In Argentina today, the one who represses not only does not pay accounts: he is awarded. The Minister of Security Patricia Bullrich does not hide. It does not hide. It makes repression a doctrine, and the punishment he denounces, a state policy. A girl with eyes full of pepper gas, a photographer in a coma, a retiree pushed as a potato bag. There are three scenes. Three bodies. Three warnings. In all, the minister applaud.
On September 11, in front of Congress, Fabrizia Pegoraro, 10, was reached by a jet of pepper gas to less than one meter. He was sitting with his mother. The one who shot was policeman Cristian Rivaldi. No doubt. There are photos, videos and witnesses. But from the Ministry of Security they insisted on lowering the tone to the subject and even pointed against the protesters, almost for having caused the police reaction. When the foam of the theme went down, they rewarded the aggressor. Rivaldi was not sanctioned, but was promoted. They put it in charge of new operations.
The case of photographer Pablo Grillo was equally serious. On March 12, in a retiree march, which are already fixed every Wednesday, Grillo was hit in the head by a tear gas grenade. His skull fractured. I was working. They took photos. The one who triggered was the first Cape Guerrero, of Gendarmerie. He tried badly. The images show that he did it horizontally, when the protocol indicates that this type of ammunition should be shot obliquely to the floor. But Bullrich did not hesitate: he went out to bank it. He said that the projectile bounced, that Grillo was crouched and that the fault was of those who “want to turn to the government.” While Grillo was in a coma, the minister talked about conspiracies.
On the present of Guerrero, little is known, it is not yet known whether it was ascended or not, but within the government something striking passed and, perhaps, much worse: the graphic reporter who took the image that allowed to identify Guerrero is a precarious worker from the Ministry of Culture who has been hired as a photographer for 13 years. In the spare time he makes photos for other media, such as the uncover, and that afternoon he was triggering his camera at the right time and in the indicated place. His name is Kalian Santos Cabrera and in a striking way he was thrown out of his workplace. He had given in December the suitability examination that the government had demanded for all state workers and approved it. They renewed the contract. But after publishing the photos, they called him and told him that he was not going to continue, without giving him greater explanations. The message seems clear: he who shows the truth, goes home. He who squeezes the trigger, stays.
Third case: Beatriz Blanco, 87 years. Retiree. He was marching and began to shout at a policeman and tried to hit him with his cane. The police, much stronger, pushed her to the floor and the lady was thrown into the asphalt. What did Bullrich say? That was a “duck.” That is: a grandmother pushed by the police, turned into national threat. Because for this minister, the victim is always the enemy.
Are excesses, lack of training or is there a plan? In the Bullrich model, it seems that the street is not negotiated, it sweeps.
Bars In the days after the massive march of retirees -which joined various football fans who sang against the adjustment -Bullrich soon gave an answer that, more than politics, was disciplinary. As if it were a surgical counterattack, the Government presented in Congress a bill to prohibit Barrabravas access to the stadiums, but with a much broader reach than football. Under the title of “Regime for the Prevention and Repression of Crimes in Sports Shows”, the text includes from aggravated criminal figures to disqualifications, forced geolocation, closing of stages, and sanctions for leaders who collaborate with violent groups.
But the political context says it all: the law was sent just days after the bombs, rags and songs against the Government occupied the Plaza del Congress. In Bullrich’s reading, the stands are not just stands. They are a reservoir of political pointers, union networks, PJ operators. So, if there were bars on the street, that – for it – means that politics was also. And if politics mobilizes, you have to cut your legs. With this logic, the antibarras law is not only an attempt to order football, but also a retaliation tool against those who dared to march.
Bullrich does not hide this strategy. For her, the internal enemy has a diffuse face: it can be a bar, a retiree or a teacher. But if it is on the street, if you sing against the adjustment, if it is organized, it is suspicious. The law does not pursue crimes, but uncomfortable social behaviors. It is the 2025 version of the old “something will have done.” It doesn’t matter if you committed a crime: it is enough to be close to noise. And if you are part of the noise, the punishment is collective.
This movement is also a political signal within the Ministry: to reaffirm authority against security forces, showing that the government not only banks them when they repress, but also cleans the land. That guarantees that, in the next march, there will be no bars, or drums, or anyone who disputes the street. The problem is that, in that cleaning, rights, freedoms and even the presumption of innocence are carried out. But Bullrich never cared too much.
Justice. When someone challenges the government, Bullrich responds with punishment. It is his way of doing politics: those who are planted, ram them. It doesn’t matter if they are journalists, protesters, girls, photographers or a judge. Everyone applies the same logic: the Buenos Aires judge Roberto Gallardo tried to put a limit to the actions of the federal forces in the city of Buenos Aires for the march of Wednesday, April 9 in which the CGT participated. Bullrich far from obeying the ruling, doubled the bet and denounced it.
