Former soldiers caught in violent clashes with Police along 9 de Julio Avenue

A group of former soldiers were caught in violent clashes with police at the intersection of 9 de Julio and Avenida de Mayo as they demanded to be recognized as war veterans. Police sources reported 24 people were detained and 3 officers were injured.

This group of former soldiers is the same that had attacked Lawmaker Díaz Bancalari after he left the Government House, where President Cristina Fernández de Kirchner had delivered a speech over the Malvinas Islands.

The protest started last night at 9pm continuing throughout the night until 9am when they temporarily lifted the demonstration. Even still, the roadblock resumed at 11am and things turned violent upon the arrival of the Federal Police.

The former soldiers had been sent to Santa Cruz province during the war, but were not actually deployed to the Islands.

Wearing military uniforms and waving Argentine flags, the men in maroon and green were demanding the national government to recognize them as war veterans and grant with same benefits (pensions, medical and psychological aid, among others) as those who were deployed to the Islands.

Federal Policemen marched down the Avenue dressed in riot gear while parading water cannon riot trucks to try to clear the protest. The former soldiers hit back at the police by throwing stones and other objects back at police causing multiple injuries between both groups.

Controversy surrounding the subject is high, as war veterans are the first ones not to recognize their pairs as veterans by commonly adducing “they did not experience what being at the battle field is like,” and saying it would be an insult for them to see those who didn’t take on the battle field to be granted with same social benefits.

Protests are not new, as ‘mobilized soldiers’ have been camping at Plaza de Mayo –right in front of the Government House- for the past four years. In a huge improvised tent the former soldiers have been waiting for President Cristina Fernández de Kirchner to summon them as well to recognize them as war veterans.

Surprisingly, during last weekend the head of the ruling party’s bloc in the Lower House and former Agriculture Minister, Julián Domínguez, visited pro-government TV show "6-7-8" and remembered he was one of the thousands of soldiers mobilized to Chubut and Santa Cruz provinces to take on duties during the Malvinas war.

First, Domínguez praised the recent announcement made by the President Cristina Fernández de Kirchner for opening a psychiatric hospital in Río Gallegos, Santa Cruz for war veterans, but then remembered that those “mobilized to the ‘South Atlantic Theatre of Operations’ are also war veterans that have suffered a lot including from mental disorders. Let’s not forget that more than 400 soldiers committed suicide ever since the war ended.”

Domínguez was member of the GA101 unit sent to Santa Cruz as a back up unit for those troops fighting in Puerto Argentino, Malvinas.