Thousands Protest Argentina Government Cuts, IMF
May 31st (Reuters) 
By Robert Elliott

BUENOS AIRES - Thousands of union activists 
on Wednesday marched through downtown Buenos Aires 
protesting government cutbacks they blame on the International 
Monetary Fund's constant call for economic austerity.

Leaving the center-city streets unusually bare of traffic, the 
march brought together the hard-line and moderate wings of the 
General Workers Confederation (CGT) -- the country's largest 
grouping of unions -- for the first time since they split in late February.

An estimated 20,000 marchers descended on the plaza 
facing Government House under cloudy skies, some waving
banners that read "The Death of Salaries." Ten people clad in 
lack hoods and shirts labeled "IMF" carried a casket labeled 
"education, salaries, small-and-medium sized business, health."

"We have got to put an end to this savage IMF austerity," said 
Patricia Walsh, a leader of the United Leftist Militants party 
who helped lead the march.

President Fernando de la Rua remarked the strike was "perhaps
a call to international financial organizations that they must also 
attend to necessary social solidarity."

The two CGT factions will begin a 24-hour national strike on June 9
against public sector salary cuts and layoffs, said Victor de Gennaro,
head of the Argentine Workers Center union.

The Argentine government on Monday slashed $938 million 
from planned expenditures to help lasso its runaway fiscal deficit, 
which in 1999 hit a record $7.1 billion. As per a $7.2 billion standby 
loan deal with the IMF, the 2000 deficit has to come in at no
more than $4.7 billion.

The government cutbacks, including $590 million clipped 
from public sector salaries, are among a long line of austerity 
measures the Argentine public has had to swallow.

The stock market rose on the spending reduction, but 
Congress remained closed as public sector employees 
railed against the dismissal of 700 full-time workers after
the shutdown of the legislature's printing press.

Top economists concurred it will take a further 
downsizing of the state and other creative moves to 
bring the government's books in line and kick-start 
the economy, which has been stagnant for the 
last 22 months.

"This is a sickness and we are trying to apply the 
medicine," De la Rua said in defense of the cuts,
dubbing the country's wobbling economy as his
"inheritance."

Argentina's government sliced public spending by $511 
million in the first quarter of the year and will continue 
on that pace through December, Undersecretary of 
Economic and Regional Programming Miguel Bein said 
on Wednesday.