TENS OF thousands of Argentinians took to the streets at the end of last week in the first major demonstrations since mass protests toppled two governments in December.

The nationwide unrest showed the continued anger of Argentine workers and the poor at harsh free-market policies carried out by two presidents who were forced out of office--and still defended by a third, Eduardo Duhalde.

Every major city saw pot-banging protesters come together for huge rallies. In the capital of Buenos Aires, riot cops attacked a peaceful demonstration, firing volleys of rubber bullets and clashing with demonstrators for hours. The protests show that the spirit of December's Argentinazo is alive and well.

During the early 1990s, Argentina was the poster child for the free-market economic policies promoted by the U.S. government and its servants at the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank. Those very policies--of free trade, privatization, deregulation and austerity--are exactly what drove Argentina into a terrible economic crisis.

But what Washington fears more than the exposure of its economic agenda is the example set by ordinary Argentinians in December. Fed up with a government whose only response to recession was more cuts, masses of people rose up and said "no"--with mass demonstrations across the country that culminated in more than 1 million on the streets of Buenos Aires, a city of 2.7 million.

President Fernando de la Rúa tried to organize a crackdown, but repression couldn't stop the protests--and his government was forced out on December 20, to be followed by a second one a week later.

This set a tremendous example for workers around the world. But it's obvious that the Duhalde government--though it claims to stand for change--is determined to solve Argentina's crisis on the backs of workers.

There is an alternative. The demonstrations in December were the result of years of organizing, led most of all by the unemployed, who developed a tactic of blockading highways to force emergency food aid and job programs from the authorities. These piqueteros have begun to come together in national networks of local organizations--which have the power to take into their own hands the distribution of food and other services.

And Argentine workers, whose general strikes have shut down the country seven times in two years, can go beyond their conservative union leaders and occupy their factories and offices.

The fight in Argentina is showing the alternative to a world of misery and suffering--the struggle to transform the system into one organized around meeting the needs of all, not the demands of the bankers and the multinational corporations.

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