Violence Erupts as Labor Protests Argentine Austerity

A trade union protest rally against government austerity measures erupted Friday into the worst political violence in Argentina since the restoration of democratic rule in 1983, leaving scores of people wounded.

About 20,000 people who filled the downtown Plaza de Mayo, a block from the presidential palace, Friday were listening to speeches when fighting broke out at the rear of the crowd. Police fired tear gas, water cannon and rubber bullets to break up bands of rock-throwing protesters.

Some demonstrators, wearing masks over their faces, smashed store windows along a central avenue and nearby side streets and set bonfires using looted goods in the hourlong fighting. At least three cars were reportedly set ablaze.

Saul Ubaldini, secretary general of the General Workers Confederation, had to break off his speech as tear gas wafted toward the stage. He chanted, “Argentina, Argentina!” and then fled the plaza with other organizers.

News reports said about 20 police officers and 64 demonstrators were hurt, four of them seriously, and 17 people were arrested.

The rally was the culmination of the 12th general strike against the economic policies of President Raul Alfonsin, who took office in December, 1983, after seven years of military rule.

It was the first major violence since a similar one-day strike in March, 1982, during the military dictatorship, and political leaders were sensitive to its potential political impact.

The opposition Peronists had backed the eight-hour strike, but their candidate for president in the May, 1989, election, Carlos Menem, decided earlier Friday not to attend the rally, fearing he would be too closely identified with the militant trade unions. He said that he was staying away because “I plan to be the president of all Argentines.”

Menem holds a commanding lead over Eduardo Angeloz, the candidate of Alfonsin’s party, the Radical Civic Union. A senior Peronist official who asked not to be identified said after the violence, “With this, we lost 200,000 votes.”

Reports differed on how the conflict began. Most witnesses said rival right- and left-wing Peronist groups started fighting each other, but the labor confederation blamed plainclothes police for provoking the crowd.

Ubaldini denounced “a repression worse than that by (Gen. Augusto) Pinochet in Chile.” He announced a 24-hour strike on Monday to protest the police action. Some Peronist politicians acknowledged that there had been skirmishes in the crowd but said police overreacted.

Federal Police Commissioner Juan A. Pirker said the police response was “necessary, prudent and correct.”

The rally and strike were called to galvanize public opposition to Alfonsin’s anti-inflation campaign, launched in early August. The program includes voluntary price controls, higher transport and utility charges and austerity measures to rein in inflation of 53% over the past two months alone.

The unions and the Peronists say the program erodes workers’ buying power, which has plunged since Alfonsin took office. Alfonsin has said the plan will bring down inflation sharply starting this month, benefiting all Argentines.

Interior Minister Enrique Nosiglia blamed the violence on “groups attempting to destabilize democracy (and) to break the co-existence among political forces in Argentina achieved in recent years.”