Rallies in Buenos Aires

Today the Senate is going to start discussing the export tax bill, which, as you will remember, were approved by the Chamber of Deputies by a difference of only seven votes. Although the Peronist majority in the Senate is even greater than in the lower house, senators are much more committed to their local constituencies. A significant number of Peronist senators are voting no to the government-sponsored bill. Only one or two votes decided at the last minute might make all the difference, and it's entirely possible that there's a tie — in which case the president of the Senate, Vice-president Julio Cobos, will have to break it.

Both Kirchners (the formal president, Cristina, and the de facto one, Néstor) and their high-profile ministers have been wooing the senators, pressuring them, threatening them, to get votes. The end result we'll only see later today, or tomorrow.

The farmers' organizations and the national government are organizing parallel rallies for today in Buenos Aires. The farmers want to (but probably won't) repeat the numeric performance of the May 25 meeting in Rosario, and the government wants to do better than the farmers. Néstor Kirchner has the mob-like truck drivers' union on his side, plus the Peronist Youth and a few other useful idiot clubs, to provide him with a lot of screaming fans, and the farmers have received the support of a true Prince of Sleaze, the leader of the Gastronómicos (the bar and restaurant workers' union).

It's all pretty stupid if you ask me. And divisive, and dangerous. The rallies are basically a bragging competition and won't serve any purpose. Néstor Kirchner is simply unable to stay quiet and hope for the best, and his hateful insolence is contagious. And the farmers must know that this is it, that they're not going to change anybody's mind now, because this has long ago ceased to be about taxes. It's all about ideology and people's conceptions of what government must handle power.

I believe that Kirchnerism is fascism, just as old-time Peronism was — corporatist, demagogical, perversely fusing patriotism with partisan loyalty, corrupt to its very dark core by its own nature. It must be brought down, by legitimate means, because it's wrecking the economy and destroying our dignity.

I don't believe for one second that this is the worst government we might have had at this time. Neither do I believe that the wealthy farmers would choose a better government (better for us) if they had the opportunity.

But the thing I believe the least is that we must somehow choose either populism or oligarchy, and violently reject the possibility of alternatives, the possibility of dialogue and compromise. I'd rather have no rival rallies hurling abuse at each other, no passionate masses in the public squares, no more demonstrations. Not for a while, at least. We'll have to do a lot of cleaning up, as a people, after this.

Cacerolazo, and then?

I had a tiring, satisfactory long weekend. Friday night, Marisa and I went to see a series of five episodes filmed by a local producer. On Saturday, I attended the unveiling of Che Guevara's statue (Marisa stayed home because she wasn't feeling well). Sunday was Father's Day, so we went to my place to have lunch with my parents, then we left for a recital that served as the closing for Guevara's 80th birthday celebrations, and after that, we marched on to Marisa's folks' home to have dinner with her parents and the families of her brother and one of her cousins. Monday morning, we woke up early to do an architectonic photo tour downtown; right after noon I left for a friend's house to have an asado.

I was still there when, at 5:30 PM, I received a mass SMS calling people to turn off the lights for 15 minutes at 8 PM and then start a cacerolazo against the government. I didn't pay attention to it. I was too tired to think of protesting anything, I was stuffed full and it was cold. Besides, I didn't think anybody would attend. I got back home at around 7 PM, and one hour later I was proven terribly wrong.

I was exhilarated. On edge. Finally! I only wished I could've been there. People were banging pots and pans or honking their horns or simply out on the streets singing or waving flags, disorganized but not incoherent. Thousands (some say 10,000, some say 40,000 or more) in Rosario around the Flag Memorial, many thousands also in several parts of Córdoba City, thousands in Buenos Aires near the Obelisk and also in Olivos, in front of the presidential residence, where the previous night a small group of demonstrators had been forced to leave by a group of government-paid thugs. And in La Plata, Posadas, Catamarca, Santa Cruz, San Rafael and Mendoza City, Chaco, in the larger cities and the towns of the deep countryside and even the places dominated by Kirchnerist administrations. Some were asking for the President to leave; most demanded that she act — do what must be done to put the country back on track, and send the First Gentleman back to where he belongs.

