Two weeks ago, this small group started an online campaign, in their newspaper and their international group´s website (LIT-CI), an insidious campaign against our party, trying to falsely prove that we endorse the criminalization of protest and do not defend their comrades Romero and Ruiz, prosecuted and imprisoned respectively by Macri’s government.
They’ve started this campaign based on an unfortunate statement by Vilma Ripoll about the possibility of Romero going to trial, during an interview held under a lot of pressure from the government and the media after the October 24 repression in Congress Plaza.
The PSTU leaders are aware that this isn’t our public position, and they know that since last December’s rebellion we’ve been participating in the campaign against the prosecution of their comrades and have taken part of every unitary action for his defense, from the first press conference held in Congress. Like we’ve always done, we reject all prosecution of social protests.
Unfortunately, the PSTU leadership, aware of our public stance on the matter, instead of talking to us to clarify the matter, launched a campaign in which they suggest that:
1) “they (the MST) ignore the thousands that in 18D genuinely fought against (Macri´s) submission (to imperialism)”. Comrades, don’t lie. We were in the line of combat in both mobilizations with a clear protagonist role, to the point that the government and its media, like La Nacion, has publicly denounced us.
2) “they (the MST) only formally fight against the austerity measures, as if they could only be confronted with pacific actions… or by voting next year”. Comrades, don´t lie. We endorse permanent mobilization, defend the right to self defense, rejecting the regime and its complicit justice, we’ve proclaimed that the government should be kicked out by mobilization, and demanded the convention of a free and sovereign constituent assembly.
3) The most outrageous claim of the PSTU is that they say we don´t claim for Ruiz´s freedom. Not only have we been there, demanding his release from the very beginning, we’ve also taken the demand to every struggle we participated in, like the state workers and teachers mobilizations in La Plata and the shipyard workers tent, where we got the coordination board to give the claim for Ruiz´s release the space it deserved.
Comrades, when developing a united front is more necessary than ever in order to defend your militants, you focus on attacking those of us who are on your side, and always promote this unity to defend democratic demands and the defense of combative and left organizations.
This method, completely, alien to those of the left, undoubtedly reflects that the LIT-CI is an international current in decline, that has been unable to develop in Argentina and, on the contrary, has recently divided in our country and in Brazil. This is why they have irresponsibly exposed their militants, using them to try to gain relevance in a reality they’re not a part of, because of the systematic failure of their political approach.
We reject these methods and invite the PSTU leaders to re-consider their stance.
Guillermo Pacagnini, MST national committee