After the repression of the June 12 mobilization and the arrest of dozens of people (there are still two prisoners and several who have been indicted), the campaign of Peronism and several sectors of the left has been accentuated: the government of Milei and Patricia Bullrich has in fact installed a “State of Exception” in violation of the Constitution[1]. It is the same idea that is expressed with the slogan “Milei, basura, vos sos dictadura” (“Milei garbage, you are the dictatorship”).
By PSTU – Argentina
On the part of Peronism, this campaign has a clear political objective: to show that, if the Milei government violates the Constitution and is a dictatorship, “we are democracy” and it would be necessary to form a broad political front to ensure the full validity of the Constitution. In their view it is a front that, evidently, should be headed by Peronism.
The central argument of this campaign is false, since the Milei government is not “a dictatorship”: it was voted by the electoral system determined by the current Constitution, and what it is doing in the economic and political field (including repression and the judicialization of protest) falls within its rules.
In any case, it can be said that with Milei’s government the Executive Power and the other powers of the political regime (Congress and Justice) are showing us the “ugliest face” of this Constitution and of the political regime determined by it. The problem is the Constitution itself and the norms and mechanisms foreseen and authorized in it.
In the first place, it is a bourgeois constitution, based on the concept that ” [private] property is inviolable” (Art. 17). That is to say, its entire structure is conceived around the defense of private property and the profits of the capitalists.
It is a “bourgeois democratic” constitution, since it establishes that the president and legislators are elected by the voters. However, while choosing between which candidate, the people “delegate” power to their “representatives” (Art. 22). These are released from accountability until the next election (even if they do not fulfill the promises or proposals for which they were voted).
Whatever they do, there is no popular right in the Constitution to revoke their mandate or to fight for a change of course. It is true that in its text the “right to protest” is established, but, at the same time, Article 22 itself states that “Any armed force or gathering of people who claim the rights of the people and petition on behalf of the people, commits the crime of sedition ( one of the most serious crimes in the Penal Code, ndr.)“. That is why Patricia Bullrich has appealed to this concept to justify her Anti-Picketing Protocol and the repression and arrests on June 12.
A presidentialist regime
Another very reactionary aspect of the Constitution is that it grants the elected president as much or more power than the Congress (which theoretically expresses the “popular will”), with the right to modify and even veto voted laws.
The constitutional reform of 1994 increased this power, since it legally incorporated the figure of the DNU (Decree of Necessity and Urgency) which empowers the President to apply and put into effect measures without the intervention of Congress. From that date until now, all the bourgeois governments of “different shades” (Menem, De la Rua, the Kirchners, Macri, Alberto Fernandez) have made extensive use of this mechanism. Milei put together several measures in a mega DNU but, in this mechanism, he did not invent anything or violate the Constitution.
A “board of managers”
Finally, the central measures of the Milei government (fiscal adjustment, labor reform, privatizations and RIGI) did not pass through DNU but ended up being approved by both chambers of Congress as a Basic Law.
In this sense, we reiterate Marx’s traditional concept: when studying the functioning of political institutions, Marx came to the conclusion that, in a capitalist State, all governments are like a “board of managers” of the bosses’ businesses.
Moreover, Argentina is a semi-colonial capitalist country, subjugated mainly by the United States but in dispute as spoils of war with other foreign European, Chinese or Brazilian corporate powers etc. As a result, all branches of government (Executive Branch, Congress, Justice) always end up acting as agent institutions of the foreign domination of the associated big national companies[2].
The struggle for the freedom of the prisoners for fighting back
This is fully applicable to the Judiciary. Decades ago, a prosecutor expressed with honesty that “the Argentine Justice serves to imprison the chicken thieves but not those who wear ‘white gloves'”. That is to say, those who have swindled the people with foreign debt and the big companies that evade taxes or make “legal” economic fraud.
At the same time, it is an active participant in covering up the repression of popular struggles and in what has been called the “judicialization of protest”, considering it a crime. We have seen that the government of Milei and Bullrich rely on the “crime of sedition” set forth in the Constitution for their anti picketing protocol. As the surrender to imperialism and the attack on the workers deepens, they need increasingly repressive legislation.
But in this they have not invented anything either: all the previous governments elected by the vote (including the Peronist ones), repressed the struggles and judicially prosecuted its leaders and activists. Even the Anti-terrorist Law project promoted by Bullrich takes as a precedent a project presented during the government of Cristina Kirchner, in 2012.
If the government cannot advance any further on this issue, it is because the workers’ and popular struggle prevents it from doing so. After the repression of last June 12 and the arrest of more than 30 people, a great process of mobilization for their freedom was generated, which forced Judge Servini de Cubría to release most of them (today only four remain in custody)[3]. Simultaneously, a mobilization succeeded in freeing two INTI (National Institute of Industrial Technology) workers detained for participating in a protest against layoffs at the institute[4].
The campaign and mobilizations for the release of all those arrested on June 12 (that is, the battle against the anti-picketing protocol and the judicialization of protest) has become a central point in the struggle against the Milei-Bullrich government. To achieve their release and the end of all the judicial processes initiated would mean a triumph in that struggle and a defeat for the government.
That the task of the Argentine workers’ and popular movement is to unite in a single list of demands where the freedom of those imprisoned for struggle (whether against the Base Law, the Mapuche, or any other conflict) is incorporated. Also it must unite the demand against the interference of the justice system in workers’ organizations, be they trade union, social or political.
The PSTU is intervening in depth in this campaign and is actively participaing in its actions[5]. It is doing so by promoting the broadest unity of action with all the organizations and sectors that coincide with it, in order to strengthen it more and more.
Within this framework, we want to dialogue with those with whom we fight side by side. We believe that they must become more conscious that, besides the immediate struggle for the freedom of the detainees, there is the need to fight against the reactionary Constitution that is behind what is happening and against the political regime and the institutions that arise from it. If change is to take place, it must happen at the roots.
The PSTU has many accounts pending against the Argentine bosses’ justice, its judges, its prosecutors and its police forces. That is why we fight for their destruction by means of social revolution and a government of the workers. When that moment arrives, the courts and tribunals as we know them today will disappear and will be replaced by popular tribunals. And when that happens, those who will be imprisoned will be the corrupt politicians, the traitorous trade unionists, the bosses, the judges, the prosecutors and all the lackeys who are servile to imperialism.
Our pulse will not tremble when that moment comes to settle accounts against our executioners. That is why we ask you to join our national and international organization.
Notes:
[1] https://www.pagina12.com.ar/697329-las-criticas-al-decretazo-de-javier-milei-un-brutal-avasalla
[2 ] https://pstu.com.ar/la-ley-bases-y-el-congreso-argentino/
[3 ] https://litci.org/es/argentina-libertad-ya-a-los-presos-por-luchar/
[4] ttps://www.tiempoar.com.ar/ta_article/represion-trabajadores-inti/ and
