The trial against former president Fernando De la Rúa and ex-members of his cabinet started today in Buenos Aires. De la Rúa has been accused of corruption, after allegedly bribing opposition senators to vote in favour of a labour reform in 2000, and could face up to six years in prison if found guilty.
The trial is considered a landmark, since it is the first time a former president has been brought to justice on charges of corruption. It is expected to last between six and eight months, according to Infobae.com.
The judges are expecting to hear testimonies from 339 witnesses. These include high-profile politicians like current president Cristina Fernández de Kirchner, who was a senator at the time and voted against the bill, former president Carlos Menem, and De la Rúa’s former vice-president Carlos ‘Chacho’ Alvarez, who resigned in October 2000 as the bribe allegations became public.
As well as De la Rúa, other high-profile officials facing trial include his former labour minister Mario Alberto Flamarique, former head of intelligence Fernando de Santibañes, and former parliamentary secretary Mario Pontaquarto. Pontaquarto has confessed to carrying a briefcase with money for the bribes, and accused De la Rúa of authorising the payment of U$S 4.3m in bribes to opposition senators to vote in favour of the controversial bill. “If there’s no sentence for me, there’s no sentence for anyone. If there is no sentence, the trial will remain unpunished,” the repentant Pontaquarto told the press today.
The senators who allegedly received the bribe have also been charged with corruption.
The controversial labour reform bill, which sought to further liberalise the labour market, was put forward by De la Rúa’s government in 2000, a year and a half before his resignation. It was part of a number of policies requested by the IMF in order to provide financial backing to the government. The law was passed in May 2000 and abolished in 2004.
The trial against De la Rúa is the second against a former president, but the first one for corruption. Last year, former president Carlos Menem was found not guilty of arms smuggling.
It is the 10th anniversary of the 2001 financial crisis in Argentina and we managed to get some of the best books and documentaries gathered in this financial crisis material round up to make you an expert on the subject. Check it out!
Documentaries:
‘Memoria del saqueo’
This documentary creates a timeline between the military dictatorship of 1976 until the beginning of the protesting in December 2001.
It reports 25 years of economic, financial and social problems because of the countries exorbitant debt as well political and financial corruption in government sectors.
This documentary is a complaint of the plundering of resources by multinational corporations with the complicity of the national government.
According to the director Pino Solanas, little has changed in Argentina since 2003: “the looting goes on.”
Director: Pino Solanas. Countries: Argentina/France/ Switzerland. Duration: 120 minutes. Year: 2004. Language: English and Spanish
‘The Take’
In the beginning of the Argentine economic collapse of 2001, former employees of the newly shut Forja plant in a suburban area of Buenos Aires, take over the factory as a part of a new movement that encourages workers to occupy bankrupt businesses to create jobs in an attempt to recuperate their means of living.
Locking themselves inside and with no bosses, 30 former auto-parts workers start running the once silenced factory and refuse to leave.
This act has the power to shake the basis of the whole globalization debate.
The president of the new worker’s co-operative, Freddy, and the head of the Movement of Recovered Companies, Lalo, know that their struggle is only beginning. Having to face a bureaucratic rampage amongst going to courts, dealing with cops and politicians, they know their success is far from secure. Their future is uncertain: they can either be granted legal protection or be evicted from the factory.
The presidential elections sets the background, having Carlos Menem – known as the main responsible for the crisis – as the front-runner. Menem’s supporters are the factory owners, who will get the factories back from the workers if their candidate wins.
Now the workers have to fight their bosses, the bankers and the whole economic system that do not really care about all the lives they affect by shutting down plants.
Directors: Avi Lewis and Naomi Klein. Country: Argentina/ Canada. Duration: 87 minutes. Year: 2004. Language: English and Spanish
‘The Argentina Experiment’
Greek documentary film maker Yorgos Avgeropoulos was living and working in Argentina between 2001 and 2002, during the crisis. He now returns to the country to re-examine the economic, political and social situation of Argentina and how it is handling the consequences of the collapse it faced ten years ago.
The documentary creates a parallel of what happened in December 2001 and what is happening now in Argentina ten years later.
According to the documentary, the ending of the neoliberal economic model in Argentine economic calamity of 2001 left 39 people dead – murdered by the police and bank securities – 30,000 collateral damages (suicides, heart attacks and strokes) and over 50% of the population submerged in poverty and misery.
