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VERSIÓN ESPAÑOL
Delito por omisión
El asesinato a tiros del industrial nacido en Alemania, Helmuth Mielke, por dos delincuentes el fin de semana pasado en un barrio cerrado que él mismo fundó debería recordarnos de manera contundente que las complejidades de las elecciones ajustadas en Chaco no son cuestión de vida o muerte, mientras que el delito a menudo lo es. El caso de Mielke dista de ser aislado: hasta ahora en 2007 ha habido más robos en barrios cerrados que semanas en el año, para no hablar de los miles de delitos contra ciudadanos menos protegidos. Tan sólo la semana pasada al regresar del Abierto de los E.E.U.U. el famoso ex tenista José Luis Clerc (superado sólo por Guillermo Vilas en la historia del tenis argentino y en 23ª lugar en el ranking histórico mundial) encontró revuelto su hogar en un barrio cerrado también al norte de esta capital.
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The fatal shooting of the German-born industrialist Helmuth Mielke by two robbers last weekend in a gated community founded by himself should remind us forcefully that the intricacies of a close Chaco election are not a matter of life and death whereas crime all too often is. Mielke’s case is far from isolated — so far into 2007 there have already been more robberies in gated communities than there are weeks in a year, never mind thousands of crimes against less protected citizens. Only last week the famous former tennis-player José Luis Clerc (second only to Guillermo Vilas in Argentine tennis history and 23rd in the all-time world rankings) returned from the US Open to find his home rifled in a gated community also lying north of this capital
Throughout human history security has always been an individual responsibility but a society can only call itself civilized when this responsibility ultimately belongs to the state. Since the scene of the crime (the Chacras del Molino gated community in Capilla del Señor) was Mielke’s own creation, it might be easy enough to argue that, along the lines of the British saying: “An Englishman’s home is his castle,” he did not build his castle strongly enough. All too often, gated communities are just that, a gatehouse, which is a symbol of security rather than the reality — barbed-wire perimeters are not enough, especially in open country, and even security cameras must be backed by a reliable security staff.
Nevertheless, the primary responsibility lies in the state’s failure to see its role as lying beyond winning elections and collecting taxes. This abdication goes beyond mere crime-fighting, which has been sorely neglected. For example, the state has no policy on the eruption of shantytowns near prosperous areas (which are usually to blame collectively for crimes although not all shanty residents or even the majority are at fault) — a conservative approach would be to relocate or restrict these breeding-grounds of crime while a progressive mentality would dictate active low-income housing policies but this government does neither. In an even broader sense, the insufficient security against crime is allied to a lack of security at all levels, whether legal, institutional or even the supposed custodians of law and order, the police — the number of murders in this country and the far higher death toll claimed by traffic accidents should be seen as correlated phenomena. And all of this should be laid at the door of a state whose efficiency in collecting taxes is progressing in an inverse direction to its efficiency in performing its duties.
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