Hotel BAUEN: Workers without bosses face eviction

Znet

Inside the BAUEN Hotel, one of Argentina's worker-run workplaces, janitors, repairmen, receptionists and maids sit in an assembly with worried but determined faces and sheets of paper in hand. Each of the workers, some of whom have been working at the hotel since it was built in 1978, hold a court ordered eviction notice, a judicial document notifying the workers they must abandon the hotel or police will force them to leave.

After four years of successful worker management, a federal court issued a 30 day eviction notice to the workers of the hotel on July 20. However, this is the first court ordered eviction that the workers cooperative has had to fight. Argentina's recuperated enterprises are mobilizing to fight this new attack against workers' determination. If the workers do not successfully block the eviction order legally or through political actions the hotel could be lost and 150 workers out of a job.

After the hotel's 2001 closure, left with no other option, on March 21, 2003 the workers decided to take over the hotel to safeguard their livelihood and defend their jobs. Since 2003, workers have operated the BAUEN cooperative hotel, a 20 story building in the very heart of Buenos Aires. The BAUEN cooperative, like many of the recuperated enterprises was forced to start up production without any legal backing whatsoever. The BAUEN Hotel workers' cooperative currently employs more than 150 workers, all working without bosses, supervisors or owners but instead within a democratic workplace.

Starlit inaugurations and fraudulent bankruptcy

The BAUEN Hotel was inaugurated for the 1978 World Cup, during the height of the military dictatorship. As the military dictatorship disappeared 30,000 workers, students and activists inside a network of clandestine detention centers, Argentina celebrated the 1978 world cup victory. Hotel BAUEN's original owner, Marcelo Iurcovich, celebrated as well. He received more than five million dollars to construct the 20-story hotel, with a government loan from the National Development Bank (BANADE), with the military dictatorship's blessings.

Iurcovich, never held the hotel up to safety inspection codes and never paid back state loans. He ran up debts and committed tax evasion while making millions of dollars in profits and acquiring two more hotels. In 1997, Iurcovich sold the hotel to the business group Solari S.A. The Solari group followed in Iurcovich's footsteps, never paying the BANADE debt. With little interest in the profitability and maintenance of the hotel, the installations at the BAUEN deteriorated until the Solari group filed bankruptsy in 2001.

On December 28, 2001, after the management began systematic firings and emptied out the hotel, the remaining 80 workers were left in the streets in the midst of Argentina's worst economic crisis and when unemployment hit record levels-over 20% unemployed and 40% of the population unable to find adequate employment. Gabriel Quevedo, president of the BAUEN cooperative says that the workers created jobs when investors and industrialists were fleeing the country. "The workers took on responsibility when the country was in full crisis and unemployment over 20 percent, where workers couldn't find work. The workers formed a cooperative and created jobs, when no one believed that it was possible."

New working culture

In the aftermath of the 2001 economic crisis, more than 180 factories and businesses have been recuperated by the workers and today provide jobs for more than 10,000 Argentine workers. Arminda Palacios is a seamstress who has worked at the hotel for over 20 years and was one of the key people who decided to cut off the locks on a side entrance into the hotel on March 28, 2001. She defines the BAUEN hotel as simply more than a cooperative that defends jobs. "Socially we have proved to the people that workers can run a business. This is one of our main motives, because people believe that the capitalists are the only ones who can run a business, and we are proving the contrary especially since we've created 150 jobs."

When the workers first occupied the hotel, it was in ruins. It wasn't until nearly a year after they occupied the hotel that they were able to begin renting out services. Before the workers took home a single paycheck, they reinvested all capital back into the hotel. They have invested hundreds of thousands of dollars into the hotel's infrastructure: renovating the front café, hotel rooms, fire proofing salons and reopening the pool area.

Elena is a receptionist in her late 20's, who says she and her fellow workers have sacrificed a lot to defend their jobs. "They didn't have to throw us out into the streets on December 28, 2001, because the hotel had enough business, but the businessmen allowed the hotel to go to ruins and we had to leave. We have renovated the hotel and successfully opened up a hotel that was closed. Now that they see that the hotel is successful, they want to take it away from us."

In addition to creating jobs, the BAUEN hotel has become a key organizing space for activists around the city. During an assembly on July 23, workers from all around the country came to show their support. "Without the BAUEN, our internal union commission wouldn't have formed," one worker from the Buenos Aires casino said. Dozens of other workers representing emerging rank and file unionists stressed the importance that BAUEN has had on organizing and coordinating workers' struggles. On a local level, BAUEN Hotel has become a prime example of coalition building and development of a broad mutual support network. In the midst of legal struggles and successfully running a prominent hotel, the cooperative's members haven't forgotten their roots. The 19-story worker run hotel has become a political center for movement organizing and a modern day commune.

Current fight against eviction

The court ordered the eviction notice in favor of the Mercoteles business group, which claims to have purchased the hotel from Solari in 2006, when the BAUEN workers cooperative was already inside the hotel administering services. The president of Mercoteles, Samuel Kaliman, is Iurcovich's brother in law. In court last year, Kaliman was unable to provide the court with Mercoteles' address, board member names and other legal information.

Legal advisors and the workers suspect that the Mercoteles is a ghost business group with little legal legitimacy and ties to the Solari group. According to Isabel Sequeira, in her 11 years working at the hotel under a boss she had seen many questionable administrative changes. "Mercoteles is a ghost company. When I worked at the hotel under bosses there were many sneaky administrative changes. We had many 'bosses' that changed on a regular basis."

The Hotel workers also face another bigger challenge, a newly elected right-wing mayor, Mauricio Macri. Macri, a business tycoon and son of privatization, won the city-wide elections in June. As part of his campaign, he has promised to clear out any 'okupas' or "squats" in the city. In the week that the BAUEN hotel received the eviction notice, more than 12 housing squats in the city were forcefully evicted. Macri, will take office in December.

When the eviction notice came, the hotel was booked for winter break vacation. The notice couldn't have come at a worst time. However, workers and supporters have mobilized fast. In front of the Buenos Aires central courts on August 5 nearly 2,000 came out to defend the hotel. The workers cooperative presented an appeal and will continue to lobby for the definitive legal right to the hotel.

"We believe that fighting within the legal system isn't enough. That's why we are prepared to fight in the streets, where we are stronger," said Fabio Resino, a legal advisor at the hotel during an assembly. "We ask social organizations to take on the fight for BAUEN as a fight of their own, because the BAUEN hotel belongs to the people."

The BAUEN workers' cooperative has embarked on a national campaign to defend their hotel and jobs. The campaign is gaining steam as the eviction date nears in late August. Groups have planned a series of concerts and rallies with rock stars and other television personalities supporting the workers for the legitimate right to defend their livelihood.

Marie Trigona is a writer, radio reporter and filmmaker based in Argentina. She can be reached at mtrigona@msn.com To watch a video on the BAUEN struggle visit www.agoratv.org

Interview on Uprising Radio: Clergyman on trial for human rights crimes

Interview on Uprising Radio: Clergyman on trial for human rights crimes
GUEST: Marie Trigona, member of Grupo Alavio, a Direct Action and Video Collective, correspondent for Free Speech Radio News, based in Buenos Aires, Argentina

Last Thursday, for the first time ever, a clergyman of the Catholic Church faced charges in connection with repression carried out under Argentina’s so-called “Dirty War.” Christian Von Wernich, a former police chaplain to the Buenos Aires provincial police force, stands accused of being involved in seven murders and 41 cases of kidnapping and torture. The crimes Von Wernich is accused of were committed during the 1976-1983 military dictatorship in Argentina. An estimated 30,000 people were killed during the military junta’s reign of terror. As his trial began, hundreds of human rights activists stood outside the courtroom in the city of La Plata to decry Von Wernich as a murderer. President Nestor Kirchner traveled to La Plata and said during a speech that Von Wernich “brought dishonor to the Church, to poor people and to human rights.” The accused clergyman refused to testify, or answer questions on the first day of trial. More than 100 witnesses, under tight security, are expected to testify against Christian Von Wernich.

