Argentina: Stagnation and Resistance
When Argentina's Minister of Economy, Martinez de Hoz, returned to Buenos Aires at the end of February after spending a week on a big-game hunting safari in South Africa, he found that his...
...The two years are now up, and new debt renegotiations are again due...
...As General Gordon Sumner, president of the InterAmerican Defense Council, phrased it in October 1977: Argentina is the anchor of the continent, and more specifically of the Inter-American system...
...Industrial production is down and consumption continues to decline, largely as a result of the incredibly depressed wage levels of the Argentine working class...
...and on the 5th, rail lines were blown up...
...The average working class family can no longer subsist without putting the "young ones" out to work...
...It is conceivable that when the struggle there reaches such intensity as to threaten the overthrow of the system, U.S...
...Meanwhile, on the 15th, La Opinion reported that a street battle between the army and a squad of the People's Revolutionary Army (ERP) had occurred and also told of a demonstration by over 600 relatives of political prisoners in front of the National Congress in Buenos Aires...
...At the same time, the NACLA Report 46update * update . update . update strikes were ably reinforced by armed actions...
...In the brief period since the coup, some 10,000 have been murdered, a further 30,000 have disappeared, and some 20,000 more are rotting in jails and concentration camps throughout the country...
...The company had just denied wage increases to its workers...
...VIDELA On October 11th, over 10,000 auto workers struck the Renault plant in Cordoba demanding wage increases forbidden by the government...
...These are only a few of the examples of resistance by the Argentine people, a massive and constant resistance which has continued into the early months of 1978...
...This resistance culminated last October and November in massive strikes involving hundreds of thousands of workers...
...Last year it appeared to some that things were going well for the junta...
...Although the Argentine military junta is attempting to put on a good face, there is no doubt that the economy of the country is on the rocks...
...Inflation continues to run rampant, reaching over 170% during 1977, with the latest estimates for 1978 running over 15% per month...
...The next day, the press reported a bomb explosion in the office of the Minister of Labor, General Tomas Liendo (who escaped uninjured), and the killing of an Air Force major, several police officers in the Buenos Aires area, and even an advisor to General Jorge Videla, the chief of the ruling military junta...
...Foreign bankers and managers of multinational companies are no longer so sure of the prospects for success of the rigid economic measures imposed in the River Plate region...
...That same day was also marked by several bombings and armed attacks on the railroad lines of Buenos Aires, La Plata and Berazategui...
...They are the examples which escape the strict censorship of the press which is enforced in that country today...
...On the 20th, the manager of industrial relations at YPF was gunned down by an unidentified assailant...
...This is reflected in a recent statement by the Minister of Education who conceded that over 45% of school-age children have abandoned school...
...Meanwhile, the economic program has been thwarted in its attempt to decrease the public deficit by selling those stateowned enterprises that are money-losers...
...The strikes had wide popular support...
...But the terms of the necessary new loans offered by the bankers will not be so sweet this time...
...Thus, on November 1st power lines were attacked and cut and rail lines obstructed...
...RESISTANCE To support these negligible, and even negative, achievements of the military regime in the economic sphere, the Argentine people have paid a terrible price...
...update temporarily, in imposing one major plank of its economic pro- gram: freezing wages and free- ing prices...
...So serious is the problem now that the government estimates that almost one million tons of grain will have to be imported to cover internal consumption...
...And the very day the Renault strike ended, La Razon reported two other strikes: postalworkers in Mar del Plata and service station attendants in Buenos Aires...
...The multinationals, rather, are pressuring to buy up the moneymakers, such as state-owned meatpacking firms (recently sold) and the always profitable public petroleum enterprise, YPF...
...They demonstrate the determined and militant opposition of increasingly broad sectors of the Argentine people to continued exploitation and repression at the hands of a government controlled by the military...
...Argentina is of great concern to those who retain imperialist designs in the region...
...On November 10th, it was estimated that, despite the repression unleashed by the government, over 200,000 workers were being affected by the strikes...
...At that point, international solidarity with the Argentine resistance, already significant around such human rights issues as the release of political prisoners, could become, as it often has elsewhere (most recently perhaps in Viet Nam and Angola), indispensable that nation's fight for selfdetermination...
...Since Martinez de Hoz has based his economic policy largely on increasing agricultural exports, this situation is certainly bad news for him and other members of the military government...
...The press reported further work stoppages by workers in communications, oil, banking, rails, light and power, metals, meatpacking, subways, docks, airlines, glass, among others...
...Box 134, Time Square Station, N. Y., NY 10036...
...But this year agricultural experts are projecting a drastic decline in the wheat crop...
...As during the last military regime of 1966-73 the trend is inevitably towards the denationalization of industry...
...The junta's occasional proclamations of right-wing nationalism are nothing more than a cover for a sell-out to foreign financial and corporate interests...
...They roam the streets of Buenos Aires, Rosario, Cordoba and other cities looking for part-time jobs...
...This country is necessarily important for anyone who studies the strategy of the Free World...
...Immediately after the coup of March, 1976, an international consortium of banks provided loans of over $1 billion to the junta in order to roll over payments on the huge foreign debt for a period of 24 months...
...At least one of these attacks stopped service for several days...
...SOLIDARITY Yet, it is likely that the final victory of the Argentine people against this tyranny will be achieved only after a long and hard struggle...
...On the 25th, the head of quality control at the Lazadur enterprise, which had recently arbitrarily fired 800 workers, was killed...
...Argentina is the battle front of the hemisphere, and its strategic routes in the South Atlantic are vital for the future of oil shipments...
...Still, the military government has been successful, at least MarchlApril 1978 45update * update update...
...More bad news is also on the way...
...For more information and details concerning solidarity work, contact M.A.S.A., P.O...
...Strike activity continued unabated in the weeks which followed...
...As noted recently by Business Week, foreign firms are hardly interested in acquiring unprofitable companies...
...Popular resistance ranges from sabotage to refusing cooperation, to armed actions...
...Yet, despite the intensification of economic exploitation and political repression, the Argentine working class remains firm in its opposition to the military junta and its fascistic plans to sell out the nation...
...From "Resistance" on adapted by NACLA-East from materials received from Movimiento Antiimperialista por el Socialismo en Argentina (M.A.S.A...
...Though the army occupied the factory, arrested some 200 "agitators," and threatened further reprisals, the strike lasted six days with the workers returning to work only when their demands were met...
...Introduction by Julian Martel, a long-time student of the Argentine political economy recently forced to leave the country because of the continuing political repression there...
...When Argentina's Minister of Economy, Martinez de Hoz, returned to Buenos Aires at the end of February after spending a week on a big-game hunting safari in South Africa, he found that his economic program had gone sour...
...Mainly as a result of a record grain harvest, a positive trade balance had allowed the Argentine Central Bank to accumulate substantial monetary reserves...
...But, while theoretically designed to stimulate new investment, these measures have been applied so rigidly that they have caused the real wages of Argentine workers to drop to less than 50% of their 1960 levels...
...or other foreign troops will intervene...
...This is why solidarity work with Argentina is so important...
Vol. 12 • March 1978 • No. 2
