Cattlemen’s Guild maintains that the few existing police officers must patrol without horses and there is no control over the sacrifice of animals
The first to be affected, and this has been going on for many years, were the livestock producers settled in the south of the department, who have had to endure the tireless actions of the herdsmen who have managed to destroy the herds of some of the smallest livestock farmers that They are unable to recover from the theft of fifteen or twenty animals.
Criminals specialized in livestock theft, when they found themselves harassed by the surveillance of producers and authorities, used the strategy of migrating to quieter places on the peninsula, where they could continue with criminal actions against those who decided to convert forever. in livestock producers, this is how an important group of criminals dedicated to the theft of these livestock, established themselves in the center and north of La Guajira, where they began to decimate these businessmen, to the point that many decided to sell what they had left and retire from the business that in many cases had been passed down from family generation to generation.
An SOS to the National Police Directorate
On May 23, Brigadier General José Luis Ramírez Hinestroza, current national director of the Police Services Unit, which was known as Citizen Security, was in Riohacha and his presence was taken advantage of by the ranchers who did not leave a single one of their problems behind. without denouncing in a ceremony held at the Central Command facilities in Riohacha, which was done at the request of the senator Martha Peraltawho in addition to the brigadier general, had summoned the department’s police commander, mayors, secretaries and other authorities, including the director of the ICA in La Guajira.
Carabineros without horses
One of the complaints made by the president of the La Guaira Livestock Breeders Associationthe engineer Milagros Ojedawas that there is not enough outside foot, but also the few carabineros that the institution has in the peninsula, do not have a sufficient number of horses to form a strong patrol that can penetrate the areas where they presumably operate and criminals hide and where there are other actors of violence, which is why putting police officers in a disadvantageous condition is not acceptable either.
There is no slaughter plant in the capital
Another well-founded criticism was made by the Secretary of Government of the department Misael Velásquez Granadillowho recalled that Riohacha, despite being the capital of the department, does not have a bovine slaughter plant, but meat arrives daily at the market and other places where it is sold to the consumer without having been approved by veterinarians. of the ICA and Secretary of Health, before the sacrifice.
As is easy to assume, a good part of these sacrificed animals have an established origin that in some cases is related to cattle rustling, but the risk to human health must also be considered, with the consumption of a food that is not processed. did any type of phytosanitary control.
“increasing the force in the towns where there are livestock herds in their surroundings, strengthening intelligence in the city and villages and more presence on the roads,” was the cry of the producers, before all the local authorities and Brigadier General José Luis Ramírez Hinestroza.
