Wednesday 26 March 2008
By Reuters
BUENOS AIRES, March 26 (Reuters) - An Argentine farm strike
has depleted meat counters, paralyzed grain exports from a key
global supplier, and is severely testing the government's
reliance on strong-arm tactics with business.
The two-week strike is the largest in decades and has seen
growers of all sizes set aside differences to unite against the
government. They are fighting a new tax hike on windfall
profits from high-priced soy exports.
But the protest is also aimed at the way President Cristina
Fernandez de Kirchner raised the tax, in a surprise decree
typical of her and her husband and predecessor Nestor Kirchner,
who concentrated power in a handful of top ministers and forced
companies to bow to price controls and export bans.
She backed the new tax with tough words on Tuesday, saying
farmers were getting rich off cheap labor and subsidized fuel.
But her speech was met by the farmers' vows to continue
blocking highways in the agricultural heartland and by an
unexpected "cacerolazo" protest on Tuesday when thousands of
middle-class Argentines banged pots and pans in the streets.
It was the biggest "cacerolazo" since the 2001-02 political
and economic crisis when protests toppled a president, and it
could pressure Fernandez to negotiate with business for the
first time.
"It's clear that a normal country needs dialogue,
reflection and a sense of a shared future, which today is
totally absent from the gestures and words of the government,"
journalist Fernando Gonzalez wrote in an opinion piece in
Clarin newspaper.
As farmers held back goods from market, Argentines, the
biggest beef eaters in the world, were opening cans of tuna and
looking at supermarket coolers full of expensive rabbit and a
few packages of ground beef instead of fine steaks.
GROWERS HAD HOPED FOR TALKS
"We've reached a point of very high tension. These protests
may have been organized in some cases, but in most places there
was great spontaneity," said pollster and political analyst
Ricardo Rouvier.
The Kirchners have ruled during a five-year economic boom
as Argentina rebounded from a painful crisis, and Fernandez is
highly popular among the poor majority who voted her into
office late last year.
Stubbornly high inflation has Argentines worried, however,
and Fernandez's approval rating slid to under 50 percent for
the first time in March, according to one reputable poll.
Cattle ranchers and soy farmers do not normally evoke
sympathy from Argentines who see them as a privileged elite,
but they are starting to look like underdogs after years of
confrontation with the Kirchners, who have intermittently
banned beef and grains exports, hiked export taxes and capped
domestic food prices.
The center-left government's policies have favored the
industrial sector, which officials say creates more jobs and
pulls more Argentines out of poverty.
"The government will likely emerge weakened from this
conflict. This is clearly the most important challenge the
Kirchners have faced, and its resolution is still uncertain,"
Daniel Kerner, analyst with New York-based Eurasia group, wrote
in a report.
In her campaign, Fernandez pledged to forge a broad social
pact to create consensus on the country's economic future, and
many thought that meant she would negotiate with business
leaders instead of berating them the way her husband did.
But talks with business never materialized and Fernandez's
harsh words for farmers this week were reminiscent of Nestor
Kirchner's public dressing-down of oil companies and retailers
when he forced them to lower their prices.
"Farmers feel disillusioned, mistreated, unrecognized and
discriminated against," wrote huge soy producer Gustavo
Grobocopatel, usually a booster of the Kirchners, in a column
in La Nacion newspaper.
The government scoffs at wealthy soy producers, saying the
tax will redistribute wealth and ensure farmers plant wheat and
corn for local consumption instead of just high-priced soy for
export to China.
Be the first to react.
Pour aller plus loin