Trial Against Accused Catholic Priest Torturer Begins in Argentina

A much awaited human rights abuse trial is underway in Argentina. The accused is a catholic priest charged with carrying out human rights abuses while working in several clandestine detention centers during the nation's 1976 to 1983 military dictatorship. The priest has been under arrest for 4 years ago while living under a false alias in Chile. This is the latest human rights trial of accused torturer since the landmark conviction of a former police officer for genocide in 2006.

Former Chaplin Christian Von Wernich wore a priest's collar and bullet proof vest as he sat behind reinforced glass in a federal court. The court clerk read charges accusing him of collaborating with state security agents and covering up crimes in seven deaths, 31 cases of torture and 42 cases of illegal imprisonment. He answered basic court questions but refused to testify in the case, “Following the advice of Dr. Jerollini who is my lawyer. I am not going to declare. And I am not going to accept questions.”

At least 120 witnesses are slated to testify against Von Wernich and the court has taken precautions to protect their safety, putting up police fences around the court house and installing metal detectors. In the front row of the court room's audience, representatives from the human rights organization Mothers of Plaza de Mayo sat with their white headscarves listening to the court's accusations.

According to Nora Cortinas, president of the Mothers of Plaza de Mayo – Linea Fundadora, the Catholic Church supported the crimes committed during the dictatorship.

“The heads of the Catholic Church participated in the dictatorship. Many priests were chaplains inside the barracks of the concentration camps. We want to point out that there is a sector from the church that didn't have anything to do with the dictatorship, on the contrary they supported us and reported the crimes committed at the time. But most of the representatives from the church participated in the celebration of death and torture.”

Journalist Horacio Verbisky recently published a book on the Catholic Church's involvement with the military dictatorship. Outside the courthouse, hundreds of human rights advocates rallied, demanding a severe sentence for the Catholic Priest. At one point, Von Wernich interrupted head judge Carlos Rozanski, saying he couldn't hear the accusations against him because protestors could be heard yelling 'Assassin' from outside the courtroom.

Christina Valdez's, whose husband was kidnapped and disappeared in La Plata in 1976, describes how she felt seeing Von Wernich on trial. “Looking at Von Wernich is looking at the face of a murderer. I suppose that all the relatives of the disappeared must feel a similar sensation: a certain impunity because one has to sit and swallow down everything that he or she feels in that moment. You can't yell at the murderer, you can't scream assassin.”

This is only the third human rights trial since Argentina's supreme court struck down amnesty laws in 2005 protecting military personnel who served during the 7-year dictatorship. Human rights organizations worry that judicial roadblocks and an atmosphere of fear may provide former members of the military dictatorship a window to escape conviction.

Nora Cortinas says that Argentines do not wish to live with a justice system of impunity. “What we want is for the trials to speed up a little bit and not be tried on a case by case basis. And that the government takes responsibility to help end the threats against witnesses, judges, and lawyers. So that we can really say that there's justice in this country.”

Von Wernich's trial is expected to go on for two months. Human rights groups are preparing events to demand the safe return Julio Lopez, a key witness who helped convict a former officer for life, but who disappeared nearly a year ago.

Listen to this story on Free Speech Radio News.

Three months since the killing of Carlos Fuentealba

Where is Julio Lopez?

Argentina is preparing for a new human rights trial for crimes committed during the 1976-1983 military dictatorship. Just days before the start of the latest trial, Argentine police discovered a body thought to be that of a missing witness.

Police early this morning found a body of a man, who they believed to be Julio Lopez the key witness who went missing last year following the land mark conviction of a police official who ran clandestine torture centers. Forensic officials confirmed today that the body, found without its hands or feet, was not that of 78-year-old Julio Lopez. Police followed a tip off that a dismembered body had been found in an unmarked grave about 6 miles from the city of La Plata, where Lopez was last seen on September 18, 2006. The gruesome discovery could have a chilling effect on witnesses planning to testify in a new trial of an accused torturer. On Thursday, a federal court will open the trial of Catholic priest, Christian Von Wernich, charged with carry out human rights abuses while orking in several of the clandestine detention centers used to disappear 30,000 dissidents during the 1976-1983 military dictatorship. For Free Speech Radio news I'm Marie Trigona in Buenos Aires.

Workers' Power in Argentina in Monthly Review

New article in Monthly Review July/August 2007 issue
Workers' Power in Argentina: Reinventing Working Culture
Marie Trigona

Nearly six years since Argentina's worst economic crisis in 2001, both the level of popular participation in struggles and the breadth of the political spectrum have been radically transformed. There has been a resurgence of struggle inside the workplace and Argentina's working class has turned to its historical tools for liberation: direct democracy, the strike, sabotage, and the factory takeover. Labor struggles in public hospitals, public universities, the bank sector, recuperated enterprises, and the Buenos Aires subway have resulted in new visions and victories for the country’s working class.

Biofuels: a danger for Latin America

Renewable fuels, in particular Biofuels, energy sources derived from agricultural crops have suddenly won the support from the United States. This is partly due to George Bush's recent 5-nation tour of Latin America to wedge out unity and push through ethanol accords. Development funds and corporations hope that Latin America, especially refining sugarcane into fuel in Brazil and soybeans in Argentina, can spur the US's booming biofuel industry demands. Corporate experts and financiers held the First Biofuels Congress of the Americas in Buenos Aires this month to promote biofuel production in the region. Former US Vice President Al Gore addressed investors, NGO's and soy producers at the congress to spearhead renewable fuel production in Argentina.

Northern hunger for "bio" fuels

Inexpensive land, cheap labor and plentiful bumper crops of soybeans make Argentina a prime target for the production of ethanol and bio diesel. Argentina is already offering tax-incentives to step up investments for the biofuels market which is expected to triple by 2015. The South American nation wants 5 percent of its fuel supply be biodiesel or ethanol-based in three years. The government has eagerly pushed through pro-biofuel policy but has ignored worries over food supply, the environmental effects of mono-agricultural production and the social side-effects of biofuel production on the rural population.

Argentina's vice-president Daniel Scioli welcomed international financiers to the Biofuels Congress, saying that Argentina is eager to develop biodiesel technology and production. "Argentina is already exporting biodiesel. We are hopeful and are creating favorable conditions to lure investments to this sector. We are developing the necessary infrastructure, improving our highways and ports to transport and store the fruit of our applied intelligence."

"We are completely convinced that alternative biofuels will convert Argentina into a global leader in renewable energy," said Scioli at the Biofuels Congress. Investors and institutions attending the First Biofuels Congress of the Americas paid 500 dollars a head to attend the event, which was closed off to media outlets not allied to biofuels.

A study published by the National Academy of Sciences found that neither ethanol, which is corn derived, nor bio-diesel, which is soy-produced can replace petroleum without having an impact on food supply. However, biofuel proponents brushed off any criticism of the renewable energy industry during the First Biofuels Congress of the Americas.

Juan Carlos Iturregui president of the Foundation for InterAmerican Development said that biofuels can only bring positive results. "Biofuels can propel development. They bring a very important factor which is the ability to compete and develop. This has already been proven, let's not get tied up with supposed theories and false debates. There can be food for everyone. There can be biofuels for everyone."

Soybean plantations bump off small farms

Argentina is the third-largest soybean producer in the world after the United States and Brazil. Top soil erosion and pollution caused from pesticides and fertilizers have been just some of the side effects to soybean plantations which have expanded exponentially at a rate of 10 percent annually.

