50 years ago Argentina was considered by many the Europe of Latin America, given its abundant natural resources and its large and highly educated middle class. In the mid 1970s, however, a brutal military dictatorship wreaked havoc on the country, causing the death and disappearance of over 30,000 individuals. Democracy was finally attained in the 1980s. After almost a decade of hyper-inflation the Menem administration enacted the neo-liberal economic policies of the IMF. Argentina became the poster child for the neo-liberal model, the economy seemed relatively steady, the peso was pegged to the dollar and the Argentine people were told that they would soon become part of the "first world". On Dec. 20, 2001, however, the bottom fell out. All the banks were locked denying people access to their own accounts, and the people watched as the peso, along with their savings, was devalued to a third of its original worth. Citizens all around the country took to the streets banging their frying pans and chanting "que se vayan todos" or "get rid of them all" for the removal of politicians in the corrupt government.
Argentines are leading a movement that has emerged as a response to failed economic policies led by international finance institutions such as the IMF, having organized into neighborhood assemblies that attempt to take the place of the void left by the insecurity and failure of the state. As a result, over 65 factories have been taken over by their workers and transformed into cooperatives. Meanwhile, social movements have gained in efforts to hold politicians and military officers accountable for gross human rights violations during the period of the dictatorship, and a broad effort at recuperating the memory of the lives of the disappeared has brought new life to human rights cases. Visit Argentina, to better understand the collapse of the neo-liberal project, witness the possibilities that Argentine movements present in building a community-based economy, hear new voices for human rights from the South, and discover how new alliances are reshaping the political horizon of the Southern Cone.
