Argentina teetered on the brink of economic collapse after anti-government protests and looting prompted the president to declare a state of siege and the powerful economy minister to resign. Six-teen people died in violence that extended into a second day yesterday with new protests outside the seat of power.
More than 200 demonstrators, some beating drums and waving the Argentine flag, chanted anti-government slogans outside the president's offices in downtown Plaza de Mayo. Riot police then swept across the square, detaining at least seven of the protesters who were dragged to police vans, some kicking and resisting.
Noisy protests continued to grow in downtown Buenos Aires as Argentines, angry over the steps taken by President Fernando de la Rua to quell widespread social unrest, defiantly gathered on street corners and motorists honked horns in condemnation of his administration.
PHOTO: REUTERS
Banks and businesses reopened yesterday and people went to work. But many small shops remained shuttered.
Domingo Cavallo, the economy minister widely blamed for failing to halt the nation's slide into economic ruin, tendered his resignation earlier yesterday.
The state news agency TELAM said De la Rua had accepted the resignation. It would be the third time an Argentine economy
minister has quit this year alone.
"We're fed up with corruption, hunger and the poverty we're living in," said Ana Arce, a 75-year-old doctor, outside the government house late Wednesday. "I think that if they don't go, the people will kick them out."
Unemployment has topped 18 percent in South America's second-largest economy. Mired in a four-year recession, the nation is near default on its staggering US$132 billion public debt.
On Wednesday, thousands of Argentines looted stores and supermarkets in poor neighbor-hoods, saying they were going hungry. Riot police responded with tear gas and rubber bullets. The violence left nine dead and at least 109 injured. Police made 328 arrests.
"This is not our fault, this is the government's fault, the president's and Cavallo's," said Sandra Guttierez, a 28-year-old unemployed mother of two, who left one ransacked supermarket loaded with bags of food Wednesday. "We feel we've got no future, for us or for our kids."
Austerity measures introduced by Cavallo, including a partial freeze on bank withdrawals designed to prop up the financial system, have sparked widespread anger, especially in poorer areas.
In a televised address Wednesday night, De la Rua said he was imposing a 30-day state of siege to guarantee order. "I urge those who are exercising violence to cease such acts," De la Rua said. "With violence and illegality, we will not solve our problems."
Wednesday's decree marked the first time in 11 years an Argentine president has seized special powers that effectively grant security forces greater powers of arrest and allow them to ban public gatherings.
Such measures were last used by Carlos Menem -- De la Rua's Peronist predecessor -- in 1990 to quash an uprising by a right-wing anti-democratic militia group. A year earlier, a state of siege failed to stop widespread looting and social chaos that eventually forced then-president Raul Alfonsin out of office.
But De la Rua's emergency measures only provoked more anger. As the protests swelled around Government House where the Cabinet was meeting, the government's future appeared to hang in the balance.
The economy has nosedived during De la Rua's two years in office. His government has tried to fix the economy with nine different economic plans and has faced eight general strikes.
Until Tuesday, Cavallo had been working on pushing a belt-tightening 2002 budget through Congress and staving off a default on Argentina's staggering debt.
Agreement on the budget is seen as key in persuading the IMF to release US$1.3 billion of emergency funds needed to keep up payments on Argentina's debt.
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