Thousands of people demonstrated this Friday in central Buenos Aires to reject the death of militant Facundo Molares, who died the day before after being gunned down by police while protesting the primary elections that are due to start this Sunday in Argentina take place. Molares, a former Argentine guerrilla member of the extinct Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, was 47 and had returned to the country in 2020. “Facundo was killed by the state” was one of the protesters’ slogans.
At the place where Molares was dismantled the previous day, some candles, carnations and placards accused the police of being “murderers” hung this Friday morning. Around a thousand people from social groups, left-wing political parties, trade unions and student centers had blocked the 9 de Julio, one of the main streets in Buenos Aires, and gathered around the obelisk. By midday, the police were absent near the concentration point, except for a few agents who were organizing traffic. Later, after some incidents caused by a small group throwing stones and Molotov cocktails, security forces arrived.
“We will avenge Facundo Molares with a picket line [cortes de calles] and the general strike,” chanted the conveners. Under larger flags and a little off the beaten track, the Molares militants could be seen this Friday under a two-metre-wide black banner that read “People’s Uprising”. The group was founded by Molares a few years ago when he and other colleagues were distancing themselves from the Argentine Communist Party. Eduardo Ibarra, a colleague of the group, lamented his death this Friday: “His death is irreparable. He was a true revolutionary, a genuine revolutionary. His life was militancy against the people and internationalism.”
Molares fought for the FARC for 15 years under the pseudonym “Camilo Fierro” and laid down his arms in the middle of the peace process. He resurfaced in Bolivia, where he had been imprisoned for nearly a year, and flew to Buenos Aires in 2020 on a plane sent by Alberto Fernández’s government. In November 2021, Argentinian police arrested him on Interpol Red Alert in a small tourist town in Patagonia. The request came from Colombia, a country that wanted to take Molares to court for the May 29, 2009 kidnapping of city councilor Armando Acuña. Eventually, Molares was released in July 2022.
This Friday’s concentration was convened the night before following the death of the militant. According to the witnesses, around a hundred people had gathered near the obelisk without blocking the streets to protest “the election farce”. When the groups had finished their performance, the police intervened. Authorities defended that the agents acted while the protesters tried to “set an urn on fire”. Hernán Loyola, an activist who attended the rally the night before, disputes this: “We had brought a symbolic ballot box three meters high in protest. But the ballot box was never lit to avoid what could not be avoided.
As can be seen in the recorded images, Molares was struck down by police who held him on the ground until a reporter started shouting that the man was dying. Rescuers tried to revive him, but the 47-year-old diabetic died in hospital. Authorities said the cause of death was cardiac arrest “a product of risk factors.” Loyola, who was standing next to Molares and who was arrested the night before along with five other people and released at dawn, clarifies that Molares “didn’t collapse”: “They pushed him down, threw him and pushed him to the ground.” The results of the autopsy are still unknown.
After the death, the capital’s mayor, Horacio Rodríguez Larreta, of the center-right coalition Juntos por el Cambio, defended the agents’ actions. “I would like to highlight and fully support the actions of the municipal police, who have acted professionally and curbed the acts of violence. “Violence is the limit in the city,” wrote Larreta, who is running as a presidential candidate this Sunday, in a message shared on social networks. His opponent within the largest opposition alliance, Patricia Bullrich, who had defended during the election campaign that “it will take a lot of strength to restore order in the country”, supported him: “I stand with Larreta.”
“It was brutal,” said former MP Alejandro Bodart, who is a member of the Left Front Alliance, at the rally. Only politicians from this party could be seen at the event, such as the vice-presidential candidates Nicolás del Caño or Vilma Ripoll. “It was a political act by a small group across the sidewalk calling for an empty vote. It is inexplicable that the police are advancing and suppressing. There is an idea that one must begin with suppression. The police have a free hand because showing your teeth seems to help. “It’s debatable who is worse,” Bodart said. “In Argentina, there is a debate about whether 40 years after the return of democracy, democratic rights will continue to exist,” he warned.
Subscribe to the EL PAÍS America newsletter here and receive the latest news from the region.