Thuggery by Partido Obrero in Argentina
DO | 21.09.2002 23:37
Official statement on the detention of one of Democracia
Obrera’s (Workers Democracy’s) national leaders that was
given to the police by leaders of the Workers Party, after their thugs treated him to a beating with sticks during a demonstration.
Obrera’s (Workers Democracy’s) national leaders that was
given to the police by leaders of the Workers Party, after their thugs treated him to a beating with sticks during a demonstration.
Comrades I have corrected this press release to separate the footnotes
properly.
Dave CWGNZ
Buenos Aires, Thursday 12 of September of 2002
Official statement on the detention of one of Democracia
Obrera’s (Workers Democracy’s) national leaders that was
given to the police by leaders of the Workers Party, after their thugs treated him to a beating with sticks during a demonstration.
To all the working-class and anti-imperialist fighters,
To all the left parties and groupings,
To the whole international Trotskyist movement
We communicate that the Assembly of workers of the factory
Brukman Confecciones (factory which is taken and in
production in its workers' hands, against their employer’s
attack, from the beginnings of the Revolución Argentina) have
just pronounced by hand raised and unanimously for the
rejection of the physical attack, the denunciation and the
handing over to the police on the part of the leadership of the
Partido Obrero and of the Polo Obrero (the Movement of
Unemployed Workers led by the PO), of our comrade Juan
Muzzio, national leader of DO (Workers Democracy) and
member of the Coordinator Board organized around Brukman,
in which popular assemblies also participate.
Comrade Muzzio is a very well-known working-class fighter with a
long history in the Argentinean working-class movement, and
he was accompanying the comrade workers of Brukman
during a march summoned in their support by the Coordinator
Board of Fighting Factories.
Moreover the comrade workers of Brukman are summoning to a Press
Conference in the headquarters of the factory, for the 17 hours today (5
p.m., time of Buenos Aires) to make know their rejection and to already
begin a campaign for the unconditional freedom, without any
prosecution, of our comrade.
Many popular assemblies have called for our comrade’s freedom, and
in rejection of the method of hitting fighters of other currents for having
different opinions and of handing over fighters to the police.
For our part, we have called on all the Popular Assemblies and
comisiones internas (directly elected factory committees) of the fighting
factories to go to Brukman to pronounce on this action of the leaders of
the Polo Obrero and the Partido Obrero, which gravely infringes
working-class principles and the relationships among working class
fighters and among revolutionaries.
Also we are receiving international demands for our comrade’s
liberation –together with the rejection of the wretched action of the PO
and the Polo Obrero, from numerous militants and labor and left
organizations from all over the world. Among them, the Grupo Obrero
Trotskista of Chile (that integrates with us the COTP-CI), of Lucha
Marxista of Peru, etc. (the entire list of the adhesions and repudiations
will be published in our press).
The leadership of the PO, through the words of Mr. Pitrola –as could be
seen and listened to by everybody in all media of our country, by
television, radio and Internet, even on the written press-, has said that
Juan “Pico” Muzzio is an “armed police spy” and “an unknown
element.”
The truth is that Pitrola and the leadership of the PO thus demonstrate
that they are simple informers. Because Juan is a widely known and
noted labor fighter that has been shop steward in Bahía Blanca's
Petrochemical Pole(1) between 1984-87 (2) ; shop steward in SADE (a
big construction company) in La Plata (3) in 1987-88. He was the
outstanding leader of the rebellion of Sevel (4) in 1994 that was the first
to rise up against the menemismo and Macri’ holding abusive
exploiters. For this reason during that fight he and his family were
pursued (judicially and with threats and aggressions, by thugs and by
the police) by Macri and the bureaucracy of Curto’s UOM (5).
As national leader of Democracia Obrera he headed the support to the
picketers of the North of Salta (6) and today he takes a part in the
Coordinator Board in Support of Brukman. He has participated in
numerous congresses and fighters' Assemblies in the last times, among
them of the congress of Unemployed Workers summoned in February
16 and 17 by the Bloquepiquetero.
For that reason there is no way the Partido Obrero and those Messrs.
Pitrola and Altamira can allege that Juan was a “police spy”, a
“provocateur” and “an unknown troublemaker”.
