An open letter from an Argentinian

A letter from an Argentinian citizen to the PSI, the organisation that represents public sector unions internationally.

By Alberto Maguid

To my brothers and sisters in PSI,

Argentina has been presented to the world during the last few years as an example for emerging countries to copy. Because Argentina had democracy and freedom, and complied with all the IMF 'recommendations'. 'Argentina... where IMF and World Bank economic policies have succeeded' - such were the phrases being bandied about by the international financial world and most first world leaders.

Leaders who paid us visits to congratulate us, or who greeted our Presidents with red carpets and friendly slaps on the back. As the national and international press put it, 'Argentina- is a first world country'. And the people, like most political, trade union and social leaders, were astounded that our national currency was worth as much as the dollar. Ordinary people were happy, and were delighted that for only a few centavos, they could buy thousands of articles that came from other countries, rather than what our own industries produced. Traders and citizens celebrated the easy, ready credit offered by the hundreds of foreign banks that set up in our country.

We lived through years of illusions spun by the world's top opinion-formers, and paid for by the interests of savage capitalism. And then on top of that, we have the corruption and the mediocrity that they have encouraged. When some of us timidly started wondering what would happen to 'our thing'... to our factories that they were closing down to turn them into branches of Brazilian, North American and Asian firms - and to the jobs that were being lost - they said we were being old-fashioned and living in the past.

But reality is now staring us in the face. We are no longer part of the first world. We have democracy, but we are still prisoners condemned to suffer. We are also alone. Those who slapped us on the back and congratulated us on how well we were complying with the IMF conditions - they've all gone. Things are no longer cheap, and there is no credit with which to pay off our debts, buy inputs, or start up industries. We have millions of compatriots with no jobs. And we have under-nourished children, insecurity and pain. We have schools with children desperate for a plate of food from the school kitchen, because it's all they'll get till the next day.

The governments of the first world no longer roll out the red carpet for us. What their leaders now say is that they can only help us if we stay down on our knees before the IMF and the World Bank. We sell our factories, we sell our wealth, we sell our old age, and we sell our future. And the worst thing about it is that the most powerful governments in the world put us under pressure to do these things, and then applaud us for doing so.

Now that we have nothing left, we are not examples any more. But we do continue to be an example, even though international financial institutions and conservative governments refuse to acknowledge it. We are the best example of what NO COUNTRY should do. We are the best example of the FAILURE of IMF, WORLD BANK AND NEO-LIBERAL POLICIES. We are the impoverished children that nobody wants to show people any more. But we are here - brothers and sisters of the world - to be seen, but on no account to be copied. To ensure that their leaders do not take them for a ride.

We call on all citizens in the world, and their leaders dedicated to solidarity, to insist that their governments do not force us to place in the inhuman grasp of the IMF and the World Bank what little remains of our dignity and our wealth. We need international help, but not in exchange for further perverse demands from international financial institutions, or from the governments that support them. We need people to help us by pressuring their leaders to get the IMF and World Bank to change their evil adjustment policies. If we try to embark on a period of productive growth marked by austerity, transparency and the people's participation without this help, we will never escape from their clutches.

And then... may God have mercy on us Argentineans.

In solidarity.

Alberto Maguid
(an Argentinean)

Santa Fe (Argentina), 28 May 2002

June 2002 contents