Many foreign financiers have been eager to invest in the booming biodiesal industry. Dynamotive, a Canadian biofuels developer, will invest up to 120 million in six plants in Argentina that would use lumber- and paper-industry waste to make biofuel. The Spanish-Argentine oil and gas company Repsol YPF has already invested 30 million in dollars in a biofuel refinery in the province of Buenos Aires, expected to produce 100,000 tons a year as of 2007.

According to Oscar Delgado, a farmer from the northern province of Salta, soy production has also led to the violent eviction of small farmers and indigenous from lands cleared for soy bean plantations. "In the northern region of Argentina, in the provinces of Jujuy and Salta, local residents are witnessing a crisis because of the expansion of the mono-crops. Most serious is the expansion of trans genetic soy in Salta that has produced the eviction of small farmers and indigenous from lands. The local government in Salta supports these evictions; the government is supporting these new businessmen coming to the province."

Shortly after Al Gore's visit to Buenos Aires, seven small-scale farmers were arrested for resisting eviction from lands in the Northern province of Santiago del Estero. The farmers form part of MOCASE, a provincial grassroots movement of campesinos that promotes sustainable agriculture to build community. Their land will be cleared for soy production. The Santiago del Estero provincial government, which ordered the arrests, co-sponsored the First Biofuels Congress of the Americas, which paid Gore 170,000 dollars to give a 40 minute presentation derived from his award-winning film The Inconvenient Truth.

Goodbye food sovereignty

Local environmental groups and farmers held a parallel event to shed light on the dangers of biofuels, especially the effects on food production and prices. They also held a protest outside of the hotel where the Biofuels Congress of the Americas was held.

With surgery masks and megaphones on hand, they chanted "Food sovereignty, Yes! Biofuels, No!" Soledad Ogoliano, from the assembly for food sovereignty said that multi-nationals like Monsanto and Repsol YPF, a Spanish-Argentine petroleum company, speculate large profits while putting Argentina's food production at risk. "The immediate effect of this kind of production is the massive disforestation like we are seeing now in the forests in Chaco, the Amazon, and other areas that are large sources of biodiversity that are destroyed for mono crops, only one agricultural crop, generally transgenetic like soy." She added "We are talking about production that is highly concentrated because it requires large amounts of capital and investments in technology. It is no longer agricultural food production in the hands of local communities, but simply large scale production of commodities."

Food prices have already been affected due to soy and corn production for export. Economists worry that plant-based fuels will cause food prices to soar in Argentina, where food inflation continues to rise over 15% annually. The nation has unsuccessfully imposed export limits on certain foods like milk and beef, where production is plentiful but supply for the domestic market scarce and expensive for consumers.

A drive in food prices will hit the nation hard, with over 30 percent of the population under the poverty line. The policies promoting biofuel exports over domestic food production in developing countries could be an ecological and social recipe for disaster. In addition to Argentina, small farmers in Brazil and Paraguay have been pushed off of lands cleared for soy production at an exponential rate. In Mexico, consumers are fighting a tortilla war, a battle over increased prices in tortillas partly due to the nation's increase in ethanol production.

Groups will have to fight an uphill battle against corporations that have a tight hold on growing biofuel production in Latin America promising quench the North's thirst for energy at the cost of food sovereignty and biodiversity. Local environmental groups in Argentina will organize a series of protests against the corporations investing in biofuel in the coming months. Subsequent bio-fuel congresses will take place in Mexico, Colombia and Brazil this year.

Marie Trigona is a writer and independent radio producer based in Buenos Aires. She can be reached at mtrigona@msn.com

Delayed train sparks riot in Buenos Aires

By Marie Trigona

Enraged train commuters rioted in a major rail station in Buenos Aires on May 16. Delays in railway services sparked violent riots in Buenos Aires, when commuters set fire to parts of a train station during rush hour.

Angry passengers lobbed rocks at ticket booths, and set fire to automated ticket dispensers and police offices inside the Constitucion train station, the largest station in Buenos Aires with more than 300,000 users daily. About an hour after the violence erupted, riot police clashed with protesting passengers; shooting tear gas, rubber bullets and arresting 16 people.

Overcrowding has plagued the railway, leading from Constitucion station in downtown Buenos Aires to the capital's poor southern suburbs, since services were privatized in the 1990's. Passengers interviewed after the riot, complained to news cameras that poor service is “an everyday event.” Many said they were tired of traveling like cattle everyday.

The government pays a 5.5 million dollar subsidy every month to the private concession Trenes Metropolitanos running train services. The state-run commuter rail was privatized in 1999, under the administration of former president Carlos Menem.

Human rights groups continue to rally for the release of Roberto Canteros, political prisoner since 2005. Canteros was arrested during a train commuter riot, when passengers fed up with poor service destroyed a local train station in Haedo, a suburb of Buenos Aires in November 2005.

A photo

Argentina’s Mothers of Plaza de Mayo Commemorate 30th Anniversary

The Mothers of Plaza de Mayo commemorated the 30th anniversary of their movement today in Buenos Aires with a celebration of art and music. Thousands joined the mothers in the Plaza to thank them for their three decade long struggle for human rights and justice.

"Por favor ayudanos, son nuestra ultima esperanza"

In 1977, out of desperation and love for their children, a group of mothers began a protest to demand information about the whereabouts of their children. These youth were among the 30,000 people who were forcefully disappeared during the so-called dirty war carried out by Argentina’s military dictatorship between 1976 and 1983.

While thousands were illegally detained in a network of clandestine detention centers, Jorge Rafael Videla, leader of the generals, steadfastly denied journalists' accusations of forced disappearances. “While a person is disappeared, they can't have special treatment. He or she is an unknown entity, a disappeared. He or she doesn't have an entity. They aren't present, nor dead or alive! The person is disappeared.”

At a time when any protest was violently repressed, the mothers of the Plaza de Mayo broke the silence, themselves risking being disappeared.

Rosa Camarotti, a mother who joined the protest in 1978 after her son was disappeared recounts the March 24 military coup and how she first came to the Plaza de Mayo. “March 24, 1976 marked us like fire; it was the tragedy of our lives. They took away our children, just imagine. But other things marked me as well. For example, when I approached the Mothers. I felt truly supported by them. I felt the strength to fight because alone, with my husband, we went around unable to find out anything, without anyone knowing what we were doing.”

On April 30, 1977 fourteen women gathered in the Plaza de Mayo across from Argentina's presidential palace. At the time, the law prohibited groups of three or more people from gathering in public places. Yet these women began to walk around the pyramid in the center of the plaza. They identified themselves by wearing white head scarves, symbolizing the diapers of their children.

Juana Pargament, now 92-years-old, said that the Mothers of Plaza de Mayo have always gathered the strength to fight from their children. “30 years of struggle! Of course we are older now, we started out when we were younger. When they took our children away, it was painful, we suffered. But we had a strength that I can't put into words. It was also a difficult lesson, because we mothers had to learn to defend our children.”

The Mothers' have endured physical attacks and endless threats over the years. Three of the founding members were disappeared and murdered in 1977, when the group was infiltrated by a military officer, Adolfo Astiz. Astiz, like many other former military leaders has been charged with grave violations of human rights, but has never been sentenced for his crimes.

For Suzana Díaz, a 76-year-old mother from the northern province of Tucuman, the most difficult times taught her the most. “We have to fight so that no other mother or father goes through what we went through. This is what we want: for them never to take away another child like they took away our sons and daughters. And for those guilty to be punished.”

Only a handful of former military officers have been tried for human rights abuses during the military dictatorship. Last week a federal court revoked a 1990 pardon for two of the leaders of the former dictatorship, Jorge Videla and Emilio Massera, although it is unlikely that the former dictators will serve any part of the life sentences they received in 1985.

According to Rosa Camarotti, the Mothers will continue to fight until all ex-military leaders are convicted and put behind bars for their crimes against humanity. “To end impunity, all of the military officers, all of them, whatever their age, would have had be put in regular jails. But that didn't happen. They are only imprisoned in their homes, living better than kings.”

