Storm Warnings in Argentina of British naval power, and thus the first effective general strike further undermined the pretences of the establishment of the dictatorship.
British imperialism that it can still play The Peronist CGT-Brazil then came in
Gerry FOLEY
More and more signals point to the buildup of an explosion in Argentina, which could become the biggest yet in the recent series of revolutionary blowups an independent world role.
The Argentine dictatorship was decisi-
If it did not fall immediately in the wake of the defeat and was able to put forward an alternative government, it seems clear now that this was mainly because the major opposition behind it.
Seven million workers followed the strike call on December 6 (the population of the country is about 28 million). Everything stopped. The shutdown of industry and transport was total. In addition, about 95% of stores closed.
in colonial countries.
The growing crisis in Argentina has already seriously setback the efforts of U.S. imperialism to smother one of these out- tary. They accepted the military's appeals
In New York Times of De- for cember 3, George Crile, a former CBS and did not take an independent line correspondent in Central America, gave evidence that Washington had been planning a major military move against the Nicaraguan revolution in March.
The operation was called off at the last minute, apparently because of a rapid deterioration in the position of the Argentine junta, on which Washington was counting heavily.
Massive workers demonstrations in Argentina on March 30, the first since the establishment of the bloody military dictatorship almost exactly six years before, made it clear that the regime was beginning to founder. Then on April 2, three days later, the ruling generals staged a show of military force in the Malvinas, seeking to regain credibility as leaders of the Argentine state.
Unfortunately for the Argentine dictators, the Thatcher government was scarcely less in need of a show of force to shore up its own sagging credibility. Once the right-wing British government decided to respond with a military adventure of groups used the war as an excuse to try to make a rapprochement with the mili-
"national unity" against the enemy, rejecting the leadership of the junta in the fight against British and American
The leading Peronist trade unionist, Lorenzo Miguel, went so far as to compare General Galtieri, head of the junta at the time, to the sainted father of "justicialismo" himself. In an article by him the Peronist magazine El Caudillo, entitled "The Brothers Are United," a picture of Galtieri was included. The caption yas "It is a long time since we heard a president talk like this."
As for the non-Peronists in the Multipartidaria, the bloc of the bourgeois op position, their attitude was illustrated by Oscar Allende of the Partido Intransigenta: " My party will not follow and will not support the new course of the military regime (that is, the turn represented by the installation of Bignone to replace Galtieri) but it will not try to destabilize it either."
The bourgeois opposition, including the Peronists, was, and remains, anxious
"You could see houswives going after the few shopkeepers that opened their doors," Jacques Despres reported in the December 8 issue of Le Monde. "They told them angrily, •We have to show the generals that the people are united.' "
Even in governmental offices and facilities, including the presidential palace and military bases, large numbers of employees did not show up for work.
On the radio stations, a minute of silence was observed every hour to show solidarity with the strike. Postal and telephone communication were paralyzed.
Furthermore, the strike seems to have basically built itself. The Buenos Aires daily Clarin noted that there had been "no picket lines, no leafleting, and no pressures of any kind."
Even the progovernment press had to recognize that time was rapidly running out for the generals. "The country does not want military men in power any more," wrote the magazine Somos.
But while the military must know that it cannot hold onto power, it has good reasons for fearing to relinquish it. It is no longer possible for it to retire intact into the baracks as it did in 1973 and several times before in Argentine history.
its own, disaster for imperialism and its to negotiate a slow restoration of parliagents became nearly inevitable.
The U.S. was forced to line up openly with Britain, since it has a much more fundamental interest at stake in the alliance with the British imperialists than in its relationship with even the biggest of its Latin-American gorillas. so, It had to jettison the political cover of "Panamentary government to avoid any risky breaks in continuity. It is an indication of the combativity of the masses of working people, and of the hatred of virtually entire Argentine people for the generals that the opposition has not been able to keep company with the military. Instead it finds itself caught up inexorab-
The Le Monde correspondent Jacques Despres noted:
"It is obvious that the chances for establishing the sort of limited democracy' that the dictatorships in the Southern Cone are fond of are fading away. The political leaders, who in fact want an accord with the military, categorically rejected the junta's offer of 'cooperation' a month ago."
Americanism" that it had been carefully ly in a sharpening confrontation.
building up for a "joint" intervention in
As a result of the collaborationism of the Peronist unionists, the junta was able,
So, the bourgeois opposition is no longer looking for ways to get close to
Central America.
The military forces under the junta's command went down to an inglorious defeat. But the British forces did not labor confederation based on the unions come out unscathed either.
They were that had been most ready to cooperate obliged to pay a price that will be more with it. This is the origin of the so-called and more resented by the British workers, CGT-Azopardo, who are suffering a disastrous decline in headquarters of the old legal CT on wages and basic social services. What is Azopardo St. But it was precisely this more, the conflict exposed the outdated- confederation ness following its defeat in the Malvinas, to promote the setting up of a rival national that issued the call for since the junta but is increasingly nervous about being seen anywhere near it.
There are basically two reasons why the military cannot relinquish dictatorial power without risking being torn apart. One is that it has murdered too many people, and done so by outright gangster methods.
During the dictatorship, some 30,000 people have simply "disappeared." Their friends and relatives make up a significant percent of the population. As the fear of
5
humor magazine quipped.
