The Austral Plan - austerity, could have partially reestablished their authority. It was for this reason that
Alfonsin held the trial in front of a civilian jurisdiction.
unemployment and a
But it mustn't be forgotten that there was not an amnesty law. That all offences that subsequmeans ent to March 1973 (the date of the last amnesty) can be prosecuted
Consequently, the testimony of an ex- disappeared' person, convicted of belonged to
People's having
Revolutionary Army or to the Mont-
FINANCE MINISTER Jean Sourrouille's so-called Austral Plan was oneros, makes it possible for them to be accused and arrested themselves.
implemented on June 15 this year. The plan was named after the how
This single element shows new Argentinian currency created for the occasion, which replaces much this trial is intertwined with the peso and is worth one thousand times more than the old currency an extremely unstable social situation, how much it depends on a relationship of forces that is still not
This plan is based on three main axes, a radical reduction in the entirely clear.
budget deficit, a wage and prices freeze and a reform of the currency.
The forces who supported the
The regime has put forward this economic strategy in the context of military assassins continue to operate in the political arena. It is by taking a massive economic crisis characterised by galloping inflation (30% per this into consideration that the deep month in the last period), a dramatic recession and a growing exterdynamic of this trial has to be internal debt. At 43.6 billion dollars in December 1983, the debt payment preted. It is unfolding under the presof conservative sectors and represented 160% of the excess trade balance sure golpistas'
(supporters of a coup)
1985 the debt stood at 53 billion dollars and that is not counting the who have been trying hard to limit
4.2 billion borrowed by the government in August.
- and at the same time it is it, slowing down the right and restricting
The article published below is reprinted from the July-August Issue, its room for maneuver.
No 8 of the Southern Cone edition of Inprecor, a journal of the
Q.
What work have the human rights organisations done during the trial?
While the trial has been going
A.
on, the human rights organisations, or the families of the victims have brought complaints against the armed forces to civilian tribunals.
The mechanism is then the same as for trial of the the three juntas:
the judges respond that they must take the trial to the military courts, the military decline to accept responsiblity, and so on.
The accumulation of these
SuSpended trials could constitute a time bomb if at least some finally come there is before civilian courts.
Here a central political problem that could jam the machinery put in place by
Alfonsin.
If a single middle-ranking officer of the army were convicted, the whole edifice duty of of the obedience' would collapse.
The best example of this and the most explosive case is that of Captain
Astiz, accused of having murdered
Swede
Dagmar Hagelin the young and two French nuns.
There is strong pressure on this subject from the
Swedish government, and pressure is growing for
Astiz to be tried, after the broadcasting of a witness on the television.
International can play a pressure decisive role in this test case.
International Viewpoint 9 December 1985
(one austral equals 0.8 dollars.) Fourth International. JUAN ROBLES
"The costs of the economic crisis will never come from the workers pay packets'. This was Alfonsin's favourite phrase during the first election campaign which he repeated in the first speeches shortly after his Inauguration as president on December 10, 1983. But, on July 29, this Radical Party government agreed a memorandum with the International Monetary Fund (IMF) in which it promised that wages would be held down as long as necessary.' Government promises had already been definitively forgotten by June 14, when a series of economic measures were adopted, which, amongst other things, introduced an indefinite wage freeze. Subsequently congratulations from torin the pont imperialist bankers were not slow in coming, following the adoption of the Austral Plan.
According to official propaganda the Austral Plan represents a radical struggle against inflation, an or te de the aimed to achieve the second stage of the economic regeneration of the country. In reality, this plan is aimed at a very clear target; the workers. As to its eventual beneficiaries, these will be the per year. In July holders of the scandalous Argentinian foreign debt.
