Body bags dispute underlines escalation of political tensions
Leaders of social organisations and human rights groups this week joined the Alberto Fernández administration in expressing their rejection over the use of body bags in an anti-government march last Saturday.
Days after the event, anger at the controversial protest tactic remained. Ten effigies in body bags, stuffed to resemble corpses, were left at the gates of the Casa Rosada during an anti-government protest in Buenos Aires.
Each pretend corpse bore a slogan saying that it represented the dead body of an individual who had died from Covid-19 because someone had been vaccinated out of turn, thereby taking their chance of receiving a vaccine. The bags also featured the name of someone alleged to have been vaccinated out of turn, including Argentina’s Ambassador to Brazil Daniel Scioli, Economy Minister Martín Guzmán and union leader Hugo Moyano and his children.
President Fernández swiftly condemned the tactic, saying it was it was not right “to be silent” about what he described as an act of “barbarism.”
“The way to demonstrate in democracy cannot be to display mortuary bags with names of political leaders in front of the Casa Rosada,” said the head of state via Twitter, in comments echoed by a host of government officials.
A number of intellectuals and civil society leaders also followed suit.
“We have always fought hatred and violence with love and the demand for justice.
The abject scene of some corpses bagged up the floor of the [Plaza de Mayo] square is confirmation of the denial and contempt for democracy promoted by these groups,” read a joint statement issued by more than a dozen human rights groups.
On one of the packages was the name of Estela de Carlotto, the president of Abuelas de Plaza de Mayo.
“It hurts, but it is a pain of sadness. To think that there are Argentines who have that ruthless resentment inside them, poor them. They almost make me [feel] sorry [for them],” said the Abuelas leader, speaking in a radio interview on Sunday.
Carlotto, 90, denied allegations that she had been vaccinated against Covid-19 outside of normal protocols. “I signed up in December and they called me to go to the hospital. I still have to have the second dose,” she said.
Opposition leader Patricia Bullrich, who served as security minister under Mauricio Macri and is now the leader of the expresident’s PRO party, said she doubted the claim.
“I do not give Estela de Carlotto moral authority,” she said. “Even though she is 90 years old, how many Argentines are there that are 90 years old? Why was she vaccinated? Didn’t she think that maybe that shot was for someone else and that she had to queue like anyone else?”
Several opposition leaders also spoke out in response to the president’s condemnation. Senator Martín Lousteau, who attended the rally, agreed that it was “a despicable form of protest,” while calling for the “records of all those vaccinated in the country to be made public.”
Hundreds of protesters took the streets last weekend, including senior leaders from the opposition coalition Juntos por el Cambio, to protest the ‘VIP vaccines’ scandal.
The body bags were brought to the rally by a group known as Jóvenes Republicanos (“Young Republicans’’). They said in a statement issued after the event that the packages “clearly represent the Argentines who died due to the [government’s] irresponsible handling of the pandemic,” rebutting allegations that the corpses were effigies of current political leaders.