 Good morning, everyone. My name is Keith Morian, Director for Latin America of the U.S. Institute for Peace. I'd like to warmly welcome you all to a very special and very interesting event we will be here today. The U.S. Institute for Peace is a bipartisan public institute established by the U.S. Congress in 1984 to find solutions to violent conflicts throughout the world. We are working on a very wide range of issues in order to assist and prevent conflicts and help nations going out of conflicts and making peace in Latin America. We are also active in the country of Colombia, Venezuela, Haiti, New Zealand, Central America, Nicaragua, and Bolivia. We are working on policy recommendations, analysis, programs, and support for peacemakers in the field. Our discussion today will be focusing on an issue that has been very central in the peace world in the United States, Colombia, Chile, Brazil, Bolivia, and many other societies, which is the use of police force to maintain public order. This is a classical common issue. We managed to get the right to express ourselves and frustration will give people to the streets where protests can become violent. And that has happened because of lack of training, inappropriate equipment, or personal prejudices will lead to excessive use of force against protests and the protests can become a combat. Dozens of people throughout the hemisphere have been killed in such situations and the bond between the security providers and the public has been broken. Today is my privilege to welcome four subject matter experts from the hemisphere who will be sharing their perspectives on how to prevent escalation and create appropriate conditions so where the peaceful protests can be maintained in the communities while maintaining communities of safe and security. Today with us are Dr. Gino Costa, former Peruvian congressman and minister of the interior, an expert on police reform and democracy. Madison has been working throughout the sphere of these issues. His book besieged democracy is a testimony of the democracy crisis through Dr. Ull Krullin, he's a government faculty in the University of Chile with a master's degree and master's degree from the University of Harvard, who is the director of the Think Tank of Citizen Security of the Public Affairs Institute of the University of Chile and director of the project crime and urban violence and ecology of crime in the design of public policies. Dr. Ignacio Kano is an original expert and not only has a PhD in sociology from the University of Madrid, many of the things is the founding member of the lab for violence analysis of the State University of Rio de Janeiro. And if Fernandez is a lawyer and master's degree on law on the University, National University of Colombia has been working with power came with various nonprofits on human rights and victim protection affairs. She's a researcher of the organization and the moderator of our discussions is Arturo Matute from USEP who is an expert of citizen security issues based in Guatemala. So I'm going to recognize Arturo so you can proceed to lead our discussion. Good morning, everyone. Welcome all to the virtual roundtable on social police and social protests in Latin America and because we have a short time, I'd like to introduce our panelists. Each will have five minutes will go from north to south and starting with ego fooling in Chile and then Gino Costa who will speak about institutions through Angie Fernandez will address Colombia and Ignacio Kano will be giving us a regional perspective on this topic and then we will have the space for Q&A and discussion with the panelists and if we have time we'll respond to questions. Thank you very much. Good morning, everyone. On October 17, 2019, we started a very long period of social demonstrations, then expression of violence against public and private property. Accompanied by loading and other expressions of public unrest and discontent, which lasted for several months in Chile, but it was previously reempted by student demonstrations on 2005 and 2011. In each case, there was an expression of a very strong misuse of force by the Calabineros in Chile and suddenly the situation had to be regret as of 2019 can be explained by the lack of correction on the part of each administration, our government in terms of the strategic practices protocols and standards used by Calabineros enforcement in every situation. Misuse of force resulted especially in wounded people, people in shock, the unrestricted use of tear gas, in some cases directed against people themselves, the use of riot rifles causing visual trauma in the last laws of one or two eyes in the protesters. Just one month after the protests started, the Calabineros announced that they would stop using those rifles when several international human rights organizations have been intervened and they had stated that those rifles should not be used to avoid any injuries being caused to people. And they also insisted that it was necessary to stop using them due to the lack of training by those who were using them in the case of America's watch and with the support of the University of Chile, we were able to establish that the bullets being used had metal crustaceans. Since I have a short time, there's some aspects that I would like to highlight in this while the misuse of force was evident. The truth is that despite the military intervention that was decreed by the government, the curfew that the government established for 12 days, the number of deaths as a result of the actions of the state agents was relatively low in about five individuals. There was not an extensive use of firearms being used to control rights and this government has cooperated with international human rights organizations and opened the door to discussions with them and later published a new protocol for the use of force in the national gazette. Some recommendations I'd like to note based on these episodes is that the special Calabineros forces were not prepared or have the necessary staffing to deal with the social protests that extended to the entire country. There were 1,400 members of the law enforcement enforcement that had some degree of training