Dario & Maxi still present (Dario y Maxi presentes) 10 years on (Photo: Patricio Murphy)

2002 was a dark year for Argentina. The country was picking up the pieces from the economic and political crisis that had exploded in the last days of 2001. Poverty and unemployment were at an all-time high, and the sight of people rummaging through rubbish looking for something to eat was a common one. So were protests, all day, every day: desperate pleas for work, food, change, dignity.

One of these protests would be tragically different.

The murders of Darío Santillán and Maximiliano Kosteki at a roadblock on the 26th June 2002 would change the course of Argentine history.

‘Piquete y Cacerola’

The piqueteros became a feature of the political landscape in the late 1990s. As traditional party politics were seen as little more than a façade for businesses and corruption, and unemployment and poverty became a reality for millions of people, alternative ways of political expression came to the surface.

It all started in the oil towns of Cutral-Co (Neuquén) and Tartagal (Salta) between 1996 and 1997, both greatly affected by the mass layoffs resulting from the privatisation of oil company YPF. Thousands of people gathered and set up pickets on major roads, lighting up tires, and spontaneously forming assemblies to debate the next steps to take. The piquetero movement was born.

A new social subject was protagonist in these protests: the unemployed worker. In a society organised around labour relations – typical of the post-war industrial model – and where political activity was largely linked to unionism, the unemployed were effectively marginalised, living at the fringes of society. Economically, socially and politically they were isolated. They had no expression channels, so they created their own.

The piquetero practices of roadblocks and assemblies spread throughout the country and into Greater Buenos Aires, where they had to coexist with, and try to displace, deeply rooted political practices of the so-called “traditional politics”.

The riots of December 2001 brought the still marginal piqueteros and the pot-banging middle classes together. During the months following the collapse, a large part of the political activity concentrated around the citizens’ assemblies and the piquetero movements. The chant ‘Piquete y cacerola, la lucha es una sola‘ (‘Pickets and pots, the struggle is the same’) summarised the visibility and recognition the piquetero movement had gained -and which they had never enjoyed before.

Darío Santillán and Maximiliano Kosteki were part of the piquetero experience and were immersed in the rebellious atmosphere sparked by the December riots. Whilst, at the age of 21, Darío was already a seasoned activist, Maxi joined his local MTD (Unemployed Workers’ Movement) at 22, and spent the last few months of his life actively dedicated to its cause.

Darío and Maxi never met. They only came together once, as Darío came to Maxi’s aid when he was lying on the floor of the Avellaneda train station, bleeding to death. That last gesture of solidarity cost him his life

Protest 10 years on (Photo: Patricio Murphy)

Shooting to Kill

As the piquetero groups made their way to Avellaneda on the cold morning of the 26th June 2002, they were aware that this protest would be different. The plan was to block Puente Pueyrredón, one of the bridges that connects the capital with the province of Buenos Aires, as part of a larger mobilisation that included roadblocks in other parts of Buenos Aires and the country. They were asking for an increase in subsidies, a food plan for the unemployed, supplies for schools and hospitals, the release of jailed piqueteros, and an end to repression

But the government, headed by Eduardo Duhalde since January of that year, had already warned that “any attempts at isolating the city would be considered an act of war”. The piqueteros had already had run-ins with the police during their protests, and one of them had been killed during a roadblock a few months earlier. The repressive attitude of the government was hardening, but the piqueteros hoped that it would not be able to get away with open displays of violence in the capital, as it did in the provinces. Even so, many groups asked for the children and older ladies (who were the heart of the MTDs) not to join them.

As the piqueteros approached in two large groups, armed with sticks and slingshots, the Buenos Aires police and naval prefecture blocked the bridge. Face to face with the police, one protestor ran from her group and tried to hit a policeman, superintendent Alfredo Fanchiotti, whom she claims was about to open fire on one of the groups. This gave the police the excuse they were waiting for to start the repression.

Just before 12pm, the police opened fire. The protesters were chased down the streets of Avellaneda, and even though they tried to execute an orderly retreat, panic took over. It soon became clear that, as well as rubber bullets, some policemen were using live rounds. Describing the incident, a court later ruled that they were shooting “with the intention to kill the protesters in front of them, who were running away with their backs to [the police]“.

One of those protesters was Maximiliano Kosteki, who, as he turned around to see if the police were still after him, was shot twice in the thigh and once in the chest. He was carried by one of his comrades to the Avellaneda train station and left there, fighting for his life.

At about 12.40pm, Darío’s group was retreating when he suddenly decided to go back towards the train station, where he knew some protesters were being ambushed by the police. When he saw Maxi lying on the floor in the station hall, he leaned over him to try and help him, yelling at everyone else, including his girlfriend and his brother, to leave as the police were entering the station.

