Articles of note, from the Buenos Aires Herald Sunday, August 7, 2011 | ![]()
While Tierra del Fuego opted for continuity with last month’s re-election of Governor Fabiana Ríos, the urban landscape of its provincial capital Ushuaia will start changing drastically in the next few weeks. How? By shifting its naval base south of the city to terrain on the same peninsula where its commercial airport now operates. This transfer implies, on the one hand, the future sale of over 40 hectares of naval property (centrally located on the bay) and the shoreline construction of a megaport for Trans-Atlantic cruisers and ocean-going vessels. Trans-Atlantic numbers too — Ushuaia’s real estate brokers price at over 600 dollars each square metre in this zone where in 1950 then President Juan Domingo Perón founded the Ushuaia Naval Base (BNU), the southernmost in the world. On the other hand, it means that with the BNU relocated outside the urban axis, the Ushuaia base can be reinvented as an Antarctic logistic complex. An annex to the Perón decree (to provide logistical support and repairs for vessels operating in the South Atlantic and Antarctic) trends towards an “Antarctic Command” centre with not only facilities for Navy staff on Antarctic duty and their supply but also an Antarctic National Board. “This is a strategic decision which has already been taken,” Defence Minister Arturo Puricelli specifies when asked by this newspaper. “This project provides for a pier and permanent moorings for our icebreaker ARA Almirante Irízar,” he adds, “and possibly some polar vessel” (in reference to that under construction at the CINAR Argentine Naval Industrial Complex). Until 2007, when fire damage aboard the icebreaker led to it being taken for repair to the Tandanor shipyards (from whence it is to emerge overhauled at the end of this year), the permanent base of the Irízar has been Puerto Belgrano near Bahía Blanca. As for the “Antarctic logistics complex,” it is a joint project (since 2008) between the province of Tie-rra del Fuego and the Federal Planning and Defence Ministries. “Freeing this land (from the Navy) will boost Ushuaia’s growth and at the same time generate income to relocate our base and construct the new port,” adds Puricelli. “We want to launch this project as soon as possible,” the minister continues. “We did not want to do it earlier in order not to interfere with the gubernatorial election campaign,” he says, “even though Governor Ríos and Senator Rosana Bertone (the Victory Front candidate and the July 3 runoff rival of Ríos) were working shoulder to shoulder on the project.” “Ushuaia will be the port of entry for the Antarctic,” said Governor Ríos a few days ago. Meanwhile in order to go financing the project studies in Ushuaia, the Austral Trust, signed into existence by President Cristina Kirchner and Ríos in March, 2010, has already given the province 35 million dollars in uncollected federal revenue-sharing of royalties plus a monthly half of fossil fuel royalties accruing from the offshore exploration concessions granted by the national government. In conversation with the Herald, Arturo Puricelli also referred to some more concrete future aspects such as the Short-Term Military Capacity Plan or Plan Camil (a four-year plan, which happens to coincide with the length of the next presidential term) to invest into military “instruments” for the Air Force, Army and Navy — not organized according to the lobbying of each force but in an “integral manner” according to the requisites of defence planning to determine the investment priorities and urgencies for each of the three forces. “This Plan Camil,” explains Puricelli, “will annually increase defence investment by around 0.1 percent of Gross Domestic Products, rising from a budget of 0.9 percent of GDP to 1.5 percent by the year 2015.” Carolina Barros |