One of the proposals made by the elected president, Gustavo Petrois to advance a ‘revolcón’ to the Mobile Anti-riot Squad of the Police (Esmad), created in 1999 with the objective of confronting riots or violent demonstrations.
However, some analysts consulted by RCN Mundo assure that the State cannot remain without the capacity to dissuade.
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Andrés Nieto, security analyst at the Central Universityassured that “part of the police reform requires an open table from all parties. Many analysts say yes, but the reform must be done with them and not against them; that is, always with the Police and always working peacefully.”
“Without a doubt, Esmad, how it was created, has an advantage and that is that it is not a non-lethal force but rather a control force. maybe It is necessary to improve the mechanisms of action, that is true, which allows compliance with a protocol which is established in a specific resolution that speaks of the use of force in these processes”, he stressed.
Nieto assured that “is to talk about how the different weapons should be used, which in this case should always be non-lethal, but it depends on how it is used. That should be the eye of the hurricane.
Néstor Rosania, researcher and correspondent on armed conflictsmaintained that “ending Esmad does not solve the underlying problem, because eventually the police would have to build a new riot squad.”
“The Colombian State it cannot be left without that ability to confront and dissuade any type of urban violence. The underlying problem is the issue of human rights, which has been Esmad’s Achilles heel,” he said.
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Therefore, Rosania expressed that “what has to be done is create a series of methodologies, protocols and tools that allow Esmad to modify and regularize the use of force, have more tools to be able to quickly identify the police officers who are violating human rights and are breaking the law.”
The Mobile Anti-riot Squad was created in 1999 during the government of then President Andrés Pastrana and their objective was to confront riots or violent demonstrations to be presented in different cities of the country.
