| Argentina is a country in southern South America, situated
between the Andes in the west and the southern Atlantic Ocean in the east. It is bordered by Paraguay and
Bolivia in the north, Brazil and Uruguay in the northeast and Chile in the west. The
country is formally named República Argentina ('"Argentine Republic"), while for purposes of legislation the form
Nación Argentina ("Argentine Nation") is used.
Origin and history of the name
The name Argentina is derived from the Latin argentum (silver). The origin of this name goes back to the first voyages made by the Spanish conquerors to Río de la
Plata. The survivors of the shipwrecked expedition mounted by Juan Díaz de Solís found indigenous people in the region who gave them silver objects as presents. The
news about the legendary Sierra del Plata – a mountain rich in silver – reached Spain around 1524. Since then, the Spaniards named the river of Solís, Río de la Plata (River of Silver).
History
Main article: History of Argentina
Europeans arrived in the region with the 1502
voyage of Amerigo Vespucci. Spanish navigator Juan Díaz de Solís visited what is now Argentina in 1516. Spain established a permanent colony on the site of
Buenos Aires in 1580, although
initial settlement was primarily overland from Peru. The Spanish further integrated
Argentina into their empire by establishing the Vice Royalty of Río de la Plata in 1776, and Buenos Aires became a flourishing port. Buenos Aires formally declared independence from Spain on July 9, 1816. Argentines revere Gen. José de San Martín, who campaigned in Argentina, Chile, and
Peru as the hero of their national independence. Following the defeat of the Spanish,
centralist and federationist groups waged a lengthy conflict between themselves to determine the future of the nation. National
unity was established, and the constitution promulgated in 1853.
Two forces combined to create the modern Argentine nation in the late 19th
century: the introduction of modern agricultural techniques and integration of Argentina into the world economy. Foreign
investment and immigration from Europe aided this economic revolution. Investment, primarily British, came in such fields as railroads and ports. As in the United States, the migrants who worked to develop Argentina's resources—especially the western
pampas—came from throughout Europe.
From 1880 to 1930 Argentina became one of the
world's 10 wealthiest nations based on rapid expansion of agriculture and foreign investment in infrastructure. Conservative
forces dominated Argentine politics until 1916, when their traditional rivals, the
Radicals, won control of the government. The Radicals, with their emphasis on fair elections and democratic institutions, opened
their doors to Argentina's rapidly expanding middle class as well as to groups previously excluded from power. The Argentine
military forced aged Radical President Hipólito Yrigoyen from
power in 1930 and ushered in another decade of Conservative rule. Using fraud and force
when necessary, the governments of the 1930s attempted to contain the currents of
economic and political change that eventually led to the ascendance of Juan Domingo Perón (b. 1897). New social and political forces were
seeking political power, including a modern military and labor movements that emerged from the growing urban working class.
The military ousted Argentina's constitutional government in 1943. Perón, then an army
colonel, was one of the coup's leaders, and he soon became the government's dominant figure as Minister of Labor. Elections
carried him to the presidency in 1946. He aggressively pursued policies aimed empowering
the working class and greatly expanded the number of unionized workers. In 1947, Perón
announced the first 5-year plan based on the growth of industries he nationalized. He helped establish the powerful General
Confederation of Labor (CGT). Perón's dynamic wife, Eva Duarte
de Perón, known as Evita (1919-52), played a key role in developing support for her husband. Perón won reelection in 1952, but the military sent him into exile in 1955. In the
1950s and 1960s, military and civilian
administrations traded power, trying, with limited success, to deal with diminished economic growth and continued social and
labor demands. When military governments failed to revive the economy and suppress escalating terrorism in the late 1960s and early 1970s, the way was open for Perón's
return.
