(Anti) American caravan: an unreturned love

Rainer Maria Baratti
18/01/2021
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Latin America

The Migrant Caravan is knocking on the doors of the United States to warn them “it’s your fault we were forced to leave”. We have the last part of our journey through history to face.

We have seen a sick love between the United States and Latin America that has turned into a fierce jealousy. It is a story more than a century long. It is a story that begins in the early 1900s with the United States’ intent to establish itself as a regional and world power and to turn the Caribbean into a coveted “American Lake.” It is a story that saw Latin America’s dependence increase between the two world wars. It is a story of multinationals, investors, U.S. administrations, international organizations, doctrines, revolutions, coups and the myth of Pan-Americanism. It is also the history of the Cold War, drug trafficking, development projects, the CIA and terrorism. Our Caravan can now set off on a historical journey to discover a history where anti-Americanism has been transformed into hope.

After the fall of the Soviet bloc, a new phase began in the region that interests us here. This, however, began with an American intervention.

On December 20, 1989, 13,000 American soldiers joined a similarly sized contingent permanently assigned to the protection of American rights in the Panama Canal area with the objective of capturing Manuel Noriega, the notorious leader of the Panamanian Defense Forces who had proclaimed himself head of the government earlier that month. In early 1988, Noriega had been convicted by a federal court in Florida for money laundering and drug trafficking.

The Bush administration, identifying the Panama leader as a symbol of drug trafficking, launched “Operation Just Cause” without consulting the member states of the Organization of American States. Noriega was arrested, and later tried and convicted in Miami. There were widespread protests in Latin America and the American public welcomed the intervention as a victory in the so-called “War on Drugs”. The drug trade, however, continued to thrive throughout the 1990s.

Another major operation occurred in 1994 when U.S. Marines were called to intervene in Haiti. The Clinton administration had launched “Operation Defense of Democracy” following a mounting refugee crisis triggered by a series of repressive regimes on the island. Throughout the 1980s, previous administrations had deported Haitians seeking to escape the brutal regime of Jean-Claude Duvalier; only 28 of the approximately 23,000 Haitian “Boat People” were given asylum in the United States.

Duvalier was overthrown in 1986 and Jean Bertrand Aristide won the democratic elections in 1990. He was, however, deposed in 1991 by a military coup d’état condemned by the United States and the Organization of American States. This time, given the surge in the flow of refugees, the U.S. Coast Guard temporarily granted a safe haven to thousands of Haitians at the Guantanamo Bay military base in Cuba. The prospect of up to 200,000 Haitians taking to the sea was beginning to create a serious political and humanitarian crisis. American troops were sent to Haiti to restore order.

So, what does this new phase consist of? Basically, there has been a change in logic. Both operations, while remaining an expression of the persistent American hegemony in the Caribbean, were dictated by domestic political considerations.

Economically, even in the 1990s, Latin America’s economic dependence on the United States was clear. In part this was due to the historic disparity in wealth.

The GDP of the United States was still seven times that of Latin America, but Latin America’s population was 75% larger. Latin America remained relatively poor and overpopulated, which was one of the reasons behind the massive illegal migration to the north. Even though transactions with the region declined overall between the 1970s and 1980s, the United States in 1990 remained the largest trading partner of all countries in the region.

The North-South relationship began to look quite different than in the past, but the anti-American spirit, which had always been prevalent in the region for the various reasons we have mentioned, intensified.

In a 2007 poll, more than half of Latin Americans say they have a negative view of the United States and exponents of anti-Americanism such as Hugo Chavez, Venezuelan president until 2013, began to represent hope for many Latin Americans.

Today, anti-Americanism is still strong and Venezuelan hope is drowning in inflation, poverty, and violence.

Meanwhile, on October 13, a caravan of migrants set out with the intent of arriving in the United States. They started in Northern Honduras, crossed into Guatemala, and on October 20, with 4,500 human beings, knocked on the doors of Mexico.

From there the media attention went up. The first echo came from President Trump who, through a series of tweets, used this initiative as a campaign tool for the recent Midterm Elections.

At first, he threatened Guatemala with annulment of the aid granted if the government did not intervene to stop the caravan passing through its territory. Then, he ordered the deployment of armed forces at the border for protection against “invasion“. He ended by threatening the revocation of the recently renewed NAFTA.

