“We started our slogan saying ‘let the 3 come back’, now we say ‘let the 4 come back’, but tomorrow it could be 5, then 6 and 7. What is the Government waiting for? Who should return 20? They must put political will to face this problem, ”Beatriz Denis, daughter of the kidnapped former Vice President of the Republic, Óscar Denis, said in a statement to the press.
She held a small conference after attending Buen Pastor to try to dialogue with Carmen Villalba and thus have some slight indication of the whereabouts and situation of her father, who has been kidnapped for 15 months.
“We wanted to dialogue again with Carmen Villalba, but she refused to do so, showing once again that they do not dialogue, they only trample and impose rights. This time the Government faces another failure with the kidnapping of a young Mennonite ”, Beatriz sentenced, referring to the case of Peter Reimer.
Last Monday, the young Mennonite settler was the victim of another new case of a kidnapping carried out by the criminal organization called the Army of the Paraguayan People (EPP) and thus the complete uncertainty to which the inhabitants of the area were dragged was expressly demonstrated. North of the country, by an inefficient and disinterested State.
Jorge Rolón Luna
STATE COMPLICITY
According to the lawyer and promoter of the creation of the National Observatory for Citizen Security and Coexistence, Jorge Rolón Luna, apart from being one of the poorest areas of the country, the north suffers from various problems that represent only some causes of the problem of insecurity and violence crossed by the territory.
The first changes in the methodology of facing the reality of the north of the country came with the modifications to the National Defense and Internal Security Law, during 2013 with the then president Horacio Cartes, thus creating the Joint Task Force (FTC).
“This approach aims at a security of the military and police type, but the intervention of the Armed Forces in matters of internal security is unconstitutional. In any case, as happens in other places where these methodologies are also applied, it was useless, since security has not increased at all ”, the expert determined.
On the other hand, instead of improving the security situation in this area full of vulnerabilities, reports of human rights violations increased, especially by the indigenous population.
“So we see that this strategy is not only expensive, but also useless and the residents must confront groups similar to the EPP and also drug trafficking, which is maintained by the complicity of the state, since many politicians are involved,” said the lawyer.
Entering into speculative terrain, Rolón Luna determined that eliminating crime sources such as kidnappings from the north would leave the FTC without a reason, which could lead to the interpretation that the Force would not be very interested in ending insecurity, because due to the problem, the military have a leading role that they did not have, along with an important budget.
“But they are not even proactive because apparently they expect criminals to stumble in front of them so they can catch them or do something. Thus, we see that kidnappings do not stop and drug trafficking is in excellent health in the north of the country, ”the lawyer lamented.
Although, the expert maintained that he cannot directly say any solution or alternative, he mentioned that one of the strategies to be carried out may be through functions that are perfectly used.
“But something is very clear: the armed forces have contributed absolutely nothing and have meant a waste of resources throughout this time,” he concluded.
