Creator of neighborhood insurance defends application in RD

Consultant firm Newlink Research, Eduardo a. Gamarra, creator of democratic security and safe neighborhood program, defended the implementation of the project in Dominican Republic, during a hearing before the Subcommittee on Western Hemisphere Affairs, carried out in the Congress of United States in the middle of last month.

Gamarra said that after its initial success violent deaths began to rise again, and other forms of crime, especially theft and robbery, which especially sprouted in neighborhoods that were outside of neighborhood safe.

"Our own evaluations identified the factors that transformed Dominican Republic insecurity." "These factors are common to other countries facing the same problem," said the expert.

Gamarra said the democratic security (PSD) and neighborhood Insurance Plan was a good faith effort to address a problem that was "Unfortunately" more u000abigger than Dominican Republic and the changing situation of insecurity of the Caribbean.

The Professor of political science, Florida International University, also said that on the domestic front, the most serious problem that faced the PSD was the inability to reform the national police, which is still an institution that resists change for reasons ranging from corruption, a severe lack of training and resources.

"Another aspect had to do with the lack of coordination between institutions in charge of implementing the PSD." "In particular, the plan suffered from a serious lack of coordination between the police and the Ministry of Interior and police," the consultant said. Gamarra added that a final and main problem was the lack of international support for the PSD. The US Embassy supported with limited funds the promotion of the community police and the strengthening of the procuraduría.

"From my point of view, in the course of the" u000aAfter eight years, us support for the initiatives of President Fernández has been limited.

Moreover, in the annual reports of the State Department annual report on the drug traffic in the world, the impact of the assistance programmes of United States is quite exaggerated", said Gamarra.

"U.S. assistance has been limited in size and scope, and often contradicts or double local efforts underway." "Occasionally, United States officers saw the initiatives of the Dominican President with scepticism and suspicion," said the consultant, who President Fernánez commissioned the creation of the project in 2004.

"While the success of the PSD was affected by such domestic obstacles, the reality is that the situation in the Caribbean has also changed dramatically during this period and has had a huge impact in Dominican Repúblilica." For 2007, our research confirmed the u000a"presence of transnational crime organizations that were using the island of Hispaniola to smuggle drugs to United States and Europe," he added.

Gamarra said that drugs that fell from the sky had a multiplier impact on the country. First, drug use became an item up in the small villages where traffickers paid in kind people that the gathered.

This produced not only violence but that also contributed to the consumption of drugs among young Dominicans.

"Second, increasingly more were arrested in Dr individuals from a variety of countries including Colombia, Venezuela, Central American, Mexican and Haitian." "Thirdly, these trends suggest that the Dr was fast becoming not only a point of transfer but also the place where traffickers of multiple nationalities were violently resolved their disputes", said.

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