Interview of Worker Democracy (Democracia Obrera) to Las Heras workers and members of the Committee in Support for their acquittal that is fighting in Argentina and internationally
We reproduce a roundtable debating with Las Heras workers (Santa Cruz) against whom a trial begins. This trial is a true vengeance on the part of the oil companies against workers who dared to rise up rejecting the taxing on wages and precarious work in 2006. This June 17th 2013, this parody of trial will begin; it is a true lynching against workers. This interview is shared by members of the Committee in Support of Las Heras workers like PM, daughter of disappears and fighter who was in Las Heras during the strike and when workers were repressed brutally. In this interview-debate, worker leaders of factories also participated like the comrade DS, Mi, and members of the leadership of Liga Obrera Internacionalista –CI like comrades JP and H. As well while visiting Buenos Aires, RS of the Collective for the IV International (FLTI) responded some questions of Worker Democracy (Democracia Obrera) about this issue urgent for the working class of Argentina and the world.
Worker Democracy: how do you arrive at this situation where Las Heras oil workers have to confront this fabricated judge with false charges?
D: In February 2006 after more than a month of struggle in the North of Santa Cruz, Navarro who was our spokesmen was detained in the police station of Las Heras. The oil workers rallied together with thousands of workers and townspeople to the police station to demand his freedom. It was an amazing demonstration. But the police was waiting for us and repressed us brutally using live ammunition. During the repression a policeman was left dead, a so called Sayago. Then, Néstor Kirchner appeared hugging the policeman's wife, and this guy was promoted to police Inspector after his death. It was because before being one Las Heras policeman Sayago was Kirchner's guard when Néstor was the governor. He was personal friend of the Kirchners.
Worker Democracy: We followed the hardness and cruelty applied by the Kirchner's police when repressing brutally the workers in struggle in the province.
D: A year before our struggle, the Santa Cruz police repressed savagely the workers in struggle like the Gendarmerie had massacred in Mosconi (Salta), or the evil Buenos Aires police in Puente Pueyrredón killing Kostequi and Santillán…
JP: Excuse me for interrupting you. In that place, there was a camera, journalists that filmed it and took photos; if not they would still “continue looking for” the offenders of that massacre ordered by Duhalde and all the boss politicians that from the first moment were focused on hiding it. The blood of Aníbal Verón, Justiniano, Gómez, Santillán in General Mosconi is still on the street and their killers are still free. First, Romero, the governor, and all the judges and also the oil companies who sent gendarmerie to massacre. That's the Impunity when bosses kill workers…
D: Yes, a year before the hard fight of Las Heras workers, the unemployed workers had already protested. In a way they followed the Mosconi and Cutral Co experience, nobody can admit to have unemployed workers in La Patagonia having black oil under our feet. These workers became unemployed after Menem and his corrupted politicians robbed YPF by selling out it to the oil multinationals for nothing. Workers of Caleta Olivia demanded inside the OIL M&S for genuine work and scholarships for their children.
Everything ended up like in Mosconi and we didn't have more deaths by chance. It was a brutal repression against women, children, against the worker families participating in the pickets. The extreme moment was when the killer police under the command of Kirchner and his bodyguards, the chiefs of the police, by beating women and children provoked the abortion a one the woman who was 8 months pregnant. She was the wife of the worker Bustos. In the taken of OIL & M&S in Caleta OLivia, they kicked her head like a dog when she was lying on the floor. These bosses are killers of babies. And the entire Kirchner's police went to the OIL M&S to defend the property of his partnership, friend and frontman Cristóbal López. Lanata doesn't say anything new…but he keeps in silent this, that is, that they killed workers…
At that moment, we discussed how the OIL workers had fought to get work. Thanks to the taking of the company OIL M&S several comrades entered to work. We were young, that was in 2003-2004. In that struggle the parking place for tanks of Termap was taken in Caleta Olivia by workers. Eight workers (4 men and 4 women) were in jail for 8 months and more. In Las Heras III another taken of plant took place demanding work.
It was the fight of the unemployed workers for work. Some of us were very young, 18-19 years old. After what happened in YPF many workers became unemployed. That was a wave of struggle asking for genuine work after the 2001 revolution that in La Patagonia was expressed by the taking of oil wells, blockades of routes, etc.
We were very young at that moment. We took the plant Loma de Cui 10 and from that moment on everything started. The people at head of that fight were politically broken. They were paid. The spokesman in 2003, for example, was put as official manager to lead all the construction we made.
The workers who entered to work in the oil companies as part of those processes began as construction workers, and after 3 years of work, they started the struggle for becoming part of the oil collective agreement. We want to be paid the same of an oil worker. Thus, the taken of Las Heras 3 emerged. When we wanted to enter, the gendarmerie was already there. So, what did we do? We went to occupy the OIL and in that way everything started. At that moment the gendarmerie was already unfolding his role all along the line. You will see that behind the repressions against women, children, and workers during those years, the killer Kirchner’s police was always there beating workers but guarding Cristobal López.
H: I will say more. I was in those fights and can assure the lawyers, prosecutors and judges that in the name of the State today accuse you are all front men of the oil companies, of the "Cristobal López"…in there today the trial to the comrades is defined, that is, in the managements of those bosses. They want to punish workers. For me, they are preparing a parody because the only thing they want is vengeance.
Worker Democracy: There are more than 6500 worker fighters under prosecution in Argentina by the Kirchner government. There are dozens of NN prisoners like those from Corral de Bustos, those in jail for the hunger raisings. The brutal attack and persecution against Las Heras workers is not an exception. ..
JP: I want to clarify we aren't before a decision of one judge or an isolated boss attacking workers, not even only a government, lackey of imperialism, that is who applies the policy and partner of the Imperialist oil companies like it is the case of the Kirchners. It is not only about it. From Democracia Obrera since 2006, we have fought side by side LH workers to break their isolation. Today there are thousands and thousands of workers under prosecution. I want to express my opinion in advance. What it is taking place in Argentina is an exploiters' attack. The bourgeoisie, TNCs, and Imperialism as a whole, as exploiter class has decided to punish workers and put on them the Damocles sword so they surrender. 6500 fighters under prosecution mean an attack of the bourgeois state as a whole against the working class. Thus, the decisions are taken by the monopolies, the big bourgeoisie, and oligarchy giving instruction to their judges, and governments and all their State institutions to launch this punishment. 6500 fighters under prosecution is not by chance. There are dozens in jail. There are worker fighters killed in the streets like Fuentealba.
The world economic crisis is here, a cycle of investments and a new leap forward the pillage of the country is only guaranteed by a severe discipline on workers. The high cost of living, the skyrocketing inflation, more than 50% of slave labor force, unregistered "in black" and flexible work push the bourgeoisie to attack more and more exploited. This is the truth of these governments that say to be "progressive", "democratic"…
RS: Yes, for sure. But this government of Kirchner and his judges unmask the true character deeply reactionary of the governments self-names bolivarian that showed to be, so starvers and repressors of workers like the old bourgeois governments, members of the Bush’s Free Trade Agreement. We have just seen the violently repression of the Morales government on Huanuni miners, leaving dozens of workers with charges…the Venezuelan police occupying the cities to guarantee the brutal devaluation and attack against workers. ..they are disciplining the US backyard. All of them. They are punishing the Latin American masses with the anti imperialist fighters tortured in Guantánamo by CIA before the eyes of the entire world.
