Milei represses retirees

Buenos Aires. Here I am, walk over my body if you want to hit the elderly, I’m not going to move.shouted a woman lying in the street in front of police motorcycles, during an increasingly brutal repression that lasted more than two hours and left at least 20 injured, including elderly people, three children, a teenager, as well as journalists and cameramen, in a demonstration yesterday that tried to encourage deputies to reject President Javier Milei’s veto of the retirement mobility law, recently voted by Congress.

Three water trucks, fire engines, assault trucks from the infantry forces of the Federal Police, the Prefecture, Gendarmerie, Airport Security and the motorized forces of the City of Buenos Aires arrived early in the morning. Much higher fences than the previous ones were installed in front of Congress and on the corners of all the streets leading to the building.

Most agreed that never seen this beforealthough there were repressions during the government of former President Mauricio Macri (2015-2019), currently associated with the ruling far-right La Libertad Avanza and the then Minister of Security, Patricia Bullrich, who occupies the position again.

The Anti-Picket Project illegally implemented by Bullrich is actually an Israeli design, which includes shooting pepper spray and rubber bullets to the face and head.

Each cartridge of pepper spray, with a new chemical composition that can cause serious burns, costs 220 thousand Argentine pesos, and minimum pensions vary between 234 and 295 thousand. The Center for Legal and Social Studies warned that this is about non-lethal weapons, but it is according to how to use it which will determine whether or not it is.

Batons and shields were also used to push back peaceful protesters, but the three rows of uniformed officers, armed as if for combat, prevented unions, such as the truck drivers’ union, from advancing.

The governor of the province of Buenos Aires, Axel Kicillof, was present at the march, as were senior officials of that administration, as well as mayors, social and political movements, who also suffered the effects of the gas and some even suffered beatings. It is not a question of whether there is money or not, but of what it is used for and who benefits from it.Kicillof said.

What happened yesterday, with four waves of repression and which is affecting all sectors, is only due to refusing to increase pensions by 10 thousand pesos, but also to prevent mobility, that is, to adjust in relation to the salaries of unionized workers.

Scandalous meeting at the Casa Rosada

Milei achieved convince Seven deputies from the Radical Civic Union were accused of spreading a scandalous photo of their meeting with the president at the Casa Rosada. The same thing happened with other blocks, which previously voted against, now openly purchasedwhether with special positions or money. The vote was 153 in favor, 87 against and eight abstentions.

Thanks to the media, it was possible to follow the repression and its consequences part by part, such as seeing a woman being assisted by the protesters themselves after having fallen to the ground with a rubber bullet in her neck.

Rescuers from a civilian organization that has already helped in previous demonstrations were called into action again and several people had to be taken by ambulance to the nearest hospitals.

Another woman who stood in front of the motorcycles was run over, causing the two police officers to fall, without any consequences for them, but for the woman who was injured. The police officers tried to cover up these events, but the truth was exposed by the courage of the journalists, photographers and cameramen, who were also gassed and injured.

Juan Marino, deputy of the Union for the Homeland for the province of Buenos Aires, asked to reject Milei’s veto and maintained that For months, pensioner organizations have been demonstrating in front of this Congress, denouncing the government, which is imposing a silent genocide on them, and the traitors who turn their backs on all of them for positions, promises of funds for their provinces or simply because of political and ideological affinity with the national government..

The image of elderly people and children being beaten will not easily go away from a population that tomorrow faces another front: the Senate will have to vote on the educational financing law that Milei wants to prevent and there are marches by university students, teachers and union members.

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