Argentine Protests Intensify As Pension Reforms Are Passed

Protests erupting across Argentina are intensifying after Congress voted to proceed with controversial pension reforms, despite the enormity of the public backlash, as Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro launches a scatching attack on the Argentine government.

The reform to the country's pension program, which reduces the social benefit by $4 million, are causing increasingly violent clashes between protesters and members of the security forces.

At least 141 people have so far been injured and 70 arrested in the riots in Buenos Aires, as police fire rubber bullets and pepper spray after protesters threw stones and bottles and set light to various objects.

By nightfall Tuesday, hundreds of people had amassed in public places across the country, banging pots and pans and shouting slogans in an eruption of fresh 'cacerolazos,' or noise-based demonstrations. 

"I didn't vote for him so he could take money from my pocket," 68-year-old Cecilia Fernandez, one of thousands who took to the streets late Monday to bang pots and pans to protest against the bill, told the New York Times.

Of the injured, 98 were police officers, according to state-run news agency Telam. At least 28 journalists were injured covering the protest, journalist union Sipreba reports.

"Despite everything they did, we demonstrated that democracy works in Argentina," President Mauricio Macri said Tuesday morning as he condemned the violence as "clearly orchestrated and premeditated."

"There are nights that I have trouble sleeping due to the quantity and magnitude of the changes we have to make. If we don't do more than what we did in the past, we won’t have a future."

But his conduct drew the ire of Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro, who told a meeting of mayors and governors in Caracas:  "Look at what is happening in Argentina: I want to cry. A crime was committed against the Argentine people," he said, with "the excuse" of "macroeconomic balance. You have to protect the old people, as with our model."

The changes in the bill link increases in social welfare benefits to inflation and salaries, rather than tax revenue and salaries. The bill was approved 127 to 117 after 17 hours of debate. The Senate had passed the measure last month.

"The rush to vote on this law overnight" is a disservice to retirees, said Frente de Izquierda's Nathalia Gonzalez, noting that the Argentine government represents the rich and wants to further their interests.

Gonzalez explained that the reform, prompted by Macri, would shortchange retirees of billions in a bid pay to off the nation's foreign debt.

In a release, the Opposition said the "package of adjustments" was likely an instructive order, issued to the government of Argentina, by the International Monetary Fund.

On Monday, Argentine soccer superstar Diego Maradona also chimed in to express his disappointment regarding the treatment meted out to demonstrators by the Argentine security forces.

"I want to see the people of my country like the day we brought the [World] Cup in 1986. #FuerzaArgentina!"

Citizens, with kitchen instruments in hand, occupied the streets of Buenos Aires to demonstrate against what is viewed as an oppressive, unreasonable and immoral amendment to the existing program.

Protests across the country resulted in violent clashes between protesters and the police.

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