-What specific and concrete measures are being taken to guarantee the safety of citizens?
-First, clarify that as mayor I am not in charge of the security forces, but I do participate in the crisis committee and I can say that there are three lines of action.
The first is prison: 90% of crimes committed on the street are organized in prison.
The second is the deployment in streets and with the normalization of the city, which go hand in hand.
And the third leg, very important, is investigative and criminal intelligence.
Here it is essential to pull the thread up to arrive at the intellectual authorship of what happened to know the intention, degree and origin.
Here it is not only finding the murderers, which is key, but everything that surrounds them: voice message, audio message, WhatsApp, which are complementary alterations of peace and tranquility.
-Exactly one year ago, former Security Minister Aníbal Fernández slipped, in other words, that drug trafficking had won the battle in Rosario, which produced short circuits with you. Mobile phones and uniformed personnel were sent to the city, in a movement similar to what is happening. What do you have to say about this
deja-vu
?
-From that moment on, it must be said that we began to have a greater presence of federal forces in the city.
The most serious problem we had was with the Police, with the lack of uniformed officers on the street.
And in the first months of this year there have been positive results since that intervention, it happens that saying it now, with the general climate, is not appropriate.
But there were important advances, especially with federal prosecutors and with some cases generated by those federal prosecutors in investigations of complex crimes.
What were we missing?
Something serious: we could not advance in the adversarial system at the federal level, which gives even greater powers to federal prosecutors and, clearly, there was a discontinuity marked by the electoral year, which was very distracting.
-He says that "there have been positive results." What is she referring to?
-Because in December, January and February the freedom to organize crimes from prison began to decrease as a result of internal controls, as a result of the Nation recovering the criminal intelligence area and taking the penitentiary area to Security and as a result of a very decision. brave Governor Pullaro, which earned him threats from the first day of his administration.
But this is the way, to reach high-profile prisoners and we must not give up.
"We have to ratify firmness in actions within the prison system," says the mayor.
Photo: Juan José García
-How much does the drug violence of recent days have to do with the "Bukele method" carried out and disseminated in all the media?
-Do not have any doubt that what is happening has to do with that.
On the other hand, this deepening began before the mediatization of images.
-The "ordinary" Rosario believes that they rushed to show the images to the public before containing the city...
-It is one thing to debate whether the publication of those images was right or wrong and another to question the application of the measure.
And I have no doubt that it is the correct measure.
We have to ratify firmness in actions within the prison system.
The other thing, the media, I don't know, I'm not the one who has to analyze it.
-Would you have spread those images if you were in Pullaro's place?
-I was never in that role nor did I ever have that responsibility, so it would be presumptuous for me to comment on the matter.
But I wouldn't want this to come down to whether a post was right or wrong.
Whether or not the publication of a photo was a mistake.
The important thing here is that there was a sustained action over time of changes within the prison system that complicated the viability of a certain level of business: homicides, extortions and threats decreased.
-But on the street you hear: "They use the Bukele method, but we from Rosario pay for it."
-It is obvious that these measures were going to generate a reaction.
But be careful, this reaction is not the mediatization of an image, but rather how things have now changed for those inside.
It's tempting to talk about the photo in the newspapers, but I don't want to be distracted by that.
The important thing here is to know if Argentina is going to maintain the firmness to recover a logic in which certain high-profile levels (of prisoners) have restrictions on ordering them to operate.
What we have to prevent is that the prison dominates the street and this is where we find ourselves.
"What to tell the people of Rosario? Tell them that we are going to recover the customs that we had in the city and for that we must insist."
Photo: Juan José García
-Doesn't that dominance continue from the prisons?
-We are getting deeper and deeper into the prisons and complementing them with a street deployment in relation to the reactions that the gangs have.
But I insist, we are on the right path and we have no doubts about that and I want to be very explicit.
If we give in or negotiate, we lose... Last year we had 300 homicides in the city and we are going down considerably.
In February 2023 there were 33 and in February of this year there were 6.
