00:00And to go deep into the repercussion of this Wednesday's demonstration and police brutality,
00:05we invite Pablo Malicia, independent journalist from Argentina. Hi, Pablo,
00:10and thank you so much for joining us today. My pleasure.
00:15So, Pablo, the eyes of the world are upon Argentina today. From your perspective,
00:21what happened yesterday afternoon and why is it so serious?
00:24Well, I have to tell you that I'm still shivering due to the things I had to witness yesterday.
00:37In my 35 years of experience attending almost every popular demonstration,
00:47I have never seen this level of despite for the human being of violence, of hate by the federal
01:00forces. I was there yesterday afternoon. I was there from the early, from the very beginning
01:09of it. The demonstration was absolutely peaceful. People were doing nothing but singing their songs,
01:20claiming their rights, waving their flags, and that was the demonstration.
01:28But due to this experience I mentioned that I have in this type of demonstrations in Argentina,
01:38in a certain point I saw something that shocked me. I saw a police officer giving,
01:51I don't know if he hit the lady with his fist or with a stick or something, but I saw him
02:02knocking her down. Literally, the lady fell on her back and she
02:10got a major injury in the back of her head when she banged on the pavement.
02:19In that moment I felt everything is going, it's about to begin, and sadly I was right.
02:26The next step, when all the people were trying to help the old lady on the floor, I saw a very,
02:33very famous Argentinian man, a doctor, that he was a part of the demonstration himself,
02:42and he went to attend to this old lady and gave her first aid. In that moment I saw another of the
02:52classical typical signals that we already learned how to recognize. All the motorcycles,
03:00the police motorcycles, they formed in line as if they were the cavalry in a western movie,
03:08from side to side of the street, in a line, all the motorbikes side by side, and then they started
03:17accelerating the motorcycles at the same time, at the same rhythm, all together.
03:28Only that was terrifying, and then they marched with all the motorcycles together as a wall,
03:39okay, and behind them the big water tanks, and so they started in that moment, they started
03:53shooting their water canyons to the people, that was only singing, they were singing and waving
04:01flags, nothing, I saw not a single violent action started from the people that was demonstrating
04:12there. So in that moment I started running from one part to the other, I found myself
04:20surrounded by two different parts of the police, of the federal forces, that they were doing some
04:28clipping force, you know, to get all the people together in the middle of them all, so I
04:37handled to escape from one side and I got out of that situation.
04:45But I want to tell you something else. I also saw how a police officer, and I saw it in the
04:55also in the in the medias, okay, there is a shooting, an actual shooting of,
05:01yes, okay, there is a shooting, an actual shooting of that, but the police officer takes his own
05:11weapon, his gun, from his belt, and he puts it in the floor, he leaves it, he abandons his own
05:21weapon on the floor, and then he leaves, and then all the police leave, and the gun
05:27stayed there in the grass, laying, waiting for someone to pick it up.
05:35I mean, these are also tricks that we already learned from the lady minister of security,
05:45Patricia Bullrich, they infiltrate the demonstrations, and they do these kind of
05:55things in order to make the worst to happen, okay. I will give you some other examples about this.
06:06Suddenly, and nobody knows where they came from, but big boxes that we use here in the
06:15when they're building a building, or they are modifying something, and they have all the stones
06:20left from the construction, okay, they are putting in a big box that they lay on the street for a
06:28few days, okay. Well, this sort of stuff appeared full of stones, almost as an invitation for people
06:37to grab the stones and throw it to the police officers, and nobody knows who brought them
06:42there, and why they put it there in that very moment. Some other thing, perhaps you saw some
06:50shootings of a police car on fire. Well, that very same car was shown previously by the people with
07:00their cell phones, and also by some of the medias that were transmitting live in that moment.
07:07Pablo, precisely for our international audience, let's recall that, as you were mentioning,
07:14this is the most severe repression registered in decades, but especially since Meleri took office.
07:19Why now? I would like you to explain why at this moment in which the administration is going
07:25through the international Libragate scandal, for example, and also amid an attempt of reaching a
07:31new deal with the IMF without the Congress' consent. The only explanation for this in this
07:40moment is that they were actually willing for this to happen, because they wanted to show this
07:48alive to the world, especially to the IMF and to the imperialistic governments of the planet.
07:56They wanted to send them a message telling them that they are willing, they are ready, and they
08:04are going to continue with this economical adjustment, even if they have to stain their
08:14hands with blood. They do not care. They declared war to Argentinian people yesterday. Nothing like
08:23this has been seen before in Argentina. But actually, some of these manners to infiltrate
08:36the demonstrations and all the things I was telling you before, we saw this before once.
08:43Mm-hmm. Yeah, I was mentioning that there is no doubt that this was a clear message,
08:51a mobster message, we could say, to the IMF and to the leaders of the economical power
09:00throughout the world, that this government is ready to do anything that is required in order to
09:08give all the sovereignty and the natural resources of Argentina to the one who wants to keep it.
09:18In this context, how can this violence affect Malaysia's national and international legitimacy,
09:24especially at this sensitive moment you are describing?
09:28Well, I think that internationally, I think that the people to whom he was sending this message
09:40must be very happy. Perhaps, I hope that different governments around the world,
09:51governments that support not only real democracy, this is not a democracy, this is a
09:59dictatorship. But all the people from around the planet that support democracy and human rights,
10:08well, I think they will raise their voices against everything that's going on in Argentina.
10:15But I don't think that that will be any problem for this government. They just don't care.
10:23I mean, they are happy to, they have sent the right message to the people they wanted,
10:28and all the rest, they just don't care at all. Internally, well, I think that, yes,
10:36there was a breaking point in Argentina and the relationship with this government.
10:42I think that Argentinian people is going to react much higher. And somehow, I think that
10:51the government is also hoping that the people do that, because they are trying to build up again
11:04the two demons theory that was so popular during the last Argentinian military and
11:11civilian dictatorship. So, they want to, in a way, to prove that there are some group of terrorists
11:21that are willing to throw down the government. But the point that they are forgetting is that
11:32those terrorists are 80 years old, and they are only asking for the government to stop killing
11:42them. Slowly, quietly, they are doing senior genocide in Argentina. And this is not by chance,
11:52this is all planned, because they want to reduce the amount of retirement
12:01salaries that they have to pay. This is as raw as you can hear it. This is planned,
12:10and they are willing to continue in this way. But, because I think that Argentina, once again,
12:18is being some sort of testing balloon thrown by the people, the real powers of the planet,
12:27that they think, well, if Argentinian people have a long tradition of popular resistance,
12:36if we can break them, we can break anyone in the planet. So, everybody, listen, we Argentinians
12:44are a laboratory in which they are doing a final test to their plan of taking over the national
12:53governments. This is not something anymore about right and left. Now, this is the powers of the
13:02planet, the voucher funds, that they declare the war against the people of the country,
13:13the population, and to the national states at the same time, because they think they don't need
13:19us anymore. They can throw us to the garbage, to the recycle bin. Well, Argentinian people
13:26is going to prove them that they are wrong. Thank you. Thank you, Pablo, for your remarks
13:32in these days of outrage and sadness as well. Thank you very much. I appreciate so very much
13:41the opportunity to tell the world what's going on in Argentina. This is a dictatorship. They will
13:47not hesitate to have more and more casualties, and they want to prove that they can break the
13:58country in pieces and sell it for sale, you know, and do the dirty work at the same time, and they
14:08will not care about the casualties or the poor people. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you, Pablo,
14:15for your time here with us. We were speaking to Pablo Malizia, independent journalist,
14:20in the context of the police brutality suffered by demonstrators in Argentina on Wednesday.