Despite, legal obstacles the Mothers have said they will prepare a future generation to continue to defend human rights and demand justice.

Community Television in Argentina

Introducing the latest policy analysis from IRC Americas Program

Community Television in Argentina:
Ágora TV, a Window for Liberation
By Marie Trigona

Never before in Latin America's history has media ownership been concentrated in the hands of so few. Despite legal challenges, over the past decades groups have emerged that produce alternative and independent media for television, radio, and video to counter mass media's misinformation.

A citizen-led TV station strengthens coordinating efforts, knowledge sharing, and improves the self-esteem of citizens. Ágora TV is doing just that—building a space for exhibition and interaction to motivate organizations and social movements to tell their own stories with video. Ágora TV is a community television production collective that currently broadcasts over the internet. The project reaches a global audience of grassroots activists and citizens tired of status quo media. The site features video productions from all over Latin America dealing with issues including labor conflicts, social movements, indigenous struggles, and experimental video art. The Buenos Aires-based video collective Grupo Alavío built the website (www.agoratv.org) in 2006 as an organizing tool and alternative media space for groups that would not otherwise have access to the airwaves.

This redefined space for independent media has three vital functions: disseminating alternative information, providing a space for popular voice, and building community. Alavío uses the camera as a political organ and as a tool to reflect the subjectivity of the working class, which the protagonists in the films adopt and use to organize.

Marie Trigona forms part of Grupo Alavío and writes regularly for the IRC Americas Program (online at americas.irc-online.org). She can be reached at mtrigona@msn.com.

See new IRC article online at:
http://americas.irc-online.org/amcit/4173

With printer-friendly pdf version at:
http://americas.irc-online.org/pdf/series/0704agoratv.pdf

Argentina: Police killing of teacher sparks massive protests

Watch video on protests

Znet article

The police killing of a public school teacher on April 4 in the Southern Province of Neuquen has sparked massive protests in Argentina and reawakened the slogan: Que Se Vayan Todos or All of them Out! Argentina's teachers and trade unions participated in a nationwide strike Monday April 9, to protest police violence against teachers in Neuquen. The province may be on the brink of a rebellion, with a deep political crisis shaking up the Patagonia. Teachers led massive marches throughout Argentina to demand justice for Carlos Fuentealba, a 42-year-old public educator who died on April 6 after a policeman shot him at close range in the head with a tear gas canister. A police officer from the Neuquén provincial force shot a tear gas grenade at close range at Fuentealba who was seated in the back seat of a car during a protest. Police clashed with demonstrators on Wednesday April 4 during a road blockade that the provincial teachers union organized as a protest action, after a month long strike to demand a pay raise and public education grants. In the province of Neuquen, unionized teachers continue to block the major highway leading to Neuquen's capital, where tensions remain high. Teachers and public workers have built a protest camp outside the provincial government house, with demonstrators camped out 24-hours a day. Unionists, human rights groups and local organizations are demanding the resignation of Governor Jorge Sobisch and they want members of his ruling right-wing party, the Popular Movement of Neuquen (MPN), to leave with him. Social context The teacher's death has fueled opposition to the local government and coalition efforts among workers' organizations. Social movements in the region have grown in the past years since Argentina's 2001 economic crisis. Students, teachers, public workers, unemployed workers and indigenous communities protesting have faced increasing hostility from the Popular Movement of Neuquén (MPN), Neuquen's ruling right-wing party. Up until the teacher's death, Sobisch had been campaigning for presidency along with business tycoon Mauricio Macri. His campaign quickly fell apart, receiving criticisms from President Nestor Kirchner. MPN has governed Neuquen for 40 years, gathering local power tied to petrol dollars and the 1976-83 military dictatorship. The province is rich in petroleum, which Repsol-YPF (the Spanish multi-national petroleum company which bought the former state petroleum company) has profited billions of dollars while firing oil workers and polluting Mapuche Indigenous land. The province suffers from epidemic poverty; a 2006 survey reported that 32 percent of the population lives below the poverty line. Provincial health and education workers have led protests for salary increases. Salaries for teachers are less than 300 dollars a month, while the cost of living is 600 dollars a month. Public workers have been punished not only with low salaries but with a wave of attacks against unionists speaking out against the local government. The provincial teachers union ATEN-Association of Education Workers of Neuquen had been protesting for months, but Governor Sobisch and his ministers had been unwilling to negotiate. On April 4, ATEN blocked a major highway during Easter week, when locals travel for the holiday. Leopoldo Reyes, a worker from the FASINPAT (Factory without a boss) ceramics factory in Neuquen participated in the massive march in Buenos Aires. He said that the government executed Fuentealba to warn off other protestors. "Evicting the teachers from the road blockade wasn't the only objective, they sought out to hurt and arrest protestors. Fuentealba was practically executed. This isn't the first time a death of a worker protesting has occurred." He added that workers in the region are organizing a massive campaign against MPN's violent tactics. "Jorge Sobisch gave the order to brutally clash with protestors because they wanted to clear the highway for tourists. We are demanding that Jorge Sobisch resigns and that the politicians guilty for Fuentealba's death go punished." Legacy of repression The MPN government has maintained a long legacy of repressive tactics dating back to the military dictatorship which disappeared 30,000 people. "The death of the teacher Fuentealba reminds us of the dictatorship era," said Nora Cortinas from the human rights group Mothers of Plaza de Mayo. "We can't forget and repression will continue if we don't fight to stop it." In the past year Sobisch has pushed for an Integral Security Plan, investing 20 million dollars in the direct purchasing of security equipment to crack down on protests including: two helicopters with night vision, a surveillance camera network for the entire city especially in areas where protestors hold actions and equipment for special police groups. All of this equipment violates the provincial Constitution. Neuquen's current education minister, Mario Morán, served under the military dictatorship until 1983. Subsequently, public education has deteriorated. High-school students protesting against cut-backs in public school budgets and deteriorating schools reported illegal arrests and tortures inside provincial police precincts in 2006. Two students were arrested and burnt with cigarettes inside a police precinct in 2006. Police officer, Daniel Poblete, has been arrested for shooting the tear gas canister that killed. Fuentealba. Tear gas canisters need be shot at a minimum distance of 30 yards from the target and manufacturers recommend shooting at an upward angle so as to prevent direct impacts. Witnesses say Poblete who shot Fuentealba was seven feet from the victim. Carlos Fuentealba is not the first worker to be killed for protesting in the province of Neuquen. His death coincided with the 10-year anniversary of the killing of Teresa Rodriguez, a janitor shot by a police officer during a protest in Neuquen on April 12, 1997. Police shot by-stander Rodriguez as she crossed a bridge that unemployed workers had been blocking in the oil town of Cutral-Có during one of the first piquetes (or road blockades which later became the method adapted by piqueteros nationwide.) Teresa Rodriguez has become a symbol for the piquetero movement but her murder goes unpunished; the four police officers charged with murder have been released and pardoned. Neuquen: Mecca of resistance and mutual solidarity Rodriguez's parents participated in the march to demand justice for Fuentealba's death, and resignation of Governor Sobisch, reminding teachers of the government's legacy of repression. More than 30,000 people marched in Neuquen on April 9. Argentina's main teachers union held a 24-hour strike, while the state-worker umbrella unions held a 2-hour work stoppage. Public transportation workers on strike virtually had Buenos Aires at a stand-sill. Buenos Aires subway union delegate Carlos Taborda said that workers were outraged when they heard the news of Fuentealba's death. "Every worker is affected by the death of the teacher. It doesn't surprise me that so many people protested today because when workers' human rights are violated, the working class here in Argentina mobilizes." Teachers in white work smocks led 50,000 marchers in Buenos Aires, carrying letters which spelled out "Nunca Mas" or "Never again". Tens of thousands throughout the country went to the streets to send the message: no more violence against workers. Sobisch has said publicly that the repression was justified and legal. During a press conference, he told media that the teachers provoked a violent response. President Kirchner has avoided the issue of the teacher's death, but has attacked Governor Sobisch for ordering the repression. Alejandra Bonatto is a Buenos Aires public school teacher from the Union of Education Workers: "This protest is against Governor Sobisch. I think us teachers deserve to be at the forefront of this struggle because we are the future of this country. The death of a companero is the death of all us; the students, education, teachers and the future of the nation." In Argentina Since 1995, more than 60 people have been killed during protests. According to Julio Talabera, an activist from H.I.J.O.S. - an organization of Children of the Disappeared says that governments support police brutality to instill fear and criminalize protest. "The national government that says it defends human rights has been reported to the Inter-American court of human rights because every 72 hours a young kid is killed by police in the streets of the Buenos Aires province." Only a handful of police have been tried for violence and police brutality. Huberto Iraola, a public school teacher from the northern province of Jujuy said that teachers nation-wide are united in the fight for justice and better salaries. "We don't want any more work smocks or chalkboards stained with blood. We are here not only to repudiate the death of Carlos Fuentealba, but to prevent these acts of violence similar to what occurred 30 years ago (referring to the dictatorship) from happening again." Marie Trigona is an independent journalist and radio producer based in Argentina. She can be reached at mtrigona@msn.com To watch videos on the protests visit www.agoratv.org

