On the third anniversary of the People's Rebellion of December 19 th and 20 th , the national and popular demands that originated it have not been met, and the conditions of misery, exploitation and national oppression have even been aggravated.
The rebellion of December 2001 shocked Argentina to its foundations and opened a new stage. It was a gigantic effort by thousands of youth, women and men of the people. Thirty four gave their lives in these days of struggle and six more died later because of the wounds received. For the first time in national history, the people on the streets overthrew a sell-out government, left the state of emergency declared by that government hanging in thin air. In only ten days five presidents followed each other in and out of power.
The slogan "out with them all" ( que se vayan todos ) expressed the millions that questioned the regime's institutions. Popular Assemblies, "Multisectorials", Piquetero Coordination Assemblies and other forms of the political protagonist role of the great masses, which expressed the practice of direct democracy, all appeared.
Kirchner-Duhalde-Lavagna governments have tried from the beginning to extinguish the flames of the volcano that was that rebellion, have tried to change a weak and badly hit government into one strengthened by the support of the dominant classes and by deception and double-talk directed towards the people. They work in different ways to strengthen the social and political foundations almost broken by the uprising of the 19 th and 20 th . For that, they instrumented a combined policy of cooptation, division, isolation and repression of the piquetero movement, the popular assemblies, the regained factories and the human rights organizations. They sought to isolate them from the broad popular sectors that had fought on the 19 th and 20 th . Taking advantage of the good conditions of the international prices of commodities, this government has specialized in selling us fake winds of change. But the economic crisis that still persists, together with the deepening of the unfair distribution of wealth, has maintained and even aggravated the social crisis. The surrender to the IMF and the payment of the foreign debt were deepened, privatizations validated, there have been advances in the devaluation of wages and the annihilation of workers' gains, massive unemployment, the misery that affects more than half of the population, the destruction of the public health and education systems.
Those who came to us with the fairy tale of a "national and popular" policy have ended in a complete surrender to the bankers and the IMF. For the next year, the sanction of the 2005 budget, the "superpowers" and the Law of Fiscal Responsibility will be legal instruments for paying the IMF more than 5 thousand millions dollars, to which must be added the payment of the debt for the compensation to the bankers and the payment of the debt in default. It is about thousands of millions of dollars that will go right into the pockets of the international creditors. Lavagna, Kirchner and Duhalde's Minister, has already become the Minister of Economy that has paid the most to the Monetary Fund in the course of the entire Argentine history. The new foreign debt will be bigger than 130 billion dollars, the equivalent of the entire wealth that we Argentines produce in a year, a proportion even bigger to the one that led us to the catastrophe of devaluation, mortgaging complete generations of Argentines.
The payment of the foreign debt has as its direct consequence the hunger of millions of workers, the freezing of wages and of the social welfare plans, the destruction of popular health and education. For its payment they asked for the superpowers, for its payment they're planning the gradual elimination of the "Jefes y Jefas de Hogar" (Heads of Households) welfare plans.
The government lies when they say that the huge surplus is the result of an increase in the internal revenue. They lie because the great fortunes continue evading the payment of taxes, as shown by the fact that half of the workers are hired as non-contract casual labor, deprived of their labor rights. The surplus is the result of the freezing of the wages of the state employed workers and teachers, of the heads of households welfare plans, of the budgets destined to health and education. Today, more than ever, the assertion that says we are paying the foreign debt with the hunger and misery of the exploited and working people rings true.
The "national and popular" policy, then, is not more than the slogan that hides the support for Bush and the imperialist powers, for big capital, the banks, the the oil conglomerates, the big landlords and the international creditor. This policy deepens the dependency on the imperialist countries with the ceding of the natural resources and the submarine platform with the Enarsa fraud, the renewal of the scam of privatizations, the rising of public service and utility rates, the payment of the foreign debt as never before. A policy too expensive for a people immersed in misery and which, because of the contradictions that lie within it, raises new crisis, bankruptcies and people's rebellions.
