Buenos Aires sends forces to Santa Cruz province to help with law and order
Argentine President Cristina Fernandez political turf, the Patagonian province of Santa Cruz has formally requested the deployment of federal forces to help keep law and order because of a 16-day strike by the provincial police.
Security Minister Nilda Garré ordered the deployment of 240 federal forces members including border guards, prefecture officers and Federal Police officers to Santa Cruz province, following Governor Daniel Peralta’s request to guarantee security.
The federal forces were scheduled to arrive late Tuesday early Wednesday and will be relocated in the capital Rio Gallegos, El Calafate and Caleta Oliva.
Shops and businesses in the three locations had begun to cut working hours and some simply closed fearing the lack of security. Caleta Oliva over the weekend recommended shops not to open since it couldn’t guarantee safety.
Earlier Tuesday the Security Ministry in Buenos Aires released a communiqué stating that “shortly after noon on Tuesday July 17th, the Security Ministry received a message from the Santa Cruz Governor requesting the aid of federal armed forces in accordance to articles 23 and 24 of national law 24,059.”
On Monday Santa Cruz Government Minister Paola Knoop confirmed that the Peralta administration had sent a request to Minister Garré asking her to intervene to guarantee the security of the province, as stated by Interior Security law 24,059.”
The Santa Cruz police officers have been holding a strike for over two weeks demanding a wage hike. The strike has the support of 90% of the police force. The provincial government assured that a 34% wage hike is their last offer on the matt but the protestors considered it insufficient since they are demanding a floor of 9.000 Pesos (approx 1.800 dollars per month with an exchange rate of 5 Pesos to the dollar) but the government is offering 6.627 Pesos (approx. 1.325 dollars)
Despite initial speculation that the governor would declare a Security Emergency, Peralta apparently chose to ask the National Government for additional resources until the current crisis is solved.
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So the people strike and they bring in the army, for supposedly security reasons and in no way to break the back of the long running strike. Thats Argentine democracy for you, why doesnt Christina “Give peace a chance”????
And you don't think it at all remarkable that the police are on strike in the first place?
the answer, the army will have no problem in crushing the epic police strike when ordered unlike other police forces who may be sympathetic towards the strikers plight.
rule with an iron fist, its a good job she gave a pay rise to her armed forces as she will be needing them a lot in the future, maybe to police the hungry at food ques, or peaceful student demonstrations or dare i say it INVASION??
completly agree this is a milatry crackdown on provinces which are beggining to get tired of being fobed off with excuses from BsAs and have seen their share of federal tax revenues shrink whilst BsAs has seen them grow. This is the beggining of civil unrest in the Argentine provinces and the governments response is to send troops to shut them up using force. This is representative of the actions taken by a Milatry Junta not a democracy. All people have a right to strike peacefully and to prevent this using milatry forces is a disgrace. @2 I dont understand how you can claim to be alligned to the left wing of politics and not support workers rights to strike!
This civil unrest will spread throught the provinces and CFK will hopefully be ousted from power.
www.buenosairesherald.com/article/106484/villa-31-slum-residents-disrupt-traffic-in-retiro-
time to give them some free food rations & maybe some non eletrical gifts hey Cristina !
The police are workers just like anybody else, only their job is made harder by the crooks that Kretina's government subsidize to shout at her rallies!!!!
Let us hope that the end of the beginning is soon, so we can get to the end of the end pronto. :o)
LOL :o)
Just an example from UK
Sir Paul Stephenson,the disgraced chief of the Metropolitan Police retired in July/2011 with full pension and benefit on a salary of £ 250.000 having been exposed for taking favours from journalists under the investigation for hacking phones.
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