Jun 18, 2008, 22:15 GMT
Buenos Aires - Argentine President Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner Wednesday berated striking farmers for being selfish and unwilling to pay higher export tariffs on their increasingly valuable crops.
Speaking at a crowded pro-government rally in Buenos Aires a day after she decided to send the controversial tariff increase to Congress, she called upon striking farmers to 'free the roads and let Argentines get back to producing and to working.'
Fernandez spoke to an estimated crowd of more than 100,000 people - many of them belonging to trade unions and other organizations linked to the Peronist movement - at the central Plaza de Mayo in the Argentine capital, before the governing palace Casa Rosada, at a gathering attended by many governors and mayors.
The president's speech was to be broadcast live on the country's television.
She complained about the selfishness of striking rural producers and again justified the rise in agricultural export tariffs with the need to combat poverty and underdevelopment at home. The president accused the farmers of not seeing beyond their own interests to the needs of society around them.
She stressed that blockading roads and banging pots in street corners 'solves nothing,' and called the opposition to her government to build a political project that can get power in an election.
'We invite those who think they can do better, and there must surely be some, to democratically constitute a political party and in the next election call for the popular vote to carry out their policies,' Fernandez said.
However, she complained about the behaviour of farmers' leaders 'for whom no one voted and whom no one chose' in a crisis that has been ongoing since March and that has caused shortages of food and fuel across the country.
There was a minute's silence before the president's speech, to mourn the death of a young man who was hit in the head by a heavy street lamp post earlier Wednesday on the Plaza de Mayo, where he was planning to attend the rally.
The man, 21, was injured and taken to a nearby hospital, but died a few minutes after admission after suffering 'severe head trauma,' medical sources said. He had travelled to Buenos Aires for the rally from the northern Argentine province of Tucuman.
Argentine Chief of Staff Alberto Fernandez met with pro-government legislators Wednesday to discuss the chances of approval of the bill that would increase tariffs on farming exports - an issue that has been at the root of a farmers' strike since March.
Farmers' leaders were evaluating their response to the latest developments in the 99-day-old crisis. They complained that the bill could only be approved or rejected by Congress and could be debated, but no modifications were to be allowed in the wording.
Like the president, Alberto Fernandez called upon farmers to put an end to their protest.
'It is not possible to persist in this scheme of road blockades and of preventing the free transit of Argentines, which generates terrible consequences, like shortages of food and fuel,' the chief of staff told Argentine radio.
The pro-government camp was worried about securing a majority for the bill, with pressure mounting on pro-Kirchner legislators - particularly those representing provinces with intense agricultural activity - to vote against the bill.
The latest strike by Argentine farmers, launched Sunday and which suspended the sale of grain for export, was set to end Wednesday. This is the fourth such strike in recent months.
The crisis has been brewing since March, when an increase in export tariffs for soybeans and sunflower went into effect, tying tariffs to soaring international market prices for food.
The average tariff on soy was increased from 35 to 46 per cent, at the current prices. The levy was initially intended apply to almost all of the surplus if the price for soybeans were to rise above 600 dollars a tonne, but the government has since modified this to set a tax ceiling.
Late Monday many people in Argentine urban areas engaged in so- called 'cacerolazos' - banging pots and pans - and hooting horns to demand that the government settle the crisis. The farmers' protest has been cupled with fuel and food shortages, since trucks cannot move freely through the country's roads.
Argentina is the third-largest producer of soybeans in the world, after the United States and Brazil. More than 95 per cent of its production is exported.
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