THE PROTEST against the Group of Eight meeting in Genoa last July showed the accumulation of different forces. It showed the capacity for a convergence between rank-and-file workers and some trade union leaders, and the massive participation of the youth.

The radical left inside the movement--like the MST [movement of landless workers in Brazil], the CUT [union federation in Brazil] and the movement to cancel the debt--has been preparing for the next World Social Forum in Porto Alegre. We were trying to combine two things--build a broad front, but at the same time strengthen the weight of the radical point of view to give strength to the movement.

Then came September 11, the move to criminalize dissent and the decision of U.S. imperialism, with its allies in Europe and Canada, for a militarist offensive. I would say that we have seen a differentiation in the reaction on a world scale.

In Europe, the level of the protest against the militarist offensive was very high, including before October 7, when the bombardment of Afghanistan began. It happened faster than during the Gulf War of 1991. We saw that some NGOs and movements that supported U.S. imperialism during the Gulf War were opposed to this war.

But in the U.S. and in Canada, the situation was more difficult. Not all the antiglobalization movement was necessarily involved in the antiwar protests.

The World Social Forum in Porto Alegre will be the first big opportunity for the antiglobalization movement on a world scale to make a balance sheet of the new situation after September 11.

THE EUROPEAN movement against globalization didn't protest against the U.S. and NATO in the war in Kosovo and Yugoslavia. But in the case of Afghanistan, 90 percent of the movement reacted strongly against this military offensive and now is coming to the conclusion that we have to combine opposition to neoliberalism--the offensive against the labor movement--with opposition to the war.

We had big protests against the war in Italy and Britain. And in Belgium in December, we were 25,000 in a demonstration against the European Union summit.

Normally, the platform in Belgium would have been against a neoliberal Europe. But in a spontaneous way, people came with demands against the war--to stop European support for this.

I think people are now more conscious of what globalization is and the question of militarism and imperialist aggression.

WE HAVE a crisis of neoliberalism in Argentina and on the world scale--the bankruptcy in Enron, the slowdown in the world economy and the massive offensive of capital against labor.

The IMF model of neoliberal policies for Third World countries is completely bankrupt. People like [former World Bank economist Joseph] Stiglitz, who is not on our side, are saying that this neoliberal model is bad for Third World countries.

But the main element is the capacity of Argentine people to move into action--and change the situation. I wouldn't say the rebellion was against the trade union leadership, but it wasn't driven by the union leadership or the mass organizations. It was really the level of spontaneity that was important--and is still very important in the movement.

I don't think we've seen the end of this dramatic evolution in Argentina. We will see more mobilization and radicalization in the next months. The question is this: Will the left be capable of intervening and making concrete proposals to build unity?

The new government [of President Eduardo Duhalde] is trying to give the impression that it's giving concessions. But in reality, the purpose is to come back to a situation more controlled by the dominant classes and by imperialism.

It's clear that this government doesn't want to enter into a conflict with the IMF. They have an inclination to accept any proposals of the IMF to keep inside the international financial system. That's why it was an important decision--made by [ousted President Fernando] de la Rúa and his supporters--to let Duhalde be president until 2003.

It would have been better to have the election in March 2002. I wouldn't say that the radical left would have won the election, but if we would have had an election in March, we would have seen the vacuum of the Peronists and the other bourgeois parties.

I think that by uniting to postpone the election, the major parties are trying to gain time--with the support from the IMF--to keep on with austerity and attacks against the labor movement.

I would say this is a pre-revolutionary situation. It can be turned into a defeat for the people if they can't find a way to build unity and a radical perspective.

But the story hasn't ended. The fragility of the bourgeois parties is high, and their capacity for maneuver is very narrow.

TO BUILD international solidarity for the movement in Argentina, the question of external debt is central. If the movement in Argentina succeeds in forcing the government not only to have a debt moratorium, but also to repudiate the debt, that will be an opportunity for us.

We have an election in October in Brazil, and the external debt is a major question there also. With the slowdown in the world economy, the question of external debt will be a central matter everywhere.

You can imagine a situation in which three big indebted countries like Argentina, Brazil and Venezuela can have a united front of debtors to say "no"--we can't pay back this fraudulent, illegitimate debt.

For me, it's a concrete discussion inside the movement. It would be a good initiative to propose an international declaration that we are in solidarity with the movement in Argentina--and that we demand full abolition of the debt as a way to satisfy the human needs of the Argentine people.

We're seeing a massive campaign for abolition of debt of the poorest countries and now we have the opportunity to intervene on a massive scale on this question.

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