From Workers' Democracy we have insisted many times over about two
years when the PO comes trying to create the conditions to annihilate
the Trotskyists, that we are opposed implacably to their capitulations
and their bureaucratic methods. Now, with this step that breaks all the
class limits, it has already made clear the total bankruptcy of this
organization and their thorough submission to the bourgeois State.
Therefore we denounce
* That (as he has appeared showing the face and with his own voice,
in the oral, written, televised and on-line media of Argentina) Mr. Pitrola
has announced that he informs the police that our comrade Juan
Muzzio as “police spy” “provocateur”, and “unknown element.”
* That the same police head whose troops had detained our comrade,
affirmed and afterwards ratified in answer to specific questions of the
same media, that they acted following the accusation of Mr. Pitrola
(leader of the Polo Obrero and of the Partido Obrero).
* That previously to handing him down to the police with visible
woundings and bleeding in the head, the “security” guard (security
against those that think different!) of the Polo Obrero and of the Partido
Obrero beat savagely our comrade with their sticks, pulling him up by
force and by means of blows of the same sticks, of Brukman workers'
hands and of a group of comrades belonging to popular assemblies
and commissions of unemployed, members of the Coordinator Board in
support to Brukman, amid whom comrade Muzzio was walking. That
these events were also denounced by those comrades loudly before
the microphones and cameras of the media covering the march.
* That comrade Muzzio went through some sutures in several parts of
his head and is at present with skull and face traumatisms and under
strong medication, to heal the lesions he suffered. Until the moment of
the emission of this official statement, he is still detained in the facilities
of the Superintendencia de Investigaciones (Chief Searchings Office)
of the Policía Federal Argentina (Federal Police) and under federal
prosecution.
From Democracia Obrera we call to all working class and popular
organizations to reject this police informing on the part of leadership of
the Partido Obrero and of the Polo Obrero, and we reaffirm the
principle that political differences among labor organizations ought not
be settled by breaking heads, and much less by the handing over of
fighters to the police.
To stop this attack to the working class fighters, we summon them to
put in place an international tribunal of Honor in the Argentina, in order
to condemn on behalf of the workers in fight, one of the worst and more
dangerous crimes with which [the treacherous leaderships] want to
defeat us: forming a true fifth column to defeat from inside the working
class movement and the revolutionary struggle, acting as informers and
agents of the bourgeois State in the ranks of the proletariat.
National Leadership of LOI-CI/ Democracia Obrera
(International Workers League-Fourth
International/Workers Democracy)
Notes
(1) Important port and industrial pole in the south of Buenos Aires
province which has a militant class-struggle tradition from the 19th
Century. Now it has one of the highest percentages of unemployment in
the country, more than 30% by official figures.
(2)The dates mentioned here and in the subsequent cases refer to
exceptional –and well known by the left fighters-- periods of class
struggle in each factory or enterprise.
(3) Capital city of Buenos Aires Province, also a port and important
industrial pole and shipyards location near the Federal Capital, Buenos
Aires City. One of the places where the fascist military’s repression was
particularly enraged in the 70’s and early 80’s.
(4) Carmaker, a franchise of Renault and Fiat employing thousands of
worker with the Japan-styled “self-motivated group-production” ultra- exploitative method, in the satellite town of San Martin, Great Buenos
Aires. Its owner is Francisco Macri, one of the stars of Menem’s
administrations (1989/1995; 1995/1999).
(5) UOM = Union Obrera Metalúrgica (National Metallurgical Workers
Union), one of the most powerful –and bureaucratized—unions,
dominated by the Peronistas. Curto is one of its most hated leaders,
“partner” to Lorenzo Miguel (the legendary and “maffiosi” head of the
UOM), and head of San Martín Union “Seccional “ (Local). L. Miguel
and “his men” are said to be the backbone or at least close associates
of the “Triple A”, the fascist death-squads responsible, with the fascist
military, of the more than 30,000 “desaparecidos” and thousands of
deaths under the last Peron-Peron administration and afterwards,
under the last military dictatorship.
