[Imc-newsroom] Fw: The Fruit Of US Economic Policies

[david johnson]

-----Original Message-----
From: steve zeltzer <lvpsf at igc.org>
To: UPPNET <lvpsf at igc.org>
Date: Thursday, December 20, 2001 1:39 AM
Subject: The Fruit Of US Economic Policies




    http://www.miami.com/herald/content/news/americas/digdocs/101101.htm
    
    
    RIOTING, LOOTING RACK ARGENTINA
    
    President declares emergency; economy minister reportedly out
    
    BY JANE BUSSEY 
    jbussey at herald.com 
    
    The increasingly besieged government of President Fernando de la Rúa
    declared a 30-day state of emergency Wednesday, as looting and rioting
    spread from
    provincial cities to the Argentine capital, killing at least six people
    and injuring more than 100 others.
    
    In rapid developments early today, local media reported Economy
    Minister Domingo Cavallo had resigned, but there was no official
    confirmation. And tens of
    thousands of angry Argentines gathered outside the Casa Rosada
    government house to protest the government's handling of the economy.
    Police fired tear gas to
    disperse the demonstrators.
    
    After quietly enduring four years of deepening recession and the
    increased pauperization of the once elegant middle class, Argentines snapped.
    
    On Wednesday, chaos reigned in provinces and Buenos Aires as crowds of
    average citizens -- many in T-shirts and jeans -- took over streets and
    ransacked stores to
    protest the government's economic policies. The Buenos Aires newspaper
    Clarin reported that six people had been killed, including two slain by
    store owners, and at
    least 200 people had been detained.
    
    In a televised speech to his nation Wednesday night, de la Rúa defended
    his emergency decree, saying it was needed to quell the unrest.
    
    ``I urge those that are doing violence to cease those acts,'' de la Rúa
    said, suggesting some of the looting had been organized by criminals.
    ``With violence, we won't
    solve any of our problems.''
    
    MORE TROUBLE 
    
    Police and the military braced for more unrest today. Three major labor
    unions in the capital of Córdoba called for a nationwide strike today,
    and there were reports
    that police had used tear gas to control protesters who began gathering
    in Buenos Aires just minutes after midnight.
    
    On Wednesday, state workers in Córdoba stormed and stoned the Municipal
    Palace; another angry crowd tried to take control of the Legislative
    Palace in La Plata.
    
    The looting, which began with isolated incidents over the weekend,
    spread to the greater Buenos Aires area. Angry crowds carried off
    everything from entire freezers
    of food to decorative Christmas trees in a rampage that affected some
    50 stores and supermarkets. Although in Córdoba and several other
    locations police fought
    back with tear gas and rubber bullets, news channels showed footage of
    police standing by observing the pillaging. Some merchants either
    voluntarily distributed
    food or pleaded with the crowds, ``Don't loot us!''
    
    NO DETAILS 
    
    The president didn't discuss details of the state of emergency decree.
    But government spokesman Juan Pablo Baylac said the measure would be in
    place 30 days,
    allowing authorities the right to suspend constitutional guarantees
    such as the right to assemble and travel freely, while giving police
    greater powers to make arrests.
    
    ``This situation is one of total collapse,'' said Claudio Lozano,
    director of the Institute for Economic Studies of the Argentine Workers
    Confederation in Buenos Aires
    and a vocal critic of the free-market economic program that reached its
    pinnacle in Argentina.
    
    No country in Latin America has privatized so many utilities formerly
    run by the government, opened borders wider to free trade and
    deregulated the economy as
    rapidly and as deeply as Argentina in the past decade.
    
    Argentina was heralded in the halls of financial power like the
    International Monetary Fund, and international lenders poured billions
    into the country, snapping up
    Argentine bonds.
    
    But when a recession hit in 1998, lending dried up and the government
    was forced to impose successively harsher austerity programs to meet the
    conditions of new
    IMF loans.
    
    Meanwhile, to avoid a devaluation, the country was sent into a period
    of deflation, with salaries spiraling downward.
    
    But in the barrios of Buenos Aires, the middle class country was slowly
    being pauperized as factory bankruptcies left blue collar workers
    without jobs and everyone
    from government workers to school teachers and beauticians was forced
    to take salary cuts, ranging from 10 to 25 percent. State and local
    governments stopped
    paying workers or pensioners or offered them government coupons, while
    de la Rúa's government froze their savings several weeks ago.
    
    Even Argentina's shining financial system lies in tatters, with its
    debt in technical default and the one peso to $1 currency peg already
    discounted in exchange
    houses around the country.
    
    `TERMINAL CRISIS' 
    
    ``These are the signs of a terminal crisis and what you can see is a
    decision by the government to follow a path that only deepens the
    crisis,'' Lozano said.
    
    Political analysts immediately compared the situation to 1989, when
    widespread looting over austerity measures forced the government to
    declare a state of siege
    and triggered the early resignation of former President Raul Alfonsin.
    
    Former President Carlos Menem took office early, setting in motion the
    economic program that is being vilified today.
    

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