On March 11, 1973, Argentina held general
elections for the first time in 10 years. Perón was prevented from running, but voters elected his stand-in, Dr. Héctor Cámpora, as President. Perón's followers also commanded strong
majorities in both houses of Congress. Cámpora resigned in July 1973, paving the way for new elections. Perón won a decisive victory and returned as President in
October 1973 with his third wife,
María Estela Isabel Martínez de Perón, as Vice President. During this
period, extremists on the left and right carried out terrorist acts with a frequency that threatened public order. The government
resorted to a number of emergency decrees, including the implementation of special executive authority to deal with violence.
This allowed the government to imprison persons indefinitely without charge.
Perón died on July 1, 1974. His wife succeeded
him in office, but a military coup removed her from office on March 24, 1976, and the armed forces formally exercised power through a junta composed of the three service
commanders until December 10, 1983. The
armed forces applied harsh measures against terrorists and many suspected of being their sympathizers. They restored basic order,
but the human costs of what became known as "El Proceso," or the "Dirty War" were
high. Conservative counts list between 10,000 and 30,000 persons as "disappeared" during the 1976-83 period. Serious economic
problems, mounting charges of corruption, public revulsion in the face of human
rights abuses and, finally, the country's 1982 defeat by the United Kingdom in an unsuccessful attempt to seize the Falklands/Malvinas Islands all combined to discredit the Argentine military
regime. The junta lifted bans on political parties and gradually restored basic political liberties.
On October 30, 1983, Argentines went to the polls and chose Raúl Alfonsín, of the Radical Civic Union (UCR), as President. He began a 6-year term of office on December 10, 1983. In
1985 and 1987, large turnouts for mid-term elections
demonstrated continued public support for a strong and vigorous democratic system. The UCR-led government took steps to resolve
some of the nation's most pressing problems, including accounting for those who disappeared during military rule, establishing
civilian control of the armed forces, and consolidating democratic institutions. However, failure to resolve endemic economic
problems, and an inability to maintain public confidence undermined the effectiveness of the Alfonsín government, which left
office 6 months early after Peronist candidate Carlos Saul Menem
won the 1989 presidential elections.
President Menem imposed peso-dollar parity (convertibility) in 1992 to break the back of
hyperinflation and adopted far-reaching market-based policies. Menem's accomplishments included dismantling a web of
protectionist trade and business regulations, and reversing a half-century of statism by implementing an ambitious privatization
program. These reforms contributed to significant increases in investment and growth with stable prices through most of the
1990s. Unfortunately, widespread corruption in the administrations of President Menem and President Fernando de la Rúa (elected in 1999) shook confidence and weakened the recovery. Also, while convertibility defeated inflation, its permanence
undermined Argentina's export competitiveness and created chronic deficits in the current account of the balance of payments,
which were financed by massive borrowing. The contagion effect of the Asian financial crisis of 1998 precipitated an outflow of capital that gradually mushroomed
into a 4-year depression that culminated in a financial panic in November
2001. In December 2001, amidst bloody riots, President de la Rúa
resigned, and Argentina defaulted on $88 billion in debt, the largest sovereign debt default in history.
A legislative assembly on December 23, 2001, elected Adolfo Rodríguez Saa to serve as
President and called for general elections to elect a new president within 3 months. Rodríguez Saa announced immediately that
Argentina would default on its international debt obligations, but expressed his commitment to maintain the currency board and
the peso's 1-to-1 peg to the dollar. Rodríguez Saa, however, was unable to rally support from within his own party for his
administration and this, combined with renewed violence in the Federal Capital, led to his resignation on December 30. Yet another legislative assembly elected Peronist Eduardo Duhalde President on January 1, 2002. Duhalde differentiating himself from his three
predecessors quickly abandoned the peso's 10-year-old link with the dollar, a move that was followed by currency depreciation and
inflation. In the face of rising poverty and continued social unrest, Duhalde also moved to bolster the government's social
programs.
In the first round of the presidential election on April 27, 2003, former President Carlos Menem (Justicialist PartyPJ) won 24.3% of the vote, Santa Cruz
Governor Néstor Kirchner (PJ) won 22%, followed by Ricardo Murphy with 16.4% and Elisa Carrió with 14.2%. Menem withdrew from the May 25 runoff
election after polls showed overwhelming support for Kirchner. President Kirchner took office on May 25, 2003.
