By Josefina Martina Pardo
Thursday, October 15, was a day marked by significant events. Inside the National Congress, the opposition in the Chamber of Deputies was attempting to overturn Decree 70/2023. The government, along with its allies, refused to provide the necessary quorum.
Outside the Congress, students, teachers, and non-teaching staff were peacefully demanding compliance with the University Funding Law.
In what appears to be a tactic to distract the press and the public from the proceedings inside the Congress, the government carried out its first-ever crackdown on a university march.
Using water cannons, tear gas, and rubber bullets, the Gendarmerie interrupted the march, leaving several people injured. On one side stood the student community, united by a single cause: the enforcement of a law that guarantees the right to study under dignified conditions. On the other side stood a national government that fails to uphold the law and responds with violence.
Although the government, through Security Minister Monteoliva on the social network X, claimed that “there were violent individuals” and that the crackdown began because of them, they attempted to disperse the crowd by advancing from the square to Avenida 9 de Julio, using gas and rubber bullets against protesters even as the numbers dwindled.
Simultaneously, the Minister posted a video on X showing people throwing stones, breaking facilities, and assaulting a C5N journalist, with the caption: “This is how university students claim their rights,” thereby attributing the violent acts to the students.
The students were positioned in front of the stage, which was half a block away from where the violence was occurring. It would be naive to interpret that students and teachers pulled out hammers to break plaza benches and throw the debris at the Gendarmerie, and that these images would make the newspapers while photos of a massive march did not. What is not naive to think, however, is that this was exactly what the government wanted.
We university students debate with books, not with stones, Minister.
