New call for an end to violence

[NewsWhore]

Representatives of a number of social sectors are calling for an end to the violence that is shaking Dominican society. Legislators, legal officials and housewives have joined the call to end the current epidemic of violence affecting the entire nation. Senate leader Reinaldo Pared Perez said that the authorities would review the government's National Security Plan, and senators Francisco Dominguez Brito and Amilcar Romero want the government to increase its efforts to control crime and drug trafficking. In an article in El Caribe, a spokesperson for the National Drug Control Office (DNCD) said that the "bloody events involving drug traffickers are 100% due to the struggle between (drugs) wholesalers and distributors". In today's Hoy, the leading paragraph in page two's "Que se dice" (What's being said) column questions the effectiveness of the government's efforts. The columnist writes, "For some, still undetermined reason, violence has returned quite strongly during the first days of the year, despite the fact that the police chief, for reasons that are easy to understand, wants to hide by denying the facts. The large number of violent incidents that fill the news columns, especially those related to drug trafficking and consumption, have forced the population, as well as public opinion, to look at the Safe Barrio Plan, the public safety plan under way in Santo Domingo and Santiago that had, until recently, restored barrio residents' sense of security." The writer suggests that the police may have let their guard down or that the scope of the program is overwhelmed by the size of the problem. The writer applauds the announcement that the program will be strengthened in areas where "there is a higher incidence of violence."

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