PM: As regards what JP said. Here in Argentina, 6500 fighters persecuted and prosecuted is an exemplary action on the part of the oppressors' State. In '76, the political parties, the Justicialista Party with Luder, Balbin (UCR) that called for massacring the "industrial guerrilla" negotiating the military coup with Massera, the Triple A that was massacring the best of the worker vanguard. All of them decided with the monopolies, the Argentinean big bourgeoisie and oligarchy to stop the great revolutionary process opened in 1969 with the Cordobazo. They decided with Martínez de Hoz at the head in the director Board of Acindar, Ford, as well in the meeting of the Sociedad Rural, that is, in the managements of their companies, their banks and embassies to give instructions for the Junta Militar to massacre the people in a true genocide. For that reason, that genocide was a class one. It was a decision of a exploiter class over the exploited.
It was a State decision. As yesterday the General Varela sent by Irigoyen and the gorilla UCR party, killers of workers, decided to massacre the fighters of La Patagonia Rebelde and buried them by hundreds in common graves to defend the English imperialism's interests in the South of Argentina. The brutal repression against workers in 2006 in Las Heras was the beginning of an attack over the working class to stop the expansive wave of the revolution initiated in 2001.6500 fighters today under prosecution in a decision taken in the managements of the TNC's with judges and politicians of the government and opponents who apply the orders. It is class attack.
Worker Democracy: During the last weeks we saw you with your comrades participating in meetings supporting the workers attacked and with charges in the country.
D: Yes, we know about solidarity because we suffered a hard isolation. That affected us a lot, thus, we give our solidarity to other workers. This is only known deeply by our families since they suffered it. For them, it was a true torture. Many comrades have asked me if the detention was hard. I answered that the worse was experienced by our families…despite what we suffered in jail was serious, painful, insulting…they wanted revenge and made us feel it. I couldn't see my daughter's birth neither I saw her growing up during 3 years. I know that that some day she will know it was neither for committing theft, nor maltreating someone, nor committing any crime but it was for decent work and fighting for it. So, how couldn’t I be here In Buenos Aires? I am here in public meetings side by side the Garrahan workers who gained the acquittal for their leaders. They achieved to be surrounded by dozens of worker organizations. I have seen the great solidarity conquered for the punishment to the killers of Ferreyra that has not been still achieved and is far from being gained. The chiefs of the police, of the Ministerio del Interior (Home office) , the companies that gave the order to execute Ferreyra and workers that fought against the labor poor conditions are all free.
Mi: Yes, that's for sure. The businessmen and top leadership of the police are untouchable. The same killer police of this murderous State that freed the zone to massacre Ferreyra is the same police under the same government, the same ministers of Interior and murderous bosses that freed the routes…in Las Heras…It is as JP says. None member of the ruler class, that is, the companies that sent and organized the police to free the zone, sent the hooligans for them break the casual workers' head, neither of them was mentioned in the judicial cause. But how can they be mentioned if they are the bosses of the judges? I followed the trial on TV and the judge seemed to be a professor of Superior Studies, giving a lecture with solemn voice, arbitrating justice…What a chatterbox he is! Everything to save his chiefs: the company's owners, the State, the government that has no other solution but offers one of his guard dogs like Pedraza, to save all of them…who are similar or worse than Pedraza. Complicity between the labor minister and Pedraza who were talking by phone as great friends…of course that is what they are…that Labor Minister is nothing more than the manager of human resources of all the entrepreneurs to smash the working class.
Worker Democracy: D, your isolation starts to be broken…
D: Yes, it is a very positive fact. We were to much alone. It is very sad. But I always knew our struggle was of the workers, belonged to all the workers and that some day, our truth would be known by all. And it starts to happen. When we were in jail two comrades and me sent a letter to a public meeting taking place in the Psychology University If I remember well. My brother Franco came to participate. At that moment according to what he transmitted to me, I felt the silence wall raised against us had been broken. I knew about the comrades who participated to break the silence in that meeting In 2008. I heard a great truth when it was posed our cause was not a judicial cause as regards Sayago. In that public meeting it was denounced we were in jail because we were workers and for fighting. That is the truth. They were focused on us to punish all the workers. This is not the "Sayago cause", it is the cause of the workers jailed just for being workers.
In that way the silence was broken and I have only words of gratitude for the comrades who received my brother and our family here in Buenos Aires. I remembered they were welcomed by Workers of Brukman, Dr. Luis Zamora…I know that in that meeting where the silence was broken were present Gustavo Lerer, member of the Garrahan internal commission, ATE. Thus, I couldn't give less than be with him when he was taken to the tribunals. Workers of Francés Hospital in struggle were present, as well the family of the comrade Villalba who was kept detained in his house at that moment, and the attorney Nicolás Espósito, lawyer of CORREPI at that moment. They together with Democracia Obrera (Worker Democracy) among aother currents and organisms were who broke the silence and today we are many more breaking the isolation and fighting for our acquittal and of all the prosecuted ones. I don't want to forget anyone of those who went to the meeting In 2008 because in that gathering the silence began to be broken. The workers of Junín Clinic of Córdoba were there; a clinic that was shut down and dismissed workers. The comrades of the internal commission of the INDEX were present and even they sent me a handwritten letter written in the very same meeting. As always the Paty workers and Rafael Spregelburd, a director of theater I think, were there too.
PM: Here we to speak clearly. It is a revenge of the oil TNC's, Kirchner and his murderous police and front men against workers. The comrade is right, in 2008 the silence began to be broken, the oblivion but not the isolation. The comrades were isolated many years. The leaders of the organizations that claim to be of the working class and militant were not at the level of the circumstances. That's very serious. I feel a deep sorrow because with the disappear ones was kept a terrible silence for a long time and an attempt of oblivion. They didn't achieve it since the people and workers sooner recover their memory. We could paraphrase Bertold Brecht and say "now it´s time of the 6500". I was side by side them during the repression they suffered. Let´s expect it isn't too late.
Many comrades ask me for my sincere opinion as this regards and I will speak with heart. It cannot be possible to have fighters in jail and a systematic campaign hasn’t been carried out, except DO and other currents that vindicate socialist; a campaign for the release of the comrades as part of every combat of the working class during the last years. The majority of the advanced workers and youth of this country doesn’t know that the comrades were in jail and tortured during 3 and a half years in the Kirchner's dungeons in Santa Cruz and then In their house. We must say things as they are: what is discovering the anti worker of Lanata and the opposition of Carrió, Alfonsín, etc. on Kirchner…? When the workers were tortured in prison and repressed In the routes they applauded the police beating them. None of them appeared to support the workers' fights against the taxing on salaries and casual work…because they are all on the boss' side. But what we cannot silence is the fact that all the organizations that say to belong to workers looked the other way. It seemed like if they have red-hot coal in their hands…what did burn to them?
JP: I remember that after Las Heras, a great struggle of teachers took place in Santa Cruz and the civil servants of Kirchners crashed teachers in the pickets driving their pickup tracks.
D: Yes, it was Varizat, a former civil servant of KIrchner, he crashed over the teachers using his van. At that moment Sancho fall down; he was who replaced Acevedo and before being governor he had been SIDE chief.
Acevedo fall down in March 2006, I and other workers were detained in February, and in March the governor fall down. The vice governor assumed, Sancho who fall down because of the teachers' and state workers' fight in Rio Gallegos In 2007.