The above statement is not an empty assertion but can be proved in an examination of the facts. For example, we read in an independent Argentinian review that "with the recent drastic measures wages were frozen from May 30 and prices from June 13. In the first two weeks of June, prices went up by between 30 and 40%. This will not be restored to wage earners, because the readjustment to be introduced at the end of June will only incorporate 90% of the loss in buying power accumulated in May. Thus the two freezes were not equal; wages were frozen without taking into account the massive rise in prices in the first twelve days of June and this difference was carried over to the extent that only 90% of previous buying power was restored. In this way the most significant outcome of the measures currently underway amounted to a decrease in wages of 30 to 40% at least. If you take into account that the gross national product of Argentina is in the order of 75 billion dollars and that wages
25
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ARGENTINA wages freeze
billion of order
6.7 one year.' (1)
Furthermore, lars, three billion those firms who will be prise ulative capital and which external debt.? (2)
which those countries content.
same reduction variation introduces very could countries in and the readjustment is inery, nor to
26
30%, that is 22 dollars in tina, under the criminal juntas, workers were robbed to the
*will dollars extent that every three years they lost the equivalent of one years' revprospering are enue in comparison with the income that they had before 1976. In these two countries the military left behind a scene of total economic, and indeed, on every other of
The Austral Plan will not, more than any other plan of a similar ilk, put an end to inflation. For the dependent countries flows into live, the problem is a structural one is permanently fed by
'national' bourgeoisies and aggravated by the contribution of the imperialist countries who are trying to offload their own inflation onto the dependreducing the budget deficit in order to avoid inflation. At the moment, in however, the debt payments - which being are will rise with the Austral Plan - constitute the main item of public the expenditure at 37% of the total. With annual interest rates at 60% in dollars to attract speculative capital, can one about controlling inflation? All this is one big swindle for waged which will continue to deepen the crisis in the interests of monopoly finance capital.
Minister of by industrialised countries who dominate the capitalist world met together in
Tokyo on June 21. All their monetary an increase in unemployment in the going readmetropolitan imperialist countries was
'diversion' of funds towards short-term investments. The 'treasurers of the large firms and the managers of the major private and public tions are shifting from one market to another' and floating capital, which is made up of 'hot money' is avoiding productive investment and measures produce high interest rates. (4) Given to plan investreality of the talk of favouring and agriculture in terms of
'adjustments'
The result inflation' is simply to promote fairy stories.
Within the vicious circle of world capitalism and under the yoke of finance capital there is no chance of 'development' nor of coming out of
The spokespeople of the Industrial of Argentina (UIA) announced that the effects of the plan would fall in workers' wages'. freeze was not the severest blow to those firms working in the internal of sales to the order of 20 to 30% from mid-June to midJuly. This could get worse in August when the supplementary buying power represented which, in July masked the real lowering of salaries, will no longer exist. Thus unused industrial capacity stands at an
30% (5) An work economy, Alvaro Orsatti, predicted that 'the next inquiry into employment will show an increase of 100,000 unemployed on the previous one'. (6)
A programme of massive layoffs was the form chosen by Argentinian capitalists, especially those which are subsidiaries of the big monopolies, to new situation. In most important industrial area within Buenos Aries, the Ford motor company gave the signal for layoffs and was met with strong resistance from this will be a greater concentration of capital and those who adapt the best and the quickest to the situation will have the best prospects of and of a share of the spoils. It is within this framework that the between the Banco Rio and the Banco Gandero Argentino must be seen.
The planned reduction of the budget deficit will possibly herald massive for state employees. For the moment, as there is no issufrom the state, the public sector is being financed loans from abroad'. (7) By the end of July this debt will have reached 460 million dollars.
conclusion, recession, unemployment, wage cuts, increase in the foreign debt will be the only result of a plan which has absolutely nothing to do with economic recovery for Argentina. This demononce again that without a radical break with capitalism, there is ploitation and dependence.
Year One. 'El Periodista', Buenos Aires, No 41,
Idem. 'El Periodista', No 47. 'Le Monde, June 26, 1985. 'El Periodista', No 47. 'Clarin', March 8, 1985.
7. 'El Periodista', No 47. International Viewpoint 9 December 1985