The launch of the solidarity security fronts was held in Valledupar. It is understood that an event of this type could not be carried out without the authorization or acceptance of the Public Force. The leadership of the National Police saw it favorably, said José Félix Lafaurie, leader of the ranchers, because it is no different from what has been done for a long time in the cities and even in certain rural areas, without so much stridency or publicity. The collaboration of people with the force of the State is normal, without the use of weapons, but with some degree of organization and logistics. We heard Senator Imelda Daza say publicly that she was not opposed to these fronts, although she, rightly, warned that she could not lead to an armed self-defense group contrary to the desirable and constitutional state monopoly of force.
There cannot be security and defense “exclusively in the hands of the State”, without citizens. And ‘background’ serves to avoid repeating mistakes.
Progressive and left-wing sectors wrongly associate security as belonging to political adversaries (a right-wing idea, they call it), and do not assume it as the first human right: the right to life and tranquility; There is evidence of what is happening with these rights in cities and fields. The State without the citizen and his duty to collaborate is not effective in protecting rights.
Meanwhile… the new ‘paras’ take over our territory; just as illegal mining has displaced legal mining, as illicit cultivation displaces legal cultivation, and as informality displaces formal and legal employment. Here we go.
Recently Radio Guatapurí expressed itself editorially, recalling the number of acts against the people of the countryside, in a benevolent position towards the initiative.
We reject stigmatization, especially of the livestock union, whose activity cannot be pejoratively associated with that of the rich.
There are hundreds of thousands of families in the country that have small livestock farms. Although there may be some wealthy landowners, as in all types of businesses, the most outstanding are only so at the local level in small and intermediate cities in Colombia. A large rancher is far from the wealth of large financial, stock market, industrial, technological or service companies. More than a century ago, ranchers with large areas – like those that existed in the region and illustrated in an interesting book about the Hacienda Las Cabezas by the economist Adolfo Meissel – were the powerful ‘cacaos’ of national wealth. Today they are reduced to ‘village rich’. The Petro government’s goal of acquiring 150,000 hectares in the department in its four-year term, an area equivalent to the area once planted with cotton, should not be clouded amid the return of anxiety due to theft, armed invasion, kidnapping and extortion.
It is a mistake to think that a front of citizen collaboration can be created in the city and not in the countryside, where there are not only ranchers, because of the ghosts of the past.
Final note: we receive complaints about excessive increases in cadastral appraisals in Valledupar, the basis for the collection of property taxes; However, the discount for prompt payment, the amount to be paid becomes too much. Topic to be addressed in the coming days.