The changes in the Supreme Court, which were presented as a democratic conquest, have revealed themselves to be a simple changing of the guard in support of the new government. They have already voted in favor of the bankers, against the small owners, and now attack the wage increase for the court workers. A progress in the policy of human rights has been advertised, but we have tens of comrades imprisoned, we have the repression against the struggles, torture in the police stations, while the crimes of Pueyrredon Bridge remain unpunished, just as the assassinations of Ibañez and Cuellar in Jujuy, the bomb in Plaza de Mayo (May Square), the attack on the Amia. And even in the struggle against the perpetrators of the genocide they try to take back the ground gained by mobilization, as shown by the recent ruling made by the San Martin Court (Cámara de Casación Penal) against the nullification of the Punto Final and Obediencia Debida (Full Stop and Due Obedience amnesty laws).
With the excuse of fighting insecurity, far from attacking the gangs of politicians, police and judges that protect crime, taking Blumberg and the recalcitrant right-wing policy, they develop a policy of "zero tolerance laws", which only serve the strengthening of the repressive machine, advancing against public liberties and which are totally ineffective to fight insecurity and the lack of street safety. The approval of a repressive Criminal Code in the City of Buenos Aires is part and parcel of this policy.
It has been said that the government represents the cause of national independence, but actually it pays the IMF and sends Argentine troops to Haiti, in aid of the imperialist coup d'état in a brother country.
There is a fake center-left opposition which, basing itself on a hateful discourse which naturally gives rise to skepticism, finally ends up coinciding with Kirchner's policy of surrender to the IMF, criminalization of social protest and the sending of troops to Haiti.
The impotence and complicity of the erstwhile leftists that form part of the government, as also the leaders and opposition parties which are tributaries of this social regime, show that the workers, the exploited and other popular sectors need to structure our own way out, gaining our independence from the business as usual and capitalist governments, from their State and their parties.
A tempest of struggles runs all through Latin America, people's insurrections and rebellions that overthrow governments such as in Bolivia, Venezuela, Paraguay, Ecuador. The old parties of the oligarchic imperialist regime collapse and the clamor for unity and struggle of the peoples of Latin America grows. The last rebellions have caused some governments posing as "national and popular" to show their true face, supporting the sending of mercenary troops to Haiti and carrying out joint maneuvers with the imperialist troops. We claim from this podium and tribune the withdrawal of the Argentine, Brazilian, Uruguayan and Chilean troops from Haiti, and we call these peoples to mobilize against their governments to win this demand.
The attempts of the government for ending with the process opened by the 19 th and 20 th have not managed to extinguish the fire of the people's rebellion. This is expressed in the workers' struggles that this year have irrupted in the national scene, being protagonist of the working class conflicts most important since 2001, with strikes and mobilizations, occupations, railway and road blockings; the struggles of the workers of Metrovias (subways), workers of Bagley (food industry), teachers, railroad workers, oil workers, justice workers, port workers, and numerous bastions of the working class in defense of wages, living conditions and jobs. The great triumph in the strike for wages, which included roadblocks, demonstrations and occupations of buildings carried out by the telephonic workers of the Foetra Buenos Aires union, all over the country, and the triumph with the same methods, reincorporating the fired workers and freeing railroad workers imprisoned for struggling, open a wide path for the working class to which we commit ourselves in this demonstration.
Right here is the piquetero movement which confronts repression, occupies plants in the south of the country demanding genuine work, which mobilizes and block roads, recovers the Pueyrredon Bridge, for a universal unemployment benefit and a raise on the ones already granted, for jobs and the reduction of the work-day, and against all the abuses of a State and a government repressor and creator of hunger. Right here are the relatives of the victims of police brutality, of political prisoners, who unceasingly demand an end of repression, the solving of the assassinations committed by the State thugs, the freedom of all the comrades imprisoned. Right here are the small owners who confront the Supreme Court of the bankers, the students that, as in the Comahue, occupied for a month the University against the World Bank policy that Kirchner and Filmus follow, achieving a brilliant victory against the Law of Higher Education, peasants and native peoples that occupy lands in the north and south of the country, women that go out and struggle as a massive contingent against all abuses of the bosses' State that make impossible the life of the people and their children.
