Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
19
through society , and Argentines took to
the str eets in sometimes violent demon-
strations. De la R úa resigned on D ecem-
ber 20, as Argentina faced the worst
among the young. It had always been seen
as a dance that alleviated pain, and ther e
was mor e than enough of that to go
around.
The country further stabilized by 2003,
with the elections of N estor Kirchner, the
governor of the Province of Santa Cruz in
Patagonia, a province made wealthy by oil
exploration. Kirchner had proven his eco-
nomic savvy b y sending the pr ovince's
investments o verseas just befor e the col-
lapse of the peso . A left-wing P eronist, he
saw many of his friends disappear under
the military regime. He reopened investi-
gations into this dark period in Argentina's
history and also w ent after the most cor-
rupt of Ménem's regime. A consolidator of
power, he and his senator wife—C ristina
Fernandez de Kirchner, became the coun-
try's most impor tant political couple.
Under Kir chner, economic stability
returned, with exports of soy, oil, and meat
pumping the economy , a cheap peso and
an overall global boom meant ther e was a
hungry market for the raw material Argen-
tina pr oduces, especially with China and
other Asian economies. Tourism became
the third-most-important economic sector
under his administration, with many well-
off for eigners deciding to stay and inv est
in property and business.
Yet Kir chner could har dly be called a
reformist and Argentine politics r emained
mired in a myriad of bitter riv alries, exac-
erbated by a weak bureaucratic civil service
and compr omised judiciar y. Corr uption
scandals, such as public works bribes and a
Venezuelan cash-in-suitcase election dona-
tion, failed to dent the president's popular-
ity, buo yed b y a consumer boom and
relative pr osperity. S ure to win a second
term, Kirchner surprised ev erybody when
he put his wife for ward instead and she
won the presidency in October 2007 with
45% of the vote, making her the country's
first elected female leader.
economic crisis of its histor y. A series of
interim go vernments did little to impr ove
the situation, as B uenos Air es began to
default on its international debts. P eronist
President E duardo D uhalde unlocked the
Argentine peso from the dollar on January 1,
2002, and the curr ency's v alue quickly
tumbled. Within a fe w months, sev eral
presidents came and w ent in the ensuing
crisis, and sev eral citiz ens died in str eet
protests thr oughout the countr y. The
country's default to the IMF was the larg-
est in history.
Argentina's economic crisis sev erely
eroded the population 's tr ust in the go v-
ernment. I ncreased po verty, unemplo y-
ment surpassing 20%, and inflation hitting
30% r esulted in massiv e emigration to
Italy, S pain, and other destinations in
Europe and North America. Any one who
had the passpor t to do so fled to M iami,
Milan, and M adrid in par ticular.
Piquete-
ros
and
cartoneros,
the pr otestors and the
homeless, became a visible pr esence
throughout Buenos Aires and other large
cities, as the unemplo yed in r ural ar eas
picked garbage for a living. M any of the
protestors, it is claimed, have been paid off
or fomented by various factions in govern-
ment seeking to fur ther destabiliz e the
country and bring visible chaos to the
streets.
Ironically, those who could not flee the
country in the midst of the economic
chaos stay ed behind and built a str onger
nation. While under Ménem, Argentina
idolized E urope and the U nited S tates,
now citizens had to look to their o wn his-
torical and cultural models, the things that
were authentically Argentine. The tango—
long expected to die out as a dance for the
older generation—found ne w enthusiasts
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