Javier Milei listened in the front row to the harsh diagnosis of the Argentine Catholic Church on the situation that the South American country is going through. Archbishop Jorge García Cuerva described an Argentina “that even today suffers the chains of various forms of slavery” during the Te Deum celebrated in the cathedral of Buenos Aires and called for unity from a political leadership that he accused of “not having the social thermometer to know what is happening to the Argentine on foot.” The message from the ecclesiastical leadership contrasted with the party that awaited the president outside the Catholic temple on the occasion of Independence Day. Thousands of people came to the center of the capital to witness the largest military parade in recent decades and try to greet the president. Milei followed him from a box with the vice president, Victoria Villarruel, before breaking protocol and both climbed into a war tank.
During the mass, the archbishop drew a parallel between the parable of the paralytic, in which Jesus heals a sick man who cannot walk, and the Argentine reality of 2024, where poverty and unemployment have become two of the great concerns of society. “So many brothers and sisters paralyzed for years in their hope, so many affected by hunger, loneliness and long-awaited justice,” said García Cueva. “So many Argentines lying on a blanket in the cold on the sidewalks of the country’s big cities, prostrate as a consequence of the lack of solidarity and selfishness.”
Thousands of people came to the center of Buenos Aires to watch the parade.
Mariana Nedelcu
The deterioration of the economic situation is visible in Buenos Aires, Argentina’s richest city. The number of homeless people has been increasing for years and now numbers at least 4,000, according to the latest official census. In the last few hours, a 51-year-old person died in the street from hypothermia, the fourth victim in a week.
The Argentine Catholic Church, which is very critical of Milei, as is Pope Francis, has accused the government of being insensitive to the social situation and on Tuesday again called for unity to move the country forward: “Today there is no time for indifference, we cannot wash our hands of distance, of indifference, of contempt. Either we are brothers or everything falls apart.”
Large military deployment
A crowd awaited the far-right president outside the cathedral, located on a corner of Plaza de Mayo. “Milei, my dear, the people are with you,” chanted those present as the procession made its way to the stage set up to watch the military parade for Argentina’s independence day. Milei did not limit himself to reviving a tradition interrupted during the four years of the government of Peronist Alberto Fernández, but he did so in grand style. More than 7,000 troops from different forces, 70 combat vehicles and 62 aircraft took part in the largest military display in decades in Buenos Aires. “Long live the homeland,” shouted the crowd as the soldiers passed by, led by veterans of the Falklands War that Argentina fought against Great Britain in 1982.
Milei was elated, while Villarruel, daughter and granddaughter of military officers, was visibly moved during the deployment of troops. Capable of turning every event he stars in into a spectacle, the president broke protocol and left the stage to climb onto one of the war tanks that paraded down Libertador Avenue with his vice president.
The cuts in public spending decreed by Milei exclude the budget for Defense and Security, which was reduced during previous administrations. Two months ago, the Government bought 24 F-16 fighters to renew the Argentine air fleet and has also approved the acquisition of weapons for the police forces.
The opposition has criticized the celebrations for Independence Day organized by Milei. “It is not time for parties or big events,” said the governor of the Patagonian province of Santa Cruz, Claudio Vidal, through a post on social media. From the province of Buenos Aires, Governor Axel Kicillof also came out to position himself against it: “The only pact that we accept in the province of Buenos Aires is the one that defends federalism, industry, work and national resources, the one that guarantees the rights and well-being of the people of Buenos Aires.”
Kicillof and Vidal were two of the provincial governors absent from the signing of the Pact of May in the northern city of Tucumán at midnight on Monday. In the same Historic House where 208 years ago a group of congressmen signed the independence from Spain, Milei headed an event of founding spirit surrounded by his Cabinet and 18 of the 24 provincial governors. The decalogue of the Act signed on July 9 is a synthesis of the principles that guide Milei: reduce the State to a minimum, open Argentina to the world and exterminate socialist ideas that he considers guilty of the country’s decadence.
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