The workers and people's struggle is born from below, is carried out in growing numbers and must be unified in order to achieve great victories. The unity and coordination of the struggles in course appear as a vital need to allow the defeat of the traitor trade-union leadership, which is a support for the government and its policy of surrender to the IMF and repression against the fighters.
Far from meeting the demands of workers organizations, the business as usual government has attempted a cooptation of their leaders to the government by handing out bribes and political deals, inserting a wedge into the piquetero movement.
With the support of the old trade-union bureaucracy, the government achieved a truce with the trade-union central confederations. Precisely, one of the expressions of the failure of its "transversal" project has been the need of supporting itself on the old trade-union hierarchy, joined again in the unified CGT, with Moyano and the "fatsos" at their head. But "the truce" given by the bureaucrats is not observed by tens of trade unions, plants and factories, which have joined the fight supported by assemblies, delegate assemblies and new working class leadership that are increasingly leaving to one side the old traitor leaders.
The new rise in wages for state and private workers, which must be added to the "piquetero Christmas bonus"; the fix amount for the retired, the rise in the family allotment, despite their completely insufficient character, do not constitute a grateful Kirchner's "gift" to "improve consumption", but is the obliged reply from the government to a years' end crossed by uncountable working class and popular struggles. And is far from calming the rising wave of demands for wages, that will push new contingents of the workers to the fight.
The organizations that participate and organize this unity demonstration make our own the struggle of the workers and demand an immediate rise in the wages and retirement benefits, raising the minimum wage to the cost of the family basket [of goods and services], the nullification of all Menem, De la Rúa and Kirchner's norms of labor flexibility. We call to struggle for jobs for everyone, reducing the work-day to 6 hours without affecting wages, for a real Plan of Public Infrastructure and popular housing under workers' control, and for a benefit of 350 pesos for all the unemployed.
We call to confront hunger modifying the tenancy of the land with an agrarian reform that puts an end to the big estates, confiscating in origin the big producers of food, milk products and meats, under workers' control, instead of the exports that provide food for 300 million people while Argentina starves.
We call to struggle for the renationalization of all the privatized companies, regaining the natural resources and the national patrimony, under worker's management and users' control. We call for the opening of the books and the workers' control of the bankrupt companies, forbidding all firings. We support the struggle of the companies under workers' administration for the definitive expropriation without payment. We support the occupations that rescue the places of work from the capitalist looting, today attacked with repression as has occurred in Zanon, Recerar, Gatic, Franco Inglesa and others.
With an important unity in the struggle we freed the imprisoned comrades, as recently, the comrades imprisoned August 31. Still detained are the comrades imprisoned for the events outside the [Buenos Aires City] Legislature, those of Caleta Olivia, the native peoples of Formosa and Chaco, and the comrade imprisoned in La Plata. Nevertheless, the recent repression, more and more brutal, in Las Heras, against 70 piqueteros that occupied the Oil company, where the police used firearms, with the result of 10 imprisoned and 40 arrest orders; the brutal repression against the railroad workers with detentions and new charges; the beating and detentions against the piqueteros in Catamarca, speak of a government and a regime sliding into repression of the kind that took the De la Rua government, first, and then the Duhalde government, to the grave. Today, in Kirchner's Argentina, there are more than thirty political prisoners!
To achieve the victory of the struggles we pronounce ourselves in favor of the coordinated support for the strikes, occupations and pickets of the occupied and unemployed workers, factories under workers administration, students, victims of police brutality and other popular sectors in struggle. For the defense of the combative leaders, against the attacks of the government, the bosses, and the trade-union bureaucracy.
