Argentinean Retirees Prepare New Mobilization Despite Violent Repression

People holding up signs saying “NO TO VETO” at a retirement rally this Wednesday in Buenos Aires, Argentina. Photo: EFE/ Juan Ignacio Roncoroni

August 31, 2024 Hour: 2:21 pm

After the repression they suffered in the last call by the Federal Police with gas and sticks, retirees and social movements organize a mobilization to reject the presidential veto on provisional reform next Wednesday.

The protest, scheduled for next Wednesday, will take on a greater dimension after the repression they suffered in the last call at the National Congress doors.

The march, which will start in the vicinity of the Parliament and culminate in the Plaza de Mayo, aims to make visible that the fiscal adjustment that Javier Milei proudly exhibits falls largely on retirees and repudiate state violence.

🇦🇷 OLD PENSIONERS HAVE TEARFUL AND EMOTIONAL STANDOFF WITH POLICE at anti-austerity protest in Argentina against a new bill BANNING pension increases.

2,500 representatives of pension organizations, trade unions and political parties took part in protest pic.twitter.com/b1cL3KqB8V
— imtungsten (@imtungsten2) August 31, 2024

Melei’s government speakparson Manuel Adorni threatened and defended the police action, saying that “all that was done was to comply with the protocol” and warned that “the street can not be cut and the law can not be violated”. ” To the one who likes it well, and to the one who doesn’t, go and cut and the protocol will apply.”

On the other hand, the representative of the plenary of retirees’ organizations, Nora Biaggio explained that last Wednesday’s repression was not accidental: “It has a very clear meaning, which is to silence a sector of the population from which the government takes much of its finances.”

Biaggi remarked that it is not something new for them, but every time they show up he is with the fire hydrant at the turn, the assault chariot, the infantry.

Regarding the critical social situation, Biaggio noted that retirees are “the spearhead of the demonstration of destruction” by the ultra-rightist government of Javier Milei and remarked that they are “tired of living in misery.”

The mobilization of next week will be the prelude to another march, of a national character, which will take place on 20 September for the day of the retired and among the demands that raises the Union of Workers Retired in Struggle (UTJL), not only is the rejection of the veto of Milei, but also the claim that the value of the minimum asset is equal to that of the basket of the elderly.

“The Law includes a basket of 370,000 pesos, that is, only for food, but does not include everything else such as personal hygiene, household cleaning, clothing and medicines,” assure the Union of Workers Retired in Struggle.