The Mayor announced that she will request results from the Ministry and the Government for the resources provided. Specialists say that it is urgent to guarantee rights and security.
Considered one of the main tourist attractions of Guayaquil and which consists in webs of international travel, the Santa Ana hill was once again the target of crime that does not stop in the city and that adds more deaths due to this new wave of insecurity.
A Dutchman who chatted in a bar on step 355 with his girlfriend and another woman is one of the most recent victims who dies after an antisocial shot him when he saw him get up from his seat when, with another buddy, they were going to rob them, according to versions. preliminaries.
It was around 9:00 p.m. on Wednesday the 19th when the incident occurred while the 56-year-old foreigner was visiting the area. The Dutch tourist, identified by the National Police as Jacob Vogel Cornelis, did not resist the injuries and died upon arrival at the nearest hospital. With his death there were 54 violent deaths recorded, until that night, so far in January in Zone 8, which includes Guayaquil, Durán and Samborondón, according to official figures.
That criminal event in this tourist spot of the city, which is added to the assaults, robberies and murders that occur daily in Guayaquil, yesterday multiplied the complaints and questions of citizens in the face of insecurity that would seem to have no solution. Social networks, media interviews and conversations between friends and family were the spaces where the inhabitants exposed their calls for attention and disagreements.
“Where are the police in these tourist sites?”, “Why don’t the metropolitans (municipal guard) go out to protect Santa Ana, Las Peñas, the Malecón…?”, “What use have cameras, vans and everything what has happened”, “why don’t they go out to ask for marches for security as they did before”, “and the municipal guards who don’t let the cameras pass when they go up, where were they?”, were part of the citizen questions .
Even the mayor of Guayaquil, Cynthia Viteri, stepped in and assured that “the absolute responsibility for controlling crime in the country belongs to the central government.” She used her social networks to demonstrate after a television program also alluded to the security responsibilities of the local municipality.
“Unless you change the Constitution, through a National Constituent Assembly, the absolute responsibility for controlling crime in the country belongs to the central government,” the official answered.
That again generated questions, especially on social networks. Some rejected and others supported what Viteri expressed.
Police identify the suspects in the murder of a Dutch tourist on the Santa Ana hill in Guayaquil
“The question is that Guayaquil loses and Ecuador loses. Without tourism, there are no sources of work; without work, murders, hit men, drug trafficking are increasing…”, exposed a tweeter.
Owners of shops, restaurants and representatives of the tourism sector also expressed their concern about the crime wave in Guayaquil that directly affects and hits branches such as tourism, the economy and drives away investment, in addition to generating anxiety in the population that chooses to ‘self-isolate’ ‘, this time, because of insecurity.
Specialists in the matter mention that although criminal control and citizen security as such is the responsibility of the central government, there are issues that can be worked on in a joint and planned manner.
The architect Luis Saltos, a specialist and master’s degree in Urban and Regional Planning, says that in the literals of article 54 of the Organic Code of Territorial Planning (Cootad), which cites the functions of the autonomous municipal governments, the regulation and control of the use of the public space, as well as the creation and coordination of municipal citizen security councils, with the participation of the National Police, community and other related agencies, where local policies, plans and evaluation of results on prevention, protection, security and coexistence will be formulated and executed. citizen.
For him, it is vital that the Municipality, in addition to working in a coordinated manner with the central government, evidence the statistics or real data that would demonstrate the situation of Guayaquil in these times, in order to generate alternatives, since crimes occur in the spaces public. The latter, he says, are the responsibility of the councils.
“The Cootad article talks about the cantonal security councils where it also specifies the issue of planning, because planning is something integral. You can’t deal with city issues in this case in one way: ‘this is yours’, ‘this is mine’, it’s not like that, because really urban issues are integral”, explains Saltos.
And remember that when the regeneration of the Santa Ana hill took place (which began in 2001) an ordinance was even created to regulate that area, thus managing specific public policies that already spoke of security issues such as the management of public space, private security, among others.
Subject who tried to rob a local food in Samanes was shot down; a policeman also died in the crossfire
It adds that with these crime issues, the right of people to the full enjoyment of the city and its public spaces is also being violated, as well as the right to a safe and healthy habitat guaranteed by articles 30 and 31 of the current Constitution.
Lawyer Stalin Sacoto, Security Specialist, former National Police officer and High Commissioner for International Relations of the Cedhus, affirms that municipal governments are not responsible for security, since the central state has not delegated them, as is the case. for example, in locations in the United States.
For this reason, providing security and putting order on the issue of violence and providing security is the responsibility of the Central or national State, because that is how Ecuadorian laws determine it.
“In the fight against crime in its various manifestations, the one who has the constitutional obligation to maintain it is the National Police. The National Police has to coordinate with the autonomous governments so that they give them facilities, give them tools to be able to fight crime…” explains Sacoto.
And it highlights that even the municipality of Guayaquil, throughout these years and in different periods, has been the council that has helped the most in the fight against crime because it has contributed with tools, implements, has provided spaces, facilities, with models and plans that have later been replicated in other cities.
For him, it is time for everyone to unite to act in the frontal fight against insecurity. And one option that could bring results, he maintains, is the change in the laws.
“We need the circumstances to exist so that there is an agreement between the Prosecutor’s Office, the Judiciary Council, the National Police, autonomous governments, all of them, in the frontal fight against insecurity, because ultimately the citizens do not care who gives them security, they want is to feel safe”, he indicates,
Security, says Sacoto, must be viewed from two concepts: targeted security and comprehensive security.
In the first, directed, there is a body, a person or a department that is responsible for generating safe environments. In the integral, “all the participants in a process have to help create safe environments,” says this specialist.
Already in the afternoon, at the Cantonal Council session, Mayor Cynthia Viteri assured that next week she will publicly request results from the Ministry of Government and the Government of Guayas for the resources that Guayaquil has delivered over the years to combat citizen insecurity.
Until the closing of this edition, the governor of Guayas, Pablo Arosemena, did not pronounce on the matter.
Resources for security for which the mayor of Guayaquil will ask for accounts
Equipment for National Police
The mayor of Guayaquil said, this Thursday the 19th, that she will ask for accounts for the resources given to citizen security by the Buenos Aires council. He gave examples. In The last two years, the Municipality has delivered $6.1 million for the acquisition of vans, motorcycles, GPS (satellite tracking), cell phones, drones and more technological devices for the National Police.
Investment in emergency center
Another item that Cynthia Viteri sums up and details is the $18 million “invested in the new emergency center from Guayaquil”, which includes video analytic cameras and public address systems, among other services. This plus the $6.1 million for police equipment gives a total of $24.1 million allocated to citizen security, according to figures from the council.
New vehicles delivered
In November 2021, the Municipality gave 31 motorcycles and 31 trucks for patrols sets of the National Police, Armed Forces, and metropolitan agents and the Traffic and Mobility Agency (ATM). (I)
Mario Twitchell is an accomplished author and journalist, known for his insightful and thought-provoking writing on a wide range of topics including general and opinion. He currently works as a writer at 247 news agency, where he has established himself as a respected voice in the industry.