At that moment it was not happened like in 2011 that the fight was concentrated only in Rio Gallegos while San Jorge Gulf at the North of Santa Cruz had been militarized and the defeat was already imposed. In 2007, Sancho fall down and assumed Peralta who was the auditor of the mine Río Turbio that covered the Kirchner's back in relation to the death of 14 mine workers in 2004. It was a scandal the miners' death and at that moment Cameron was taken out from the director board of the mine and Peralta assumed. When Peralta assumed as governor, he was nothing to do with the parliament, he was auditor of the mine.
Worker Democracy: But so, you were jailed and after that the teachers' and state workers' fight started in Rio Gallegos…
D: Yes, but we were already in jail and hardly stroke in Las Heras.
PM: Well, that's what I mean. The left currents that influenced those fights, some of them today are members of FIT…how can they believe they would win in Rio Gallegos without raising as first demand the fight for the freedom of Las Heras prisoners who fought before them for salary and labor dignity? The working class of Santa Cruz and the whole country paid high costs for this. After Las Heras attack, para-policemen of Kirchner came. If not, what are the gunmen of UOCRA (that in Rio Gallegos have nothing to do with the construction workers) who beat teachers and state workers in struggle, the Trade employees…? What a cynicism! In Santa Cruz with Kirchner and now with Peralta, there are para-policemen beating workers. If they still don't kill one is because they couldn't hit well enough or the Varizat's pick-up track didn't end up breaking the teachers' heads. And now these judges and prosecutors of the oil companies pretend to be pacifist and non-violent people…you had to be in Las Heras to see how the Gendarmerie repressed like in Mosconi did when killed Verón in the route. It was the same police and guards of the regime that killed Kostequi and Santillán or Teresa in Cultra Co. These anti worker people are tired of killing workers in the name of democracy.
H: As PM says Las Heras repression when workers went to demand the freedom to their imprisoned spokesman must not be forget because so many pages of a fake cause want to hide what really happened: it was a repressive and bloody attack of the Kirchner's police against Las Heras workers. Then they changed the entire scenario. They covered the walls' holes made by the live ammunition they shot against the defenseless townspeople. It was the whole town demanding for justice. It was necessary terror and we can say too much treason to silence that great fight. That repression became a hunting of workers house by house using cars without license plates, black lists written by the Pedraza of that city, that is, "Chaco" Segovia. He said by radio when the first 26 workers were imprisoned by destroying their houses and beating their family why there were only detained 26 when he handed out a list with more than 200 names. It's clear. The list of the prisoners was the black list of the oil companies handed out by the union bureaucracy who aimed at the activists. Thus, it isn't a "Sayago cause" as they said here. It is a cause fabricated by the boss, oil TNCs, the bureaucracy and Kirchner to discipline the workers who dared to rise up against the taxing on wages and for decent work.
Worker Democracy: So, the struggle of Las Heras was an expression of hard fights. After the oil workers' fight the teachers and state workers' struggle came. Justly to stop such wave of fights they applied the brutal repression in Las Heras and hard attack against teachers…
Mi: Not only that. The blow and repression against Las Heras workers was also an attack against the waves of the ongoing fights taking place in Argentina after the 2001 revolution had been closed. It was the first direct shock against it. The Subway and French Hospital workers were starting a struggle as well as the teachers and hundreds of conflicts in the factories per unions were emerging. A great part of the militant activism we see today in the worker movement emerged from those hard struggles between 2005 and 2006. They confronted the repressive police, Kirchner and the gunmen and hooligans of the union bureaucracy that attacked fiercely Casino workers, French Hospital workers, subway workers…because here Pedraza is not the only bad devil bureaucrat. The attack against Las Heras was a key issue. The bourgeoisie said: "you either get broken, submitted to the Labor Ministry or we destroy and jail you"
From that moment on, before each worker’s process of struggle as it was in Las Heras in 2006, we have insisted on setting up a National Coordinating Organ of the fights against the gunmen of the union bureaucracy that was attacking in the Subway, French Hospital, or in Casino, etc.
We called for setting up a great movement of the workers' organizations for the freedom to the Las Heras oil workers and were left alone with this demand against the current. Despite that one or other organization can "formally" accompany, but in fact nothing happened. I remember that currents that vindicate to be socialist to treat Sayago as "comrade policeman", that killer of babies. I have listened to others speaking about "independent commission of investigation" saying between lines that workers should be under investigation when they were brutally repressed. What the PTS affirmed at that moment would have been like to pose "independent commission of investigation" for the May 1 in 1886 when the worker leaders were taken to the scaffold without any proof and accusing them falsely of killing 7 policemen when in fact the police had attacked workers, women and their children who were demanding for bread.
PM: When the workers recently were imprisoned in 2006, more than 20 workers, March 24th came and from here and Las Heras we launched an appeal to the workers organizations where we asked them "what are you doing in Plaza de Mayo? Why aren't you here in Las Heras where there is a dictatorship as in Videla's times". Moreover, the comrades' women denounced how this was a dictatorship and how the cars without license plates chased them while all of them were giving to Kirchner the banner of the "Humans Rights".
Even Hebe de Bonafini went to Las Heras, entered the church where workers found refuge and carried out almost an inquiry to all of them and said: "Well, in the afternoon we will see in the demonstration". Never again she came back to Las Heras!
The families gave her a letter so that she can give it to Kirchner and told her: "We have to denounce what happens here" and Hebe de Bonaffini responded: "Well, I will see what I do but I don't guarantee anything". Next week she appeared next to Kirchner saying "there is no longer an enemy in the Casa Rosada ("Pink House")". Meanwhile Las Heras was smashed!
After that, the police went to repress to Subway, first time after years since police couldn't enter to subway but after the events of Las Heras they were able to repress inside the Subway, in Once and Constitución (Capital Federal, Buenos Aires).
JP: Las Heras and Fuentealba meant a punishment to stop the growing fights taking place after the revolutionary process. The working class fought from 1998 to 2002 suffering more than 25% of unemployment. Thus, they had institutions like the pickets, blockades of routes, assemblies, revolt and then general strikes that overthrew De la Rúa. After that, the "growing cycle" came and those millions of unemployed workers entered to work. The working class saw how the bankers that had cheated the People enriched therefore they began to demand what belonged to them. Las Heras' fight was part of that new situation of workers whose salaries supported the State of the parasitic capitalists.
So, the comrades who were 18-19 years old took the oil companies and said: "there is no longer economic crisis". Kirchner said "we grow at a Chinese rate, 10-12%". Thus, "give us a salary increase" responded the working class.
Fidel Castro came to Argentina in 2003 to say that Kirchner would "share out" and nothing was given. For that reason, all the worker sectors began to demand 6 hours labor shift in Subway, decent work for all, salary increase. The South of the country was the vanguard of such struggle because they fought decent work for all and all workers under the oil collective agreement. But Kirchner shared out repression, exploitation and misery. "Work for all" was the war cry of the unemployed workers, the war cry of Mosconi (North of Salta) where workers rebelled before the falling down of De la Rúa.
When the economic revival appeared and the working class entered the productive process again, workers saw the economy growing and said: "give us the work for what we fought". Because Kirchner said and still says that everybody works but only a 30% of the working class is under collective labor agreement and some labor rights. The rest of workers receive a salary not enough to live. Thus, it was the engine of the fight as well the salary problem since if the companies began to make fortunes "we who produce want what belong to us" said workers.
