This is a CTP of initiative: ICA/MOI (Argentina)
In 2003, the PADELAI building, which was occupied in 1987 and resulted in the creation of MOI, was evicted by a judicial order between social controversy and great police repression. This fact implied for the Occupants and Tenants Movement an important CTP. In the interviews and official documents, the members of the MOI expressed the importance of the first eviction as this led to the movement to regroup and reposition the institution, especially in its relationship with the National State and the City of Buenos Aires.
The eviction was also a violent and repressive action by the State that represented 52 MOI members detained (including women and children), all members of the families occupying the building. This fact had a national press coverage, with repercussions in all the media and placed the MOI in all the newspapers. The authorities explained it this way:
"Starting today, a dialogue table is opened with the occupants, who mostly belong to the San Telmo Limited Housing, Credit and Consumer Cooperative, with the objective of reaching an agreement to free the property, a source of conflict and controversial since 1984, when it was first taken."
The 89 families occupying the former Padelai building in the San Telmo neighborhood were evicted in a violent police operation that broke the resistance of the occupants by using tear gas and rubber bullets. The negotiations, promoted the City Government, were not enough: the occupants did not want to leave that place, disconformed with the subsidies that were offered to them, and they were taken by force.
A judge authorized the procedure, because the "risk to the life of the people", due to the bad building conditions of the property. Paradoxically, the women and children who were thought to be protected had to flee from the gas, while several inhabitants were hospitalized, with injuries. The incidents continued outside, when police repressed the demonstrators who came to support the evacuees. Among the detainees inside the former Padelai were from a 12-year-old girl to a 74-year-old man.
There was two hours of negotiation, an ultimatum at noon, and then there was the entrance of the police. María José Carrizo, 23 years old, who was eight months pregnant and had a one-year-old child living in a room on the first floor of the building on Balcarce, comments:
"They did not care if there were women with boys. They came with dogs and clubs, threw tear gas and pushed us up the stairs "
Occupied for 19 years, the former Padelai's building deteriorated over time. The lack of maintenance (which its occupants were not in a position to face), added to the deteriorations typical of a building more than a hundred years old. The building risks motivated a denunciation by some of the occupants before a advice of minors of the city. Before this presentation, the government requested a study to the Faculty of Engineering of the University of Buenos Aires, that recommended the evacuation of the building, that was in risk of collapse, and its demolition.
At the time of the eviction of the Padelai building, the Occupants and Tenants Movement was linked to numerous social organizations, and even some government agencies. All of them were co-responsible for the CTP. One of the highlights was the leadership of the MOI in the Federation of Self-Managed Cooperatives. The federation, created on the impulse of the MOI, had become the main third-degree organization in the field of cooperative habitat.
Another institution linked to the eviction process that strongly supported the MOI was the Central of argentinian workers (CTA, in its spanish initials), especially the direction of the City of Buenos Aires. The CTA is a workers' center parallel to the General Confederation of Labor (CGT, in its spanish initials), which emerged in the 1990s as a new, more horizontal and democratic force that faced the economic recessionary policies of the period. During the 1990s the CTA was one of the organizations at the forefront of social transformation in Argentina, organizing numerous workers' centers outside the centralized grouping.
Together, the MOI and the CTA coordinated cooperative habitat activities with neighborhood organizations, such as the Health Center Number 15, the Plaza Dorrego Assembly and the Martina Céspedes Sports Center. These institutions together worked in the neighborhood of San Telmo in the south of the City in activities of urban improvement and infrastructure, mainly repairs, reports and censuses of building conditions.
Finally, another group linked to the MOI that supported and participated in the negotiations with the government of the City of Buenos Aires was a group of deputies who worked for years, collaborating with the movement and above all, supporting at the legislative level, the Housing initiatives of the MOI. Among the distinguished names were those of deputies Rocío Sánchez Andía, Fabio Basteiro and Laura García Tuñón, of left-wing parties and groups.
In 2003, after the economic and political crisis that implied that in 2002 five presidents happened in a week, governed in Argentina the candidate who had emerged second in the presidential elections of 1999. Leader of the party historically close to the popular sectors, Peronism, President Eduardo Duhalde began a process of economic recomposition and through a new call for presidential elections.
At the same time, the City of Buenos Aires was governed by a progressist party, identified, in general, with the demands of different organizations of habitat. However, following a series of events that can not easily be clarified, the city government prompted the eviction.
Although the political and social crisis that began in 2001 was already beginning to be resolved, the economic situation continued to affect more than half of Argentina. This meant that the housing deficit, increasing since the early 1990s, was as present as a decade ago. In turn, the National State, which at the beginning was more tolerant of social protest and opposition organizations, was consolidated and began to fight against social movements. This created conditions for a greater social consensus on the eviction of the occupied building.
