The Governor of Jujuy, Gerardo Moraleswill be replaced in December by Charles Sadir, his current Minister of Finance, who, not to be outdone by his predecessor, also decided to deceive teachers: he had called a meeting for ADEP (one of the two most important educators unions in the province) for this Friday but finally did not attend to meet. He planted them. A great premiere for the Morales dolphin in his first action as a government interlocutor in the face of the conflict that is keeping the province on edge.
A group of teachers waited in vain at the door of the ministerial complex in the Malvinas neighborhood, in San Salvador de Jujuy. The excuse that Sadir gave for his absence was that he was with other unions, in parity negotiations, neither more nor less than what the teachers’ unions of Jujuy have been demanding. The meeting was postponed without defining a date or time.
For that reason, the Association of Provincial Educators (ADEP, primary school teachers) decided to redouble their protest with a hunger strike throughout Jujuy, which is coupled with the strike that began on Monday, June 5, the initial day of the demonstrations that are on their way to completing a month.
The annoyance for him double discourse of the Jujuy government It is perhaps the main fuel for the protesters to continue finding energy, despite the fact that the conflict has already concluded its fourth week and everything seemed to herald an inevitable wear and tear. Morales himself, throughout all those days, was trying to undermine the credibility and will of the claims, so far without success. In this sense, the ADEP hunger strike was added to the 24-hour strike determined this Friday by CEDEMS —the other strong teaching union—, which at the beginning of the week had decided to return to activity, although clarifying that it would resume the measures of force if the provincial government were violent again. Said and done: the teacher and artist Camila Müller denounced that she was followed by police officers in an unidentified vehicle and then attacked at the door of her house, a fact that led to a criminal complaint.
While the polyphonic chorus of the ruling party speaks loudly of “peace”, “dialogue” and “consensus” (a triad that they repeat synchronously in every interview, conference or speech presented to them), in the low voice all action results in either the denial of the conflict“run by a minority”insists Morales), in the underestimation of the protesters (“indigenous communities are misinformed”maintains the future lieutenant governor Alberto Bernis), the different forms of repression (first massive and explicit, then more sophisticated with infiltrators, vehicles without a license plate or intimidation without a warrant to leave a record) or the demonization of protesters under qualifications ranging from “piquetero tourism” (initially indicated by the pro-government constituent Alejandro Nieva) until “criminals”.
Of all the reactions imagined and executed by the government of Jujuy, none for the moment included specific calls for dialogue and negotiation, which by the way is what Morales himself had anticipated that they would do with the aboriginal groups the day he announced the cancellation of two articles of the new Constitution, although until now there has been no call in this regard. Maybe it’s because the governor has not yet returned to the province after that Tuesday June 20 of bullet, club, blood and hunting in the area of the Legislature and the old San Salvador station: he is busier in his vice-presidential campaign as an escort for Horacio Rodríguez Larreta and in his tour of the television studios of national programs in which he is allowed to retrace his soliloquies.
For all these reasons, the Union of Municipal Employees and Workers He anticipated that they will establish Tuesdays and Fridays as fixed days to carry out marches and mobilizations “until the reform falls”, as declared by Sebastián López, its general secretary. The election on both days also pursues a symbolic purpose: Tuesday was the day of the savage repression unleashed by the provincial police in front of the Legislature after the controversial oath of reform, while on Friday the new Constitution had been approved with the vote of the constituents of the UCR and the PJ (those of the FIT had resigned).
The so-called Multisectoral (which includes teachers, state officials, health personnel, native communities, social organizations and even gaucho groups united under the motto “up wages, down with reform) yesterday held a new torchlight march through the Salvadoran center. Meanwhile, on the routes in the interior of the province, at least eight cuts (La Quiaca, Abra Pampa, Humahuaca, Uquía, Tilcara, Purmamarca, Susques and Perico). Simultaneously, the Morales administration encouraged this Friday its second attempt at the so-called “March for Peace” in the downtown area of the capital, where several businessmen and not a few buses from the private company Balut were observed outside the route in which they they usually provide their usual long and medium distance services.
