Once Secure, Argentines Now Lack Food and Hope
By LARRY ROHTER
TUCUMÁN, Argentina — A year after the Argentine economy collapsed, the authorities in Buenos Aires are boasting about a record grain harvest and suggesting that the country is finally on the mend. Yet in recent months, 19 children have died of malnutrition here, so "the garden of the republic," as this city is known, is also the leading symbol of its agony.
Just a few years ago, this was a largely middle-class nation, with the highest per capita income in Latin America. But the crisis that began in December 2001 has turned millions of Argentines into paupers without jobs, hope or enough food for themselves and their children.
According to the most recent statistics, issued in January, at least 60 percent of the country's 37 million people now live in poverty, defined as an income of less than $220 a month for a family of four. That is nearly double the number toward the end of 2001. Even more alarming, more than a quarter the population is classified as "indigent," or living on less than $100 a month for a family of four.
Fearing a run on its currency after the International Monetary Fund said Argentina was not imposing sufficient fiscal austerity and cut off its credit line, the Argentine government froze bank accounts and defaulted on most of its debt in December 2001. Since then, the economy has shrunk by 12 percent, thousands of businesses have closed down and unemployment has soared to record levels of nearly 25 percent.
As a result, hunger in this nation that has more cattle than people is now rampant, especially among the most vulnerable: the very young and the very old. The situation seems to be most acute here in the northwest, in working-class cities surrounded by rural areas. While other such cities have reported some deaths, this city of 500,000 has had the most.
At the one pediatric hospital here, doctors find themselves treating patients with kwashiorkor, a disease caused by lack of protein and characterized by its victims' distended bellies and reddish hair.
"Problems that we used to see in photographs from Africa, now we are facing them here," said Dr. Teresa Acuña, a pediatrician at the hospital. "We never thought that this could happen in Argentina." ...
<http://www.nytimes.com/2003/03/02/international/americas/02ARGE.html>
Carl
_________________________________________________________________ STOP MORE SPAM with the new MSN 8 and get 2 months FREE* http://join.msn.com/?page=features/junkmail