Controversial Executive Decree Restricts Access to Information on Government Officials’ Acts

▲ Yesterday, federal police surrounded the entrances to UNMA, despite the fact that there were workers inside. Since Javier Milei became president of Argentina, the school has suffered several attacks.Photo taken from social networks

Stella Calloni

Correspondent

The newspaper La Jornada
Tuesday, September 3, 2024, p. 24

Buenos Aires, The government of President Javier Milei sent the federal police to occupy the building of the University of the Mothers of Plaza de Mayo (UNMA), closing off access, despite the fact that some workers were inside, along with the rector Cristina Caamaño, who were not allowed to leave, which was denounced for keeping them deprived of their freedom and warning about the violation of university autonomy as a threat to the entire educational system.

The vice-chancellor, Gustavo Gabriel Pons, said that the situation It takes us back to the darkest moments of our historyadding that what has been done borders on institutional levels and puts the entire university system in check; he recalled that since Milei’s administration began, UNMA has suffered several attacks, including the appointment of an intervenor of the Executive Branch.

We see this as a warning to the entire university system, to human rights policies, to higher education as a human right, and clearly there is a disciplinary message.held.

Yesterday, another decree by President Milei was published, restricting access to public information on government actions, as well as the private and part of the public activities of its officials. In this case, the government assumes the discretion to define and determine which data may be considered of public interest to be brought to light.

The reaction was very strong, including newspapers such as The Nationor the Argentine Journalism Forum (Fopea), closely linked to the Clarín group, which warned that this goes against freedom of expression. In the name of confidentiality, it is not permitted to ask anything about government decisions. For example, the government cannot be asked for information about the amount of gold and why it left the country. “The new criteria limit citizens from accessing (individually or collectively, independently or through the press) the data of the national administration on public affairs.

The limits for the government of La Libertad Avanza (LLA) to disclose only what the president wants are significantly reduced, since information containing data of a private nature is no longer considered public information.like everything that happens in the presidential residence, added Fopea.

It was also published in the Official Gazette of the total veto of the retirement mobility law, which allowed the increase of pensions, and which will be discussed again in Congress, for which there was an under-the-table agreement with his partner, former president Mauricio Macri. However, in both chambers there are already enough votes to reject the veto.

But the most outrageous thing is the decision by the Minister of Economy, Luis Caputo, to buy bread from Brazil and to open up completely to food imports. The country that produces for 400 million people has been degraded to the extreme with this new decision.

If anything was missing on this marathon Monday, celebrating Industry Day, which continues to fall with the closure of thousands of small and medium-sized businesses (SMEs) but has also put large corporations to flight, the president mocked, ironically, what It’s called social justice. We came to shrink the State to enlarge your pockets.he told the businessmen. He justified the savage adjustment to the poorest sectors, the largest in the history of the last 20 years.

He called again degenerate prosecutors to the legislators and spoke of journalists in envelopes offending everyone without any restraint in his language, and assured the businessmen that his government came to destroy the mythological multi-headed monster similar to an empowered Leviathan that is the State and that is committed to reducing the Argentine cost to the maximum in the entire economic life to improve competitiveness in all productive sectors.

He lowered taxes for the richest and did not mention the income tax for workers and others that affect the most vulnerable sectors, from which he has removed and continues to remove subsidies. He denied, using false data, the growing poverty – the largest figures ever recorded –; he asserted that the situation has improved and that retirees are better off than ever and that salaries are beating inflation, which is absolutely false. Milei is preparing his speech for the next meeting of the world’s far right, cited by Vox of Spain, who will begin to arrive in Argentina tomorrow.