When superintendent Fanchiotti and his underling, corporal Alejandro Acosta, entered the train station, Darío’s girlfriend and brother managed to run to the platform and jump onto an incoming train. Darío tried to do the same, but as he ran away, he was shot repeatedly in the back, from a distance of 1-2 metres. After, his body was dragged outside by the policemen, who kicked him and demanded that he get up. Maxi’s body was also dragged outside and they were both put onto the back of a pick-up truck and taken away.

‘The Crisis Caused Two New Deaths’

That was the infamous title on the front cover of Clarín newspaper, on the 27th June 2002. Not Fanchiotti, not Acosta, not the police or president Duhalde, but “the crisis”.

Immediately after the events, the government tried to blame the deaths on the piqueteros, claiming that it had all been the result of a fight amongst different factions of the movement. The mainstream media played its role by spreading this information, even against their own photographic evidence, which clearly showed the police attack.

The claim did not last and soon enough it was dropped. The evidence against the police was overwhelming, as it became clear during the trial, which started in May 2005. The photographs and film recordings taken by the press on the day played a key role and in January 2006, Fanchiotti and Acosta were both sentenced to life in prison for the murders. Seven other policemen were convicted for attempted murder and five for obstruction of justice.

Graffiti in Rosario of Darío and Maxi (Photo: Pablo D. Flores)

“We are now going after Duhalde and all those who were politically responsable [for the murders]!” Alberto Santillán, Darío’s father, yelled as he heard the verdict. Ten years later, no one else has faced trial for the Avellaneda massacre, as it came to be known.

There were, however, political consequences. One week after the deaths of Maxi and Darío, president Duhalde called for early elections, to be held in May 2003 -instead of October. The tragedy put an end to his hopes for reelection, and Duhalde’s political career has been in decline ever since.

The new government, led by Néstor Kirchner, took a different approach to dealing with piqueteros. Shortly after taking office, Kirchner met with delegates from the piquetero movement, who found the president’s attitude positive, as he had considered them “legitimate interlocutors of the social problem”. It is also believed that the Avellaneda massacre, and its political fallout, influenced the Kirchnerist governments’ stand on police repression; since 2004, federal police (managed by the national government) have not been allowed to use firearms to contain social protests.

This practice, however, has not spread to other, provincial police forces around the country, as evidenced by continuing reports of violent repression and murder. Away from the capital, unfortunately, the lessons from the atrocious murders of Maxi and Darío seem to have gone unnoticed.

The story of Darío Santillán mirrors that of many victims of the economic policies of neoliberalism in Argentina. For many of those who grew up in the 1990s, the future was filled with uncertainty. Abandoned to their fate in the impoverished suburbs of the big cities, few could see light at the end of the tunnel.

However, in a decade that came to be known for its rejection of everything political and for a heightened sense of individualism, there were people who chose collective action over individual despair. Darío Santillán was one of them.

Interview with Mariano Pacheco (Photo: Natasha Ali)

Telling Darío’s Story

Darío’s story usually begins where it ends. His name entered the public conscience exactly ten years ago, on the 26th June 2002, when he was murdered by the Buenos Aires police, at the age of 21. As part of a piquetero movement, he was participating in a protest demanding better living conditions at the peak of the social and economic crisis. The protesters were ambushed by the police and in the repression that followed two of them were killed: Darío Santillán and Maximiliano Kosteki (universally known as Maxi and Darío).

Darío’s death speaks volumes about his life. Not only because he died fighting for the cause to which he was deeply devoted. But also because he showed commitment to the values he defended -solidarity, sense of community, camaraderie – until the very end. Whilst everyone else was running for their lives, Darío decided to face the lethal fire and risk his life to aid a dying Maxi.

Darío has become a symbol of social and political struggle. Always alive in the memory of his fellow activists, the tenth anniversary of his death became a timely excuse for the release of a book about his life, ‘Darío Santillán: El militante que puso el cuerpo’.

How to make the extraordinary shine through the ordinary? How to single out an individual when he fought for the values of the community? How to emphasise the heroic acts of a person when you know too well that there is no such thing as heroes, only hard workers? Those were some of the dilemmas faced by the writers.

Mariano Pacheco, one of the authors of the book, which he describes as a “political biography”, explains that one of the main premises of the book was to avoid portraying Darío as an exceptional being. “Darío’s experience happens within a collective frame, it doesn’t make sense to make him stand out or to create an exceptional figure, which he wasn’t. He did have some prominent features, like many others.”

Pacheco is more than a biographer. He was friends with Darío since they were both teenagers growing up in the lower-middle class suburbs of the Greater Buenos Aires, and he shared many of his political experiences. It was thanks to him that Darío came in contact with political activism and in 1998, at the age of 17, got involved in his school’s student union.

The Piquetero Experience

The second half of the 1990s witnessed the development of alternative ways of political organisation, the most notable of which were the piquetero movements.

