Argentine Rioting Subsides; Emergency Laws Enacted

A wave of food riots began to subside Wednesday as the government set up emergency soup kitchens and handed out rations of essentials, but growing shortages of food and cash raised the specter of renewed conflict.

Police reported that a few supermarkets were sacked and that officers clashed with mobs in a few poor areas, but the disorder was on a far lesser scale than on Monday and Tuesday, when several hundred stores were ransacked.

In some areas, shopkeepers gave away their stock to avoid being attacked, but elsewhere owners defended their stores with firearms, in three instances reportedly killing would-be looters in the Buenos Aires suburb of Moreno. Crowds roved some areas armed with sticks and guns, demanding food from stores.

Authorities confirmed eight deaths since Sunday, but unofficial accounts put the toll at up to 17, with hundreds wounded in one of the nation’s most serious outbreaks of civil unrest, triggered by hyperinflation that sent prices of basic goods out of reach of most Argentines. More than 2,000 people reportedly have been arrested.

The Congress on Wednesday enacted emergency measures and a package of laws raising taxes and reducing subsidies to provincial industrial programs, designed to cut back a huge government deficit that is seen as a key cause of the inflation, which surged to about 70% for May alone.

Although a high-tension peace returned to most areas, residents warned that none of the emergency measures addressed the basic problems of impossibly high prices and shriveling wages. Banks limited withdrawals and exchange houses stayed closed for lack of currency, leaving people short of cash. Many shops that escaped the pillaging remained shuttered, creating difficulties in obtaining goods in the worst-hit areas of greater Buenos Aires and the city of Rosario.

“We cannot sing a victory song, we can only say that nothing is happening now--not that nothing will happen later,” said Interior Minister Juan Carlos Pugliese, in charge of the security operation.

Bread companies, ordered Tuesday to limit prices, threatened to shut down in protest today and Friday, saying the prices were below their production costs, which would further aggravate growing shortages. The largest commercial organization called on the government for “a greater severity and firmness in stopping the pillage.”

In Rosario, the second-largest city about 165 miles northwest of Buenos Aires, the provincial deputy governor, Antonio Vanrell, told reporters: “The problem now is food. We have problems feeding the 1,000 people in custody--and the security reinforcements.”

President Raul Alfonsin and President-elect Carlos Saul Menem of the Peronist party agreed in a meeting on the need for the 30-day state of siege imposed by Alfonsin on Monday night to restore order.

Menem, elected in a landslide on May 14, said he and Alfonsin did not discuss demands from labor and business leaders that Menem’s inauguration be moved forward from Dec. 10. Many sectors have called for an early transition to end uncertainty and to allow the new government to begin implementing its programs.

Menem disclosed that his economy minister, the most important appointment in the context of the current crisis, will be Miguel Roig, an executive of Bunge & Borg, a grain-exporting conglomerate. The president-elect said he hopes the choice of a business leader will reassure the jittery financial sector.

Throughout the capital Tuesday night, an eerie calm descended as stores, theaters and restaurants closed early and workers raced home, even though there were no reports of incidents within the city. However, many shops stayed open late Wednesday night as owners were emboldened by the returning calm.

The worst of the conflict occurred in the ring of lower-middle-class industrial towns around the capital, such as San Miguel and Moreno, where most of the region’s more than 10 million people live. There, nearly every shop stayed shut all day Wednesday, schools were closed and buses refused to venture into troubled areas.