The Movement: Eclipsed by Democracy?
Jelin, Elizabeth
FOLLOWING EIGHT YEARS OF BLOODY military dictatorship, Argentina's 1983 electoral process reached quickly and deeply into people's lives. In a few short months after the Malvinas...
...Human rights groups include the Communist Party-dominated Argentine League for Human Rights, founded in 1937...
...What happened to the young during the dictatorship, when their activism could not be channeled into the student movement or political parties as is custom in Argentina...
...p. 41...
...In a sense, this invasion forced the question of illegality and legitimacy into the open...
...For poor Generally speaking, street protests at the local level people, everyday life has little to do with electoral polihave come to an end and there have been no more large tics...
...Weak and isolated, human rights activists were not able to muster significant public protest...
...The conservative weekly Somos asked, "Misery or Subversion...
...Some leaders see danger in this broadened definition, and fear that the human rights movement may be invading the domain of other organizations...
...and the Ecumenical Human Rights Movement, founded in February 1976 by religious and lay workers from several denominations...
...M. In6s Gonzalez Bombal and Vicente Palermo, "La politica local," Jelin ed., Movimientos sociales...
...and legal recognition of the autonomous organizations created in defense of their rights during the long years of authoritarian rule...
...But it has been unable to speak for the working class as a whole...
...LIKE MANY CONSERVATIVE REGIMES, THE Argentine generals preached traditional family values...
...Yet with the re-emergence of party politics and the transition to democracy, it appears their transformation was short-lived...
...but it is the sheer number of similar and inter-related cases which makes us absolutely convinced that a concerted plan of repression existed and was carried out...
...1. The song was written by Charly Garcia...
...But Alfonsin moved cautiously, fearing destabilization by the armed forces...
...The cases highlighted in the report were not due to any 'excesses,' because no such thing existed, if by 'excess' we mean isolated incidents which transgress a norm...
...3 The official summary of the report, published as Nunca Mds, was Argentina's best-selling book in 1984.4 A documentary shown on prime-time television also had an enormous impact on public opinion before officers of the ruling juntas were put on trial.* Traditionally, Argentina's judiciary has not played a political role...
...From the beginning, the occupied land was divided into lots and streets, both to minimize repression and conflicts among neighbors, but also to satisfy a well-developed sense of private property...
...Forced onto center stage by widespread pleas for justice, the judiciary came to play a new and autonomous role in politics, as the trials of military commanders had a dramatic impact on public opinion...
...Plaza de Mayo...
...We are in no-man's land-but it is minethe innocent are the guilty-says his highnessthe king of spades Don't tell what is behind that mirror you won't have power, nor lawyers, nor witnesses . . . HIS SONG IS TESTIMONY TO THE BRUTAL violence unleashed by the military after the March 1976 coup, but also to the nonviolent resistence of the REPORT ON THE AMERICAS 28human rights community, perhaps the strongest of the social movements formed during the dictatorship...
...For details see ibid., p. 124...
...Since 1985, one no longer sees the large youthful political campaign rallies, nor the youth presence in human rights marches...
...Adequate housing: not a recognized right ",S OME 20,000 PEOPLE, DRIVEN BY HIGH rents, unemployment, low wages and the eradication of emergency camps, occupied large lots at Quilmes and Almirante Brown," read the lead of a December 1981 story in the widely read daily, Clarin, entitled "A Place to Exist...
...It became a means to establish personal identity and show solidarity with others...
...REPORT ON THE AMERICAS 32T HE VECINAZOS-PROTESTS BY NEIGH- borhood associations-were another story...
...In the end, the tax-the issue that had spawned the community movement and remained its most explicit demand-was not repealed, but most taxpayers simply do not pay...
...Although control was centralized and clearly deals were made in return for food, at the neighborhood level the program led to some new forms of community participation, such as consumer cooperatives...
...Women responded to the government's pro-draft slogan, "Papa, what will your son do in the war...
...Although this policy seemed quite fragile-given the weakness of a branch of government which has no power to enforce its judgements-the trial of the juntas and others showed the judges' potential...