and they had to turn to a greater staff that didn't have any training in the rest of the country and in the end more than 20,000 Calabineros, law enforcement agents were controlling the violence which led to a situation of turmoil, a lot of control and misuse of force. Now too, it would be impossible to understand what happened without alluding to the 12 prior episodes where there was not a proper oversight and correction on the part of the civil administration in office at the time. Thank you so much, Dr. Fuling. We now recognize Dr. Gino Kosko. Please. Thank you, Dr. Three factors have contributed to the serious human rights violations in the Peru protests. First, the deterioration of democracy and the growing impurity of law enforcement. The Peruvian democracy is in crisis since 2016 which has led to rotation of the commands lack of authority and the absence of accountability by our security forces is a major factor because of the major that's that we had in the investigation that was carried out vis-a-vis the repression, violent repression of the 2020 protests. The investigation was shelved and the Congress led all these forces and asked the prosecutor's office to just leave it at that and this does not explain the misuse of forces, the use of these forces that are inadequate have not done their job and since sometime now they have not used properly their police force. This manifested itself in the way the government dealt with it and they called for immediate elections, SNAP elections and they opted for a regressive response to mostly peaceful demonstrations while they were slurring and then also this led to a crackdown that repressed people. Vis-a-vis the deaths, the government did not change their political discourse or the protocol and they did not hold the Minister of Defense or the Interior responsible for what had happened in the Prime Minister either six days after the Uamanga deaths because of the military repression. The government did not announce any investigation leading to the replacement of any operational command because of the results and also no action was taken and it has taken too long. Also to the start of the protests and multiple reports and media reports the police are still there and no measures have been taken with alleged responsible people and the army has not been prosecuted because of what happened in Uamanga and also the projectiles that were used are the same used by both the police and the military in the involvement of both military and police and several victims got bullets on their chest and brain while they were saying that they were not dangerous. As a result, all the government has declined in its level of popularity in the protests that were carried out and many of these protests that were unpopular became looked at with good eyes. And what is quite clear is that this is a drawback in our human rights for various Peruvian families and for democratic living together and it's also adverse to the investments in the country. Although the country is still polarized and do not approve of the performance of the security and law enforcement forces some would approve it and it would be very difficult to recover from what has happened and restore citizen security. The adoption of certain measures would lead to restoring this situation first the dismissal of Roberto Cano of Esther for his resignation and also taking measures regarding them and also proper investigation of the cases. Fourth exercise of the elections learned and also the installing of cameras to control law enforcement operations and controlling munitions used by police and citizens also the proper use of intelligence. It would be recommended to create a national record for human rights in order to develop a democratic doctrine on protest control by using the proper protocols for law enforcement operations and develop a training and equipment program to We build the national prevention system and peaceful solution of conflicts at the level of the cabinet of ministers and finally to strengthen the foundations in order to modernize and streamline our law enforcement as approved by the government in 2021. Thank you doctor Costa would like to recognize Angie Hernandez so she will talk about the situation in. Thank you so much for having me. It is an organization that follows an approach on human rights. The situation in Colombia is based on this forensic approach to the human rights situation and I would like to relate some of the facts that occur in the case of Colombia. While the global tension has been focused in Colombia since 2019 to 2021 because of these events this is something that we know and we've had more than 20,000 or 12,000 occurrences of unrest and protests around the country. The social outbreaks resulted in a serious impact because of the violence involved first moment was when the we had the initial outbreak and some of the authorities in office. Reacted by enforcing controls through their law enforcement in the second time and second moment is when they address these legal mechanisms being enforced after the implementation of these regulations on the use of police force the number of people who were killed. And were victims of violence and different cases, people who went missing or disappeared and had to be reported in the police or the authorities said that all people had been accounted for. There are also cases of sexual violence and injuries that are not related to the traditional violent things that occurred during the demonstrations of people who were stabbed or received bullet impacts or all types of injuries. The result saw a very serious situation of violence in the country. There are a number of myths around social protests in Colombia, but they're very specific, triggering factors that have enabled these facts to occur. And this might be considered visible or minor factors, but they do have a major impact. First of them is the very ample discretion that the authority have for using force as per the existing regulations and standards. Our forces are required to exhaust every peaceful method to deal with these protests and most of these reactions will occur because the space between dialogue and the use of