Milei supporters launch ‘armed wing’ to protect president

Group started by pro-Milei influencer to act as ‘praetorian guard’ for Argentine president

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Supporters of Javier Milei have launched what they are calling an “armed” group to defend Argentina’s outspoken president and his ultra-libertarian agenda.
Daniel Parisini, a prominent pro-Milei influencer, said the group, called the Forces of Heaven, will act as a “praetorian guard” for Mr Milei while also competing in the internal elections of his party, Freedom Advances.
Mr Parisini, known as “Fat Dan”, launched the group over the weekend at a raucous event in a Buenos Aires hall draped with medieval style banners bearing a crest with a cross and the words “property”, “liberty”, “god”, “family” and “homeland”.
Speakers included Nahuel Sotelo, the culture minister, and Alejandro Álvarez, the universities deputy minister. Two Freedom Advances members of congress, Agustín Romo y Santiago Santurio, also attended the event.
No weapons were on display and it is unclear whether Mr Parisini and his followers genuinely intend to use violence or the threat of it to confront Mr Milei’s political adversaries.
The development has sent shock waves across Argentina, which is still coming to terms with the legacy of a far-right military dictatorship that killed and disappeared thousands of Left-wing activists in the 1970s and 1980s.
In a fiery speech, Mr Parisini, who has 265,000 followers on X, formerly Twitter, told the crowd, mainly of young men, to defend Mr Milei’s economic reforms and culture war against leftists, feminists and the political establishment.
“The group the Forces of Heaven, that is being founded here today, is the armed wing of Freedom Advances. We are his [Mr Milei’s] most loyal soldiers, the ones who were here from the start and who will be here until the end,” said Mr Parisini.
Mr Milei, who is currently in Rio de Janeiro for the G20 summit of global leaders, has yet to comment on the Forces of Heaven. But Guillermo Francos, his cabinet chief, has defended the group and played down any suggestion of violence.
“It’s a group of people, of intellectuals, of economists and of professionals from various walks of life who are working on their own account, providing research that they are carrying out on issues that concern the government and Argentines,” Mr Francos said in a radio interview.
The development comes as Mr Milei achieves some notable but painful success in reining in Argentina’s chronic fiscal deficit, having cut government spending by nearly a third in his 11 months in office.
He also continues to push his anti-woke agenda internationally. Last week, Argentina was the only one of 184 countries in the UN General Assembly opposing a resolution on violence against women and girls.
A total of 170 countries voted for the measure while 13 abstained, including Iran, Russia and North Korea.
The Milei administration argues that the wording against “misinformation”, “disinformation” and “hate speech” could be used to censor.
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