...Third, and perhaps most important, both party cadres and trade unionists have been questioning theirReo4t os th A ric as" The Ties That Bind longstanding relationship.' Alternatives to simple cooptation or subordination of one to the other could come out of this debate, given the shared interests and relative autonomy of each...
...These protests continued through 1984...
...UNTIL 1979, THE GOVERNMENT COULD count on the silence of the political parties, the unions and the Catholic Church hierarchy...
...Even rock music is going through a crisis...
...The Official Story," the saga of a mother who fears that her adopted daughter is the child of a "disappeared" woman, moved Argentines as well as audiences abroad...
...Whether responsibility to solve daily problems actions, as activists try out new forms of participation...
...First, in the 1984 and 1985 union elections, new ways of negotiating differences emerged, as did a more diverse leadership...
...In many areas, the return of old-style politics has been characterized by traditional vertical relationships of patronage...
...HE RUSH OF PARTY ACTIVITY TOWARD the end of 1983 came when calm had returned to poor neighborhoods, but the protest movement by then had revitalized local politics, reconstructing the public arena which the dictatorship had destroyed...
...They also fought for joint child custody, opening slowly the issues of divorce, reproductive rights, sex education and equal rights for children born to unmarried parents...
...On the other side, when the president of the Chamber of Deputies of the Congress closed the parliamentary debate on divorce in August 1986, he congratulated the congressmen for approving it, proclaiming, "All I ask of God is that I not be indifferent to the people's love...
...Problems arose when neighboring The search for solutions to problems which are often slum-dwellers began protesting the invasion...
...In March of this year, Alfonsin took analysts by surprise when he appointed Carlos Alderete, a CGT official linked to the conservative "orthodox" Peronist tendency, to head the Labor Ministry...
...Yet some trappings of the rock movement have been widely adopted...
...But the military's insistence that children were a women's issue backfired on them in a particularly dramatic way when women--demanding to know what had happened to their sons and daughters-took over the symbolic center of Argentine political life, the *In a play on his own name, Roque Enroll's group Viudas e Hijas de Roque Enroll, is meant to suggest Rock and Roll...
...Special human rights commissions have been formed in many organizations, demanding justice for members whose rights have been violated, or working to expand the notion of human rights to include social rights...
...Several Peronist currents began to act with greater autonomy, to such a degree that four different parliamentary caucuses were formed and separate slates ran against each other in the 1985 elections...
...The government did take the initiative by reforming the military code of justice, trying the junta leaders and creating the National Commission on the Disappearance of Persons (CONADEP...
...After the civilian government took over in 1983, land titles were granted and the settlement organized much like others in Buenos Aires...
...For others, democratizing the political system requires much more than simply restoring pre-dictatorship mechanisms of representative democracy...
...Words drawn from rock have been incorporated into daily speech...
...Yet the spontaneous demonstrations against last Easter's military uprising showed another side to this reality: a people willing to take to the streets in an emergency to defend their hard-won democracy...
...Now that both accept the rules of parliamentary democracy, the crisis of Peronism has heightened longstanding disagreements...
...Given this history, the recent spate of organized land invasions and demonstrations is truly unprecedented...
...The judiciary's activities could now only be limited by new legislation...
...Participation in student elections has dropped...
...State housing schemes have been few, covering a minimal percentage of the demand...
...The Peronist Youth is struggling for its own legitimacy within the party and seems to be divided into the same tendencies as the rest of the Peronist movement...
...At a time when his economic policies urgently needed labor's cooperation and the local and parliamentary elections seen by many as crucial for democracy's future, Alfonsin's move was a significant political event...
...Women launched an important campaign to repeal the draft...
...The first protest drew only a few hundred, but by November 1982, 20,000 demonstrators filled the streets of the populous borough of Lands, in an action that became known as the "Lanusazo...
...Traditionally, individual families have sought housing in the private market...
...But during Alfonsin's first three years, labor acted as an uncompromising adversary, despite repeated government initiatives to strike deals with management and labor on economic questions...
...In fact, by the October 31, 1983 election, almost 40% of the registered voters had affiliated with one party or another...
...5 Some unions have set up human rights commissions to write "local memoirs" of what the repression meant for the working class...
