Argentina: Struggle For Dignity And Rights In Jujuy Continues

Mobilizations continue across Jujuy in rejection of the reforms to the local constitution, promoted by conservative Governor Gerardo Morales. On Thursday, June 22, tens of thousands of people mobilized across the country as part of a national strike to express solidarity with the people of Jujuy and against the actions of Morales.

The reform passed last week modified 66 of the 212 articles. The people of Jujuy have strongly rejected the new constitution, deeming it “unconstitutional” and “regressive.” They have noted that the new constitution does not recognize the rights of the Indigenous peoples, enshrined in the national constitution, and promotes the provincial-level management of natural resources such as land and water. They have denounced that it paves the way for the displacement of Indigenous communities that are inhabiting territories of extractivist interests, denying them their collective rights to ancestral lands and territories.

In Jujuy, Indigenous communities, teachers’ unions, and social organizations continue to organize marches and blockades of major roads and highways across the province. They are demanding the withdrawal of the reforms to the provincial constitution, which were approved on June 15 without the necessary prior consultation.

In the capital of Buenos Aires, around a hundred people demonstrated in front of the Casa de Jujuy, the office of the province in the capital, condemning the brutal police repression unleashed against the protesters in Jujuy by Morales. Mobilizations in support of the people of Jujuy were also held in the provinces of Córdoba, San Luis, Santa Fe, and others.

Source: The Peoples Dispatch / Globetrotter News Service