For the second week in a row Uruguayan Naval forces were attacked by youth along the Rambla Charles De Gaulle in the early morning hours. Roughly 12 hours earlier, the same location had hosted a victory celebration for Uruguay's president elect Luis Lacalle Pou which was attened by several tens of thousand Uruguayos and Uruguayas (archived).

The violence allegedly began as members of Uruguay's Naval Prefectura were providing protection for transit inspectors carrying out a fairly routine operation. The mood of this sort of operation in the past has usually been rather jovial with youth in attendance laughing at the misforune of their compatriots suffering the indignity of seeing their ambiguously owned and dubiously roadworthy vehicles hauled away on flat bed trucks. This time the transit inspector's naval protection force was met with rocks and bottles thrown by rebels who escaped naval jurisdiction by crossing the street and continuing their campaign of destruction before scattering.

Less than 20 rebels were captured by police. The Guardia Republicana's "Esfuerzas Speciales" appear to have kept the glass breaking campaign from crossing Avenida Luis Alberto Herrera to strike the Montevideo Shopping and World Trade Center complex. Instead, the vandalism was pushed into the adjoining working class residential area with groups leaving pronouced damage trails along Marco Bruto, Julio Caesar, Pereira de la Luz going north to Avendia General Riviera with more difuse damage along 26 de Marzo and Luis Lamas headed towards the west.

Interviews with longtime residents and business owners in the neighborhood revealed substantial shock that there were no apparent thefts accompanying the vandalism. One elderly resident who had been living in the barrio for 18 years struggled in trying to come to terms with the difuse and widespread destruction for destruction's sake.

A recently burned van. It is unclear if it burned during the vandalism campaign or some other time after Friday evening when it was last seen unburned.

Several folks claiming to be the "Real Uruguay" unlike the several hundred other, less obviously destitute folks enjoying the Rambla withing visual range of their location.

"Patio Rambla", and event venue at the corner of Luis Alberto Herrera and the Rambla.

Bus stop in front of "Patio Rambla"

The front of Edificio Tropez on the other side of the street. Other, newer buildings with materials other than simple silicate glass were less scathed.

Pereira de la Luz, near the western limit of the broken autoglass trail on the Rambla.

Auto glass spread on Marco Bruto in front of the British Embassy.

British Embassy in the background.

Going north the apparent success rate in terms of broken autoglass begins increasing substantially. The number of broken residential windows also increases substantially along this stretch.

Bridal shop at the corner of 26 de Marzo and Marco Bruto. For about a block going north and going west the damage trail goes dark before resuming again.

Substantially further north on Marco Bruto the damage doesn't stop. None of the nearly dozen "cuidacoches" habitually present in the neighborhood could be located for interviews or to answer questions about the astounding failure of the cuidacoche system of automotive protection's astounding failure to actually protect cars from vandalism.