...6. Vicente Palermo, "Movimientos sociales y partidos politicos: aspectos de la cuesti6n en la democracia emergente en la Argentina," Jelin ed., Movimientos sociales y democracia emergente (Buenos Aires: Centro Editor de Amdrica Latina, 1987), pp...
...Los asentamientos de San Francisco," Jelin et al, Los nuevos movimientos, p. 124...
...and subversion of the order which the armed forces wished to enforce.' The organized takeover of vacant lots in recent years follows a long history of urban struggle in Argentina...
...T HE LABOR MOVEMENT HAS LONG BEEN pivotal on Argentina's political scene, extending its activities far beyond the arena of labor relations...
...This forced the squatters to become better organized, but also to forge ties with human rights organizations, political parties and labor groups...
...The mothers were critical of the CGT's weak stance in the face of the dictatorship's repression...
...organizational representation...
...Did they take refuge in the individualism of the market promoted by the regime, or did they find a more collective means of expression...
...M. Ines Gonzalez Bombal, "Protestan los barrios (El murmullo suburbano de la political, " Jelin ed., Los nuevos movimientos...
...They did not seek exemption from taxes, but felt that higher taxes were not justified given deteriorating city services...
...Yet despite the movement's consolidation, only the dictatorship's own crisis forced the government to lift the siege...
...Student involvement in politics has fallen markedly in comparison with a few short years ago...
...The government refused to budge and resorted to repression, driving the movement to organize a series of city-wide demonstrations including neighborhood groups from throughout metropolitan Buenos Aires...
...elections-the first local and parliamentary vote in Among the most novel of these is the emergence of some 20 years-showed the vitality of party politics at joint forms of resolving consumer problems...
...3. Nunca Mds: The Report of the Argentine National Commission on the Disappeared (New York: Farrar, Straus, Giroux, 1986...
...The 1985 ment in the dictatorship's waning years...
...While most Argentines do not display any deep commitment to human rights and seek only to avoid the painful turbulence of the past, human rights issues resonate in student organizations, professional associations, unions, political parties, the cinema and other art forms...
...Complaints that Alfonsin had promised more than he delivered reached only hidden and fragmented audiences...
...149-156...
...Their unity was expressed symbolically in the slogan: Aparici6n con vida y castigo a los culpables (We want them back alive and the guilty punished...
...Yet this collaboration failed, and a new labor minister from the ranks of the governing Radical Party was appointed after the September election...
...Beyond this base of family relationships, the human rights movement was quite heterogeneous, attracting Christian humanists such as Adolfo P6rez Esquivel, leaders of democratic political parties, activist intellectuals and people from all social sectors...
...But how social movements will relate to the political parties and the government is still an open question...
...others have become deeply committed to human rights work, such as Fito Piez, who wrote a song for the Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo, or others who play at political benefits...
...for a political analysis...
...Yet the key issues continue to be economic...
...The National Food Plan (PAN), for example-which What happened to the young during the dictatorship...
...For the most part, women do not participate in the public arena, save a few active trade unionists, a few government programs for women and a small group of militant feminists...
...XX, no...
...During the harsh debate over divorce, Argentine rock weighed in on both sides...
...There have always been tensions between labor and the party, as union activists take sides in intra-party politics...
...A T THE HEIGHT OF THE MALVINAS WAR, on May 16, 1982, the military government organized a rock festival in Buenos Aires designed to celebrate youthful support for the war...
...Given the the local level and widespread acceptance of the depth of Argentina's economic crisis and the shortage mechanisms of democracy...
...Up for discussion were topics such as legal recognition of unions, collective bargaining and worker participation in management...
...The government followed some of these principles and demands, but reinterpreted them pragmatically, motivated by the need for negotiation and compromise...
...Most of the disappeared were young...
...Since the mid-1970s, the number of industrial wageearners has been falling while the ranks of the self-employed have grown...
...There have been no mass concerts of late, no prominent spokespeople and many producers have gone out of business...
...2. See Report on the Americas, Vol...
...But it is also true that the movement's values-such as favoring a lifestyle based more on love and tolerance than on consumption-have not taken root...
...For there our simple innocence becomes a huge and dangerous monster...
