In another day of conflict and tension, the social movements They interrupted traffic on 9 de Julio Avenue for more than an hour in a protest whose deployment they chose not to announce in order to try to circumvent the security operation that is deployed before each mobilization with the aim of preventing the streets from being blocked. The purpose of the protesters was fulfilled, which motivated the reaction of the Police, who deployed water hydrant trucks to try to free traffic. 9 de Julio Avenue was closed for more than an hour and there was almost no traffic in that central area of the City of Buenos Aires.
The protest of the picketers was in demand of food assistance for canteens and against the dismantling of the Empower Work Plan. Peronist and left-wing organizations converged on the march, and now hope to open a channel of dialogue with the Government.
The security forces retreated to the protesters with rubber bullets and fire trucks, at the level of the former Ministry of Social Development. Federal forces and the police of the City of Buenos Aires acted. Two helicopters flew over the area. The protesters retreated south, towards Constitución. Among the protesters, women with children stood out.
In open defiance of the protocol of the Minister of Security, Patricia Bullrich, After 11 in the morning, the protesters moved from the sidewalk to the street with the intention of beginning their march towards the offices that the Ministry of Human Capital has in the Retiro neighborhood.
The tension began to escalate when the police cordon arranged on Avenida Rivadavia advanced to push the organizations back. The movement, which was reinforced with a hydrant car and motorized troops, occurred in the middle of alleged negotiations with Human capitalthe portfolio he directs Sandra Pettovello.
Leaders of several social organizations assured THE NATION what Pablo de la Torre, at the head of the Secretariat of Children, Adolescents and Family, agreed to receive two representatives per block with the condition that the streets were freed, something that was denied by sources from the ruling party. The offer, the officials maintain, was extended by the City police itself in the middle of the operation.
On alert, the organizations will hold a new meeting this afternoon waiting for some signal from the secretariat led by De la Torre.
“The organizations have been demanding the opening of a dialogue that allows the restoration of food delivery to soup kitchens, the cessation of cutting social programs and an urgent response to the advance of hunger and misery. In that sense, the meeting that the Ministry committed is a step forward in the face of a government that has had repression as its only policy,” said the leader Eduardo Belliboni, a representative of the Polo Obrero, who was not part of the call due to pneumonia.
The police operation buried the intention of the social organizations to march towards Juncal and Pellegrini: they were displaced from Rivadavia Avenue towards the south and July 9 after 12:30 looks clear. The Secretary of Security of Buenos Aires, Diego Kravetz, said in TN: “A strong job was done. We had two officers injured and eight arrested. By working hard we managed to unstick the street.”
Kravetz denied that prevention had failed. “It was not preventable. We knew there was going to be a cut, but they [los organizadores de la manifestación] “They did not want to talk,” denounced the official who answers to Jorge Macri. “The detainees are for assaulting police personnel. They threw stones. Two people tried to set a car on fire with Molotov cocktails. Two people grabbed a container and tried to set it on fire. “Everything is filmed,” he said. And he added: “We acted very quickly and cleared a demonstration that was one of the largest on July 9.”
Sources from the City Police stated that there were 8 detainees and two injured police officers, as well as incidents on the street, such as breaking cars and containers. Some social leaders, however, double the number of detainees.
For their part, representatives of Human Rights organizations present at the mobilization stated that on the protesters’ side there were “more than one injured” by a rubber bullet and that one of the detainees, Carlos Guerra, was a foreign journalist.
“Surprise factor”
Yesterday, while defining details of the demonstration, the social movements assured that they would decide at the last minute the location of the protest. “It is the surprise factor,” they pointed out in one organization. “We are seeing where to hit,” said a social leader. The intention was not to make the task easier for the Buenos Aires Ministry of Security, which conducts Waldo Wolffand the general deployment of federal forces led by their national counterpart, Patricia Bullrich.
Social organizations insist with the prolonged demand for merchandise for community kitchens. They affirm that, since shortly before the arrival of the new government, they stopped receiving dry food from the Nation. Social leaders assure that many of these dining rooms have closed and that those that continue to offer a meal are saturated by a demand that has been growing without breaks since January.
“We have been trying to talk for four months about the issue of shortages in the dining rooms. There is no assistance to the canteens, an elementary thing,” said Ricardo Acuña, a leader of the Socialist Workers Movement (MST) who participated in the mobilization.
In turn, the movements express their discontent with the dismantling of the former Potenciar Trabajo, a program that once had nearly 1,300,000 beneficiaries and that today is divided between the Ministry of Labor and the Ministry of Children, Adolescence and Family.
Among the social movements that were part of the mobilization was the Polo Obrero; Free of the South; the Socialist Workers Movement (MST); the Coordinator for Social Change; Cuba-MTR; the organizations grouped in the Union of Workers for the Social Economy (UTEP); the Front of Organizations in Fight (FOL) and the MTL-Rebelde.