Politics
Main article: Politics of Argentina
The Argentine constitution of 1853, as revised in 1994, mandates a separation of powers into executive, legislative, and judicial branches at the national and provincial level. The president and vice president are directly elected to 4-year terms. Both are limited to two consecutive
terms; they are allowed to stand for a third term or more after an interval of at least one term. The president appoints cabinet ministers, and the constitution grants him considerable
power as both head of state and head of government, including authority to enact laws by presidential decree under conditions of
"urgency and necessity" and the line-item veto.
Argentina's parliament is the bicameral National Congress or Congreso de
la Nación, consisting of a senate (Senado) of 72 seats and a Chamber of
Deputies (Cámara de Diputados) of 257 members. Since 2001, senators have been
directly elected, with each province, including the Federal Capital, represented by three senators. Senators serve 6-year terms.
One-third of the Senate stands for reelection every 2 years via a partial majority system in each district. Members of the
Chamber of Deputies are directly elected to 4-year term via a system of proportional representation. Voters elect half the members of the lower house every 2 years.
Administrative Divisions
Main article: Provinces of Argentina
Argentina is divided into 23 provinces (provincias; singular: provincia), and 1 autonomous district (formerly known as capital federal),
marked with an asterisk:
1 The current official name for the federal district is "Ciudad Autónoma de Buenos Aires". The official name
for the 23rd province is "Tierra del Fuego, Antártida e Islas del Atlántico Sur".
Major cities
Main article: List of cities in
Argentina
About 3 million people live in the city of Buenos Aires, and roughly 11 million in Greater Buenos Aires, making it one of the largest urban conglomerates in the world. The second and third
largest cities in Argentina, Córdoba and Rosario, each comprise about 1.3 million inhabitants.
Most European immigrants to Argentina (coming in great waves especially around the First and the Second World Wars) settled in
the cities, which offered jobs, education, and other opportunities that enabled newcomers to enter the middle class. Since the 1930s many rural workers have moved to the big cities.
The 1990s saw many rural towns become ghost towns when train services were abandoned and local products manufactured on a
small scale were replaced by massive amounts of imported cheap goods. This was in part caused by the effects of the monetary
policy which kept the US dollar exchange rate artificially low, thereby increasing the international price of agricultural
commodities that form the bulk of Argentina's exports. Many slums (villas miseria) sprouted in the outskirts of the
largest cities, inhabited by empoverished low-class urban dwellers and migrants from smaller towns in the interior of the
country.
Compared to most Latin American countries, and even today while it is recovering from an economic crisis, Argentina has a very
large middle class. Many of these middle class people work in industry, own small businesses, or have government or professional jobs. They live in tall modern apartment buildings or
bungalows that have small yards or gardens. Wealthy Argentines and business executives live in mansions and luxurious apartments
in the cities or in fashionable suburbs.
Argentina's urban areas have a European look, reflecting the influence of their European settlers. Many towns and cities are
built like Spanish cities around a main square called a plaza. A cathedral and important government buildings often face the
plaza. The general layout of the cities is called a damero, that is, a checkerboard, since it is based on a pattern of
square blocks, though modern developments sometimes depart from it (for example, the city of La Plata, built at the end of the
19th century, is organized as a checkerboard plus diagonal avenues at fixed intervals).
Geography
Main article: Geography of Argentina
Argentina can roughly be divided into three parts: the fertile plains of the Pampas in
the central part of the country, the centre of Argentina's agricultural
wealth; the flat to rolling plateau of Patagonia in the southern half down to
Tierra del Fuego; and the rugged Andes mountain range along the western border with Chile, with the highest point being the Cerro Aconcagua at 6,960 m.
Major rivers include the Paraguay, Bermejo,
Colorado, Uruguay and the largest river, the Paraná. The
latter two flow together before meeting the Atlantic Ocean, forming the
estuary of the Río de la Plata (River of Silver). The Argentine
climate is predominantly temperate with extremes ranging from subtropical in the north to arid/sub-Antarctic in far south.
