Crime in all its expressions has found fertile ground to multiply in this country where the quest for a quick buck is motivated by impunity and the culture of unbridled ostentatiousness exhibited by many that contrasts with the levels of poverty of most Dominicans.

More are becoming convinced that the country is going through a crisis that requires new policies that bring down to earth and adjust the lifestyle and consumption of privileged groups, especially those in government and politics, imposing the rule of the law.

The expansion of drug trafficking

The massacre of Bani is not the first of its magnitude in the country. Few remember these days that already on 5 September 204 another seven men were murdered in Navarrete, Santiago, in a settling of accounts among drug trafficking organizations.

These happenings make us fear that the violence of drug trafficking could reach the critical levels in other nations, such as Colombia, Peru and Mexico.

While the origin and motivations of the Monday massacre are not yet known, the circumstances in which they happened, involving persons from three or four countries, are evidence that powerful armed criminal bands with ample economic wealth capable of penetrating high-ranking military, police and social levels are operating here. The president of the National Council of Drugs, Mabel Feliz had to admit on Thursday that there is slackness in the government intelligence organizations that do not track foreigners that have been linked to drug trafficking.

Unofficial sources quoted in the press indicate that a 1,200 kilogram cargo of pure cocaine, valued at dozens of millions of dollars triggered the [Bani] murder.

The statistics of the confiscations of drugs show that the country has definitely become a bridge for the transport of narcotics to the great consumer markets in North America and Europe. But they also show an extraordinary consumption in diverse social segments of the Dominican population, including the poor.

A report from the National Drug Control Department (DNCD) published two weeks ago indicates that in 23 months that General Rafael Ramirez Ferreira has been at the helm of the department, the DNCD has confiscated 11 tons of a variety of drugs, including 9,456 kilograms of cocaine. The arrested were 35,000, or 52% of those in the past 8 years, and 30,979 drug vendor points were dismantled. This army general is highly regarded as one of the most diligent of those who have held the post.

Authorities as accomplices

For many years, priests that work in the barrios and community leaders have been denouncing the complicity of the police and the DNCD with drug trafficking, which was confirmed in an investigative report prepared for Hoy newspaper by Minerva Isa and Eladio Pichardo.

The capture of Quirino Ernesto Paulino at the end of 2004, put forth the complicity of high-ranking police, military, business and politicians with the mass trafficking of drugs, to levels that have still not been made known. But there is the general conviction that there are many drug-related fortunes.

The newspapers report that the Playa de Sabana Uvero in Bani, near where the massacre of Monday occurred, for some time now has been known as a sanctuary for the reception of drug bombs,” which fits into the extraofficial version that next to the house where those who were murdered lived, a warehouse for stocking narcotics was being built.

But senator for the province of Peravia, Wilton Guerrero, and Bishop Jose Arnaiz were not afraid to denounce on Wednesday that the economic power of drug traffickers has penetrated even those who are in charge of combatting the crime. This obligated the government to entrust the minister of the Armed Forces, the chief of the National Police and the Prosecutor General to investigate and present a report.

Senator Guerrero was decisive when he denounced that in recent years the Police, DNCD, and the provincial prosecutors have been at the service of drug traffickers in the province and do little other than charge a toll, having made Bani a kind of duty free zone for drug traffickers. In a meeting on Thursday with high-ranking officers, the legislator challenged the president of the DNCD to publicly name honest officers that have represented the DNCD in Bani in recent years.

Bishop Arnaiz was also strong in his comments saying that the country will have a hard time ridding itself of drug traffickers due to the millionaire resources they manage that corrupt the authorities in charge of combatting the crime.

Dramatic statistics

Senator Guerrero and Bishop Arnaiz comments caused impact, but they do not appear to be exaggerated if one has in account that just on 25 July of 2008, the president of the DNCD, General Ramirez Ferreira revealed that during his management of two years he has fired nearly 5,000 agents for their ties to illicit business activities, especially drug trafficking.

Even though the number of agents of the DNCD is secret, sources close to the DNCD say that the number of agents is around 5,000, which shows that the situation is dramatic. The statistics of the National Police and the Armed Forces are not much different. On 15 February, the Ministry of the Armed Forces said that since 2004 they had fired 2,300 military, including two generals and six colonels for theft, drug trafficking and other crimes.

These numbers are proof that a too significant proportion of persons that the government recruits for military and police work become involved in illegal activities, primarily drug trafficking.

The low wages that military and police receive make them prone to illicit activities such as drug trafficking, that is the most profitable business in the world. These wages do not attract youths with skills, but do attract those willing to take risks and those who desire to achieve the lifestyle they would never have by working at the jobs available.

That means that the government supplies arms and authority to more persons that are prone to seek a quick buck than to persecute crime. One has to add to this the risks that those who are honest on the job have to deal with.

Social decomposition

The present enormous social decomposition is fertile ground for the boom in crime in all its forms and primarily for drug trafficking due to its profitability.

Another incentive is the flaunting of wealth by government officers, politicians and businessmen. A dramatic expression of this anomalous situation is that the National Congress, the Supreme Court of Justice and the Central Electoral Board and other government organizations refuse to be part of the Dominican System of Social Security, a system that was created for all Dominicans, and there have been no consequences to their request for exclusion.

Behavior analysts express alarm for what they diagnose as culture of illegality and mockery to the rules, that has multiple expressions in Dominican society and that is strengthened by the prevailing impunity, together with the leniency of the authorities.

Last week the chief of the Police and the president of the Supreme Court lashed at each other publicly throwing to each the blame for responsibility in the present wave of crime.

Driving in the country is a mirror that reflects the social anomalousness, to the degree that a US newspaper said that there are no traffic rules in the country.

But that should not alarm anyone if one recalls the systematic theft of electric copper wires and cables of bridges, street sewage drain covers, and the gates of public monuments that are ripped off to be smelted and legally exported despite the many complaints that in this country we do not produce copper.

President Leonel Fernandez has denounced many times that the theft of electricity on behalf of large consumers is one of the causes of the power crisis that has the government covering the deficit with enormous subsidies that are even higher than those that are allotted to education. But a year after the special law to persecute electricity theft was passed, it is still to be implemented, and few feel it will be implemented.

Public opinion is in uproar over the need to control crime, but in general with the superficial view based on an authoritarian culture that pushes the authorities to execute criminals on the spot, without looking into its causes and the more effective methods to restrain crime.

It is obvious that upon the increasing insecurity new policies that provide more investment to improve the integration, capacity and resources of security forces, especially the investigators, is needed.

Last week business leaders spoke of this, aware that with wages of seven and eight thousand pesos it will not be easy to recruit police lieutenants that will be willing to risk their lives to defend the security of anyone. But above that, it will be most necessary to stop corruption and the distribution of the public wealth to the privileged politicians and government officers that today make more than their colleagues in developed nations and that today show levels of ostentatiousness that motivate the lower segments of the population to look for their own good at any price.