Worker Democracy: PM, I see you are very worried and even hurt about this experience and hard attack against the South workers…
PM: No. I GET INDIGNANT FOR IT. I get indignant for what the socialist currents applied; currents that vindicate to be of the workers. I insist on it, we must say the truth. The workers and youth have to know why fighters were imprisoned during 3 years and 4 more years without the possibility of leaving the Province. A shameful silence was kept and the workers were left in the hands of the lawyers who submitted them to the fascist judges. I applaud the HONEST intervention saying the truth on the part of a delegate of Linea 60 in the public act in support of Garrahan workers where D was participating; he said "Las Heras comrades are present, all of us here have to organize the solidarity and I say feeling shame…I say blush with shame…during a long time nothing was said about Las Heras workers". I applaud the courage and honesty of such delegate. That's the way a leader behaves and not as other currents that say to be socialist and during years hid Las Heras workers in the closet. I will speak clearly because I was there and accompanied them and their families in the worse moments. I saw how they suffered.
During these days I read an article published by the Partido Obrero's press that says the struggle of the comrades divided he coordination to fight against the taxing on wages where the SUTNA's workers are at the head. Please! How is it going to divide the fight for the acquittal of Las Heras comrades who are the first launching a decisive fight rejecting the taxing on salaries? that the workers who today continue such fight against the taxing on wages raise the struggle for Las Heras workers' freedom: How is it going to divide? In fact, the truth divisive program is the PO leadership´s program that separates the fight for the prisoners from the demands of workers. It was the divisive program they imposed when the state workers, teachers, etc. were fighting in Río Gallegos. They affirmed that to raise the demand of Las Heras workers divided. Then we saw what happened with the workers. Then Varizat ran over the teachers' head with his van. It is as claim that to raise the demand of justice and punishment to Pedraza and all the responsible ones for the assassination of Mariano Ferreyra
I am not exaggerating since they are dividing. Why doesn’t FIT lead the committee In defense of the workers like the Paty, Garrahan, and Linea 60 workers are doing? Or like small organizations like ours or Causa Obrera, Convergencia Socialista, among others? Why is it the silence on the prisoners of Corral de Bustos, Bariloche and the hunger upheavals on December 20? A socialist is defined as such according to the principled attitude facing the State if not he is a divisive. I say this because I am sure the absolute majority of the rank and file militants of FIT are ready to give everything for LH workers in an uninteresting way since they know it is a way to fight for themselves. Sometimes, the apparatus's interests divide the worker movement, not what I said before. The politic of the regime's Left currents divides the fights and not what I said before. The other day I watched in TN (television program) the FIT's candidates, Altamira and Cristian Castillo, they didn't use any second of their TV space to mention the struggle of Las Heras workers one week before the trial. For that reason, I get indignant, because they say one thing but apply another thing.
Worker Democracy: And you, RS, from the FLTI, what do you think?
RS: We share 100% what PM is saying. And it shouldn't offend anybody to say the truth. The fact that we form part of a united front and stand for the widest action unity, even with the "devil" (without asking the devil to hide his tail and horns) to get the acquittal of Las Heras comrades doesn't mean we can't pose how we see the struggle, the action of the different currents that lead the worker movement. It's about to tell masses the truth. If not, How do they find their way as regards the organization they call on to lead them. We are hardly attacked for it by currents that vindicate to be socialist. Sometimes we were attacked violently and physically and comrade JP and the international worker vanguard know and never will forget it. It's not secondary. We will not change the characterization we have about our acquaintance allies to fight for the freedom to the prisoners. We tell them if they stand for the fight for the release of the imprisoned workers, they must show it indeed.
Each current fights accordingly the program they have. We don't ask anybody to low their positions to make unity with us and we don't lower ours because we believe they are the best for the victory.
If not, let´s see…we were in Las Paz when the COB bureaucracy and POR -that vindicate to be trotskyist in that country- called on the police to pass on the workers' side in the strike. It was the same police that beat miner workers and had massacred brutally TIPNIS peasants. Unbelievable. The watchdog shows his master the teeth to receive more food to repress the people better. And all these people name them ""comrade policeman". Yes, it was what happened among great part of the Argentinean left parties as regards "comrade police Sayago". Even he was commemorated with a moment of silence. We aren't that. He is an executioner on account of the exploiters; they must respond what they did with their executioner not workers who only received live ammunition in Las Heras.
Yes. There is a wing of the Latin American left that claim the police can be domesticated without dissolving it. It is like saying that we can set up a self defense committee to defend us from the police or the fascists in a strike and we can go to ask the "comrades policemen" to defend us. We have debated theoretically and programmatically on such question in an extend way against POR of Bolivia and even against the LIT-CI that have this program.
The silence it is because in the violent repression launched by the GEO group against Las Heras workers and their families one of them died. They accuse workers of it when in fact the killer police was the only one armed that repressed violently. The murderous police must resolve this problem among them since workers who fought for their demands have nothing to do. In any case, what took place was a social commotion that was fiercely attacked and they tried to smash it through the repression forces. A whole town was attacked. Even house by house. The fires and sticks came through the police station against the mobilized town. Those who ordered the repression must seek among them. In any case, what took place was "Fuenteovejuna" ("pueblada" town uprising). They have freedom. They, the exploiters, and their judges hug themselves, defend and save every killer of workers. They spread apologia of violence because 6500 fighters under prosecution is an action of violence more than an apologia; an action of violence that effectively is more similar to what happens in any dictatorship.
Because if 3000 or 4000 workers are imprisoned what is it? it is dictatorship like Zionism that have more than 4500 Palestinians imprisoned in their dungeons? There are hundreds of judges, criminal courts, accusing 6500 workers of being murders, bandits treating them as common prisoners. They are political and social prisoners of the working class and not of Argentina but of the world. Once for all it is necessary to unmask it. One has to say things as they are. PM is right. The founder of the Argentinean Socialist Party, Juan B. Justo, (nobody can suspect he was a rebel) affirmed that the masses’ right to get rebelled against the executioner is sacred. What happens here is that there isn’t even a socialist-from a class consciousness viewpoint- can surpass the founder of the Argentinean socialism. And on top of that, they want to pose as revolutionary.
Mi: Now listening to you speaking about Las Heras, it seems to be similar to the Martyrs of Chicago. They were accused of killing 7 policemen on May 1 in 1886 in Chicago. The police of that city launched a brutal attack and repression against workers and their families when the only crime they committed was to demand 8 hours of work in a public meeting. The main accused workers were on the stage since they were the public speakers of the meeting. A bomb was thrown, nobody knows who threw it; the bomb killed 7 policemen and those on the stage were accused.
The Martyrs of Chicago In their defense against the executioners denounced that the accusers were seeking for vengeance, that all the witnesses were false like now in Las Heras and that nothing convinced the tribunal because it was revenge. What justice? only class vengeance. I think that PM is right. The question is about it. Nothing more nothing less. The "socialist" ones must be demanded to act as socialist or at least, like consistent democrats, to fight in the streets determinedly for workers' freedom.
H: I know D., all the workers who were in detention and families since a long time. I went to their homes when they were in jail as well as to the prison to visit them daily. I saw everything. I saw everything they did against their families. I saw the families maltreated when they went to visit workers in prison. I saw how they paid 500, 1000, 2000 pesos to lawyers per week. Their families had to sell their goods. They were alone like dogs to free their sons, husbands, brothers. They still have to pay the lawyers. Thus, I cannot allow what a lawyer wrote In the PO's press, a lawyer I knew In Las Heras. She affirms the same premise of the prosecutor…I have the written proceeding here. For that reason, it is correct to make public the cause where the accusation of workers is written.