force has not been clearly defined. So it is not at all clear what are the specific procedures that should be completed before resorting to the use of force. In most cases they will use force immediately. It is presumed that there is an initial dialogue, but then they will resort to action. The second factor is in Colombia. Social protest is legally authorized, but there are still standards in place that will hinder the implementation of those social protests in a way which is not so well regulated. For instance, in Colombia, the possibility for people to stop traffic is banned. There are standards in the penal code that someone who will obstruct traffic will be penalized because we need to ensure public law and order and citizens living together. This is used as an element to enforcement or using firearms. Some are less lethal, but they are still being used to deal with political confrontations or any other type of protest. So there is this power, this congressional power that these authorities have to decide when to use police force. And this will provide a legal framework for them to decide what type of weaponry, firearms will be used and the type of personnel that will get involved in it. So there is a major factor during protests. There are very few checks and balances in place. I mean, when the protest starts, they will exert control, but later on they will also use controls, but they are less. And we have found that such controls in terms of accountability are minor in nature in the processes that will go on for 10 years. Many of these court proceedings instituted will take more than 10 years and there will be no results at the end. And besides that, we have looked at many violent scenarios that will occur in very specific sites where these protests or demonstrations will take place. But it will go beyond that. It will follow up on protesters, try to control the people who participated in those protests, which is an arbitrary action to do. Sure, we will shall continue shortly. Now we will give the floor to Ignacio Cano for him to provide original perspective. Dr. Cano, thank you. In Latin America we have problem of misuse of force that can be divided into two components. One, the use of lethal force in fighting organized crime through a military paradigm. Those who are criminal suspects are considered to be enemies and they have to be taken down. And we have a project for the use of lethal force in Latin America with many countries and we have found that many summary executions in Brazil, Venezuela, Ecuador, Mexico and other countries in the region is replacing in point. And also the second point is the use of lethal force and this is where the social protest comes in. The use of lethal force against protests can become lethal as we've seen it in Colombia and other countries and it can lead to serious injuries as we saw in Chile. Central point here is how the police will deal with the social protest. By and large, the police will not consider it as a democratic right but as a thing to be dealt with combativeness. And when we look at civil rights, it is possible to use police force but that should be done from a standpoint that a protest should be protected and not fought. Which is not the case in the region. So here you have the two basic paradigms with the police. There's a police to preserve the government, political police and there's a police for protecting social rights which is the classical paradigm you see in England. And Latin America is undergoing its slow transition to that model. In Latin America we see many traits of the police being used as the government or regime police. And since protests are against the executive power and they come under the executive power, the risk is that they will use police to quash these protests. And this is not unique of Latin America. We see it in many countries in the world but it's also clear in this region. And also the aggressiveness of some protesters who become violent can be used as an excuse to quash the protests violently as was the case in Brazil in 2023 with their mass demonstrations. And in that regard there have been allegations in various countries that the various state agents are infiltrating demonstrations violently precisely to justify an indiscriminate or wanton repression. This indiscriminate repression is reinforcing the protest and leads to a vicious cycle. It is also common for demonstrators to be treated differently according to their political trends. For instance last year in Brazil the extreme right demonstrators were very carefully treated by the police while the left wing demonstrations were dealt with very violently. The times we are living now are of great dissatisfaction. I will repeat because of authoritarian governments and increased social protests so it is very important for us to pay attention to this issue of how the police deals with the protest. The law enforcement of these protests should abide by technical protocol and not so much of political intervention. Eventually since the police will obey the executive power they will have a different attitude and we don't want that. The way these protests are being dealt with should be in a technical manner complying with protocols which must be public and agreed by people. The public should know how the police is going to deal with the demonstration and what are the measures they are going to take to reduce the discretion authority. Despite that what we see in these countries is the opposite thing. For instance in Chile recently there is a new law that has been enacted that gives the presumption of legitimate self-defense to the police. So something that has caused injuries or wounds to someone will be treated as legitimate self-defense and the courts will condone it. And there are protests such as that going on in the continent. In other cases with the application of terrorism labels to it. We've seen it in the US, the United Kingdom, etc. And what's happening is that they are giving them carbons to the police and they can do anything they want and they will be justified. And with this we need to deal with the increase of oversight and control both internal and external mechanisms for police