I’ll tell you about the violent Argentina behind the attack on Messi’s in-laws
Drug trafficking, terrorism, corruption and politics: what's behind the attack on Messi's in-laws in Argentina. The in-depth analysis of Livio Zanotti, author of Ildiavolononmuoremai
The daily news makes politics – always, everywhere – and it is the blackest news of drug trafficking and corruption, of the attacks and the people killed on the street that inevitably accompany it, to become a determining factor in Argentina.
THE SITUATION IN ARGENTINA
Just eight months before the elections for the new President of the Republic and the Congress, to which over 30 million Argentines will be called (even sixteen-year-olds can vote). While inflation (100 percent in 2022) devours the economy, wages and profits (as always the former faster than the latter); and drought dries up agricultural exports (primary source of hard currency). Although country risk and unemployment have been reduced (the latter nonetheless still at 7 per cent, backed by a significant informal labor market). Insecurity becomes the topic of the day and the opposition makes it its battle horse against the central government of Alberto Fernandez.
WHAT HAPPENED TO ROSARIO
The firefront invests Rosario, the second or third conurbation of the country (after Buenos Aires and in constant competition with Cordoba), an industrial and commercial center with 1,800,000 inhabitants, 300 km from the national capital. Its port on the western bank of the majestic Rio Paranà, generous with muddy water and invisible ravines, is the way out for 70 percent of national exports. But not from today also the terminal of powerful smuggling chains that descend from Brazil and mostly from Paraguay, the country that exercises the least control of its borders in the subcontinent. Thanks to the dizzying added value of drugs and their strong expansion, drug trafficking has entered it for a couple of decades, finally taking control of it, previously traditionally exercised by that of weapons. Criminal activity replaces the decadence of the production system in the province.
He has infiltrated at least the local public administration, not necessarily at the top; but certainly in its operative ganglia, in the control and surveillance system of incoming and outgoing goods. At the latest last weekend, two police officers were arrested after they were caught dining with a group of narcos . They are not the only ones. Argentina does not produce narcotic drugs, as far as we know; however it has been a transit corridor for a very long time (from Colombia, Bolivia, Brazil to Europe) and lately also a not negligible consumer market. Politics would be at least incautious if it were deemed a priori unscathed. And in any case, both the current government and the previous ones, Peronist and anti-Peronist, are called by the citizens to answer for a vision in which the contingency, its immediate partisan interests seem to prevail over what should be a coherent state policy.
THE ATTEMPT ON LIONEL MESSI'S IN-LAWS
If the state doesn't advance or just waves flags, organized crime gets the hang of it. Without worrying about causing the greatest outcry, even international; perhaps purposely pursuing it for some still obscure reason. In fact, it cannot be considered naive to the point of attacking the supermarket of world champion Lionel Messi's in-laws with volleys of 9 caliber bullets, in the more commercial Rosario, without expecting serious reactions at all levels. So it can be believed that he had taken them into account.
The famous footballer is very attached to his city, although growing difficulties led his parents to move him to Barcelona at the age of fourteen to receive more effective treatments. He visits her whenever he can, he has said and repeated that one day he intends to return to reside there next to his family of origin who have never left.
At the height of his fame for the victory in Qatar, a literate as well as armed hand left him written in capital letters on a randomly torn piece of paper: ”MESSI WE ARE WAITING FOR YOU. JAVKIN IS A NARCO, HE WILL NOT PROTECT YOU… “. An explicitly threatening political message, whose true intentions at the moment nonetheless appear indecipherable.
Pablo Javkin, 51, a lawyer, has been the esteemed mayor of Rosario since 2019, when his mandate is about to expire. Nobody thinks in the slightest that he could have anything to do with drug traffickers , he is a sincere democrat of moderate tendency who could present himself as a candidate for the government of the region at the next consultation. At the moment he has only some health problems. The current governor, the justicialist Oscar Perotti, is in turn an experienced and well-known manager above all suspicion and a person of uncommon breadth of vision and generosity. So much so that he immediately showed concrete solidarity and support for the mayor.
The certainties are all in the deterioration of the situation in which the inhabitants of the populous port city live and in the still inadequate assistance of the Buenos Aires government, which has also sent federal agents and investigative technology in recent months. Last year, in Rosario, the shootings between the various criminal gangs and against the police were over a thousand, with almost one dead a day. In the first 2 months of 2023 they have further intensified as well as the episodes of extortion. An emergency of unprecedented gravity. The special police and judicial intervention units recently set up are unable to contain it. Finally, the alarm ignited a heated debate between supporters of former President Macri, in favor of entrusting the armed forces with police duties, and the Peronist government which, like all democratic forces, especially in countries that have suffered oppression bloody of military dictatorships, is firmly opposed.
This is a machine translation from Italian language of a post published on Start Magazine at the URL https://www.startmag.it/mondo/argentina-narcotraffico-attentato-suoceri-messi/ on Sat, 11 Mar 2023 06:18:59 +0000.