-What to say to the incredulous and skeptical Rosarino who is convinced that all this movement of resources and deployment of units is bread and circuses,
a fulbito
for the audience?
-First tell her that she is right and understand her, because people want results, not ads.
Tell him that we are going to recover the customs that we had in the city and for that we must insist, do everything in our power and especially have more police presence.
Governor Pullaro is here, in Rosario, and he is not going to leave until we recover the level of presence of the forces that the city needs.
The people of Rosario deserve, we deserve, to live in peace, because the habit of the ordinary citizen is to occupy public space, to stay in the parks until eleven, twelve at night... When Maxi Pullaro took office as governor of Santa Fe In Rosario we had 21 operational patrol cars, today we have 140 and the objective is to reach 250 to have a logical level of prevention on the street.
"On the issue of a heavy hand, what I answer is that there has to be effective action by the State," says Javkin.
Photo: Juan José García
-What differences are there between this deployment of security forces and the previous ones that ended up coming to nothing?
-We have the forces distributed territorially, which allows us to measure the impact of each work every day.
In Rosario there are eight critical areas, of which federal forces are in charge of four, which makes it easier for me to know what happened at those specific points.
It is one of the big differences compared to previous deployments.
-But do you understand people's skepticism?
-Of course I understand it, but I also notice that things are happening that have never happened before: two high-ranking ministers of Security and Defense (Patricia Bullrich and Luis Petri) present in the city, together and working in an operational committee.
Then the aforementioned Bullrich with former minister Sergio Berni coordinating the mobilization of mobile phones from the province of Buenos Aires to come and collaborate with us.
The governor of Córdoba offering the same.
The 23 governors of Argentina showing solidarity with Rosario.
We received a statement from hundreds of mayors from all over the country supporting our city.
And the president of the Nation, Javier Milei, who states that the challenge and priority is Rosario.
All this had never happened and I want to let the Rosario know that he does not believe.
-What is the reading you give to this description?
-That in a country that is pure rift, there is a unanimous decision without cracks beyond the political parties.
It is clear that what is being done is a national priority and that what happens in Rosario and how it evolves will happen with the rest of Argentina.
-Governor Axel Kicillof sent you 70 zero kilometer mobile phones that arrived on Friday...
-I have no cracks on this issue... There are governors who have spoken out and offered help, who belong to a different political sector.
We must be clear that Argentina will not have an intelligent state until we first agree that in order to discuss who governs the State there must be a State.
And in many aspects Argentina does not have a State that knows how to distribute goods and one of the main goods that it does not distribute is security... And if the political debate does not understand it, it will happen like with inflation.
-Without security, without currency and with poor education and health..., how is it done?
-The crisis is that of the entire State.
-Is there a way to implement actions to discourage young people from engaging in activities related to drug trafficking?
-On the one hand, there is an underlying problem here that has to do with addictions and consumption.
On the other hand, what has to do with the life project of the kids, that the school system no longer provides it to them and that at 14 or 15 years old, as a result of money, of a certain ephemeral fame, makes them enter into drug crime. .
That is why we are working intensely on a program called New Opportunity, which has to do with taking that age group and not only working on their training and a job, but on building their own life project.
We are also working with a network called Andamios, which consists of supporting children from 9 to 13 years old, and monitoring them in their school careers.
It goes beyond attendance or dropping out of school, it involves accompanying them so that this attendance implies that they advance in their educational training.
-Does Rosario produce drugs? Otherwise, where does it come from?
-No, it does not produce drugs or weapons at all, they give them to us.
They arrive directly from the Buenos Aires suburbs, they do not come in a flying saucer.
The characteristic of Rosario is the violence with which the territorial dispute occurs.
When one looks at the continent, I find murders in Chile of high military hierarchy by Venezuelan cartels, the very serious problem in Ecuador, with the murder of prosecutors, the problem of Brazilian prison organizations, serious situations of insecurity in Uruguay.
The entire region is taken.
What is the level of intelligence that Argentina has regarding money laundering, the entry and circulation of weapons, and the circulation of drugs?
Very low.
