I am still trying to put things together here, but I think it might be just a little too early to do that. Every day I try set time aside to check out the papers, it gives me a framework to ask questions about what’s going on. The best paper is Pagina 12, of course the word best is rather relative, for those with wealth behind them they might be interested in another paper.

There is so much going on here that it is difficult to process it all. I am dealing with a people who have lived through terrible years of military rule; it’s had an effect on people. It is certainly one of the things that people talk about regards differences between Argentina and Brazil. The northern neighbor hasn’t had to deal with the kind of carnage this country has had to face under the dictatorship, one that the US backed.

And the stakes are very high for the people in both countries; both have large economies, with Brazil having the largest, followed by Mexico and then Argentina. So what happens down in this part the world is important.

Last night I had the chance to be part of a conversation that brought together human rights workers from Argentine, South Africa, Philippines, Holland, Nepal, Brazil and Nicaragua. Argentina’s debt played a key part in the conversation.

Debt favors those who control financial capital, and the ones who control it are usually the ones who win out in negotiations with the IMF. The huge financial institution works on their behalf. Most people here know that the US based bank has done them in; it’s the principle institution responsible for the Argentinazo, that explosive moment in December 2001 when the country went into bankruptcy and brought thousands of people out into the streets in rage protesting their descent into poverty overnight.

This word that describes so much about Argentina, I picked up in a context of a struggle that has gone on for a few years. I was in a downtown court house with about fifty supports of the Bruckman, an apparel factory that sixty, mostly women workers have gone to court saying they have the right to work in this factory that they say went bankrupt: the owners, the Brukman family refuted the claim. But a business court ruled on behalf of the women, which now gives them the right to bring it to the National Assembly saying that they have the right to be the new owners: a vote this week looks as thought the legislators will vote in favor of the women.

When lawyers came out of the hearing with a Judge they had wide smiles, their eyes filled with joy and when they shared the news it brought cheers to those gathered in the hall waiting to hear news of the decision.

I have to do some follow up with contacts that I’ve made at the court house. I met thee workers who came from a ceramic factory, Ceramico Zamon, that employs six hundred workers, it’s 12 hours south of Buenos Aires. They welcomed the fact that I would come to visit them at their factory. Most of the bus trip is going to be during the night so I When lawyers came out of the hearing with a Judge they had wide smiles, their eyes filled with joy and when they shared the news it brought cheers to those gathered in the hall waiting to hear news of the decision.

In the attachment I sent earlier, I mentioned going to a park where one of the Assemblies here in Buenos Aires organized a meeting on the FTAA. I found the people in the Assembly that I met welcoming.

I spoke with Maria Carmen, the women whose picture sits in this paragraph. In conversations with people, I never know what I’m going to hear, there is often times a sense of expectation. Maria Carmen lived in exile with her family for twenty years in Venezuela. She left during the Dirty War, those years when the military disappeared more than thirty thousand people. The memory stays with all of the people. And Argentines are dealing with the reality of impugnity today with one General Boussi now in jail. The country is sending a message to the world that the military can’t just do what they want and violate people without being held responsible.

More later.