Argentina: Thirty-One Years After Coup, Disappearances and Terror Back on the Streets

Written by Marie Trigona

Thursday, 29 March 2007 Toward Freedom

Argentina marked the 31st anniversary of the nation's 1976 military coup on March 24 with a series of marches to commemorate 30,000 disappeared during the so-called dirty war. As the perpetrators face trial 31 years on, key witnesses are disappearing and terror is back on the streets. In the face of threats and attacks, demonstrators demanded an end to impunity for military personnel who served in the 1976-1983 dictatorship. Rights representatives have expressed immediate concerns over Julio Lopez; a new name that has been inscribed on the doleful roll call of Argentina's disappeared. Human rights groups in Argentina report that the trials to convict former members of the military dictatorship for human rights abuses have been put on hold and that the wave of threats against witnesses continues. Legacy of fighting for human rights The Mothers of Plaza de Mayo held their weekly Thursday vigil in the plaza where they have met for 30 years to demand information on the whereabouts of their children who were kidnapped and later murdered, but whose bodies have never been found. Mercedes Meroño, whose daughter was disappeared in 1978 said that the Mothers of Plaza de Mayo have gathered the strength to fight from their children. "After 30 years of struggle in the plaza and 31 after the dictatorship, we defeated the dictators with a struggle that we never abandoned, because we support the revolutionary struggle of our children. We continue to say that we were born out of our children’s fight, because before we didn’t know anything about this. For love we went out into the streets." During the Mothers’ 29 years of struggle they have endured physical attacks and endless threats. Three of the founding members were disappeared and murdered following the infiltration by Adolfo Astiz, a military officer, in 1977. Astiz, like many other former military leaders have been charged with human rights abuses, but has never been sentenced for his crimes. Astiz is facing trial for the 1977 disappearances of French nuns Alice Domon and Léonie Duque and a dozen other people, including Azucena Villaflor, the founder of Mothers of Plaza de Mayo. Meroño, now 82 years old, says that the Mothers will continue to fight until ex-military leaders are convicted and put behind bars for human rights crimes "At 31 years since Argentina's worst military coup, what we want is peace, love and solidarity. And those of us who fight for those words are triumphant. The evil people, the murderers, those who threw young people alive into the sea, tortured and raped: all of them are hidden in their homes like cowards. We want for them to be put in jail just like any other murderer and to be placed in common jails." Today’s terror and impunity Right across from the Plaza de Mayo on March 22, a delegation from the group called Space for Memory, Truth and Justice presented a report of over 200 cases of recent attacks and threats against human rights activists. Police barricades blocked the delegation two blocks from the Interior Ministry. Carlos Leiva is an activist from an unemployed workers organization Frente Dario Santillan. Speaking at the Interior Ministry, Leiva describes his kidnapping that occurred earlier this month. "On Friday, March 2, I was on my way to a movement meeting. A car stopped in front of me and two people who came from behind forced me into the car. They took me to an abandoned warehouse. I was held there for 6 or 7 hours while they threatened me a lot and asked personal questions and questions about our movement. The moment came when they had orders from a superior and they simulated shooting me." Leiva has identified his perpetrators as civil police who harassed him at a previous protest and says that authorities haven’t carried out an investigation since his kidnapping. "Every year the point is to go out and say we don't forget. During the dictatorship they disappeared an entire generation that thought, that could speak out. Today we are trying to fight for a better future in our organizations and the police are trying to fill organizations with fear. The clearest case is they disappeared Julio Lopez and he hasn’t turned up." Human rights trials paralyzed Argentina’s federal courts have virtually paralyzed upcoming human rights trials six months after the disappearance of Julio Lopez — a key witness who helped convict a former police officer for life. Lopez went missing September 18, the eve of the landmark conviction of Miguel Etchecolatz, the first military officer to be tried for crimes against humanity and genocide. In his testimony, Lopez said that Etchecolatz tortured him during his detention from 1976-1979. Testifying before a court in La Plata, Lopez described the prolonged bouts of interrogation under Etchecolatz’s supervision. "I even thought that one day I find Etchecolatz, I am going to kill him. And then I thought, well, if I kill him I’ll just be killing a piece of garbage, a serial killer who didn’t have compassion." He said that the police chief would personally kick detainees until they were unconscious and oversee torture sessions. Etchecolatz's sentence for crimes against humanity, genocide, and the murder and torture of political dissidents during the dictatorship represents the first time in the nation's history that the courts have sentenced a military officer to life for crimes against humanity. This is only the second conviction of a former military officer charged with human rights abuses since 2005 when Argentina's Supreme Court struck down immunity laws for former officers of the military dictatorship as unconstitutional. Etchecolatz was arrested and sentenced to 23 years in 1986, but was later freed when the "full stop" and "due obedience" laws implemented in the early '90s made successful prosecution of ex-military leaders for human rights abuses virtually impossible. In total, 256 former military personnel and members of the military government have been accused of human rights crimes and are now awaiting trial. However, this adds up to less than one ex-military officer for each of the country’s 375 clandestine detention centers that were used to torture and forcefully disappear 30,000 people. Aside from numbers, human rights representatives report that the trials are advancing at a snails pace, if advancing at all. Victims blame an inefficient court system filled with structural bureaucratic roadblocks and uncooperative judges. Some trials have been delayed more than three years. President Nestor Kirchner, under pressure from human rights groups, addressed the issue publicly at the government’s official rally to commemorate March 24. He pleaded with the judicial system to speed up the trials but did not sanction any order or take any other action. Recently, 61 plaintiffs (mostly torture survivors) publicly accused four Magistrate Council members for deliberately obstructing the cases to try ex-military leaders for state supported terrorism. The council president, Alfredo Bisordi, has been investigated by the Magistrates Association for openly supporting the dictatorship and amnesty for human rights abusers. Human rights groups want Bisordi and the other three council members to be removed from their positions. Groups worry that judicial roadblocks and an atmosphere of fear may provide former members of the military dictatorship a window to escape conviction. Patricia Isasa, a former political prisoner and torture survivor is leading a case against 9 of her perpetrators in the province of Santa Fe. Currently, she is in a witness protection program after receiving threatening phone calls. She says that many of the witnesses have dropped out of the trials since the wave of threats began: "The cases are clearly paralyzed. Before the kidnapping of Lopez I had a set date for the trial. The trial has been moved forward to no less than a year from now." Several judges have been threatened and are in police protection programs. In other cases, victims have reported that judges have ties to the military dictatorship. Isasa has made public complaints that her court case is being held up by a court with ties to one of her perpetrators, Victor Brusa, an interrogator in the concentration camps that later became a federal judge. Brusa served as a judge until he was put under house arrest thanks to Isasa’s efforts. For Isasa, survivors deserve a quota of justice after 31 years of injustice and impunity. "The court delay means a year of impunity, a year of shame, a year of being a witness whose life is in danger. When can I have a sense of peace? When these people have a firm sentence in jail and deactivated as much as possible. Now, please don't put them in the same place!" In recent months Human rights organizations have faced unrelenting threats in phone calls and emails defending crimes committed during the dictatorship. HIJOS, - an organization of children of the disappeared is one of those groups. Ramiro Gonzalez, son of a woman who was disappeared and member of HIJOS, was forced into an unmarked car by four men on October 4, who beat him while showing him pictures of activists and asking for their names. According to Gonzalez, many of the phone calls have been tracked to the federal prison where Etchecolatz and another 100 military officers are imprisoned. "We are continuing to receive phone calls from the federal penitentiary," says Gonzalez. "Everything is on hold, now that there are trials being held nationwide. Many of the witnesses don't want to take part in the prosecution out of fear, because the threats continue." He adds that although HIJOS is on alert, they are continuing to fight for justice for their parent’s deaths during the military dictatorship. "We at HIJOS are particularly worried because we feel that we are an easy target. Many of our comrades are getting psychological help for the threats and some of us are truly afraid. But we are clear that we aren't going to abandon the struggle!" With Julio Lopez missing for more than six months, it is almost certain that he is dead. His capturers are using his body as a negotiating tool to protect military personnel from any further criminal charges or trials. The political implications of Lopez’s disappearance has led to a virtual paralysis in the upcoming trials that human rights groups were promised when the Supreme Court overturned the amnesty laws that protected former military officers who served during the dictatorship. Marie Trigona is a journalist and radio producer based in Buenos Aires. She can be reached at mtrigona@msn.com Visit http://mujereslibres.blogspot.com/ for more information on the human rights trials.

