The Latin American Report # 213

Authorities on their own

The French agency AFP has witnessed the formation of self-defense squads in a neighborhood of the Colombian capital, allegedly parapolice, although the authorities deny any links. Local shopkeepers, frustrated by the deadly extortion prevalent in certain areas of the city, have claimed to finance retired military personnel patrolling in typical army garb. When questioned, they refuse to identify themselves, claiming they belong to a division of the security forces. Of course, the latter cannot end up publicly assuming their inability to protect citizens from a scourge that plagues South America as well as Central America—we have reflected here several testimonies of migrants who have suffered from it. The mayor of Bogota himself recognizes that insecurity is not a problem of "perception"—a classic way for politicians to relativize realities—but a real drama. A shopkeeper in the neighborhood monitored by AFP was shot at the beginning of the year after refusing to be extorted. A month ago, notes the important media Semana, a man was murdered in a meat packing plant. In the neighborhoods of Kennedy, merchants report having to pay up to US$4,000. The criminal organization that is apparently responsible for these extortions responds to the name of "Satan"—never better assumed—, threatening with misspellings. The feeling that persists among the people is one of abandonment.

The Ombudsman's Office denounced just over a month ago that there is strong activity by the Tren de Aragua —a transnational criminal organization born in Venezuela that has already resonated in the United States, feeding the anti-immigrant narrative there—and the Clan del Golfo, recognized as the main criminal group in Colombia. The police dispute these findings by the Ombudsman's Office, claiming that what exists is common crime posing as these groups. "We don't pay, We denounce!" read the posters erected by neighbors in the 7 de Febrero neighborhood. "We are setting up security, there are armed people here but with the law (...) We are not illegal, we are retired military, and commerce is paying us," says one of the hired men. An ex-member of Blackwater who declined to belong to these self-defense groups said that the salary they receive is 1,000 dollars a month, with the responsibility of "neutralizing" any suspect but immediately summoning the authorities so that they can take responsibility for the action. However, a hired ex-military member says that in the event of any abnormality, his responsibility is to notify the police, who would deal with the suspects. But from the public force group they claim to be part of—dedicated to fighting kidnapping and extortion—it is said that "civilians have no responsibility whatsoever" in the battle against crime, except perhaps to denounce it. The problem is that when denunciation takes you into Satan's realm.

Haiti on the run

More than 53,000 people fled Port-au-Prince in March, most seeking the south of the country following fierce violence unleashed in the Haitian capital. "Our colleagues in the humanitarian sector have shown that these departments [in the south] do not have sufficient infrastructure, and that local communities do not have sufficient resources to cope with the large number of people fleeing from [the capital]," warns the United Nations, which reports some 116,000 Haitian "refugees" in the southern region. Others are trying to head north, like a mother of two children, ages 4 and 7, who says "stray bullets have not stopped hitting [her] tin roof". "I want to see them alive," she says in allusion to her children. "The scale of human rights abuses is unprecedented in Haiti's modern history," says a UN official, with "[a] shocking increase in killings and kidnappings." There are also reports of sexual violence, including massive rapes in the territories through which those fleeing in buses and other means are forced to pass.

Chilean workers demand Boric's attention

The largest trade union organization in the country reaffirms the call for a national strike on April 11 under the slogan "Indebted!", demanding an end to the "wage exploitation" that condemns them to receive "miserable salaries that are not enough to live on". It would seem to be an extemporaneous call considering that "in power" is a president who presumably should be promoting the rights of those from below, but the union narrative is that the Palacio de la Moneda has thrown the door in their face with the businessmen inside. "We have demands and we feel forgotten. The Government has shut itself up in the ministries and is losing the social thermometer, with preferential treatment towards businessmen", says the general secretary of the powerful Central Unitaria de Trabajadores, who sees the nation's essential problem in the unequal distribution of wealth, always favoring "the richest 1%". "In general, the serious problem of low wages has tended to be made invisible, naturalized and associated with an individual problem of low productivity and poor and deficient education", states a study reviewed here, which also states that "about half of the workers with the salary they receive could not lift an average family out of poverty". Boric is in no man's land, exposed, and criticized by the right-wing forces but also by those who should be his natural allies. He spent all his rebelliousness in the past decade.

Meanwhile, in Mexico