Social Genocide Page #2

---

In many ways,

that debt is illegitimate.

In a fundamental way:

It's illegitimate

to repay the banks

with 18 million people

poverty-stricken

and 9 million paupers.

There's a human priority.

Then the banks

charged usurious interest rates.

If they'd charged

normal interest rates,

the foreign debt

would have been paid off by 1988.

What was this swindle?

The parent companies

made loans to their subsidiaries,

so these were internal movements.

These loans

were assigned to the foreign debt,

when in fact

they were internal to the companies.

Dollars were bought here, and placed

in accounts in the United States.

With this deposit as collateral,

you got a loan

to purchase more dollars

and so on,

because of the difference

in interest rates.

It's what's known

as "bicycling" funds,

and many got rich on it.

The main beneficiaries

were the big conglomerates,

as usual.

At the end

of Alfonsn's presidency,

the foreign debt

was close to 54 billion dollars.

Menem let the creditors

determine what they were owed.

The Congress

never debated on the debt,

neglecting the Constitution

and a decision by the law courts.

Ten years later,

the debt reached

130 billion dollars.

People have a false idea

of the debt.

You get into debt,

then you say it's bad.

But indebtedness

is what enables credit.

Indebtedness is beneficial.

We are going to develop credit

for everyone...

Owing money is fine.

A good example

is what the North Americans

invented around 1898,

at the time they occupied Cuba.

Some Spanish banks

had granted loans

to the colonial government of Cuba.

The North Americans said:

If the Cuban people

didn't benefit from these loans,

there's no public debt.

In 1923,

a British bank,

the Royal Bank of Canada,

lent a petty tyrant of Costa Rica,

called Tinoco,

a sum that he used

for personal goals.

The Royal Bank of Canada

asked Costa Rica for repayment.

There was a lawsuit,

of which the arbitrator was

an ex-president of the United States,

President William Taft.

President Taft

ruled in the litigation, saying:

It's about a private debt,

not a public debt.

You can't have

a public debt without a "public",

with the public

as the beneficiary of the debt.

These operations

never benefited the public,

quite the contrary.

It's the person

who shops in a supermarket

and pays VA

who ends up paying

for the private debts

of big enterprises,

or of very rich people.

The problem of private debts,

that were illicitly nationalized

by Mr. Cavallo,

must absolutely be reexamined.

What is this theory?

It's the theory

of the Odious Debt.

A director of the IMF,

Karen Lissakers,

representing the United States,

said:

"If we applied

the theory of the Odious Debt,

"the Third World's debt

would no longer exist."

A CHRONICLE OF TREASON

Democracy was re-established

with the Radical Ral Alfonsn

and his social-democrat approach.

He promised

to defend human rights,

to fight poverty

and to show that in a democracy

"you get education, care, and food".

We have the huge responsibility

of guaranteeing democracy

and respect for human dignity

in Argentina.

As we've said,

this means that the State

cannot bow

to international financial groups,

or to privileged local groups...

But the State was bankrupt,

and had to make a choice.

Economy minister Grinspun,

suggested repudiating the debt

and favoring growth.

Alfonsn won't go along,

and yields to financial power.

The only solution

is a policy of austerity,

that will be very hard

and require great efforts

by everyone.

It's called,

my dear compatriots,

an economy of war.

We must all learn from it.

This drastic measure

is called "Plan Austral".

Once more,

huge public funds

are transferred to the banks

and big corporations.

Alfonsn says two things at once:

He promises to repudiate the debt

but orders the president

of the Central Bank to legitimize it.

He favors prosecuting Army officers

for their crimes

during the dictatorship,

but two years later,

the "Due Obedience" laws

exonerate crimes committed

on orders of a superior.

Laws that resulted

from the insurrection

of the rebel

"painted face" officers.

People took to the streets

and defied the tanks...

We've had enough of jackboots!

Alfonsn amnesties the rebels.

Dear compatriots,

Happy Easter!

The insurgents...

have put down their weapons.

Among them,

were heroes of the Falklands war,

who had strayed...

The electoral defeat

of the Radical party

accelerates the crisis.

Stockmarket instability

and hyperinflation

lead to runs on the supermarkets.

I've decided to resign

from the job

of President of Argentina...

Alfonsn has to resign

6 months before the end

of his mandate.

The neo-Peronist Carlos Menem

becomes President

after having,

for many years, governed

the province of La Rioja,

one of the poorest in the nation.

His lightning rise

coincided

with the fall of the Berlin wall

and the ideas

of the "Consensus of Washington".

With his frankness

and his preacher's gestures,

he promises a Productivist Revolution

and big wages.

He has long sideburns

like the old rebel Facundo Quiroga,

the "Tiger of the Plains".

For every Argentinean, standing,

for poor children who are hungry,

or who are sad,

for our brothers without work,

for the homes without a roof,

for the tables without bread,

for our homeland,

I ask you to follow me,

follow me,

I won't betray you,

I won't betray you...

As God is my witness,

and facing

the judgment of History,

let me proclaim:

Argentina, get up and walk!

Sisters and brothers,

in a single voice

I say to the world:

"This is the advent

of a new and glorious Nation."

This is the era of the theory

of the "End of History",

of the single-mindedness

of globalization

and of neo-liberal democracies

in Latin America.

Long live Carlos Sal Menem!

A few days later,

he abandons his sideburns

and his promised reforms,

and betrays his voters:

His program becomes that

of the liberal conservative minority,

directed by the former rebel officer

Alvaro Alsogaray.

Everything has changed now,

there's a new relationship

between conservatives

and Peronists.

We appear to be the same,

but a fundamental change

amongst us has occurred.

Historically, it's only fair,

that a neo-Peronist president

should bring this about...

No one before Menem

had dared to carry treason so far,

or undertaken so cynically

actions that harmed the Nation.

The two-faced game

of the new leader

will pulverize 50 years

of popular resistance:

He imposes allegiance

to the global model,

amnesties the leaders of the junta,

and betrays millions of workers

who lived through the repression.

He abandons

popular anti-imperialism

and non-alignment

extolled by Pern and Evita

and initiates a "physical relationship"

with the United States.

His policies will be dictated

by the World Bank and the IMF.

But Menem

Rate this script:0.0 / 0 votes