Santo Domingo.- The Dominican Attorney General, Miriam Germán Brito, and the Undersecretary for Civil Security, Democracy and Human Rights of the United States, Uzra Zeya, reaffirmed this Friday the importance of cooperation between both countries, to strengthen the fight against crime organized and fight corruption and drug trafficking.
“There are good reasons to put the fight against corruption at the center of our efforts to promote democracy,” said Zeya, who was visiting the Dominican Republic, where the day before he met with the country’s president, Luis Abinader.
In a high-level dialogue on institutional reforms between the United States and the Dominican Republic, in which both participated, Zeya urged the government of Santo Domingo on Thursday to guarantee the provision of services to all vulnerable people, including Haitians and Dominicans from Haitian descent.
Some guarantees that should be integrated, in his opinion, “as part of an updated law on human trafficking, in accordance with international standards, and that would facilitate the prosecution of those who take advantage of children.”
“The United States has provided technical assistance to update this law, in partnership with the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, and we will continue to do so,” he said.
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The Dominican Government, Zeya said, “must continue to advance in the fight against human trafficking by effectively investigating, prosecuting and convicting traffickers, protecting the most vulnerable in our communities.
This includes providing services to all vulnerable people, including Haitians and Dominicans of Haitian descent.” On the other hand, in today’s meeting with attorney Germán Brito, Zeya stated that democracy fundamentally depends on institutions and trust.
Institutions, in turn, “depend on trust – trust between citizens to resolve their differences through the democratic process, rather than outside of it, and trust in government to provide effective leadership in times of calm and crisis,” he added. Attorney Germán Brito, for her part, pointed out that her management “maintains the autonomy and independence” of the Public Ministry as a non-negotiable goal.
In this objective, he pointed out, “we have had the support of an important part of the population, as well as the Executive Power, in the person of the president and the vice president, who have shown evident respect for the independent Public Ministry.”
However, “we have also had fierce campaigns from people interested in the Public Ministry not advancing in the consolidation of its institutionality,” added the Dominican official.
Germán Brito highlighted the advances in the prosecution of administrative corruption and the fight against impunity, “an outstanding debt that the Public Ministry had” and that to settle it “deserved a sufficient degree of functional independence,” he stressed.
