It has become a tradition in Argentina’s capital, Buenos Aires: Each Wednesday, baton-wielding riot police corral or confront a band of protesters brandishing signs, shopping bags and walking frames.
For sure, these veteran “militants” are vocal. Sometimes, they are even feisty. However, they are also gray-haired, wrinkled and at times struggle to keep their balance.
“For God’s sake,” 87-year-old Ricardo Migliavacca shouted during a recent police advance that nearly toppled him. “How disgraceful.”
Photo: EPA
He recovered only with the help of his sturdy blue Zimmer frame.
Migliavacca is just one of hundreds of pensioners who have taken part in weekly protests against Argentine President Javier Milei. They want a pension increase to soften the blow of Argentina’s seemingly endless price increases.
However, Milei is not convinced. The economically ultraliberal president has twice vetoed moves by congress to raise pensions.
This, after all, is the politician who has brought a chainsaw on stage to show his cost-cutting zeal.
“My task is not to seem good, it is to do good,” he said. “Even if the cost is being called cruel.”
During this last year of protests, his government and the police have been accused of just such cruelty.
They have used tear gas, sprays, batons, rubber bullets and water cannons to disperse the pensioners and the groups that join them.
The government does not report figures on injuries or arrests during the protests, but Amnesty International said that 1,155 people were injured last year, of which 33 were hit by rubber bullets in the head or face.
During one recent scuffle, blows were exchanged on the police line. In a narrow alley, an elderly man writhed on the floor as helpers tried to pour liquid into his tear-gas-seared eyes. A young couple in a glass-walled gym nearby ignored the scene and continued lifting weights.
Beatriz Blanco is about to turn 82. She arrived at one protest wearing a shirt reading “gangster retiree” — the nickname the government gave her for allegedly assaulting police officers.
“Watch out, she’s dangerous,” jokes a man, as he sees her pass.
She smiles and waves her walking stick in greeting.
In March, Blanco was pushed by a policeman and hit her head on the pavement, leaving her lying in a pool of blood.
“I thought I was dead,” she said. “Then came the anger and pain of being unable to fix anything.”
Many of the pensioners have a history of activism that began as students in the 1960s, when Argentina lurched from democracy toward military dictatorship.
Behind the activism is also an acute need. Nearly half of Argentina’s 7.8 million retirees receive the near-minimum US$260 a month. That is estimated to be less than one-third of the cost of basic goods needed by the elderly.
“You can’t live like this. Especially not as an elderly person. People need moments of joy,” Blanco said.
Since coming to power in 2023, Milei has sought to straighten out Argentina’s finances, cutting red tape, curbing inflation and winning a new IMF bailout. However, his cuts have been felt acutely across the public sector: in schools, hospitals, research centers and the social safety net.
Milei remains relatively popular, with an approval rating of about 40 percent, but the pensioners have become one of the most prominent and emotive sources of opposition, political scientist Ivan Schuliaquer said.
“The retirees are not showing a willingness to physically defend themselves, yet they are constantly being beaten,” he said.
There are worries that the harsh security response to such a vulnerable part of the population could be desensitizing Argentines to political violence.
“What this government is doing, no one has done in the democratic era, no one,” historian Felipe Pigna said.
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