The hardcore Kirchnerists are in the latest stages of paranoia and denial, seeing coups and destabilization and conspiracies everywhere. Luis D'Elía even called people to take up arms in defence of the government. But the rest of the K people are cautiously stepping back from the mad leader.

Yesterday, vice-president Julio Cobos asked for Congress to intervene and discuss, exactly what should've been done to begin with, and just the kind of consensus-based, non-coercive process Néstor K abhors. Several loyal governors suddenly announced they wouldn't attend the government rally planned for Wednesday at Plaza de Mayo in Buenos Aires. Many long-time Peronists showed their disgust for D'Elía's manners. The K Radicals supported their leader, the vice-president. Here in Santa Fe, governor Hermes Binner put it succintly: "This way of governing is coming to an end."

Today the President broadcast one more of her venom-filled speeches, comparing the downfall of Perón in 1955 to what is supposedly being done to her..., and then, she said that, just to please the ungrateful and the ever-discontent and show her respect for the law, she would submit the export taxes to the approval of Congress. It took her 45 minutes of badly doctored speech to acknowledge that she'd been forced to take a step back.

Now Kirchnerism has an automatic majority in Congress. But it's not the monolithic front it used to be. Even if the retenciones pass the legislative filter, it will cost (we hope) several politicians their post in the near future. You'll have to think for yourself and decide, ladies and gentlemen — and then face the consequences when you go back home to your constituencies asking for their vote.

We interrupt this story...

... to bring you the latest news. We'll return to the chronicle of my vacations soon, but in the meantime, a march against the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), its largest guerrilla group, took place in Rosario yesterday, February 4. Your host was there, doing some photojournalism at the request of Cristián, a fellow photographer and one of the organizers. I was given a Colombian flag ribbon and balloons of the same colours (yellow, blue, and red).

The FARC are the de facto rulers of a significant part of Colombian territory, and they've been responsible for thousands of kidnappings and many political assassinations in the last ten years. They're considered terrorists by most of the civilized world, as well as by the United States, though not by Brazil or Venezuela. They're known to fund their activities through illegal drugs and weapons dealing.

The march was one of many organized by grassroots groups in Colombia and throughout the world. In Rosario, it was attended by a small but determined group of Colombian immigrants, their families and friends, and other sympathizers of the cause. It went from Plaza Pringles to Plaza 25 de Mayo along Córdoba St., and finished on the courtyard of the Flag Memorial.

The march was completely peaceful, even when faced with a group of vociferous demonstrators who cheered for "Fidel [Castro], el Che [Guevara], [Hugo] Chávez and Evo [Morales]" and accused U.S. puppet Colombian president Álvaro Uribe of being a "fascist". Uribe tolerates paramilitary groups that are terrorists as much as the FARC, and adheres to the ridiculous "War on Drugs" and "War on Terror" conceptions of the U.S. government and G. W. Bush. For any sensible person who doesn't condone terrorism, of course, this doesn't mean that the FARC are OK just because they oppose Uribe's government and (somehow) Bush's foreign policy — sometimes the enemy of your enemy is not your friend, and sympathy with guerrillas who kidnap, torture and hold people in inhumane conditions for years in the jungle cannot be tolerated. (I'm explaining this simple fact because there are people who seem unable to understand it.)

I took a lot of pictures and a few videos. My girlfriend Marisa took a lot of pictures of her own as well, as did Cristián. * At the end the flags of Argentina and Colombia were flown, and their national anthems were sung. There was a speech and a prayer, and then the demonstrators gave people the rest of the pamphlets they'd brought to inform the public about the march. Marisa and I gave away our balloons to happy children, and went to see the sun go down beside the river.

*Links to my videos (Google Video): Video 1 Video 2 Video 3 Video 4. Marisa's photos: Contra las FARC.Cristián's photos: No más FARC.