Argentina celebrates Bicentennial amid repression and recession.
Argentina today celebrates 200 years since the United Provinces of the Río de la Plata, under the Directorate led by members of the Lautaro Masonic lodge, declared independence from Spain.
President Mauricio Macri is scheduled to lead the official Bicentennial ceremony in the northwestern city of San Miguel de Tucumán, where independence was signed.
Macri has come under fire, however, for refusing to invite any of the six living constitutional former presidents while instead inviting the former King of Spain, Juan Carlos. His Finance Minister, Alfonso Prat-Gay, created a similar controversy last month by publicly apologizing to a meeting of Spanish CEOs in Madrid - including some whose companies had nearly bankrupted a number of privatized Argentine firms a decade earlier.
The ceremony itself has also become a point of contention in what should have been a festive day. Tucumán's Independence Square will, unlike previous Independence Day celebrations, be cordoned off with barriers and a detachment of Gendarmes (military police), who were ordered to strip the square's many orange trees of any oranges for fear they be hurled against Macri himself.
Such an incident took place in 1996 against far-right Governor Antonio Bussi, whose spending cuts caused widespread hardship in Tucumán (one of the country's poorest provinces); Bussi's son, Ricardo, endorsed Macri last year.
As in Bussi's case, much of the discontent facing Macri has to do with a severe recession caused by austerity policies enacted since he took office seven months ago - often by decree. These include a 40% devaluation in one day, as well as subsidy cuts that have more than doubled public transport fares and raised utility rates by over 300%.
These policies - which contradict reiterated campaign promises - have earned Macri plaudits from the IMF, the U.S. Ambassador, and local right-wingers such as former Economy Minister Domingo Cavallo (whose fire-sale privatizations and reliance on fickle speculative capital led to massive unemployment, foreign debt, and ultimately the 2001 collapse).
They have also triggered the deepest recession since 2002, including a collapse in construction activity and consumer sentiment, a 10% fall in real retail sales, 5 million more in poverty, a wave of small-business bankruptcies, an estimated 167,000 jobs lost, and an inflation rate of 45% - the highest in a generation - with little to show by way of foreign investment or local business investment (both of which are down). Banking profits are up by 80% (in peso terms); but according to the CAME business chamber, 60% of medium businesses are now in the red.
The Macri administration, meanwhile, has responded by using allied governors and judges to persecute the opposition - particularly those associated with his populist predecessor, former President Cristina Fernández de Kirchner.
The few media outfits opposed to Macri find themselves in dire straits. Critical journalists have been sacked, and opposition newspapers, radio stations, and political offices attacked with perpetrators often evading arrest (one is known to be in the U.S.). The largest media conglomerate, the Clarín Group, has now been given a green light to pursue its goal of near-monopoly control over the nation's media and communications services, so it’s no surprise that such attacks and bomb threats against human rights organizations have gone almost unnoticed. Demonstrations against the government have likewise been ignored, as have massive layoffs.
Corporate media thus protects Macri in conjunction with sectors of the judiciary who, under the banner of denouncing “corruption,” seek to intimidate and, if possible, imprison members of the opposition while slow-pedaling cases related to the Panama Papers and other corruption scandals affecting the Macri administration. Some, like the 2014 Iron Mountain warehouse fire that destroyed thousands of bank files and killed 10 first responders, date from Macri's tenure as mayor of Buenos Aires.
The head of the Federal Anti-Corruption Office, Laura Alonso, is a hard-line Macri loyalist who acts as a spokesperson of the very administration she's tasked with monitoring, while Judge Claudio Bonadío – a close Macri ally with numerous past charges against him of his own, including murder – has repeatedly summoned Mrs. Kirchner to testify in a case stemming from $4 billion in Central Bank losses caused by Macri's own devaluation.
The case became a liability for Macri once records emerged showing that his family and many in his administration profited from these same dollar futures.
The judiciary’s pursuit of Mrs. Kirchner should be viewed within a broader pattern, most notably the arrest without charges - and ongoing imprisonment for six months with no proof - of indigenous activist Milagro Sala in Jujuy Province, where even her defense lawyer has been threatened with legal action. These judges, serving the interests of ruling politicians and the media, appear to share a common goal: to see opposition leaders behind bars.
The UN Committee for Human Rights has announced that a fact-finding mission will arrive this month in Argentina, and that they intend to question Macri officials over deteriorating political and human rights conditions. Among them will be Justice Minister Germán Garavano, was was reveled to have held secret talks in April with Argentina's leading Dirty War apologist, Cecilia Pando, over the possibility of freeing some of the over 600 officers convicted during the Kirchner era of human rights abuses in the 1970s.
History tends to repeat itself. It's worth noting that at the time of Argentina's Centennial in 1916, World War I had given the agro-exporting elite record profits; but had also led to a 10% drop in GDP, a two-thirds jump in prices, a one-third fall in real wages, a doubling of unemployment to 20%, and increasingly violent efforts by the elite - with tacit state approval - to repress discontent by way of paramilitary gangs like the Patriotic League.
The Argentine Bicentennial thus takes place under the shadow of many of the same obstacles that have faced the country throughout its history.
The poorest of Spain's colonies 200 years ago due to its remoteness and lack of precious metals, Argentina has achieved a number of meaningful accomplishments for its 43 million people - notably the region's highest human development index, median pay, minimum wage, and pensions. Its culture, politics, and press have endured numerous dictatorships to emerge as some of the region's freest and most dynamic.
Its history and current events alike attest to the importance of keeping Argentina a work in progress.
At: https://translate.google.com/translate?hl=en&sl=es&u=http://www.tiempoar.com.ar/articulo/view/57675/el-segundo-semestre-llego-con-recesion-caida-del-consumo-e-inflacion-record&prev=search
And: https://www.opendemocracy.net/democraciaabierta/observatorio-argentino/offshore-democracy-or-argentina-through-looking-glass
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An orange tree for Argentina - and plenty of oranges for Macri.[/center]
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