As I approach Isaac Cuesi, a refugee from Liberia, I notice to my surprise that I have passed this corner many times before and never really paid attention to his stand. Today, his stand is full of customers. In fact, it is hard not to notice it because of the crowd.
Through the hustle and bustle of urban Rosario, Argentina, he very willingly gives me an interview. I ask him about the incident of Friday, July 7. This is what he tells me: He was working as usual on this same corner -- Rioja and San Martin in downtown Rosario -- with his friend, Steve Amoaku, who is from Ghana. As they worked, officers from the Municipal Urban Guard approached him and asked him to leave the area because he did not have an appropriate permit.
He argued that he was trying to earn a living. The guards moved to confiscate his merchandise.
"Negroes do not get permits to sell," they said.
Then they started to provoke a fight with him.
His friend Amoaku ran off with the merchandise to prevent it from being confiscated. In retaliation, police officers proceeded to arrest Isaac. He protested that he had not done anything wrong. State police reinforcements were called in to help arrest him.
"By the grace of God, everything is all right now," says Isaac.
It was a scary ordeal for him. He very humbly asks me to mention that he wholeheartedly wants to thank the people of Rosario for their support and intervention on his behalf.
July 18. I meet with Dr. Claudio Canalis, the director of the Municipal Urban Guard, in his office. The thing that strikes me the most is the coldness of the building itself, no pictures hang on the walls and there is very little furniture in the offices. It is a sterile environment that leaves me with an empty sensation.
On the other hand, Canalis is very polite, and very well spoken. He quickly starts off the interview by giving me a brief history leading up to the incident of July 7.
He said that almost three months ago, the Municipal Urban Guard was given the task of enforcing a city ordnance which specifies that sidewalk vendors must have permits to conduct business in downtown Rosario. The city has reduced the number of permits for the downtown area from 260 to 160 so the sidewalks can become manageable.
The specific task of the Municipal Urban Guard is to verify that sidewalk vendors have permits. If vendor does not have a permit, the officer will request that the activity cease and that the merchant leave the area. In extreme situations where a vendor refuses to leave, the officer can confiscate the merchandise in order to halt the activity. That is the extent of the officer's ability in the matter.
On various occasions prior to July 7, the Municipal Urban Guard had warned these two individuals -- Cuesi and Amoaku -- of the need for a permit to continue selling in the area. On July 7, as a result of continually failing to show the permit, the officers proceeded to confiscate their merchandise. A struggle broke out. As a result, two Municipal Urban Guard officers and two police officers were taken to the hospital and treated for injuries. This was not mentioned anywhere in the mainstream media.
After the initial altercation, the state police were called in to assist in detaining the refugees because of their aggression toward the officers of the Municipal Urban Guard. Almost reluctantly, Canalis mentions that more than five or six officers were needed to detain them. The two men, he explains, were very large and strong.
A court case and an investigation are still pending on the events that occurred that day. Eyewitnesses have been interviewed so the judicial system can decide if excessive force was indeed used by either the officers or the African immigrants.
In defense of the officers, Canalis reiterates that no one has come forth with any proof -- photos or videos -- that the officers beat the men. On the contrary, physical examinations performed on both men subsequently revealed that they had sustained no injuries during the struggle.
Canalis emphasizes that the Municipal Urban Guard will continue to enforce the sidewalk vendor policy and to respect the human and civil rights of citizens. He denies that this was a case of discrimination as speculators would have it. Clearly, with a limited number of permits available in the downtown area, many vendors will be excluded, especially hundreds of local citizens, not just refugees or immigrants. The city has always been fair to all citizens regardless of their nationality.
As a result of political pressure and public opinion following the incident, Cuesi and Amoaku have been granted temporary permits pending their immigration paperwork, so they may continue to sell in the downtown area.
In the shocker of the interview, Canalis claims that these two refugees were clearly being manipulated and used by a behind the scenes organization that apparently charges sidewalk vendors a monthly fee of 100 pesos, in some cases 150 pesos, for protection or security. Facts are beginning to come to light, he says, substantiating his claim that the organization is using the refugees to try to get public opinion to ban the permit restrictions. If one calculates that the loss of 100 permits would mean about 10,000 pesos less in profits for the organization, the policy of reducing the number of permits from 260 to only 160 cuts into their business.
He also mentions that some state politicians have jumped on the opportunity to take advantage of the situation and publicly apologized to the two refugees. By making a spectacle out of the incident, they will be seen as heroes. The politicians could have facilitated the permits for these refugees a lot sooner and prevented the incident from taking place.
"If they really were against discrimination," he says, "those so-called state politicians who intervened in favor of these refugees should also do the same for Argentine citizens suffering from daily discrimination. There are many Argentine citizens who go hungry that are unemployed and homeless. The politicians should also publicly apologize to them and also help to solve their situation in the same manner." He is obviously disgusted with the situation.
When I mention that Isaac had personally thanked the people of Rosario for their support, Canalis comments that it was true, there was a large public outcry to reach out to help these two refugees obtain the permit. In his view, this is great because as city employees the Municipal Urban Guard are there to enforce the code. Cuesi and his friend Amoaku will be able to continue doing business as usual, as long as they have a permit to do so.
SOS Discriminacion statistics [in Spanish] show that out of 350 reported cases, the groups of people who suffer the most employment discrimination in Argentina are the elderly, followed by foreigners, homosexuals, and people with HIV. According to Webster's online dictionary, discrimination is "the process by which two stimuli differing in some aspect are responded to differently," or "the quality or power of finely distinguishing." In that aspect, all human beings discriminate in some form or another.
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