‘Broken Promises? – The Argentine Crisis and Argentine Democracy’
Editors Edward Epstein and David Pion-Berlin have brought together an impressive group of Argentine and American experts to contribute to in this book. This is considered to be the first comprehensive account of the 2001 Argentine economic collapse.
The book shows insights of the role of the police and the military, as well as the analysis of the behaviour of the population and politicians as the economic crisis develops.
It also portrays the Argentina emerging from the crisis and the complexities of contemporary Argentine democracy.
Editors: Edward Epstein and David Pion-Berlin, 296 pages. Publisher: Lexington Books. First edition: March 2008. Language: English
‘History of The Argentine Crisis’
According to author Mauricio Rojas, “there are countries which are rich and countries which are poor. And there are poor countries, which are growing rich. And there is Argentina.”
Rojas’ book explains in a summary the journey and the reasons that lead Argentina to its economic and financial crisis in 2001. The text is written in a simple and accessible manner, perfect for the lay in Argentine politics or the ones that want to understand the crisis but not in depth.
Explaining the Argentine golden age between 1860 and 1930, which the country growth increased astonishingly, there came 70 years of stagnation as well as political, economical and especially social issues.
It sets the scene for the beginning of the 20th century, when the country was richer than France, Italy and Sweden and its long and hard fall into bankruptcy.
The book also talks about the Perón years and its importance to Argentina, besides all the corruption, populism, nationalism and protectionism.
After years of inflation, aborted reforms, regional conflicts and political scandals, the country finds itself in a delicate political and financial situation.
Originally published in Swedish and later translated to English, Spanish and Portuguese, this book is highly recommended if you want to read a short but profound text to understand how such a powerful and country fell into financial failure.
Author: Mauricio Rojas, 130 pages. Publisher Cadal / Timbro. First edition: December 2003. Language: English, Swedish, Spanish and Portuguese
‘The Crisis of Argentine Capitalism’
Author Paul H. Lewis begins his book describing the development of the Argentine industry, emphasizing the period after World War II, in which Argentina had become the most industrialized nation in Latin America.
Lewis considered Perón and his military colleagues responsible for the end of the evolution of Argentine economy aiming dynamic capitalism.
He also describes the political disputes amongst peronists and anti-peronists between the years of 1955 to 1987 and points out how the post-Perón governments failed to incorporate the trade union movement in their list of priorities, causing – amongst other things – economic stagnation and an increase on the levels of violence.
This book is ideal for people who want a deep study on the roots of the Argentine instability and decline in the times before the crisis – or how Lewis calls “the politics of political stagnation” -, as it describes Argentina’s entrepreneurial classes in relation to foreign capital, labour, the government and the military.
It also differs from previous studies because it does not focus on parties or governmental institutions, but in pressure groups and their organization, development and political activities.
Author: Paul H. Lewis. 594 pages, Publisher: The University of North Carolina Press. First edition: February 1992. Language: English
‘And the money came rolling in (and out)’
Author Paul Blustein managed to expose in his book the flaws of the financial system worldwide and shows Argentina’s efforts in the 90s to become one of the developed countries – even being praised by the IMF, the World Bank and Wall Street.
Blustein – who also wrote a book about the IMF called “The Chastening”- gathered in “And the money came rolling in (and out)” hundreds of interviews with politicians, economists, stock market investors as well as parts of internal documents showing how the IMF ignored the vulnerabilities in the Argentine economic policy.
The narrative of the rise and fall of Argentine economy is very clear and makes the reading flow, being considered by many top publications such as The Economist and New York Sun to be a “page-turner”.
Author: Paul Blumstein. 304 pages, Publisher: PublicAffairs. First Edition: March 2005. Language: English
‘The Worst End’. That is how national daily Página 12 described President Fernando de la Rúa’s resignation on 20th December 2001.
President De la Rúa fleeing the Casa Rosada by helicopter on 20th December 2001 (Photo: Walter Astrada)
At the premature end of his presidency, the country witnessed the worst state violence since its return to democracy in 1983. In total, 39 people died throughout the country, including five at the hands of police in the very centre of Buenos Aires.