Undoubtedly the eviction of the PADELAI building involved more than one vision on the part of the members of the MOI. In that sense, the CTP implied more than one position with respect to the process that was developed. Of the 89 families that lived in the building, not all of them agreed with the measure of resisting the eviction. In fact, some of them had begun to negotiate with the government to avoid violence.
"We want a serious and definitive dialogue table. We are willing to lift the demands if we access to credits. We do not want to go back to the problems of before"
On the other hand, the government of the City of Buenos Aires, they indicated that the building had to be abandoned:
"We act from complaints about irregularities. According to the neighbors, parties and events were made, food was sold and there is also theft of electricity..."We already agreed with the people who were in the sector that gives Humberto 1º st., and now we are going to meet with those in the area of Balcarce st. and San Juan Av., who are About 40 families. We join with them and we are relieving the situation of each group, because many already received credits and re-entered. The idea is to achieve a peaceful eviction, not to leave anyone in a street situation. "
As a result of this, negotiations began with some occupants of the building, but it was later stated that they did not represent the San Telmo cooperative:
"The families with whom we already speak do not recognize the representation of the Cooperativa San Telmo. And there are people who have already received subsidies and left, and now they went back to see what they can negotiate...At some point a percentage was given on the property but they had to comply with agreements and They did not."
Finally the voices inside the MOI were unified and the attitude was to reject the eviction. Subsequently, the movement pronounced against the measure and claimed a compensation. In this way, the punctual fact of the eviction was an extremely controversial action and had, even within the MOI, with numerous interpretations and readings after the fact.
The eviction of the Padelai building was an action anticipated by the MOI, but it could not avoid. The MOI members knew that this would constitute a CTP. Even when actions were taken in many ways, political, social and even judicial, the strong decision of the Government of the City of Buenos Aires to end the experience of occupation, combined with the notable deterioration of the building, made the State's action irreversible.
"It all started in January of 2003, when reports from several professionals advised eviction of former Padelai building. Judge González Gass and his team were in full negotiation with the families to get it done in an organized way. But a judicial protection filed by one of the inhabitants stopped the eviction and the few people who remained refused to leave. And there were more: ex-inhabitants of the building, who had already received the subsidy, returned to the building because they had been told they could make the same money twice."
In the same month an event occurred that, although it could anticipate some action on the part of the Government of the City of Buenos Aires, did not at that moment represent a warning for the members of the MOI. After a great summer storm, a beam detached from the roof and fell on the ground, endangering the life of the inhabitants of the building. This put on alert the City government that began to plan the eviction, while the MOI placed in the courts a precautionary action. When the judicial action was lifted, MOI members were able to anticipate the eviction.
People knew that two families had reached an agreement with the prosecution. At the same time, a group of workers laid plates on Humberto 1º st. and set up a fence to separate the evicted sector from the one that is still occupied."The prosecution had them cut the electricity," some suspected as they circled the courtyard. Although the internal Padelai are recognized, all appeared to be together in the face of possible eviction. "Outside, they said, police custody over San Juan Av., Balcarce st. and Humberto 1º st. grew in the last week."
There were negotiations between the MOI and the state to have to leave the building, but finally the decision became a fact. When the eviction occurred, the MOI lost the occupied building for almost 20 years.
The eviction of the PADELAI building represented numerous occupations for the Occupants and Tenants Movement. Especially in terms of their organization and political alliances. Although the fact did not imply dismantling of the movement with the state, at least it implied a reordering of forces and strategies.
An important learning was the negotiation with the government, especially with the Ministry of Social affairs and the national Cabinet chief, to analyze the alternatives for the occupants. The main measures demanded were state subsidies and credits to access new housing at a negative interest rate.
The movement obtained the recognition of rights of the relatives who occupied the building and were generated subsidies and relocations in hotels in charge of the City government.
Since the change in the National Government and in the city in 1999, the MOI approached different public bodies, at least rhetorically, more progressists. The rupture of relations with the government due to eviction, led the movement to a regrouping forces. Although the ties with the Sub-secretariat of Housing continued, the MOI distanced itself politically from the government and regained its identity as a self-managed movement.
Ten years after the eviction, the MOI commemorated the event as an instance of strengthening the movement, central to its new role as the main promoting institution of Law 341 of Housing Cooperatives in the City of Buenos Aires. This fact was considered by the institution as an important CTP since it allowed to recover some autonomy face the State. To remember that date and to raise its historical project of struggle for the Right to the City, the San Telmo Cooperative held a cultural festival, with the support of MOI and CTA.
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