Amid preparations for a meeting of the far right, Milei reiterates that he will fight the monster of expenditure

▲ An Argentine riot policeman pushes a man on crutches to the ground during a peaceful protest in Buenos Aires against President Javier Milei’s veto of the pension mobility law passed by the legislature, which includes an 8.1 percent increase in payments for retirees.Afp Photo

Stella Calloni

Correspondent

The newspaper La Jornada
Thursday, September 5, 2024, p. 27

Buenos Aires. Some 30 people were injured, including journalists, in the second repression in a week against retirees who, in a peaceful march, like the one they carry out every Wednesday, reached the outskirts of Congress and found themselves surrounded by hundreds of police, gendarmes and naval prefects ready to confront a violent demonstration.

The officers were cruel to the elderly and defenseless, throwing pepper spray directly at their faces, while applying the anti-picket protocol established by the Minister of Security, Patricia Bullrich.

Several pensioner organizations were protesting against President Javier Milei’s veto of the pension law that provides for pension increases and mobility. Last Wednesday they were also repressed with extreme violence.

The uniformed men began to push the pensioners with their shields and beat them with batons to get them to get on the sidewalks, which was impossible, and it erupted when they tried to walk around Congress. The scene of elderly people sitting blinded by the gases was more than painful.

Bullrich also ordered the repression of another peaceful march: the start of protests by the Union of Judicial Employees in front of courts for salary claims, which left a balance of numerous wounded and detained.

For his part, Milei, meeting with businessman Marcos Galperín, from Mercado Libre, highlighted that The only one who can generate wealth in this country and in the entire world is the businessman, not the politician.and added that For this to happen, the businessman must be left to his own devices, because the freedom of each individual creates common prosperity..

He assured that his government will give battle against the Argentine costwhich he described as a many-headed monster. All this before the meeting of the extreme right called by the Vox party of Spain, for which representatives of the extreme right of the region and the world are arriving in this capital, which coincides with a wave of repression that tries to dissuade any movement that denies the words of the president on the Argentine miracle.

In recent days Milei was praised by Elon Musk, who seems to consider him the opposite of the president of Brazil, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, who has demanded, as the Supreme Court of that country does, that he appoint a representative to operate in Brazilian territory, which the magnate has refused to do. There have already been messages about the freedom that Milei invokes so much as support for his friendwho has received it on his travels.

We see with great concern that more and more countries are restricting free expression on social networks. In Argentina there is free expression because we respect the National Constitution. One of the objectives of this first Milei government is to turn Argentina into a beacon of freedom.said Argentine Foreign Minister Diana Mondino, in what was warned as a message of course from the Argentine president.