...grassroots movements are glaringly absent...
...The squatters considered themselves victims of injustice, with invasion the only alternative...
...In this climate, the labor movement speaks for those workers most directly affected by the government's economic policies...
...By 1983 the human rights movement had become a major political actor, earning a role in shaping the country's new democracy...
...Youth organized in political parties have fared no better...
...We Won't Pay, Not Because We Don't Want To, But Because We Can't was another slogan which linked the struggle to the economic crisis...
...The labor movement has dealt with human rights in a complex and contradictory manner...
...The provincial government tried to defuse the conflict by agreeing to dialogue with traditional community development organizations with the participation of a mediator...
...The key form of organization has been communitybased development societies-neighbors who join together to build collective infrastructure themselves, or to bring pressure to bear on government agencies...
...The impact of Argentine rock on the political scene cannot be denied...
...Music was a democratizing force on daily social relations, more than on national politics...
...It was a cultural movement which did not have or pretend to have Soup kitchens: new forms of community participation any direct impact on politics, but which came nonetheless to exert a strong influence on the opposition...
...All this seemed to grow out of a void-political parties had been banned by the dictatorship and had suffered internal crisis and decomposition...
...Toward the end of 1981, a new type of land invasion took place almost spontaneously in the San Francisco Solano area of Buenos Aires...
...Insulted by the press, misunderstood by many, targeted by state terror and respected in fearful silence by others, the mothers became the clearest proof that opposition to the dictatorship was not only possible, but ethically correct...
...Ibid...
...At the same time, the community organizations elicited a promise from political parties to call for a moratorium on the taxes as soon as the democratic government took office...
...local groups with important management experience.' 2 But this is only the case at election time...
...campuses have turned to the right...
...The Radical Youth have moved away from their early militancy to become increasingly part of the offiJULY/AUGUST 198735 C C C C C T. JULY/AUGUST 1987 35The Ties That Bind cial party, following government lead...
...In a sense, it was both: misery resulting from authoritarian government policies...
...If disillusionment, despair and complaints about the civilian government characterize talk on the street, the Easter mobilizations testified to a strong but diffuse "social power" in support of democracy...
...REPORT ON THE AMERICAS 34distributed food to destitute families-was set up by the democratic government at the beginning of 1984 on an emergency basis...
...The Peronist or Justicialista Party membership totalled 3.3 million, and Rail Alfonsin's Radical Civic Union nearly 1.5 million...
...The system of repression itself, and its planning and execution, was the greatest 'excess'-transgression was common and widespread...
...Today, the content, scope and strategy for democratization is at the center of political debate in Argentina, and popular movements play new roles, according to differing conceptions of democracy...
...The movement which led these protests consisted largely of community development groups, but it also included other local institutions, such as block associations, senior citizen centers, merchants' groups, local lecture clubs, libraries and housewife organizations...
...Its frank conclusions stunned the nation: A single one of these testimonies would in itself be enough to permit the moral condemnation which the Commission has expressed...
...President Alfonsin, a co-founder and vice-president of the Permanent Human Rights Assembly, campaigned on the slogan, "We are life," implying his acceptance of the movement's ideological principles regarding the ethical basis of the state...
...La Raz6n, another popular daily, called the occupied lands in the south of Buenos Aires, "A scene of misery which seems to have suspicious motivations...
...REPORT ON THE AMERICAS 30The Peronist movement has gone through a profound internal crisis in recent years...
...However, the four years of democratic rule have channeled much of the movements' activity into traditional party structures...
...7 At least publicly, the union hierarchy accepted the appointment and expressed willingness to cooperate in government efforts at conciliation...
...4 The popularity of Argentine rock music is evident in the massive attendance at concerts, which drew up to 60,000 people, the proliferation of youth magazines and, at a more intimate level, the groups of friends whose principal activity is listening to music...
...The right to adequate housing-although included in more than one political platformhas never really been recognized, and there is little combative tradition around housing issues...
...Pablo Vila, "Rock nacional: cr6nicas de la resistencia juvenil," Jelin ed., Los nuevos movimientos...
...the Peace and Justice Service, led by 1980 Nobel laureate Adolfo P6rez Esquivel, functioning since 1974...