The premise is exactly the same to the prosecutor's in the accusation. I will read what this "defender" lawyer says: "the crowd advanced over those in uniform and several policemen were injured due to the blows, shots of every kind. Multiple fire shootings were heard and Sayago resulted dead." ((Prensa Obrera, 06-06-2013. Section: Democratic Freedoms. “Oil workers and neighborhoods of Las Heras are taking to court"). And know let´s see what the prosecutor says: "Immediately a group of enrage attackers advanced-they were supplied with blunt elements (…) " It is said in page 3104, proceeding N °2621/09. And then, in page 3105 the prosecutor says, "These same aggressions that in a group and organized way the attackers carried out had as personal target the rest of the policemen" (…)"
It is unspeakable. I was signed by this lawyer personally but the currents that vindicate to be socialist and of the left wing in Argentina cannot accept it because it is an accusation against the workers.
WHAT THE LAWYER AND PROSECUTOR SAY IS FALSE. IT IS A LIE, A VILE SLANDER AGAINST WORKERS, TO SAVE THEIR OWN HEAD.
The only thing Las Heras workers did was to hide themselves from the bullets the police shot them after kidnapping their leader. PM is right. It explains the silence on Las Heras. What would happen if one current that vindicate to be of the fighting workers in Argentina would have affirmed that the demand of jail for Pedraza-killer of Ferreyra- divides the struggle? They would have been considered a current obsequious to the regime and bourgeois state. What would have happened if lawyers testify in the Ferreyra's trial that the fighters attacked the murderous thugs of Pedraza? How is it possible to be so cynical and to say such a thing days before the workers' trial, to say such atrocity totally imprudent? They will have to explain the working class and youth their action. We will not hide it. They must explain.
PM: I agree with it 100%. Sometimes, it is difficult for me to express myself but I get indignant. I lost my parents who were tortured and massacred like dogs. I swore NEVER AGAIN. And it means I will be unconditionally side by side workers against their killers.
Workers Democracy: We remember very well what happened at that moment. Our press was present in a conference convened in Bauen with 200 organizations that called for solidarity with Las Heras workers when Navarro came to Buenos Aires.
D: Yes, but we haven't seen him in Las Heras during these years and we were chased and jailed for fight for his freedom. He should be at the head of this struggle. We expect he joins the fight since the attack against us means an attack against the whole workers. Of course that everybody must ex´plain who is who and the causes of their action. But I expect this time, they don't forget us, don't let us alone. We don't feel alone any more because the solidarity we are receiving is great. And those who put stones on our way are the minority. Many people, there are thousands of workers that begin to understand in this trial also their fate is defined. We are for the unity and even we must achieve to be heard by the leaders of the CGT and CTA. Do they fight against the taxing ob wages? We start that struggle that is of the whole Argentinean working class. Why are they still In silent and don't fight for our freedom? We do unify, but don't shoot us from behind. Because it is our head imprisoned. We put our body and families'. The enemies are the boss, government. I think that Navarro has to come to our trial because we mobilized pacifically for his freedom when he was in prison.
JP: We want to warn that here we have a sinister plan of the boss' justice to impose a sentence in Las Heras in an express trial to leave a preceding that there are "two demons": the killer of Pedraza and workers of Las Heras who only fought for salary and dignity. The guar dogs, the thug with the government's police and the TNCs has nothing to do-since they are murders- with Las Heras workers persecuted for fighting for a fair cause, even using the right to strike that protected them. It is what we must prevent.
PM: Yes, that's right. It is the famous theory of the "two demons". The worker leader that lives in Puerto Madero with the backhander of the companies and government is equal "murder" than workers, that is, he is as "murderous" as the hunger workers that demand what belong to them for their work. It is what Kirchner does with Pedraza, she wants to legitimize herself and her justice to then smash 6500 worker fighters. With this theory they saved the genocidal military-men saying that they were "as bad as the people that confronted them". I insist on it. It is necessary to warn the working class about such sinister plan on the part of the exploiters.
DS: But we are breaking the isolation. This is the biggest achievement. In Las Heras particularly with Gendarmeria there is a regime of terror with the oil companies. There the companies decide, based in union bureaucracies. They decide what it’s done and it isn’t. They rule. So people are scared. What are the chances of getting rid of that fear? Denouncing what is happening and do what the comrades are doing, i.e. break the isolation. Las Heras is isolated. Now we have to break the isolation. This is what we talked with the comrades in my factory. They collected money and founds in the very same assembly. I think this is the way to fight. Not only the leaders showing their faces, but always based on the rank and file, fighting with the comrades. I have listening carefully all the opinions and I kept thinking. The fight that is coming is very hard. Our comrades need to be aware of that.
PM: But the fence can’t be broken with words, we need facts.
Mi: That’s right. We say in our leaflets and statements that the prisoners are released with a fighting plan, national strike, pickets and actions in the streets. That is how we, workers, have always conquered our demands. There is no other way
DS: That is what we did when our prosecuted comrade was called to testify. We went on strike in the factory and marched towards the court. We told the company that we weren’t going to allow that any of our comrades be prosecuted and if one of us was attacked we will stop the factory. The bosses were in charge of telling the bosses, since they pay them, that they must stop prosecuting workers.
Democracia Obrera: D., how is life in Las Heras today?
D: In Las Heras they put a court. In a town of 20 thousand people they put a court. They have the judge, led by the oil companies, and the stick of the Gendarmeria.
And who is this judge? Quelin. He has a lot of properties in Las Heras!
In 2007, after a year everything happened, he was named judge. He ordered all the detentions in Las Heras; all of them. When “Popeye” Vargas was murdered shot in the chest when 15 unemployed were asking jobs at the doors of Repsol, when he sent Gendarmes to repress the teachers… and judged is also the owner of hotels, restaurants and storehouses. Those storehouses host Gendarmeria.
There was a time when they took gendarmes to suppress teachers and the judge put them in his storehouse and the entire town marched and tried to burn it and that is how Gendarmerie left. This judge is like the owner of Las Heras. That is how all judges are. Judges are big capitalists, they defend oil companies’ interests. This judge was already a boss of the area, he was a lawyer. His father used to bring women as prostitutes from Chile so they work for him. He owns supermarkets among other things. Some time ago a brothel set on fire and one of the prostitutes died.
RS: Right. That is the real role of justice. That is why we are going to expose them. Behind the judges who is? who are they? Pharaohs?
There is a fight between capitalists clique in Argentina to see who owns more judges. Because if Kirchner leaves, since she can be candidate, who gives her guarantees from going to jail in hands of other bourgeois gangs? What guarantees does she have that she will still having business and that she won’t lose what she has conquered during her government? And this question depends on how many judges every sector of the bosses has on their favor. Bourgeois gangs need, for their business, a referee that distributes. The problem is that every gang of slavers don’t count how deputies have, because the parliament is useless, but how many judges have every gang in their favor. Elections and the parliament are a veneer. It is a layer of paint over this fierce dictatorship of capital.
I listened a leader of the LWF (FIT in Spanish, TN), Altamira and he says that the combination of a “Parliamentary seat and social mobilization, is a massive destruction weapon”. If it is a joke, it is in bad taste. I received the tape of the TV program where he stated it. He also said that his is how 6hs shift was conquered by the subway workers, with their Parliamentary member and the fight of the workers. Come on! The 6hs shift was conquered by the subway workers as part of the revolutionary fight of 2001. That is the only weapon of massive destruction. Unemployed workers doing pickets next to the entrances and shoulder by shoulder with the workers who were blocking the railways and facing the armed gangs of UTA (Union of Transport workers) and police repression.