(6) In the days of 2001 when they were attacked with guns, tanks and
tear gasses by the gendarmerie. He was personally there to support the
comrades, when the picketers asked for help, and had had some four
dead and dozens of wounded. Meanwhile Mr. Altamira was
campaigning for the October elections, never mentioning the struggle, a
true “intifada” that pre-anounced the uprising of December.
-----------------------------
STATEMENT OF WOKERS' DEMOCRACY (DEMOCRACIA OBRERA)
Comrades I have corrected this press release to separate the footnotes
properly.
Dave
CWGNZ
------
Buenos Aires, Thursday 12 of September of 2002
Official statement on the detention of one of Democracia
Obrera’s (Workers Democracy’s) national leaders that was
given to the police by leaders of the Workers Party, after their thugs treated him to a beating with sticks during a demonstration.
To all the working-class and anti-imperialist fighters,
To all the left parties and groupings,
To the whole international Trotskyist movement
We communicate that the Assembly of workers of the factory
Brukman Confecciones (factory which is taken and in
production in its workers' hands, against their employer’s
attack, from the beginnings of the Revolución Argentina) have
just pronounced by hand raised and unanimously for the
rejection of the physical attack, the denunciation and the
handing over to the police on the part of the leadership of the
Partido Obrero and of the Polo Obrero (the Movement of
Unemployed Workers led by the PO), of our comrade Juan
Muzzio, national leader of DO (Workers Democracy) and
member of the Coordinator Board organized around Brukman,
in which popular assemblies also participate.
Comrade Muzzio is a very well-known working-class fighter with a
long history in the Argentinean working-class movement, and
he was accompanying the comrade workers of Brukman
during a march summoned in their support by the Coordinator
Board of Fighting Factories.
Moreover the comrade workers of Brukman are summoning to a Press
Conference in the headquarters of the factory, for the 17 hours today (5
p.m., time of Buenos Aires) to make know their rejection and to already
begin a campaign for the unconditional freedom, without any
prosecution, of our comrade.
Many popular assemblies have called for our comrade’s freedom, and
in rejection of the method of hitting fighters of other currents for having
different opinions and of handing over fighters to the police.
For our part, we have called on all the Popular Assemblies and
comisiones internas (directly elected factory committees) of the fighting
factories to go to Brukman to pronounce on this action of the leaders of
the Polo Obrero and the Partido Obrero, which gravely infringes
working-class principles and the relationships among working class
fighters and among revolutionaries.
Also we are receiving international demands for our comrade’s
liberation –together with the rejection of the wretched action of the PO
and the Polo Obrero, from numerous militants and labor and left
organizations from all over the world. Among them, the Grupo Obrero
Trotskista of Chile (that integrates with us the COTP-CI), of Lucha
Marxista of Peru, etc. (the entire list of the adhesions and repudiations
will be published in our press).
The leadership of the PO, through the words of Mr. Pitrola –as could be
seen and listened to by everybody in all media of our country, by
television, radio and Internet, even on the written press-, has said that
Juan “Pico” Muzzio is an “armed police spy” and “an unknown
element.”
The truth is that Pitrola and the leadership of the PO thus demonstrate
that they are simple informers. Because Juan is a widely known and
noted labor fighter that has been shop steward in Bahía Blanca's
Petrochemical Pole(1) between 1984-87 (2) ; shop steward in SADE (a
big construction company) in La Plata (3) in 1987-88. He was the
outstanding leader of the rebellion of Sevel (4) in 1994 that was the first
to rise up against the menemismo and Macri’ holding abusive
exploiters. For this reason during that fight he and his family were
pursued (judicially and with threats and aggressions, by thugs and by
the police) by Macri and the bureaucracy of Curto’s UOM (5).
As national leader of Democracia Obrera he headed the support to the
picketers of the North of Salta (6) and today he takes a part in the
Coordinator Board in Support of Brukman. He has participated in
numerous congresses and fighters' Assemblies in the last times, among
them of the congress of Unemployed Workers summoned in February
16 and 17 by the Bloquepiquetero.
For that reason there is no way the Partido Obrero and those Messrs.
Pitrola and Altamira can allege that Juan was a “police spy”, a
“provocateur” and “an unknown troublemaker”.