...In a few short months after the Malvinas defeat-when democratic rule appeared within reach-political parties came out of hiding and attracted new members in unprecedented numbers...
...The military regime found nothing legitimate in their cause and sent in police to surround the occupied land with a permanent barricade...
...Several attempts at negotiation broke down over wage demands...
...The strongest unions bypass the labor federations, negotiating directly with the state...
...Spurring the mobilization was the concern of families of disappeared people, who kept meeting each other at public offices while seeking information on their missing relatives...
...Their position is summed up in the slogan: Taxes Yes, Increases No...
...It has been the backbone of the Peronist movement, reflecting internally the dangers, achievements and contradictions of Peronism over the past thirty years...
...RGENTINA'S CURRENT PANORAMA IS dominated by parties and personalities...
...61-65, for an interview with Adolfo P6rez Esquivel...
...Transar and zafar, for example, originally referring to a musician's decision to go commercial (transar) or not (zafar), now refer to anyone's relationship to the establishment...
...29 JULY/AUGUST 1987Repot oT Th Am#ei cs The Ties That Bind Popular among unemployed: Cayetano, Saint of Work sentences and accountability of the military for the repression (Punto Final and Obediencia Debida), showed how the president's initiative has pre-empted that of the human rights community...
...The movement also rejected the government offer to excuse families of "proven indigence," arguing that issuing what amounted to "certificates of poverty" was insulting...
...Cooperative approaches to concrete problems are more common among community-based organizations than among those perceived as "political...
...The appearance and consolidation of the Mothers and Grandmothers of the Plaza de Mayo changed the political map of the nation...
...the Permanent Assembly for Human Rights, founded at the end of 1975 with multiparty participation...
...But there are also indications of new Neighborhood associations organized to protest tax hikes JULY/AUGUST 1987 33Repot4 o04 t4 Amrias' The Ties That Bind kinds of local political activity, led by community de- J N POOR NEIGHBORHOODS, POLITICAL PARvelopment societies and other local organizations 1 ties have demonstrated their ability to mobilize which were in the vanguard of the community move- people, particularly around election time...
...But it has also given rise to alternasupport the squatters, who, as is often the case, lacked tive approaches based on solidarity and cooperation...
...But during the dictatorship, music took on greater significance...
...Its social make-up was also heterogeneous, given the participation of homeowners surrounding squatter settlements...
...Given this acceptance, the movement could have opted for advancing labor relations within the political space opened by return to constitutional rule...
...Suddenly, as the dictatorship drew to a close, the movement took the unprecedented step of presenting its demands at the Palace of Justice...
...With the return to democracy, labor took an unprecedented stance by accepting the legitimacy of the government although it is led by its political opposition...
...It was a channel for expressing collective opposition to the regime: chanting Se Va A Acabar ("The Military Dictatorship Is Going To End") in the face of the police at rock concerts was a common show of defiance...
...OVERNMENT POLICIES HAVE SATISFIED some of the student movement's traditional demands, both at the high school and university level...
...5-6, (Sept/Dec 1986), pp...
...Although greater unity has led to a victory in September's parliamentary and provincial elections, the party is by no means consolidated...
...During those years, Argentines wrote the most recent chapter in a long history of human rights activism.' After the military coup of 1976, the human rights movement emerged gradually to defend the victims of government repression...
...Scores of the unemployed and those in the informal sector are also excluded from representation...
...These grassroots organizational networks, be they centralized or dispersed, linked to political parties or autonomous, are part of the country's urban culture, especially in Buenos Aires...
...Child-rearing was portrayed as a woman's proper role and a public relations campaign sought to strengthen patriarchial rule in the home...
...3 To the degree that local activism is rooted in daily needs-water, pavements, schools, health clinics, police stations, housing or food-it remains an unmediated arena for petitioning the government and for new forms of public participation...
...Participation was high, but gains for labor were minimal...
...Broad sectors of society share the goal of institutionalizing democracy, but differ on how to do so...
...Argentine rock is also going through a period of transition and demobilization...
...They testified that they "did not remember" the disappearance of workers and shop stewards under the dictatorship...
