Global Courant
Pressing events and circumstances loom over the country’s internal and border security. It is not a recent threat and therefore the institutional inefficiencies, haphazard reactions, lack of permanent protocols and superficialities in the discourse of the authorities in charge of ensuring the right to life and the security that gives it reason and meaning are inexcusable. to the existence of the State. This is not to mention the infiltration of dirty money in electoral campaigns, the presumed links of deputies and mayors with organized crime mafias or the conflict fueled to prevent economic development from reaching certain regions.
The Minister of the Interior, Napoleón Barrientos, assures that they are attentive to preventing the entry into the country of members of two cartels that are disputing territory in Chiapas. He adds that for three weeks security has been reinforced at border points, which practically constitutes a truism, since throughout the Giammattei Falla period, repeated incursions by armed convoys to commit attacks and executions have been reported, especially in Huehuetenango and Petén, but also in San Marcos.
Furthermore, at fairs and horse parades in Amatitlán, Mixco, Chiquimula, Jutiapa, Jalapa, Santa Rosa, among other places, the presence of individuals armed with assault rifles has been reported without any authority intervening. Such impunity reached an abject point during the July celebrations in Huehuetenango, when a shootout occurred that left several dead. In June, residents of La Democracia, San Marcos, were executed by a gang of hitmen who escaped towards the Mexican border.
The exposure of impunities could continue, but the previous examples are enough to demand effective action from the authorities, even though they are 109 days away from handing over power. It is unprecedented that three prosecutors from the Public Ministry are being held in Tajumulco, San Marcos, and that for their release the release of those possibly involved in the ambush that occurred between Ixchiguán and Tajumulco last March, in which an Army colonel died, is required. Guatemala. The attorney general should be questioned about what those agents were doing without proper protocols in a high-risk area. But to raid electoral offices they are accompanied by intimidating armed commandos.
On the other hand, the viral video in which an armed commando kidnaps Luis Alberto Chacón, alias Wicho Veneno, an extraditable captured in January 2023 for drug trafficking, caused great surprise. Nobody knew that he had been free since March thanks to a resolution by Judge Claudette Domínguez, who only linked him to trial for a crime that allowed bail, despite being among the hundred most wanted. But even more strange is the laxity of the MP, who only filed an amparo and did not denounce such discretion. This contrasts with the speed and bitterness demonstrated in cases against journalists, former prosecutors and lawyers.
Finally, another fact that denotes weights of influence, rare litigation and parsimony of courts – in certain cases. On July 31, retired colonel Walfre Estrada was sentenced to 12 years in prison, after 13 years! In 2010 he was arrested with a kilo of cocaine in his possession. In a first trial he was acquitted, but it was invalidated by a court that ordered a repeat trial. In today’s critical reality there is no room for inconsistencies and these must be amended at all levels.
There is no room for inconsistencies
America Region News ,Next Big Thing in Public Knowledg
