
a process began to focus on district issues keeping apart from political
programmes.

The attitude of the state face to all this movement is of continued
prosecution and repression of its members; at the same time, they
criminalize every action coming from this movement, punishing protests and
blockages, changing laws, etc.

UNIONS AND CHURCH

Meanwhile, the unionist mafia cored in the CGT, supporter of all politics
destroying workers conquests, remain unconcerned about the social crisis,
defending their privileges by means of a demagogic speech.

The fact that they are allied to the state politics brought up a general
repulse on the side of the people, and they were added to the “let them all
go”.

On the other hand, the church called for social peace and urged the
politicians to take steps towards the demobilisation of the increasing
protest, apart from drawing people’s attention about null vote and
abstention.

ELECTIONS

People display an enormous unconcern and apathy with regards voting. This
apathy can end up in a president with little representation, which will
probably mean a weak government that will need a lot of repression to keep
going on, a government stuck between a people that cannot be further
squeezed and an IMF that wants its demands fulfilled.

This is a pamphlet edited by the FORA Federal Council on the occasion of
the first year after the events on the 19 and 20 December 2001

FOR SOCIAL TRANSFORMATION

On the 19th and 20th December 2001, the people, sick with misery, ignoring
the state of siege, mobilised massively and hit the streets. Many of those
who had been lucky with the last ten year system also demonstrated when
they felt by themselves the anger and humiliation that the working class
feels when it is exploited; side by side with the usual deprived, they
claimed for any type of change; they did not think that, instead of getting
any improvement, we would meet an even more calamitous situation (worse
working conditions, more poverty, more unemployment, more misery, more
hunger) that is being imposed by means of military/police repression
supported by the CGT union mafia together with the complicity of the media
and the church.

Initiatives appeared, either as seized factories, district assemblies, or
unemployed organisations, etc., although born in an spontaneous way, they
were quickly picked up in their majority by party interests. But then... is
everything as before? We think it hasn’t been useless because, after any
revolt, things never go back to their exact former point given the fact
that people have enjoyed a period of freedom and also experienced their
strength.

We learnt that we have to breach with the authoritarian schemes (political
cunning, party structures of any kind) of those who aim at ruling us, who
control and spy our thoughts and our lives, and that we have to develop a
constant and sincere practice of solidarity among people, by means of
horizontal and federalist organisations that struggle in direct action,
with no domineering visionary as a boss and without negotiation with the
state. This is the strategy that we have to adopt as our own, either as
employed or unemployed workers that participate with responsibility and
solidarity in the struggle for dignity and for a true social transformation.