[Dryerase] (no subject)

[Shawn G]

Here is an origanal story from Argentina from a corispondent of ours there.  
more to follow...

Asheville Global Report

Route blockades spread across Argentina

By Vero and Buzzard

Buenos Aires, Argentina, June 26 (AGR)— Last Friday there were route, 
highway and street blockades, and marches all over the country, including 
dozens in Buenos Aires. Inside the city, the marches of the CCC and CTA 
converged on the Plaza de Mayo where the movement and union leaders gave 
speeches and led songs and chants. Though there were other marches and 
blockades of various other groups, few others went to the plaza during those 
hours. The marches and blockades, though they all had their own demands, 
were to commemorate the 6-month anniversary of the popular revolt of Dec. 
19-21 and in remembrance of those killed in the repression.

Every day one hears about Cortes de Ruta (route blockades) in all parts of 
the country and each week there are more. Every day more and more people are 
joining the various Piketero (a person who takes part in a route blockade) 
groups, looking for ways to survive in a country where more than half of the 
populace lives below the poverty level. The means, organization, and daily 
activities of the different groups may vary greatly, but most of the demands 
are the same when a group blockades a route: the refusal of the new proposed 
budget (which would cut 400,000 state jobs, cut the hospital, school, and 
retirement budgets); creation of jobs; release of Piketero political 
prisoners; non-payment of the debt to the International Monetary Fund (IMF); 
re-nationalization of privatized natural resources and public services; 
nationalization of the banks; re-opening of abandoned factories under worker 
control; and the most commonly seen -- payment of Planes Trabajar (welfare 
plans).

In the last 25 years, almost all public services and national resources have 
been privatized -- most to foreign businesses. More than 300,000 people have 
been downsized since the beginning of the year and in that time food and gas 
prices have more than doubled. Hospitals in the poorer zones, outside of the 
capital, are being closed, while those that remain open are running out of 
supplies (almost all imported). Many schools are not holding classes, either 
because of teacher strikes or because they are literally falling apart (many 
children living in poverty don’t go to school at all, they are working or 
begging in the street). To cash in on their retirement payments, retired 
folk have to wait in endless lines and are given the runaround by 
beaurocrats, only to find that more has been taken out of their 120 peso per 
month check, if they are able to get it. Every day it gets harder to get 
what one needs from the trash in the city because every day there are more 
people searching through the trash.

For these reasons there are hundreds of thousands of Piketeros participating 
in various groups. There are organizations of every type, from one that uses 
the name of Movimiento Teresa Rodriguez, led by Roberto Martino and 
continues the legacy of the Fogoneros (the people that kept the tires 
burning through the below-freezing nights during the blockades outside of 
the YPF/Repsol refinery in Cutral Có ´96) to the Corriente Clasista 
Combativa (a group directed by the Communist Revolutionary Party, which has 
never had a clash with the police due to their refusal to blockade routes in 
key places) to the Movimiento de Trabajadores Desocupados Anibal Veron which 
blockades routes, starts community gardens, reclaims space to build 
asentamientos, (housing on squatted land, usually made from whatever is at 
hand, although the MTD collects funds for bricks and shingles before 
beginning the occupation and construction) and operates community and 
cultural centers, among other things. There are seven main groups, some with 
decades of experience in community organizing, and all but two are tied to 
or were created by political parties or national unions.

Some of the Cortes de Ruta groups make all decisions by direct democracy and 
revocable representatives, some make some decisions in this way but have 
leaders, and some are simply led by the unions or political parties. The 
level of autonomy from their respective union or political party varies.

They united as a Bloque Nacional Piketero in May of 2001 and held a number 
of national congresses, but have since divided again. The root of the 
division was the decision of the leadership of the CTA, Víctor De Gennaro, 
not to take to the streets during the revolts of December ’01, according to 
him, for questions of security. Many of the other groups have since shunned 
them. Nonetheless, during the speeches in the Plaza de Mayo last Friday, it 
was announced that the CCC and the CTA are to merge.

While the government has raised the stakes on Cortes de Ruta, labeling it as 
the crime of sedition, most people arrested in the blockades are shortly 
released (many times after being brutalized and tortured). There are 
currently 2,800 people undergoing processing for arrests in Cortes de Ruta. 
On the other hand, the Government arrests Piketero leaders, tries them on 
trumped-up charges, and holds them in prison for years. After a great 
increase in protests that repeatedly closed down downtown Buenos Aires and a 
lot of negotiations between the leaders of the CCC and CTA and the 
government of Duhalde, Emilio Alí and Raúl Castells (two CCC leaders) were 
released in the last month without completing their sentences.

Historically, mostly teachers’ unions and student groups have accompanied 
unemployed laborers in the Cortes de Ruta. Since the rise of the independent 
Neighborhood Assemblies, the Piketero movement has had many relations with 
other sectors of society, in that the Inter-neighborhood Assembly (partially 
made up of middle-class professionals) has pledged solidarity with the 
Piketero movement. Many of the marches and protests of the 
Inter-neighborhood assembly are supported by the Bloque Piketero National, 
and vice-versa. What one sees from the outside is that due to the 
heterogeneity of the piketeros, while an assembly may mobilize to support a 
blockade organized by the Federacion de Tierra y Vivienda, the same assembly 
booes a CTA union leader off the stage if he gets up to give a speech.

The Planes de Trabajar have been the most effective force in quelling and 
dividing the Piketeros that the state has come up with. The Planes de 
Trabajar essentially consist of a three-month welfare subsidy of 150 pesos 
per month per household. The federal government hands them down either to 
the municipal government or to the Piketeros themselves. While many of the 
groups demanded genuine and stable work 6 years ago, now most of the 
blockades demand these subsidies. Getting the Federal government to agree to 
pay these subsidies is only the first step in the fight to obtaining the 
money they imply. Once a group wins the concession of these subsidies, if it 
is handed to the municipal government, it is usually as hard or harder a 
struggle to make the local government to turn over the money. There is a lot 
of discussion about how to distribute these subsidies. Some groups combine 
the money from all the subsidies to start cooperative enterprises and 
finance community and cultural centers, free schools, and the construction 
of asentamientos. Other groups distribute the money evenly among those 
participating in the blockades.



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