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Argentina: D19, D20 -- summary of actions

by Sebastian Hacer ((i)) (sebastian [at] indymedia.org)
A summary of events for the upcoming days in Argentina.
todolagente.jpg
December 17: Today, the federal march began, culminating on December 20th in Plaza de Mayo. Called by organizations of the unemployed (Piquetero Bloc, Barrios de Pie, MIJD, CTD Anibal Veron, with MTD Resistir y Vencer), the mobilization is setting out to struggle for "an end to Duhalde already, for another Argentina, with all of them gone, run by the workers."

The columns left today from four regions of the country; from Tartagal, Jujuy, Salta Capital and Tucuman; from Clorinda en Formosa, la Ciudad de Corrientes y de Resistencia; and from La Rioja. From the south, they also began today with an action in Rio Gallegos, in Rio Turbio and in Caleta Olivia, and throughout the week they will be advancing, uniting around 60 cities, each adding to the different columns.

The columns have planned to concentrate on various areas of Buenos Aires on December 20th, to come together and march in congreso, until the evening, when they will go to Plaza de Mayo.

Also on the 20th, the CTA, the state and educational workers union, will converge at the National Unemployment office, and it is speculated that they will then march to Plaza de Mayo, along with the CCC (Current Clasista y Combativa), at 10 in the morning, several hours before the assemblies, unemployed peoples movement and factory workers come together.

The CCC, on the other hand, announced that in addition to the mobilization they would have 19 piqueteros in the Conurbano Bonaerense (at the time of this writing, a time is not certain).

The Federal Capital actions will begin on the morning of the 19th, with an urban piquete called by dozens of organizations. The piquete intends to block "the financial district to prevent the operation of the great corporations, banks, companies, and stock market." They are calling for people to converge, at 9 in the morning, in Florida and Diagonal Norte, and from there they will march to different objectives.

The 19th, from all sides

In the evening on the 19th, also, several assemblies of Capital y Gran Buenos Aires are converging for cacerolazos and decentralized actions to remember the historic night when the entire city came into the streets.

The Interbarrial de Vicente Lopez has resolved to make actions in the city, and at 7:30pm on the 19th, to converge at Saavedra Bridge, stopping there and then marching to presidential offices.

In Escobar, home of the torturer Luis Patti, they are preparing a cultural day for "holding all the night" in the train station, then to march to the Plaza de Mayo. In Temperly, also on the 19th, they are holding a festival with "music, protests, and great cacerolazos," under the slogan "against hunger and utility rate hikes."

The popular assembly of Plaza Rodriguez Pena, in the Federal Capital, is calling people to occupy the Plaza where they met for the first time, with diverse cultural and artistic activities, going into a cacerolazo at 9:30 and marching to Plaza de Mayo on the 20th.

The 20th, at Plaza de Mayo

The 20th will be marked by the mobilization at Plaza de Mayo. Along with the culmination of the Federal March, movements of unemployed people, occupied factories movements, popular assemblies and students will be mobilized. The calls to action are vast with the hopes that thousands and thousands of people will come to Plaza de Mayo.

As such, the neighborhood assemblies will march to Plaza de Mayo, coming together with the columns from all over the country, each one with their respective flag. From the Puerta de Brukman, they will be with the workers of the textile factory under workers control, along with the workers of Zanon and diverse organizations who have responded to their call.

Also, the unemployed of the MTD Anibal Veron will join the mobilization at Plaza de Mayo, coming through Pueyrredon Bridge in the south, and the bridge that joins Cipolletti with Neuquen in the south of the country.

The same day, the associated courier workers in Si.Me.Ca. are calling for work stoppages and a mobilization, remembering the murder of the motoquero Gaston Riva. They have declared the 20th a "day of the courier, for Gaston, for his struggle that is ours and for us all."

And while we mobilize ourselves during the 19th and 20th, several companeros, processed from last year, will be in court, accused of "resistance to the authorities and creating alleged assaults, damages and injuries to police personnel," from the mobilization of December 21st 2001. They are preparing, along with families of the victims of repression, a press conference at 11:30am, before the 20 relatives of victims and the GAC (street art group) join the mobilization, in order to not forget the fallen.

The 20th, across the planet

Not only in Argentina are mobilizations expected. A call has been circulating the internet for weeks, encouraging people to "scatter the histories and information about the movements in Argentina, to break through the official information encirclement all over the planet ... to construct a powerful global network of solidarity with Argentina. The movements in Argentina are in a dangerous isolation. Without the security and mutual inspiration that can guarantee international solidarity, they will undergo increasing repression ... showing how the movements worldwide act in a coordinated way which we share in common, we will give inspiration to Argentina so that it continues with its fight."

Indicating that Argentina is a "formidable source of inspiration," the organizers have called for two days of international action on December 19th and 20th. Already, actions are planned in many cities and countries, among them Italy, Montreal, Berlin, San Francisco, England, Alberta, Washington, Paris, Uruguay.

So that the world will know...

After an intense campaign of rumors about "chaos and violence" that supposedly is prepared for Dec 19th and 20th, the mainstream means of communications are now directly referring to the mobilizations that are prepared, and the Federal March which has already begun.

With a possible exception only of the cover story on Pagina 12, that tries to give an account of the magnitude of events that we will live in the next few days, most of them "inform" about their version of what we will live. The newspaper of the fascist Hadad, Infobae, leads with "federal chaos," and complains that the country will lose $1095 million USD from the mobilizations, although it doesn't explain how or why. Besides foretelling the chaos, it mixes up the various calls to action for confusion, and offers a survey to find out which degree of repression should be applied by the government.

Clarin, on the other hand, dedicates a secondary article to the mobilizations. It announces a week of mobilizations, giving equal weight to the government's and church's Mesa de Dialogo on the 18th as to the mobilizations on the 19th and 20th. Their coverage is centered on governmental policy, writing that "the containment scheme ... to prevent possible episodes of violence has a double axis: social aid and thousands of anti-riot equipment."

Finally, La Nacion, like always, offers details on the police preparations: 3000 police this way, another 500 there. Always bound to the intelligence services and faithful reproduction of official propaganda, this newspaper serves to let us know what the governmental sector is thinking.

We also are preparing. From the morning of the 19th and for as long as we're needed, Argentina Indymedia along with various independent media sources, and with shared comrades from around the world, will offer minute-by-minute coverage of all the events. In addition to our traditional and almost instantaneous photos of the protests, we will be transmitting a live radio webcast, in Castilian and other languages, so that the world can know, directly from the street, what we are living in our country. We will again try to contribute our grain of sand, to break through the info-encirclement and to demonstrate that the traditional means of communication, in the hands of the industrialists, are impotent to communicate a reality more complex than the closed interests that they defend and represent.

Written by Sebastian Hacer, sebastian@indymedia.org. Translated by San Francisco IMC.
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