Argentina

Pro-choice activists celebrated on the streets at the close of 2020, as Argentina joined a handful of Latin American states to legalise abortion, a landmark decision in a country where the Catholic Church has long held sway. On social media, the once popular hashtag #SeráLey (#ItWillBeLaw) was replaced with #EsLey (#ItIsLaw). Before this, the only Latin American regions allowing voluntary abortion in the first trimester were Uruguay, Cuba, and two Mexican states. Elsewhere, such as in Chile and Brazil, abortion is available in very limited circumstances, including rape, incest, foetal...

We want furlough and the ban on evictions extended, and rent "holidays" added. We want full isolation pay for all. The Tories' £500 one-off self-isolation dole for workers on benefits is a concession, but inadequate Social care should be taken into the public sector, and its staff put on regular public sector pay and conditions. Test-and-trace should be taken out of the hands of Serco and the other profiteers, and made a coordinated public health effort. NHS logistics, at present also a mess of profiteering subcontractors, should be put into public ownership, and industry requisitioned to...

In an interview featured in Tim Alberta’s new book American Carnage: On the Front Lines of the Republican Civil War and the Rise of President Trump, President Donald Trump compared Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez to Eva Perón. Specifically, Trump remarked that Ocasio-Cortez has “talent”, but “doesn’t know anything”. This alludes to how Eva Perón went from popular radio and film actress to powerful symbol for the political movement spearheaded by her husband, Juan Perón. The latter was President of Argentina from June 1946 to September 1955, and again from October 1973 until his death in July...

On 15 September, I debated anti-Zionist activist Tony Greenstein in Brighton, on the topic of antisemitism on the left. The audience was comprised mainly of local Labour Party and Momentum activists. The debate was conducted in largely civil tones - perhaps, given the depth of our differences with Tony Greenstein, both in terms of policy and approaches to political activity, too civil. The debate was recorded, and the recording and/or transcripts will be uploaded soon. Listening back to the debate, it occurs to me to set on record a response to some comments of Tony's that I neglected to make...

On 29 June, Argentina went into technical default on its foreign debt. 30 days “grace” expires on 29 July. Either the Argentine government fixes a deal before then, or the default goes into full force. This drama is the outcome of 13 years’ legal wranglings since Argentina defaulted on its debt in 2001. Then, as usually happens in such cases, the Argentine government negotiated a deal with the bondholders to pay them off at a reduced rate. In the Argentine case, though, some “vulture funds” which had bought Argentine bonds cheap in the run-up to the deal refused to play. They went to court to...

Click here to download as ePub Click here to download as Kindle e-book Click here to download as pdf Introduction to dossier on the Falklands/ Malvinas, from Workers' Liberty 2/3. The WSL and the Falklands crisis, by Sean Matgamna, May 1982. The texts and the method, by Sean Matgamna (from Workers' Socialist Review, 1982). Class politics and bloc politics: resolution for the Workers' Socialist League, 1982 (expanded 1984). Some reflections on the left and the Falklands war, by Sean Matgamna, May 2007. The SWP and the Falklands war More from Workers' Socialist Review Supplement to WSR 2 on the...

This article was written for internal discussion in the Workers' Socialist League in May 1982. It came between a meeting of the (smaller) WSL Executive Committee on Sunday 9 May 1982, which voted by a majority to change the previous WSL policy of opposing the war on both British and Argentine sides, to siding with Argentina; and a meeting of the (larger) WSL National Committee on Sunday 16 May 1982, which voted by a majority to keep the previous policy. "To face reality squarely; not to seek the line of least resistance; to call things by their right names; to speak the truth to the masses, no...

From Workers’ Socialist Review no.2, 1982; reprinted in Workers' Liberty 2/3 Time and again the same quotations from Trotsky have been used to justify a pro-Argentine stance in the Falklands/Malvinas war But the main thing the quotations prove is the pro-Argentine comrades’ lack of grip on the points in dispute. Everyone in the WSL majority would agree that if the comparison with China and the other colonies and semi-colonies of the 1930s referred to by Trotsky is legitimate, then we would not invoke the character of the Argentine regime as a reason for not siding with Argentina. We could...

The Falkland Islands, small specks in the South Atlantic, were annexed by Britain and settled by British people in the 1830s. There had been no previous indigenous population. A century and a half later, in the 1970s and 80s, the islands were an odd little relic of empire. They had no huge economic or strategic importance. Their 1800 or so inhabitants, many of whom would move on to more clement climates after their time in the Falklands, had no desire to separate from Britain. Argentina had long laid claim to the islands — calling them the Malvinas — on the grounds that it was the nearest...

Zanon victory; US union recognition law setback; Korean occupation ends; Chilean miners' strike Zanon victory Workers at the occupied Zanon ceramics factory in Neuqen, Argentina, have won a major legal victory. The provincial parliament has voted 26 to 9 to accept that the factory is expropriated and handed over to the workers’ co-operative to manage legally and indefinitely. The workers of the Zanon factory in Argentina occupied the factory in 2001, following a boss’s lock-out, and have run it since then under workers’ control. The workers renamed the factory FASINPAT (Factory without a Boss)...