The iconic image of the president ‘fleeing’ by helicopter from the roof of the Casa Rosada shortly before 8pm would become a powerful symbol of the demise of the government, and the chaos Argentina’s political class found itself in.
But it was the last few hours of De la Rúa’s 740 days in office that would remain imprinted in the minds of those who lived through it.
“It seemed like something was going to happen,” says Damián Neustadt, at the time a 25-year-old freelance photographer living in Caballito.
Like many in Argentina, on the morning of the 20th, Nuestadt woke up expectant. In Buenos Aires, the unprecedented protests of the previous night had unleashed a new social force, as exciting as it was unpredictable. With the cry of “El pueblo, unido, jamas será vencido” (The people, united, will not be beaten) at doors of the Casa Rosada, the public had defied the state of emergency and forced Economy Minister Domingo Cavallo, the architect of convertibility and the corralito, to resign.
At the same time, the aggressive police response, using rubber bullets and tear gases to clear Plaza de Mayo in the early hours of the morning, had left an air of tension as the new day began.
Nuestadt had joined the masses and taken photos of the police response. “I returned home at 5am, slept a little, and then went back to the Plaza in the morning with extra rolls [of film],” he says. Sensing that something big was about to occur, he also took a radio with him, so that he could find out quickly if a coup d’etat had taken place.
Soon after arriving, at around 9:30am, he witnessed the first of many acts of police brutality that day, which he would document in some 250 photos.
Madres versus the police at Plaza de Mayo on Dec 20, 2001
The Repression Begins
When Neustadt arrived, groups of protestors—some still remaining from the night before—were mingling in the square. Among the most conspicuous were the Madres de la Plaza de Mayo, who gathered as they had for more than two decades for their weekly Thursday vigil in remembrance of those disappeared during the last military dictatorship.
This particular day, the Madres, who defied a murderous military regime, were also out to protest against the state of emergency decreed by the president the night before.
Virginia Lattanzio, 60, who had stopped on the Plaza de Mayo as she made her way to work in the city centre, witnessed what happened next.
“Around mid-morning, the mounted police came and rode their horses right over the Madres without a care. It was terrible,” she recalls, still incredulous almost ten years later. “There wasn’t any provocation that they [the police] responded to, they ran directly over people who were sitting down with a mate.”
The documentary ‘Argentina: Ahora o Nunca’ by Canadian Brian Hunter, who was living in Argentina during the crisis, also captured the police repression.
“I remember the helpless feeling of seeing an 80-year-old woman being beaten by a mounted police officer,” says Neustadt, pointing to one of his most memorable photos from that day – the white headscarf of a Madre in the foreground facing down eight policemen on horseback.
“I realised this was a breaking point; not just another day. And the public began to perceive it too: they saw the violent repression on the tv and came to the square with their arms held up to show that they were not doing anything.”
An Absent Government
As the square was filling with people, the government was engaged in a last ditch attempt to reach out to the peronist opposition — which held a majority in both legislative houses — and broker an agreement to exit the crisis. Following Cavallo’s lead, the entire cabinet had offered its resignation as a gesture to the peronists; clearing the protests from the emblematic Plaza de Mayo was another key prerequisite to opening negotiations.
Stories from inside the Casa Rosada that day tell of an increasingly isolated president, left powerless and indecisive as his government disintegrated around him. One particularly striking anecdote included in journalist Lucio Di Matteo’s book ‘El Corralito’ is that of President De la Rúa sat alone in his office watching cartoons as the violence outside escalated in the early afternoon.
The political chaos of that day has left unclear who was ordering the police to use such brutal force against peaceful protesters. De la Rúa maintains that he was not responsible, stating in a recent interview with La Nación that he only found out about the deaths in the city centre an hour after leaving the Casa Rosada.
A trial due to begin in June of next year will assess the responsibility of high-ranking members of the government in the violence and murders of that day (De la Rúa was cleared of criminal blame by the courts in November 2010). Neustadt has been called to testify due to his proximity to the police throughout the day.
Soon after the first outbreak of violence against the Madres, he witnessed the conversation between a federal judge and the police officer in charge of operations in the square – Jorge Palacios, who would later be charged with political espionage soon after being named chief of the newly-created Buenos Aires Metropolitan Police by Mauricio Macri in 2009 – in which the forces were ordered to retreat and allow people to voice their protest.
