Protests in Argentina

Buenos Aires. We are not the problem, we are the solution. We fight for an education that teaches us to think, not one that teaches us to obeywere some of the slogans handwritten on posters by hundreds of thousands of young protagonists yesterday of a historic and impressive march, the largest in this capital, where the participation of 700 thousand people is estimated, and more than a million and a half in all the country, in rejection of the violation of constitutional rights and the defunding of the university and public education, in addition to the adjustment that is already intolerable for the people, applied by the government of President Javier Milei.

GALLERY: Hundreds of thousands of students march in Argentina for public education

From mid-morning the mobilizations began; Trains full of young people arrived from Greater Buenos Aires and the province and soon became crowds at the most popular stations, such as Constitución and Plaza Once, and which made the presence of dozens of police and repression teams useless, unable to act.

The Minister of Security, Patricia Bullrich, could not maintain the anti-picket protocol and had to withdraw everything she prepared for repression; Her threats were of no use, given that a majority of analysts consider that what happened was a true plebiscite, even due to the diversity of organizations and political parties that accompanied the students.

Everything was exposed in this peaceful but forceful march, not only because of what is happening in the universities, whose struggle began with the public classes, which moved various sectors of society, but the government’s measures condemning them to despair were exposed, marginalization and hunger for 60 percent of the population, while handing over the country to foreign powers.

It was a response even to what was announced the night before by the far-right Milei, who boasted of having achieved the greatest recovery of the fiscal deficit, the most important of all the Westand qualifying as patriots to the authors of the measures, who deregulated everything, destroying what was democratically built throughout the turbulent national history and trying to disappear one of the greatest symbols of Argentina’s insertion in the world: education.

The march was attended by hundreds of thousands of young people, accompanied by human rights organizations led by the Mothers of Plaza de Mayo, the General Confederation of Labor, the Argentine workers’ confederations and more social movements, political parties, such as Peronism, the sectors most important members of the Radical Civic Union, socialists and radicalized left-wing parties. All expectations were exceeded, as another response to what happened with the cacerolazos in many neighborhoods, in protest the night before against Milei’s advertisements.

Taty Almeyda, representing Mothers of Plaza de Mayo, opened the event. She was applauded for a long time by the crowd because she let us hear a phrase that was not heard in these times and is very important: Mothers of the Plaza, the people embrace themalso as a challenge to a government that is trying to put an end to human rights organizations.

Vice President Victoria Villarruel, who defends what was done by the past military dictatorship (1976-1983), requested an investigation into the compensation that the State provided during the governments of Néstor Kirchner and Cristina Fernández to relatives of missing persons, validated by Congress at the time. .

Historical milestone

The march was considered a historical milestone given the government’s intention not only to put an end to universities and public schools, but also with all the organizations and institutions of science and culture here and throughout the country, and starve the people. Education saves us and makes us freewas another of the most heard slogans.

At the closing of the event, a leader of the Argentine University Federation read the document agreed upon by the national rectors, under the title: Public university base of democracy and social developmentin which they refer to the critical moment they are going through, thanking the demonstrations of society in support of the public university system.

As the march passed, they also heard: Education is not for sale, it is defended. Pencils will never stop writing. Without education there is no future. Without budget there is no education.

The rectors added that It is essential to urgently improve the situation of retirees who are going through another period of salary loss, and that the defense organizations of educational funds for all teaching be immediately restored.

They rejected the policy of adjustment and discipline. The university community organizes, resists and shows solidarity with all sectors that today are going through a similar or worse situation due to facing massive layoffs.remembering that We believe in the equalizing capacity of free public education, in the transformative power of the University as a formidable tool for upward social mobility..

They defended scientific production. The problems are solved with more education and public universities, with more investment in science and technology. We want our institutions to be the device that allows Argentina to retrace structural inequalities and embark on the path of development and sovereignty.