arch/ive/ief (2000 - 2005)

BRUKMAN EVICTED, Sunday April 20th '03

“Our sisters and brothers workers of Brukman have suffered another attack at the hands of the justice system, the government and the bosses. In a brutal police operation, with more than 250 police, attack vehicles, fire- engines, buses and with the presence of infantry, our factory was evicted. “The brothers and sisters guarding the factory at the time were evicted by the police, while officials took over our workplace. We repudiate this eviction order and reject it as illegitimate and illegal.

The Appeals

Court --which according to first news reports is constituted by judges appointed by the military dictatorship of 1976 -- revoked the order of Judge Velazquez that had sentenced lack of merit regarding usurpation of premises and encharged Judge Rimondi with a new occupation and eviction.

“During the last year and a half of occupation and production under workers' control, we workers demonstrate that we are the only ones interested in sustaining the workplace abandoned by the bosses. We have taken charge of the factory, we put it into production, we have been receiving a decent wage all these months and have even hired workers fired by the bosses. This has led to our receiving immense solidarity from the people of the Buenas Aires and especially from the movement of popular assemblies, trade unions and other organizations of employed and unemployed workers. We call on all the brothers and sisters employed and unemployed workers, assemblies, students, neighbors, political parties, the piquetero movement, human rights organizations and social organizations, and our brothers and sisters throughout the world, to stay rallied with us. Since the first moments hundreds of brothers and sisters got here, now we are almost a thousand defending the factory. “Here we will stay until we regain it.

“We control of the workers and has already resisted two eviction attempts thanks to the solidarity of people and left organizations, assemblies, workers and piqueteros. The street corners of Venezuela and Mexico are fenced and there are already hundreds demonstrating against the eviction. It's essential the massive gathering of everybody to stop the appropiation in the part of police (under the judge orders). They don't want to have the factory functioning and the workers working. “We will keep up a permanent vigil until we regain our factory together with the organizations, deputies and brothers and sisters who are here with us. Now the slogan is ever so pertinent: "An injury to one is an injury to all".

Some Context

As the U.S. is showing its teeth and how they can penetrate against the number one enemy, terrorism, the government here in Argentina justifies shredding the poor to pieces to keep half of its population living in poverty from making too much noise in the streets. Repression happening under the guise of a war against evil powers and a war waged against the poor in the streets all over the world are all too well related President Duhalde must have been very happy with the war in Irak. The massmedia here found something to take attention away from the misery and the clamor in the streets. And now Argentina faces upcoming elections while the U.S. government seems to be silently waiting for former neoliberal president Menem to take office once again. There are, in fact, verified reports that publicity workers for U.S. government officials are in Argentina working on Menem´s campaign. The popular uprising of December 20th, 2001, marked the onset of a globally recognized explosion of collective Argentinean resistance to the everyday exploitation and oppresion of the neoliberal economic order. Individuals and social movements all over the world have taken inspiration from the spirit of resistance and direct democracy of the Argentinean uprising. The popular movement here has opened up a space to dream for many people in the world, a vision of the possibility of ongoing substantive resistance to global capitalism.

The popular uprising of December 20th, 2001, marked the onset of a globally recognized explosion of collective Argentinean resistance to the everyday exploitation and oppresion of the neoliberal economic order. Individuals and social movements all over the world have taken inspiration from the spirit of resistance and direct democracy of the Argentinean uprising. The popular movement here has opened up a space to dream for many people in the world, a vision of the possibility of ongoing substantive resistance to global capitalism. The many social movements in Argentina that had existed long before December 20th, 2001, also experienced tremendous growth after the uprising. Many projects developed that have provided important foundations for continuation of everyday struggles, a kind of autonomous infrastructure. There are social and cultural centers, occupied houses and factories, neighborhood assemblies, and the expansion of the projects of well-established groups such as the organizations of unemployed workers (the piqueteros).

growing represion

The recent amplification of repression began, in Buenos Aires, with the eviction of the squat El Padelai, a building occupied for the last 20 years, and the home of approximately 500 people.

MTD San Telmo (from the piquetero group Movimiento de Trabajadores Desocupados) was subsequently evicted from its occupatoin of the oldest house in Buenos Aires - squatted on February 24th 2003. Practically in ruins and filled with rubble, extensive clearing and renovation projects were begun by the MTD immediately upon occupation. A communitarian kitchen and bakery are already in the early stages of operatoin, and an organic vegetable garden is in the works.

