Gastón Cuñado was talking to two Militant reporters on the night of June 4 near a bright bonfire warming a dozen young pickets stationed by Highway 9, at the entrance to San Salvador de Jujuy, the capital of this northern province. Cuñado, 20, who does what temporary work he can find in plumbing and construction, said he "joined the pickets because of the brutal repression against the sugar workers in Ledesma."

On May 31 the piqueteros (pickets) in the town of Libertador General San Martín, also known by the name of the Ledesma sugar mill, had signed an accord with the government to provide 12,579 jobs in the region. The protesters lifted the highway barricades they had erected all over the province and gave the authorities two weeks to come up with a concrete jobs plan. They remained on the roadside, ready to block the roads again if necessary.

Libertador, 80 miles northeast of the city of Jujuy, is a company town. "The Blacquier family owns the Ledesma sugar mill, which is the main employer," said Ignacio Fernández, a piquetero who had worked six years there before being laid off. "Out of 12,000 jobs in the sugar industry, only 3,000 are left because of mechanization." The population of Libertador is 60,000.

Fernández added, "People work here six months during the sugar harvest, but the other six months they have to go elsewhere. I went to Buenos Aires and worked 10 years in a shoe factory." Unemployment in Jujuy runs at 35 percent - twice the national average.

"The owners of Ledesma also own the surrounding 380,000 hectares of farmland, although they only use 80,000 hectares [1 hectare = 2.47 acres]," said Olga Márquez de Arédez, a member of the human rights group Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo. "They also own the local paper mill, bagasse-processing plant, citrus products factory, alcohol plant, and fruit- packing plant."

Márquez de Arédez explained that her late husband had been mayor of Libertador in the mid-1970s. "He was the first mayor to dare to ask the owners of the sugar mill to pay taxes. So in 1974 the provincial authorities sent in the police and removed him from office. When the 1976 military coup took place, "my husband was kidnapped and disappeared. He was taken away from our home in a company truck."

The popular rebellion that exploded in April in the depressed oil town of Cutral-Có, in Neuquén province, was the detonator of the revolts in Jujuy and other cities throughout Argentina.

"When we saw the methods the fogoneros [bonfire starters] used in Cutral-Có, that's when we decided to block Highway 34," said Ramón Sarmiento, 29, a piquetero in Libertador who does odd jobs. "The decision was made at a meeting of unemployed workers and the first roadblock went up here May 19. Our main demands were 5,000 jobs in this area and unemployment benefits."

Juan Segovia, 37, a self-employed welder and one of the piqueteros' three elected delegates, was one of the first to join the barricades. "When I heard the gendarmería [national border police] had been sent in to repress the sugar workers, I went straight home, changed clothes, and came here." Why? "Because as individuals we can never get jobs. Once we came together, the government had to sit down and talk to us -they had never done that before."

On May 20, "at 12:30 p.m., the police came," Sarmiento recounted. "A group of 20 women placed themselves at the front of the piqueteros. We carried a big Argentine flag and sang the national anthem, thinking the police would stop out of respect for the anthem. But instead, they threw tear gas grenades and sprayed us with water cannon. The police even stepped on the flag, which was left stained with the blood of the demonstrators they clubbed."

Running battle with cops
At that point, Sarmiento reported, "the whole town joined in." A running battle ensued for three days. Union officials in the city of Jujuy condemned the police brutality but advised the workers to clear the road. Large groups of youth, however, ignored that advice and fiercely battled the cops.

"The worst repression came down on Thursday, May 22," Sarmiento continued. "Some 1,200 cops in riot gear occupied the highway and confronted a crowd of 3,000. The police chased people through the nearby neighborhoods, throwing tear gas and firing rubber bullets.

"The people in the San Lorenzo and San Francisco neighborhoods fought back. Some 200 youth stood at the front and threw rocks with their slingshots. The honderos [slingshot shooters] and the rest of us pushed back the cops."

Several piqueteros proudly showed Militant reporters a police water tank they had captured and burned.

Dozens of demonstrators were arrested, and 120 people were injured. One man lost an eye during the cop assault. Márquez de Arédez noted that the police carted off demonstrators using Ledesma company trucks.

"That evening the government gave the order to withdraw the border police. We won the battle, although we haven't yet won the war," commented Segovia.

On May 25, a national holiday commemorating Argentina's independence, the townspeople boycotted the official ceremony, which was attended only by the despised mayor and his entourage. Instead, 20,000 people joined a holiday celebration called by the protesting workers right on the blocked highway. "It was a real popular festival," Segovia remarked. A group of young piqueteros led off the parade carrying their bloodstained "war flag."

The government entered negotiations with a committee of unemployed workers that included three elected delegates from each of 17 picket sites. Within days the roadblocks had spread to other towns: San Pedro, Palpalá, La Mendieta, Abra Pampa, Alto Comedero, Carmen, Tilcara, Río Blanco, Humahuaca, and La Quiaca on the Bolivian border.

The protesters ranged from laid-off steelworkers from the Zapla blast furnaces to youth who have never had a job. They pressed an array of demands, such as higher unemployment benefits, housing, health care for poor families, cafeterias in the elementary and high schools, and payment in pesos instead of the hated "coupons" that are used to pay state employees. The coupons are worth less than pesos and cannot be used outside the province.

Meanwhile, the state employees unions in the province called a one-day solidarity strike and several marches in solidarity with the piqueteros. High school students in Jujuy walked out of classes and held sit-ins.

The committee of piqueteros rejected the government's initial offer of several hundred temporary jobs and miserly unemployment benefits. The government finally pledged to create 12,000 jobs.

The roadblocks went down and thousands of workers in Jujuy province began to line up to register for the promised jobs. The piqueteros demand concrete proposals to build factories, schools, clinics, and other projects that will create jobs. "Many of the 12,000 jobs will be temporary. The solution must be permanent jobs," said Sarmiento.

[At a June 22 rally the piqueteros in Libertador decided to put up roadblocks again as long as the government did not fulfill the agreement, particularly the elimination of the coupons and rapid implementation of the jobs program.]

Many of the young piqueteros commented on the changes in attitudes reflected in the recent revolt. "For me it began with the Santiagazo," said Antonio, 23, who like many did not want to give his last name to avoid victimization by the police.

The Santiagazo was the December 1993 uprising in Santiago del Estero, where thousands of unpaid state employees and unemployed workers occupied and burned down several government buildings.

Mariano, 28, a teacher and piquetero on Highway 9, explained that for years since the military regime, there had been an atmosphere of fear among workers. "In Jujuy the most combative unions -the sugar workers, miners, teachers -were hit hard by repression. The most combative leaders were disappeared and now these unions are weak and bureaucratic. After all this, the Santiagazo showed it was possible to fight."

Some of the youth have drawn inspiration from struggles abroad. Cuñado said he and two friends had spent a month in Brazil last January visiting camps organized by the Movement of Rural Landless Workers (MST), which has taken over idle lands in a fight for agrarian reform and social rights.

"The MST movement - they know how to fight. We need something like that here," Cuñado said. "None of the political parties here have any solutions to the deep problems in our society. And we need far-reaching solutions."  
 
 
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