MEMORY DAY FALLOUT
Over 400,000 people, including social organisations, human rights activists and opposition parties but also individual citizens, turned out last Sunday to commemorate Memory Day under the slogan ‘Memory, Truth and Justice’ while a defiant Casa Rosada published a video urging a “complete” memory. Grandmothers of Plaza de Mayo president Estela Barnes de Carlotto triggered controversy by accompanying her organisation’s Memory Day statement with a call for President Javier Milei to “change or leave,” leading Vice-President Victoria Villarruel to retort that nobody had voted for her while a Mar del Plata prosecutor urged the trial of Carlotto for “incitement to violence.” Carlotto also joined 1980 Nobel Peace Prize winner Adolfo Pérez Esquivel and other human rights activists in asking the judiciary to ratify that crimes against humanity and genocide are beyond the statute of limitations or any pardon. The government video prompted the lawyer and human rights militant Javer Garin to denounce Milei and Victoria Villarruel for malfeasance and abuse of authority and video author Juan Bautista Yofre for “defending crime” in vindicating the 1976 coup. While Memory Day was honoured nationwide, there was inland backlash from at least one corner – in the province of Córdoba Marcos Juárez Mayor Sara Majorel ordered on Tuesday the removal of a monument of a white shawl honouring the Mothers of Plaza de Mayo.
NIGHT OF PENCILS JUDGED
One of the worst crimes of the 1978-1983 military dictatorship, the Night of the Pencils when La Plata adolescent schoolchildren requesting a low-price student ticket were abducted in 1976 with several still missing to this day, finally received justice on Tuesday when 10 minions of the dictatorship were sentenced to life imprisonment in a multiple trial covering three former clandestine detention centres.
HIJOS VICTIM SPEAKS OUT
Sabrina Bölke, the militant of the H.I.J.O.S. human rights grouping attacked and sexually abused in her home earlier this month, finally identified herself last Monday in statements to El Destape Radio. Bölke said that she was tortured for over quarter an hour by her assailants, who daubed on her wall "VLLC (Viva La Libertad Carajo, the libertarian slogan), Ñoqui" in reference to her being a state employee, for which she blamed the "hate speech" of the national government. H.I.J.O.S. insist on defining the assault as “a political attack motivated by her militancy in human rights and feminism.”
TAKING THE K OUT OF CULTURE
Following up its Memory Day confrontation with Kirchnerism, the government announced that it would be renaming the Centro Cultural Néstor Kirchner with its new name to be decided by a survey in the social networks, as confirmed by presidential spokesman Manuel Adorni on Tuesday. Critics of the centre’s current title have long argued that the name of Néstor Kirchner is linked to “corruption.” Among the frontrunners in suggestions so far are "Jorge Luis Borges," "Gustavo Cerati," "Libertad" and even "Centro Cultural Conan" in reference to President Javier Milei’s late dog. The original name was the Centro Cultural del Bicentenario in honour of the bicentennial year of 2010 when conversion of the old Post Office began (completed in 2015) but the death of Néstor Kirchner that same year led to its current name as from 2012.
NEW PENSION SYSTEM DECREED
The government has changed the system for updating pensions via the emergency decree 274/2024 published last Monday in the Official Gazette. Pensions are to be updated monthly for inflation with an extraordinary increase of 12.5 percent next month in partial compensation for January inflation, as well as an advance on June updating in May (which will not be deducted even if superior to the actual figure) in order to regain lost purchasing power. The basis of the calculation will be the INDEC statistics bureau’s figure for the inflation of the penultimate, not previous month since the data are released late in the month. The government is bitterly critical of its predecessor’s updating system based on revenue and wage trends while omitting inflation but did not hasten to change it in the months of highest inflation. On Wednesday the government announced that next month’s pensions would be paid in two stages – firstly the same sum as this month and then the increase plus a 70,000-peso bonus for those collecting the minimum retirement benefit.
AMCHAM LEERY OF LIJO
AmCham on Tuesday joined several voices in expressing concern about President Javier Milei’s recent Supreme Court nominations. “It is imperative that the new members of the Supreme Court be officials of integrity and honesty," read their communiqué, adding: "It is essential to promote the equal representation of men and women at the Supreme Court. Gender diversity not only enriches judicial debate but also reflects the pluralism of society, promoting equal opportunity in all reaches of the judicial branch.” The government nominees for the Supreme Court are federal judge Ariel Lijo and legal scholar Manuel García Mansilla.
CHAINSAW KEEPS CUTTING
Speaking at the International Economic Forum of the Americas on Tuesday, President Javier Milei said that he would be slashing 70,000 public employment contracts off the state payroll but the following day at his daily press conference presidential spokesman Manuel Adorni brought that figure down to 15,000 when he announced that all co-operatives created between 2020 and 2022 would be suspended.
FILLING IN MINES
A six-week vacuum at the helm of the Mining Department was filled on Monday when the Economy Ministry designated lawyer Luis Lucero as the new Mining Secretary. The post had been vacant since February 10 when Salta’s Flavia Royón, a holdover from the previous Frente de Todos administration where she had been Energy Secretary, was told to resign by President Javier Milei due to the perceived role of her province’s government in the Congress failure of the omnibus bill. Lucero commands broad legal experience within the sector, including its project financing, company law and complex litigation, as well as impressive academic credentials with his law degree from UBA Buenos Aires University being followed by studies at the Universities of Dundee and Cambridge, Harvard Law School, Columbia Business School and University College London.
CHESS PRODIGY’S BLITZKRIEG
Faustino Oro, 10, stunned the chess universe last weekend when he beat the world’s top player, Norwegian Magnus Carlsen, in a quick-fire match in just 48 moves during the Bullet Brawl 2024. While Oro finished 21st out of the 156 players with a total of 108 points in a tournament won by the Japanese-American grandmaster Hikaru Nakamura, his feat was in many ways the highlight of the event.
related news
Argentina’s monthly CPI to fall below 10% in April, Milei says
Cristina Fernández de Kirchner accuses Milei of subjecting Argentines to ‘pointless sacrifice’
Liliana Heker opens Buenos Aires Book Fair with strong speech against Milei's austerity
Comments