Stella Calloni
Correspondent
The newspaper La Jornada
Tuesday, July 16, 2024, p. 24
Buenos Aires., The government of the far-right president Javier Milei is going through a critical moment and an economy that is collapsing, while the Brazilian Foreign Ministry summoned its ambassador Julio Bitelli for consultations on the relationship with this Argentine administration and, on the other hand, the president confronts justice by refusing to comply with the third order of immediate distribution of food and shelteras well as failing to protect the archives against the past military dictatorship.
The Brazilian ambassador met yesterday with his country’s foreign minister, Mauro Vieira, and will meet with President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva and Vice President Geraldo Alckmin to discuss Milei’s recent participation in the Conservative Political Action Conference, of the extreme right, in Camboriu, where he met with former President Jair Bolsonaro, whom the Argentine described as pursued political.
As a provocation, Milei did not attend the Summit of the Common Market of the South (Mercosur) that took place a week ago in Paraguay, which not only upset Lula, but also his Uruguayan counterpart, the conservative Luis Lacalle Pou.
Bitelli tried to calm the situation and said that bilateral issues will be addressed to move this relationship forward. beyond the differences between the presidentsand what happens between them can’t affect the old relationship between his country and Argentina.
Milei has insulted the Brazilian president on more than one occasion and has refused to apologize.
Meanwhile, poverty, hunger and unemployment here are growing day by day due to the terrible adjustments and deregulation that affect the population, and while the courts are again ordering the distribution of thousands of tons of food and blankets left by the previous government, the president continues to travel. for personal reasons and ignores the problems facing the country.
Milei, accompanied by his sister and general secretary of the presidency, Karina Milei, continues to travel, and although he has already returned from the United States, where he attended a meeting with the richest businessmen in Silicon Valley, on a private plane at a multimillion-dollar expense, which – as had already happened – was surely paid for by powerful Israeli investors, among them the ambassador to the United States, Gerardo Werthein, who accompanied him.
Now he is heading to France, on another personal matter, while the country is going through painful situations, such as the total indifference of the State to the disappearance of a five-year-old boy in a town in the province of Corrientes, whose father refused to accept Milei, despite it being an issue of the growing trafficking of people, especially children, in border areas. He has also dismantled all official agencies that protected women and children, for which the people of Corrientes are openly demanding justice. There were also demonstrations on this matter in front of the Casa Rosada, in Buenos Aires, which were attended by entire families.
Hunger grows
Although the image of the far-right Milei is falling in the polls, the president continues to support the Minister of Human Capital, his friend Sandra Pettovello, who refuses to comply with the court rulings that, for the third time, order the distribution of tons of food to soup kitchens, which she now keeps hidden in warehouses of that ministry.
On the other hand, a court in La Plata demanded that the Minister of Defense, Luis Petri, preserve the archives of the past dictatorship, since he closed a human rights commission dedicated to ordering and selecting important documents on crimes against humanity committed under the military regime. In addition, since Milei came to the government, there is a emptying of the spaces of Memory, as can be seen in the School of Naval Mechanics (Esma), the largest Clandestine Detention and Extermination Center (CCD), where the large archive is located in the Museum of Memory.
Other CCDs have laid off essential workers in strategic areas for their operation, such as conservation, maintenance and visits. The Network of Sites for Memory has reported to the United Nations Commission on Human Rights the risk of closure due to cuts in funding and employees.
One of the most affected is the Orletti Automotive Center, where most of the victims of the accident disappeared. Operation Condorbut also others like Atlético, a huge torture cellar, and other very important ones.
Milei warned in his political campaign: Memory, Truth and Justice policies have no place in the budget. Therefore, the chainsaw went from greater to lesser, and, in addition to firing important researchers from the Secretariat of Human Rights, in January the workers were laid off and the reparation laws, the national archive and Memory spaces are disappearing, which were left with half of their staff.
