Llueve en Buenos Aires

It's been raining in Buenos Aires for more than a week now which apparently the city can't handle -- there's flooding and power outages all over the city (and there were even 2 tornadoes on Sunday!). And of course it's worse in La Matanza where many streets of the dirt streets are impassable some schools, which were supposed to open on Monday, still haven't opened.

The news here, when not talking about the rain/flooding, is mostly focused on the conflict between Colombia and Venezuela/Ecuador and Cristina's attempts to negotiate a peaceful solution (she's just met with Correa and Chavez).

And I've taken the time to finally put up some pictures from the last couple of months.

Support the Kindergarten CIEL

We're still trying to raise money for the Kindergarten for the upcoming school year -- below is a summary of the fundraising letter and a link to donate money online:

The Movement of Unemployed Workers (MTD for Movimiento de Trabajadores Desocupados) of La Matanza emerged in the mid 1990s as part of a national movement in response to increasing unemployment, high inflation and continued neoliberal policies of the Menem government. The MTDs were an alternative to traditional union movements that were (and still are) highly corrupted and represented some of the most vulnerable sectors of society. In an attempt to tranquilize this increasingly powerful movement, the government began offering small unemployment subsidies of 150 pesos a month (Plan Jefes y Jefas de Hogar). The MTD La Matanza, unlike most other MTDs, decided not to accept these small subsidies arguing that they did nothing to solve the deeper problems of unemployment and poverty.

In 2001, the MTD La Matanza occupied an abandoned building in the locality of Lafererre in La Matanza and soon afterwards opened CEFoCC - Center for Education and the Formation of Comunitarian Culture (Centro para la Educación y Formación de Cultura Comunitaria). Today CEFoCC consists of 3 departments: a productive department containing a bakery, a textile workshop and a publishing editorial, an educational department consisting of the Kindergarten CIEL, a literacy program and English, theater, and computer classes, and a community service department which includes, among other services, mirco-crediting and free legal counseling.

This is taken directly from the fundraising pitch regarding the Kindergarten CIEL (Crecer Imaginando En Libertad):

The kindergarten was opened for the first time in 2004 with the goal of creating an alternative education that can show the children of the neighbourhood that a different and better future is possible. Through working values such as fellowship, liberty, solidarity and work, the kindergarten hopes to improve the living conditions of the children. One of the main focuses is the topic of work in order to show the children that dignified work can help them to live a better life. The kindergarten is free but requires that a parent participates in a weekly meeting where the parents, along with the teachers, plan and closely follow the children’s development in the kindergarten. Today the kindergarten has 50 children between 3 and 5 years old in two separate classrooms. At this point it has funding for teaching materials and the midday meal. The classrooms are equipped and ready for use. What is missing however is the teachers’ salaries which are absolutely necessary for the kindergarten to run as planned.

You can make tax-deductible donations online through Help Argentina

The Trelew Trials

the basic story:

On August 22, 1972, 16 leftist guerrillas were murdered as they were being held in a military base in Trelew (Patagonia, Argentina) after attempting an escape from the nearby prison in Rawson. The 15th of August there was a massive break-out of the political prisoners from Rawson in which leaders from the FAR (Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias), ERP (Ejército Revolucionario del Pueblo) and Montoneros managed to escape to Chile and later Cuba. Another 19 of the prisoners were caught and sent to the military base in Trelew where days later they were machiene gunned in their cells. Alberto Camps, Mary Berger and Ricardo Haidar survived the attack and reported the crime.

Recently the court has issued orders for the arrest of various military officials involved in the massacre -- Paccagnini Ruben and Emilio Del Real were arrested earlier in February. A few days ago Carlos Marandino turned himself in to the Argentine Embassy in the United States. Página 12 recently located another one of the wanted officers -- Roberto Guillermo Bravo in Tampa, FL where he has been living for much of the past 30 years as the head of RGB Group. He put his house up for sale shortly before federal judge Hugo Sastre released the order requesting his international capture from Interpol and has been on the run for the last 10 days.

Link to the original Página 12 article

a link to a post i wrote for rulablog.

Link to the Impunity watch blog post about the reopening of the Trelew trials.

Se terminan las vaciones

i'm back after some long vacations. in december my family came for las fiestas and we traveled south to ushuaia ("famous" as the "southernmost city in the world"). there were penguins, sea lions, sled dogs, lakes, glaciers, etc. very pretty but very touristy, expensive and english-speaking. the interesting historical facts are the (former) presence of an indigenous group that went without clothes despite the cold, wet weather and the former prison that housed various serial killers and political prisoners (including simón radowitzky). exciting for me was seeing the end of la ruta nacional 3 -- i spend so much time on the first 30ish kms of...

the rest of vacations included visits from friends from the u.s. and a short trip to the coast with the folks from la matanza which was, of course, a blast. sometime, if i have time i might add more photos... andá a esperar...