The order was ignored, however, and protected by the national state of emergency, the police launched new waves of attacks. A running battle ensued, with the police clearing the square with increasing force, only for the crowds of protestors to return. Without any government action, the violence intensified through the afternoon.
“I had never seen the police so out of control,” recalls Neustadt. As he took photos of Eduardo de Pedro, a friend and member of human rights groups H.I.J.O.S being bundled into a police car (where he was beaten and threatened with death), an officer put a shotgun in his face and advised him to stop and leave. At another point, when Neustadt was left isolated after the square had been temporarily cleared, he received a heavy blow from a police baton: “now that you are alone, what are you going to do?” jeered the officer.
“They [the police] were not worried at all about the photos – I was right in their faces, you could see their ID number. They were more annoyed that I was there taking photos than about the photos themselves,” adds Neustadt, describing the impunity with which the police operated that day.
Lead Bullets
The worst of the violence occurred between 3pm and 5pm. By that stage, more hardened protesters were hurling rocks at police, who were no longer responding with just gases and rubber bullets, but firing live rounds directly into the crowds. In clashes near Av. de Mayo and Tacuarí, three protestors – Gastón Riva (30), Diego Lamagna (27), and Carlos Almirón (24) – received fatal wounds.
An injured man is lead away by police (Photo: Patricio Murphy)
The president’s final speech, soon after 4pm, in which he appealed once more to the Peronist opposition to form a unity government and failed to mention or condemn the police aggression, only fuelled the violence.
“It all exploded after the speech,” says Lattanzio. “People were hoping and expecting the president to take control of the situation [...] But he said nothing, just threw the blame [at the Peronists] and played the victim.”
Soon afterwards, a fourth victim, Gustavo Benedetto (23), was shot in the face after protestors on Av. de Mayo and Chacabuco were fired upon by police and security guards sheltering inside the HSBC building at the corner. Benedetto’s mother and sister, who were watching the events unfold on television, saw him being loaded into an ambulance, bleeding heavily and unresponsive.
The End
It was only when news that De la Rúa had resigned circulated, around 7pm, that calm began to return to the streets. Even then, there was time for one more killing: Alberto Márquez (57) was gunned down by police as he sat with other protesters on 9 de Julio. Unlike the other deaths, where the shooters have never been identified, four individuals from the Internal Affairs department of the Federal Police are on trial charged with Márquez’ murder.
Around that time, Neustadt returned home after developing his photos, some of which were published in newspapers around the world the next day. “I didn’t know about the killings; I found out when I returned home. And then I had a bit of a panic attack for having been so close, especially as I had a one-year-old daughter.”
Despite that, he says is glad he went and was able to document the events of that fateful day.
“I had the feeling that I needed to be there, taking photos that might be of use later [...] For me, the difference that day with other historic moments in Argentina is that the public were out on the streets for real, for themselves, without any direction. It’s clear that some later exploited the events for their own gain, but at that moment, for those two days [19th and 20th December], that’s how it was.
“I don’t think a country has many moments like that in its history.”
Cacerolazo in the streets of Buenos Aires (Photo: Sub Coop)
Shortly after 11pm on 19th December, 2001, residents of Buenos Aires began streaming out of their homes, blocking streets in their neighbourhoods and marching towards the Plaza de Mayo. Soon, the banging of pots and pans—a form of protest coined as a cacerolazo—could be heard throughout the capital.
Street protests were nothing new in Argentina at the time. With the economy in its third year of recession and unemployment approaching 20%, piqueteros (picketers) frequently cut streets to demand government support while labour unions had called regular general strikes. The situation had deteriorated since the beginning of December, when Economy Minister Domingo Cavallo imposed restrictions on cash withdrawals from banks, leaving many angry clients unable to access their savings.
But this night was different.
Moments earlier, President Fernando de la Rúa had called a national state of emergency in a televised address. The measure was designed to put a stop to the unrest and looting that had for days been escalating in the impoverished outskirts of the city, turning increasingly violent. Instead, in a spontaneous display of collective anger and defiance, the public—significantly, the middle class—took to the streets with a simple message for the political leadership: “que se vayan todos“ (get out, all of you).