-Would you like to be governor of Santa Fe or, in the future, be a candidate for president?
-All my life I dreamed of being mayor of my beloved city, Rosario.
"I wish I had the management of Rosario's public security"
Javkin with Undersecretary of Security Federico Angelini, the day mobile phones arrived to reinforce controls.
Photo: Juan José García
In recent days, Pablo Javkin publicly uttered a phrase that caused some discomfort in Rosario and had its microclimate on social networks.
"We are going to work to restore peace to the people," the mayor had pointed out and the immediate response on the Internet multiplied: "How does he say it? What happened in these years? He is already in his second term."
To the question, Javkin responds with theory: "What do I have to say? That Rosario is
the first industrial city
in Argentina, that it is the first city of metalworking employment in the country, that it is a leader in biotechnology with more than 4,000 biotechnological startups and with global companies born in the scientific ecosystem of the city. That is why as a Rosario native, everything that is being said about the city from outside hurts me greatly. They talk about Rosario as if there were no other Argentine geographies in which even worse things happen. "What is happening here is not from now, it is an accumulation of ten, twelve years, with high levels of homicides, which radically changes the urban landscape and the feeling of freedom that one wants to have."
When asked if he would like to manage public security, he does not hesitate.
"I wish I had it, but security, the judicial system, the prosecutor system, the intelligence system are the responsibility of the government of the province of Santa Fe and the Nation. What do I see now? A political decision to implement coordination" .
--Didn't that decision exist in the previous government?
--There was but there was a lack of continuity.
This political decision works if many things are done, all the time and at the same time.
The only thing that will provide different results than what we have now is not only coordination, but sustainability over time.
If it is episodic, we ring.
That is why I applaud the comprehensiveness at work that we have never had until now.
My only aspiration is to be mayor of Rosario and I am running for re-election." Photo: Juan José García
Faced with the disturbing request for a "strong hand" from many ordinary people in Rosario, Javkin makes it known that "the big problem we have when it comes to debate is the fear of the application of the law. The State has powers and It has powers. What am I talking about? The idea of having high-profile prisoners linked to drug trafficking and having the same legal prison regime as a common prisoner is very naive.
That is not a heavy hand, it is an intelligent action by the State.
We come from four years in which criminal intelligence was dissolved in prisons. What did that generate? Giving freedom to prisoners to organize crime from prisons. And be careful, it doesn't just happen in Rosario, but in all of Argentina. So "If you ask me about the issue of the heavy hand, what I answer is that there has to be effective action by the State using the legal powers it possesses."
Trajectory
Pablo Lautaro Javkin was born on November 19, 1971 in Rosario and is part of the United to Change Santa Fe party. He is a lawyer and university professor and his connection with politics began in 1989, as president of the Student Center of the Higher School of Trade.
He graduated as a lawyer from the Faculty of Law of the National University of Rosario and was president of the Argentine University Federation (FUA), then he was a councilor between 2001 and 2005. He left public activity for two years and returned in 2007 as a provincial deputy until 2011. He then became a national deputy in 2013 and 2015. He then became general secretary of the municipality of Rosario, until he became a councilor again, a position he held when he became mayor in 2019.
In 2023 he was re-elected with 51.8% of the votes, defeating the Peronist candidate Juan Monteverde.
Right now
"My favorite hero is Manuel Belgrano and my political leader, Raúl Alfonsín."
Photo: Juan José García
A project:
to be able to urbanize critical neighborhoods, as we did with Villa Banana.
A challenge:
achieve peace in Rosario.
A dream:
an Argentina that understands that development must be from the interior towards Buenos Aires, not the other way around.
A hero:
Manuel Belgrano.
A leader:
Raúl Alfonsín.
A meal:
roast.
A drink:
wine.
A book:
2666, by Roberto Bolaños.
A film:
Cinema Paradiso ("the best film about cinema").
A society that I admire:
Rosario, because it is based on its strength and resilience.
A pleasure:
being with my two children (14 and 11) and reading.
A childhood memory:
the bond with the four grandparents.