WITH BARELY eight months in office, General Henry Sanabria was relieved last Wednesday of the General Directorate of Police by President Gustavo Petro and in his replacement retired General William Salamanca, who had been serving as Colombian consul in Miami, was appointed .
The shock was surprising since, although Sanabria had been the subject of some controversies, especially due to an alleged interference of his religious positions in the day-to-day running of his administration and also due to the confusing case of the kidnapping of 76 uniformed men by a peasant mob in a rural area from San Vicente del Caguan, no one expected his replacement with such a short time as Director.
Likewise, although Salamanca, “major general of the reserve, with more than 37 years of experience in the institution”, managed the entire police connection between the Duque and Petro governments, no one expected that he would end up being reactivated so quickly to come to direct police.
The change generated an avalanche of reactions in favor or against, as well as multiple analyzes regarding what is happening in the institution during this Government, which has even raised the possibility of removing the institution from the orbit of the Ministry of Defense, at the same time that modified the emphasis of the fight against drugs and even the reaction protocols in the face of social protest.
What is happening in the institution?
EL NUEVO SIGLO spoke with the general of the active reserve, Teodoro Ricaurte Campo Gómez, the first senior officer reinstated to active service by the then head of state, Álvaro Uribe Vélez, to assume the General Directorate. And also with the former deputy director of the institution and today president of the retired National Police College of Generals, General (r) Héctor Darío Castro Cabrera.
The two retired officers were asked the same questions, with the aim of finding out what the operational priorities of the Police should be, the impact of the shift in anti-drug policy and even the effects of the Petro government’s peace strategy on the country. actions of this dependency of the Public Force.
- In the midst of the current alerts regarding security and public order, what should be the priority of the Police?
- Should the Police leave the orbit of the Ministry of Defense and move to another portfolio, such as that of a possible Ministry of Citizen Security?
- Do you think that the Petro government’s “total peace” policy is affecting or limiting the operation of the Police?
- With the eradication of drug crops decreasing this year, do you think the extension can reach more than 300,000 hectares?
- After what happened with the kidnapping or “retention” of 76 police officers in Caguan and 10 soldiers in Cauca, do you think this kind of situation will happen again? What to do to avoid them?
- In January 2022, the Citizen Security Law came into force. Has it worked to attack the violent overflow of social protest and criminal recidivism?
Police should not leave the Defense sector: Campo Gómez
- The Police have many fronts to attend to and the priority for the institution is the relationship with the community. The processes of incorporation of the members of the entity must be very rigorous to prevent the entry of people who do not meet the requirements or who are seeking personal benefits through the Police. The issue of public order is a hackneyed issue, it is an issue that we have to learn to leave behind. We have facts that are presented throughout the national geography, in which we have the need to commit ourselves and work together with the Military Forces in that area. But the subject of public order itself, I would prefer to change the name, because we assume public order as a fact of employment of the institution in activities that are not of its own spring.
In security, we have a function that is extremely broad and that has to do with both urban and rural areas. It is up to us to intervene in those places where there is a violation of tranquility, calm and community life.
The Police have a system for obtaining information through electronic means, to the point that we have become the largest generators of information so that other institutions can carry out operations, because they do not have the capabilities that they have. the institution today. The Police is at the forefront and always seeks to go one step forward to strengthen the security of Colombians and strengthen the citizen-Police pairing.
- I am convinced that those who are proclaiming that the Police should leave the Defense sector have no real knowledge of the situation that the country is going through. We must continue in the Defense sector as long as the circumstances that led, at the time, to assign the institution to this portfolio persist. Patenting a new criterion and thinking about the Ministry of the Interior or the Ministry of Justice are lucubrations. That is the task that people who are interested in undermining the chances of success that the Police and the Military Forces have acting jointly have been doing dutifully.
- Not at all. The Police is an institution that lends its assistance and support, as it corresponds, in accordance with the decisions of the National Government on duty. If the government of President Petro today is interested in carrying out a “total peace” policy, then the institution has no other possibility than to abide by and submit to those guidelines, but as long as the legal parameters that They regulate us.
- It is not that it can be triggered, it is that the coca leaf crop was triggered. And with the aggravating circumstance that they have introduced genetic modifications to the plant, so that today the productivity is higher than that of a few years ago. I agree with the proposals of the new president of Acore, General (r) Guillermo León León, insofar as emphasis should be placed on eradication. In this process we have used two ways: forced and voluntary. The voluntary eradication, unfortunately, did not give the results that were expected. Forced eradication is done through the clearing of plantations with the application of herbicides that are previously verified not to affect the ecosystem or the health of living beings.
