Crowd protests in Argentina against agreement with IMF

Shouting “out of the IMF, no payment of the debt”, thousands of people this Saturday (11), in the streets of Argentina, repudiated an agreement with the International Monetary Fund (IMF), with which the government of Alberto Fernández is trying to refinance a debt of US$44 billion (R$246 billion).

Left parties, unions, social and student organizations gathered in front of the Casa Rosada, in Buenos Aires, under the motto “no debt payment, no IMF”.

“Paying the debt is an adjustment”, “the debt is with the people” said some posters displayed by the demonstrators who crowded the Plaza de Mayo, which repeated “Out, out of the IMF”.

Protesters asked the government not to recognize the debt, which they consider “illegitimate and fraudulent”.

In a proclamation read outside government headquarters, the left called for the formation of “a broad front against the agreement with the IMF” and called on the government to use this money “to improve salaries and increase budgets for health, education and housing”.

On Friday (10), in front of a Plaza de Mayo crowded with people who expressed their support for him, President Fernández confirmed that he will assume the payment of the debt with the IMF, but he promised that he will do so without a fiscal adjustment “that compromises the growth”.

Fernández was accompanied by his vice president, Cristina Kirchner, and former presidents of Brazil, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, and of Uruguay, José Mujica, who also supported him.

The IMF said in a statement that “there was progress” towards an agreement in technical meetings with an Argentine mission that traveled to Washington last week.

Argentina is negotiating terms to refinance a $44 billion loan that the IMF granted the country during the government of liberal Mauricio Macri (2015-2019).

“We can’t take it anymore”

The current agreement with the IMF requires the payment of maturities in 2022 and 2023 of more than US$19 billion (R$106.2 billion) each and of approximately US$5 billion (R$27.9 billion) in 2024 .

Argentina, which entered a recession in 2018, has one of the highest inflation rates in the world (41.8% from January to October) and more than 40% poor in a population of 45 million inhabitants.

“We can’t take it anymore,” 26-year-old Emilse Icandri told AFP, who was protesting against the IMF on the bicycle with which he makes home deliveries, as well as hundreds of young people in precarious work.

“We don’t have salaries or rights, and we know that the adjustment measures are linked to the general issue of the country. If the government makes a pact with the IMF, this money has to come from somewhere and will be paid at the expense of sweat of workers,” he said.

Rosmary Castro, a 68-year-old Bolivian, agreed. Under the wide-brimmed hat that shielded her from the merciless sun in Buenos Aires, she said, “the IMF has always been an enemy of the people.”

“The Latin American people are tired of suffering. We have not made this debt, so we are not going to pay it,” he said.

Amid chants and drumming, thousands arrived at the Plaza de Mayo with posters against the agreement.

“To pay the debt, the government has to adjust and this will be felt in popular neighborhoods,” said Elías Chino, 30, who went to the center from Lomas de Zamora, on the southern outskirts of Buenos Aires, where, he assured, ” people are no longer able to buy food, it is very expensive”.

In his opinion, an agreement with the IMF will only bring “more hardship for the poor, while we are still recovering from the economic impact of the pandemic” of Covid-19.

“When did the wealthy class pay for the adjustment? Never”, he concluded, before returning to the march, with the promise: “it won’t be the last”.