Eduardo Pena Trivino
Guayaquil, Ecuador
Drug trafficking and all the crimes that come with it, about 30 years ago was confined to Colombia and leaders like Pablo Escobar. In Ecuador it was not perceived. Rather, there was a great national unity due to the victory achieved in Cenepa under the government of Sixto Durán-Ballén and some still said that we were an island of peace. In a few decades the change has been radical.
We are a country that no longer only transits and exports drugs, but also we also produce them and the worst thing is that we have a crime problem that scares us and affects our social and productive activities.
All countries, from Mexico to the South, have the same problem of drug addiction and its disastrous activities. North America and the European Union are the large consumer markets, while Latin America produces and transports drugs, although it also consumes them. Drug dealers make enough money to buy everything they need: a venal justice of priceless judges and a flawed legal set of guarantees that allows the rule of law to be abused and convicted criminals released.
China lacks Western scruples and is radical. The poverty of many African countries may not interest drug traffickers.
The thing is that we are confronted with criminal organizations operating in the West under mafia bosses who fight over markets and their influence. These despise life and order to kill. That’s what hit men are for, the younger the better. Our lives are in danger because we can fall into the crossfire between the gangs or the public force. In the Italian mafias that invented a lot on the subject, the law of silence rules, the omertá. Nobody speaks and if someone wants to leave they kill him and slit his throat. The killings in prisons are the work of the mafias and the government can do little to prevent them. Who provides the weapons and how are they entered and stored?
We must recognize that we cannot fight drug crime alone. Just as they have organizations that transcend national borders, in the same way the fight must be global. World security is in danger and this suggests to me that the solution must be assumed by the UN and its different organizations such as the FAO, the WHO, the ILO and UNESCO.
We need a global policy to fight drug trafficking. We must provide work, educate and feed the population of our countries. It is necessary to preach troche and moche that using drugs is bad for human health, that it steals our lives. Money must be invested in rehabilitation centers for drug addicts, the values of honesty and respect must be taught in schools and colleges, so that they know that drugs harm them, induce them to commit crime and deny them the future.
All this and much more must be undertaken urgently, until humanity is prepared for the other definitive solution, which is to decriminalize production, trafficking and consumption. Then the prices will drop and the damn business will stop being so profitable. Will we be able to do it?
