for the deaths of two young piqueteros, Daniel Santillán y Maximiliano Kosteki, who were shot last week by police during a roadblock demonstration.

The piqueteros are unemployed men and women who have been blocking roads throughout the country to demand jobs in a country whose unemployment rate has soared to %25.

Though the police department's initial statement was that "the piqueteros shot each other", photographs were published in Clarin and Pagina 12 that showed the demonstrators had been shot by police as they tried to flee.

The demonstration resulted in 90 injuries, most of them demonstrators with wounds from lead or rubber bullets or tear gas inhalation. One hundred and sixty people were arrested, and released within a few hours.

During the demonstration, police broke into a Communist Party headquarters without a permit and dragged demonstrators out of the building.

"I haven't seen anything like this kind of police repression since the years of the dictatorship," said one witness.

The chief of police and minister of security have both resigned, as investigation continues and the scandal threatens to engulf President Dualde's weak interim government. Yesterday, Dualde called for national elections in March 2003.

Despite a new "firm hand" policy by the government, and efforts by some media to use the event to instill fear in the populace, 20,000 people demonstrated last Thursday in the Plaza de Mayo, many of them chanting, " Tonight we are all piqueteros."