Moreover, the industrial sector of what has been one of the most industrialized
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SMATA countries is rapidly being dismantled. The key industry has been automotive assembly, and General Motors has now shifted its operation to Brazil.
The ignominious performance of the Argentine military in the Malvinas war also represented the debacle of a certain model of economic development. In fact, industrial development under the dictatorship has been registered by firms catering to
All of that has now been shown to represent money down the
Shortly before the general
Argentinian workers protest against unemployment and low wages (DR)
the regime has receded, the graves in which the bodies were buried started being reported. By mid-November, 1,500 bodies had been found.
If these people had even been sententhat they are not going to hand over power to the civilians unless they feel certain that the future constitutional government is not going to haul them in front of some new Nuremberg Tribunal
Clarin published a confidential document in which General Horacio Crespo, commander of the air-force in the war, accused the army of "pursuing domestic political aims and doing only the bare minimum during
(Quoted in Le Monde, December 8) the Malvinas conflict." ced to death by military tribunals, the restoration of bourgeois legality and legal guarantees might reassure a section of the population. But what are legal guarantees worth now after the armed forces and police have simply slaughtered tens of thousands of people in gangland style? Even the small children of "missing perwere apparently often killed to cover up the crimes of the military and
With the rise of a massive wave of indignation against the hired killers of the local bourgeoisie and its imperialist godfathers, a major weapon of the rulers is now turning against them.
The method of extensive covert repressive attacks and executions dates back to the Castillo Armas regime in Guatemala, which was installed by the first big U.S. intervention in Latin America after the second world war. It was apparently thought up by the U.S. "experts" who directed the overthrow of the Arbenz, since it has showed up everywhere the U.S. services were heavily involved in "counterinsurgency" "subversion."
The tactic of simply "rubbing out" those considered to be potential or actual "troublemakers" has the advantage that it makes it possible to get the maximum repressive effect while making it difficult to mobilize a political response. problem with it, as the development in Argentina is showing, is that after a certain time it makes the confrontation between the masses and the forces of the bourgeois state a total one.
The demonstrations of relatives of "missing persons" have grown from the courageous few who were the only ones who dared to demonstrate in the worst years of the dictatorship to the 6,000 people who defied a huge mobilization of police in Buenos Aires on December 9.
The commander in chief of the army, General Nicolaides, has admitted why the military is afraid. "Before setting a date for elections, the military want to reach a compromise on the question of the "missing persons.' It is obvious, indeed, the opposition can give the military that assurance when demonstrations have been growing on the question of the 'missing persons,' when this question was obviously very much on the mind of the march of 100, 000 persons that the bourgeois opposition was obliged to call in Buenos Aires on December 16. In fact, at the demonstration itself, a trade-unionist was shot down by a "policeman in plainclothes.
Although the police dispersed crowd with tear gas and gunfire, fighting went on in the streets for hours, creating scenes reminiscent of the 1969 and 1971 rebellions in industrial centers in the interior. In fact, at that time, it was these that forced the military and open the way for a period of civilian rule.
After the December 16 clashes, maddened cops attacked the offices of the bourgeois parties themselves, which had
Along with the hatred of the murderous dictatorship, the destruction of the Argentine economy by the capitalist crisis and the increased spoliation of the imperialists is driving the Argentine working people to desperation.
In 1975, 28 Argentine pesos bought one U.S. dollar. Today it takes 20,000. In the current year, the inflation rate was jumped to between 400% and 500%. Argentine industry is working at only 55% of capacity. In the last two years, the Gross National Product has dropped by 15%. There is massive unemployment. Even the employed workers have seen their buying power cut in half in 12 months, from February 1981 to February
Whereas Argentina is one of the richest agricultural countries in the world and Argentines used to have one of the highest rates of meat consumption, now even employed workers and their families are supplmenting their meagre meals by visiting the soup kitchens. "If a scapegoat for the Malvinas could be found, it would be eaten," a Buenos Aires
In fact, the defeat of the Argentine armed forces in the Malvinas did not at all demoralize the working people of the country because they placed no confithe small turnout at the demonstrations called during the conflict by the Peronists in support of the war effort.(2) Thus, the effect on the people has been the opposite, for example, of the defeat of the Nasser government in 1967 war with Is-
The betrayal and sloth of the military only increased the masses' hatred of the
And so there has been an ascending course of struggles in the wake of the war. This began on August 19, only in Puerto Argentino, with the occupation of central Bueno Aires by 2,500 carassembly workers, where one of the main leaders called for a struggle against the
The upsurge reached a new level on September 22, when tens of thousands of workers marched through Buenos Aires demanding " peace (i.e., an end to militarization), bread, and jobs." With the December strike and mass demonstration, it has taken another leap. And the pressure is still mounting.
There is the characteristic pattern of an upsurge that everytime the regime strikes out, the masses greater anger and daring. There is also an evident mood of exasperation. a local official refused to hear complaints of residents in a Buenos Aires suburb of Lanus about municipal taxes on November 24, he sparked a spontaneous rebellion of 20,000 people.
In such conditions, it seems that the lid can blow off at any time in a country that is the third largest in Latin America and in the colonial world owes the third largest amount to the imperialist banks.
Men: Miralles, TV, No.5, 26 April Dictatorship,"
See "Crisis in Argentina," Jorge Buarque,
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