Carlos Aznárez, director of Resumen Latinoamericano. Photo: Bill Hackwell.
After the large mobilization on January 24 against the government of Javier Milei in Argentina, which responded to the call of trade union organizations and social movements, Geraldina Colotti spoke with Carlos Aznárez, director of Argentina-based media outlet Resumen Latinoamericano and long-time activist, about recent events in Argentina and the genocide of the people of Palestine.
Geraldina Colotti (GC): What is your analysis of the situation two months after the arrival of Javier Milei to the presidency?
Carlos Aznárez (CA): Less than two months after taking office, Javier Milei and his “chainsaw” plans have begun to generate serious difficulties in the economic situation of the population. In fact, his decision to move forward with mega-devaluations has caused a further deepening of poverty, affecting the sectors that were already being punished by the inflationary plans of the previous government…
The implementation of the decree of necessity and urgency (DNU), carried out in the first hours of his government, has had a strong destructive impact on all sectors of society, from the workers, the tenants (the specific law was repealed), the unemployed linked to the popular economy, the students, scientists, the world of culture. All of them were attacked by some of the tentacles of the aforementioned DNU.
This escalation, which many analysts described as “criminal” due to the harmful effects it generates with total impunity, was answered in several ways. On the one hand, with appeals for legal protection by each affected sector, among the most notorious of these are the trade union centers. On the other hand, the fight is taking place in the parliamentary sphere, to which the government not only sent the DNU (which is already being applied over the future resolution of the Congress) but also a so-called “Omnibus Law,” which comprises a package of 300 laws, one worse than the other for a large part of the population.
And of course, the other great reaction faced by Milei and his gang of henchmen is the popular reaction, the great demonstrations of repudiation, the cacerolazos, the marches. All this in defiance of the “anti-protest” protocols implemented as a provocative maneuver by the nefarious Minister of Security Patricia Bullrich.
GC: The street has already spoken out three times, with what forces and programs?
CA: That’s right, a significant amount of people have already taken to the streets with great force. The first one [demonstration] took place only 10 days after Milei took office. It was on December 20, when the left took to the streets, marching to the Plaza de Mayo, defying a campaign of intimidation and dozens of police controls that harassed the crowd along the entire route of the mobilization. This small victory, of evading the operation to sow panic among those who came out to demonstrate, had its immediate effect that same night, when the pots and pans rang out all over the country, repeating the slogan “Milei out!”
Days later, the first united march took place, with the participation of the CGT and the other two workers’ unions, plus the social movements. The third one was this past January 24, when the CGT declared an active strike, and a series of impressive demonstrations took place all over the country in repudiation of the DNU and the “Omnibus Law.” It is estimated that a million and a half Argentinians came out to demonstrate their anger at the aggressive policies of the pro-Yankee and pro-Israeli president, friend of the corporations, and ideologue of a renewed version of fascism.
It should be pointed out that in a short time, very different forces of sectors that for years did not even see eye to eye in the streets were able to unite, but this time, it is a question of confronting a class enemy and a compulsive colonization plan that seeks to destroy social organizations and crush popular demands. The program to achieve this unity in action has three or four minimum demands, such as defending sovereignty, repudiating the economic measures, advocating respect for human rights, and transforming the streets, the squares, the social centers, and even the neighborhood councils into a battleground in the struggle that is taking place.
GC: What is the strength of the popular organization?
CA: All the strength that can be developed as we go along. Each sector that mobilizes represents hundreds, thousands, and even tens of thousands, but we must also recognize shortcomings such as the lack of experience in confrontation, lack of political training, and living daily on the brink of starvation or suffering from by the lack of work, misery, or police repression.
GC: Milei promised repression and unconstitutional laws to support violence. How are these promises materializing?
CA: Milei is a specialist in acting illegally and not respecting constitutional laws. He acts impulsively and many times he hits a wall, but he does not give in and doubles down by threatening those who want to assert their rights.
To repress and generate ultra-right microclimates against those who rebel, there is the minister of security, a personality with very authoritarian traits who intends to frighten the population. What is clear is that both the protocol issued by Patricia Bullrich and Milei’s threats, which often sound like nonsense, give the green light for the police forces to feel more empowered and go out to “hunt” militants who stick posters or paint protest slogans on the walls. If Bullrich moves from provocation to action, the aggrieved people will likely grow up and confront those who want to terrorize them.
GC: What can Milei do at the international level?
