Argentina: Students demonstrate against cuts at Universities and put Milei in check

More than 500,000 Argentines took to the streets of Buenos Aires this Tuesday (23), in the largest demonstration organized against Javier Milei’s government, to protest the cuts in university budgets announced by Casa Rosada. It was also the first demonstration that did not record major episodes of police violence.

The protest began at 3:30 pm, at Congress, and headed to Praça de Mayo. But hours before, concentrations of protesters were already registered in subway stations and in the vicinity of universities established in the capital of Argentina. It was a multi-party and multi-generational demonstration. The main Argentine trade unions were also present.

The demonstration, which crossed the center of Buenos Aires, reached its final destination around 5 pm and, an hour later, a letter “in defense of the Argentine public university” was read to those present using sound cars.

“We defend access to public higher education as a right. We believe in the leveling capacity of free public education, in the transformative power of the University as a formidable tool for upward social mobility and in the differentiated and substantive contribution that scientific production brings to the society of knowledge”, says an excerpt from the letter.

The students’ demonstration put the Argentine president in check. According to the newspaper Página12, a survey by the Analytical Intelligence institute showed that 85% of Argentines are against cuts at universities.

There were reports of the demonstration on social media. A professor at the Universidad Nacional de La Mata and resident of the La Matanza neighborhood, on the outskirts of Buenos Aires, gave a statement to Radio Gráfica – an independent and popular media outlet – stating that education must be public, free and of quality for all Argentines.

“It’s for the possibility of continuing to study and have a better future,” he said.

Another interviewee from Rádio Gráfica was German Pinazi, vice-rector of the Universidad Nacional de General Sarmiento, another higher education institution on the outskirts of Bonaire. “We are protesting against a budget cut that is unprecedented for the entire national university system and that covers salaries and operating expenses, preventing our universities from carrying out their work,” he said.

Anabel Flores, a visual arts student at the Universidad Nacional del Arte, and Ana, a social communication student at the Universidad de Buenos Aires, were also interviewed. “It is not possible to have a government that is against the possibility of young people studying and being able to graduate to have good jobs, it seems to me that they prefer us to be an ignorant people”, said the arts student.

The issue of peripheral students, especially those who are pioneers in higher education in their families, is central to the demands. Milei’s cuts will mainly affect this sector, which does not have an established cultural capital. A humble medical student, who is the first in his family to attend higher education, stated the importance of defending public education. “I came to defend my entire family’s country project,” he said.

The Milei government

The cuts at universities that motivated the massive demonstration were announced by Milei as part of his “chainsaw plan”, which aims to carry out a series of budget cuts with the excuse of remedying the economic crisis that the country is experiencing. In Brazil, the hereditary media has been making noise about the Argentine government’s announcement last Monday (22) that the country recorded a surplus for the third consecutive month. But he explained little to the Brazilian reader at the expense of what.

In the case of universities, Argentina has one of the most complete and sophisticated free higher education systems on the continent, with broad access to the population – which was only achieved after generations of social struggles in the country. But they depend precisely on public financing to function.

Before the University March, Manuel Adorni, the presidency spokesman, stated that “education is one of the fundamental pillars of our ideology. We have no desire to close universities.” Of course they don’t want to close them. Just destroy free access to higher education – and make a lot of money doing it.

Victoria Villarruel, the vice-president, published a provocation to the University March on Tuesday night. Far from referring to the demand itself or defending the brutal adjustment that her government is implementing against all universities in the country, the Vice-President chose to publish a message and dedicate it to the now deceased president of the Mothers of Plaza de Mayo, Hebe by Bonafini.

“Bonafini, look what you missed”wrote Villarruel along with an image capture of the moment when Taty Almeida, another reference for Mothers and Human Rights, spoke in front of the crowd present in Praça de Mayo.

The reaction of the vice-president, recognized for her strong denialism and staunch defense of the genocidal perpetrators of the Argentine military dictatorship, was interpreted not only as a provocation, but also as a lack of respect towards the reference of the Mothers of May, who died on 20 November 2022.