Argentina arrests police over killings
repost from bbc by copy F | 28.06.2002 19:05
The authorities in Argentina have arrested two policemen and suspended more than 100 others in connection with the killing of two anti-government demonstrators. The men were shot in Buenos Aires on Wednesday as police tried to disperse stone-throwing demonstrators protesting at the economic crisis. (article 1)
Argentina arrests police over killings
Argentina arrests police over killings
Argentina arrests police over killings
The authorities in Argentina have arrested two policemen and suspended more than 100 others in connection with the killing of two anti-government demonstrators. The men were shot in Buenos Aires on Wednesday as police tried to disperse stone-throwing demonstrators protesting at the economic crisis.
The governor of Buenos Aires State ordered the arrests after a newspaper published photographs which appeared to show the police shooting one of the demonstrators in cold blood. Thousands of people later took to the streets to protest over the deaths at the National Congress Building, calling on President Eduardo Duhalde to resign. The BBC's Peter Greste in Buenos Aires says the new protest on Thursday by about 10,000 people - from manual workers to suited professionals to grandmothers in headscarves - was generally peaceful. But he adds that the government is keen to prevent Wednesday's incident from becoming a touchstone for more angry protests. 'Cold-blooded murder'
In a shocking sequence of eight photographs published in Clarin newspaper police appear to follow a group of demonstrators into a train station where they are helping a colleague already shot.
Then, apparently without provocation, the police open fire, fatally wounding one of the group. Our correspondent says that the photographs are likely to inflame the public further. Many people blame the authorities for what they say is cold-blooded murder, and the images would seem to confirm those suspicions. Anger at austerity
Demonstrators are also angry about the austerity measures demanded by the International Monetary Fund (IMF) that they blame for Argentina's continuing economic misery. The crowds on Thursday demanded food handouts and social programmes for Argentina's growing army of unemployed, and also campaigned for the removal of President Duhalde's government. Wednesday's violence was the worst since December, when 27 people were killed in looting and street battles which forced the then President Fernando de la Rua to resign. Protests have been a regular occurrence since late last year, when millions of people were plunged into poverty after the government posted the biggest sovereign debt default in history. The peso was devalued by more than two thirds and millions of bank accounts were frozen. The Argentine Economy Minister Roberto Lavagna is in Washington to plead with the IMF to grant a $9.5bn loan to ease the country's economic crisis.
The governor of Buenos Aires State ordered the arrests after a newspaper published photographs which appeared to show the police shooting one of the demonstrators in cold blood. Thousands of people later took to the streets to protest over the deaths at the National Congress Building, calling on President Eduardo Duhalde to resign. The BBC's Peter Greste in Buenos Aires says the new protest on Thursday by about 10,000 people - from manual workers to suited professionals to grandmothers in headscarves - was generally peaceful. But he adds that the government is keen to prevent Wednesday's incident from becoming a touchstone for more angry protests. 'Cold-blooded murder'
In a shocking sequence of eight photographs published in Clarin newspaper police appear to follow a group of demonstrators into a train station where they are helping a colleague already shot.
Then, apparently without provocation, the police open fire, fatally wounding one of the group. Our correspondent says that the photographs are likely to inflame the public further. Many people blame the authorities for what they say is cold-blooded murder, and the images would seem to confirm those suspicions. Anger at austerity
Demonstrators are also angry about the austerity measures demanded by the International Monetary Fund (IMF) that they blame for Argentina's continuing economic misery. The crowds on Thursday demanded food handouts and social programmes for Argentina's growing army of unemployed, and also campaigned for the removal of President Duhalde's government. Wednesday's violence was the worst since December, when 27 people were killed in looting and street battles which forced the then President Fernando de la Rua to resign. Protests have been a regular occurrence since late last year, when millions of people were plunged into poverty after the government posted the biggest sovereign debt default in history. The peso was devalued by more than two thirds and millions of bank accounts were frozen. The Argentine Economy Minister Roberto Lavagna is in Washington to plead with the IMF to grant a $9.5bn loan to ease the country's economic crisis.
repost from bbc by copy F
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argentina indymedia
29.06.2002 12:44
hereunder a translated text from argentina.indymedia.org
THEY CONFESSED!
by Indymedia Argentina, transl by Mahtin • Saturday June 29, 2002 at 04:09 AM
Government admits that police killed piqueteros
THEY CONFESSED! 6/28, by Indymedia Argentina, with translation by Mahtin
Duhalde appeared today in an act of Prefecture, the same one that on Wednesday shot upon the demonstrators in conjunction with the police, saying that the repression had been “a ferocious hunting party.” The president spoke “against impunity,” and even spoke of the Cabezas case.
The media, which before yesterday had shown broken shopwindows and hysterical businesspeople as their news headlines, today fought to see who would show the crudest imagines of the murder of Darío. Polititians, analysts, lawyers, all outline hypotheses and reconstruct the events, demonstrating once and again what all of us knew: that Darío and Maximiliano had been killed by the police.
Atanasof (the presidential cabinet’s chief of staff) had to save his provocative declarations, and the lies were torn apart.
The case of Duhalde is not just about a change in political position, but about a confession communiqué. The government was who prepared the repression; and it also has been agitating the media since weeks ago, promoting “hard-hand” (dealings with protesters), discussing the army’s training in repression tactics, threatening demonstrators. It is they, and no others, who are politically and intellectually responsible for the deaths of Darío and Maximiliano. This was not about, as Governor Solá had said, “an agile lunatic,” the Commissioner who shot on them, but rather about the person who, step-by-step, directed the brutal repression, the assassination of our comrades and the illegal breaking into the offices of Izquierda Unida (the United Left) and various people’s houses.
This was a systematic, premeditated, political, and prepared plan by the government, which was executed through the government’s communications (media) machine, and now it is pretending to be uncovered, on the basis solely of the most bloody and coarse aspects.
What will they try to do now? Will they try to put out a theory about two demons, to criminalize the demonstrators? With they jail some cops as scapegoats so that the essence of their plan remains unpunished? Will they continue with a controlled “hard hand” campaign? Perhaps it’s too early to tell now, but we should not let down our guard for a second.
vlo