From Workers' Democracy we have insisted many times over about two
years when the PO comes trying to create the conditions to annihilate
the Trotskyists, that we are opposed implacably to their capitulations
and their bureaucratic methods. Now, with this step that breaks all the
class limits, it has already made clear the total bankruptcy of this
organization and their thorough submission to the bourgeois State.
Therefore we denounce
* That (as he has appeared showing the face and with his own voice,
in the oral, written, televised and on-line media of Argentina) Mr. Pitrola
has announced that he informs the police that our comrade Juan
Muzzio as “police spy” “provocateur”, and “unknown element.”
* That the same police head whose troops had detained our comrade,
affirmed and afterwards ratified in answer to specific questions of the
same media, that they acted following the accusation of Mr. Pitrola
(leader of the Polo Obrero and of the Partido Obrero).
* That previously to handing him down to the police with visible
woundings and bleeding in the head, the “security” guard (security
against those that think different!) of the Polo Obrero and of the Partido
Obrero beat savagely our comrade with their sticks, pulling him up by
force and by means of blows of the same sticks, of Brukman workers'
hands and of a group of comrades belonging to popular assemblies
and commissions of unemployed, members of the Coordinator Board in
support to Brukman, amid whom comrade Muzzio was walking. That
these events were also denounced by those comrades loudly before
the microphones and cameras of the media covering the march.
* That comrade Muzzio went through some sutures in several parts of
his head and is at present with skull and face traumatisms and under
strong medication, to heal the lesions he suffered. Until the moment of
the emission of this official statement, he is still detained in the facilities
of the Superintendencia de Investigaciones (Chief Searchings Office)
of the Policía Federal Argentina (Federal Police) and under federal
prosecution.
From Democracia Obrera we call to all working class and popular
organizations to reject this police informing on the part of leadership of
the Partido Obrero and of the Polo Obrero, and we reaffirm the
principle that political differences among labor organizations ought not
be settled by breaking heads, and much less by the handing over of
fighters to the police.
To stop this attack to the working class fighters, we summon them to
put in place an international tribunal of Honor in the Argentina, in order
to condemn on behalf of the workers in fight, one of the worst and more
dangerous crimes with which [the treacherous leaderships] want to
defeat us: forming a true fifth column to defeat from inside the working
class movement and the revolutionary struggle, acting as informers and
agents of the bourgeois State in the ranks of the proletariat.
National Leadership of LOI-CI/ Democracia Obrera
(International Workers League-Fourth
International/Workers Democracy)
Notes
(1) Important port and industrial pole in the south of Buenos Aires
province which has a militant class-struggle tradition from the 19th
Century. Now it has one of the highest percentages of unemployment in
the country, more than 30% by official figures.
(2)The dates mentioned here and in the subsequent cases refer to
exceptional –and well known by the left fighters-- periods of class
struggle in each factory or enterprise.
(3) Capital city of Buenos Aires Province, also a port and important
industrial pole and shipyards location near the Federal Capital, Buenos
Aires City. One of the places where the fascist military’s repression was
particularly enraged in the 70’s and early 80’s.
(4) Carmaker, a franchise of Renault and Fiat employing thousands of
worker with the Japan-styled “self-motivated group-production” ultra- exploitative method, in the satellite town of San Martin, Great Buenos
Aires. Its owner is Francisco Macri, one of the stars of Menem’s
administrations (1989/1995; 1995/1999).
(5) UOM = Union Obrera Metalúrgica (National Metallurgical Workers
Union), one of the most powerful –and bureaucratized—unions,
dominated by the Peronistas. Curto is one of its most hated leaders,
“partner” to Lorenzo Miguel (the legendary and “maffiosi” head of the
UOM), and head of San Martín Union “Seccional “ (Local). L. Miguel
and “his men” are said to be the backbone or at least close associates
of the “Triple A”, the fascist death-squads responsible, with the fascist
military, of the more than 30,000 “desaparecidos” and thousands of
deaths under the last Peron-Peron administration and afterwards,
under the last military dictatorship.
