Argentina: Guernica was a Turning Point

The eviction and repression in Guernica acted as a hinge in reality. The national and popular narrative, that in the light of austerity and unfulfilled promises was crumbling apart, gave way to a marked disillusion.  It was a turning point for thousands who had expectations or chose the lesser evil and now seek another alternative.

By Emilio Poliak and Guillermo Pacagnini

During these eleven months of government, we have pointed out that far from the speeches of change that Alberto promised his central measures favored the big capitalist corporations. There are those who attributed to the outbreak of the pandemic and the Macrist inheritance the impossibility of facing a progressive course that would prioritize the most humble.

The images of bulldozers tearing down the huts and the police of Buenos Aires setting fire to the few belongings of those who have almost nothing buried the progressive discourse to reveal the true face of the government. The repression of the families of Guernica made it clear to what extent the government is willing to go to defend capitalist interests.

It was not the court order or the intransigence of the left. It was a political decision by Fernández and Kicillof, executed by the reactionary Berni, who just after the eviction broadcast an official spot from the government of the province of Buenos Aires, where he made it clear that private property is guaranteed, even at the cost of the misery of the most neglected sectors.

There were no frictions or qualitative differences among the main leaders of the Fdt. As the own protagonists acknowledged, there was agreement and permanent contacts between the president, the governor and the vice-president. The repressive action and the speeches—so similar to the one’s of the right—clearly showed the interests defended by the government, which to deviate the attention unleashed a Macartist—ridiculous—campaign against the left. The images of Patricia Bullrich in Entre Rios and Berni in Buenos Aires celebrating the triumph of the sacred private property were repulsive to anyone who considers themselves progressive in the slightest.

The Great National Accord in functions

The eviction in Guernica was not an isolated event. On the same day, there was an eviction in Casa Nueva (Santa Elena) in Entre Rios and like a starting signal evictions took place in different land occupations throughout the country. The moment was not casual either. A few days before, Cristina had published a letter demanding an agreement with all sectors to face the crisis. Curiously, or not so much, Duhalde had pontificated on the same direction. At the same time, Alberto was spending his days receiving the owners of the most important companies of the country with the same purpose.

Facts speak for themselves. The proposed agreement was to load the crisis on the working people. An updated version, in the process of being institutionalized and that includes the union bureaucracy, of the Social Pact, of class alliances to the service of the conflicts that are appeased and that the workers’ and popular movement meekly accepts the austerity measures and the reactionary structural reforms designed by the IMF. Not formalized yet, it began to work, although if it fulfills its goals is yet to be seen, with the conflictive horizon that is ahead.

The government sought in Guernica to clear the mistrust of the bourgeoisie in Kirchnerism despite, as Cristina acknowledges in her letter, they never won as much as during that administration. The national agreement hoisted by Alberto, Cristina and even Duhalde made its debut in Guernica, but continued with new evictions and with the wink of the right-leaning opposition to pass the budget of the IMF. The celerity of the measures against the popular sectors contrasts with the permanent backtracking of any measure that remotely affects the capitalist profits, which latest expression is the eternal dream of the project of the wealth tax.

Decided to go for everything

After Guernica and with the Social Pact in motion, the government propelled itself to carry out its road map. In the wake of the increasing opposition and mobilizations against the agreement of pig factories with China, it promotes agreements by province to attempt to break up the resistance. It relaunched the mega mining attack forming the “National Bureau of the Strategic Plan for Mining Development”, decided to implement it in any way in places that for years have been resisting the advance of this predatory and looting industry, like the people of Chubut. It payed USD 300 millions of interest of the debt of the IMF and it submits to a new supervision by the institution, which would request a program of extended benefits, which means a new hand over of sovereignty and submission to face the structural reforms demanded by the institution that Kristalina Georgieva presides. It is clearly a very “orthodox” measure.

The new project of pension mobility is another blow to the pockets of the most neglected sectors that ratifies the government’s course. It definitively renounces all mobility and provides for a downward calculation formula that does not take into account anything more or less than inflation. This is precisely one of the demands of the IMF. 

The termination of the ASPO, in order to ensure the tourist season – attempting to appease social unrest – increases the risk of a resurgence of the pandemic when even the first wave was not completed. Meanwhile, struggling health workers continue to call for substantial improvement in working conditions and wages.

This is a road map that leaves no room for doubt: for those at the top there are more benefits, for those at the bottom there is adjustment and repression. That is the political content of the “agreement with all sectors.”

Demands increase

Meanwhile the crisis continues to deteriorate the living conditions of the popular sectors and it is clear that unity from above is to implement austerity measures on the working people. For that reason, more and more sectors are coming out to fight, in spite of the role played by the trade union leaders, and the number of calls for self-organization in the workers’ movement is growing: nurses, metalworkers, drivers, state workers in different provinces. The incorporation into the social pact of all the wings of the union bureaucracy makes the struggles more complex, because we will no longer only have to confront the bosses and governments, but also the bureaucracy and its maneuvers or its troops. Hence the importance of solidarity and coordination from below, promoting the emergence of new leaders and a democratic method of decision-making, supporting those who organize independently of the bureaucratic leadership.

The dynamics of the situation, in the framework of the crisis and the adjustment, is for these struggles to grow and for the union leaderships to be overwhelmed, processes that from the left must be promoted and supported in the perspective of forging a new class, democratic and combative leadership in the workers’ movement. Our trade union groups articulated in ANCLA will struggle for this and so that the Plenary of Combative Trade Unionism can overcome its paralysis and play a positive role in the struggles and the process of changing direction.

It is time for the left

The events of the last few weeks show that for the popular sectors there are no improvements on the way the FdT promotes. The repulsion to the right cannot be a justification for continuing to support a political project that not only faces the right, but also that decisively follows the same road in the main issues. It is time to take on the challenge of building a new political alternative of the working people. It has to be alternative that raises an anti-capitalist program to meet the social needs of the majority, supported by the mobilization of the working class, the environmentalist, youth, women’s and LGBT+ movements. The illusion of conciliating with the right and the employers is a dead-end road. We need a way that faces the dependence on the IMF investigating and cease paying the fraudulent debt to use those resources on the needs of the workers and the people; that proposes that the capitalists pay the crisis with a progressive tax reform, nationalizing the banks, and not the corporations that control the resources of the country. We invite to that challenge we push from the MST and the Frente de Izquierda Unidad anyone who refuses to keep on supporting a way that leads to new frustrations.