A string of attacks against progressives rocks Argentina.
Three separate attacks on party and labor union offices affiliated with progressive politics took place in Argentina over the weekend. The attacks, which resulted in windows shattered by gunfire and at least three injuries, have been repudiated by numerous lawmakers. President Mauricio Macri, however, has not commented on the incidents.
The first incident took place early Saturday morning at the local office of the center-left Kirchnerist youth chapter, La Cámpora, in seaside Mar del Plata. Staffers arrived at the office to find the front window shattered by five bullet holes fired from an assault rifle. Neighborhood residents who filed the police report stated that the attack took place around 1:00 a.m. Police are confident that nearby security cameras will help identify the perpetrators. No one was present at the time, and there were no injuries.
That day at around 11:00 p.m., as members of the center-left Nuevo Encuentro party gathered to inaugurate their new Villa Crespo neighborhood headquarters in midtown Buenos Aires, several shots were fired at the crowd from an apartment high-rise facing the office. Two women were injured, including a mother holding a toddler in her arms. Both women were rushed to the hospital, and are expected to make a full recovery.
The following afternoon, as members of the State Employees Union (ATE) demonstrated in Mendoza against ongoing austerity cutbacks and layoffs, a group of approximately 50 men attacked the ATE protesters assembled outside the Mendoza Racetrack, injuring several union members including their leader, Roberto Macho, who was hospitalized for a possible broken nose.
Congresswoman Soledad Sosa of the Workers' Party, who represents the district and had joined the demonstration, reported that police were present in the area but did nothing to intervene.
Congresswoman Fernanda Raverta of the Kirchnerist FpV, who represents Mar del Plata, linked the incident at the La Cámpora local office to President Mauricio Macri's "highly aggressive tone in his annual address to Congress on March 1, which some of his more violent supporters interpreted as a cue to act with impunity." She likewise pointed to Macri and his allies in Argentina's influential right-wing media, "who use calls for 'unity' to cloak their intolerance against those who dissent."
Congressman Carlos Heller, an ally of Kirchnerism from Buenos Aires, concurred. "We are a few days from the 40th anniversary of Argentina's last military coup in 1976, and therefore must not permit political intolerance or violence. I call on the president, on the mayor, and on the security minister to use all means at their disposal to investigate these acts and to prevent them in the future."
The mayors of Buenos Aires and Mar del Plata both belong to the same right-wing coalition that brought President Macri to office in December. But unlike Mar del Plata Mayor Carlos Arroyo, who repudiated the attack in his city and expressed his solidarity with his FpV rivals, neither President Macri nor Buenos Aires Mayor Horacio Rodríguez Larreta made any official comments either directly or through a surrogate.
The leader of the Nuevo Encuentro party, Martín Sabbatella, blamed the attacks on a "political context in which opponents (of the right-wing Macri administration) have been vilified as people" and called on President Macri to "emphatically repudiate these incidents of political violence, which by sheer luck didn't kill anybody." Security Minister Patricia Bullrich and Interior Minister Rogelio Frigerio later announced that they will meet with Sabbatella to discuss the incident.
Sabbatella also mentioned that former President Cristina Fernández de Kirchner had called him to express her concern and support. The former president, he said, "was reminded of some of the darkest days in our country's recent history" - a reference to the military dictatorship which ruled Argentina with an iron fist from 1976 until the collapse of their laissez-faire economic policies forced them to call elections in 1983.
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