- Community demonstrations should not be appeased basically through the use of force. That would be a mistake. What must be done is enter, prior to dialogue with these communities about who are the refugees and what are the demands they have and why their intention to illegally retain these people (police and soldiers), necessarily constituting kidnappers.
- The Citizen Security Law gave tools to the Police. However, like any rule, it is the subject of questioning and challenge by people who do not agree with that measure. But it is effective in dealing with crime.
Caption
FORMER DIRECTOR of the Police, general of the active reserve, Teodoro Ricaurte Campo Gómez.
Outstanding
“It’s not that it can be triggered, it’s that the coca leaf crop was triggered. And with the aggravating circumstance that they have introduced genetic modifications to the plant”
Intelligence and operability, priorities: Castro Cabrera
- Undoubtedly, the Police have to carry out important intelligence activities to locate all the sources of organized crime that are threatening a large part of society, especially in large cities. And complement it, of course, with operations, together with the Prosecutor’s Office, to capture all these people who have placed themselves outside the Law and have become a very worrying threat. So, I think these two coordinated activities are a priority: the intelligence one, to identify and locate these sources of disturbance, and the operational part, to neutralize the criminals and capture them with the Prosecutor’s Office and hand them over to the judge.
- I think it is a mistake to think of that possibility. The Police in 1953 definitively passed to Defense and there it has remained for 70 years. In those 60 years prior to 1953, he was 16 times between the Ministry of War and the Government portfolio. He returned to the Ministry of War because he became politicized and became a dangerous element for the community, since he was at the service of only one political party.They assigned her to depend on one occasion on the Army, on another on the Civil and Military Headquarters of Cundinamarca; it also remained dependent on a Gendarmerie and there is little to be salvaged from those first 60 years, because the Police was totally politicized. Already, from 1953 onwards, it is that he reorganizes and begins to shape his profession as such, recognizing its civil nature and dedicated to the service of all Colombians and not just a political sector. So, we consider that it is totally inconvenient for the nation that the Police leave the Ministry of Defense where apoliticality has been guaranteed.
- I don’t think so. On some occasions we have referred to this issue and said that the Police are in the cities and in the fields protecting citizens to guarantee their rights. The Police are not in offensive operations against any group, with the exception of drug traffickers who are trying to win the coasts to get the cocaine abroad. But outside of that activity, the Police are not persecuting, but the criminal who is threatening citizens in their daily work.In the total peace process with the armed groups, as long as they stop harassing and attacking the civilian population, the working citizen, the Police will not persecute them at all. If there is a break in their criminal activities, the Police, I believe, will remain vigilant so that this break is the beginning of the peace that Colombia is demanding.
- The problem of drug trafficking is not the total problem of drugs. The problem of drug trafficking is one of the stages, of the phases, but you have to start with drug cultivation, with the drug process, you have to continue with drug trafficking and then attack drug consumption to prevent there being a demand and then the narco-economy. So these five factors must be attacked, because any of them that is left free increases the problem of illicit drugs and increases all the crime that is born as a result of all these illegal activities.
- I believe that a great campaign should be launched to encourage citizens to respect authority. It is difficult for a good citizen, who feels protected by a State force, to see a Public Force kidnapped or thrown from a territory by a group of people, with whose interests it is not known. So who does the citizen turn to if when the Public Force is present he has to leave the place because they are not received? I believe that there should not be a single centimeter off-limits to the Military Forces and the National Police. The entire national territory must be controlled by the State and that is why the Public Force is there. Why does the Public Force go to a place where they have to run? So all the citizens run away too? The force of the State is for that, to enforce the law and guarantee all citizens the exercise of their rights. It is necessary to generate a great campaign through which authority is respected. If there is an irregular act of the Public Force, there are the control entities and the commanders that will receive the complaints and apply the corrective measures. But the Public Force must be respected as a sine qua non requirement for the Rule of Law to subsist in difficult situations like the ones we are experiencing.
- It is a good contribution, but it is still lacking because it is necessary to begin to spin a series of loose ends. For example, the fact of making the figure of the state of quasi-flagrance disappear. That is, when a person finds an item that was allegedly stolen, but it is not known where and simply takes it. The Police and the authorities in general cannot detain him to find out how he got it. So, there are a series of things that require a little more strength from the Public Force in the face of the threat of crime.
Caption
THE PRESIDENT of College of Retired Generals of the National Police, General (r) Héctor Darío Castro Cabrera.
Outstanding
“The Police are not in offensive operations against any groupexcept for the drug traffickers who are trying to win the coasts to get the cocaine out.”