Unlike the very first piquetero experiences of 1997/98 in the oil provinces of Salta and Neuquén, where many protesters had been members of the strong YPF workers’ unions, those in the province of Buenos Aires achieved what for many was impossible: to organise groups of unemployed workers without recent unionist experience. “The traditional parties, the left-wing parties, the sociologists in academia; they all said that it wasn’t possible to organise that social sector. Yet it was organised and it had much political and cultural productivity,” says Pacheco. This also meant that the Buenos Aires piqueteros did not inherit certain habits from traditional unionism, and leaned towards more horizontal organisational structures.

Book cover of 'Darío Santillán: el militante que puso el cuerpo'

This was the type of organisation where Darío cut his teeth politically. He helped organise the unemployed workers’ movement (MTD, after its name in Spanish) in his southern suburb of Don Orione, a life-changing experience not only for him, but for everyone involved. The MTD carried out political activities, such as road blocks and negotiations with the government in order to obtain welfare funds, as well as social activities like a community wardrobe. But primarily, the MTD had an important impact in terms of social cohesion. The neighbourhood became a true community, where those who had lost their job could engage in productive activities and, above all, share their experience with people in the same situation.

Darío dedicated the last couple of years of his life to tirelessly work for the MTD. His commitment was such, that in 2001 he moved from Don Orione to the extremely precarious neighbourhood of La Fe, also in the southern Greater Buenos Aires. He swapped the relative comfort of his family apartment for a squat, and continued his political activism with the poorest of the poor.

Despite the importance that he placed on his political activities, Pacheco insists that one of the premises of the book was to show that Darío was also a regular guy with multiple interests. “We wanted to talk about his political experience,” he says, “but we didn’t just want to leave it at that. Many people see militants as robots, as guys who only care about their organisations, when there is also something much more rich, related to cultural interests, to other kinds of feelings that have to do with the life experience of a person, and we were very interested in emphasising that.”

The Avellaneda Massacre and its Aftermath

The piquetero groups became famous because of their methodology of blocking major roads in order to force negotiations with the government and obtain benefits such as welfare plans for the unemployed. However, that was only their most visible face, the most urgent of their demands, and often there was much more to them. Not only did they have an important social role in their neighbourhoods, but they also developed a political outlook.

Pacheco explains that the political side of the piqueteros was expressed through their horizontal organisational structure and, mainly, through education. Their aim was to train a new generation of activists, and to promote political education. This was an area that Darío was particularly interested in, and one that he helped develop during his time at La Fe. Whilst he had become an avid reader, especially keen on Che Guevara’s diaries, he did not think of education simply in terms of books. The MTD placed great importance in encouraging debate, and inciting people to think and speak for themselves.

Poster for the 10th Anniversary (courtesy of Frente Popular de Darìo Santillán)

By June 2002, Darío was living in La Fe. It was a politically intense period, hot on the heels of the December 2001 riots and president Fernando De la Rúa’s resignation. At this time, the MTD’s immediate concerns regarding welfare, as well as their longer-term debates on education, gave way to some very urgent political interventions. As the traditional political system disintegrated, the piqueteros were suddenly at the forefront of the political scene, together with the middle class ‘citizens’ assemblies’.

The failed blockage of the Puente Pueyrredón bridge in which Maxi and Darío were killed, was part of a massive nation-wide demonstration. The government’s reaction to it, and the threats previous to the protest, highlighted its importance.

In the short term, the murders of Maxi and Darío contributed to the demise of then-president Eduardo Duhalde’s government. But ten years later, some longer term consequences of the so-called Avellaneda massacre can also be appreciated. Pacheco sees the events of the 26th June 2002 as both an end and a beginning. On one hand, they marked the limits of the increasing political radicalisation within the popular classes, and of the use of political violence. On the other, they produced a long-lasting political change, by making it clear that repression is not a sustainable way to hold on to power. “De la Rúa left in a helicopter, Duhalde brought the election forward and Kirchner took office saying ‘I won’t suppress social protest’”, Pacheco points out.

Symbolically, it is not just Darío’s life and his death that have become icons of resistance, but also the struggle of his and Maxi’s families, friends, and political organisations to bring justice in a country where cases like this are too often left unpunished. Thanks to the tireless mobilisations and public pressure, those responsible for the deaths of Maxi and Darío were convicted for their crimes.

The posters announcing the activities to mark the tenth anniversary of the massacre, however, point out at what still is the main unresolved issue: punishment for those politically responsible for the murders.

Once again after ten years, the social organisations will meet up at the Avellaneda train station -renamed ‘Maxi and Darío station’- to demand the end of impunity for those who hold the maximum responsibility for their deaths. They will also remember the example of these two ordinary, extraordinary young people as they invoke their memory through the mantra: ¡Maxi y Darío: presentes!