The director of the Police, Major General Ney Aldrin Almonte announced the removal of General Juan Geronimo Brown Perez at the command of the south central region of the Police. He was reassigned to the southeastern region of the Police. He was replaced by General Eduardo Alberto Then in Baní. The announcement follows the murder of colonel Daniel Ramos Alvarez. Peravia senator Wilton Guerrero has stated Ramos was murdered as part of a complicity of the Police and the National Drug Control Agency (DNCD) with drug vending and trafficking operations in Peravia.
Meanwhile, the executive vice president of the Fundación Institucionalidad y Justicia (Finjus), Servio Tulio Castaños Guzmán says that the accusations involving the murder of Ramos and the remarks by the brother of chief suspect, reportedly, owner of the drug sales point where Ramos was murdered, that drug sales have an open market in the province, lead him to suggest that President Danilo Medina should make a statement about the recent events. Castaños said that what occurred in Baní, with the death of the Police colonel Daniel Ramos Alvarez is serious and matter of concern and reflects the high level of permissiveness of the authorities.
Castaños said that criticism and reactions take place after Jesús Peña, brother of Rafael Antonio Díaz (Buche), one of those implicated in the death of Colonel Ramos Álvarez at a drug spot in Baní, told the press that the crime was the product of an arrangement between the officers who accompanied the colonel and other owners of drug points in that locality.
Castaños said in suggesting President Medina give a definitive response. “He will have to rally sufficient political will to put an end to the surreptitious behavior of officers in those institutions, ” he stated.
Castaños Guzmán said that the aforementioned case is an example that in the Dominican Republic the consequences regime “does not work”. “I would say that this is the product of the levels of impunity that have been lived in the country,” he said. He emphasized that many of those people (drug traffickers) who are committing crimes in the streets have been subjected to justice on numerous occasions and have been released with amazing ease and have been criticized by the citizens themselves.
“How is it possible in the case of Baní, that this point of drugs denounced many times was still open?, he asks in a video published by El Nuevo Diario. He added in his statement: “There is no doubt that it remained open with the blessing of the authorities, then when a state behaves in that way, what can you demand of society?”
Castaños says: “The fact that members of institutions are involved in situations of that kind, should bring reflection to all Dominicans, I believe that those who direct those institutions will have to sit down on this occasion, to see how they can give an effective response, on all those who work as a member of the Police, the National Drug Directorate (DNCD), and the Armed Forces are the ones that are favoring drug lords of that nature. “
Read more in Spanish:
El Nuevo Diario
El Nacional
17 January 2019