The Caravan has, one way or another, managed to get to Tijuana, and on November 26, tensions escalated on the U.S.-Mexico border. American authorities used tear gas against the crowd. The migrants of the caravan denounce that the United States forced them to flee after having supported what is recognized as the coup d’état of 2009, against the Honduran President Zelaya, and having thrown in a strong instability, countries like Guatemala and El Salvador.

For us, this journey into a now exhausted love story, comes to an end. A swinging story made of difficult relationships. A story that wanted to illustrate the reason for such a strong feeling of anti-Americanism. Of course, the motivations are deeper and there are many more. Every love story is deeper than what we tell, what we understand and what we express. This is exactly why we will try to tell the situations of different countries in our country sheets and other articles. Keep following us, soon we will start a new journey.

Rainer Maria Baratti

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The (anti)American caravan: the beginning of a sick love

Rainer Maria Baratti 18 January 2021

The Migrant Caravan is knocking at the doors of the United States to warn them “it’s your fault we were forced to leave.” This is yet another chapter in a difficult relationship between the United States and Latin America. A story more than a century long. It is a story that began in the early 1900s with the United States’ intent to establish itself as a regional and world power and to transform the Caribbean into the desired “American Lake.” It is a story that saw Latin America’s dependence increase between the two world wars. It is a story of multinationals, investors, U.S. administrations, international organizations, doctrines, revolutions, coups, and the myth of Pan-Americanism. It is also the history of the Cold War, drug trafficking, development projects, the CIA and terrorism. Our Caravan can now set off on a historical journey to discover a history where anti-Americanism has been transformed into hope. American interventionism historically developed under the Monroe Doctrine, whereby the United States would not tolerate intervention by European powers in the Western Hemisphere’s affairs. The first major act, as a regional and emerging world power, was to wage war against Spain over the Cuban question in 1898. The war ended after 4 months and led to the acquisition of the Philippines, Puerto Rico and Guam. These outposts were vital to extend the American power in the Chinese market, where the Japanese rise had begun to threaten the liberty of trade in the region. Another important effect was to have a greater grip on the Caribbean with a de facto nominal independence of Cuba. In 1904 Theodore Roosevelt, president of the United States between 1901 and 1909, added a corollary to the Monroe doctrine that claimed the right of the United States to intervene in the affairs of an American republic if it ran the risk of occupation or intervention by an European state. Roosevelt was a firm believer of the doctrines of Mahan and of Social Darwinism. Social Darwinism is a theory according to which the history of human societies responded to the logic of survival of the fittest. This theory provided the foundation for numerous theories of racial supremacy and for advocates of the “white man’s burden”, that is the role of the “white man” as a civilizer. The ideas of Mahan, a U.S. admiral, on the other hand, focused on the position of the naval power and on the assumption that the development of trade is essential in terms of power increase. He also believed that, because the sea is the fastest and cheapest means of transporting goods it is in the interest of a state to develop a commercial fleet and to ensure its security through an adequate navy that can prevent the routes from being destroyed by any external threat. These two theories have been translated, on the one hand, into the desire to export “progress” through investments and capital, and, on the other, to ensure that these investments were made in countries which were important from the point of view of trade routes. With these objectives in mind, the administration of the time, obtained the independence of Panama from Colombia with a treaty that authorized the United States to build and control what would later become the Panama Canal in 1913; fundamental to reduce the timing of trade routes. Moreover, to further consolidate the American dominance over the Caribbean, the Platt Amendment was included in the Cuban constitution. This amendment established the criteria for intervention in Cuban affairs and allowed the United States to maintain a naval base in Cuba (Guantanamo). The United States used this amendment by intervening in some Cuban affairs in 1906, 1912, 1917, and 1920. The amendment was repealed in 1934 but control of the Guantanamo military base remains to this day. The United States also took control of the finances throughout the Dominican Republic and Haiti – requiring these two countries to ratify the Platt Amendment. Woodrow Wilson’s administration (1913-1921) intended to abandon direct armed intervention in Latin America because it had not brought the desired results. Indeed, for instance, shortly before his election there had been an intervention in Nicaragua, which ended with the rise of General Chamorro. The intervention had been dictated by the need to protect the growing investments of the United Fruit Company, since 1984 Chiquita Brands, in the Caribbean region. Moreover, already in the second decade of the 1900’s the United States had succeeded in transforming the Caribbean into an “American Lake” and, to maintain control over the area, armed interventions had been necessary. The same fate occurred to Mexico, which saw the presence of armed troops from 1914 until 1917, the year in which new elections were held and a new constitution was ratified in which a strong anti-American sentiment was easily discernible. It should be noted that in the 1920’s the economic influence of the United States was relevant in Latin America. The United Fruit Company and the Standard Fruit Company (today Dole Fruit Company) in fact, controlled most of the profits in the region. These two companies competed for dominance in the region and held strong control in countries that came to be known as the “banana republics”, namely: Honduras, Costa Rica, and Guatemala. Time and again, Latin American journalists have accused the companies of bribing national governments for preferential treatment or to consolidate their monopoly. In addition, there have been accusations of environmental degradation, deforestation, drainage and depletion of water systems, and devastation of biodiversity. Moreover, they often practiced monoculture which, by exhausting the fertility of the land, eventually led to economic collapse as well as dependence on the export of that product. Exportation that often did not create profit for the nation. In Cuba, the United States owned 2/3 of the sugar production, practically the only product of the island. This logic also applied to raw materials and consequently the United States in Venezuela owned almost half of the oil and in Chile the price of copper,

