Argentina Says 'NO' to Military In The Streets Again

Thousands of people marched today in Argentina in protest of president Mauricio Macri's decree that increases the participation of the military armed forces in internal security affairs, reminding of some of the worst years of the dictatorship.

The protest was led by Grandmothers of Plaza de Mayo, which declared that involved the military in international security “generates death, torture and disappearances,” besides being unconstitutional and violating the agreements that the Argentine state is forced to comply with.

“Human Rights organizations reject the reform on the Armed Forces, proposed by the government of Mauricio Macri, which allows the military to intervene in interior security. They are mobilizing to the Defense Ministry under the slogan “Repressive Armed Forces, never more!”

Different social, political and human rights organizations, as well as Argentinians that remember the times under the brutal dictatorships of the last century, answered the call and joined the protest at the iconic Plaza de Mayo in Buenos Aires, to move later to the Defense Ministry.

Between 1976 and 1983, the dictatorship under the “National Reorganization Process” military junta left thousands of dead behind and at least 30,000 missing.

President Macri said the aim of the decree is to modernize the Armed Forces to face the challenges of the 21 century. “We want them to bring a service to the homeland and face the possible conflicts we might have: terrorism, drug trafficking, cyber-crime,” he said.

He also dismissed the tragic events that Argentine is still recovering from, saying that “we can't base everything on a tragic and regrettable episode that happened 50 years ago.”

The decree 368 is considered by many as a set back on human rights and the rule of law, as it could represent a return to the times in which the armed forces had permission to repress society by all means.

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The measure could mean a whole different scenario for the Mapuche issues, as the Indigenous group is often regarded in Argentina in “terrorism” terms.

For the Peace Nobel Prize Laureate Adolfo Perez Esquivel, Macri's decree “forms part of a repressive policy to capitalize on the adjustment and push forward the IMF measures.”

The president of the Peronist opposition Justicialist Party (PJ), Jose Luis Gioja, said that the protest was demanding the government to “respect the institutionalism used by the government as its flag.”