Thousands of Argentines demonstrated for the first time this Wednesday against the government of Javier Milei and its harsh cuts in public spending in a climate of great tension. Buenos Aires woke up to a large police presence at city entrances and train stations, and this increased as the demonstration got closer to the planned start of four o'clock in the afternoon. According to the Clarín newspaper, there were a few incidents at the start of the march that ended with two arrests. The demonstrators – organizers expected between 30,000 and 50,000 participants – arrived as planned in the Plaza de Mayo, the surrounding area armored with riot gear, with a clear goal: to avoid road blockages and ensure free movement. “We will mobilize on the streets, where will we accommodate 50,000 people?” asked Eduardo Belliboni, chairman of Polo Obrero, to Security Minister Patricia Bullrich.
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The picketing ban marks a 180-degree turn in the state's response to one of the most common forms of protest in Argentina, which involves blocking streets and highways for hours, sometimes even days. In recent decades there has been great tolerance for these demonstrations and even Milei himself and his security minister Patricia Bullrich took part in some of them.
However, the stance of the right-wing extremist government is no surprise. Street control was one of his campaign promises and is the most popular, even among those who are not his voters. According to a survey conducted last week by the Observatory of Applied Social Psychology at the University of Buenos Aires, 65% of the population agrees that the government guarantees freedom of movement. On the contrary, more than 50% are against other promises such as dollarization, the privatization of the state oil company YPF, the deregulation of food and fuel prices, and the elimination of subsidies for energy and public transport.
The police raise their shields against demonstrators in Buenos Aires this Wednesday. AGUSTIN MARCARIAN (Portal)
The December 20 march was called weeks in advance. The original idea was to remember, as every year, the victims of the violent repression that marked the end of Fernando de la Rúa's government in 2001. A total of 39 people died and nearly 500 were injured during two days of mass protests. However, the economic adjustment plan announced by Milei was also his government's first response.
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The government did everything to dissuade the demonstrators. He called for children's participation to be avoided “so as not to expose them to heat and violence” and threatened to withdraw welfare benefits from those who blocked the road. The poorest people were thus caught between two extremes: the social organizations that encouraged them to demonstrate and the government that warned them against it and set up a telephone line to report anonymously if they were forced to take part in the demonstration. According to official figures, more than 9,000 people called to report threats from social organizations.
“The problem of this country is not the mobilizations, the problem of this country is that Milei has taken away 50% of our purchasing power from one day to the next through a devaluation,” said Betina Sanchís, a pensioner in her seventies at Once Station, who was the whole is strictly controlled by the police throughout the day. This woman claims that she suffers from insomnia because she doesn't know whether she will have a roof over her head next year or not since she pays a third of her pension in the room she has rented for 20 years and Milei the I have retired and am waiting for an update. Sanchís assures that Argentines are used to crises and ways out of them, but regrets the growing division that he sees in society. “I don’t like it at all. It's about the poor against the poor rather than uniting us. “It will end very badly,” he warns.
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