Juan Andrés Ramírez Saravia, legal adviser to the Minister of the Interior, Luis Alberto Hebercriticized Diego Sanjurjo, coordinator of Targeted Strategies for Police Crime Prevention, for a sentence in which he stated that “If we do not balance prevention with repression, we are not going to make the leap in quality to reach a safe country.”
“That phrase is not very happy. They are two lines that are totally separate. Finding the balance is finding an equality, even numbers, between prevention and repression. It’s nonsense,” said Ramírez Saravia in dialogue with The Observer. “Look at which center you throw at the opposition.”
The legal adviser and former coordinator of the Comprehensive Citizen Security Program pointed out that “repression is the last tool that the Minister of the Interior and the Executive Power have to solve a problem that they could not prevent.” “If we have a country with a lot of repression, it is because we have a country with a lot of crime,” he stressed.
“You have to support prevention, take it to the maximum expression, invest in prevention. I am sure that is the vision of the Minister of the Interior, the President of the Republic, the coalition, even the opposition,” argument.
The interpretation of the headline
Sanjurjo’s phrase was the headline of a note in the weekly Crónicas, where he detailed the measures that arose from the interparty table which he led at the request of Heber. Sanjurjo said that the repression was something “very developed” in recent times and pointed to the need to work on preventionwhere he highlighted the importance of institutional coordination.
Asked about the difference between what he interpreted from the headline and what Sanjurjo explained in the note, Ramírez Saravia replied: “He said what he said. If Diego Sanjurjo is something, he is intelligent. He does not stitch without thread.”
For the lawyer Ramírez Saravia –who did not read the note– the phrase in the headline “is very little happy” and Sanjurjo approved it, because he shared the post on his Twitter account.
In this way, the son of the former Minister of the Interior in the government of Luis Lacalle Herrera, Juan Andrés Ramírez, he replied to the security adviser.
“Do you balance upwards and celebrate? Anything that can raise prevention is good and anything that can lower repression is also good. Your desire for balance is very dangerous. Think before posting because your word is that of the MI (Ministry of the Interior)”he responded to Sanjurjo on Twitter.
What you say is nonsense. Do you balance upwards and CELEBRATE? Everything that can increase Prevention is GOOD and everything that can lower Repression is also GOOD. YOUR DESIRE FOR BALANCE IS VERY DANGEROUS. Think before posting because your word is that of MI.
— Juan Andres Ramirez Saravia (@JuanAndRamiSara) April 16, 2023
“My post already has it the minister, the undersecretary (Guillermo Maciel), Santiago González (director of Coexistence and Citizen Security), all the members of the ministry. And if I have to resign, my resignation is submitted on Tuesday. I am not part of a government that equates repression with prevention,” said Ramírez Saravia.
Ramírez Saravia said that the security adviser “has a lot of book formation”but what He lacks knowledge of Uruguay because “he lived abroad all his life”
The legal adviser of the ministry and Sanjurjo had already been in trouble when the second was coordinator of component 1 of the program that the first headed
Ramírez Saravia was chosen as coordinator of the Comprehensive Citizen Security Program by Jorge Larrañaga, but the former minister died in 2021 and Heber took his place. The current head of the portfolio put another person in his place and the lawyer became a legal adviser. The contract expires in July of this year. “I think I’m going to go back to private activity.”