(6) In the days of 2001 when they were attacked with guns, tanks and
tear gasses by the gendarmerie. He was personally there to support the
comrades, when the picketers asked for help, and had had some four
dead and dozens of wounded. Meanwhile Mr. Altamira was
campaigning for the October elections, never mentioning the struggle, a
true “intifada” that pre-anounced the uprising of December.
properly.
Dave CWGNZ
Buenos Aires, Thursday 12 of September of 2002
Official statement on the detention of one of Democracia
Obrera’s (Workers Democracy’s) national leaders that was
given to the police by leaders of the Workers Party, after their thugs treated him to a beating with sticks during a demonstration.
To all the working-class and anti-imperialist fighters,
To all the left parties and groupings,
To the whole international Trotskyist movement
We communicate that the Assembly of workers of the factory
Brukman Confecciones (factory which is taken and in
production in its workers' hands, against their employer’s
attack, from the beginnings of the Revolución Argentina) have
just pronounced by hand raised and unanimously for the
rejection of the physical attack, the denunciation and the
handing over to the police on the part of the leadership of the
Partido Obrero and of the Polo Obrero (the Movement of
Unemployed Workers led by the PO), of our comrade Juan
Muzzio, national leader of DO (Workers Democracy) and
member of the Coordinator Board organized around Brukman,
in which popular assemblies also participate.
Comrade Muzzio is a very well-known working-class fighter with a
long history in the Argentinean working-class movement, and
he was accompanying the comrade workers of Brukman
during a march summoned in their support by the Coordinator
Board of Fighting Factories.
Moreover the comrade workers of Brukman are summoning to a Press
Conference in the headquarters of the factory, for the 17 hours today (5
p.m., time of Buenos Aires) to make know their rejection and to already
begin a campaign for the unconditional freedom, without any
prosecution, of our comrade.
Many popular assemblies have called for our comrade’s freedom, and
in rejection of the method of hitting fighters of other currents for having
different opinions and of handing over fighters to the police.
For our part, we have called on all the Popular Assemblies and
comisiones internas (directly elected factory committees) of the fighting
factories to go to Brukman to pronounce on this action of the leaders of
the Polo Obrero and the Partido Obrero, which gravely infringes
working-class principles and the relationships among working class
fighters and among revolutionaries.
Also we are receiving international demands for our comrade’s
liberation –together with the rejection of the wretched action of the PO
and the Polo Obrero, from numerous militants and labor and left
organizations from all over the world. Among them, the Grupo Obrero
Trotskista of Chile (that integrates with us the COTP-CI), of Lucha
Marxista of Peru, etc. (the entire list of the adhesions and repudiations
will be published in our press).
The leadership of the PO, through the words of Mr. Pitrola –as could be
seen and listened to by everybody in all media of our country, by
television, radio and Internet, even on the written press-, has said that
Juan “Pico” Muzzio is an “armed police spy” and “an unknown
element.”
The truth is that Pitrola and the leadership of the PO thus demonstrate
that they are simple informers. Because Juan is a widely known and
noted labor fighter that has been shop steward in Bahía Blanca's
Petrochemical Pole(1) between 1984-87 (2) ; shop steward in SADE (a
big construction company) in La Plata (3) in 1987-88. He was the
outstanding leader of the rebellion of Sevel (4) in 1994 that was the first
to rise up against the menemismo and Macri’ holding abusive
exploiters. For this reason during that fight he and his family were
pursued (judicially and with threats and aggressions, by thugs and by
the police) by Macri and the bureaucracy of Curto’s UOM (5).
As national leader of Democracia Obrera he headed the support to the
picketers of the North of Salta (6) and today he takes a part in the
Coordinator Board in Support of Brukman. He has participated in
numerous congresses and fighters' Assemblies in the last times, among
them of the congress of Unemployed Workers summoned in February
16 and 17 by the Bloquepiquetero.
For that reason there is no way the Partido Obrero and those Messrs.
Pitrola and Altamira can allege that Juan was a “police spy”, a
“provocateur” and “an unknown troublemaker”.
From Workers' Democracy we have insisted many times over about two
years when the PO comes trying to create the conditions to annihilate
the Trotskyists, that we are opposed implacably to their capitulations
and their bureaucratic methods. Now, with this step that breaks all the
class limits, it has already made clear the total bankruptcy of this
organization and their thorough submission to the bourgeois State.
