International
Murder rate plummets amid ‘gangster peace’ in Medellin
AFP | Hervé Bar
Seven days without a single murder: The month of August marked a security record for Colombia’s second city Medellin, the onetime fiefdom of infamous drug lord Pablo Escobar.
“In Medellin, security is measured in lives” saved, said Mayor Daniel Quintero as he welcomed the breakthrough.
Medellin has seen a vertiginous drop in homicides by 97 percent in the 30 years since Escobar’s death, transforming what used to be one of the most violent cities in the world into a popular tourist destination.
The success is attributed in large part to an unofficial but mutually beneficial understanding between narco gangs, paramilitaries and the security services.
“Peace is good for business,” explained Medellin drug dealer “Joaquin” (not his real name) of the traffickers’ motivation for avoiding violence.
Joaquin is 37 years old — two of those spent behind bars. He wears an oversized baseball cap and sagging jeans.
A Beretta pistol peaks out from under his hoodie.
Joaquin is a “capo,” a junior boss supervising drug trafficking in the streets of “Comuna 6,” a poor neighborhood perched on a mountain slope in Medellin’s northwest.
He belongs to a gang, which he declined to name, that follows the rules imposed by an organized crime “federation” known as the “Oficina de Envigado” or the “Office of Envigado” after the name of a nearby town.
Joaquin claimed the Oficina and its member gangs acted “in solidarity with the community.”
This included meting out “parallel justice” when the system fails them.
“Escobar? He was much too violent. Too many deaths for nothing,” Joaquin told AFP.
‘The population with us’
“Everyone lives in peace on our territory,” said the capo, keen to portray himself as a good Samaritan.
“We do not want to frighten the traders and the people. We need the population with us.”
Thirty years after Escobar was shot dead on a Medellin rooftop while trying to evade capture, the drug trade still dominates many poor neighborhoods of the city of nearly three million people.
A stone’s throw from a football pitch where mothers watch their children play, heavy foot traffic at a small, nondescript house indicates the presence of a drug den.
A black garbage bag covers the window where money trades hands. The purchased merchandise drops down from another floor in a tin can on the end of a string.
A variety of product can be found here: marijuana, cocaine and “tucibi” or “basuco” — two cheap and particularly toxic new drugs akin to unrefined “crack.”
“Everything is organized, it’s like a business. There are those who take care of the sale, the logistics, the soldiers. The bosses pay our salaries, we do the job,” said Joaquin.
He and his colleagues move with incredible ease and assurance through the maze of sloping alleys and small, rickety brick houses. Neighborhood teenagers skulk around, acting as security.
Joaquin and his accomplices pop into one shop after another, shaking hands with acquaintances everywhere while they casually slip a gun into a bag here, deliver a package there.
For the most part, Medellin’s dealers are able to operate in peace due to an understanding among rival gangs as well as with members of the security forces — many of them on the take.
As long as they keep the streets peaceful, the gangs say police turn a blind eye to their lucrative illegal dealings.
Joaquin calls it a “gangster peace.”
“There is nothing better than peace,” added “Javier,” an associate who met up with Joaquin and another colleague in a squatted house.
They pack out their guns on a table between religious trinkets in a filthy, lightless living room where horse posters vie with a crude rendition of the Last Supper on the wall.
“Every group manages its territory as it wishes… The bosses talk among themselves. Everything is arranged calmly,” said Javier.
‘City of bandits’
After Escobar’s demise, the face of organized crime in Medellin changed. Long controlled by a single cartel, the drug trade is now shared between several gangs under the umbrella of the Office.
The gangs had previously collaborated with paramilitary groups and the security forces to help bring an end to Escobar’s Medellin Cartel and oust leftist guerrilla groups that had tried to fill the power void it left.
As things settled down and every group found its place in the new reality, Medellin’s homicide rate dropped from 350 per 100,000 inhabitants in 1992 to 10.2 per 100,000 so far this year — nearly half the national average.
“The armed groups set the peace and war agenda in the city,” said Luis Fernando Quijano, director of the Corporation for Peace and Social Development, an NGO.
Colombia’s new leftist president, Gustavo Petro, has vowed to bring “total peace” to conflict- and crime-ridden Colombia, including by offering an amnesty to gangsters willing to give themselves up and abandon the trade.
“We are willing to listen. We will do what the bosses decide,” Pedro said of the plan.
But for Joaquin, “to think that everyone will give themselves up is a dream.”
“Never forget one thing: Medellin is and will always be the city of bandits,” he insisted.
-
A local man rests on a balcony at the Comuna 13 neighbourhood in Medellin, Colombia, on September 28, 2022. - One word sums up the history of Medellin over the last twenty years: metamorphosis. After the dark decades of 1970-2000, Colombia's second-largest city is now a transformed, peaceful, dynamic, and attractive city. And one neighborhood, more than any other, symbolizes this renaissance: the famous "Comuna 13". (Photo by JOAQUIN SARMIENTO / AFP)
International
María Corina Machado kidnapped and forced to record videos before being released, says opposition
The Venezuela Command, the campaign team of opposition leader Edmundo González Urrutia, denounced the “kidnapping” and subsequent release of political leader María Corina Machado after she led a protest in Caracas on the eve of the Venezuelan presidential inauguration.
In a post on X, the opposition team stated that the former lawmaker was “intercepted and knocked off the motorcycle she was traveling on” after leading a rally in the Chacao area of the Venezuelan capital.
