By Jorge Rolón Luna*
Discussing hired assassination as a criminal type requires, for various reasons, special care with the terminology to be used. The conceptual problem, which does not admit exceptions – media, journalists, academics, even – leads to misunderstandings and perpetuates a vision of the phenomenon that prevents a suitable and necessary approach to understand and confront it.
First of all, Sicariato is a term (in Spanish) that does not usually appear in legal dictionaries, either traditional and quick reference dictionaries or those that provide a more finished and sophisticated definition of the concepts. It is commonly and mistakenly used to refer to the concrete case (“there was a hitman”, “the hitmen”), rather than to the phenomenon enclosed in it: “criminal activity developed by hitmen”, and to the difficulties to grasp it, to apprehend it. “it is something much more complex (…) its reality is based on a set of social networks that permeate society and its institutions, and on a value construction in economic terms (every life has a price) and cultural terms (vertigo, social ascent)”.
Similarly, the use of the word ajusticiar or ajusticiamiento, (in Spanish, bring to justice) to refer to cases of hired assassination, is not only wrong, but dangerous. It is wrong -deeply- because it raises the idea that every death caused by this modality is an “act of justice”; and it is also dangerous because it installs another idea: that it does not need to be investigated because it is a crime of the underworld and that it only concerns -and affects- the underworld. It also establishes the high impunity of hired assassination: it is not worth investigating, “it is a gangster’s thing”.
The same happens with the word “ejecución”, “to execute”, which in good Spanish means “to put the defendant to death” or to claim a debt by judicial means. This error goes even beyond the media, popular knowledge and conversation; it is repeated even in investigative studies on the murder of peasants in their struggle for land, such as the “Chokokue Report. ” The Systematic Plan of Executions in the Fight for Peasant Territory “, where the term “executions” appears in the very title, perhaps unconscious that it gives the idea that these contract killings could be related to “mandates of justice”.
“In any case, the word “execution”, when used to describe actions contrary to the legal order, is coupled by the characterization of “extrajudicial”. The “extrajudicial executions” are another phenomenon. Similar to the case of the “Death Squads” in Latin American countries such as Brazil, Peru, Guatemala, Colombia, especially but only, where generally police, ex-policemen, paramilitary or parapolice personnel, people always linked to the security forces, assassinate alleged criminals, doing “justice” outside the formal justice system. But that is another phenomenon altogether.
The sicariato, or hired assassination in Paraguay, is of no interest neither to the State (police agencies, Public Ministry, Judiciary) nor to the academia, nor to the NGOs (with the exception of the murders in the area of the fight for land) or to the elites. Think about the business associations, silent on this matter (who should be concerned about something as basic as the danger that the installation of hitmen in the country represents for their own security). Thus, we have no monitoring of the phenomenon, much less studies.
Let’s be clear: contract killing is a modality that has nothing to do with the justice of the State or with any kind of social value. In reality, it has always existed, although today it is characteristic of drug trafficking and has been consolidated as a regulator of disputes and conflicts in a very profitable business that has been outlawed by the State. The sicariato establishes a parallel system of conflict resolution, “mafia justice”, a factor in the negotiation of territories, markets or products; sometimes a military force to dissuade or eliminate threats from competitors, security agencies, and even to maintain order and discipline within the organization.
The hitman may be a lone wolf, part of an outsourced service or someone from the criminal organization itself. Although from the point of view of the security of the contractor and the executor, it is generally desirable to have some form of intermediation that safeguards the identity of both and decreases this dangerous interaction. There are all types of hitmen; professional, occasional and amateur.
The sicariato appears to resolve a betrayal, a deception, disputes, or to keep the mafia aligned (think of the self-styled “border vigilantes”). It comes as punishment, threats and also to punish mistakes or non-compliance (not always the result of betrayal or deceit in a world with low or zero tolerance for mistakes).
Hitmen can also act in different ways, simulating a robbery, pretending that there was no specific victim (shooting everyone) or sending direct and very clear messages. “Questions” as to the reason for it, and for which the number of shots, beheadings, dismemberments and mutilations, torture, etc., or narco-messages -written- play a role; in short, a whole “semiotics of violence”.
What generally indicates an act of hired assassination? The way in which it is committed, sometimes with drama or spectacularity, the vehicles used -motorcycles, for example-, the type of weapons, or where the shots are fired -head, eyes, chest, neck, back-, the region where it occurs, certain characteristics of the victims, among others. None of these characteristics alone define it, but rather the sum of most of them, almost never all of them.
There are other problems to solve, in addition to the conceptual aspects, such as the lack of legal definition and the absence of official statistics; one goes hand in hand with the other.
In Paraguay, sicariato is not an autonomous criminal offense, that is, it is not a crime under the law. Article 105 of the criminal code, which punishes intentional homicide, establishes as an aggravating circumstance “for profit” (numeral 5), but this is not even close to an adequate definition of contract killing, since it does not include an element such as “soliciting”, leaving aside the contracting party, the principal, the intermediary, figures that are generally necessary in this type of murders. Without falling into a legal or normative fetishism, the appropriate classification of this conduct is absolutely necessary to begin with.
The absence of official statistics stems from the above and is the main problem. The cases of sicariato are lost in the official statistics, intermingled with the common homicides and violent deaths in the country, making it impossible to distinguish them and, therefore, to characterize them. There can be no public policy, and even less so in the area of security, without certain, credible and reliable data.
The hitmen in Paraguay are of no interest neither to the State (police agencies, Public Prosecutor’s Office, Judiciary) nor to the academia, nor to the NGOs (with the exception mentioned above of the murders in the area of the fight for land) or to the elites. Consider the business associations, silent on this issue (who should be concerned about something as basic as the danger that the installation of hitmen in the country represents for their own security). Thus, we have no monitoring of the phenomenon, much less studies. The seriousness and importance of the phenomenon require an approach from criminology, sociology, anthropology, ethnography, in order to try to at least get closer to its understanding and at some point, to tackle it with the required seriousness.
The sicariato is, more than a disease, the symptom of a multi-organ failure: the existence of macro-criminal networks involving the State/companies/criminal gangs, narco-violence, challenge (or replacement) to the monopoly of the use of state force, capitulation of the security forces and the justice system. The existing generalized lack of understanding will only make this practice worse, with its terrible consequences for democracy, the rule of law, the economy and human rights.
*Lawyer, university professor and independent researcher, author of the book of short stories “Los sicarios“.
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