Argentina Declares State of Siege Amid Rioting

President Fernando De la Rua signed an order declaring a state of siege Wednesday, seizing special powers after a day of looting and violence engulfed recession-racked Argentina, a high-ranking government official said.

De la Rua will address the nation Wednesday evening to explain why he was taking special steps to quell violence in the capital and in major cities across the country, the official told The Associated Press on condition of anonymity.

The announcement followed an emergency Cabinet meeting and came after a day of frenzied violence. Riot police sent looters fleeing amid a fusillade of rubber bullets and tear gas in the poor neighborhoods ringing the capital. The unrest marked a troubling new chapter in the financial crisis that has tormented Argentina for more than four years.

It wasn't immediately clear what the state of siege would entail. But such a declaration would likely allow the president to right to suspend constitutional guarantees, such as the right to assemble and travel freely as well as grant authorities greater arrest powers.

The government official said he had no further information on whether the powers would be nationwide or limited to hotspots around the country, where looters overran supermarkets and some government buildings to protest harsh austerity policies.

It was the most furious unrest after sporadic looting that has taken place daily since a national strike Dec. 13 - the eighth in two years. It also marked the most serious challenge to the increasingly unpopular De la Rua administration.

By midafternoon, looting erupted in at least a half dozen cities across Argentina, including Mendoza, Rosario, Santiago del Estero and San Juan, as hundreds of people descended on stores and carried away everything from bicycles and home appliances to washing machines.

Police put up iron barricades ahead of a scheduled march through downtown by hundreds of jobless.

The government sent federal police to back up the local Buenos Aires police in cat-and-mouse games with angry crowds that shifted from street to street, forcing shop owners to shutter metal gates and flee.

In western Argentina, police stormed city hall in the major city of Cordoba, 475 miles northwest of the capital, where rioting workers had trashed their offices, smashing and overturning furniture.

There were no reports of injuries in Cordoba, but in Buenos Aires, police said five officers were hurt in the looting.

Argentines are desperate after years of recession that has stopped South America's second-largest economy in its tracks. The government, strapped to make payments on the country's staggering $132 billion public debt, has partially frozen accounts to halt a run on the banks. The jobless rate has soared to near record levels.

Violence erupted late Tuesday night, with some 2,000 people looting in the San Miguel commercial district in greater Buenos Aires. Police finally used tear gas to quell the crowd.

But thousands of angry, disgruntled Argentines regrouped during the day Wednesday in poor and widely scattered neighborhoods around the capital.

``We want food and if the government won't give us any, we'll just take it!'' shouted Liliana Gimenez, a 62-year-old woman among the crowd that massed outside a supermarket defended by riot police and two tractor-trailer trucks blocking the gates.

Police brandished riot shields and rifles and stood shoulder-to-shoulder outside the huge supermarket, where edgy managers tried to calm hundreds of people with promises to distribute hundreds of bags of foodstuffs.

After a half hour of negotiations with the supermarket officials, an 18-wheeler supermarket truck was rolled out to the crowd and leaders of the mob hurled bags of rice, cooking oil, even holiday sweet bread, to outstretched hands in the frenzied crowd.

``We are hungry and we are desperate. We will keep looting. We need food for Christmas,'' said one man who only gave his name as Osvaldo. He hauled away milk, rice and jars of mayonnaise. Others piled shopping carts with groceries or shoveled food into duffel bags - scenes that were repeated around the country.

(China Daily December 20, 2001)