BY ALLEN JENNINGS
Sixty people rallied at the Melbourne GPO on January 18 in solidarity with protests in Argentina against cuts to public spending and corporate globalisation.
Protesters and city workers passing-by heard speakers from the Committees in Solidarity with Latin America and the Caribbean, Friends of the Earth, Jubilee 2000, the Greens, Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo Support Group and Socialist Worker describe the absolute failure of IMF-imposed policies in Argentina. These policies take resources from the poor in order to pay interest on the country's unpayable US$132 billion debt.
Speakers also argued that the Argentinian struggle was part of a rising tide of protests against globalisation for the rich.
Paraphrasing Argentina's most famous son, Ernesto "Che" Guevara, one speaker called for "one, two, three, Argentinas", and called on Australians to show their solidarity with their sisters and brothers in Argentina by getting active in the anti-globalisation movement here.
The rally ended in high spirits with a traditional Argentinian banging of pots and pans and the "the people united will never be defeated" chanted in Spanish.
From Green Left Weekly, January 23, 2002.
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