What is Bush doing in Uruguay?

Znet March 25, 2007 by Marie Trigona

“The precise pain, in the precise place, in the precise amount, for the desired effect.” These are the words of a US instructor in the art of torture teaching techniques in Uruguay during the nation’s 1973-1985 military dictatorship. The US played a major role in supporting Uruguay’s brutal dictatorship, agents from the CIA and Office of Public Safety operated abroad to teach intelligence techniques to fight communist and socialist dissidents.

Who could forget Constantin Costa-Gavra’s 1972 film State of Siege, set in Uruguay in the early 1970’s. In an unforgettable scene, a US official from the Office of Public Safety teaches a room full of cadets the technique of the picana or “electric prod.” The feature length film narrates a guerrilla group’s kidnapping of an official of the US Agency for International Development (a group used as a front for training foreign police in counterinsurgency methods). Using his interrogation as a backdrop, the film explores the Tupamaro urban guerrillas’ fight against US plans to implement terror and military dictatorship in their country. More than 200 were disappeared during Uruguay’s dictatorship and many more detained and tortured. The CIA aided dictatorships in coordinating Operation Condor, a shared plan by regional dictators in Uruguay, Chile, Paraguay, Brazil and Argentina to kill opponents in the 1970s and 80s.

Once again this small nation received a symbolic visit from a US representative who advocates legalized torture in the developing world, George W. Bush. So what was George Bush doing in Uruguay?

First, Uruguay’s President Tabare Vazquez invited him. Vazquez has been heralded as a center-left president forming part of the ‘pink-tide’ bloc along with Argentina’s Nestor Kirchner, Brazil’s Silvio Lula, and Chile’s Michel Bachelet. Vazquez, Uruguay’s first left-wing president ran on the Frente Amplio (Broad Front) coalition party ticket and won by a 50 percent margin. Since taking office, Vazquez, like his pink counterparts has been eager to shut up the popular masses and get down to neoliberal business. Bush and Vázquez appeared together in a press briefing March 10 in Anchorena Park, Uruguay, to discuss education, trade exchanges, economic investments and immigration.

One of the things Bush and Vazquez talked about was the exchange of technology, medicine and education. Bush mentioned plans to fund a health clinic, but did not give any details. The US plans to open a military base medical with United States Army Special Operations Command South funds. The Santa Catalina military base has functioned for more than 15 years, providing a space for army and marine training. Now, with 350,000 dollars in South Command funds, Uruguay’s military has built a policlinic. Local residents and human rights groups say that the policlinic is the US’s first step in getting its foot in the door to establish a military base similar to Paraguay’s military bases. Under the guise of humanitarian assistance, the US plans to train Uruguayan troops and hold exercises for “stability operations.” Strategically, Uruguay could be key in US led operations to control natural resources and resistance in the region.

Uruguay is home to the world’s largest aquifer, the Guaraní aquifer. The Guaraní aquifer is the largest freshwater aquifer in South America, covering more than 1.2 million square kilometers and spanning four countries—Paraguay, Brazil, Uruguay, and Argentina. The US has already set up military bases in Paraguay and Brazil. Uruguay’s military base in Santa Catalina is preparing for US visitors. Writers like Ben Dangl and Raul Zibechi believe U.S. operations in Paraguay are part of a preventative war to control these natural resources and suppress social uprisings in the region. In Argentina’s northern region of Misiones local residents have reported of military operations in the area.

Trade was another big issue talked about during Bush’s visit. Uruguay has been cool to the MERCOSUR, a regional trade bloc composed of Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay, Venezuela and Uruguay. Vazquez has said that Uruguay will stay in MERCOSUR but defends the right to look for new markets outside of the regional trade blocs. During Bush’s visit, Vazquez speculated a trade agreement with the US, but was left short. Bush complimented Uruguay for its beef, software and blueberries but left without signing any trade agreement or aid agreements. Beef was certainly on the menu, Bush was eager to try Uruguay’s famous beef. As a gift, US president gave Vazquez a barbeque set.

Uruguay’s President Tabaré Vazquez and President Bush got married, well at least at massive protests during Bush’s visit to Uruguay. Over 25,000 people went to the streets to repudiate Bush’s presence in Latin America. The numbers of protestors is no small feat for the nation which inhabits only three million. Giant dolls representing Bush and Vazquez led the march, Bush wearing a tuxedo and Vazquez a wedding dress. Uruguay’s president was pregnant with hunger, misery and war.

“The people didn’t invite Bush,” said Hernan Gutierezz, a protestor at the march. What was most surprising was the mobilizing factor the US president’s visit had in Latin America. In Uruguay Vazquez chumming around with Bush created an uproar from the ruling coalition's progressive support base. Many from the center-left Frente Amplio coalition joined the protests against Bush’s arrival. Uruguay’s largest housing cooperative coalition, FUCVAM, held a 200 kilometer march to Anchorena estate where Bush and his Uruguayan counterpart met. The marchers were forced to make a 40 kilometer detour, prohibited from entering Colonia, a local coastal town and only allowed within 30 kilometers from the Anchorena estate.

Since Frente Amplio won the ballot in 2004, social movements have become stagnated with the crucial question of ‘what next?’ Now, three years after Vazquez’s victory many of his supporters realize that a lot is left to be desired. Salaries fail to meet basic needs, social programs have been cut and public transport costs are still high. Many of Frente Amplio’s supporters saw Bush’s visit as the last straw. Social movements outside of the Frente Amplio have gathered momentum in the past year: trade unions, landless farmers taking over land and the country’s broad housing cooperative movement.

