After the incidents of last week, Congress was shut down before the Senate session by the IMF

After the incidents of last week, the National Congress was closed in the run-up to the start of the session in the Senate where the agreement will be debated with International Monetary Fund. Late Wednesday night, City Government workers began shielding the area. The operation for this Thursday includes the presence of a large number of troops and the accompaniment of the team of Security Traffic Agents to order circulation around the demonstration scheduled for the day.

The various measures to prevent what happened during the session of deputies, in which Cristina Kirchner's office in the Upper House was also attacked, were announced yesterday by the Buenos Aires Minister of Security, Marcelo D'Alessandro, and the Minister of Government, Jorge Macri. As they indicated at a press conference, the deployment of the special preventive operation aims to “prevent further unrest during the Senate vote.”

In this way, during the early hours of this Thursday, a fence was completed in the vicinity of the Congress with a perimeter comprised of the Avenues Entre Ríos, Callao, Rivadavia, Combate de los Pozos and the front facing the Plaza del Congreso.

In addition, as part of this deployment, there will be the presence of a significant number of troops and the accompaniment of the team of Security Transit Officers. The entire operation will also be supported by video surveillance cameras available in the area, which will be monitored by the Urban Monitoring Centers of the City Police to avoid episodes of violence and intervene quickly if necessary.

In this regard, they clarified that “the intention of the City authorities and the public forces that depend on them is not, under any circumstances, to prevent the free manifestation of those who oppose the agreement with the IMF; but past episodes of violence indicate that the presence of the fence and police personnel are a necessary condition to prevent minority groups from impeding the proper functioning of the institutions of the Republic and their constituents”.

It will be a new day of vehicular chaos in downtown Buenos Aires, since, in addition to the restriction of entry to the Congress area, there will be demonstrations in other parts of the City. In rejection of debt repayment and the agreement with the International Monetary Fund, picket and left-wing organizations will concentrate on 9 de Julio and Belgrano in the early afternoon. And by 18 o'clock they will try to approach the area of the legislative palace.

The incidents in Cristina Kirchner's office

Last Thursday a group of protesters attacked piedrazos as they entered Congress. The office of Vice President Fernández de Kirchner was one of those affected, which led to crossings and denials with the administration headed by Rodríguez Larreta.

D'Alessandro had assured last week that there were no fences in Parliament at the express request of the former president. “We have to define which side we are on: the violent or the non-violent,” he emphasized.

As a result, the Administrative Secretary of the Upper House issued an official statement regarding the issue in which he “categorically denies” that some of the Senate authorities “have communicated with government officials of the City of Buenos Aires to request that security fences not be placed in the past Thursday, March 10, while the Chamber of Deputies was sitting to discuss the agreement with the IMF”.

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