Rail accidents involving hundreds of people, floods that turn cities into ponds and causing great human casualties and damaged properties. The recent tragedies in Argentina may show us what the consequences of corruption can be if we get used to it.
A few weeks ago two trains crashed near Buenos Aires. One empty train parked at the station was crashed by an arriving passenger train. This time only five people died in the accident and many other were injured. And I wrote “only” because last time we had a train crash the situation of which was by far much worse.
It was 23rd February 2012, early morning, people travel to work. Every year more than 282 million passenger use the train to move across Buenos Aires. In spite of this, its railway system is not only decaying, but also saturated. Buenos Aires is a huge city and using the railway system is the fastest, and perhaps the only way, to get to the centre of Buenos Aires if you live on the most distant suburbs (proastia), where usually less resourceful people live. Once station looks like an ant colony at rush hour: people going to and fro, the station is bulging with people, trains arriving, trains leaving. If you are there it is even difficult to see clearly around you.
One of the many trains is entering this main station, where its journey ends. This same train has been travelling the same route for the last 50 years, but this time something happens and the formation does not stop. It is getting into the platform and is not decelerating, it continues to move at around 20 Km/h until it collides with the hydraulic bumper in the station. 50 people died immediately and 676 were injured. Once station becomes hell for the next hours. This was one of the worst railway tragedies in the history of Argentina. After chaos is over and injured passengers were rescued, relatives of the victims begin to claim for answers. It was an accident, but everybody wants to know why it happened. There is no answer from the national government, which is responsible for supervising the railway system. The railway company operating the service, owned by a businessman close to the government, assures it was a human error.
In our country, as in many other countries in the world, corruption is an everyday issue. But its existence is not as terrible as the fact that we are used to it and we therefore learn to live with it, because we got used to it.
But as the investigation progresses information is made public and claims that trains were not getting appropriate maintenance are already in the newspapers. Evidence hints the railway company is fully responsible for this. It has been receiving money from the government to support the railway operation, including maintenance and investment, but it is easy to understand that these funds were not accordingly invested. In a desperate attempt to exempt itself from any responsibility the government blames the accident on the driver's negligence. In the end, the company loses its business and the business man is taken to court. Justice moves slowly: it has been more than a year, and yet nobody has been found responsible for the accident.
The words “corrruption kills” can be read in many of the signs the relatives of the victims of the accident carry every time they demonstrate. This tragedy has taken hope out from their hearts and they are now fighting for the only thing left for them: justice. But we, the Argentinean people, had to get this far to understand it: corruption kills.
2nd April 2013. It rains heavily in Buenos Aires and also in a city close to it: La Plata. Intense rains do not cease and water begins to flood both cities. After a few hours many are flooded with water and people begin to be evacuated: photographs of that tragic night show urban landscape turned into artificial rivers. In La Plata, once the water begins to retreat people speak of many casualties, but there are no certain numbers. The government declares 51 victims but people in the street assure they are more than 100. Even a Judge claims the government could be hiding the number of casualties. In the end 78 people died due to the floodings.
For years the scarce investment in infrastructure and the uncontrolled growth of the city of La Plata created the appropriate environment for this tragedy. Projected infrastructure is still waiting for funding that never seems to arrive. In our country, as in many other countries in the world, corruption is an everyday issue. But its existence is not as terrible as the fact that we are used to it and we therefore learn to live with it, because we got used to it. And when you get used to something, you do not perceive it any more, you think it is normal, you accept it. Turn on your air conditioning. At the beginning you feel the noise, but a few hours later, it is just there and you do not listen to it any more. The same happens with corruption: we do not seem to see it any more.
We usually think that we are victims of this corruption, but on the other hand, we still vote for politicians who are well known for the shady affairs they were involved into. What if your son was one of the victims in that train? What if your husband was one of those who died in the flooding? Would you vote for those who are responsible for that? Then, and only then, you understand that corruptions kills. Because the money that somebody is stealing, is money that it is not used to maintain the railways or to build infrastructure to prevent flooding. Money that is being stolen is missing somewhere else. Corruption is by definition an attack to your own people, but it is certainly one of the worst epidemics in developing countries. This is not only because of the moral implications of corruption, but because of the consequences on the life of millions of people. Corruption causes the lack of medical equipment in hospitals, the lack of appropriate education or even of appropriate nutrition of children.
We usually do not worry, because we feel that the money that is being stolen is just there. It is hard to perceive that if these funds increase the balance of somebody's bank account they will be missing somewhere else. And corruption in our country has gone too far. Even that far that it is now killing our people. The money that should have been invested in maintaining the trains or in providing the city of La Plata with adequate infrastructure is now in somebody's bank account. And this somebody does not seem to care about the lives lost every day because of his greed.
Corruption kills. It kills people around us, it can kill even us, it kills our present. But above all, corruption is killing our future.
