MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Bullrich warns rebel governors with reprisals

Macri should express his stance regarding Torres' threat, Bullrich insisted

Argentina's Security Patricia Bullrich strongly cautioned all provincial governors who announced measures in reprisal for the federal government's decision to cut funding to provincial administrations already in debt with the national coffers. “All the resources of the State will go against those who want to rebel,” Bullrich stressed.

“Let them threaten with everything they threaten, that all the resources that the State has will go against those who want to rebel against the constitutional order in Argentina,” the minister insisted in a radio interview.

“If the governors do not realize that they must accompany a smaller State so that there may be more private activity and if they press until they say the things that are being said of secession, of national dissolution, the legal, political and juridical consequences will be harsh,” she added while hinting a possible federal intervention to the province of Tierra del Fuego after Governor Gustavo Melella announced he would paralyze all oil output for 24 hours Wednesday. However, Bullrich declined to delve deeper into the matter because it is a “measure that corresponds to the President's analysis.”

“It is clear that the fact of wanting to remove a Government, which is removing privileges and ordering the country, is an attitude of wanting to go back, to the country of destruction and misery. We are not going back to that country,” she insisted while dubbing Melella's stance as “totally and absolutely destructive.”

“We are talking about provinces that do not support themselves because they have decided to have nothing but political privileges. We are not talking about provinces that put their efforts into production and have a reasonable State. We are talking about provinces that do not have a reasonable State,” she insisted.

Chubut Governor Ignacio Torres said Bullrich was using the conflict for leverage in a PRO party feud with former President Mauricio Macri, which “seems to me to be very far from the interests of the Argentines.” Torres also said he supported Macri to chair the party.

Bullrich said that when she first heard Torres had threatened to cut all oil output if the so-called co-participation funds were not wired to the province she thought it was “a joke.” She also claimed Macri should make a statement on Torres' threat.