The Argentinian President, Fernando De la Rua, declared a state of siege yesterday, seizing special powers as widespread looting and violence continued around the country, resulting in at least four deaths.
One man died after being stabbed by the owner of a shop being looted on the outskirts of Buenos Aires, police said. A 15-year-old, Miguel Angel Passini, was shot by an unidentified gunman in Santa Fe province, north of Buenos Aires.
A man and a woman in Rosario, northwest of Buenos Aires, were both shot as store owners opened fire to protect their goods.
Mr De La Rua was pelted with stones and eggs by angry protestors on his way to an emergency cabinet meeting yesterday, as citizens demanded an end to social austerity. In Cordoba City, the second largest in Argentina, rioters destroyed city hall, occupying the building until armed police arrived.
The emergency powers will allow authorities to suspend constitutional guarantees, such as the right to assemble and travel, along with greater powers of arrest and detention.
The government sent federal police to back up the local Buenos Aires police as angry crowds moved from street to street, seeking unguarded shops to ransack for food.
The protests have intensified since cash withdrawals were restricted earlier this month to end a bank run, threatening to sink the economy, bringing commercial activity to a standstill.
Argentina is currently in the grip of a four-year recession which has seen unemployment rise to 18.5 per cent amid fears that the country may default on its $132 billion debt.
The International Monetary Fund, (IMF) stepped in twice in the past year with rescue packages but the measures failed to boost the flagging economy.
The majority of protesters are poor, unemployed and hungry, but government authorities believe that unidentified agitators are taking advantage of the crisis to provoke civil unrest.
Some shopkeepers were apparently spotted among the looters, stuffing as much of their own goods as possible into their cars to limit their losses.
The IMF has yet to approve Argentina's 2002 budget, just sent to Congress, a vital prerequisite for releasing further agency funds. The government also faces an uphill battle to get further spending cuts past a Congress dominated by the opposition Peronists.
Most economists predict a catastrophic debt default and the eventual end of the 10-year one-to-one currency peg between the peso and the US dollar, a rupture that would bankrupt thousands.