Rodríguez Saá (the Peronista governor of the province of San Luis, who also learned how to weave alliances in the BAUEN around the year 2000), momentarily in charge of the presidency, declared that the country had entered into default with international credit organizations the 23rd of December. A short time later, he, in turn, left the government, in the rapid and chaotic succession of five presidents, culminating in the inauguration of Eduardo Duhalde, who had lost the elections of 1999 to the same De la Rua.
In the middle of this traumatic and unprecedented situation, the BAUEN closed its doors the 28th of December, like a bitter April Fools’ Day joke. “I told a companero, ‘at least we have work,’” María Eva says. “How naive I was! Because, on the 28th of December of 2001, they threw us all out without severance and without paying our wages, or vacations, or anything.”