Plaza Congreso's popular Assembly makes a call of international solidarity requesting the support to the fight of the Argentinean people and of its asambleario movement

Plaza Congress's popular Assembly begins to work in the days following the uprise of the 19 and 20 of December of the 2001, after the widespread mobilization of the Argentinean people, in the city of Buenos Aires and the rest of the country. To the call of “Que se vayan todos, que no quede uno solo!”(Out with them all, not one must stay!), and detonated by the provocation meant by the declaration of the state of siege, the mobilized population forces the resignation first of the minister of economy, Domingo Cavallo, and then of the President Fernando of the Rua and his government. From that moment it begins the development, unprecedented in Argentine history, the asambleario movement, seeking to create a political space different from that of traditional politics, emptied and corrupted during the last 20 years. More than 400 popular assemblies spring up in the whole country, where the people gather to analyze the problems of the country and neighborhood and discuss and prepare actions and mobilizations. This way, they begin to play an important role inside the popular movement. Plaza Congress's Popular Assembly joins as one more the group of the asambleario movement of the Argentine people, and more widely to the group of organizations in the struggle and especially to the movement of the unemployed, known here as the piquetero movement.

Initially the popular assemblies of the city of Buenos Aires were organized through the Inter-Borough Coordinator of Centennial Park, which in its beginnings gathered around 160 popular assemblies of the capital and greater Buenos Aires, representing more than 20000 people congregated in the different assemblies. Later on the assemblies also constituted regional and zonal coordinators that, with various regroupings, have been working from January to the date. They also have carried out two inter-borough national assemblies, which have voted resolutions of political character and a third is planned for the near future.

From then on the popular assemblies have been strengthened, stopping to be what in a first moment many considered a fleeting and inconsequential phenomenon, constituting themselves in militant nuclei that have grown in political stability and in organizational quality, and are called to achieve a significant political role in the resolution to a crisis that is very far from been unraveled.

The assembly recognizes itself as sovereign and independent from the state and the parties responsible for the crisis. It is diverse and open to anyone, specifically excluding only the repressors and those who represent political or economic interests contrary to those of the Argentine people. From the first moment, Plaza Congress's Popular Assembly begins to work in the steps of the monument located in front of the National Congress, in the middle of downtown Buenos Aires, meeting on Wednesday and Saturdays, and varying in the number of its members from about 30 to more than 100, according to the moment.

Politically the assembly makes its axis around the watchword “Out with them all”, in reference to the traditional political class represented fundamentally by the Peronist party and the Radical parties, the judicial corporation, the armed forces and the big economic and financial groups, all jointly responsible for the looting to the nation, of the economic disaster and of the absolute emptying of real political democracy and its substitution for some simple electoral mechanisms of authentication of the representatives of the system of exploitation and economic exclusion in force at this moment.

“Out with them all” does not mean for us the simple electoral replacement of the current political representatives for other, but the substitution of this political and economic régime for one at the service of the workers and the whole of the oppressed people, built from and for the people, and in opposition to the existent one that only has served ends contrary to the genuine popular interests.

From their creation, the assembly has moved in several directions. One is that of the fight claiming for the solution of the population's of the neighborhood of Congreso urgent and pressing necessities, especially those referred to food and housing. In this sense thanks to the mobilizations carried out in demand of food it has been obtained on behalf of the government of the city of Buenos Aires the provision of food baskets aiming to palliate nutritional necessities of the more needy families of the assembly. There exists also the project of opening soon a communal dining room, and we have also contributed to avoid the eviction of housing occupied by low-income families from judges insensitive to the situation of misery.

Another task of the assembly is the political work in convergence with other popular movements whose more concrete is street mobilization, the cut of routes and avenues, and the taking and occupation of buildings and public spaces in solidarity with the demands of different sectors of unemployed, workers of companies in conflict or that have taken in their hands the administration of bankrupted companies or abandoned by their owners, savers whose deposits have been confiscated by the banks, combative union sectors in dispute with their bureaucratic leadership, users affected by the threat of rate increases of the public services, etc. In this aspect, the assembly has participated from its formation in numerous mobilizations, marches and activities. It has been in all the important mobilizations that took place in Buenos Aires, standing out especially those repudiating the murder by the police, of the picketers Darío Santillán and Maximiliano Costeki whose size and forcefulness provoked the advancement of the elections by the government of Duhalde.

The Assembly has also carried out cultural activities, for example shows in cooperation with performing artists, talks with professionals of different specialties, etc. At the moment it is carrying out a cinematographic cycle called “The cinema and the revolutions", and a cycle of talks about the history of the Argentine labor movement.

Those of us who form this popular organization, call to all authentic fighters and unwavering democrats from all over the world to support the fight of the Argentine people and the Argentine Asambleario Movement that we integrate. The current turn of the USA foreign policy that qualifies as terrorists all the organizations that fight for people’s liberation makes imperious the active solidarity to break this repressive politics of the USA’s imperialism.

The disaster generated by the economic policies carried out during the last twenty years by the representatives of the national and transnational economic groups that managed the country at their whim is devastating. This economic disaster is of such a width and depth that it has impoverished the Argentine people, a country of abundant natural and human resources, to the point of submerging wide layers of the population in unemployment, misery and extreme necessity.

In the current circumstances that Argentina crosses, with a good part of its population unemployed it is extremely difficult to gather the minimum material elements required to move the political struggle forward. It is for that reason that we need urgently, besides the political solidarity, economic help to be able to consent and to acquire materials for diffusion like paper, printing, megaphones, small radio stations, etc.; means of communications such as cellular telephones, money to travel and be able to coordinate actions with organizations of other regions, and to initiate and maintain projects like small self-managed productive endeavors, communal dining rooms, etc. One US dollar in the Argentina pays 4 trips in urban transport. Three US dollars pays for a ream of paper. 50 U$S can pay for a cellular telephone. Any help, even if small will facilitate the work of the assembly a great deal.

Also, in a few days one year will have passed from the uprise of 19 and 20 of December of 2001. Great popular mobilizations are expected to have place in Buenos Aires and the rest of the country, and we are aware that the anti-globalization movement is also planning for those days’ activities in different places of the world. But already the Peronista government of President Duhalde is alerting about supposed violent actions from part of left wing-organizations, when it is notorious and public, and reports with proofs have been made public, that the right, specifically groups that respond to the also peronist former president Carlos Memem (who is now opposed to Duhalde) are promoting and organizing ransacks in poor neighborhoods of the greater Buenos Aires. The danger of a repressive maneuver on course, designed to weaken the popular movement, is present. So we would like to request to the different groups preparing actions for December 20 not only to do them, but also to send delegations to Argentina. We think that the presence of international global activists can be of important help to obstruct and dissuade any repressive intentions.

One year ago, Argentina became the tip of lance of the global movement struggling against globalization, neoliberalism, and capitalism. Together with other countries of Latin America, the history seems to begin to give a turn. Millions of people are organizing and mobilizing in Argentina, in Latin America and in the world against hunger, exploitation and injustice. This fight is in course. How it continues it depends also on you.


Popular Assembly of Plaza Congreso
 asambleacongresointernational@hotmail.com