Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
come out on the side of the farmers; they staged a large
cacerolazo,
complete with banging of pots and pans, before the Casa Rosada.
However, Fernández had her loyalists as well. The unionized truck
drivers attempted to disrupt the highway blockades of the farmers,
and the
piqueteros
of the
kirchnerista
leader Luis D'Elía persuaded
the protesting housewives to vacate the Plaza de Mayo.
Unmindful of the fact that her voters had come mainly from the
countryside, President Fernández announced that this was a con-
test between the poor city dwellers and the wealthy landowners—a
new twist on the old “civilization versus barbarism” of Domingo F.
Sarmiento. Her case was not helped by what
piquetero
leader D'Elía
told a radio reporter: “I am motivated by visceral hatred of the
f***ing oligarchy. I have no trouble in killing them all” (“Argentine
agricultural protest exposes political difficulties for Fernández”). The
president's popularity took a fall, plunging to 30 percent in public
opinion polls. “We have an enormous historic opportunity to grow
as a country,” said one farmer, “but the government wants to punish
a sector that should continue to be an engine of growth. The world
has opened its doors to us, and here we are fighting among ourselves”
(Barrionuevo). This longest farm strike in history continued off and
on for four months. To make matters worse, Argentine rural produc-
ers were suffering from a prolonged drought.
The farm boycott endangered the solid support that Kirchner and
Fernández had enjoyed among the Peronist governors of the interior
provinces. In the agricultural heartland of Córdoba and Santa Fé, the
two governors backed the farmers. They influenced the other
peroni-
stas
of the interior who were serving in the Senate and Chamber of
Deputies as well. When their Peronist president presented a bill to
the Peronist-dominated congress in order to legislatively confirm the
higher export taxes, both houses defeated the measure. It marked
the first time since the 2001 crises that congress had defied the chief
executive.
Readers may pause at this point and ask,
Hay salida
? Is there
a solution? Once international markets return to robust growth,
Argentina's economy will likely take off once again on the basis of
exports of grains and beef. However, the past decade has shown that
the production of competitive agricultural commodities for foreign
markets will not solve the problem of poverty that now afflicts two-
fifths of the nation's population. Gone, perhaps for good since the
neoliberal reforms of the 1990s, are the factories and industries that
