On July 9, the President of Argentina, Javier Milei, led the military parade commemorating Argentina’s independence from Spain, it was the first parade in five years. According to a government statement, “Despite the polar wave, thousands of people came to accompany the Veterans of the Malvinas War and the members of the Armed and Security Forces who paraded through the neighborhood of Palermo”.
According to several experts, since the return to democracy, this year’s July 9 parade is the largest deployment of soldiers and armaments in a parade of these characteristics: about 7,000 soldiers, 70 vehicles, and 62 combat aircraft. These troops were joined by dozens of veterans of the Malvinas War. Also present were the Minister of Defense, Luis Petri; the Minister of Security, Patricia Bullrich; the Chief of the General Staff, Rear Admiral Carlos María Allievi; among others.
Several opposition politicians have criticized the lavish parade, especially since Milei had warned in his inaugural speech as president that “there is no money”. Taty Almeida, one of the key leaders of the Mothers of Plaza de Mayo, said that “all that money [invested in the military parade] Milei should have invested it in feeding the people who are hungry, not longing to see military bands. It is reprehensible, like everything that Milei’s government has been doing… It is aberrant, totally deplorable, this nonsense of mobilizing the military and spending millions.”
One of the most peculiar moments of the parade occurred when the far-right President Milei climbed into a battle tank while inviting his vice-president, Victoria Villarruel, to ride in the combat vehicle with him. This act, which broke the established protocol, can be seen symbolically as a declaration of the alliance between the military and the government that Milei has been trying to establish since the beginning of his mandate. Something that in another country might seem anecdotal, in Argentina acquires a special meaning, taking into account the role played by the Armed Forces during the last military dictatorship (1976-1983), which, according to some Human Rights sources, murdered and disappeared more than 30,000 people, a fact that Mieli has repeatedly denied.
During the military act, dozens of sympathizers of the libertarian government attended. Some of them displayed banners and messages in favor of the past military dictatorship, as well as messages in favor of the armed groups called “Carapintadas”, which attempted four coups d’état between 1987 and 1990 to the recently constituted democratic State (the Easter Week uprising in 1987, the Monte Caseros and Villa Martelli uprisings in 1988, and the revolt of December 3, 1990): “The Carapintadas were right”, said one of the large banners.
Another element that has been read as a symbolic message in favor of the military dictatorship is that several Ford Falcon cars were driven around the city of Buenos Aires. That was the model of car that the special groups of the dictatorship used to kidnap opponents of the military regime and then torture and assassinate them. Despite this, other people have said that it was a coincidence since the Ford Falcon was a car produced in Argentina during the second half of the 20th century and that it was rather a car parade that had no political motivations.
In response to this controversy, Uruguayan-American writer Jorge Majfud wrote on his X account: “Two journalist friends from Mexico ask me what the ‘Falcons’ mean. That one is easy to explain. Ford Falcons were used by the Argentine dictatorship of Videla and company to kidnap dissidents. This practice had begun with the proto-neofascist government of Isabel Perón and her ‘advisors’ such as ‘El brijo’ Lopecito and the creation of the Triple A (‘Argentine Anticommunist Alliance’). As in the times of McCarthyism in the United States, ‘communists’ were all those who did not conform to their dogma.”
In addition, several former military officers accused of having tortured soldiers during the Malvinas War, such as Emilio Samyn Duco, Eduardo Gassino and Jorge Taranto, marched through the streets. All these facts together have provoked reactions of suspicion and fear against some of the supporters of Milei’s government, who vindicate some of the most controversial episodes of Argentina’s recent history.