The episode occurred in the previous one of a new march of retirees, convened in front of Congress. It is a routine: every Wednesday, a protest; each protest, a security operation; Each operation, repression. Given this scenario, different social and union organizations – among them the CGT and the UTEP – presented a judicial protection so that the operation did not remain in the hands of the federal forces, for excessive violence.
Judge Gallardo was right. In his ruling, he ordered the Ministry of Security of the Nation to refrain from intervening in the march, and that the city government, through its own police, took over the operation. He founded his basic decision: the City of Buenos Aires did not adhere to the antipiquetes protocol imposed by Bullrich, and therefore, federal forces have no competence to deploy outside public buildings under their custody (such as Congress or the Casa Rosada).
Bullrich’s response was manual. Instead of complying with the ruling, he denounced him for poor performance before the Council of the City Magistracy. But the most serious thing was that Bullrich made it clear that he did not plan to fulfill the court order. He affirmed that, despite the ruling, the federal forces would also intervene, because the national government “will not give up its duty.”
Crisis. Meanwhile, inside the forces, the weather is another. There is discomfort. Row. Salaries are misery, the Churruca hospital is in crisis, and claims begin to be seen, especially in social networks.
The agents who graduate today of the cadet schools such as that of NCOs charge between 600,000 and 700,000 pesos. To this is added that the health coverage is deficit and if they are destined in the interior of the country – as many that were sent to the Federal Flag Plan to combat Rosario drug trafficking – they have to fix them alone: they do not know where to live, what to do with their children, how to cover the basic expenses. In the police halls they slide that these police officers “make the iron”, because nobody risks when it is in poor conditions.
The Churruca hospital, which was once proud of the Federal Police, is semi -empty. Doctors, image technicians, laboratory and nurses are missing. Every day, the resignations are published in the Internal Bulletin and a doctor is always tired of collecting miserable salaries and working in a system without inputs or structure. The most recurring claims are due to lack of shifts, because there are no specialists, or directly due to lack of attention. Every time a contest is opened to cover vacancies, the salary offered is so low that no one is presented. In the absence of health, they are offered a “telemedicine service”, outsourced, where “in five minutes a professional assumption offers a recipes for everything: from a headache pill to a diagnosis in neurology or pneumonology”, they complain at the police stations.
The problems are not only within the police. During an official visit to Aguas Blancas, Salta, in February of this year, where the border fence with Bolivia was inaugurated, Bullrich was approached by the father of a gendarme. The man, visibly moved, said: “My son does not have to eat. He lives with his two children in my house. He pays $ 450,000 for rent and wins $ 750,000. He does not reach him.”
Bullrich, surrounded by troops, responded by asking for confidence and mentioned that the Government works to implement housing solutions through the Procrear Plan, a program that was eliminated by decree in November 2023. It also highlighted the recent salary increase of 5%, added to other additional ones, which would total 7.89%.
The claim occurs in a context of growing discomfort in security forces for low salaries. Last week there were protests in Rosario, Buenos Aires and Santa Fe by relatives and close to Gendarmes, who denounce that income is not enough to cover the cost of living. The tension led the ministry to grant an increase in March, although many consider it insufficient.
To crown the level of disconnection with reality, this week an internal mail arrived at police intelligence agents: the permanent commission of celebrations of the criminal intelligence body, created to organize the 75th anniversary of the area, warned that everything is ready for the party, which will consist of an act with religious ceremony, lunch and present commemorative own agents and will cost $ 80,000 per head, which will be discounted in four monthly installments of their salaries. We will have to see if the Poly spies join the vaquita.
Risks A question that nobody wants to ask out loud is when there will be a death. Because with gases in the face, grenades fired at the head and grandmothers in the asphalt, the risk is no longer a metaphor: it is a statistic waiting to happen. It is not the first time that this land is paid. In December 2001, repression left a tragic balance: 39 dead throughout the country. In the city of Buenos Aires, five people were killed during repression against Plaza de Mayo. What happened to those responsible? They had a name and trial: Enrique Mathov, former Secretary of Security, was sentenced to more than four years in prison. The former Federal Police Chief, Rubén Santos, received the same penalty. The conviction arrived last year and it was a message: repression has consequences.
For now, the message is invested. Instead of punishing the one to repress, the one who denounces is punished. The salary to which he throws and throws himself is raised. Instead there is cynicism, and instead of justice, impunity. In Bullrich Argentina, violence is not an overflow: it is a line of command. The street, far from being a democratic space of expression, is treated as a zone released for the club. And if institutions do not slow down, if justice is intimidated and if society resigns, what follows is not repression: it is tragedy.