Economy
Main article: Economy of Argentina
Argentina benefits from rich natural resources, a highly
literate population, an export-oriented agricultural sector, and a diversified industrial base. However, ever since the Great Depression began in
1929, Argentina's economy had been on a Keynesian roller-coaster ride, and since the late
1970s the country had piled up huge external debts, inflation had reached 200%
per month in some months of 1989-1991, and output was plummeting. To combat the economic crisis, the government embarked on a
path of trade liberalisation, deregulation, and privatisation. In 1991, it implemented radical monetary reforms which pegged the peso to the US
dollar and limited the growth in the monetary base by law to the growth in
reserves.
Though initially a success, with inflation dropping and a recovering GDP growth, subsequent economic crises in Mexico, Asia, Russia and Brazil contributed to ever worsening conditions from 1999 onward. The
government sponsored tax increases and spending cuts to reduce the budget deficit, which had ballooned to 2.5% of GDP in 1999, though both domestic and foreign investors remained skeptical of the government's ability to pay debts and
maintain the peso's fixed exchange rate with the US dollar.
The economic situation worsened still further in 2001 with the widening of spreads on
Argentine bonds, massive withdrawals from the banks, and a further decline in consumer and investor confidence. Government
efforts to achieve a "zero deficit", to stabilise the stricken banking system, and to
restore economic growth proved inadequate in the face of the mounting
economic problems. On December 21 President De La Rua was expelled from the
government under the pressure of massive demonstrations by the middle class (who saw their bank accounts frozen) and the lower
class (who were encouraged, in part by the Partido
Justicialista to begin rioting and stealing in order to generate a climate of social unrest). The congress elected Eduardo Duhalde (one of the most involved leaders in the destabilization of
De La Rua's government) as provisional head of the state. Duhalde met with IMF officials to
secure an additional $20 billion loan, but immediate action seemed unlikely. The peso's peg to the dollar was abandoned in
January 2002, and the peso was floated from the dollar in February.
On December 23, 2001, interim
president Adolfo Rodríguez Saa declared a short-lived
debt moratorium.
According to Argentine Agronomist Alberto Lapolla, who has written extensively
on the transformation of Argentina from the "granary of the world" to a "soy republic," 450,000 Argentines died of hunger between
1990 and 2003. Citing the Institut d'études sur l'État et la participation (IDEP), a think-tank,
Lapolla adds that every day, 55 children, 35 adults and 15 elderly die in the country from illnesses related to hunger.
The economy began a recovery in March 2002 that has been far more impressive and robust
than anticipated by leading international and domestic analysts. In 2003, an export-led
boom triggered an 8.7% surge in real gross domestic product (GDP). Industrial activity and construction activity also performed
well, growing 17.9% and 37.8%, respectively, in 2003. Domestic car sales and exports
increased 105.4% and 19.2%, respectively, in 2003. Tourism activity boomed: Argentina received 3.3 million foreign tourists in
2003, a record high. The expansion is creating jobs and unemployment dipped from 17.8% in May 2003 to 14.5% in December 2003. Investment in real terms jumped 38.1%, and
capital flight has decreased. The recovery's strong impact on revenue levels, combined with the Kirchner administrations prudent
control of spending, achieved exceptional results, with the fiscal surplus reaching 2.3% of GDP.
Meanwhile, the move to a market-based exchange rate regime and high global commodity prices have lifted exports to record
levels and assured hefty surpluses in the trade and current account balances of the balance of payments. The favorable balance of
payments performance and Argentina's non-payment of its private debt obligations has allowed a strong accumulation of foreign
exchange reserves, which have reached nearly $17.7 billion, representing 15 months of current imports. The demand for pesos
increased in 2003 and the first half of 2004 due to
the recovery of economic activity and the appreciation of the peso. Argentina's Central Bank has deftly managed monetary policy
in support of the economic expansion, while maintaining inflation in check (consumer inflation was restrained at 3.4% in 2003). Banks are now in the black, and net credit levels to the private sector are positive.
