Reject the threats of Spanish and European imperialism.
Not a single penny to the looters!
Nationalizeall the hydrocarbonswithout any payment!
In face of the Argentine government measures, the company Repsol YPF, the Spanish government and his King, along with the European Economic Community have threatened our country with punishments and sanctions. We repudiate these threats and defend the absolute right, and even more so, the obligation of the Argentine State, to recover its resources and move against the multinationals that have been plundering our wealth.
From then on, we call a mass mobilization against any attempt of imperialism to attack these measures, and for new and deeper measures, not only against Repsol. If they come to implement sanctions it is necessary to expropriate all theSpanish companies in the country.
Then and continuing our action, we urge the national government to expropriation 100% of YPF, and all the other multinationals of the energy sector in order to achieve a solution for the energy crisis.
Reject the colonists!
The whole country was filled with anger and hatred, when listening to these colonizers of the XXI Century treating Argentina as a colony. They think we’re living in the Viceroys and Vicereines times! It’s the same European Economic Community that through the Treaty of Lisbon recognizes England as rightful owner of the Falklands.
From thePSTU we condemn these threats; we defend the sovereign right of our country on our natural and wealth resources, and call on the workers and peoples of our Latin America, and the working class of Spain and Europe to rise up against this humiliation.
Just as we have been rejecting since the 90s the delivery and submission to these plundering multinationals and criticized the subsequent governments, including the current one, for keeping such submission, today we state: The oil and gas are ours! These measures are not enough! Let’s fight for 100% expropriation without paying a single cent!
Right now, Repsol and its lackey government of King Juan Carlos threaten with lawsuits and claim hugely high amount for compensation. On behalf of the Argentine government Kicilloff Axel said, “we will not pay them what they want.”
But are we going to pay them anything? They stole a lot more than they placed to get YPF; fortunes have been carried out of Argentina eachyear. They have only left debts, unemployed workers and environmental disasters. We from the PSTU say: not a single penny to Repsol, theYPFlooter! That Brufau, Rajoy and the King of Spain stop stealing the world! We do not accept that they are paid, let alone with ANSES money, that is with the money of our retirees. We claim that the Argentine government does not pay a single penny to Repsol!
Some voices of our own country and from Latin America now stand in the defense of Repsol. From the Mexican and Chilean government to Macri and the big businessmen, and even from Guillermo Pereyra, Secretary General of the Oil Workers’ Federation, they have been talking about the “security for investments” and predict a hell of international isolation, in chorus with the Spanish government. We reject the statements of these modern sepoys. We defend not only the right but the obligation of the Argentine State to exercise its sovereignty even further and deeper in order to recover all our resources.
A limited measure
The government measure is a blow to Repsol and European imperialism, and implies the recovery, on a limited and incomplete scale, from our resources. It consists of an expropriation of 51% of the capital stock of Repsol YPF, keeping 49% in private hands, with 27% to Eskenazi family, and 17% tointernational investors, especially Americans.
However, as Cristina Kirchner acknowledged it is not nationalization. It remains a corporation, affecting only the Spanish Repsol, protecting the Eskenazi family’s property – who maintained their shares without needing to put a single penny on it thanks to Nestor Kirchner’s management – and also protecting the U.S. investors – hence the quietness of Obama-. And the state portion can be further granted under concession to private companies.
Moreover, Cristina’s measure does not touch in a single inch of Pan American Energy (British capital and the owner of Cerro Dragon, the biggest oilfield in the country, under contract until 2047) nor does it touch in any of the other multinational oil companies who plunder us.
Therefore, we demand the government to not play with the workers’ and Argentine people’s feelings. Even though we defend this measure from the imperialist attacks, we do not support it: because it is not enough,it does not meet all the interests of working people.
The only way to recover the energy sovereignty is the nationalization of all hydrocarbons, starting with the cancellation of all concessions made to private companies, both multinational and domestic ones. And the establishment of a major state oil company, which keeps themonopoly on all the hydrocarbons, and that all the oil and gas management is put under the workers control.
Out with all multinationals! The oil and gas belong to Argentine and must be at the service of the workers and the people and their needs: health, education, housing, employment and development. So that fuels come cheap to the people and expensive for large companies.
Unity to move forward
The current energy crisis is the result of years of selling off and privatization of our state-owned companies and the imperialist plunder on our resources.
During all these years,the situation got worse. The government policy, their insistence on saying they will not nationalize show that Cristina’s current measure, so transcendent, does not represent a measure that may result in the so required 180-degree-shift. Therefore, government maintains the Mennen’s Constitution of 1994 and his policies on oil,the provincialization of the resource ownership and the whole scheme for the national petrol, gas and oil production and distribution.
The fundamental change will only be accomplished through a major worker’s and popular mobilization that firmly impose it. The oil workers were the ones who, with their struggles against multinationals, which have caused them layoffs, persecution, repression and imprisonment by this same current government, those workers who questioned through theirstruggles the energy matrix and the plundering of resources. They signaledthe path. We demand that the whole process takes care of not only the preservation of jobs and working conditions, but answer to all the labor demands of the workers, starting with the full stability and payment on time, as well as the reinstatement of any worker who had lost their jobs in times of YPF’s privatization or had been fired by REPSOL or other companies in the petrol chain.
Only the workers are the ones who have the full authority to carry out the struggle for comprehensive nationalization of hydrocarbons.
Yet we call on all workers and popular organizations for the broadest possible unity of action to respond with mobilization and fight to any attempt to punish our country, while we demand that the government does not pay a single dollar to the looters and that YPF be 100% state-owned. And will fight to impose all these demands.
For a complete and fundamental change
We from the PSTU will continue to raise a program of fundamental measures, the only one that can really guarantee the energy sovereignty for the Argentine people and future generations.
· Cancellation of all the concessions oil and gas fields;
· Cancellation of the provincialization of 1994, the Mining Code of 1921 and all prior agreements and their renegotiations;
· Expropriation and nationalization of all hydrocarbons companies. Expropriation without payment of all companies, both multinational and domestic;
· For a major state-owned national oil, monopolistic and under control of workers;
· Cancellation of hydrocarbon exports, prioritizing the present and future domestic consumption;
· Defending the workers’ rights in the oil and gas: stability, salary, transfer the subcontracted employees to the oil company’s agreement, daily journey of 8 hours without lowering the wages, wage tax cancellation, etc..
