The deputy Gustavo Zubía (Tercera Vía) expressed this Wednesday his annoyance with his Colorado Party and with the Ministry of the Interior for not having been summoned to the party meetings that that portfolio launched with the objective of reaching agreements on public safety.
“I found out from the press”, lamented Zubía this Wednesday. in dialogue with The Observer, the deputy acknowledged that his complaint has a “little ego”but maintained that it is based on the fact that the authorities -who requested the “help” of the political parties to find solutions-, declined the opportunity to “hear the word” of who, for example, participated directly in the drafting of the law of Urgent Consideration (LUC) and that also elaborated several bills related to security and justice.
The annoyance, said Zubía, was first expressed to the general secretary of the Colorado Party, Julio Maria Sanguinetti. The idea, the former president transmitted to him, was that those appointed to that inter-party table They were not politically active. Something that, Zubía repaired, is not fulfilled by the Colorado representative, the lawyer Andrés Ojeda. The deputy also expressed his disagreement to the Undersecretary of the Interior, Guillermo Maciel.
“They are not listening to those who constantly call them, even to shed light on certain issues,” She complained. Among them, Zubía criticized the “terrible campaign” defense that the ministry has been rehearsing on the technical aspects of the controversy involving the former head of presidential custody. For example, by not knowing how to correctly communicate that Astesiano, technically, had no criminal record when he fulfilled his role.
In this, as in other cases, Zubía adjudicated the case to the “great omission” of the government of Luis Lacalle Pou: the decision not to appoint a permanent attorney general in order to end Juan Gómez’s internship. The “leak” of WhatsApp chats with Astesiano’s conversations show, in his view, that the Prosecutor’s Office “it’s making water.”
the pandemic
Zubía intended to integrate the inter-party table to alert about his underlying concern. So far this year, he assured him, Uruguay has exceeded 350 homicides. A brand that, he remarked, already represents a “pandemic”. The deputy based himself on the World Health Organization (WHO), which defines that this happens when a country exceeds in one year ten homicides per 100,000 inhabitants. Thus, he regretted not being able to participate in these meetings in the face of this “pandemic” situation.
There, he said, he would have raised the need for a profound reform from the legal point of view to combat this crisis. For example, that all sentences for homicide imposed through abbreviated processes must be served in full, without “discounts” for early release or redemption of sentence for work or study.
Another proposal that Zubía planned to present at that table -if he had been summoned- was the deployment of “small units” of the Armed Forces in support of the Police in the areas with the worst indicators in terms of homicides. Although he admitted that, in certain circumstances, the use of the military for these purposes “may constitute a danger”, he remarked that these officials have been collaborating without problems with the Ministry of the Interior in surveillance and security tasks on the border.
The Colorado deputy ventured the causes of this “ningoneo” by not having been invited. “Speaking clearly and being critical has its costs, and they are paid”, he pointed. Zubía, who comes from claiming without success twice that President Lacalle Pou “I listened to him,” he insisted that the government lacks “courage” to address these issues.