Argentina's impressive recovery is a function of a number of factors. First, following a decade of market reforms, the economy
was fundamentally sound except for the high level of indebtedness. Second, the adoption of a market exchange rate and favorable
international commodity and interest rate trends were catalytic factors in the export-led boom. Argentina has sound fundamentals
and should continue to perform well in 2004, with growth projected to be 9%. Nevertheless,
slowness in addressing energy, public debt, and banking compensation difficulties and a still-weak investment climate are major
obstacles to sustaining the recovery.
Demographics
Main article: Demographics of
Argentina
Argentines are a mixture of diverse national and ethnic groups, with
descendants of Italian and Spanish immigrants
predominant (at least 88% of Argentina's total population). Waves of immigrants from many European countries arrived in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. The Patagonian Chubut Valley has a significant Welsh descended population and retains many Welsh placenames and aspects of
Welsh culture. Syrian, Lebanese, and other
Middle Eastern immigrants number about 500,000, mainly in urban areas. Other
important immigrant groups came from Germany (German colonies were settled in the
provinces of Entre Rios, Misiones, Formosa, Cordoba and the Patagonian region, as well as in Buenos Aires itself), France (mostly settled in Buenos Aires city and province), the United Kingdom and Ireland (Buenos Aires and the
Patagonia) and Eastern European nations, such as Poland, Russia, Ukraine and the Balkans region (especially Croatia and Serbia) and others. Small numbers of Asians have also settled Argentina,
mainly in Buenos Aires. First Asians were Japanese, then Koreans, Vietnamese, and Chinese
followed. The only official language is Spanish, though some
immigrants have to an extent retained their original languages in specific points of the country.
Argentina's population is overwhelmingly Roman
Catholic, and Roman Catholicism is economically supported by the Argentine state, without being an official religion. It also
has the largest Jewish population in Latin America, about 300,000 strong, and is home to one of the largest Islamic mosques in Latin America. Protestant communities are also present. The indigenous population, estimated at 700,000, is concentrated in the provinces of the northeast,
northwest, and south. Mestizos of mixed European and Indian origin form at least 40% of the total population, and have a very
strong presence in these zones though for historical and cultural reasons the local population do not perceive such a
composition.
Spanish is the most widely spoken language in Argentina and is the country's official language. Argentina is also the largest
country that uses the "vos" form of Spanish instead of "tú". It also uses the "vos" conjugation as do other countries such as
Uruguay and Nicaragua as well as in
some zones of Venezuela. The most prevalent dialect is known as Rioplatense (from its location in the basin of the Río de la
Plata).
Culture
Main article: Culture of Argentina
Miscellaneous topics
External links
Argentine newspapers
- Clarín (http://www.clarin.com), "Clarin", Argentina's most popular newspaper.
- La Nación (http://www.lanacion.com), "The Nation", a conservative newspaper in Spanish.
- Página/12 (http://www.pagina12.com.ar), formerly a progressive newspaper in Spanish. It now belongs to
Clarín.
- La Razon (http://www.larazon.com.ar), Buenos Aires free evening newspaper, belongs to Clarin
- InfoBae (http://www.infobae.com), a right-wing newspaper in Spanish.
- Buenos Aires
Herald (http://www.buenosairesherald.com), a newspaper in English.
- La Nueva Provincia (http://www.lanueva.com.ar), "The New Province", a conservative newspaper of Bahía Blanca, a city south of Buenos Aires.
- Argentinisches
Tageblatt (http://www.tageblatt.com.ar), a newspaper in German
- Diario La Capital (http://www.lacapital.com.ar), a newspaper from Rosario, Argentina's third largest city
- La Voz Del
Interior (http://www.lavozdelinterior.com.ar), the newspaper of Córdoba,
Argentina's second largest city
- La Gaceta (http://www.lagaceta.com.ar), The newspaper of Tucuman, the main city in the Northwest
region
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