Argentine farmers’ organizations have vowed to start another phase of a strike that had begun over a new export tariff and dealt a heavy blow to the country’s economy. The work stoppage that has already lasted for nearly 100 days and caused food shortages in various Argentine cities will now continue until Wednesday, farmers leaders said late on Saturday. But this time, strike leaders stopped short of calling for restoring road blockades.
“We are not calling for a blockade,” Eduardo Buzzi, one of the strike leaders told reporters. “We want only to control the cargo transported by trucks.”
At the same time, Buzzi blasted the arrest of 19 farmers and said the unions would hold a national day of action on Wednesday to protest their detention.
“We’re keeping the protest alive. We don’t want to overturn the government. We want a democratic, federal and republican country,” another farm movement leader, Alfredo De Angeli, told a group of followers after he was released late on Saturday in eastern Entre Rios Province.
The stoppage over a tariff hike for soybean exports largely ended last week after strike leaders accepted a confidential deal with Argentine President Cristina Kirchner’s government and promised to resume grain and livestock sales today.
Some non-union activists, however, warned they would continue the strike action because the government still had not committed to opening negotiations.
Tension rose on Saturday when police tried to clear roadblocks, especially on Route 14 linking Argentina, Uruguay, Brazil and Paraguay, where De Angeli and 18 fellow protesters were arrested.
News of the arrests drove thousands of protesters to reinforce existing roadblocks, including on Route 14, while others launched a pot-banging demonstration outside the presidential offices in Buenos Aires.
De Angeli and the other detainees were released a few hours later pending hearings on charges of disrupting traffic, police said.
The continuing roadblocks, also manned by truck drivers angry at losing business during the strike, are threatening to cause food shortages in stores around the country.
The government late on Saturday hardened its stance against the strikers, with Chief of Staff Alberto Fernandez calling the roadblocks illegal.
“The roadblocks that are keeping food from peoples’ tables ... are unconstitutional,” he said.
On the other hand, he added, the government “is protected by the Constitution, which establishes the right to tax exports.”
Kirchner’s government has pushed ahead with the tax despite protests by the farmers.
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