However, the case raises an institutional question mark and opens a new edge in terms of drug crime in Paraguay.
Why was a prosecutor murdered?
The Public Prosecutor’s Office politically dominated by Horacio Cartes has generally given impunity or light sentences to members of national criminal groups. Organized crime grew before his passive gaze. The Prosecutor’s Office was never a serious problem for criminals, prosecutors do not live under constant threats, they have usual security measures, their greatest concern could be the few, isolated and tiny citizen escraches. Therefore, it is not surprising that Pecci himself decided to travel to Colombia and take his partner. He felt safe and he was right, things were under control. In fact, national crime does not attack the Prosecutor’s Office.
But today, unfortunately, we know that there was a miscalculation. Probably, he came with “A Ultranza Py”. We do not know for sure the degree of Pecci’s involvement in the cases investigated by the Prosecutor’s Office under that operation in which transnational organized crime was hit hard.
But now we can say that transnational organized crime felt affected and demanded a vendetta.
The Paraguayan prosecutor in Colombia was an opportunity, regardless of whether he personally was the reason for the vendetta due to his personal/professional actions, but he was part of the Prosecutor’s Office, the most likely reason for the vendetta.
Why the Public Prosecutor? Given the lack of functional autonomy of the Paraguayan Prosecutor’s Office due to its political subjugation, it was taken hand in hand with international awards and international recognition trips by American and European institutions, the mega operation “A Ultranza Py” was also created there, since Americans and Europeans had to do something in the face of so much lack of control of the rule of law in Paraguay, which filled them with drugs and money laundering with shipments from Paraguay. If they reward you in those areas of security it is so that they take a certain control of you, links and cooperation are woven. Some countries do not allow international awards/from other countries for their public officials, they require an authorization from the Government/Congress to receive them (eg art 129 Const. Colombia).
It is that the crime generated in Paraguay and from Paraguay does not remain within our borders and expands to other territories (cigarette smuggling, drug export, laundering, etc.), so it should not surprise us that international police (DEA and Europol) and international bandits (transnational organized crime) intervene in our society and that we are a battlefield; we generate that, with the laxness of our justice institutions controlled by corrupt Colorado politicians, especially Chartists.
Probably, Paraguayan society will express its sincere or hypocritical condolences and return to the submission of its long lethargy. Nothing fazes them, they accept everything, the voices of non-expression sound louder. It will be enough for them that some building of the Prosecutor’s Office bears the name of the assassinated prosecutor.
But some of us think or perhaps we hope that this tragedy will become a turning point: that it is time to recover our justice institutions and give them political conditions so that they recover their impartiality and autonomy and here the issue becomes electoral.
If people continue to vote for their traditional party, especially the Colorados, without wanting to recognize that in reality their party was taken over by groups related to transnational organized crime and they are voting for drug candidates, this is not going to change much, on the contrary, it will get worse. Without a change in the political context, nor probable operations A Ultranza Py 2.0 or 3.0 will be truly effective, only palliative.
If they want to genuinely honor a fallen prosecutor, it is with the anti-narco vote.
