Lacalle? Lackey!

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Lacalle? Lackey!
Fecha de publicación: 
23 September 2021
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Only a few minutes passed after the anti-Cuban and divisive diatribe of the Uruguayan president, Luis Lacalle Pou, at CELAC summit opening in Mexico City, when paid media suspiciously agreed in stating that he had ridiculed Miguel Díaz-Canel Bermúdez avoiding the strong response of the Cuban President, always in order to avoid disunity in the important event.

Just as Lacalle was spewing toads and snakes through his mouth, his face still hurt from the slap that workers of the main trade union center of the nation gave him, through the general strike against the measures of the right-wing government that took office in March 2020, for work, salary, national development and in defense of public companies.

Uruguay's social issues are visible in the interior of the small country of barely 187,000 square kilometers and also in the humble neighborhoods as well as downtown in the center of Montevideo, the capital, where many people survive thanks to the solidarity of soup kitchens.

There’s dissatisfaction with the drop in real wages, the increase in poverty and the lack of measures to neutralize the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic in the country. A total of 50,000 jobs were lost; there’s a significant number of people in unemployment insurance; wages fell 18 days in a year, that is, people work the same hours, but get paid 18 days less.

After participating in a meeting with the leaders of the landowner Rural Association, Lacalle gave a press conference where he questioned the demonstration: "it’s a clearly political strike."

OPPORTUNISM

The ruling party raises the bizarre idea that those who won the 2019 elections have the right to make all decisions for a five-year period, as the only interpreters of what’s good for the country, and that those who disagree are not opposed to the government, but opposed to the country.

The government has developed a legal instrument with which they attempt to quench with repression their looting project.

Journalist Gabriel Pereyra says:” Everything is a pile of ignorance, repeated mistakes, a classist security policy. (…) on top of repeating mistakes, add punches in the air, beatings to the weak, a regression of 30 years… we only see death, more violence, more fear, more people lost in the drain of misery.”

Exports are rising, but food is rationalized at schools. Inequality runs amok, every day there are more people without houses, and houses without people. Following wave of the pandemic, moves the neoliberal tide, and the popular grumbling beats against the government.

The adversary remains the same: foreign interests for natural resources, financial speculation and intent of those who scream for the division of a protecting State, therefore it’s impossible to foster a sustainable development model, environmental friendly, and committed to future generations.

Translated by Amilkal Labañino / CubaSí Translation Staff

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