The bill to reform the Organic Law of the Armed Forces began to be analyzed at the level of the Senate Defense Commission. Defense Minister García and Undersecretary Cnel appeared there the day before. (r) Rivera Elgue. Also part of the delegation were the Director General of the Ministry Fabián Martínez, the Chief of the General Defense Staff, Gral. of the air Rodolfo Pereyra, the director of Human Resources cnel. (r) Gustavo Figueredo and the Director of Legal Affairs Sandra de Souza. During the session, the delegation received several questions about the project, explained Minister García at a press conference, understanding that the meeting was very useful. “It was very positive because I believe that in a law like this one that is institutional, of all the Armed Forces; Regardless of government or opposition, they are the Armed Forces of the nation and we aspire to a long-term law that lasts for many years. That is why we have sought an agreement between all the political forces from the beginning, we could not finalize it before, but I think that the spirit of having sought dialogue served a lot for the treatment now, ”explained the Secretary of State. He explained that in the Commission “we reviewed article by article. Obviously there are some issues where we can have a different vision, in fact there will be, but having proposed a dialogue as we do from the Executive Branch and the Ministry of Defense with the opposition, the Broad Front, I think that this spirit of dialogue contributed long for us to move forward.”
He argued that “we know that now the Senate is going to be dedicated in the coming weeks to the reform of social security and that it will take until the end of this year, but we propose that the will of the Executive Power is to have the average sanction in the Senate as soon as possible because we want this reform in the organic law to stop being a project and be approved as law in the first months of next year”.
He indicated that “it is a law of modernization of the Armed Forces to have elements that make military life in the modern world, of joint work. As much as there is an Army, a Navy and an Air Force, they are the Armed Forces of the nation and they have to have the capacity to work together, to communicate, to have a Defense General Staff”.
He maintained that “one of the changes that we include is that the Defense General Staff adopt a higher hierarchy in the sense of coordinating the Forces, of having a reasoning for joint purchases, of having a reasoning for communications between the forces, of being able to plan exercises together, things that should be part of the usual practice. That work can be done on planning the training of new officers and soldiers jointly, there are three training schools but each time there are points of contact that are doubling and tripling, for that Esmade will also plan joint training of the Armed Forces,” he stressed.
He indicated that “we also establish, for example, that the forces can be entered with primary, as a result of what the current law requires, which is the basic cycle. Why? Because we don’t want to give anyone up for lost. Today the Armed Forces often contribute to training in values, in elements of work habits or discipline. We want that if there is any Uruguayan who wants to join the forces and has very little training, they can acquire the elements within the forces to complete their studies and acquire work habits, training, trades that can allow them to grow and develop. in the life. We establish entry conditions that enable there to be one more instrument for growth, development in life for many people who have no other possibilities”, he pointed out.
He indicated that in the commission with the opposition “we have not discovered many points of misintelligence, there are some elements but we will see them in the course. I don’t want to anticipate raising them because it would be like building walls and I want to lower them. Even we have already agreed to modify things in our original proposal in such a way that we can reach an agreement. We will take steps in the direction of meeting. I reiterate, it is the organic law of the Armed Forces, a bicentennial institution”, he maintained.
