By Adolfo Perez Esquivel on December 22, 2021
No to the IMF
The country faces the negotiation of a spurious debt with the IMF. The government of Alberto Fernandez has to assume the responsibility of the State and recognize that its obligation is to comply with the rights of the people and put an end to impunity.
¨He goes around in circles more than a dog does before lying down¨… the laps do not finish defining what to do or not to do; popular sayings have that fine irony to define human behavior.
Meanwhile, the language changes, before they used to call them “pichicho” ( small dog )… now, no more vulgarities, they are called “mascots”, something abstract and indefinite, no matter if it is a dog, a cat or a guinea pig. Before they were given meat, fish, rice, polenta, and the leftovers from lunch or dinner. Now they don’t, they have their “balanced food”, the poor critters don’t know what they eat, but they have no choice.
Humans say that they “take care of their health”, the “pet” market sells them beds, cushions, capes for the cold, shoes, they take them to bathe, brush and curl them, others cut their ears and tails to exhibit them in dog and cat beauty championships, etc., etc., etc.
Poor “critters”, they no longer know what they are, locked up in apartments without being able to smell the ass of another one. The only thing left for them to do is to go round and round to lie down and bite their tails, if they have one and have not had it cut off.
Some humans think that dogs, cats, and horses are wise because they do not speak. They think that when they come to power everything will change; patience and silence are the weapons of the dominated species.
Let’s go back to the beginning, ” ¨He goes around in circles more than a dog does before lying down¨ and while he tries to sleep, he bites his tail and dreams of his liberation.
Humans imitate dogs and in the centuries of coexistence end up being mimetic, until the last time the “pets” know that they are what they are not: something like “it is neither one thing nor the other”.
Time goes by and memory is fragile, forgetfulness remains under the carpet, on a shelf, or in a drawer; they say that pichichos, pets, or whatever you want to call them have instinct, humans have intelligence.
Could it be so… that animals do not forget people? Let’s refresh our memory. During the military dictatorship, in the marches, we chanted in rebellion, “the foreign debt, repression ……”. Alejandro Olmos, a patriot of today, about 40 years ago denounced the IMF, the World Bank, and the commercial banks for the plundering, robbery, and all the adjectives of the Foreign Debt, immoral, unpayable, as another mechanism of domination of the peoples.
It was successfully taken to trial, but with more twists and turns than a dog to lie down. The Judgment has been sleeping in the National Congress since 2000, while the impunity of the Eternal Debt continues to increase. Governments have passed, there have been different policies, but neither the Executive, nor Legislative, nor the Judicial Power has looked into the swindle to stop us from paying what the people do not owe.
Dreaming does not cost anything, for now, until the system puts a meter on dreams. In this capitalist and the neoliberal world, everything has a price, no value, and this is known by the PRO and the former president of the Nation, Mauricio Macri, who said: the IMF credit was to save the banks, not the people… business is business.
The government of Alberto Fernandez has to assume the responsibility of the State and recognize that its obligation is to comply with the rights of the people and put an end to impunity. Otherwise, we will continue as we are, with the Debt party winning by a landslide. The Minister of Economy Guzman is sailing against the current with a boat that is taking on water and may sink; with a bucket, he is trying to drain while he negotiates and negotiates to convince the usurious IMF that the country cannot pay and that it needs an extension to recompose the economy before the boat sinks and they can cross the river. And in Congress, they only think about how to take advantage of the troubled river.
The dollar god and the swindle of the debt and the IMF prevail and demand sacrifices from the people. It is not a question of containing the financial crisis, the inflation, provoked by the satraps of the market, it is about assuring their profits and favoring their advances over the territories, our natural and common assets.
Erich Fromm says that there are two parties, the Party of Hope and the Party of Fear.
The first seeks to overcome the current crises and conflicts and struggles with the hope of achieving it; it believes in the reserves and values of the people. The party of Fear tries to contain the uncontainable. It allows itself to be subdued and manipulated of fear of going out and confronting the mechanisms of domination, such as the foreign debt that generates more hunger, poverty, and social inequality. Fear paralyzes and from fear to cowardice there is only one step.
We have to choose, there is no other choice. Either we go around like a dog to bed and bite our tails, or we take on the challenge of social, cultural, economic, and political changes. It is urgent to suspend payments and investigate where the millions of dollars from the IMF went, which banks received the money, what it was invested in if it went to the financial cycle.
That information is in the Central Bank, which last year reported that the loan was used for capital flight, but failed to publish the names of the persons and companies responsible. We know that the government initiated criminal action for embezzlement and fraudulent administration; the looting of the country cannot go unpunished. The Congress, as well as the Executive and the Judiciary, must wake up and start to assume the party of Hope.
Common sense, the least common of senses, tells us that if the banks received the money, it is their responsibility to pay it and not to burden the people with the debt. The complicity of the IMF in the swindle cannot go unpunished either. In the Fund they know who they helped the people’s wealth to escape; let them arrange with them to collect and with us, reparations for the crime committed.
The economy must be cleaned up. We live in a speculative and extractive economy, not a productive one. There is no end to the voracity of scavenger vultures, bankers, and extractivist and they must be confronted.
The government must publish the list of the banks, individuals, and companies that have absconded the IMF loan. It must agree with the Fund that those who benefited should pay the swindle; it is not a public debt because the people, the public, were never consulted nor benefited.
Not to do so is to fall into the pit of fear. Either the crisis submitted to fear is managed or it is faced with decision and hope in the union of the people so as not to fall into the desperation of the pichichos.