performance. Without those external and internal control mechanisms we will continue to see more injuries and excessive use of force by the police in the region. Thank you. And now I would like to open up our space for exchanges during the panelists in order to incentivize our panel discussion. I'd like to start with a couple of questions that would be the basis for our discussion. The issue of political scandals and the public opinion that has been generated as a result of these situations of misuse of police force have been very important at the time. But it would be very interesting to get to know how this issue remains in the political agenda of each country in the region in terms of controlling the use of force. And also an issue I'd like to raise is the changes that technology have brought about in terms of organizing social protest situations. Perhaps in the past this was a bit more clear in terms of who were the people who were leading a protest situation. And there could be better mechanisms to articulate or coordinate with the authorities to know when and where these protests were going to be staged. And now the situation is pretty different. Many times the protest situations occur spontaneously. They're being organized through social media and this will further hinder the possibility of giving a democratic and respectful response to human rights. What are your comments or reactions to it? Dr. Furing, we will start with you and then you can all chime in. Yes, thank you very much. I would like to make a quick comment based on the observations made by Gino and Ignacio concerning policy and the police response to social protest. I think it's really important, therefore, to say the following. First off, when it comes to policing, you have this context in most of our countries where there is little legitimacy or support for democratic institutions. And that does have other effects. First off or the first effect being that people tend to take to the streets because they feel that political institutions are not representing their particular interests. And obviously that leads to conditions that cause police to use force in response. But secondly, looking at the case of what occurred in Chile, I find that the tone, the narrative of who supervises the state is essential in order to promote the conditions to reduce tension and resolve any matter in a peaceful way. While the government initially will often make use of efforts to condemn violent acts by protesters, there's often an escalation in repressive or oppressive actions when in the Senate and with the authorization of the government an agreement was reached on November 15. That sought constitutional change. It was clear that tension reduced and although protests continued, they were less intense. And I want to sort of compliment what Hugo is saying, agreeing with him saying that the tone of this political discourse is necessary when you are deciding how the police are going to respond. And the police need to have technical protocol so that when they have to take action that they not be obligated to accept this. For example, I've seen situations where the government demanded that the police eliminate an uprising at all costs and the police responded with technical parameters. I think that the government on one hand has to have a tone of reducing tension and they have to have a tolerance for democratic protests. Yes, but there needs to be police authority that has technical tools to resist some of these demands from the government that sadly will will will be present in the case of Columbia would be essentially the exact same thing. As you know, the current government, which is a more progressive government has a tone within some police authorities, especially at the local level. That is, I mean that tone sort of goes against protests that we're seeing the new movements when it comes to how to generate control how to aid and how to protect protests. In Columbia recently, we've seen some legal reform initiatives when it comes to the police as a structure, and specifically the entity that's in charge of suppressing protests and riots specifically. So we do see that action has been going down but in some areas the more practical approach at a local level tends to be violent. And I say this because in addition to the factors that have been mentioned the tone of the national government and the existence of protocol. It is important that we also generate mechanisms that will allow us in some way shape or form to be politicize the police so that police can do their job that would truly allow them to protect people's rights at a local level Like cities like Bogota, Cali, Medellin, it might be a clearer change but in remote municipalities those changes are harder to identify. If you'd allow me just saying I completely agree with the importance of a relationship between politics and and policing, like Hugo said, and with the comment also given by Ignacio, in the sense that this is a shared responsibility and police institutions should be ready should be professionally prepared to respond within the framework of the law. Although the climate and the general orientation that could that a particular government might give a directive, for example, might lead to the police acting in the margins of the law acting against protest protesters accusing them of violent acts or accusing them of terrorism which causes the rise of a climate where the police act within that context. Obviously there's a political responsibility there because there has been an inadequate response and the police have really gone beyond what they were supposed to do in terms of keeping these protests under control. I want to mention an additional aspect which is the use of firearms in particular. Long range firearms used in Peru for example during these protests, nothing keeps that from occurring. That's within legislation but you know it has to be an exceptional measure, an extraordinary measure. When that use, however, it goes inadequately controlled like what happened in Peru recently that can lead to occurrences like what we happened in the case where six people died in one day or 10 in one day in Guamanga or 18 or 19 in