The resignation of Rodríguez Saá and his gang is another example of the incapacity of the ruling class. We are ruled by cliques that have nothing in common with the necessities of the majority of the population who work for their living. The historic popular rebellion that overthrew Cavallo and De La Rúa during the revolutionary days of December 19 and 20 exposed the fact that the PJ has no solution to offer because they are part of the problem: the politics of "justicialistas" (peronists) and "aliancistas" (radicals) generated this capitalist crisis and they want the workers and masses to pay for it.
THE MONEY MUST BE RETURNED
The economic measures that withhold the deposits of 4 million savers are there to rescue the bankers who have either fled with the money or have lent it to big enterprises that cannot pay it back. This is the case with Repsol of Spain - to which the banks gave a loan of $15bn so it could control the country"s entire petrol industry. This was an example of the illegal association of bankers, privatisers and businessmen, which was led first by Menem and Cavallo and later by Cavallo and De la Rúa. Any government that takes power will either maintain the limit on withdrawals or will pay the depositors their money back in devalued currency or in bonds which can only be redeemed in several years" time. We have to demand the immediate payment of all deposits of less than $100,000. We also have to fight for a definitive solution: the nationalisation of the banks and the re-nationalisation of all privatised companies under workers" control.

BREAD AND WORK

Saá"s promise to create a million new jobs - a gesture aimed at pacifying the nearly 3 million unemployed people who had shown their anger by looting supermarkets - now fades into thin air. The unemployed movement cannot wait for solutions from the rulers, as D"Elía, the leader of the Assembly of the Pickets, does. He went to see Saá as soon as the latter took power, as did the CGT leaders Moyano and Daer and the CTA leader, De Gennaro. We have to break the agreements made behind the backs of the people. We have to demonstrate once again to demand the seizure of the stocks of food in the big supermarkets and its distribution by local committees, pickets" movements and workers" organisations. We have to fight for genuine jobs for everybody, demanding the distribution of hours among unemployed and employed, and the occupation under workers" control of any enterprise that closes or sacks its workers.


PUNISH THE KILLERS!

The brutal assassination of 3 young people in Floresta neighbourhood demonstrates that Saá"s meeting with the Madres de Plaza de Mayo (Mothers of the Disappeared) was a deception aimed at ingratiating himself with the people, after 31 people were killed during the Battle of Plaza de Mayo: the appearance of change in order to prevent any change. We have to put an end to the existence of bands of murderous police that get off scot-free: for the punishment of those responsible for repression and for the release of comrades Alí, Castells (both leaders of the unemployed movement) and all the youth arrested during the second "pot-banging" and the demonstration of December 28. It is necessary to abolish the police force, which is there to protect the rulers, and to create workers" and neighbours" committees to defend themselves from repression and look after the security of the people.


UNITE ALL THE FORCES

Solutions to these minimum and immediate demands of the people who are demonstrating everyday will not came from the rulers. First with the military dictatorship and later with 18 years of democracy for the rich - with both Peronist and Radical governments - this regime has shown that it is serving the robbers of our labour, our salaries and the savings of the majority of the working population. We need to coordinate the various different struggles: the pot-banging, the looting of supermarkets, the militant youth in the Plaza de Mayo, the local people of Floresta, the passengers" protest at Once Station against the private company that now runs one of the Capital"s busiest suburban rail lines, the strikes against closures and dismissals, the eight general strikes by the country"s eight million workers. It is necessary to bring together all these forces and methods of struggle in a National Assembly of Workers, with delegates elected from their neighbourhoods and workplaces. Now we can start to create coordinating committees in each neighbourhood, district and province. We call on all militant trade unions, rank and file representatives and shop-stewards in struggle, picket movements, left-wingers, and those who don"t want to align themselves with the leadership of Daer, Moyano, De Gennaro and D"Elia, to unite our forces to develop these organs of the united front for the struggle of the masses.


"WE WANT THEM OUT …"

In the corridors of power and in the "Legislative Assembly" made up of fat-cat MPs and bribe-taking senators they are getting ready to vote for a president to stay in office until 2003. Many are proposing Duhalde - the vice-president under Menem. The American Embassy would support this "plan". We have no trust in any measure decided in this shady deal made behind to the backs of the people. No one that is elected either from this cesspit of unpopular politicians or in new elections safeguarded by rotten institutions like the Supreme Court and the murderous police - as was proposed by De la Sota, governor of the central province of Córdoba, Néstor Kirchner, governor of the small southern province of Santa Cruz, and others - will pay back the saving of the middle classes in full, punish the police, or create genuine jobs for the 5 million unemployed and underemployed. The revolutionaries of the PTS struggle for a workers" and people"s government. The majority of the population doesn"t see it this way yet, but millions are demanding "All of them must go…We don"t want any of them!", the slogan shouted in Plaza de Mayo. To them and to all workers, combatants and human rights organisations, to political parties that call themselves democratic, especially those on the left, we propose to increase the mobilisations aimed at stopping any antidemocratic or anti-popular pact or solution to the crisis. The most democratic solution is a free and sovereign Constituent Assembly, where we can discuss and decide in favour of the majority of the population, which would have to combine legislative and executive powers. That would put an end to the Supreme Court - that cast of corrupt judges - and determine the election of judges by the secret vote of the people. The mandates of the members of the Constituent Assembly should be recallable mandates, in order to put an end to the "representatives of the people" who swindle their electors. During the term of their mandate they will receive a salary equivalent to that of an average teacher or worker, to put an end to rich politicians and to make government cheaper. The candidates for deputies to the Constituent Assembly should also be proposed through local assemblies, close to their homes, which would make them easier to control by their voters, and not behind closed doors in the offices of Radical and Peronist politicians.

In order to achieve this kind of democracy it is necessary to sweep away the existing power with an active general strike, occupying Plaza de Mayo until we impose our demands - a great national uprising that finishes the task initiated during the revolutionary days of December 19 and 20, 2001.

PTS
Partido de los Trabajadores por el Socialismo