behind ultraliberalism, negationism and repression?

Javier Milei, a free electron with an aggressive speech, takes over as head of Argentina on Sunday.

Javier Milei comes to power in Argentina on Sunday December 10 with a series of radical measures, which 56% of Argentines considered necessary. He himself affirms that the ultraliberal shock that he foresees could push 90% of the population into precariousness. The questions relate in particular to the questioning of certain rights and to the important work of memory, which has been done in Argentina since the end of the dictatorship. The signals sent by Javier Milei, like the profile of the people he has chosen to govern alongside him, give some indications on the orientations of the new president.

At the top of the list is Vice President Victoria Villaruel. She is very close to Vox, the Spanish far-right party, and she is the daughter of a colonel active during the dictatorship. His presence inevitably worries all those who have been fighting for nearly 40 years to find those disappeared by the military regime, like Miguel Santucho: “The speech of the military party, represented by Vice-President Villarouel, aims to modify the image of the army. They say that they are negationists, but it is much worse, because they seek to legitimize state terrorismexplains the activist. When they speak of ‘simple excesses’ when referring to dictatorship, as Milei did during the presidential debate, this is exactly what the generals were saying at the time of the junta’s trial.”

“They repeat the words of the genocidaires, it’s much worse.”

Miguel Santucho, Argentinian human rights defender

at franceinfo

Rodolfo Barra is another controversial figure on whom the new president intends to rely. This former member of the Supreme Court is credited with having a sulphurous past as an activist within a neo-Nazi organization. Pro-abortion activists know him well. Because Rodolfo Barra spent a lot of energy to get in their way, before they obtained in 2020 the vote for a comprehensive law on voluntary termination of pregnancy.

For Martha Rosenberg, co-founder of a pro-abortion campaign, the return of Rodolfo Barra is not good news: “Rodolfo Barra presented a clause 14 times to penalize all types of abortion, it was always rejected. In short, he returned to the charge numerous times, she reminds. And today Barra will be the attorney general of the nation, for me it is an obvious attack”laments Martha Rosenberg.

Opponents of Javier Milei on alert

Human rights defenders have been on the defensive even before the start of Javier Milei’s mandate. It must be said that the new president has already chosen to eliminate ministries that were dear to them, such as that of Women. And we do not yet know what will become of the State Secretariat for Human Rights. Javier Milei promised to tackle all these sectors of society. Human rights activists are beginning to mobilize alongside the Mothers of Plaza de Mayo, the association created during Argentina’s military dictatorship by mothers searching for their missing children.

Matias demonstrates in this square, a symbol of protest in the Argentine capital. He is very upset, because according to him, Javier Milei has already betrayed one of his promises: that of eliminating the “political caste”, these barons established for many years on the Argentine political scene. The new president had to ally himself with the party of former president Mauricio Macri on the traditional right, to form a government coalition.

The future Minister of Security Patricia Bouleitch has belonged to this traditional right for more than 20 years. “Patricia Bouleritch was Minister of Labor during the social explosion of 2001, reminds Matias, she lowered wages, there were layoffs and repression. Patricia Bouleritch was security minister in 2017, starting with a death toll of 40 by sending police against a demonstration in a northern province. It’s an iron fist. And now she returns, still Minister of Security, with the same policy in a far-right government, even more violent”insists Matias.

“We must be ready to resist.”

Matias, opponent of Javier Milei

at franceinfo

There are a lot of concerns, a lot of speculation as well, about the method that Javier Milei will choose to push through his reforms. But the majority of Argentines decided to bet on this anarcho-libertarian, former political agitator on television sets, holder of two masters in economics to put a country devastated by the crisis back on its feet.