READERS WRITE

A GREAT LOSS

Seventeen-year-old Lucas González was shot to death by plain-clothes police officers. The gruesome killing has devastated the family. Hours before the brutal murder, Lucas had been at Club de Barracas Central where he played as a midfielder.

I cannot imagine how his family can gather the strength to move forward if all they can do is to ask themselves the unanswered question of why Lucas’ future was nipped in the bud by ill-trained police officers who started shooting at him and at his friends on their way back home in a Volkswagen Suran car in circumstances that are under investigation.

Meanwhile, Lucas’ death has exposed a major flaw of the police force, which does not seem to train its officers for highspeed pursuits of suspects. It has transpired that the police officers were driving an unidentified car when they decided to give chase to the vehicle Lucas was in. The ensuing action must have been a scene of great confusion with the boys and the father of one of them at the wheel thought they were being chased by a gang of thugs. There is every indication that this is a case of the wanton murder of a boy described by his friends as a noble person and a talented footballer.

Adrian Insaubralde,

Santa Fe

LAWYERS ARE BAD ADMINISTRATORS

I took my first train ride to Retiro Station in two years last week. As we approached the terminal we went through the Retiro railway yards. They are a disgrace by any standard: massive amounts of abandoned wagons, engines, rails, sleepers machines and garbage. All of this is visible from windows of the railroad administration building that overlooks the yards.

The mess reflects the incompetence, dishonesty, ignorance and disinterest of generations of railway managers. Most of the upper-level managers of the government-owned companies are political appointments and, all too often, lawyers. I have asked various lawyers what they are taught in accounting, management, finances and planning. The typical answer is “one semester.” There lies the answer to many of Argentina’s problems: key positions are generally held by people who simply are not trained for the job. As long as this pattern continues we will see giant garbage dumps like the Retiro railway yard expand to be the whole country.

Henry Whitney, via email

THE GATHERING STORM

Add the record country risk to rapidly growing terrorism, on top of accelerated inflation, record poverty and unemployment and general insecurity, all this rounded out by a populace fed up with living in a state of permanent anxiety and you have a container full of gas which only requires some special sort of spark to explode in a million pieces. Meanwhile 95 percent of our politicians (being generous!), whether they are pro-government or in the opposition, are busy looking after their positions entirely blind to what very probably will happen. Really, the distance between the political corporation and the man on the street has, in my mind, never at all been so great.

So what is to be recommended, at this point, is that the common citizen filters the potential leaders who will help carry the country out of this horrendous mess from those that have made politics their means of living. The few valuable ones are those that spell out the bitter truth, who promise blood, sweat, toil and tears but who also give us hope that we can and will pull our Argentina upwards again, because: “It’s the Republic, darn it”!

Harry Ingham, City

A BULL IN A CHINA SHOP

Hasn’t he resigned yet? Or apologised publicly? Rafael Bielsa, I mean. His “inappropriate” remarks, to put it mildly, were preposterous, because he’s not the man in the street, a Mr No-one, but Argentina’s ambassador to Chile. Therefore, the impact of his words affects us all and our country’s relation to Chile. Can’t he possibly distinguish between a private opinion and public remarks that clearly interfere in Chile’s internal affairs? Shall we remind him that he’s a diplomat in office? Although our government has tried to minimise Bielsa’s statements (in keeping with their usual denialist mood), I still think his words were tactless, irresponsible, callous, unwise, rude. A bull in a china shop.

Irene Bianchi, Ringuelet, La Plata

BATTLE OF THE BULGE: PART 171

Learned colleague Andres Oppenheimer, in a column published last Wednesday in La Nación, mentioned that the prestigious publication Financial Times has written us off as a lost case. No hope for Argentina, whilst the present misgovernment continues to mess things up.

Oppenheimer strikes a more hopeful stance, observing that the recent midterm elections reveal that fully two-thirds of the electorate are ’agin the government.’ It’s going to be a long drawn out battle over the next two years!

Meanwhile, inflation continues on its merry way and we all know that this is a tax on the poor. Casual or causal? ‘Feletti, Futiletti!!!’

David Parsons, via email