Critics accused President Javier Milei of “censorship” on Wednesday after his government blocked a free show by chart-topping rapper and songwriter Milo J at the site of the ex-ESMA clandestine detention centre.
The cancellation, apparently down to an alleged lack of correct permits, happened just minutes before a 7:30pm listening party at the Museo Sitio de Memoria ESMA, the site of the largest torture camp during the brutal 1976-1983 military dictatorship, was about to kick off.
But management for Milo J, who has supported human rights causes in the past and this week launched his latest record, said they had the correct permits and that the government was committing an “act of censorship.”
“We have presented an injunction to suspend the concert that was going to be held today (Wednesday) at the Museo Sitio de Memoria ESMA for not having the corresponding authorisation and security measures. It is a space that depends on the National State and no one has privileges to carry out this type of political act outside the law,” said Justice Minister Mariano Cúneo Libarona in a post on social media.
The cancellation left 20,000 rabid fans without a show. Several hundred had arrived early at the venue for the free concert when police began enforcing a court order and dismantling an erected stage.
“I guess gathering 20,000 people at a space of memory doesn't sit well with the government,” said Milo J, 18, in a post on Instagram.
Aldana Ríos, Milo J's mother and manager, a lawyer by profession, said Thursday that “all the permits were in place” for the show, which had been days in the making.
“We feel it is a censorship of an 18-year-old boy, it is very serious for everyone,” Ríos told Radio Con Vos.
The security operation “was designed to suspend it minutes before the doors opened – it was intentional,” she said.
History of ESMA
The Museo de la Memoria Ex-Esma, in the Núñez neighbourhood of Buenos Aires City, is emblematic of the dark period in Argentina's history that left an estimated 30,000 people killed or forcibly disappeared, according to human rights groups. Of those, about 5,000 entered the site.
Today as a museum and space of memory, the site exists to “disseminate and transmit through disclosure the events that happened to the victims of state terrorism in the clandestine centre of the Esma,” according to its statutes.
Established in 1928 to instruct naval officers and sailors, it was the largest and most active detention, torture and extermination centre operated by former genocidal soldiers being tried by civil courts to this day.
Prisoners were tortured, beaten, raped, kept in chains for months on end, hooded — all in the hopes they would give up other people suspected of being "subversives."
Pregnant detainees had their babies taken and given to families with connections to the dictatorship. Several still don't know their true identities today, with human rights groups still searching for “lost grandchildren.”
Every week, detainees were rounded up for what they were told were "transfers," but were in fact so-called “death flights” during which prisoners were thrown out of planes over the Río de la Plata — both dead and alive.
Milo J has paid tribute to the Madres de Plaza de Mayo and Abuelas de Plaza de Mayo human rights groups during his concerts. His maternal grandmother was a victim of the dictatorship.
Last year, the Milei administration sparked controversy with a video produced to mark the anniversary of the March 24, 1976 coup that brought the military dictatorship to power, in which it called for a “complete memory” of the conflict.
It also claimed the estimate of 30,000 disappeared was manufactured by human rights groups.
Government critics responded accusing officials of denialism and of relativising the crimes of the dictatorship.
Attack on artists
Ríos compared the cancellation of this week’s concert, at which Milo J was going to launch his latest album 166 (DELUXE) retirada, with recent attacks from Milei on fellow musicians María Becerra and Lali Espósito.
Both female artists have been targeted with abuse and mockery on social networks, including from Milei, after expressing criticism of the government.
Milo J, Lali and Becerra are part of a new generation of Argentine musicians with massive shows and hundreds of millions of monthly reproductions on streaming platforms.
Last January, Milo J sold out shows in Madrid and Barcelona with more than 20,000 spectators.
Following the setback, the young musician was backed by a number of top artists, including rock nacional legends Charly García and Nito Mestre, trap icon Trueno and others.
Ríos revealed in her radio interview that García had written to her son personally to express support.
“Charly García wrote to him yesterday through his wife and told him: ‘Stay calm, you know how many times they censored me when I was in Sui Generis?’” said the artist’s mother.
“Cami [Camilo, Milo J’s real name] couldn't believe that Charly was talking with him and that he was saying ‘Welcome to the club,’ basically,” said the artist’s mother.
Asked about the Milei administration’s decision to shut down the show, Ríos called it “a democratically elected government that perhaps feels threatened by certain artists who have a very strong appeal to a young audience.”
She continued: “During a campaign, it is easy to deceive people and make them believe about caste and that human rights are not such. Once you enter the ex-ESMA memorial site, it is very difficult to sustain the discourse that what happened there is not real.”
– TIMES/AFP/NA
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