CA: Milei at the international level has allies in the extreme right, in US white fundamentalism, in the space represented by Trump, and in the hardest Zionism (that of the Jewish Lubavitch sect). With his neoliberal ultra-right policies, others like him, or like the former president of Brazil, Bolsonaro, can find common ground, as with the international ultra-right led by the Spanish Vox, and little else.
In reality, he is a lapdog of the Yankee corporations, the IMF, the World Bank, etc. All these organizations are the ones that at the first threat of not complying with the agreement will take him off the board. For now, he has the luxury of rejecting Argentina’s entry to BRICS, treating the Davos dinosaurs as “neo-Marxists,” not participating in Mercosur, or standing with “Israel,” endorsing the genocide in Gaza and the rest of occupied Palestine.
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GC: Elections will be held this year in many countries of the world. How do you see the geopolitical situation in the face of developing conflicts?
CA: The election in the United States, where Trump may defeat the warmongering Biden, could provoke a shuffle in international politics. Trump, as it is known, in his first term, tried to take more care of the domestic situation, the difficulties experienced by large sectors of the population, and not intervene in several wars. Biden, on the contrary, has stuck his nose in Latin America through permanent missions of the Southern Command (Mrs. Richardson walks around our countries as if it were the living room of her house) and also in the rest of the continents. However, he agrees with Trump in the idea of annihilating the Palestinian people, and of course, it has been a key factor to use NATO to first create hostility and then make war on Russia, with the excuse of defending Ukraine.
As I said before, a Trump victory could favor Milei and others like him. He would also continue the aggressive policy against Venezuela, Nicaragua, and Cuba, but the truth is that these countries have not fared well under Biden either.
Today, two strategic battles are being fought, and the US is involved in both. The first is around the Russian idea of denazifying Ukraine, the second is being fought on Palestinian land occupied by the Zionists. But this heroic battle of the Resistance has been adding other countries, all of them in the struggle against the criminal Israeli arrogance: Yemen, Iraq, Lebanon, Syria, and Iran, together with all the Palestinian factions, are the vanguard of the world anti-imperialist revolution.
To be attentive to what derives from there is fundamental, the same as the advances of the agreements that arose in the heat of the war in Ukraine, with the great powers such as China, Russia, Iran, India, and others, advancing in de-dollarizing economic agreements. Over there, links continue to be built to stop the aggression of the North against the South.
GC: The International Court of Justice has just ruled on South Africa’s lawsuit against “Israel” for “acts of genocide in Gaza”, and ordered the Zionist regime to take “all measures within its power” to prevent “possible acts of genocide” against the Palestinians, and to allow the entry of humanitarian aid. However, it did not order a cease-fire, which was one of the African country’s main requests. What is your assessment of this preventive measure?
CA: I think it is extremely important that thanks to the efforts of South Africa and other countries sensitive to what is happening in Palestine, where “Israel” is carrying out a real Holocaust against the people of Gaza and the occupied West Bank, it has been possible to put the Zionist entity in the dock. However, after reading the court’s decisions, I can only be skeptical. Asking “Israel” to, among other things, “take measures to prevent all acts stipulated in the Genocide Convention” and to “ensure that the army does not commit any of the crimes under the Convention” sounds like a symbolic admonition but with little real effect.
“Israel” has never accepted UN recommendations, resolutions, and orders, much less when everyone knows that a genocide of gigantic proportions is already being committed against the civilian population. On the other hand, although the judges’ position of recognizing that “Israel” is harassing the Palestinian people was overwhelming, there was no immediate cease-fire decision, which is one of the fundamental aspects in this case. Moreover, there is talk of freeing “the Hamas hostages” but not a word is said about the thousands of hostages held in the Zionist entity’s tomb-like prisons.
Finally, giving the occupier a month’s deadline to inform whether he complies with the “recommendations” is simply giving him 30 more days of green light for the genocide to continue, for the Israeli drones and airplanes to continue massacring those who are defenseless in front of their murderers.
I repeat, this type of declaration has a bittersweet effect: good because it allows to show “Israel” to be more internationally besieged for the crimes it commits daily and bad because it does not clearly state that it is a terrorist entity that has already murdered 26,000 Palestinians. There is not enough courage in these judges to put it clearly in black and white.
(Resumen Latinoamericano – English) by Geraldina Colotti
OT/JRE/SL
Geraldina Colotti
Geraldina Colotti was born in Ventimiglia and has lived in Paris for a long time. She served a 27-year sentence for her militancy in the Red Brigades. Colotti is a journalist and writer, an expert in Latin America, and in charge of the Italian edition of "Le Monde Diplomatique".