It was the point of no return for De la Rúa, who had become a political pariah, even within his own party. The president would leave office at 7pm the following day, departing ignominiously by helicopter from the roof of the presidential palace as police violently suppressed the street protests below, killing five people in the city centre. In total, 39 people lost their lives in two days of unrest.
Yet this was more than just the removal of an unpopular government. The uprising of the 19th and 20th—later known as the Argentinazo—represented a rupture between the Argentine people and the discredited political establishment. There were no partisan banners or chants in the protests, just a collective rejection of the ruling class and the economic paradigm that had been implemented 25-years earlier with the military dictatorship and intensified during the neo-liberal frenzy of the 1990s.
In the chaotic fortnight that followed, the country had four different presidents who, between them, enacted both the biggest debt default and currency devaluation in global history. As the rebuilding process began in 2002 under President Eduardo Duhalde, half of the population lived under the poverty line; among the other half, many chose to emigrate. The damaged – but not broken – democratic institutions faced a new social reality, with a intolerant public that had, temporarily at least, put aside class distinctions to combine and magnify the impact of the piquete and cacerolazo.
Young men fight against the police on 9 de Juilo in December 2001 (Photo: Sub Coop/Nicolas Pousthomis)
Ten years later, the immediate effects of the crisis are now barely noticeable, but its legacy lives on in today’s policies, social movements, and local attitudes.
In the coming month, The Argentina Independent will revisit this historic turning point in a series of articles ten years on from the crisis. In part one, starting tomorrow with testimonies from the protagonists of the Argentinazo, we will hear the personal stories of those who lived through those days, and analyse the role of the key players – both inside and outside of the country – who led the country into the abyss.
In the second half of the series, we will examine the Argentina that emerged from the ruins: the popular assemblies, bartering clubs, and recuperated factories that typified a new era of social activism and participation; the political hole that would be filled by kirchnerismo; and the resurrection of the internal market as the pillar of the economic model.
The reconstruction of the State, the evolution of social movements, and the search for justice are complex and unfinished processes, even a decade later, and we cannot aspire to cover all aspects of the ’2001 effect’ or answer all the questions that remain from those fateful days. Neither is our intention to condemn or romanticise the path that the country has taken on its ongoing recovery.
However, as the paradigm of free market capitalism and corporate-led politics comes under strain in the developed world, a better understanding of the new Argentina – including all of its flaws and idiosyncrasies – can only enrich the contemporary debate.
This is what we hope to provide, and encourage you, our readers, to participate with your own comments, questions and experiences.
This morning, Judge Daniel Rafecas signed a decree to send Fernando De la Rúa to the court for oral proceedings. The former Argentine president is suspected to have paid the Senate, back in 2000, to facilitate the approbation of his labour reform.
“Nothing relates me to those facts. This decision is a justice heresy” said De la Rúa when hearing of the verdict. The former president also claimed that it was an old story and it was an attempt of the Krichner couple to “hide something”
Two months ago, the federal chamber confirmed the acts of De la Rúa saying they had sufficient evidence to inculpate the former president. For taking part into corruption, the politician could be sent to prison for a one to six years sentence.
The labour reform was aiming at weaken large work unions in favour of the smaller ones, and to lower labour costs. The syndicate leader Hugo Moyano was strongly opposed to the reform saying that it would have a negative influence for wages and that it would depend too much on the International Monetary Fund (IMF).
The Federal Chamber claimed that the former president “was managing the whole operation which ended up into the payment of bribes”. According to the accusation, 4.3 million pesos would have been involved in the kickbacks to boost the approbation of the law voted on 26th April 2000. The facts came into the light thanks to the declarations of repentant former parliament secretary Mario Pontaquerto.
The accusation also involves seven other politicians. The former labour minister Alberto Flamarique, Fernando de Santibañes, former Intelligence secretary and former radical and peronist senators have already been through the oral proceedings.
De la Rúa would have to explain his actions at the end of the year 2010, more than a decade after the facts.
As we continue our focus on art and design, we revisit Kate Stanworth's 2007 interview with Lucio Boschi about his black and white photographs of lesser-known cultures in Argentina.
Documentaries:
‘The Take’
‘The Argentina Experiment’
Books:
‘History of The Argentine Crisis’
‘The Crisis of Argentine Capitalism’
‘And the money came rolling in (and out)’
