Macri leaves ESMA concentration camp site w/o maintenance or grounds staff; fires 2,000 caretakers. [View all]

[forest444]

Last edited Tue Dec 15, 2015, 07:51 PM - Edit history (2)

The University of Buenos Aires School of Architecture and Urban Planning (FADU) reported today that effective December 18, the Ministry of Social Development will have terminated the 2,000 employees contracted under the Kirchner administration's Argentina Works program for the refurbishment, maintenance, and groundskeeping of the ESMA Human Rights Memorial Site.

Located in Buenos Aires' upscale Núñez district near the northern end of the city and coveted by developers since the 1990s, the 37-acre site includes nearly 900,000 ft² of buildings. It was originally built in the late 1920s as the Argentine Navy Mechanics School but was used in the late 1970s as the largest of around 300 detention and concentration camps for the Dirty War; an estimated 5,000 were killed at the ESMA.

Upon being informed of the news, the cooperative employing the 2,000 affected workers demonstrated peacefully in front of the ESMA site along Libertador Avenue and with heavy police presence.

The protesters also made public the notification to that effect received from the Social Development Ministry. The letter stated that "with the change of administrations (the December 10 inaugural of right-wing President Mauricio Macri) a series of steps are being taken," without any further explanation or indications that maintenance at the ESMA site will continue.

Most of the employees at the cooperative are women. The contract resulted from an agreement between the FADU (which oversees all work), the Ministry of Human Rights, and the Ministry of Social Development. Their work, according to ESMA officials, "allowed for the successful cooperation between the community, human rights organizations, and the State to have a place for truth, memory, and justice, and for the public to know Argentina's tragic recent history that we may consolidate the rights secured under democracy."

The site, which houses museums and numerous human rights institutes, was opened to the public in 2008 and formally inaugurated by President Cristina Kirchner on May 19, 2015. It received over 225,000 visitors last year.

At: https://translate.google.com/translate?hl=en&sl=es&u=http://www.telam.com.ar/notas/201512/130202-ex-esma-despidos-cooperativistas-protesta.html&prev=search
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ESMA Memorial Site: http://www.espaciomemoria.ar/mapa.php