Cuiaca. And so I feel that this sort of begs a special kind of dialogue and regulation, highly detailed regulation in order to avoid the bloodbaths that we've witnessed. Many of the national institutions continue to deal with authoritarian frameworks and we haven't been able to re-establish democratic institutions like we need in Latin America. And in that sense the dialogue that has been mentioned as an important tool, not just to arrive at agreements on how we deal with these things, but what exactly are the possibilities for dialogue in each one of these countries. And also making reference to those really interesting situations or maybe infrequent where the police has been capable of technically putting the presentation forward of using force and opposing policies coming from above. In states that continue to, that remain under authoritarian control, so whoever wants to answer by all means go ahead. Arturo, among the things that I've mentioned that I believe to be necessary in Peru, for example, is strengthening a national prevention system and peaceful management for social conflict, which has been under construction over the last 20 years. It's had highs and lows and clearly didn't work, given these protests which were highly political and we could say occurred in a surprising way after the failed auto coup by Pedro Castillo. And there was a situation where the protest didn't really have a clear face or a clear message and we just couldn't establish dialogue with the protesters. In addition to the fact that there wasn't will from the government, which had adopted a more aggressive dialogue, a more aggressive narrative against the protesters, as I've said, so the government eliminates the possibility of a political exit from this situation, and they opt for an oppressive measure. So when it comes to looking at managing social conflicts over the last 20 years, which have been very violent, the need for adequate mechanisms of dialogue is fundamental. To avoid having these conflicts from turning into major turbulence at a population level, and this would allow us to address the problems that underlie the protests themselves that aren't being addressed. I think that that's absolutely necessary in the case of Peru and I think in all the countries of the region there are systems like these and we need a professionalization initiative. We need to train professionally train the staff members and the personnel who have had to learn on the ground or who have had to learn in the moment, but it hasn't been a real professional preparation for those who have to enforce the law in context of social conflict work then recourse to police force is the last option and that's where we deal with the violence and human rights violations that we've seen throughout the region. I wanted to come back to what Gino said concerning the legal limit, which we've been mentioning for a long time we need to have laws on the use of police force specific laws. Generally they don't exist throughout the region, without any exception, that would really explain what the general parameters are but beyond the law. I mean, there are very specific matters that can't be included in legislation and so they have to be in those in the technical protocol, how the police address protesters, what their previous contact with them has been the possibility of having ununiformed police or police and civilian clothing to get information on what's going on. There are lots of elements that can't be included in the law that are just too specific and we have to understand how complicated this is. The use of force because the use of force is progressive depending on what's going on with the protesters. It depends on many factors. It's not that simple. And then you also have to think about what Gino and Hugo were saying. Sometimes if there's an emergency because the protest is too big, you need contingents of police who haven't even been trained. That's really dangerous. Those police officers don't have any training to deal with those protesters. They have to have specific training within the police and those need to be the people who are trained. The people who are trained need to be the ones who are called to deal with these situations. Yes. I completely agree with what Gino and Ignacio have said. We want to highlight an additional complementary aspect, shall we say. We have to have a police strengthening process in a democratic sense. And I'm not talking about the expression of democratic policing that was used in the 2000s. I'm talking about something that goes deeper than that. We are experiencing constant political volatility and the governments can alternate. In Chile, we are now looking at the possibility of going from a leftist government to a government that's much further to the extreme right. And that has an effect on the relationship that we have with social protest. Given that we need police officers who have a sufficient amount of independence and conviction when it comes to a democratic doctrine. Not just to be able to overcome that pressure, but also so that they can be effective in controlling protests. Because often what we see is an excess of oppression. But when there's ineffectiveness from the police, they make use of pressure within the public to use armed forces. And then the medicine ends up being worse than the disease. So, at that point, we have to have some kind of support for a process that is very much damaged and has been incredibly unsuccessful in the region when it comes to police reform. And the final thing just to close, it's that even knowing the protocol and following up on that, there will always be a space for gray areas. And because of that, the training and preparation for police officers must be on a case by case basis. It needs to depend on situations and they require a legal training as well. They have to be very clear on what techniques are for de-escalating conflict. Taking a question from the chat, it's a question from Dr. Fernandez on the Colombian situation. They're saying that the police in Colombia are also racist, that afro descendants have been disproportionately affected by excessive force by law enforcement. So, what differences have