Milagros Sala
Milagro Amalia Ángela Sala is a political, social and indigenous leader. Originally from the province of San Salvador de Jujuy in Argentina, as soon as she was born she was abandoned in a cardboard box in front of a hospital, she was promptly adopted. At the age of 14, he discovered its origin and decided to flee to the streets. According to her own account, she was involved in petty theft and the sale of cocaine, and the neighbors respected her because she shared the proceeds of her robberies with everyone. She also claims that, despite the fact that she was a drug dealer, she never took drugs.
At the age of eighteen, she was arrested for being linked to a robbery, and then a case was opened for her on the threat of homicide, robbery, illicit association and prostitution. Note 2 In prison she organized a hunger strike, the result was that the prey were allowed to cook, to achieve a better diet at the same cost. After eight months, she was acquitted due to the lack of evidence against her20 and was compensated by the State for the months that she had been imprisoned.21 The extreme situation of the prison, associated with various feelings of injustice, led her to become a militant social and political.
"When I was in jail I started to think that just as power was unfair to me, it was also unfair to how many humble boys. Justice is fair with those who have money, and with those who do not, no. So I vowed to myself there in jail that the day I left I would fight so that there would be no more injustice."
Sala began her membership as a delegate in the local branch of the ATE union, which is part of the CTA. During the presidency of Carlos Menem, in the 1990s. In 1998 he began his activities on the outskirts of the city of San Salvador de Jujuy with the organization of "cups of milk", the generic name by which community centers are known , which at first were only to provide food for the children, 27 28 and which later went on to also provide social services such as school help or training workshops.
Tupac Amaru is characterized by defending the inclusion of minorities, such as the LGBT community and indigenous peoples, with Evo Morales as a political model.28 30 It is distinguished by its broad framework of provision of goods, services and rights in the areas of work, social security and pensions, health, education and recreation for informal popular sectors, once unprotected by the State.
It has continued with the organization of "milk glasses", which in 2016 reached more than 1,200 in the province of Jujuy, 30 in addition to building more than 8,000 housing solutions in the province, a water park, a theme park, a cultural center, primary and secondary schools, and a tertiary professional training cycle where its members complete their studies and obtain legal degrees. It has also created textile and block construction factories. Regarding health services, it has created a social work, has primary care centers, pharmacies and clinics equipped with technology superior to that existing in public hospitals, as well as a five thousand square meter center for the care of disabilities. Periodically, Tupac Amaru carries out prevention campaigns with highly complex ambulances and its own personnel.
In 2012, through an assembly, the Túpac Amaru decided to create a political party called the Party for Popular Sovereignty as of 2013.34 The Party for Popular Sovereignty was recognized by the province of Jujuy in May 2013.35 The party presented before the Electoral Justice established a historical record of affiliations in the province by registering more than 73,000 affiliate files.
In 2013, Sala was elected as a deputy for the province of Jujuy and in 2015 she was elected as a Mercosur parliamentarian.
Criticism
On different occasions, Milagro Sala and other leaders of the Túpac Amaru were attributed despotic or dictatorial attitudes within the framework of the strong discipline imposed within the organization, 49 and discriminatory behaviors for privileging the demands of members of the organization over demands similar persons or groups outside of it, 50 for example in the services provided by community centers or in emergency situations related to health.
The organization has been compared, in a critical way, with a military battalion, slaves or sheep, due to the alleged lack of individual and collective agency on the part of the militants is equated in any of these concepts.30 At first At the time the militants were referred to in different media as "piqueteros", but as time went by in some media they were referred to as "shock forces" or "violent groups."
According to its defenders, the criticisms of Sala contain a "strong racist, sexist, class and xenophobic component", since in a large part of the comments it is possible to identify "the non-ascription to what is expected of a public woman, with questions of sexuality, crossed by race, ethnicity, class and education ”. Thus, she has been accused of "the use of violence, weapons and a marked" absence of femininity ", as well as of being a" false indigenous ".
Arrest
2016
- January 16: unidentified provincial police personnel raided the house of Milagro Sala, who was arrested without the presence of any judicial official, although provincial government officials were. His defenders formulate a request for his release, and when it is not resolved, they present a habeas corpus.
