Protestors holding national strike banners during a demonstration in Buenos Aires in 2022. Photo: El Polo Obrero/file photo.
By Stella Calloni – May 16, 2024
Argentina’s government and its far-right president, Javier Milei, are celebrating an alleged reduction of inflation, which in reality has not changed the social and economic situation in Argentina. On the contrary, the policies of Milei’s administration have caused setbacks in all sectors, including increased hunger and the abandonment of services for the poor and homeless. Furthermore, Minister of Security Patricia Bullrich ordered violent raids on soup kitchens and homes of social leaders as if Argentina had returned to a military dictatorship.
The Polo Obrero (PO), sponsored by two lawyers Liliana Alaniz and Claudia Ferrero from the Association of Professionals in Struggle (APEL), presented a first request for annulment in the legal case against social organizations and soup kitchens.
They denounced the irregularities of the procedure, which did not respect any legal norm, and stated that it was a case based on “irregularities and arbitrariness with multiple raids, telephone taps (espionage), monitoring of people, etc., all resulting from a political decision of the current government and despite Judge Sebastián Cassanello’s own refusal to accept it.”
The judicial case was opened by the Ministry of Security, which attempted to use as “evidence” the calls to a telephone line (134) opened to report alleged extortion and threats to the leaders of social organizations.
About 900 calls were presented to the court, of which federal prosecutor Gerardo Policita kept 45, based on those who requested an investigation of the 27 defendants. Judge Sebastián Casanello rejected that request because the complaints were anonymous.
Bullrich asked to be a plaintiff in the case for “filing the complaint” by arguing that the ministry she chairs has among its functions “the preservation of the freedom, life, and property of the inhabitants, their rights and guarantees in a framework of full validity of the institutions of the democratic system.”
The judge rejected the case after pointing out that the official cannot be considered “either as a person particularly offended by the facts being investigated nor does her ministry have the power to do so, since, otherwise, all state representatives would have sufficient title to file a complaint in the cases that they are mentioned there, which is inadmissible, because it is absurd once you think about the consequences that this would have for the progress of the cases.”
The government-affiliated media attempted to disseminate a narrative of the case that did not focus on the suspension of funds for soup kitchens (44,000 throughout the country), but, rather, tried to portray the soup kitchens as “mafias” by accusing them of pocketing funds intended to alleviate the hunger of those excluded from the system.
These events are taking place at a time when the number of people who depend on soup kitchens has quintupled. This number will only continue to grow because unemployment continues to increase with new layoffs, not only from the public sector but from the private one. The production capacity of Argentina’s manufacturing sector has been reduced by more than half, and layoffs are the order of the day, creating a suffocating environment for workers.
The investigation by prosecutor Gerardo Pollicita advanced “in a political context that is clear: the government of La Libertad Avanza (Javier Milei), through the Minister of Security and the Minister of Human Capital, Sandra Pettovello, seeks to disarm social organizations.”
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It is not just a judicial case but a series of blows: the decision not to send food to the movements’ canteens, as well as the decision to prune the Potenciar Program, has remained in place for five months and affects the organization and community spaces in the neighborhoods, say those affected.
While it is expected that the justice system will call the members of the social organizations for investigation after the 27 raids that were carried out last Monday, May 13, the media related to the government also accuse the picketers of having set up “a system of modern slavery.”
The government is also trying to attack student movements and universities throughout the country by providing funds to the University of Buenos Aires but not to the remainder of the educational institutions. The response was a massive assembly of the student movement supported by the union centers and the cultural human rights movements. They are attempting to prevent the approval in the Senate of the Base Law, which seeks to deregulate the economy and hand over the powers of the legislature to the executive. These changes, among others, will constitute a violation of Argentina’s Constitution.
The president, meanwhile, is making his sixth trip in five months for personal matters such as his meeting in Spain with the fundamentalist far-right of that country.
Translation: Orinoco Tribune
OT/JRE/SL
Stella Calloni
Argentina, journalist and writer. José Martà Latin American Journalism Award. Author of the Operation Condor book. She is an international correspondent and analyst.
