The government of Uruguay appointed Diego Escuder as interim chancellor after the resignation of Francisco Bustillo in the midst of the scandal generated by the concealment of information from the justice system in the case of the passport given to drug trafficker Sebastián Marset. The opposition and even part of the ruling party demand that President Luis Lacalle Pou, on tour in the United States, return to Montevideo and take charge of the situation. The Uruguayan president, who has a meeting scheduled with his American counterpart Joe Biden this Friday, He reported that he will maintain his agenda and will only return to his country this Saturday.
Rain of criticism
«This circumstance warrants immediate dismissals and although this is late, it is something»said the president of the Frente Amplio, Fernando Pereira, during a press conference. Pereira considered that Bustillo should be joined by the Minister of the Interior, Luis Alberto Heber, and the Vice Minister of the Interior, Guillermo Maciel, and asked that «Roberto Lafluf not remain one more minute in the president’s advisory office.»
The Broad Front politician ruled out for the moment that he is considering requesting an impeachment trial of Lacalle Pou, but said that his party hopes that the president returns «as soon as possible» from the United States, where he traveled this week to participate in a summit of the Alliance for Economic Prosperity in the Americas (APEP) organized by President Joe Biden.
According to government sources, the daily, the president will maintain his agenda in Washington. At the moment he did not express himself publicly about Bustillo’s resignation. In the absence of Lacalle Pou, Vice President Beatriz Argimón temporarily appointed Diego Escuder as Minister of Foreign Affairs and ratified Nicolas Albertoni as Vice Minister of that portfolio.
Guido Manini Ríos, leader of Cabildo Abierto, considered that the president must give explanations for the actions of his advisor Lafluf, directly involved in the scandal. «Cabildo Abierto will wait to know the president’s explanations and decisions, as well as Bustillo’s release on Friday and then we will make a decision,» the retired general told Uruguayan television in response to a question about an eventual abandonment of the ruling coalition. .
«You lost the cell phone»
The scandal that is shaking the Uruguayan government had its origin in a series of WhatsApp audios in which Bustillo, a diplomat with a long career who was ambassador to Argentina, asks his former right-hand woman, former vice-chancellor Carolina Ache, not to reveal his chats with the vice minister of the interior, Guillermo Maciel, who had warned him that Sebastián Marset «was a dangerous drug trafficker.»
«Maciel has the same WhatsApp as me,» Achet said. «He has the same WhatsApp, yes of course. But I don’t think Maciel is so stupid to whitewash them. I can not believe it. He would shoot himself in the foot«he replied Bustillo. «Maciel does not get away by sending you to the front. He does not get away. The primary responsibility is his. The only ones who could stop the issuance of the passport is the Ministry of the Interior,» remarked the former chancellor, referring to the event that unleashed the scandal: the processing of a Uruguayan passport for the fugitive Marset.
In another part of the conversation, Ache overtakes Bustillo that she has already decided to present the WhatsApp information to the Uruguayan justice system. The chancellor’s response is at least questionable: «Let’s wait and see if we can straighten this out because it’s a mess.. Let me talk to Carlos Mata (director of Border Affairs) to see if he has any kind of influence with this woman so that at least she doesn’t ‘guarangue’ with the questions. Let him send a third party and let him not be so incisive, let him give us a way out to avoid removing WhatsApp.»
Ache warned him that the Prosecutor’s Office would ask him for that information. But his superior replied: «We have to gain time (…) Send Maciel to the front, you lost your cell phone. I’m imagining scenarios that I don’t know, but I know. Imagine that in December or January he is «He lost his cell phone.»
In August 2022, Ache denied «any participation» in the process of issuing and delivering a passport to Marset in the United Arab Emirates. A few days later, in an appearance before the Senate, Bustillo and the Minister of the Interior, Luis Alberto Heber, defended that the delivery of the document was an administrative and not a political procedure. In December of that year, Ache presented his resignation as vice chancellor of Uruguay.
A long-standing scandal
Ache presented the WhatsApp chats this Wednesday during his appearance before the Prosecutor’s Office investigating the issuance of the passport to Marset. He provided documentation to the court to prove that presidential advisor Roberto Lafluf destroyed a notarial record from the Foreign Ministry that contained chats referring to the subject with Vice Minister Guillermo Maciel, and asked him to delete the messages and certify with a notary that they were not on his cell phone. . He also said that Diego Escuder, the new Uruguayan foreign minister, participated in a meeting at the Ministry of the Interior in which it was decided to hide information about the Marset case.
The scandal over the delivery of the Uruguayan passport to Marset shook the Lacalle Pou government last year and led at that time to the dismissal of an official from the National Directorate of Civil Identification. Marset, who is a fugitive from justice and is involved in cocaine trafficking in the region, received a Uruguayan passport in 2021 through an express process while he was detained in Dubai for trying to enter with a false Paraguayan passport.