Martina Jaureguy With just hours until show time, a judge ordered the cancellation of a trap concert scheduled to take place Wednesday at the ex-ESMA memory compound. The decision came after the Justice Ministry filed an eleventh-hour stay to stop the gig. Human rights organizations have accused the government of censorship.
Milo J, an 18-year-old rising star of the Argentine trap scene, was set to launch the deluxe version of his second album, 166, with a 7:30 p.m. performance. The concert was free to attend and 20,000 fans had registered online when the show was announced on Saturday.
At around 1 p.m., military police began to arrive outside the compound, where thousands of fans were waiting in line to enter. Some had been camping out since Monday to secure a good spot. They learned that their efforts had been in vain around 3:30 p.m., when the concert’s cancellation was announced.
“I guess the current government doesn’t like us gathering 20,000 people at a memory site,” the singer said during a short livestream on his Instagram account to announce the news. “I didn’t charge for the tickets, I wanted this to be for free. I don’t know what the president’s excuse is for suspending it.”
The Justice Ministry filed a stay at an administrative court in Buenos Aires around midday on Wednesday.
Argentina’s former Navy School of Mechanics (ESMA by its Spanish initials) was used as the country’s most notorious clandestine torture center during the last military dictatorship. Today, it operates as a memorial museum, and major human rights organizations including the Grandmothers of Plaza de Mayo are headquartered there. It was declared a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 2023. The space has enormous symbolic importance for the human rights movement.
The ex-ESMA compound is a public entity jointly operated by the national government, Buenos Aires City Government, and a directorate of human rights organizations.
Permit problems?
The ministry’s stay said that the human rights directorate — which includes the Mothers and Grandmothers of Plaza de Mayo and H.I.J.O.S. — did not have national or local government permission for the concert, making the event “illegal and arbitrary”.
Justice Minister Mariano Cúneo Libarona wrote in an X post on Wednesday afternoon that the event “did not have the corresponding security measures” and that “no one has the privilege of carrying out these kinds of political events against the law.”
Judge María Alejandra Biotti’s ruling also mentions a note filed Tuesday by Human Rights Secretary Alberto Baños, expressing concern that the compound was not accessible to ambulances or fire trucks, the emergency evacuation plan was “unknown,” and that security could not be guaranteed.
An ‘obvious ideological factor’
However, Charly Pisoni, an activist with the human rights organization H.I.J.O.S., disputes the government’s account of events. Founded by relatives of those disappeared by the dictatorship, H.I.J.O.S. led the concert’s organization.
Pisoni said the concert was part of a series of festivals human rights organizations have been holding every month for over a year, but that this was the first time Baños had asked for such a permit.
Pisoni also added that, while rights organizations run the ex-ESMA space jointly with the national and local government, it is the rights organizations who determine what activities will be held there.
Milo J’s production company had assumed responsibility for the concert’s expenses, including security. Pisoni said that, contrary to Cúneo Libarona’s claims, the company had presented all the necessary paperwork for the show, including the evacuation plan, permits, insurance, and other documents.
He also questioned why Baños, who had known about the concert since Monday, had not called a meeting with the organizations before filing the stay.
“It is obvious that there is an ideological factor in the judge’s ruling,” Pisoni said.
Milo J, María Becerra and Lali Espósito
Milo J has held several concerts and activities alongside human rights organizations in the past. “[Milo] grew up in a family that, sadly, was very close to what happened in the civic-military dictatorship,” the artist’s mother and manager, Aldana Ríos, told Urbana Play radio station on Thursday morning. “We have a case that’s very painful for us […] My mother is a victim of state terrorism. Milo never net his biological grandmother.”
This is the latest incident in a series of high-profile clashes between President Javier Milei’s government and Argentine popstars. Aside from his ongoing feud with singer Lali Espósito, on Thursday he accused María Becerra of “speaking out according to who fills her pockets” after the singer launched a crowdfunding campaign to help stop the fires currently blazing in Patagonia.
“If the state isn’t bringing the necessary help, we will,” Becerra had said during a concert on Sunday.