JP: Though, We must clarify that those at the top ruling share out their business among them, their judges lead SIDE (Argentinean Intelligence Services, NT), of the murderous polices, of the (GEO) special tasks police, who murder and beat workers.
RS: I insist. The idea they want to impose, and this is why the position of the left wing of the 1853/94 Constitution is so opportunistic, is that with parliamentary sets, the workers can conquer demands and that judges can rule in favor of the exploited people. Such thing never happened. We, revolutionary socialists, state that even the smallest conquer was achieved a sub-product of huge revolutionary combats. In a Parliamentary seat you talk, denounce, and educate workers that every demand is conquered by fighting. They are just vulgar socialdemocrat. We should tell them to go to the companies and tell capitalists who gave their profits away to the workers; that put ressure hard on capitalists; that from the parliamentary seats tell capitalists to be nice people. Further, if they want, that they give capitalists lessons. Stop lying; it is not possible to lie people in that way to get an extra vote.
And if we ever take something from the parliament, or a judge rules in favor of the workers, it is because they are afraid of losing everything.
This means that they do it because there is nothing else they can do but surrender before a fierce fight. As always, the bourgeoisie wants to hide the power; the class character the power has.
PM: So, here there are people who think that judges are impartial. And is the other way round. Judges are ruled by companies, bankers. They pay their holidays abroad, they wages, their travel allowances… Supreme Court of Justice administrates a budget, with the entire judicial power, which is higher than the budget of Defense in Argentina. They are millionaires. Living from their wages? They steal from the budget and receive travel allowances and favors from all big businessmen and women, at the same level or worst than Lazaro Baez. They are big businessmen and women who lead them and the politicians. These people, where did they get the power to become judges? Is one of the key institutions of the State so the working class gets submitted to the justice. When all the institutions of domination are surpassed, judges appear on the picture and as a last source they have the weapons of the generals to defend capitalists’ properties.
In Argentina they used to have the Military Party. Then the political parties came to repress the people. And now is coming the judicial party to play the role of referee between different business of the bourgeoisie and throw all their SANIA against the working class. This history repeats over and over again and will keep repeating until workers conquer a revolutionary party to lead workers to seize power.
Democracia Obrera: Why such attack against workers? How do people live in Las Heras before this scenario?
JP: Argentinean bourgeoisie defined that the economic crisis arrived. And, for them, the working class must be punished before rebelling again. The recession of the world economic crisis has begun again. We are entering a situation where the government is losing social base. Middle classes were full of dollars and said “kill the poors”. Now they can’t sell dollars anymore because they were taken by the bankers abroad. So the government, which is the government of TNCs and bankers, eats and destroys its own social base that supports it. TNCs are implacable. First they use the middle class against workers and then they get rid of the middle class too. They bankrupt them. This is the process that started. The inflation and increase on the cost of living is unbearable. So they have 6,500 prosecuted to punish the working class and impose on them discipline for their previous fights. Having hostages to prevent old fights to coming back in Argentina, i.e. the working class rebelling and imposing again the worker and popular alliance in the streets as in 2001-2002.
DS: And to settle the "juridical safety" so no one rises up again. They want to transform us in the Chinese workers from the West. They want to put us, the workers, in jail factories, in maquilas (Sweat shops), as the Bangladesh and Chinese workers, that's the truth.
Mi: Of course! Because Argentina is a maquila. And for the bourgeoisie in the maquila there must be prisoners and dead ones, and there must be a Guantanamo. For example, see the number of suicides in Las Heras. It is the city with the greatest percentage of suicide of young people between 18 and 29 years. Two per month. That is because there is no future, there is desperation. Before they occupied the oil plants and they got work. They fought. Now, they don't. Now they can't even fight, what alternative do they have?
DS: They are the children that graduated to be exploited, and now they don't even want to exploit them.
D: In Las Heras, before turning 18 years old they arrange for them the causes that have no defense. They arrange the causes and there is no way out. And they also make them believe it!
Many of the suicide cases, supposedly the half of them, are actually "easy trigger". Young ones choked are found on their knees. There are children that are migrant workers -like Daniel Solano from Salta-, like one worker who came from Formosa to Los Antiguos. He stopped in Las Heras and it was said he killed himself in the jail. The family went to seek for him and the body was given to the family in a locked coffin. But the family asked them to open it, and they had smacked him to death, they even tortured him with electric shocks. He had the testicles disarmed and his ribs broken.
JP: Then the suicide cases in Las Heras weren't suicides.
H: They have applied on the workers of Las Heras the same trap applied in the Rebel Patagonia. The military-man Varela came with a paper saying "What are you demanding?" "This, that and that", "Take it, I give you it". The strike stopped but they started dismissing the employees of the hotels, so workers had to go back to the strike. Varela came back and said "We didn't arrange this", the workers had already disarmed their pickets and self-defense committees from Rio Gallegos to Las Heras, and the slaughter started. In Jaramillo (between Las Heras and Puerto Deseado) there are 1200 workers buried. And in Rio Gallegos, 2000, every one of them in common graves. In Las Heras the same thing occurred. The Labor Minister went and told the workers that all their demands were fulfilled, the strike and the picket were suspended, and what came then was the militarization and jail.
PM: Children appear with shotguns in the nape and they say it is a suicide! The comrade D. told this to the workers of Línea 60 and some of them cried for it. Teenagers appeared choked with a belt stood on the floor where it is impossible they can strangle themselves. Another young appeared hang in the middle of a rugby arch, another hang out in a water tank were there was no chance for him to go up there where he was found. Thus, it is a lie, the suicides are a lie; they have impunity to guarantee workers never attack the property of the capitalists and companies again.
Workers Democracy: Who enforces justice? Who are these judges? Who has chosen them? Who gave them the power they have?
RS: Power the capitalists gave to them. When the democratic covering these judges have is removed what it is left unmasked is that the state is a gang of armed men and that they are the chiefs of the gang. That's the true regime of domination today in Argentina. Because, who leads the police? The judges! They are the chiefs of the police! The judges are the chiefs of the police; the police inspectors don't impart justice. The prosecutors and the judges give the instruction to the SIDE. Because, who investigates? Who leads the SIDE? The judges, the prosecutors lead the SIDE. Who are the chief commanders of the police? The judges! Those are the true police inspectors! This is the STATE main pillar! They are the chiefs of the security forces who are in charge of keeping the capitalists' interests, chiefs of the police, gendarmerie and the SIDE. All this are the judges!
Then the left currents come and say "there are good judges, don't do any mess because there are good and democratic judges". How can there be good and democratic judges if they are the chiefs of the police? How can there be democratic police and the military-men? That is what we must explain.
That's why it is necessary to fight to set up Workers and Popular Tribunals to judge them and every bourgeois politician and repressor of the people. The revisionism in Marxism always wanted to make the workers believe that the state and their institutions are neutral, that is, that either workers or the bourgeoisie can fill it with content. It is a vile lie. We know what the peaceful via to the socialism is, don’t we? It was proved in Chile. The military party came and cut the workers' throat, while the workers' leaders made them believe they could achieve the socialism through the "pacific way". Just imagine a judge decreeing that every banker that expropriated the people's savings in 2001goes to the jail … and, another declares a judgment saying the banks must be expropriated because they are all thieves; and other judge sentences without payment; and other saying under workers' control. They want to make us believe that by putting pressure it is possible to have any judge able to imprison the entire importing and exporting bourgeoisie that overcharges and undercharges their importations and exportations.
