Uruguay to deploy army armored vehicles to patrol high-crime Montevideo neighborhoods

Uruguay's government announced that twelve Mamba MK-7 armored vehicles from the National Army will begin to patrol, under police command, the Montevideo neighborhoods with the highest crime rates, a measure to reinforce the fight against organized crime that has opened debate in the political system. Interior Minister Carlos Negro confirmed that his ministry is working on a very advanced agreement with the Defense Ministry to carry out the deployment in the coming days.

Negro made the announcement on June 18 before the Chamber of Deputies' Special Committee on Security, and the measure became public after it was reported by the weekly B squeda. According to the minister, the twelve vehicles will be in the charge of, as collaboration and under the command of, the National Police, and will be assigned to the strict patrolling of the most affected areas, within the framework of the Dominio operation —a focused territorial intervention, like the one carried out in the Marconi neighborhood— and Atenea, based on intelligence to prevent homicides. President Yamand Orsi confirmed the decision on the social network X and explained that it was adopted together with the interior, defense and economy ministers to redouble the fight against organized crime.

The initiative drew controversy and reopened the discussion about the role of the Armed Forces in internal security. Orsi defended it with the argument of making use of Defense Ministry infrastructure that the Interior Ministry would be lacking, and held that Uruguay cannot have idle resources that it has. Defense Minister Sandra Lazo stressed that the measure is not the military in the street, but rather cooperation with vehicles so that the police can fulfill their role in public security in those places where it is more complex to enter. The secretary of the Presidency, Alejandro S nchez, recalled that the Defense Ministry already assists in prison perimeters and on the borders, and said the armored vehicles can be very useful in neighborhoods where there are serious problems, noting that drug trafficking does not throw stones, it fires bullets.