Dozens of people were arrested this Wednesday (23) in Argentina for participating in looting of stores and supermarkets in several attacks that the government classified as “incentivized to destabilize Peronism”. Among those accused of “promoting chaos” is the most voted candidate in the recent primary elections, the libertarian Javier Milei.
After attempts to loot supermarkets and other businesses between the weekend and Monday, mainly in the provinces of Mendoza and Córdoba, yesterday similar episodes took place in several municipalities in the province of Buenos Aires, with police mobilization in the streets.
The provincial security minister, Sergio Berni, confirmed to TV station “C5N” the arrest of at least 40 people for “attempted organized robbery” and denounced a “bombing” of messages by the instant messaging service WhatsApp “inciting ” these attacks.
The Minister of National Security, Aníbal Fernández, insisted this Wednesday on the hypothesis that the attacks “are not spontaneous”, although he highlighted that the government does not have “reliable data” on intellectual authorship and announced the creation of a unified command to investigate these facts.
In this way, he distanced himself from the accusations made on social networks by the spokeswoman for the Presidency, Gabriela Cerruti, who pointed, without evidence, to the leader of the Front A Liberdade Avança, Javier Milei, as the instigator.
In a video broadcast on the social network TikTok, Cerruti described the series of attacks and thefts on companies as an “armed operation by people of Javier Milei”, which “aims to generate destabilization, generate uncertainty and go against democracy”.
“If there are bandits, they will be arrested. And if there are destabilizers and coup plotters, they will have the response of the entire society that repudiates them”, she added on her account on the social network X (formerly Twitter).
For her part, former Minister of Security Patricia Bullrich, candidate of the opposition group Together for Change, of former President Mauricio Macri, published a message on the same social network in which she highlighted the “absence” of national authorities, such as the current president, Alberto Fernández, and vice-president, Cristina Kirchner, “in the face of a tragic or disorderly situation”.
“It takes order. People are alone, and no one protects them, ”she wrote.
In a statement released this week, the Argentine Chamber of Commerce and Services (CAC) condemned the “looting attempts”, which it called “criminal acts”.
Also according to the organization, Argentina “cannot be hostage to small groups of misfits who, hiding behind the genuine discontent of large sections of the population, intend to break the law and cause chaos.”
The head of the Cabinet of Ministers and vice-presidential candidate on the ticket led by Sergio Massa, Agustín Rossi, confirmed that the government had information about possible episodes organized by citizens with “history”.
Although for the Peronist government the events are not a social reaction nor do they initially have a political connotation, they occur in a context of growing poverty due to the acceleration of inflation and political tension after the primaries of the last 13th, which represent an uncertain scenario for the October presidential elections. (With information from the EFE Agency)
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