We travelled, as RadioMundoReal, to Mar del Plata to cover the III People's Summit. After 14 hours of bus ride from Montevideo, we arrived here on Monday. Let me tell you, buses here are awesome, semi-cama (meaning: you can almost sleep as good as you were travelling in Business class!), DVD, etc.
We checked in to our hotel and looked desperatly for food for a while, everything was closed for siesta time!
I took a long walk around, with a couple of friends, discovering the city. For those who don't know, People's Summit is happening here because as of 4th of November in this same city 34 presidents of the Americas are going to meet in order to discuss the future of the Americas. Social movements from all around Americas are here to discuss and propose an alternative to neo-liberal policies that the United States is trying to impose on the continent. The part where the Presidents are meeting is already fenced, so while walking I got to that part (you can see from the photo) where expensive hotels such as Hermitage and Sheraton, offical hosts of the President's Summit are located.
Before I go into details about the People's Summit, I start off with the city of Mar del PLata. It is a charming balneario (I would say it looks like a warmer Cape Cod, with tall buildings) on the eastern coast of Argentina. People say it used to be a very shishi place to hang out during summer, right now it is a secondary choice after Punta del Este (Uruguay). We are here in off season, so the beach and sun are excluded from my agenda, if I could believe me I would jump and swim for a while and forget all the shit that happened here while working. Sometimes my collegues drive me nuts, everyday I say to myself "count till 10...then go look for arsenic!"
Tuesday we started really early, covering different panel discussions, about militarization, debt, solidarity, alternatives, etc. They say there is approximately 9000 people here, I am not so sure of that number, maybe if we include all the people who are here just hanging out, we can reach that number, I guess.
That night, I received a phone call from Acik Radyo in Turkey, and made a live coverage of the event so far. I think among all the things I have been doing and done there that was the most exciting part of it!
Last day, which was friday, we started early covering the peacefull march agains the presence of W and his politics in the continent. The march, with the participation of 15 thousand people started from the Center of the city all the way to the Stadium where Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, together with Diego Maradona, were waiting to reach the public. Aside from the people at the Summit and the march, thousands of locals were present, and after listening a little bit of Silvio Rodriguez live, listened to Chavez for 2 hours under the rain. It was very moving his speech, yet a bit egotistical for my taste.
Later that afternoon, after changing to clean and dry clothes and eating something, together with Davich, our sound engineer, we hit the road to see the "unpeaceful march" in fron of the barricade, behind which 34 presidents of the continent were meeting. As a pro in these kinds of protests, I lead us in front of the protest, where things seemed pretty calm when we arrived. Within the 15 minutes, the so-called black block appeared and there was a quick clash with the police, not even, and some of the protestors started to vandalize the transnational companies offices, starting with Banco de Galicia (we were in front of that one), Telefonica and some of the cellphone (movistar and CTI) stores. The foto is one of a family of small time crooks, taking with them 'as a memory' some of the items from the stores! We left an hour later, the protest was not made to kick Bush out of our lands anymore...
After a 14 hour bus ride the same night, we came back to sunny and tranqui Montevideo...
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