What is clear is from Bush’s stay in Uruguay is that the nation’s social movements haven’t forgiven the United States for supporting the brutal dictatorship that doomed the country to a decade of terror, fear and looting. Irma Leites, a former political prisoner during Uruguay’s dictatorship sent a special message to Bush and Vazquez outside the Anchorena estate. “The blood of our comrades wasn’t shed to give up our natural resources and invite the U.S. to loot our country. Out with the Yankees who want the freedom to torture.” The masses on the streets of Montevideo sent a clear message to the U.S.--no more torture, no more military bases, no to the exploitation of natural resources in the region. This message dogged Bush throughout his 5-nation tour.

Marie Trigona is an independent journalist, radio producer and translator based in Argentina. She can be reached at mtrigona@msn.com

Argentina Marks 31st Anniversary of Military Coup

By Marie Trigona - March 23, 2007

Argentina marks the 31st anniversary of the nation's 1976 military coup on Saturday March 24, with a series of marches to commemorate 30,000 disappeared during the so called dirty war. As the perpetrators face trial 31 years on, key witnesses are disappearing and terror is back on the streets.

In the face of threats and attacks, human rights groups hit the streets to demand an end to impunity for military personnel who served in the 1976-1983 dictatorship. The Mothers of Plaza de Mayo held their weekly Thursday vigil in the plaza where they have met for 30 years to demand information on the whereabouts of their children who were kidnapped and later murdered, but whose bodies have never been found.

Mercedes Meroño, whose daughter was disappeared in 1978 said that the Mothers of Plaza de Mayo have gathered the strength to fight from their children. “After 30 years of struggle in the plaza and 31 after the dictatorship, we defeated the dictators with a struggle that we never abandoned. Because we support the revolutionary struggle of our children. We continue to say that we were born out of our children’s fight, because before we didn’t know anything about this. For love we went out into the streets.”

Meroño, now 82 years old, says that the Mothers will continue to fight until ex-military leaders are convicted and put behind bars for human rights crimes "At 31 years since Argentina's worst military coup, what we want is peace, love and solidarity. And those of us who fight for those words are triumphant. The evil people, the murderers, those who threw young people alive into the sea, tortured and raped: all of them are hidden in their homes like cowards. We want for them to be put in jail just like any other murderer and to be placed in common jails."

Right across from the Plaza de Mayo yesterday, a delegation from the group: Space for Memory, Truth and Justice presented a report of over 200 cases of recent attacks and threats against human rights activists. Police barricades blocked the delegation two blocks from the Interior Ministry.

Carlos Leiva is an activist from an unemployed workers organization Frente Dario Santillan. Speaking at the Interior Ministry, Leiva describes his kidnapping that occurred earlier this month. “On Friday, March 2, I was on my way to a movement meeting. A car stopped in front of me and two people who came from behind forced me into the car. They took me to an abandoned warehouse. I was held there for 6 or 7 hours while they threatened me a lot and asked questions about our movement. The moment came when they had orders from a superior and they simulated shooting me.”

Leiva has identified his perpetrators as civil police who harassed him at a previous protest and says that authorities haven’t carried out an investigation since his kidnapping. "Every year the point is to go out and say we don't forget. During the dictatorship they disappeared an entire generation that thought, that could speak out. Today we are trying to fight for a better future in our organizations and the police are trying to fill organizations with fear. The clearest case is they disappeared Julio Lopez and he hasn’t turned up.

Julio Lopez went missing September 18, the eve of the landmark conviction of Miguel Etchecolatz, the first military officer to be tried for crimes against humanity and genocide.

Testifying before a court in La Plata, Lopez described the prolonged bouts of interrogation under Etchecolatz’s supervision. “I even thought that one day I find Etchecolatz I am going to kill him. And then I thought well, if I kill him I’ll just be killing a piece of garbage. A serial killer. He didn’t have compassion.”

Rights representatives have expressed immediate concerns over Lopez, a new name that has been inscribed on the roll call of Argentina's disappeared. On Saturday groups will hold two separate marches to the Plaza de Mayo.

Venezuela Squeezes Out the International Monetary Fund

By: Marie Trigona - Venezuelanalysis.com

Buenos Aires, Argentina, March 14, 2007--President Bush wrapped up his 5 nation-tour today dodging criticisms on immigration policy and opposition to the war in Iraq in Meridia, Mexico where protestors lobbed concrete rocks at his hotel. Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez dogged Bush during his own whirlwind tour of Latin America, signing trade accords to promote regional integration. Part of Chavez’s agenda is to squeeze the International Monetary Fund out of Latin America and replace it with a regionally based institution.

Speaking in front of thousands of supporters in Buenos Aires, Chavez announced plans to create Banco del Sur or Bank of the South, a socialist alternative to the Washington based IMF lending institution. Argentina has already agreed to transfer 10 percent of the nation's reserves to boost the Bank of the South, a financial institution that could serve as an alternative to the IMF.

Chavez said that the Bank of the South can break the vicious cycles of foreign debt. "We have paid a countless amount of resources to pay back foreign debt. In the past 20 or 25 years we have paid more than 2.2 billion dollars in debt. We have paid back the loans more than three times over.”

He also announced that Argentina and Bolivia have eagerly adhered to the development fund. “Seven years ago I was alone in South America with a proposal for the Bank of the South, a bank that is ours to replace the international financing system, the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank. 15 days ago with Argentina we signed an agreement and today we have agreed to move forward to outline the Bank of the South. Tomorrow, Bolivia will adhere to the Bank of the South. They are building a bank that is ours."

Leaders in the Southern Cone, so far from Venezuela, Argentina and Bolivia, have joined the bank project with hopes that such a bank would allow Latin American nations to avoid the policy conditions that generally come with IMF loans.

According to Alan Cibils, an Argentine economist specializing in foreign lending institutions, the Bank of the South is still in its early stages but could develop into a concrete alternative to the IMF and World Bank. “It could be that part of the function of this bank is to act as a lender of last resort for countries in crisis that need funds and instead of going to the IMF they would go to the Banco del Sur, so that's a possibility. The other possibility or the other alternative is that it acts as a development bank for development projects of the different countries. I think either way it's a good idea to have both of these functions.”

The IMF’s current crisis has further compelled leaders to look for regional alternatives for financing. “I think that it points to a very clear failure of the northern institutions specifically the IMF and also the World Bank and the effects of the policies they have promoted in Latin Ameirca and throughout the world,” says Cibils. He adds, “so having an alternative institution that is local and really obeys more to local needs than to the
need of northern finance I think is a good thing and is desirable.”

Despite enthusiasm, Cibils warns that the fund will have to overcome corruption and stay wary of draining economic reserves in the respective Latin American countries. “Now how this will be implemented and whether it will be able to act outside of the clientalism and corruption that you sometimes have in governments like Argentina for example is an open question.”

Carlos Aznarez international journalist with Resumen Latinoamericano says that Argentina and Brazil joined the Bank of the South project to keep up with competition with one another in the global market and in leadership of Mercosur. “Not all the countries think the same about the Bank of the South. The idea that is pushing Chavez is the idea to precisely use the funds and federal reserves from each country to promote economic growth in Latin America’s poorest countries.” Although he says he is skeptical over Brazil’s and Argentina’s intentions to adhere to the regional fund. “The direction this project is going to take depends on the ideological influence of Venezuela. Bolivia is the country that is going to receive substantial support because it doesn’t have a lot of economic alliances. And Brazil and Argentina are going to flirt with the Bank of the South.”

The Bank of the South is set to begin operations within four months with international reserves from all participating nations. Venezuela hopes that Nicaragua and Ecuador will soon join the fund, whose initial capital will be 10 percent of Caracas and Buenos Aires international reserves, or roughly seven billion dollars.

