Argentine pensions march sees fans, protesters clash with police

BUENOS AIRES — Argentine police battled hundreds of protesters, including a number of soccer fans, on Wednesday in running skirmishes during an anti-austerity march by pensioners in Buenos Aires.

Scores of riot police fired tear gas, rubber bullets and water cannon in attempts to disperse protesters throwing stones, many of whom wore football jerseys for what became one of the most violent demonstrations yet against President Javier Milei’s budget-mining policies.

The protesters, many of them waving national flags and photographs of the late soccer legend Diego Maradona, were greeted with heavy security outside the Congress, which was holding a session when the protests turned heated.

Lines of riot police on foot, supported by officers on motorbikes, battled for more than two hours to drive protesters who threw firecrackers, stun grenades and stones taken from upturned sidewalks from a central avenue.

One patrol vehicle and garbage cans were set on fire and multiple streets were barricaded with debris.

Police said 31 were arrested.

A video of a police officer shoving and striking an elderly woman who fell to the ground, bleeding from the head, has been shared thousands of times on social media.

‘Dictatorship’ –

The demonstrators chanted “Out with them all” and “Milei, garbage, you are the dictatorship!”, comparing his government to that of Argentina’s military junta from 1976 to 1983.

The demonstration was the latest in a years-long string of pensioner protests, traditionally held on Wednesdays, typically attracting only a few dozen participants.

This week, many football clubs organized a show of solidarity with pensioners, some of whom have been teargassed or baton-charged during protests over their shrinking purchasing power in recent weeks.

Supporters of River Plate, Boca Juniors, Racing, Independiente and a handful of other clubs participated in the march.

The trial, which began Tuesday, of seven medical staff accused of homicide connected to Maradona’s 2020 death has raised emotions in the South American country.

Maradona died alone in a rented home in Buenos Aires, where he was being supervised after undergoing brain surgery.

His cause of death was heart failure and acute pulmonary edema, and his medical team is accused of having been criminally negligent in taking care of him.

For the past week, calls to support boiling pensioners have been spreading with a video from 1992 featuring Maradona saying “You must be a real coward to not defend retirees.”

“Ole, Ole, Diego, Diego,” some of the protesters chanted on Wednesday.

Pensioners have complained for years, but they are much worse off under so-called “anarcho-capitalist” Milei.

“We need to unite and take to the streets to fight for our rights and our sovereignty” Patricia Mendia, a 60-year-old wearing a Quilmes club jersey, said, as she marched next to her 84-year-old mother.

The security minister, Patricia Bullrich, shared an image on her X account of a line of police confronting protesters, whom she referred to as “hooligans.”

Pensioners have suffered the most during a year of draconian austerity.

Pensions increases have lagged well behind inflation.

Almost 60 percent of retirees get only the minimum amount — about $340 a month.

Last year, Mili vetoed a legislation that would have raised pensions by a fraction of the increase needed to keep them within reach of the purchasing power.

He has also suspended price controls on medicines, compelling some pensioners to choose between food and life-saving drugs.