as he wrote Jose Maldonado This week, these numbers are only comparable to what happened in two other historical moments: the hyperinflation of 1989 and the crisis of 2001. In both cases, the trajectory lines marked more or less rapid and more or less sustained recoveries. Now, the experts who work on the measurements warn that the numbers could worsen if the slow inflationary de-escalation is accompanied by a deepening of the recession and a shock of unemployment.
Lines for a plate of food
In an interview granted days ago to The nationthe government minister Carlos Bianco He said that he “does not” see that a social outbreak is going to occur. “Although the situation has deteriorated greatly and this generates situations of greater exclusion and violence in the neighborhoods, there is no climate of what one could call an outbreak. “There is no such thing today in the Buenos Aires suburbs.” Some distance from that look of the minister Andres Larroque from two years ago, when, at the end of the pandemic and in the middle of the internal war with the then President Fernández, he fired: “The suburbs don’t give any more and we only put band-aids on them,” he told Letter p.
In the territory they coincide with Bianco. A situation of chaos is not foreseen, at least today, although they repeat that a spark could accelerate and deepen the process of conflict.
“The demand for food is enormous. More and more people are coming. There are long lines and in a short time what there is is finished. Between one delivery and another, people come because they can’t last until the next one. Many families also come to ask how to receive assistance because they have never needed it before,” he tells Letter p the secretary of Social Development of a municipality in the western suburbs.
Jobs were cut and crime increased. A leader who lives in a humble place in the southern part of the suburbs tells it like this: “When the kids from the neighborhood who were with the lawnmower, selling something or doing masonry work disappear, it is because there is no longer any work and they go out to work. steal, because they support families. Now, those kids disappeared. “That’s fucked.”
Food violence
Social movements, which work with fewer resources than before, see that the situation has worsened to the point of generating unprecedented levels of conflict. “We are having cases of fights with knives over places in the dining rooms,” he told this medium. Alejandro Gramajogeneral secretary of UTEP, the union front of social organizations.
Without any assistance from the central administration, the enormous network of soup kitchens managed by Barrios de Pie, the Evita Movement, Libres del Sur and other movements can open its doors to provide food fewer and fewer days a week. “There is no supply and the demand is increasing. When we open, because we get some contribution, for a raffle or something, people fight for spots,” says a UTEP worker.
Violent incidents involving weapons occurred in some dining rooms. “We had a case of a fight with a knife. When we intervene and manage to deactivate the problem, we hear very extreme situations. People who come to the dining room on a Monday and haven’t eaten anything since Friday. After 40, 50 minutes waiting, conflicts break out,” Gramajo said and added: “Conflicts break out in dining rooms, in homes, in the form of interpersonal violence, and in street crime.”
Javier Milei can wait (can he?)
However, the interlocutors consulted agree that the extreme need does not directly translate into anger against President Milei, despite even the scandal of Sandra Pettovellothe Minister of Human Capital who withheld more than five million tons of food.
“There is a climate of leverage, passivity, resignation among people. There is no such thing as expressing anger. Many believe that we still have to endure and are waiting for things to change.” The official’s description of a Peronist district summarizes the views of many of those consulted.
They all also highlight the containment networks that, unlike in 2001 when everything broke out, have been activated now. The assistance of the Buenos Aires government, the municipalities and fundamentally that of social organizations, are key in containment in the neighborhoods.
Food aid is the priority, says another mayor and affirms that a much larger investment is being made than in other times, in addition to permanent monitoring of the street.
“Even if they don’t agree, people are still hopeful. He’s giving him time, he’s spending the little money he has. But this is now, the peak of need has not been reached, the situation can change at any time. Nobody knows when the spark may be lit that generates an explosion,” says a high-ranking official from a municipality with large pockets of poverty.
The Kicillof government, the mayors, the social organizations, all work to avoid a situation of chaos. The communal leaders, the first counter of complaints in the territory, also do not have the strength to channel the direction of anger or social frustration towards a certain place, centrally because “all politics is very discredited and everyone is part of the problem.”
