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ENGLISH VERSION
Airstrike robbery
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VERSIÓN ESPAÑOL
Paro por robo
Lo que resultó más espectacular de las noticias que rodearon al paro sorpresivo de aeropuertos del jueves fue el robo de 80.000 dólares con destino al Banco Central desde la Reserva Federal de Washington en el aeropuerto internacional de Ezeiza, especialmente a menos de dos meses de que se detectara una cantidad mucho mayor de dinero no declarado en la valija de un empresario venezolano en Aeroparque, por no mencionar el escándalo de las valijas repletas de cocaína en el vuelo de Southern Winds en 2004 que se encuentra actualmente en juicio. Pero la huelga quizás deba ser considerada como más seria que el robo, no sólo por el caos que afectó a miles de pasajeros el jueves sino también por el principio subyacente detrás de la huelga. Y el principio por el que se tuvo de rehenes a miles de pasajeros fue la estabilidad laboral: estabilidad laboral inclusive para aquellos, como el famoso “cirujano”, culpables de robar bienes valiosos del equipaje que se les confía. Eso y las insinuaciones de que la Policía de Seguridad Aeronáutica de Marcelo Sain (fruto del escándalo de Southern Winds) no debía estar cumpliendo con sus tareas cuando anteriormente los gremios de aeroportuarios habían insistido en que hubiera presencia policial antes de cualquier inspección de equipaje. En resumidas cuentas, los sindicatos ponen a sus intereses corporativos por sobre la ley.
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The spectacular part of the news surrounding Thursday’s surprise airport strike was the robbery of 80,000 Central Bank-bound dollars from Washington’s Federal Reserve at Ezeiza international airport — especially coming less than two months after a far larger sum of undeclared currency was detected in a Venezuelan businessman’s suitcase at Aeroparque downtown airport, not to mention the 2004 Southern Winds cocaine-laden suitcase scandal now undergoing trial. But perhaps the strike should be considered more serious than the robbery — not only because of the chaos affecting thousands of passengers on Thursday but because of the underlying principle behind the strike. And that principle holding thousands of people hostage was job security — job security even for those like the notorious “surgeon” who are guilty of robbing valuable cargoes entrusted to them. That and the insinuation that Marcelo Saín’s reformed airport police force (the fruit of the Southern Winds scandal) should not be doing its job when previously the cargo-handlers’ union had insisted on police presence before any luggage inspection. In a word, the trade unions are placing their vested interests above the law.
Thursday’s disgraceful events provide at least two powerful reasons not to send human or merchandise traffic through Argentine airports — the disruptions plaguing passengers as a result of arbitrary union action and the distinct risk of any goods entrusted to the care of the Argentine aviation system being robbed. This strike virtually in defence of the robbery of Federal Reserve funds should thus be regarded as nothing less than a challenge to the country’s good name which must be directly confronted — especially when Argentina is sedulously wooing the tourist industry as a spinoff from a long-term low exchange rate policy and especially when the ruling party’s presidential candidate Cristina Fernández de Kirchner has been at pains to send positive signals to the developed world in general and the United States in particular.
Given that “follow the money” is the guiding principle of any investigation, it would be nice if the stolen funds could be located but there was no sign of them at the time this editorial was written. But perhaps even more disturbing has been the complete government indifference to this disgraceful scandal (again, at least until this editorial was written). Since one of this government’s most frequent slogans is “a serious country,” why does it not put its action where its mouth is?
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