Argentina sends soldiers to Rosario to assist in fight against drug trafficking

Members of the Argentine Army and Navy arrived in Rosario on Thursday to provide logistical support to federal security forces deployed earlier in the week as part of the government’s operation against “narco-terrorism.”

A fleet of 22 vehicles carrying troops from both branches of the armed forces arrived in the port city on the Paraná River, which has seen an upsurge in drug-related violence in recent weeks as gangs have gone on a spree of indiscriminate killings to protest the government’s prison takeover.

The soldiers will soon be joined by helicopters, trucks and drones. The mayor of Rosario, Pablo Javkin, stressed that the authorities were in a “battle to win normality” because the gangs were trying to “spread terror” with the murder of two taxi drivers, a bus driver and a gas station worker, apparently chosen at random. Federico Angelini, the undersecretary of Federal Intervention in the Ministry of National Security, told the press that the assistance of the armed forces would provide “greater coverage and presence so that the neighbors can see and feel safer, and so that when the criminals leave their homes, they can see us there.” Earlier in the week, the central government sent 550 gendarmes, who depend on the Ministry of Security, to Rosario. “We came to Rosario to pacify it, so that the people of Rosario can be better off,” the deputy minister said.

Rosario, Argentina’s third most populous city, has been troubled by drug-related violence for several years. Since his inauguration in December, Maximiliano Pullaro, governor of Santa Fe province, which includes Rosario, has implemented a security policy of strict control in high-profile prisons, emulating the style of El Salvador’s President Nayib Bukele that the central government has celebrated. In Argentina, law enforcement forces are under the Ministry of Security and include the Federal Police, the Airport Police, the National Gendarmerie, and the Naval Prefecture. In contrast, the Armed Forces, the Army, Navy, and Air Force, are under the Ministry of Defense and are trained to fight foreign armies.