...That September, the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights of the Organization of American States sent a delegation, and in 1980 Adolfo P6rez Esquivel received the Nobel Peace Prize for his crusading work...
...The music community seems now to be fragmented: volunteer action groups, such as Buenas Ondas or Good Waves, proposed by the singer Piero, build schools in poor neighborhoods...
...But human rights soon became an issue of public debate...
...But women's activism has fallen off, along with the general demobilization of society...
...And underlying it all are changes in the composition of the working class as a result of Argentina's dramatic recession...
...Rock music has expanded its influence on folk, tango and pop music...
...5. For details, see: Hector Palomino, "El movimiento de democratizaci6n sindical," Jelin ed., Los nuevos movimientos sociales (Buenos Aires: Centro Editor de Amdrica Latina, 1985), pp...
...Popular movements often argue this position and thus are frequently labelled "destabilizers...
...Protests have generally targetted the presidential palace (the Casa Rosada), the Plaza de Mayo or the Congress...
...Despite differing objectives, origins and participants, these movements share certain characteristics...
...In the "Days of Protest" against legalizing divorce, a special panel was held on "The Satanic Influence of Rock Music...
...Yet Argentina's current dynamic has understandably caused some fragmentation and internal debate over the role of the human rights movement in a democratic society...
...Based on traditional roles, women went public, making demands on the state and questioning the status quo...
...They unanimously voiced an intention to legalize their status by paying for the occupied plots...
...Since 1982, struggles for union democracy in several unions have successfully removed leaders thought to be allies of the military...
...2 When the government proclaimed in early 1982 that "The Malvinas are Argentine," the movement responded, "So are the disappeared...
...40-41...
...rated with community organizations and some party The same vitality was evident during the 1987 cammembers in creating alternative solutions, providing paign...
...families moved onto city-owned land while police looked on passively...
...During transitions to deMatanza in March 1986...
...For the first time in its history, the party lost an election in 1983...
...This new wave of party activity overshadowed the popular movements which had developed during, and in spite of, the dictatorship-human rights, labor, community, youth and women...
...With support from members mocracy, issues of citizen rights and responsibilities of P6rez Esquivel's Peace and Justice Service, 400 are at the core of people's sense of a collective identity...
...falls to the individual or the government is a question One notable exception was a land takeover in La often raised at the local level...
...Both the terribly urgent has given rise to protests and demands municipal authorities and community groups refused to on the government...
...Despite the fear this generated, youthful spirit continued to shine through music, in what was known as "national rock...
...The dreadful 'excesses' themselves were the norm...
...Some see a role for the movement as the defender of tolerance, pluralism and an ethical foundation for the democratic state...
...In spring of 1982, popular sectors mobilized to protest higher local taxes...
...Workers in large industrial plants and state companies, the hub of the working class activism since the 1950s, no longer play this strategic role...
...with "Mama, what is your son doing in peace...
...Typical of union combativeness were the nine general strikes called between September 1984 and October 1986...
...It also could have chosen to take on the government's economic and wage policy or challenge legal questions, particularly the return to the labor code established under the Peronist government of 1973-1976...
...URBAN LAND INVASIONS IN ARGENTINA have historically not been collectively organized, but gradual and involving single families...
...Grading systems have been modified, open enrollment established and authoritarianism in the classroom limited...
...Undoubtedly, it continues to play a key role in pursuing justice for crimes of the past...
...INCE 1955, THE LABOR MOVEMENT HAS been closely linked to Peronism, yet has managed to maintain considerable autonomy...
...And even within such limitations, the still weak judiciary is taking small steps toward spreading the ethics of responsibility throughout society...
...8. Cited in Luis Fara, "Luchas reivindicativas urbanas en su contexto autoritario...
...For many, rock music was also a vehicle for acquiring new values-peace, love, justice, solidarity-accompanied by new modes of behavior...
...With the support of the local Catholic Church, the first group of squatters launched what would become the "Neighbors' Commission," which organized 20,000 for the invasion...
...Mntherr and Grandmothers of the Plaza de Mavo: ralivina since 1977 -t JULY/AUGUST 1987 31 Second, trade unions have gotten increasingly involved in issues and organizations which cut across class lines: human rights, women's rights and youth...
