Argentinian workers fight back.
Report from Buenos Aires

by Vicente Balvanera

The forced eviction yesterday (June 11) of 250 families from their homes in 
Lomas de Zamora, a working class suburb of Buenos Aires, exemplifies the 
current situation in Argentina: a pitched battle, fought hand to hand and 
disputing every inch of ground, fierce, increasingly organised resistance 
against the direct pillaging of the Argentine working class and people, 
their resources, land, jobs, education, life savings, public health, at the 
hands of US and European imperialism.

The scene televised nationally all through the day, on a par with World Cup 
Soccer, was worthy of the West Bank in Palestine, complete with rubber 
bullets, tear gas, attack dogs and bulldozed dwellings.

The TV was forced to show the proud resistance against the eviction, as 
part of a growing level of organisation: many of these settlements are 
networked around organisations like the Polo Obrero and the Bloque 
Piquetero Nacional, pooling legal and other resources, organising mutual 
solidarity.

In the Buenos Aires barrio of Almagro, just a couple of weeks ago, the 
Neighbourhood Assembly voted to stand with the neighbours of Yatay Street 
against their eviction, in support of a call made by the Polo Obrero. The 
march and rally, in the framework of the growing and powerful unity of 
"pots and picketeers", successfully prevented the eviction.

Let no-one be deceived by superficial appearances in Argentina: there may 
be something of a reflux on the level of street agitation; but the class 
war bubbles on many fronts every single day, the uprising of December which 
toppled government after government continues to pose the question of who 
holds power, while a crumbling, lackey government is truly at the end of 
the line: it cannot offer any solution to the crisis, nor can it defeat the 
resistance of the working class and people.

Trying to appease an insatiable IMF, Duhalde fumblingly attempts to round 
out the expropriation of the savings account holders, but knows he cannot 
implement the new wave of structural adjustment in the provinces, even if 
the governors, Radicals and Peronists alike, have all lined up to sign the 
papers.

Last night several thousand savings account holders marched through 
downtown Buenos Aires, shouting "thieves, thieves, give back our money". 
Today a group is parked outside the house of a banker, giving him no peace 
in his own home.

No-one's buying the so-called solution of accepting worthless bonds at a 
fraction of the face value of the expropriated savings accounts, and anger 
mounts as inflation wears down, and hyperinflation threatens to wipe away, 
even at that nominal amount.

Newspapers report that there were strikes in no fewer than seven Argentine 
cities yesterday. In northern Jujuy, for example, with six access points to 
the city blocked, club wielding strikers broke through barriers and marched 
right into the state legislature, demanding back pay and improvements in 
health, education and public security.

In Cordoba several public employee unions marched in opposition to wage 
cuts, and cuts in health, education and welfare.

The workers are planning to take over several public hospitals in protest 
against cuts in public health, together with doctors, nurses and hospital 
staff. And the government hasn't even started attempting to implement the 
new wave of lay-offs, wage cuts and budget cuts, demanded by the US 
Treasury and IMF, yet. (Abridged)