Therefore we denounce
* That (as he has appeared showing the face and with his own voice,
in the oral, written, televised and on-line media of Argentina) Mr. Pitrola
has announced that he informs the police that our comrade Juan
Muzzio as “police spy” “provocateur”, and “unknown element.”
* That the same police head whose troops had detained our comrade,
affirmed and afterwards ratified in answer to specific questions of the
same media, that they acted following the accusation of Mr. Pitrola
(leader of the Polo Obrero and of the Partido Obrero).
* That previously to handing him down to the police with visible
woundings and bleeding in the head, the “security” guard (security
against those that think different!) of the Polo Obrero and of the Partido
Obrero beat savagely our comrade with their sticks, pulling him up by
force and by means of blows of the same sticks, of Brukman workers'
hands and of a group of comrades belonging to popular assemblies
and commissions of unemployed, members of the Coordinator Board in
support to Brukman, amid whom comrade Muzzio was walking. That
these events were also denounced by those comrades loudly before
the microphones and cameras of the media covering the march.
* That comrade Muzzio went through some sutures in several parts of
his head and is at present with skull and face traumatisms and under
strong medication, to heal the lesions he suffered. Until the moment of
the emission of this official statement, he is still detained in the facilities
of the Superintendencia de Investigaciones (Chief Searchings Office)
of the Policía Federal Argentina (Federal Police) and under federal
prosecution.
From Democracia Obrera we call to all working class and popular
organizations to reject this police informing on the part of leadership of
the Partido Obrero and of the Polo Obrero, and we reaffirm the
principle that political differences among labor organizations ought not
be settled by breaking heads, and much less by the handing over of
fighters to the police.
To stop this attack to the working class fighters, we summon them to
put in place an international tribunal of Honor in the Argentina, in order
to condemn on behalf of the workers in fight, one of the worst and more
dangerous crimes with which [the treacherous leaderships] want to
defeat us: forming a true fifth column to defeat from inside the working
class movement and the revolutionary struggle, acting as informers and
agents of the bourgeois State in the ranks of the proletariat.
National Leadership of LOI-CI/ Democracia Obrera
(International Workers League-Fourth
International/Workers Democracy)
Notes
(1) Important port and industrial pole in the south of Buenos Aires
province which has a militant class-struggle tradition from the 19th
Century. Now it has one of the highest percentages of unemployment in
the country, more than 30% by official figures.
(2)The dates mentioned here and in the subsequent cases refer to
exceptional –and well known by the left fighters-- periods of class
struggle in each factory or enterprise.
(3) Capital city of Buenos Aires Province, also a port and important
industrial pole and shipyards location near the Federal Capital, Buenos
Aires City. One of the places where the fascist military’s repression was
particularly enraged in the 70’s and early 80’s.
(4) Carmaker, a franchise of Renault and Fiat employing thousands of
worker with the Japan-styled “self-motivated group-production” ultra- exploitative method, in the satellite town of San Martin, Great Buenos
Aires. Its owner is Francisco Macri, one of the stars of Menem’s
administrations (1989/1995; 1995/1999).
(5) UOM = Union Obrera Metalúrgica (National Metallurgical Workers
Union), one of the most powerful –and bureaucratized—unions,
dominated by the Peronistas. Curto is one of its most hated leaders,
“partner” to Lorenzo Miguel (the legendary and “maffiosi” head of the
UOM), and head of San Martín Union “Seccional “ (Local). L. Miguel
and “his men” are said to be the backbone or at least close associates
of the “Triple A”, the fascist death-squads responsible, with the fascist
military, of the more than 30,000 “desaparecidos” and thousands of
deaths under the last Peron-Peron administration and afterwards,
under the last military dictatorship.
(6) In the days of 2001 when they were attacked with guns, tanks and
tear gasses by the gendarmerie. He was personally there to support the
comrades, when the picketers asked for help, and had had some four
dead and dozens of wounded. Meanwhile Mr. Altamira was
campaigning for the October elections, never mentioning the struggle, a
true “intifada” that pre-anounced the uprising of December.
