SANTO DOMINGO. – The Executive Vice President of the Institutionality and Justice Foundation (finjus), Servio Tulio Castaño Guzmáncalled for the signing of a pact between the State and civil society that leads to strengthening the security and coexistence of citizens.
In the same vein, the executive director of Citizen Participation, Joseph Manuel Abreu María, declared that citizen security and peaceful coexistence are not the exclusive responsibility of the State, but a commitment of society in general.
Both lawyers spoke about the issue at the closing of the International Seminar on Citizen Security and Postcovid Coexistence in Latin America, held at the Autonomous University of Santo Domingo (UASD), where Dr. Ricardo Nieves also presented, who stressed that postmodernity with its technological platform is used by organized crime to commit all kinds of crimes, which is why it favors a new law that combats it.
Castaños Guzmán, who acted as moderator on the panel Role of Civil Society in Citizen Security, clarified that all sectors as a whole want to be co-responsible for this process.
“We do not want the only ones to assume responsibility are the public institutions, we want whatever happens, in the end we can share what happens with you,” he said.
He maintained that civil society is not betting on failure, “we want to be compromisers and that is what we are betting on.”
Finally, he referred to the need to produce an agreement that leads to the development of a real security and citizen coexistence plan. “That pact is the one that will reflect those who really want this country. Because whoever opposes that is because he does not want the Dominican Republic ”.
For his part, Abreu María considered that business should also be included in this task, a sector that works on the issue of security from the different factors that affect citizen security, such as conflicts, criminal acts resulting from inequalities, and the lack of opportunities.
“Knowing the insecurity and the problem of coexistence that we have and that increased due to the covid, it is important to make clear the message that they must not only be faced from the state side, citizen security and peaceful coexistence is a commitment of society , from the family, schools, from universities, from neighborhood associations, from organizations and institutions of civil society”, he stressed.
The director of Citizen Participation pointed out that in different studies poverty is mentioned as a point of origin and a factor that affects insecurity. However, he pointed out that it cannot remain in people’s minds that poverty or that low-income sectors are a fundamental focus of violence, because, in his opinion, there are many good people there, where more than 80 % are dignified people who go out to work and who help the social development of the nation.
He indicated that the conflicts generated in coexistence are the ones that cause the greatest number of homicides. In addition, he explained that the studies carried out by Participación Ciudadana and those presented during the international seminar by important researchers who raised the experiences brought from their countries, demonstrated that security is a multisectoral issue and therefore must be a commitment of all.
Proposed law against organized crime
Speaking on the same stage, the national security expert, Ricardo Nieves, demanded that the National Congress legislate in favor of a general law against organized crime, not only against drug trafficking, money laundering and other related crimes, but also to the great challenge of mafias and large-scale criminal societies.
He added that the country also needs the approval of the new penal code that, in his opinion, has not been approved due to differences with the issue of the three grounds for allowing abortion, when in developed countries and notable for their order they have even more grounds accepted. .
