Sanguinetti published in his opinion column in the “Friday Mail” an article on public security criticizing the opposition.
He lowered the title: “Generalized Escalation?” Sanguinetti considers that the Broad Front is trying to install the idea that the government is failing in managing security, and that the country is facing a generalized escalation.
He said that the opposition has been “effective in publicity montages, the generation of psychological microclimates and the construction, based on some true facts, of artificial scenarios that do not correspond to reality.”
Sanguinetti said that the Broad Front is the political party that has the least authority to refer to the issue, because it came to government in 2005 with “7,000 robberies and ended with 30,636″, and 2021 ended with 24,862, that is, 18.8% less ” .
“In terms of thefts, they started with 89,000 and ended with almost 140,000, while last year there were 112,097, 20% less,” he explained.
He added: “In homicides, they started with 200 and ended with 393 in 2019. In 2021 there were 300, that is, 23.7% less.”
As for the “very horrendous crimes that have been experienced in recent months, they are due to inexplicable family violence or are identified with drug trafficking, due to their characteristics and cruelty.”
“In the first quarter of this year, compared to 2019, in thefts they went from 36,508 to 30,444 and in robberies from 8,527 to 6,463. In homicides it is true that they increased from 83 to 96. In this month of May there were 37, the same as in 2019. Naturally, a quarter is not a very relevant measure, but in any case it is indicative that we are not facing ‘hell so feared’”, sentenced the former president.
He considered, however, that “there is a plan to combat drug trafficking, which has already given results, because seizures and mouth closures have increased.”
“Drug trafficking is a scourge that the world has not been able to eradicate and that has grown exponentially in our country. Unfortunately it is left behind and all the time we hear the dramatic claim of families anguished by a young man who has fallen into addiction, ”he said.
“It is shown that Uruguay has not fallen into an escalation of crime, despite the fact that these days have been bad. Bad, yes, but no worse than some of the last few years,” Sanguinetti said.
He added that the violence of a growing drug trade in the last decade is another fact. That the police are giving a great battle, nobody can doubt it. “It’s time not to get carried away by the hustle and bustle of a Broad Front that wants to exorcise its failure and go for revenge.”
cheap polarizations
For his part, the senator of the Broad Front Mario Bergara came out at the crossroads of Sanguinetti’s expressions.
“It does not surprise me that a phrase of this type (“the Broad Front that wants to exorcise its failure and go for revenge”), so polarizing and that goes against the political sensibility of Uruguayans, comes from Sanguinetti,” questioned Bergara.
He added that “those who are in government today, when they were in the opposition, used the issue of security in a demagogic manner, as a factor with an electoral perspective.”
Bergara affirmed that the FA does not have that vision, since security is too important an issue” for Uruguayan society. “It involves human lives and very strong feelings.”
“We are obliged to point out when a policy is failing, when the issues are not being resolved, when the situation is not being adequately addressed. As soon as the perception of the health emergency passed and social mobility became more normal, crimes grew dramatically again. May, which has just ended, is among the three months with the most homicides since records have been kept, ”said the Frente Amplio legislator.
He said that nobody knows the plan of Minister Luis Alberto Heber, which is why it is failing since it is misreading reality.”
He rejected Sanguinetti’s trend of looking for cheap polarizations. “It was they, when the FA was the government, who used the issue of security with electoral demagoguery.”