-----------------------------
STATEMENT OF WOKERS' DEMOCRACY (DEMOCRACIA OBRERA)
Comrades I have corrected this press release to separate the footnotes
properly.
Dave
CWGNZ
------
Buenos Aires, Thursday 12 of September of 2002
Official statement on the detention of one of Democracia
Obrera’s (Workers Democracy’s) national leaders that was
given to the police by leaders of the Workers Party, after their thugs treated him to a beating with sticks during a demonstration.
To all the working-class and anti-imperialist fighters,
To all the left parties and groupings,
To the whole international Trotskyist movement
We communicate that the Assembly of workers of the factory
Brukman Confecciones (factory which is taken and in
production in its workers' hands, against their employer’s
attack, from the beginnings of the Revolución Argentina) have
just pronounced by hand raised and unanimously for the
rejection of the physical attack, the denunciation and the
handing over to the police on the part of the leadership of the
Partido Obrero and of the Polo Obrero (the Movement of
Unemployed Workers led by the PO), of our comrade Juan
Muzzio, national leader of DO (Workers Democracy) and
member of the Coordinator Board organized around Brukman,
in which popular assemblies also participate.
Comrade Muzzio is a very well-known working-class fighter with a
long history in the Argentinean working-class movement, and
he was accompanying the comrade workers of Brukman
during a march summoned in their support by the Coordinator
Board of Fighting Factories.
Moreover the comrade workers of Brukman are summoning to a Press
Conference in the headquarters of the factory, for the 17 hours today (5
p.m., time of Buenos Aires) to make know their rejection and to already
begin a campaign for the unconditional freedom, without any
prosecution, of our comrade.
Many popular assemblies have called for our comrade’s freedom, and
in rejection of the method of hitting fighters of other currents for having
different opinions and of handing over fighters to the police.
For our part, we have called on all the Popular Assemblies and
comisiones internas (directly elected factory committees) of the fighting
factories to go to Brukman to pronounce on this action of the leaders of
the Polo Obrero and the Partido Obrero, which gravely infringes
working-class principles and the relationships among working class
fighters and among revolutionaries.
Also we are receiving international demands for our comrade’s
liberation –together with the rejection of the wretched action of the PO
and the Polo Obrero, from numerous militants and labor and left
organizations from all over the world. Among them, the Grupo Obrero
Trotskista of Chile (that integrates with us the COTP-CI), of Lucha
Marxista of Peru, etc. (the entire list of the adhesions and repudiations
will be published in our press).
The leadership of the PO, through the words of Mr. Pitrola –as could be
seen and listened to by everybody in all media of our country, by
television, radio and Internet, even on the written press-, has said that
Juan “Pico” Muzzio is an “armed police spy” and “an unknown
element.”
The truth is that Pitrola and the leadership of the PO thus demonstrate
that they are simple informers. Because Juan is a widely known and
noted labor fighter that has been shop steward in Bahía Blanca's
Petrochemical Pole(1) between 1984-87 (2) ; shop steward in SADE (a
big construction company) in La Plata (3) in 1987-88. He was the
outstanding leader of the rebellion of Sevel (4) in 1994 that was the first
to rise up against the menemismo and Macri’ holding abusive
exploiters. For this reason during that fight he and his family were
pursued (judicially and with threats and aggressions, by thugs and by
the police) by Macri and the bureaucracy of Curto’s UOM (5).
As national leader of Democracia Obrera he headed the support to the
picketers of the North of Salta (6) and today he takes a part in the
Coordinator Board in Support of Brukman. He has participated in
numerous congresses and fighters' Assemblies in the last times, among
them of the congress of Unemployed Workers summoned in February
16 and 17 by the Bloquepiquetero.
For that reason there is no way the Partido Obrero and those Messrs.
Pitrola and Altamira can allege that Juan was a “police spy”, a
“provocateur” and “an unknown troublemaker”.
From Workers' Democracy we have insisted many times over about two
years when the PO comes trying to create the conditions to annihilate
the Trotskyists, that we are opposed implacably to their capitulations
and their bureaucratic methods. Now, with this step that breaks all the
class limits, it has already made clear the total bankruptcy of this
organization and their thorough submission to the bourgeois State.