“Gunshots were fired during the incident. She was forcibly detained. During her kidnapping, she was forced to record several videos, and then she was released,” the statement added, which was made public nearly two hours after Machado’s party, Vente Venezuela, reported that she had been “violently intercepted.”
International
Governor Jenniffer González expresses solidarity with Venezuela’s struggling opposition
Puerto Rico’s Governor Jenniffer González expressed her sorrow over Venezuela’s political crisis on Thursday and voiced her support for Venezuelan opposition leader Edmundo González Urrutia, just one day before President Nicolás Maduro is set to take office following the controversial July elections.
“I think it is sad that the Venezuelan people have to suffer the consequences of a dictator who came to power by deceiving the people. I recognize Edmundo González for his leadership,” the governor stated during a press conference, coinciding with a day of protests by Venezuela’s opposition.
“The Venezuelan community has my full support, and, as we have done in the past, we will maintain that line of communication with whatever we can collaborate on,” assured the Puerto Rican head of government.
González Urrutia is currently in the Dominican Republic, the last announced stop on his American tour, where he was accompanied by Dominican President Luis Abinader and former Latin American presidents from the Spain and Americas Democratic Initiative (Grupo Idea).
International
Hundreds of venezuelan protesters demand ‘democratic change’ in Rome
Dozens of Venezuelans demonstrated in central Rome on Thursday to show their support for opposition leader Edmundo González Urrutia and demand a “democratic change,” on the eve of the presidential inauguration that has deeply divided the country.
The protest took place in the Roman square of Largo Argentina and gathered several members of the Venezuelan diaspora and refugees, who sang their national anthem and displayed signs with the slogan “Glory to the brave people.”
Around 150 participants were present, according to one of the coordinators of the protest, Celeste Puerta from the ‘Aiuto Venezuela’ Civic Movement, who spoke to EFE.
Similar actions have been organized in other Italian cities, including Bologna, Florence, and Milan in the north.
María Corina Machado kidnapped and forced to record videos before being released, says opposition
Governor Jenniffer González expresses solidarity with Venezuela’s struggling opposition
Hundreds of venezuelan protesters demand ‘democratic change’ in Rome
Tec de Monterrey honors one of its students for his contribution to nanotechnology in medicine
Defense Minister commends salvadoran soldier for Central American Cross Country victory
Ecuador prison riot leaves at least 43 dead
-
Central America5 days agoHonduras arrests former military leaders over 2009 killings
-
International5 days agoBiden administration approves $8 billion arms sale to Israel ahead of Trump’s Presidency
-
International4 days agoMachado calls Venezuelans to the streets one day before the presidential investiture
-
International3 days agoThe US ambassador says goodbye to Mexico without regretting “anything” despite bilateral tension
-
International3 days agoArgentine Jorge Fernández Díaz wins the 81st Nadal Award with ‘El secreto de Marcial’
-
International2 days agoThirteen cuban military members missing after explosion at arms warehouse
-
International3 days agoA military judge sends the Supreme court trial against colonels accused of coup in Brazil
-
International2 days agoTrump considers declaring National Economic Emergency to justify universal tariffs
-
International2 days agoIsraeli forces recover hostage remains amid ceasefire talks with Hamas
-
International4 days agoSheinbaum defends Mexico’s presence in Maduro’s investiture
-
International4 days agoJustin Trudeau announces his resignation from the leadership of his party and as Prime Minister of Canada
-
International2 days agoAt least 13 civilians killed in russian missile attack on Zaporizhzhia
-
International4 days agoBoluarte promises to reduce citizen insecurity in Peru this year
-
International4 days agoBathing with elephants, the popular Thai tourist activity criticized by animal rights activists
-
International2 days agoAmerican citizen killed by mexican police officer in Ciudad Juárez shooting
-
International2 days agoVenezuelan opposition candidate Enrique Márquez detained ahead of Maduro’s inauguration
-
International3 days ago
Donald Trump insists that Canada should be part of the US after Justin Trudeau’s resignation
-
International19 hours agoMaria Corina Machado calls for nationwide protests ahead of presidential inauguration
-
International3 days agoThe Pentagon reaches an agreement with LGTBIQ veterans discharged for their sexual orientation
-
International4 days agoThree Israelis killed in a Palestinian attack in the northern West Bank
-
International3 days agoCuba records just under 13,000 earthquakes in 2024, a record year of earthquakes
-
International4 days agoThe trial against Sarkozy opens for financing his campaign with Gaddafi money
-
International4 days agoNew Israeli attacks in the Gaza Strip leave at least 48 dead in the last few hours
-
International19 hours agoMaría Corina Machado kidnapped and forced to record videos before being released, says opposition
-
International4 days agoEmmanuel Macron accuses Elon Musk of supporting “a reactionary international” in a world in “disorder”
-
International4 days agoThe federal president of Austria commissions the far-right Herbert Kickl to form a government
-
International4 days agoNorth Korea launches an intermediate-range missile, its first test in two months
-
International4 days agoRussia announces the capture of the Ukrainian bastion of Kurákhove in the Donestsk region
-
International19 hours agoHundreds of venezuelan protesters demand ‘democratic change’ in Rome
-
International19 hours agoGovernor Jenniffer González expresses solidarity with Venezuela’s struggling opposition