Marie Trigona is an independent journalist based in Buenos Aires. She can be reached at mtrigona@msn.com

International Women's Day

Women surviving Argentina's military dictatorship and working to put ex-military leaders behind bars for human rights crimes:

Listen to story on Pacifica Radio's special International Women's Day programming

For more than three decades women who survived Argentina’s military dictatorship have led efforts to put ex-military leader behind bars for human rights crimes. Their courage and never ending will to fight has helped re-open trials to convict former members of the military dictatorship for human rights abuses.

Patricia Isasa's fight for justice

Patricia Isasa has fought for justice and transparency for over 30 years. At the time of her kidnapping, July of 1976, architect Patricia Isasa was 16 years old. She was abducted by a commando group of the provincial police and taken to one of the 375 clandestine detention and torture centers set up during the dictatorship. She was targeted for her organizing efforts as a delegate of the High School Students Union in the province of Santa Fe. She was held prisoner without trial for 2 years and two months. After her release in 1979 she compiled complaints to be presented to the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights of the Organization of American States, which was about to visit Argentina. She was again abducted with another thirty men and women. She was released after three days, but was one of only four to survive.

Since 1997, Isasa has gathered exhaustive documentation to put her perpetrators behind bars. However, full stop and due obedience laws implemented in the early 90's foreclosed any successful prosecution of ex-military leaders for human right crimes by the courts. Last year the Supreme Court struck down amnesty laws that protected former military officers who served during the dictatorship.

Now, after nearly 25 years since her release from clandestine detention centers, Isasa's life is again in danger. Since the conviction of former police chief Miguel Etchecolatz, in a landmark trial human rights activists have faced a wave of threats and attacks. Jorge Julio Lopez, a key witness in the land mark human rights trial to convict Etchecolatz for crimes against humanity, went missing on September 18 2006. Lopez, a retired construction worker and former political prisoner disappeared just hours before he was slated to give his final testimony on the eve of the conviction of Etchecolatz.

Patricia Isasa has entered a witness protection program after receiving threatening phone calls. The judge handling her case also received death threats. However, her will to fight for justice is never ending. She is planning to give a court testimony in Santa Fe in March, a very dangerous place because of local power's interests in protecting former members of the military junta. In a recent interview with Isasa, she talked about her case and hopes for truth and justice.

MT: What is the news on your case?

PI: My case is paralyzed at the moment, just like all the human rights trials in the country after Etchecolatz's conviction and kidnapping of Jorge Julio Lopez. I had a court date for a trial against my perpetrators in November 2006. We're now in February and the courts are telling me that my case won't come up until November 2007. This means two serious things. First, it means another year of waiting, injustice and impunity. Secondly, is that the repressors have a chance of being released from jail. They can be released after two years if they haven't been sentenced in court.

MT: Can you give us some background on your case to put your perpetrators on trial?

PI: When I finished the investigation I couldn't take it to Argentine courts because it was the year 1997-98 and the amnesty laws protecting members of the military junta were still in place. I then took the case to Spain and presented it to the international Judge Baltasar Garzon. Garzon requested the extradition of my perpetrators in Spain in 2003. This request was denied and the Argentine courts were forced to try my perpetrators here in the country.

The nine people who were arrested following my investigation are being tried for genocide, state terrorism and torture which are all crimes against humanity. But the courts still haven't defined the legal charges they are facing. At any moment the judge can change the charges. It's doubtful that they will be charged with illicit association. Illicit association is the alma mater of state terrorism. I am accusing these nine people for kidnapping, torturing and murdering fellow detainees. They had people detained for years without any trace. I personally lived through this. For six months I was held somewhere where I didn't know if it was night or day or how many days had gone by. To organize all these crimes there had to have been illicit association: an association among a group of people to commit crimes that were planned, organized and orchestrated from the state.

These people don't have a defense. Crimes committed during the dictatorship weren't crimes of passion. Former members of the junta government can't say they were crazy. They can't claim insanity, because later on they became public officials with government positions of power. The only thing they can do in their defense is to muddle with the legal process.

Who are the people involved in the case? We have five police officers, three from the army and we have a court employee, because the courts were accomplices in the repression. Juan Orlando Rolon, Domingo Marcellini and Nicolas Correa belonged to the army. Domingo Marcellini was a graduate from the School of the Americas in 1973 and later became chief of intelligence. He was responsible for repression in Santa Fe during the crudest years of the dictatorship. In the city of Santa Fe alone there were more than 300 people who were disappeared. Nicolas Correa was an army lieutenant in charge of operative intelligence. It's an elegant way to say he was the chief of torture. They called torturing and interrogating people part of security intelligence. Correa is a serial killer who was responsible for more than 300 deaths.

Mario Jose Fasino was the head of torture and extermination camps in Santa Fe. Half the people who entered these camps were murdered or they died during torture sessions. Eduardo Ramos was a torturer, rapist and administered electric shocks. The other two police are Hector Romeo Colombini and Juan Perizzotti.

The civil servant from the courts was Victor Hermes Brusa, who interrogated detainees in the clandestine camps. What would interrogators do? When the torture session was over, they would pick you up naked, bleeding and sometimes after being sexually violated. They would throw you into an adjoining room and have you sign a previously prepared document. Victor Brusa would say 'sign or you'll go back to the torture room.'

M.T.: What happened to these individuals after the military dictatorship ended in 1983?

P.I.: What is most paradoxical of all this is what these individuals turned into after the return to democracy. The misfortune of failing to put these people on trial wasn't the only result of impunity, they were also rewarded for their crimes. Up until now none of them have faced trial. Correa became Security Secretary for the province of Santa Fe. Fasino became a local mayor in Santa Fe 20 years after running a clandestine torture center. Ramos was the Culture Secretariat in Santa Fe for many years. Hector Colombini was in charge of the illicit drugs division in the police force. Finally, when I investigated my perpetrators 10 years ago I discovered that Victor Brusa, an interrogator in the concentration camps had become a federal judge.

M.T.: How did you take the news about the disappearance of Jorge Julio Lopez, another key witness in La Plata?

P.I.: For me his kidnapping was a slap in the face. I naively thought for the past 20 years in democracy that this wouldn't happen again. I thought that no one supported the methods used during the dictatorship - killing torturing, throwing people alive into the sea and burying people alive. Even the fascists who support the dictatorship, I thought they did it only behind closed doors. I never thought that we'd go back with the banner and demand "Aparación con vida ya! - For the safe return, Now!"

In this sense Lopez was kidnapped to avenge Etchecolatz. Etchecolatz's group with ties to the provincial police kidnapped Lopez to create fear and to prove that they have the infrastructure to kidnap more people. I think they kidnapped and killed him and then hid his body. A national death threat campaign later ensued.

The government is absolutely responsible for actions following Lopez's disappearance. Why don't they look into the groups connected with Echecolatz? Why are all the repressors currently under arrested facing trials being held in the same place? They should be spread out in jails throughout the country. These individuals killed thousands; don't they deserve to be put in regular jails? They should be in maximum security prisons, not under house arrest or in a jail along with fellow military buddies.

M.T.: Patricia, what do you need to feel at peace and to feel as if justice has been served?

P.I.: The trials against former members of the military dictatorship are clearly stopped. As a result of the kidnapping of Lopez, hundreds of threats against judges and activists, many witnesses have dropped out of the trials. I no longer have a date for my trial. They are telling me that in another year the trial will begin. This means another year of impunity. Another year of being a witness whose life is in danger. When can I have a sense of peace? When these repressors have a firm sentence and are put in jail. When they are deactivated as much as possible. Please, don't put them together in the same jail so they can lobby for a shorter sentence or negotiate with another kidnapped witness.

The trials against former military from the junta are just the tip of the iceberg. What I would like is for the trials charging ex-military officers to be guided by the search for truth, to look beneath the surface and explain what happened and why. Why did the state decide to kidnap, torture, kill and hide the bodies of 30,000 citizens? We need to understand what happened. They killed off the opposition and created an atmosphere of terror to impose a new economic and social model. What the Argentine people need now is justice.