This is a stupidity that no one can believe. There had never been or will be judgments of the judges against the capitalists, against the slavery imposed on the working class, against the imperialist plundering of the wealth of the countries the imperialism oppresses.
The state and his institutions aren’t “neutral”, they belong to the exploiters or to the working class if it takes the power by destroying the institutions of the bourgeois state. And it isn’t of a good socialist to lie to the workers. The state belongs to the owner class that set up the state to repress, coerce and deceive the class they exploit. The exploited must take the power and destroy the existing state machinery and impose our government and our worker state. That’s what the socialist fight for.
JP: The left currents now denounce the infiltrations that the state makes over the worker organizations, and talk about a "Project X". "Project X"? It's the project A, B, C, the entire alphabet; the entire armed forces and boss political parties have their services of intelligence. Every boss in his factory has their service of intelligence.
Is it only the gendarmerie spying? And the owners in the factory don't spy with the scabs? How is what they say that there is only a "project X" of the gendarmerie? We must tell the truth to the working class. Each owner has in his factory a "project X", has scabs. Every owner has his private military security guard at the door, thugs and hooligans that they call to come every time there is a strike. They have semi-public groups as yesterday the force of tasks of Massera and the ESMA, like the hooligans that today are with Moreno and all the politicians killing workers.
"Project X"? It's all right, they found out one, but they don't need to be very cunning. Every worker in the factory knows who are the "project X's", that is, the scabs that make them get fired. If the workers say who are the scabs in all the factories we will have a file longer than the one of the gendarmerie. It seems a lie what the left currents are saying.
D: The comrade have already mentioned that Chaco Segovia regretted not jailing 200 workers because he sell out a list naming all the activists, that is the black list. That is a "Project X", that means the bureaucracy and the boss have a great service of intelligence to mark the fighters.
RS: Bourgeois democracy is the most sweetened way to wrap the most brutal dictatorship of the capitalists. This is a looted semi-colonial country. Monopolies and the global financial oligarchy, need, in every country that oppress, the most dictatorial government as possible. Do you know that there are currents in the world who call themselves "socialists" and they say imperialism, in this case U.S. and his friend Obama - expand democracy and freedom around the world? It seems incredible but true. To better dominate "expand democracy and freedom". So, they called "people's spring" to revolutions for bread in the Maghreb and the Middle East. There you have Assad massacring in Syria. In Greece they wanted to convince us that through elections and voting for the "anti-capitalist" the problem was solved, and now they are the fascists in the streets beating up workers
But the most important thing is, in the most democratic democracy in the world, the capitalists and imperialism is controlled, supervised and managed by the Wall Street bankers who control the CIA and spy everyone and basically what we workers and revolutionaries do
This project of Obama and the CIA, the U.S. Senate voted was called "Homeland Defense".
Workers Democracy: We are working in our press an on article about how we got the freedom of prisoners in Argentina at the end of the dictatorship of Lanusse.
JP Yes, I collaborated with comrades at this point, since the prisoners were set free with the struggle and deepening the methods of the Cordobazo before the fall of Lanuse's dictatorship. and when Campora had not come to power yet. And youth workers marched to the Devoto prison and liberated the political prisoners who faced the dictatorship. Many of those thousands of young people with whom we opened Devoto prison to free our comrades belonged to the revolutionary left and the Peronist Youth. I Insist. When Campora came to power in 1973 after wining elections, the next day Peronist Youth and the Argentinean left went to surround Devoto prison without an order of nobody we broke the doors and released all political prisoners. What parliament had to do? As soon as elected held an emergency meeting and voted the amnesty law when all comrades had been released in the mobilization.
That was the culmination of a great struggle for the overthrow of the dictatorship and for freedom of prisoners. That is the way. Not fuck anymore with the imprisoned of the working class. You cannot allow a comrade worker anymore set foot in a trial as a common prisoner. It's incredible. The ones who have to go to jail like common criminals are the bankers because they are thieves and swindlers. Because their balance sheets in black, smuggled, by the flight of capital and outright theft of taxes paid by the people by politicians and corrupt judges.
Sometimes you try to repeat history but as farce. How can you call "La Campora" the youth of the repressive Kirchner's government and the oil companies that throw prisoners in jail, when young people fighting under those flags, forty years ago, although they were wrong, at least they had democratic consciousness they had to release prisoners from the dungeons of the bourgeois regime in Argentina.
DS: What a fighting experience it was! It's good to be known. From my factory we have promoted solidarity with the masses of Syria and Libya who fought against Al Assad and Gaddafi. We have seen the best allies of the working class, who are muted and slander as it also has been done with the workers of Las Heras. These workers were charged with "hare hunters, criminals, murderers" and the masses of Syria and Libya "NATO troops", "Taliban" and "agents of imperialism". Assad came and brought slaughter. So I am thinking that in order to release prisoners we have to prepare and organize a big fight. The one who believes that if comrades of Las Heras go to jail , nothing will happen to him is completely wrong. At a meeting I said "we'd better unite and fight, because the ones, who lead our comrades' demands, have the prison garb."
Workers democracy: Which is the way to develop the defense of oil workers and all attacked comrades? What Do the leaders of other currents and leftist parties on this issue? What do they raise? Fighting plan? General Strike?
DS: We keep on fighting for the General Strike; the General Strike for political prisoners freedom and fellow defendants. We say no to armed causes against the oil workers of Las Heras. Like the fellows of Corral de Bustos. This is the fight we gave in all meetings of labor organizations we participated. We proposed where we needed to go, we had to impose, the CGT and the CTA the General Strike and as first point the freedom of political prisoners and the fall of the charges of all workers and popular fighters. Because others are only with the claims of the CGT that is wage increase, against the tax salary, etc.., but say nothing of political prisoners. As we have already voted in assembly, we propose that in every fight of our class we raise the demand of freedom for political prisoners and dropping of prosecutions of all fighters.
Some currents, as it was raised in the act in favor of comrades of Garrahan hospital, say that "we must fight for the general strike ...". But they take it as propaganda. They do not call to set up a Coordinating Committee. And such a things are said by recognized leaders from the box seat, his speeches are on Youtube. They say, general strike but they do not say how or with who is organized. So they are not fighting for a Coordinating Committee . It Is just a slogan.
Some who called to defend comrades of Las Heras argued "It cannot be possible , I'm embarrassed, nobody did anything ...". That's not true. The strike of 2006 was a national event that was in all the newspapers, more than 300 organizations gathered at the Hotel Bauen and everyone knew what happened.
Here comrades of FLTI, DO, from different factories, and other labor organizations, did national and international campaign so is not true that anyone did anything. That must be clear. Because now everyone wants to make believe that "nobody did anything" and this comes from before. We and hundreds of workers in Argentina and the world, never abandoned the comrades.
Now everyone says they were fighting for "down with the salary tax." It was for that, but mostly it was for "all under collective agreement." The struggle of the oil workers who were under collective agreement of UOCRA, earning half the salary of an oil worker was central. The unified combat of all oil workers was for being under the oil collective agreement-
Workers Democracy: we are ending this round table to edit a supplement of DO. Do you want to add something?
JP: We must regain the demands we raise in 2001 If we play to one is an injury to all! So it is important what the comrades have done traveling across the country to make know their demands which are for all workers.
