They demand that the budget law be enacted // Milei must listen to the people or leavethey demand

▲ Faced with the possibility that the Argentine president, Javier Milei, vetoes the budget law for universities, protesters call on a poster to veto the president.Photo Ap

Stella Calloni

Correspondent

La Jornada Newspaper
Thursday, October 3, 2024, p. 27

Buenos Aires. More than a million people took to the streets in defense of the university and public education in this capital and in more than 50 cities in the country, in response to the call of teachers, students and university workers to demand a salary adjustment and the promulgation of the financing law that President Javier Milei will try to veto, as he did with the pension reform, condemning the retirees to misery, who marched with the young people, who proclaimed that this protest is a cry for help to save the educational system.

Teachers, students, families, retiree organizations, scientists, union members, social organizations, congressmen and representatives of opposition parties such as Todos por la Patria and the Unión Cívica Radical, which has been divided in fact, and even some of the right-wing parties, were mobilized. Republican Proposal, who confront former president Mauricio Macri and challenged his leadership.

The magnitude of the protest was surprising. The majority of testimonies that were reproduced on a television channel and on radio agreed that it is not a a democracy what is being experienced in Argentina, and many asked the far-right Milei to listen to the people or leave now, before sinking and handing over the country.

The march began at around 2 pm in the direction of Congress, whose square filled up very quickly, but then a powerful fence, plus security elements in a war attitude, prevented the advance of the long columns that filled the adjacent streets, which which gave even more dimension to the march, something that the government wanted to avoid. In the provinces they began later and in all cases they were massive expressions, including Mendoza, Córdoba, Santa Fe and in the Patagonian cities, among others.

The call was described by the Minister of Security, Patricia Bullrich, as crazy and coup plotterand tried to infiltrate a small group of violent people, without success, given the magnitude of the demonstration.

The testimonies from all sectors, especially from the thousands of retirees, were moving. Why so afraid of educating the people? it was read on a banner. A pensioner rebuked the president for his evil. And the majority concluded that Milei You must listen to the people or leave.

Piera Fernández de Piccoli, president of the Argentine University Federation, read the official document and recalled that The backbone of the nation is public education that equalizes us and makes us free, and the public university is the tool par excellence for upward social mobility. Let them not deprive the Argentine people of their dreams of greatness. May they not extinguish the noblest vocations linked to knowledge and work.

In addition to mentioning the seriousness of the current situation and the budgets that threaten universities, the protesters warned that The profound defunding of the scientific system put its development in check.

Former president Cristina Fernández Kirchner, who called to accompany the university students, appeared at the Patria Institute, headquarters of her sector, to install a health post, for any situation that arose and had to appear on the balcony at the request of hundreds of protesters that passed towards Congress.

Meanwhile, Milei fulfilled her agenda by receiving the American scammer Jordan Belfort, played by Leonardo DiCaprio in the film, at the Casa Rosada. The Wolf of Wall Streetdirected by Martin Scorsese.

In the 1990s, Belfort became a wealthy stockbroker who defrauded investors. He went to prison after pleading guilty to fraud and stock manipulation.

Beltford agrees with Milei on everything. Both claim to be “defenders of the free market and individual freedom.” The future is bright for Argentina!said the former scammer, whom Milei asked to invest in the country, as published by the digital magazine Argentine Politics.