Argentina-President lashes out at Farmers
ARGENTINA-PRESIDENT LASHES OUT AT FARMERS.
President Cristina Fernández de Kirchner lashed out at striking farmers yesterday, saying they were more active now than under dictatorial and other democratic governments. The President, on the same day the Argentine Agrarian Federation staged a protest rally in Santa Fe province and vowed to continue with protests, went even further and said the seven strikes staged by farmers in 2008 had been "savage."
Upping the stakes in her struggle with the farmers, Fernández de Kirchner said some sectors of society had failed to strike "when there was a dictatorship, nor when civil servants’ wages were trimmed or the state clamped down on private bank accounts through the so-called corralito (freeze on bank deposits).
At a ceremony during which she acted as godmother of an environmentally-friendly fishing trawler being christened at the local port, the President told maritime union workers led by CGT boss Hugo Moyano that the reason why some had now gone on strike was because "we have a national government of the people."
Fernández praised workers "who continue to shoulder the country throughout the crisis without giving up individual rights to voice demands." Also she said no one should be horrified by debate and the exchange of ideas.
"The thing is to be able to draw the line", she noted, "that preserves democracy and democratic institutions, individual rights, the right to work and to freely move around the country."
But, she stressed, "there are a few sectors who failed to strike when there was no democracy, when civil servants’ salaries were being trimmed nor when private deposits were frozen. Instead, they’re striking now."
Defending her track record of political activity, the President concluded that "I wasn’t immersed in politics for 35 years just to arrive at this position, the highest honour ever for a woman dedicated to politics, and then throw all that overboard by turning my back on the ideas I have advocated all my life. I shall stand by this committment."
But the Argentine Agrarian Federation leader, Eduardo Buzzi, quickly fired back. Addressing a crowd of farmers, shop owners, steel workers and neighbours in and around Armstrong, Santa Fe province, Buzzi said he was "afraid the President is misinformed". The Agrarian Federation, he retorted, "has had its share of exiles, people persecuted, those who had a very rough ride. I just wonder where she was in 1981 and 1982 when we were demanding the return of democracy."
Buzzi further announced that the farmers’ strike would end today. A new meeting of the Farming Liaison Committee to discuss future steps has been scheduled for this morning. But, he warned, protest measures are bound to continue unless the government addresses farmers’ demands for lower grain export duties although "roadblocks must not to be abused."
Buzzi’s rally had gathered a modest attendance. Reports from Armstrong last night said several farming businessmen who would not go on the record had been "persuaded" by Trade Secretary Guillermo Moreno not to show up.
Moreno reportedly had made appointements to meet with the businessmen next week. Referring to those farmers who ultimately attended, Buzzi sentenced "they dared to show up because we do not want to depend on a check-book."
Former president Néstor Kirchner, speaking at a rally in Greater Buenos Aires, called the farmers "coup-mongerers." Once again he defended the export duties.
Elsewhere in Argentina, Alfredo De Ángeli, the powerful leader of the Entre Ríos chapter of the Agrarian Federation, expressed dismay at Buenos Aires City Mayor Mauricio Macri’s acceptance of soybean export duty funds through revenue sharing. The money the city would thus cash, he noted angrily, "is not revenue tax." Macri is the leader of the opposition centre-right party PRO.
Farmers are into their sixth day of protests and roadblocks. De Ángeli hit out at the government once again, charging the latter was "seeking to have farmers, truck drivers and other sectors of society clash head-on". The roads where rural protests are taking place, however, remain largely unguarded by the Border Guard but farmers, De Ángeli explained, "are trying to preserve social peace by ourselves."
Passage through those routes however remains unaltered, De Ángeli said: "Even though there will always be someone marking prices up on the excuse that there’s a strike, we’re standing on the sides of the roads not lying across these."
De Ángeli also lashed out at Entre Ríos governor Sergio Urribarri once again, saying he was "a traitor and a puppet" of the national government. "First he denied the provincial police was camouflaged as members of the fruit haversters’ union, then he has regaled the central government with Entre Ríos