- January 17: Considering that it was an arbitrary detention, Jorge Taiana (president of Parlasur) asked Foreign Minister Susana Malcorra to "urgently send him information about the detention of the parliamentarian."
- January 26: Jez Mercau, at the request of the prosecutor Fernández de Montiel, issues an arrest warrant for Milagro Sala on the grounds of fraud, illicit association and extortion.
- January 29: Judge Mercau resolves the cessation of the detention of Milagro Sala in the case for the protest or camp, but does not regain her freedom due to the validity of the arrest warrant in the case of fraud, illicit association and extortion.
- February 25: the attorney general of the Institutional Violence Attorney's Office ruled that Milagro Sala is in fact illegally imprisoned. On the same day the release and re-arrest were ordered, the former Supreme Court judge, Raúl Zaffaroni, described the incident as "an institutional scandal unprecedented in the thirty-two years of constitutional life."
2017
- May 25: Pope Francis sent a letter to Sala, in which he affirmed that he understood her suffering and hoped that her prison situation would be resolved in the best possible way.
- May 27: The Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) announced that it accepted the invitation of the Argentine State to visit Milagro Sala.
- October 28: the UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention demanded the immediate release of Milagro Sala.
-October 14: She is transferred to Alto Comedero prison.
-October 21: Milagro Sala assures that she is not in good health, a few days after self-harm.
2018
- August 9: She begins a hunger strike, which lasts for ten days, in rejection of Pullen Llermanos' decision to send her to the federal prison of General Güemes, in Salta, contrary to a provisional measure of the Inter-American Court of Human Rights.
- August 18: Judge Pablo Pullen Llermanos ordered the transfer of the leader of the Tupac Amaru from the General Martín Guemes Federal Penitentiary Complex, in Salta, to her house in El Carmen to serve the domestic prison.
- August 28: The Criminal Court No. 3 decided to suspend the third hearing in the trial of the "Pibes Villeros" case, during which Salas suffered severe abdominal pain and had to be transferred immediately to the Pablo Soria hospital.
- August 30: The Argentine activist was discharged from the hospital and brought to trial immediately, without attending the 10-day rest suggested by the doctors.
- November 7: A new trial begins against the social leader Milagro Sala, for the cause known as "The Azorpado shooting", which took place in October 2007.
The oral trial will be conducted by judges Claudia Cecilia Sadir, Mónica Cruz Martínez and Liliana Pellegrini, members of the Criminal Court number 2.
- November 27: The Supreme Court of Justice of Argentina ratified the sentence against Milagro Sala for three years, after the defense will present an appeal in the case for the escrache to the governor of the province of Jujuy, Gerardo Morales.
- December 19: The Argentine Prosecutor's Office requested a 22-year prison sentence for the leader of Tupac Amaru, for an alleged illicit association to defraud and extort the State, in the Pibes Villeros case.
- December 27: The judges of the Criminal Court 2 of Jujuy acquitted Milagro Sala for the cause known as La Balacera de Azopardo that occurred on October 27, 2007 and for which she was accused of attempted homicide. Despite the court ruling, Milagro Sala will continue to be detained for other accusations against her.
Personal opinion
I've been hearing about Milagros Sala for four years. The Argentine media were in charge of destroying it publicly. But the Argentine people, throughout these years, took to the streets more than once to march for their liberation and for their "hunt" to end.
Milagos Sala, for me and for many people, represents the poor in power, represents those people that politicians sometimes forget: those of us who come from places that are not so beautiful for the campaign photography.
She not only helped the low-income people in Jujuy very significantly, but also gave her something to defend herself with: education. The training centers that his organization La Tupac Amaru has, allow thousands of people to have a bread every day.
I think that with all this judicial hunt that took place and continues today, we can also see how there is corruption in the political power. We have to keep in mind that when all their legal cases began, they were when the government of Mauricio Macri was in Argentina, a government where the country suffered a lot in terms of human rights, since they interfered in the personal businesses that our former president owned. .
Milagros Sala, for me it is;
The voice of a woman, like mine, who wants to help those in need.
The voice of someone poor, as well as mine, who wants to be heard.
The voice of someone who needed to get lost in order to find herself, as well as many
people who, by not receiving a good education, get lost.