you seen in terms of these protocols? Namely, Dr. Fernandez, if you could speak to this and then maybe we can go to the other speakers. I think that the country really is for all countries. I do think that there is racism and I think that within the protests, we did see situations where it was very clear that in addition to the police, we saw special courts in neighborhoods that traditionally or tend to be where afro descendant people live. You have a lot of indigenous people living in those neighborhoods. There were many deaths and a whole bunch of tensions rising. There were injuries in Colombia. It was clear. I mean, the amount of progress in the protocol to implement these perspectives really, it's minimum. It's at a minimum because the protocols continue to be very general in nature. I just don't think that they incorporate any of these perspectives in the protocols themselves. In fact, even those that require detailing many of the aspects contained, it's just they're so general. That it would be hard to integrate any focus at all. You could also say the same thing when it comes to gender perspective because it's not very clear whether or not that that is being implemented except maybe in a few cases. Yes, I agree with Angie. The Inter-American Commission for Human Rights also recommended for Peru the adoption of an intercultural perspective when it comes to managing social protests. In the protests that we saw throughout 2020 at a national level, they were peaceful and there was no police violence. In Lima, there was police violence. In this case, we see the opposite. Police violence has mainly been in the interior of the country, in the south, where you have a population of people who are Andean descendants, indigenous populations. And that has led to actions that we didn't see in November of 2020 where they didn't use lethal firearms. They just used pellet guns and this time they've used firearms not only in Lima but in the south for this particular case. And that has led to the need that we've expressed to have an intercultural focus or perspective in managing protests. And I 100% agree with everything that Angie said. And in that sense when it comes to racial bias in the work of the police, it also happens in Brazil and in other countries. It's really important that we collect data, that we collect information because this is not something that happens only in social protests. It's something that has to do with the police in general. But many of our countries don't have data that would allow us to understand when the police stops black people or white people or indigenous people. We don't have information on when the police acts in a certain way against one group or another. And so I think the first measure is that police action should be recorded with information on the ethnic identity or the ethnic information of the individual that's being stopped by the police or that the police has to intervene with. Well, there have been expressions of racial oppression that have been identified and expressed by a national human rights group in the macro southern zone where you do have a low intensity conflict. But that has been going on for quite a while between different areas in particular. Now, what we've seen is that there's proof of this occurring here as well. Now, there isn't any evidence that this is what we're seeing in this particular case. But one of the most important elements when it comes to irregular migration, for example, within the country, in addition to the general debate on the matter, I think that it really opens the door for the phenomenon of racial discrimination to occur by police, by the general population, and that can really show its full colors. That's certainly a clear danger that remains present to this day. Arturo, if you'll let me mention the subject area of technology in this particular area of discussion. This is something that can lead to mass protests and it makes it hard for governments and the police to respond to them. That's true. But it's also true that technology today, as I've said, makes it so that police deployed out at the local level or anti-riot forces, they can incorporate a camera, for example, that allows them to see what's going on at the ground level. And it's to protect the police from the protesters and also to control the use of force by the police. This complemented with drones can allow an operational center, of course, with cooperation by officials and politicians. It would allow those places to follow information as it arises. And it can be filmed and reviewed later. We can learn many lessons from it. Today, we can get basically everything on video, something that a few years ago was not possible. Today, technology, I hope, our police forces will use them. I hope that our police forces will use that technology. And concerning what Gina was saying, I think that that's very much true. Our experience has been that there needs to be internal social control when it comes to police force. Because, yes, the police could announce that they're going to wear cameras during protests. Someone does need to make sure that that's actually happening, that those cameras are delivered by the police. And that, later on, somebody analyzes what happened in each of the cases. There's one situation, a very specific case, where one protester was thrown off of a bridge into the Mapuche River that was practically dry. And in that particular case, the police wasn't wearing the camera or he had his own camera on him. And he was sanctioned because of it. And the trial remains pending. I, of course, believe that we need to see greater will from the police to cooperate with these measures. I would also like to say concerning the controls themselves, this, just like any other tool, requires a series of protocol and adequate procedures. In Colombia, it was announced, for example, that the use of drones occurred not only in the specific case of the protests, but it was also used to follow up or continue monitoring protest participants later on illegally. And they were detained or arrested close to home after having participated in these protests. So it's supposed to protect people within the framework