ALAI, América Latina en Movimiento
2008-04-01
Argentina
Don't confuse peasants with landowners
Adolfo Pérez Esquivel
The agrarian strike that began more than two weeks ago is being utilized by putchist sectors to destabilize the government and continue exploiting the people with total impunity.
The taxes that the government has imposed on exports have different interpretations and contradictions that are confusing, leading to the participation of distinct rural sectors in the protest. It is necessary to understand whether they are together and united to destabilize the government, or whether they have sufficient clarity to establish differences among themselves in the struggle and in their demands. One must know the difference and understand that they are together but not united and up to what point they can come together without getting burned.
I remember a little story that says: ¨The thief runs towards the East and the police run towards the East. The two both run towards the East but with different intentions. ¨
The agricultural producers have never had higher profits than they have had in the past few years, benefiting from the exchange-rate policies and from soy and sunflower exports. The indicators are eloquent and concrete. Regardless it is necessary to undertake an analysis of what this activity has cost the nation, its cost-effectiveness and the concentration of wealth in few hands. The large agricultural corporations and the transnationals have destroyed and burned thousands of hectares of forest, appropriating large areas of land to plant transgenic soy. They use highly toxic agro-chemicals without regard for the effects on the environment or the lives of the population.
On the other hand, the government’s contradictions are not few in number, but it must be acknowledged that they have taken several important steps towards economic recovery and this is positive. The plunder that the country was subjected to in the 2001 crisis was an economic coup d'état, removing capital to the exterior and forcing factories to close, the shortages, the increase in unemployment and poverty, provoked by financial capital and the banking system, which were looking to empty the country of wealth, dismissive of the social consequences.
Sectors of the so-called “well-off middle class¨ have taken to the streets over the past few days ¨in support of the countryside¨, stainless steel saucepans and silver spoons in hand, in support of the agrarian strike.
Their short memory, has placed a dirty trick on them. They have forgotten that the well-off middle class always believed that it was safe from the country's downfall. But reality demostrated that financial capital has no friends, it only has interests. They too were victims of the asset stripping and many lost their wealth and savings that had been deposited in banks. It is necessary to remember and know why today no one takes responsibility for that situation and why, lamentably, the impunity continues.
The government must admit that it erred in placing equal tax burdens on farmers of all sizes, without differentiating for small and medium rural producers, which are the majority, many of whom face serious difficulties with production and with their mortgaged lands. It was an error to measure them by the same rod as the large corporations and land owners who make exorbitant profits that leave the country, and who are not prepared to redistribute wealth.
I reiterate, we are witnessing the story of the thief and the policeman, in which both run towards the East but with different intentions.
President Cristina Fernandez Kirchner asked that farmers lift the strike to dialogue and find a solution to the conflict. It is a prudent measure that the rural producers cannot let pass them by. Dialogue is the path to solutions.
The government cannot once again make the mistake of not differentiating peasants and large landowners. We cannot let them be dragged down by the coup-mongers, pitting workers against workers.
There are times in life when a lesson is tough, but one learns. The peasants fight for their rights and resist in the hope of living with dignity and recovering national sovereignty, which is today threatened by large economic interests that refuse to redistribute wealth.
The government must have clear and coherent policies in words and action. Today the large landowners are selling out our national territory, devastating its riches and impoverishing its people. The taxes are necessary, not just for agriculture, but also for the mining and oil companies. To this end, we need public policies that end irrational exploitation and recover the lost national sovereignty. The taxes must be correctly applied in order to construct the country that we want.
The road ahead is a long one, but we all must travel it.
(Translation: ALAI).
- Adolfo Pérez Esquivel is an Argentine author and activist and a Nobel Peace Laureate.
http://alainet.org/active/23195
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