Dreams Cannot Be Evicted

In a neighborhood known for its tradition of struggle, for its quarrel with the powerful, and for its poverty, a bank failed one day: the Banco Mayo. A bankruptcy as fraudulent as any - pockets were filled and then they left the country. A large corporation, Comafi, a subsidiary of Citibank, bought the failed bank. Years passed and the offices, with their sunny beach decorating scheme, were gradually abandoned.

From the bank patio on December 19th and 20th, 2001, the barricades which shut down the streets, but opened other roads, could be heard. Now the shouts of children who come to school in the building are heard every day in the patio. There are also workshops, a library and weekly talks.

One day, it was resolved in the Lezama Sur People's Assembly that a space was needed to make real what was only being discussed in the park. Since then, around the corner, the Tierra del Sur Sociocultural Center has been organizing cultural activities, puppet shows, juggling, and workshops for children based in a popular culture distinct from the elitism of the major cultural centers.

This past Wednesday, during the eviction of families squatting an empty house, three comrades from the Assembly and Tierra del Sur were detained and brutally beaten by the police of the 26 precinct simply for coming to show their solidarity. They were held arbitrarily with false charges. Friday night, two youth from the neighborhood who are known for supporting victims of police brutality during evictions were verbally threatened on Patricios Avenue. One was threatened by plain-clothes officers. The other was riding a bicycle when two uniformed officers showed a 9mm pistol and tried to hit him.

For more than a week both centers have been threatened with eviction. They want to dislocate us by fear, isolation and repression: the global war translated to the neighborhood war. While the imperialist bombs massacre Iraq, the same power sharpens its dominion over the positions we have been winning since December 2001. The evictions occur within the context of increasingly open repression against expressions of struggle. The "war on terrorism" is in reality the war against the poor and those who struggle. The new world order needs a new neighborhood order.

The city is filled with orange "participatory budget" posters different from electoral posters. They invite citizens to participate in decisions about public works in Buenos Aires, to be active in political life. A novelty imported directly from Porto Alegre, a custom found in Buenos Aires, in Paris, like in other large cities. Anibal Ibarra follows the urban politics of "new local democracy", as they say in the bureaucratic language of politicians' public relations directors. "Renew democracy! Give space to the citizens!" - words which overflow in a growing exclusion from the city of those whose interests don't correspond with a dynamic, tourist-oriented city attractive to business which wants free reign to invest and develop, but seeks to avoid taxes.

Since the violent evictions of Padelai, the city government has been taking advantage of the moment to dislocate the poor from the spaces they have taken. That is how Ibarra understands political participation: send the poor to the provinces by any means necessary, and allow participation by "elected" citizens.

These new potential evictions are added to the wave of repression covering the national capital, thanks to Ibarra's desire to deliver the entire southern zone to the Sur Corporation, a paragovernmental organization which aims to convert the Barracas-La Boca area into a tourist center "cleared of the poor". We have already seen its methods in the Padelai evictions which were carried out with hundreds of police and a brutal repression which did not distinguish between men, women, children or elders. This followed the case of the MTD of San Telmo, which converted the oldest house in the city, used as a dump, into a snack bar and cultural center, where hooded police violently broke in without warning.

Since the 19th and 20th of the December, the "squatting" of abandoned buildings has multiplied across the country. Factories, warehouses, banks, houses, abandoned for years have been taken over by workers, assemblies, or simply by families needing a place to live. The squat, an act which existed long before December 2001, has become a political practice sweeping the movement.

For many years, the Peasant Movement of Santiago de Estero has taken over land to combat the concentration of land in the hands of large plantation owners aided by a feudal political power which never hesitated to kill when defending private property, killing 5 people in 10 years. On February 27th, police were unable to suppress with bullets a takeover in San Pedro by those who say that the land belongs to those who work it.

From the other side of Argentina, in Patagonia, October 2002 saw the first year of worker controlled production in the ceramic factory Zanon, one of the biggest in South America. It employs almost 300 workers, including new jobs ceded to unemployed strikers, but is being threatened by a judicial order. The political power knows that to dislocate the workers they will have to face an iron resistance. Just as in the Brukman textile factory a massive mobilization was able to stop the removal of workers.

Strikers also have taken lands and buildings. In some neighborhoods it is a common practice to start restaurants, warehouses, and gardens in these reclaimed spaces. However, they are often under pressure and threatened with eviction like the MTD house of Florencio Varela, and other places.

The people's assemblies are also constantly threatened, like the Paternal occupation which was already evicted, or the Abriendo Caminos Community Center which is currently at risk.

In the federal capital, facing a general strike, the city government offered, on one side of the limits of the law, a "legal tolerance" through the creation of cooperatives or through the AGP; and, on the other side, the growing repression of those who won't give up fighting. The increase in evictions is a way of letting it be known that they will no longer tolerate those "quilomberos".

Although in Brazil the true sense of this word is a free space of refuge for slaves, here "quilombo" means a place of chaos, prostitution. But in a strange change of destiny, the Argentine quilombo has been transformed into the Brasilian quilombo. The quilombo, a space of liberty and resistence, a dream like the Brazilian quilombos were for escaped slaves. A dream, like all the spaces we have taken, from where we cannot be evicted.