A cacerolazo or cacerolada is a form of popular protest practised in certain Spanish-speaking countries – in particular Argentina and Chile – which consists in a group of people creating noise by banging pots, pans, and other utensils in order to call for attention. What is peculiar about this type of demonstration is that the people protest from their own homes, thus achieving a high level of support and participation.
The word comes from Spanish cacerola, which means "stew pot". The derivative suffix -azo denotes a hitting (punching or striking) action,[1] and has been extended metaphorically to any sort of shock demonstration. This type of manifestation started in 1971 in Chile, against the shortages of industrial products during the administration of Salvador Allende.
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Cacerolazos began in Chile in 1971 in protest at shortages during the Salvador Allende administration. By 1973 they had become commonplace as protests against the administration intensified amid increasing shortages. After Augusto Pinochet seized power in 1973 cacerolazos disappeared for a time until the economic crisis of 1982-83 set in. Thereafter cacerolazos continued up until the Pinochet regime lost a plebiscite in 1988 that put him out of office two years later.
Cacerolazos were organized in 2011 for two different reasons. On 15 May there was pot-banging in several cities in protest of the HidroAysén dam project.[2] Then in August there were two cacerolazos across the country in support of student protests, the first in August 4[3] and a second one in August 8.[4]
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One of the largest and most recent cacerolazos occurred in Argentina during 2001, consisting largely of protests and demonstrations by middle-class people who had seen their savings trapped in the so-called corralito (a set of restrictive economic measures that effectively froze all bank accounts, initially as a short-term fix for the massive draining of bank deposits). The corralito meant that many people who needed a large amount of cash immediately, or who simply lived off the interests from their deposits, suddenly found their savings unavailable. As court appeals were slow and ineffective, people resorted to protest in the streets.
As the Argentine peso quickly devalued and foreign currency fled the country, the government decreed a forced conversion of dollar-denominated accounts into pesos at an arbitrary exchange rate of 1.4 pesos per dollar. At this point the unavailability of cash for people trapped in the corralito compounded with the continuous loss of value of their savings, and the unresponsiveness of the appeal authorities (minor courts and the Supreme Court itself) further angered the protesters.
The first cacerolazos were spontaneous and non-partisan. While in Argentina most demonstrations against government measures are customarily organized by labour union activists and low-level political recruiters among the lower classes, and often featuring an assortment of large banners, drums and pyrotechnic devices, cacerolazos were composed mostly of spontaneously gathered middle-class workers, housewives and professionals, who used not to be involved in grassroots political action of any kind.
After a time, however, the cacerolazo became an organized phenomenon, often of a violent nature, directed against the banks. Many of these were attacked, their facades spray-painted, their windows broken, their entrances blocked by tire fires, or even their facilities occupied by force at times.
In order to avoid further violence, especially with the deadly December 2001 riots still fresh in the memories of Argentines, the government decided not to use active police force against the cacerolazos unless absolutely necessary, and to restrict most police presence to barricades in critical spots, a policy that was followed also with piquetero marches of unemployed people asking for state welfare and jobs.
Isolated cacerolazos also featured during the apagón ("blackout") of September 24, 2002, to protest against increases in public service fees requested by the providers.
As the financial and macroeconomic conditions became more stable, the government loosened the restrictions on the withdrawal of deposits, and the cacerolazos died out.
On March 25, a group led by Luis D'Elia, a supporter of the Kirchner administration, and a cacerolazo violently faced each other during the demonstrations pro and against the export tax policy of Cristina Kirchner's government.[5][6][7][8]
More than 90% of the Spaniards were against the Iraq War [9] and provoked during 2003 cacerolazo-fashioned protests against the government decision to support it.[10] People protested from their homes turning lights on and off, making noise with whistles and klaxons and hitting stew pots. In Huesca lamp posts of 16 streets were turned off in protest during 15 minutes.
The protests fallowing the financial crisis that started in 2008 are sometimes called The Kitchenware Revolution, because people took to the streets banging on pots and pans and other household utensils.