The protection of the Buenos Aires police gangs and all the brutal provincial police forces is today prolonged in the operation of impunity concerning those responsible for the Pueyrredon Bridge massacre, who took the lives of Kosteki and Santillan, together with the impunity of those politically and materially responsible for the dead of December 19 th and 20 th , 2001, and all those who fell in the people's struggle. This impunity must be added to the one enjoyed by thousands of genocides who acted during the dictatorship, protected by the Courts acting in complicity, quick to persecute popular fighters, but incapable of jailing the repressors, functionaries, political and big capitalists that looted the country.
We repudiate the attempts of cooptation of the victims of the Pueyrredon Bridge's relatives in order to put up a veil covering up those responsible for the dead and wounded.
We hold this demonstration calling the Argentine people to support the struggles in course, to fight against the government and its policies, to fight against all its partners that, even calling themselves the opposition or pseudo opposition, have made of the foreign debt, repression, wage devaluation, rescue of the big monopolies and bankers, and the sending of troops to Haiti, "questions of State".
Today, here in Plaza de Mayo (May Square) and in the plazas of political power all over the country, we call to fight for:
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Free all political prisoners. "No" to the repression of Kirchner's government. Jail for the assassins of those fallen in the popular struggle. For the dropping of charges or amnesty for popular fighters.
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General rise in wages and retirement benefits now, minimum wage equivalent to the family basket of goods and services. Work for everyone, reduction of the workday to six hours without affecting wages. Nullification of labor flexibility. 350 pesos benefit for all the unemployed
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For the coordination and support to strikes, occupations and pickets of occupied and unemployed workers, factories under workers' administration, students, victims of police brutality and other popular sectors in struggle. Defense of the combative leaderships.
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No to the payment of the illegitimate and fraudulent foreign debt. No to the Kirchner-FMI pact.
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Yankees out of Iraq, solidarity with the heroic resistance of the Iraqi people. Immediate withdrawal of the Argentine troops in Haiti.
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Against the imperialist aggression against Cuba and Venezuela.
¡Long live the people's rebellion of December 19 th and 20 th !
Polo Obrero, Corriente Clasista y Combativa, Fte. Pop. Darío Santillán (MTD A. Verón), FTC Nacional, MTL (Coord. Nac.), MST Teresa Vive, MTR/Cuba, FTC Mesa Nacional, Mov. 29 de Mayo, Mov. Terr. Liberación, MTR La Dignidad, UTL, CND, Mov. 26 de Junio, Futradeyo, UTDOCH, UTP, EPI D. Santillán. Fuba, Suteba La Plata, Suteba Lomas de Zamora, Suteba General Sarmiento, Cuerpo de delegados Metrovías, Delegados Foetra Buenos Aires, Bloque de Asambleas Populares, CI Transportes del Oeste, Simeca (Sind. Motoqueros), Delegados Atilra, Lista Naranja Gráfica, Agr. Indep. de Afip, Amas de casa del País, Red Popular, Mopasol, Agr. Tribuna Docente, LuchArte, Mov. Cultural Agitando la Mecha, Tend. Clasista 29 de Mayo, Agr. Estud. Hasta las Bolas, Asambleas Populares Entre Ríos y San Juan, Floresta y Pza. 1° de Mayo (Balvanera), Los Compadres del Horizonte, Com. de lucha y Trabajo, Mov. Autonomía Pop., Mov. Etcétera, Razón y Revolución, Red Popular, Praxis, Juv. Rev. Petete Almirón, Suteba Gral. Rodríguez, Suteba Marcos Paz, Asoc. Gremial Docente de la UBA, MTD Aníbal Verón, Fed. Univ. de La Plata, Comisión Interna de Parmalat; Sec. de Prensa, Tesorero y Sec. de Encuadramiento Legal de Foetra Buenos Aires; PCR, PO, MST, PC, MAS, PTS, PRL, PL, MPR Quebracho, OLP, Soberanía Popular, Democracia Obrera, Cte. Soc. El Militante. Liberpueblo, Correpi, Liga por los Derechos del Hombre, Asoc. Ex Detenidos Desaparecidos, Apel, Ceprodh, Apemia, H.I.J.O.S.