...On Punto Final and Obediencia Debida, see Emilio Mignone...
...In their view, asking for more thoroughgoing reform could destabilize the country's fragile democracy...
...With political parties now occupying center stage, neighborhood groups are trying, despite difficulties, to remain autonomous while taking advantage of the new political space...
...And in 1982, housewives began to rebel against the high cost of living, with Thursday shopping boycotts, self-imposed blackouts and other novel strategies organized by a group calling itself the "Housewives of the Country...
...4. Ibid...
...There are, however, indications that some leaders are aware of the need to re-evaluate organized labor's strategy of making rigid, non-negotiable demands...
...Nevertheless, most judges proved committed to enforcing the constitution, a force which transformed the judicial system...
...groups like the Widows and Daughters of Roque Enroll * and the Twist, make fun of the International Monetary Fund and the foreign debt but preach "enjoyment" following years of repression and frustration...
...Thus, many candidate slates were backed by alliances of several parties...
...Once Alfonsin took office, a number of organizations became active on the local scene-municipal authorities, neighborhood councils, civic associations, political parties...
...Some seek as little change as possible...
...ESPITE THE STRENGTH OF THE HUMAN rights movement, the majority of magistrates named by the dictatorship were reconfirmed by the Senate after the civilian government took office, bolstering the conservatives' power within the judiciary...
...Furthermore, other than in times of crisis, the gap between politics and daily life is enormous...
...Some of the issues were taken up by other organizations...
...But when the talented young singer from Patagonia, Le6n Gieco, took the stage with his underground folk-rock hit "All I ask of God," thousands of fans transformed the festival into an anti-government protest, expressing their desire for peace...
...Women's demonstrations multiplied during the Malvinas War...
...These changes meant increasing heterogeneity and fragmentation in the labor force, thus diminishing possibilities for organization and collective action...
...In this setting, questions of political representation recede, left in the hands of parties and "politicians...
...This sentiment does not translate into support for the party in power, as was made clear by the Peronist victory in September's elections...
...The commission presented its final report to the president at a march on Buenos Aires' central square, the Plaza de Mayo, where women have been rallying since 1977...
...7. See ibid...
...Turnout at the polls was of municipal resources, the government has collabo- high and candidates for party nomination were many...
...But they were also deeply troubled by the testimony of two important union officials, Jorge Triaca and Ram6n Baldasini, at the trial of the military juntas...
...All I ask of God is that I not be indifferent to war...
...Today's challenge is to make popular participation in politics not just a last recourse in a crisis, but an organic part of democratic life...
...The leading federation, the General Labor Confederation (CGT), set up a human rights office in part to counter the bad publicity generated by scuffles between union members and Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo in front of the CGT offices...
...Its success in carving out a role in the new Argentina will determine the movement's long-range impact...
...The movement remained an independent force, questioning and criticizing lukewarm state efforts to bring the military to trial, investigate the fate of the disappeared and free political prisoners...
...To be young drew the authorities' suspicion and youth were singled out for repression...
...9. Ibid., p. 124...
...The Buenos Aires metropolitan area has an immense number of privately owned lots, bought through never-ending payments, and houses are rarely finished...
...The Movement: Eclipsed by Democracy...
...Another feature of Argentina's urban history is the limited governmental presence in housing and neighborhood services...
...The series of parliamentary and judicial measures taken during the first half of 1987, which limited the *See article by Emilio Mignone in this issue...
...Alfonsin's policy was to make the judiciary into an example of justice at work...
...Their exemplary ethical posture in response to the Punto Final statute,** which hastened prosecution of many more officers than the law's sponsors had imagined, posed a threat to the officer corps and had a great impact on society as a whole...
...They made two primary demands on the new democracy: titles for their occupied plots, achieved with the expropriation of the land by the provincial government...
...Of differing backgrounds, ideas, experience and levels of commitment, movement participants found a minimum of common ground in opposing a common enemy...
...Some of the dictatorship's policies hit poor women hardest, such as cancelling an unmarried woman's right to her companion's pension...
Vol. 21 • July 1987 • No. 4
