Some of the members of the murga who were shot by gendarmerie officers, including eight-year-old Carlos Ariel Sulca (top left and right), and murga director Gustavo González (Photo via Garganta Poderosa)
At least a dozen people, including several children, were reported injured after police and gendarmerie officers fired on a murga (carnaval dancing troupe) in Bajo Flores.
The violent incident occurred at around 9pm last Friday night, according to Gustavo González, leader of the ‘Los Auténticos Reyes del Ritmo’ murga, which performs in Villa 1-11-14.
Describing the shooting in a letter published today on social media by La Garganta Poderosa, González said that the security forces opened fire “without provocation” after trying to force their vehicles through a group that included more than 80 children as they rehearsed dance routines in the street.
“I told them that there were many children, to not do anything, but he [a gendarmerie officer] had pushed me over before I finished speaking,” said González. “Before I had even hit the ground he began firing his shotgun.
“I was hit all over with rubber bullets. As soon as I could I got up and ran for cover but by then there were many officers firing without mercy. Just like that, shooting at us like mad men without caring that there were children all around. It was a total disaster, they were shooting indiscriminately.”
González said that his teenage son tried to protect him, and was hit in the ankle with a live round that left him a gaping wound. An estimated 16 people were injured, including several young children, with at least two hospitalised.
Eight-year-old Carlos Ariel Sulca was hit twice by rubber bullets, one in the leg and another just above his right eye. His testimony was also shared by La Garganta Poderosa today.
“For two years I’ve been dancing for fun in my neighbourhood villa 1-11-14’s murga, but on Friday I was really scared when they shot and me and my friends. I felt a bang on my head and leg, which turned out to be two rubber bullets… yesterday at midday, when I walked by a gendarmerie officer, I asked him: ‘Why did you shoot at me, I’m only eight?’. He just replied: ‘Beat it, you little shit, because next time we’ll blow your head off’.”
“We have witnessed a new and sorry act of institutional violence in villa 1-11-14,” said Lorena Pokoik, a legislator for the opposition Frente para la Victoria (FpV) who visited the neighbourhood the day after the repression.
“The Gendarmerie is trying to justify the action and use of guns by claiming that it was part of an active operation… but videos filmed by local residents with their phones show how the director of the murga [González] tries to speak to the officers and is hit by 14 rubber bullets.”
A statement released on Saturday by the National Gendarmerie said that two officers had been injured after being shot during an operation to collect two cars that had been reported stolen and were abandoned in villa 1-11-14.
“The officers were operating in a nameless passageway between the Charrúa and Bonorino streets when they were attacked with sticks, stones, and gunfire,” read the statement, which made no mention of the murga group or use of weapons.
However, Leonardo Demonty, an activist in the neighbourhood who also witnessed the shooting, told Notas that the security forces initiated the violence.
“They had been practising the dance [in that alley] every day for the last two months, that’s why we think they deliberately wanted to pass through there. They could have gone around the block and passed through,” said Demonty. “I think it was part of an effort to discriminate and generate fear.”
“Once again they tried to silence us, lying about what happened and inventing things like we had started to throw rocks because of a raid conducted that morning,” said González, criticising the security forces and the media coverage of the repression. “They even showed a video and claimed it was a war between drug gangs! More lies. There was no war, or a raid, but they report this version so as not to talk about the true repression that our murga, our neighbourhood, our people suffered.”
Earlier today, residents of the villa and other social groups marched in Villa 1-11-14 to protest against police violence.
“So that this never happens again to any murga or person, and so that there are no more cases of police shootings, we march today and we will march again, because things cannot remain this way,” explained González. “Our crime was to run a murga that tries to get children off the street, so they can be happy and have fun.”
Representatives of PROCUVIN (the prosecutor’s office against institutional violence) and the Justice Ministry were taking testimony from the victims today, reported La Nación.
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