Buenos Aires - Day 13

I hadn’t intended to do another blog from Buenos Aires, but then March 24 turned out to be a National Holiday in Argentina and it was worth writing about. It falls on the anniversary of a military coup that took power in 1976 and brutally ruled for the next eight years. During their rule, thirty thousand people went missing, most being students, teachers and politicians who were active dissidents. The day is more a day of day remembrance for those that died, and annual reminder of what can happen if you don’t protect your democracy. It is also a huge day of protest, with a large number of people still trying to ensure that all those responsible are brought to justice.

The Argentine people seem to love protests. Our apartment is located one half block of Avenue de Mayo, which runs to the Rosada Palace (The Pink Palace) where the President’s offices are. The Plaza de Mayo located just in front of the Rosada Palace has always been the major gathering for protests. In the two weeks we have been here, the majority of the days we saw one protest or another. Yesterday was by far the largest.

People started gathering around noon, and finally starting marching the five blocks to the Plaza around 3:30. It took about 2 hours for the full protest to pass. The Avenue is Mayo is about 100 yards wide and has wide sidewalks. The streets and sidewalks were completely filled with people; I would estimate several hundred thousand. Drums beat, dancers danced, huge banners and flags promoting various causes and political parties where waved in the air. People from every walk of life and stage of life participated. I even saw a group of demonstrators that had all their faces covered by cloth looking like terrorists that we see on the evening news.

Once they reached the Plaza, they listened to speeches for a while, then the crowds were off marching again. They created a huge snake of people, about 10 people wide that wound its way through the streets of the core area. At one point from our balcony, we could see people marching north on one street, south on another and north again on another, even though they were one continuous parade of people. It went on and on! We still heard drums beating at 9:30 p.m. The streets were covered in litter from flyers people handed out, and a lot of the walls and streets were painted with slogans and graffiti, but the amazing thing about the demonstration – we never saw a single policeman.

We are off to Australia tomorrow and looking forward to that adventure.

Cheers -- Ian

Protest Day - March 24 in Buenos Aires