Zanon faced off the police and avoided, at least temporarily, eviction earlier this week. The the worker-controlled factory has been producing and distributing its ceramics products under full worker control for over a year. More than 270 people are employed there, and a massive resistance to the eviction occured.

April 2nd, judge Francisco Ponte signed the eviction order for the ex-Mayo bank building located in the Buenos Aires neighbourhood of Barracas. The building was recovered in 2002 by the "Lezama Sur" popular assembly and has since been a major cultural and political center for the people of Barracas. Since June 2002, the Argentina IMC has been operating an open publishing office in the building. On the 14th the world took notice as Indymedia centers all over the world reported the expulsion of IMC Argentina.

Now on the hit-list is the autonomous social and cultural center Tierra del Sur, that has hosted an impressive array of popular social projects, as well as a residential collective, for the last year and a half. It is slated for eviction within two weeks, and with the social center goes the occupied house next door - home to 40 families and a community kitchen. And today, brukman

The Coming Presidential Elections

µDuring the presidental elecctions on the 27th, not many people are expected to vote, at least not in the sense that we usually understand 'voting.' Voting in Argentina is mandatory, so the option of registering dissent - or apathy - by non-participation is all but eliminated as an option. Instead, Argentineans that are dissatisfied with the options provided by electoral process show their dissatisfaction by 'spoiling' their ballots. This can include anything from marking the paper at random, to scribbling profanity, cartoons, or slogans, to affixing stickers to them. These spoiled ballots actually won the last election by a plurality. They are also expected to place first in the coming election - it is estimated that as many as 50% of voters will spoil their ballots. In contrast, whoever is elected this April is expected to receive no more than 18% of cast votes.

It is believed that this demonstration of a popular lack of faith in the electoral system itself is one reason why the repression of social movements is getting worse, as the government attempts to somehow maintain the status quo. An addtional factor is that all of the candidates and their prominent supporters - most whom are already serving in regional or city governments - in this pre-election period are feeling the necessity to demonstrate to (busines interests and the middle class) that they can do something - anything, however misguided - about the economic crisis. For example, Carlos Menem, one of the most ardently neo-liberal candidates, as well as the architect of the current crises during his earlier tenure as executive (who´s campaign slogan utters the following blatent insult to the collective memory of argentinians: “Argentinians, we have another opportunity”), recently made campaign promises to "clean the streets of marxists and delinquents" and to have "the army in the streets to stop the social chaos." The meaning here is clear: the answer given by the state to any widespread grassroots effort to respond directly and collectively to the economic crisis (that itself was imposed from above by the institutions of globalization) is a resounding, decisive, and violent "No!" And it seems that in this moment, the popular movements are vulnerable , and the repression is great and growing. This open call - by Menem, a prominent candidate for president - for the militarization of public life not only effects social movements, but also the everyday life of the poor and unemployed, who are due to be subject to an ever greater degree of forceful regulation.

International Pressure and Solidarity

As the government is already well aware that they have retained very little legitimacy in the eyes of the vast majority of Argentineans, it is increasingly difficult to oppose repressive tactics through social pressure. The political elite, mainy of whom are often spat on or slapped when recognized on the street, realize that they have little to loose, and possibly much to gain, by turning to force to safeguard their power. Many within the movement feel that the only viable strategy for the various groups creating social change is to simulteneously raise the financial and political cost of the evictions (and other forms of repression) as high as possible at home, while at the same time to cultivate international solidarity against the the repressive actions of the Argentinean government - especially in those places where they still have an image to maintain; i.e. where they have something to loose.

There is no question but that the first half of this strategy has been taken to heart by the movements here. There appears to be little other option but to keep organizing collectively, to maintain and expand the struggle against the everyday exploitation and degradation of the capitalist system. The second half strategy, however, requires the cooperation and solidarity of individuals and groups elsewhere, all over the world. An international solidarity movement would attempt to ensure that the Argentinean government is aware that it is not only the IMF and international investors that are carefully watching what happens in Argentina, but also that a global society at the grassroots is paying close attention, and is willing to organize and fight against the repression of democratic social movements in any part of the world. Whether through direct confrontation against the outposts of the Argentinean elite, i.e. embassies, consulates, or events featuring visiting dignitaries, or through mobilizing to influence their own governments and businesses in order to apply indirect pressure on the Argentinean power structure, groups all over the world have the opportunity to help the struggle of autonomous social movements here, even as they struggle for social justice in their own neighborhoods.