It must be said, enough! 6500 prosecuted workers is not a legal problem is a political problem! No longer a legal problem, a political problem. We face political and social prosecuted comrades. We as workers never reject anyone who support us. Now those who are in parliament, who call themselves Democrats, if you really want to support the workers; you have a solution in your hands. Since we talk so much about the bill, and now as the gorilla opposition with Lanata and Carrio, are acting as democratic.... Why do not make a draft amnesty law for all imprisoned and persecuted workers? Make an amnest vote! The workers are not going to ask for amnesty because we are not going to pay and we will prepare the general strike to defeat judges that imprison us and we want all employers. But lawmakers say they are voting us an Amnesty Law.Amnesty bill! How many bills are there? None. We are not going to tell the devil to remove the horns, or the bourgeois to stop being exploitative, but claims to be democratic and liberal to prove it. It's simple, take out an amnesty law, and fall all causes. Here are just words. Because no one has submitted a draft amnesty law when there is a real attack on workers and democratic rights, shows that here there is no "ruling" or "opposition" when it comes to defending the profits of all capitalists.
Against the workers they are all pro-government.
The petit Mr. Alfonsín, who met with the comrades of Las Heras says he "will see what he does", because a police officer died. These people are not credible. In the 70s 30 thousands comrades disappeared and his father from the UCR with the PJ gave the genocidal militaries the Due Obedience and Full Stop laws in the 80s. Menem reprieved them; who are the democrats of the Argentinean oligarchy laughing at?
So they save each other. They got tired of killing workers. De la Rúa is free, he who slaughtered 40 workers on December 20th 2001, he who called the state of siege so that people get killed in the streets. And he is free! So the solution isn't there. To subjugate ourselves to them isn't the solution. Let's organize ourselves, create a Permanent Struggle Committee and a Movement for the General Strike to liberate the prisoners. That's the way we have to travel.
PM: I want to add the following, because what the comrade is saying is right. Every politician that claims to be democratic has to show it, he has to present a draft of an Amnesty Law. A draft of law that says: “any worker who was involved in a process of mobilization and struggle and is charged with any offense in any court in the nation, as of this moment will be released, all charges will be superseded and starts into effect an Amnesty Law”. And if they don’t do so, it will be proved that they are the servants of the ones that are attacking us.
But we mustn’t stop; we have to fight for the General Strike because that is the only thing that will free them. But we have to expose the ones that come to fight “together with the workers” and create illusions in this State and this regimen, murderer of the people. Because if one deputy presents this draft, the Chamber of Deputies won’t approve it. If the Chamber of Deputies approves it, the Senate will reject it. And if the Senate approves, the president will veto it. And if not, the Court or any justice of the peace from any town in Argentina will declare it anti-constitutional. The working class must trust in its own strengths, in its own organization, in its own institutions of struggle.
We have to say what nobody says. The struggle is irreconcilable, freedom and immediate acquittal. Prison to the judges, to the oil companies that robbed the entire country and that buys all the judges.
They are the ones that deserve a great Popular and Worker Tribunal so that all the bosses, their politicians, their judges and their murderous police officers give explanations.
That’s why what the martyrs of Chicago said was correct: “the crimes of which you accuse us, speak of you”.
We have to add to every demand for salary and every concrete struggle, the demand for the freedom of the political prisoners.
In this struggle for the freedom of the prisoners, against the repressive State, against the tax on wages, for decent work for all, we will be victorious when we fight again as in 2001. With pickets and revolutionary strikes. And as in the 70s, when we opened the Devoto prison and liberated all our comrades. We won’t be fooled. The pressure on the fighters is to prevent us from fighting, so that we don’t occupy the factories, so that never again happens a Zanón or Bruckman, a picket that fights for decent jobs. If these judges are forced to release one of us, it will only be to have more legitimacy to imprison others. That’s why if they touch one of us, they touch us all.
Mi: The workers of Las Heras came out, they were defeated and what came next was a series of defeats, Fuentealba, Dana, Casino, teachers ran over in Gallegos, from then they started to crush everywhere. That’s how it was lived, not only in Las Heras, but in the entire country. The fact that there are 6500 prosecuted is part of a set-back in our struggles. The fact that today workers’ currents take the Las Heras’ campaign means that many are beginning to understand that they are coming for all of us. I want to recall that there can’t be now any more silence for the families that no one talks about, the ones of the accused of being in the hunger revolts in December 2012.
PM: Because there were the “NN” of the 70s, but there are also “NN” prisoners to whom they say that “we don’t have to support them”, “they must have done something”, “they are vandals”. They are political prisoners without name that no one defends and who isn’t even known in which prison they are being held. The delegate comrade Daniel Solano, who wanted to organize the strikes of the workers from the crops in Río Negro, migrant worker, missing; slaughtered witnesses, as the comrade Leonardo Andrada from rail workers; missing as Julio López and Luciano Arruga; Silvia Zupo, stabbed to death for declaring against the military. We don’t forget, we don’t forgive and we demand TRIAL AND PUNISHMENT TO ALL THE SUPPRESSORS, MURDERERS OF WORKERS IN ARGENTINA.
DS: One last clarification. Under the orders of Obama, the Argentinian government voted an anti-terrorist law. It is extremely dangerous if the attack on the workers from Las Heras is passed.
JP: Of course. A sentence to a workers’ leader will make the government feel strong to send their judges, together with the reactionary opposition, with their own, to start applying on a large scale the anti-terrorist law, against us. This shows that the fight for the democratic freedoms can only be consequently assumed by the workers’ and combative youth organizations. These are the forces that we must set up. They want a maquila Argentina. It’s either them or us. That’s what the struggle that is ahead is about. Since we can only trust in our own forces. Because, the liberation of the workers will be the task of the workers themselves.
D. O.: We believe, from the editorial board of our newspaper that we have to make a precise proposal the day the trial begins. That we have to disregard this puppet court, with their judges and prosecutors, who already have a fabricated cause. That the only thing that we demand is the unconditional acquittal of all the fighters from Las Heras and of all the prosecuted workers in Argentina. The ones that are on trial have the right to defend with the best legal conditions that allow them to face this terror policy of the bourgeois state, but we, from the workers’ organizations, can only claim: unconditional acquittal, not recognition of the puppet court, that has already detained the comrades for three years and we alert that, if they go to prison, will be subdued to the worst vengeances by their wardens, who will be their murderers. We make the executioners who today try to take them to the scaffold responsible for the integrity of these workers.
D: What can be said, it has all been said. Only to insist that the workers of Las Heras can’t be forgotten, because it is forgetting the struggle against the tax on wages and for decent jobs. I want to say that it isn’t only about us. Not a single worker fighter has to step on a trial as a common prisoner. The day in which justice is made in my place or the one of our comrades of Garrahan Hospital, or many others, in the courts should be the enslaver bosses, the murderous police and the corrupt judges. That day will be justice.
Comrades, don’t forget that there are more than 200 construction workers that are oil workers in Comodoro Rivadavia, that were prosecuted for the hard struggle they gave in Cerro Dragón, which was like ours, to be transferred to the oil workers’ collective agreement, since they are enslaved under the UOCRA agreement. Today’s silence, regarding this struggle, and this abandon can mean that dozens of them may be imprisoned tomorrow. The isolation that their leaders maintain, promising that nothing will happen to them, it’s a crime. We are in time, here nobody will be able to defend alone.
My wife encouraged me to give this fight, I’m fighting for my family. And as all our comrades, I value this talk we had and through this I want to thank the workers’ organizations and unions that welcomed me with their arms open to fight together.