of maintaining control, but inadequate control can lead to situations like these that were reported. And so any technological tool, and I do think that the drone is a very obvious example, but any kind of camera can have that sort of two-prong defect. It can be protective and it can also increase risk for people who participate in a protest context. And the strengthening process for our institutions requires a revitalization of citizen participation. And in that regard, how do you see the situation in each of your countries at a regional level as well? What is the prospect of maybe having greater citizen participation in supervising and controlling police forces in the region? And how can political testament support such participation? Well, Arturo, I do see this with great concern because some of the laws that have been recently approved and some of the proposals that are also being set forth in many countries aren't going in the direction of control, in the opposite direction. In fact, the police, we're just not going to hold them responsible for anything regardless of what they do. We're going to reduce control of police and whatever they do is fine by us. So I am deeply concerned and so social participation would be an important factor. But often what we see is a movement in the opposite direction against social participation and against control measures sending that message that whatever the police do as a public authority is perfectly fine. And we're already living that because as an agent of the state, the police officer already has a privileged position. Or is already in a privileged position. People who are suspected of having carried out a crime will be at a disadvantage. What we see is that in many countries, this privilege for the police is being increased and control is being reduced. Obviously, when there's a huge scandal, governments say, no, we do need to control the police more because these scandals have arisen. But as an institution, it doesn't benefit the police for there to be more control. The police want there to be social control, but that's not exactly what's occurring in many countries. I think accountability in Colombia for what the police does and what the control mechanisms are will have have gone through different stages. There are standards procedures that seek to generate control over the use of public force or police force. There have been some reforms that allow for citizen participation. But they only go so far. For example, a procedure that's that establishes the use of force for the police was debated by organizations and among other things. They asked that in the space where some of the decisions were being made that there be participation from civil society. And this came as an order from one of the highest level supreme courts in the region, and that didn't occur. And that continues to be the case. So there's the possibility that you might have some kinds of control, but not others. And when it comes to accountability later on, when you look at investigations that are carried out, there is a rule saying that when there are serious violations of human rights or serious injuries or situations that go beyond the purview of the actions that the police can take, it should move towards these investigations. And what we find there is that in the majority of these investigations, it doesn't lead to that level of authority. So that's sort of what we see. What I'm saying is that when it comes to the practical procedure itself, there is flexibility for implementing some of these factors. It's not total. There are limits. And when it comes to control later on in the process, it's much less the possibility that there will be an opportunity for participation. And these cases take a long time to be processed. Cases that rose 15 years ago are now coming up, and that's something that certainly impedes the accountability process. Balmi, Hugo, would you like to say anything? Well, then the civic engagement in general for the reasons referred to in my or I trust more on the participation of institutions, nonprofit, professional organizations that are objective in the case of Chile, the Human Rights Institute played a very important role in this regard. There are volunteers and volunteers who went to prisons were able to get into those areas and prevented the police from committing many more abuses. And I would also say that the national body responsible for implementing the Treaty Against Torture visited penitentiaries, detention centers and people who for various reasons were incarcerated. I think that those mechanisms do have a fundamental effect. I completely agree with Hugo in our case. The only thing that has worked out the external controls, the national international human rights organizations in the independent media, in order to account for what has happened and demand explanations from the authorities. This has not resulted in any change on the attitude of denying all this on the part of the authority. Of course, this will, in one way or another, mark the future of democracy in these times and we will have to try to make them abide by what the human rights organizations telling them to do. Because if that doesn't happen, our democracy will continue to deteriorate with the implementation of a new arbitrary system for the use of force, especially in our countries. According to recent surveys, we can see that this is a basic concern for the European public. We are going beyond our time allocated to this event and I would like to thank you all so much for your participation. I'm hoping to continue to develop this dialogue and our intent has been to contribute to a greater understanding of the situation in our countries and also identify more opportunities and policies that can help us reduce police violence and promote accountability and also promote the contribution of the academia and government officials and nonprofits responsible for law enforcement in the region. We are also responsible for providing a better training to police in the region. I'd like to thank you all for the time you have given us and also all those who have registered to attend this event and we will meet again. Thank you very much.