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Looting, Riots Rage in Argentina as Austerity Plans Bite A man hands out food donated by a supermarket in an effort to prevent looting Wednesday. (Fabian Gredillas - AFP)

By Alistair Scrutton Reuters Wednesday, December 19, 2001; 2:12 PM BUENOS AIRES, Argentina, Dec 19—Police fired tear gas and rubber bullets to disperse looters who ransacked stores in the capital and northeast Argentina on Wednesday in some of the worst rioting in a decade over government austerity measures and poverty. Dozens of supermarkets and shops were sacked in suburbs of Buenos Aires and the northern Entre Rios province as hundreds of Argentines smashed shop windows stealing items including toilet-paper, televisions, food and clothing. Police in riot gear guarded many other supermarkets stocked for Christmas as troubles mounted for President Fernando de la Rua, struggling to head off a four-year recession, 18.3 percent unemployment and the biggest sovereign debt default ever. Five police officers were injured in the worst civil unrest since food riots helped topple President Raul Alfonsin in 1989. In many other raids on stores police stood idly by, hands behind their backs, and watched as looters ran out of shops laden with goods, witnesses said. Some supermarkets handed out food packages in an effort to stop looting by gathering crowds. "I feel bad about it but we're dying of hunger," said Sonia Aristici, carrying food taken from a supermarket on Buenos Aires' outskirts. Stinging tear gas hung in the humid, hot summer air where looters gathered. In Cordoba, the country's second biggest city, police fired rubber bullets at municipal workers protesting unpaid wages. There were running battles as employees chanted slogans and choking tear gas filled municipal offices. Buenos Aires' city center was mostly quiet but banks reinforced security amid reports that protesters were approaching. There were few other reported incidents in most provinces of the South American country of 36 million people. The center-left De la Rua, rock bottom in polls midway into his four-year term, ordered $7 million in food aid to be distributed to try to calm the unrest. In a sign of growing impatience at De la Rua, some protesters chanted and threw eggs and a paving stone at the president as he left a meeting in the city center. The paving stone hit the roof of his limousine. In the northeastern Entre Rios province vastly outnumbered security forces watched helplessly as hundreds of looters fled with goods, shielded by smoke billowing from burning tires. "Here we go Buenos Aires. There you go De la Rua!" some chanted as they held up stolen goods for the cameras. Television showed shops littered with boxes and glass and some shopkeepers weeping. A few managers in suits and ties tried to defend one supermarket with wooden hockey sticks. Argentina is a pale shadow of the confident nation whose economy grew by half in the 1990s to become the center of the Internet revolution in Latin America. Its once strong middle class has also been impoverished in the crisis. Among the protesters were many who said they were poor, unemployed and hungry, including mothers with children, but officials said there were also protesters, or unidentified "agitators," according to a government spokesman. One man could be seen fleeing and balancing a stolen television on his bicycle, while another waved a beef steak in the air. Others arrived at the scene with rucksacks on their backs ready to be filled. Some protesters said they had been shot with rubber bullets. There were no reports of arrests. "The people have their reasons," said one toy shop owner in the suburb of San Miguel, 25 miles (40 km) from the capital, his car full of his own boxed toys. "It is the situation. You can't blame the people." Protests, generally peaceful roadblocks and marches have become regular as an estimated 2,000 Argentines a day fall below the poverty line. The protests intensified when cash withdrawals were restricted this month to end a bank run threatening to sink the economy—a measure that brought retail activity to a standstill. Adding to the gloom, one of Argentina's main steelmakers, Acindar, said on Wednesday it was unable to continue meeting its debt payments. Most economists see Argentina heading for a catastrophic debt default and the eventual end of a decade-old one-to-one currency peg between the peso and the U.S. dollar—a rupture that would bankrupt thousands. Protests are likely to escalate as the government tries to cut its spending by nearly 20 percent next year to ensure it can keep servicing its $132 billion debt. The budget's approval is vital for unlocking International Monetary Fund aid and preventing Argentina from defaulting. But the government faces a struggle to pass spending cuts in a Congress dominated by the opposition Peronists. (Reporting by Walter Bianchi, Simon Gardner, Karina Grazina, Brian Winter, Gilbert Le Gras)