Therefore we denounce
* That (as he has appeared showing the face and with his own voice,
in the oral, written, televised and on-line media of Argentina) Mr. Pitrola
has announced that he informs the police that our comrade Juan
Muzzio as “police spy” “provocateur”, and “unknown element.”
* That the same police head whose troops had detained our comrade,
affirmed and afterwards ratified in answer to specific questions of the
same media, that they acted following the accusation of Mr. Pitrola
(leader of the Polo Obrero and of the Partido Obrero).
* That previously to handing him down to the police with visible
woundings and bleeding in the head, the “security” guard (security
against those that think different!) of the Polo Obrero and of the Partido
Obrero beat savagely our comrade with their sticks, pulling him up by
force and by means of blows of the same sticks, of Brukman workers'
hands and of a group of comrades belonging to popular assemblies
and commissions of unemployed, members of the Coordinator Board in
support to Brukman, amid whom comrade Muzzio was walking. That
these events were also denounced by those comrades loudly before
the microphones and cameras of the media covering the march.
* That comrade Muzzio went through some sutures in several parts of
his head and is at present with skull and face traumatisms and under
strong medication, to heal the lesions he suffered. Until the moment of
the emission of this official statement, he is still detained in the facilities
of the Superintendencia de Investigaciones (Chief Searchings Office)
of the Policía Federal Argentina (Federal Police) and under federal
prosecution.
From Democracia Obrera we call to all working class and popular
organizations to reject this police informing on the part of leadership of
the Partido Obrero and of the Polo Obrero, and we reaffirm the
principle that political differences among labor organizations ought not
be settled by breaking heads, and much less by the handing over of
fighters to the police.
To stop this attack to the working class fighters, we summon them to
put in place an international tribunal of Honor in the Argentina, in order
to condemn on behalf of the workers in fight, one of the worst and more
dangerous crimes with which [the treacherous leaderships] want to
defeat us: forming a true fifth column to defeat from inside the working
class movement and the revolutionary struggle, acting as informers and
agents of the bourgeois State in the ranks of the proletariat.
National Leadership of LOI-CI/ Democracia Obrera
(International Workers League-Fourth
International/Workers Democracy)
Notes
(1) Important port and industrial pole in the south of Buenos Aires
province which has a militant class-struggle tradition from the 19th
Century. Now it has one of the highest percentages of unemployment in
the country, more than 30% by official figures.
(2)The dates mentioned here and in the subsequent cases refer to
exceptional –and well known by the left fighters-- periods of class
struggle in each factory or enterprise.
(3) Capital city of Buenos Aires Province, also a port and important
industrial pole and shipyards location near the Federal Capital, Buenos
Aires City. One of the places where the fascist military’s repression was
particularly enraged in the 70’s and early 80’s.
(4) Carmaker, a franchise of Renault and Fiat employing thousands of
worker with the Japan-styled “self-motivated group-production” ultra- exploitative method, in the satellite town of San Martin, Great Buenos
Aires. Its owner is Francisco Macri, one of the stars of Menem’s
administrations (1989/1995; 1995/1999).
(5) UOM = Union Obrera Metalúrgica (National Metallurgical Workers
Union), one of the most powerful –and bureaucratized—unions,
dominated by the Peronistas. Curto is one of its most hated leaders,
“partner” to Lorenzo Miguel (the legendary and “maffiosi” head of the
UOM), and head of San Martín Union “Seccional “ (Local). L. Miguel
and “his men” are said to be the backbone or at least close associates
of the “Triple A”, the fascist death-squads responsible, with the fascist
military, of the more than 30,000 “desaparecidos” and thousands of
deaths under the last Peron-Peron administration and afterwards,
under the last military dictatorship.
(6) In the days of 2001 when they were attacked with guns, tanks and
tear gasses by the gendarmerie. He was personally there to support the
comrades, when the picketers asked for help, and had had some four
dead and dozens of wounded. Meanwhile Mr. Altamira was
campaigning for the October elections, never mentioning the struggle, a
true “intifada” that pre-anounced the uprising of December.
DO