On June 26, 2002, almost six months after the people’s rebellion of December 19-20, 2001 in Argentina which obliged, in a question of hours, the resignation of the government of Fernando de la Rúa, a sector of piqueteros organizations (headed by the Polo Obrero) held a protest together with other social sectors (neighborhood assemblies, median sectors of savings account holders, students, self-administered factories) against the policy of hunger of then Peronist President Eduardo Duhalde, who was filling in as “transition” between the overthrown De la Rúa and the current president Kirchner.
The protest was part of a resolution voted four days before by a National Workers Assembly (which grouped together a large part of these sectors) and consisted in the blocking of the twelve bridges and points of access to the City of Buenos Aires (of which the Pueyrredon Bridge of the City of Avellaneda is one) as a means of protest. In the days leading up to the measure of struggle, the then national government of Duhalde had warned publicly that it would not allow the roadblocks “whatever the cost”.
Even though the State’s repressive measures were extended to all points of the protest, it was on the Pueyrredon Bridge of the City of Avellaneda where the main focus of the repression at the hands of the various police forces (Federal and of the Province of Buenos Aires) was unleashed, with the assistance of the Argentine Naval Prefecture.
Siege was laid against the City of Avellaneda for more than four hours and the result of the repressive operations was two unemployed youths assassinated (Maximiliano Kosteki and Darío Santillán, militants of the Movimiento de Trabajadores Desocupados / Movement of Unemployed Workers), as well as hundreds of wounded with lead gunshot wounds in various places around the City.
Hours after the events, President Duhalde and the Governor of the Province of Buenos Aires, Felipe Sola (who is still in office today) publicly congratulated the police forces and reported that the assassinations were the work of “confrontations between piqueteros”. Meanwhile, hundreds of thousands of demonstrators, on the same day as the events, marched to the historic Plaza de Mayo (May Square) in order to repudiate the repression and demand Duhalde’s resignation.
48 hours after the events, published on the front pages of the newspapers of massive circulation, were photos taken by press workers who witnessed the repression, which showed how the youths were had been shot point blank by the police.
The next day, while the indignation of the population grew, then President Eduardo Duhalde announced to the country over the national radio network the bringing forward of the national elections.
