Buenos Aires, November 15 (NA) — Physicist and CONICET researcher Diego Hurtado strongly criticized the Argentine government's intention to privatize Nucleoeléctrica Argentina S.A. (NASA), calling it a "scandal of resource delivery" to global financial capital.
Hurtado, who was also vice president of the National Atomic Energy Commission (CNEA), emphasized that Nucleoeléctrica is a "strategic state enterprise" that manages the country's three nuclear power plants — Atucha I, Atucha II, and Embalse — and is a driver of technological and economic development.
The specialist, in an interview with Splendid AM 990, accessed by the Argentine News Agency, highlighted that the Argentine nuclear sector is "superavitary" and has intangible assets in its human talent, exporting "cutting-edge nuclear technology."
The researcher considered that this attempt to dismantle is "encoded" in the Bases Law — which originally intended to privatize 100% of the company — and assured that the delivery agreement the government is trying to push "will be studied in the next 100, 150 years as we talk today about the Roca-Runciman Pact in the infamous decade."
The physicist pointed to those responsible for this policy, linking global financial power with local politics. "Caputo is a representative of vulture funds," he stated, and added that this sector, which seeks "quick business, looting, and predation of natural resources," is the same one that holds the shareholding in the exploitation of Argentine lithium.
Nevertheless, Hurtado expressed an optimism rooted in the country's history. In this sense, he applied a football metaphor to emphasize the irrationality of the measure: "a winning team is not touched."
The researcher argued that the decision to dismantle this sector is insane, as it not only generates profits for the country, but also "we develop science, we are more independent, it does not produce expenses, we are superhabitants and yet they want to privatize it."
Hurtado drew a historical parallel, identifying the current privatization offensive as a "déjà vu" of past policies, referring to the dismantling that occurred in the 90s.
Although the nuclear sector was dismantled in the past, it "resurrected, rose from the ashes" thanks to the political decision and the public investment that resumed in 2003, allowing Argentina today to export nuclear technology.
The specialist concluded with conviction: "we are going to recover it," appealing to the country's already demonstrated ability to reverse processes that seemed irreversible and to the need to put a brake on the "ruling class that does not put a brake" on the delivery of Argentine wealth.
