Infantry and cavalry agents from the northwestern region of Perico repressed protests after disgruntled residents resumed the blockade of national Route 66, after two consecutive days of violence.
The resistance of the agents was held when the demonstrators broke a human police fence formed to prevent them from entering the route to maintain the traffic closure, which is only opened every 30 minutes for the passage of vital items, according to the National Gendarmerie.
The agents surrounded the peasants, teachers, workers and other people who remained in the cut of the mentioned road, at the height of the farm El Pongo, in rejection to the reform of the provincial Constitution.
“We have the right to demonstrate and also to let people circulate. We are not making a total cut, it is partial. We are going to define in assembly about the permanence”, explained a leader of the “piqueteros” under condition of anonymity.
The texts of the banners carried by the demonstrators frequently allude to their rejection of the constitutional reform, “because a law of this nature has to be to give more rights, not to take away”, according to another interviewee.
For his part, Edgardo Arrueta, a rural producer from the El Pongo area, wondered where this reform would leave people like him “without titles to the lands on which we have always lived”, in reference to an article of the law that does not recognize these groups.
On the other hand, Creole rural producers and members of the Kolla Suyo Marka aboriginal community, from El Pongo, in Perico’s own jurisdiction, addressed an open letter to President Alberto Fernández asking for “urgent federal intervention”.
The demonstrations began in the province by the teachers’ sector, who are requesting better salaries, and then became massive and included most of the unions, especially due to the decision of Governor Gerardo Morales to extreme and legalize the repression.
The violent acts against the rejection of the constitutional text, especially for legitimizing violence, prohibiting protests and damaging indigenous rights over land ownership, were rejected by the Government, after Morales blamed the events on his leaders.
“You – replied President Fernandez – are the only one responsible for bringing our beloved province of Jujuy to this situation-limit, by trying to impose a constitutional reform that does not respect the National Constitution”.
For her part, Vice President Cristina Fernández de Kirchner called on the governor to stop “the repressive madness that his own actions are unleashing. What is happening in the province of Jujuy is your absolute responsibility, and you know it. It seems – she stressed – that savage repression is in your DNA”.
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