Venezuelan women in search of a health that is not there

Francesca Cordaro 18 January 2021

The collapse of the economy in Venezuela has led to a series of internal conjunctures in the country, causing what is now the largest migration phenomenon in Latin American history. As in every crisis, the most vulnerable social groups are those who suffer the most. Among these are women, exposed to a patriarchal culture of violence and fewer employment opportunities. Covid-19 has also complicated access to care for Venezuelan women who, even before the pandemic, had specific needs in terms of sexual and reproductive health. Gender and health in Venezuelan social policies Since 2003, a series of social policies known as Misiones Bolivarianas have been promoted in Venezuela. The Misiones have different objectives: from the fight against poverty to literacy programs, from health to access to credit, from the implementation of cultural and political activities to those in support of the indigenous population and the environment. Misión Barrio Adentro and Misión Madres de Barrio, however, are the two initiatives that have defined the role of women and the Venezuelan health system over the years. The first has led to the construction of health clinics in the most depressed rural and urban areas of the country, while the second has a constitutional justification for its genesis. Article 88 of the Venezuelan Constitution, in fact, underlines the social recognition of female leadership in the management and care of the family unit. Madres del Barrio’s ideological background aiming at female independence was then translated into monetary transfers to support unemployed women. However, while the recognition of domestic work can be considered an achievement for women’s rights, the existence of a difference between the sexes in social roles is admitted, thus leaving out the multidimensionality of being a woman. Some data on women’s health in Venezuela More than social policies, it is the data that help to understand the real situation of Venezuelan women in light of and Venezuelan crisis and the Covid-19 emergency. Therefore, it is possible to reconstruct a general and objective picture of Venezuelan women’s health through the reports of civil society and international organizations. For years, in fact, no official government figures have been published in this regard. First of all, it is appropriate to clarify the state of the Venezuelan health system today. The 2017 Encuesta Nacional de Médicos y Estudiantes de Medicina revealed that 40% of enrollees in Venezuelan medical universities have left the country, determining an important decrease in this human capital. Added to this: a 70% of hospital facilities with intermittent water availability, a 63% of hospitals without electricity, and a 50% of diagnostic laboratories are not operational. With respect to the gender perspective, however, the reality described above becomes even more complicated in the area of sexual and reproductive health. UNFPA reports that Venezuela is now the third country with the highest teenage fertility rate in Latin America and the Caribbean only after Ecuador and Honduras. Human Rights Watch reported that infant mortality in Venezuela has increased by 30%, maternal mortality by 60%. Equivalencia en Acción, a coalition of Venezuelan civil society, has denounced that in hospitals and national pharmacies there is almost 100% unavailability of contraceptive methods in a country where abortion is still illegal. Therefore, the possibility of family planning is quite difficult in Venezuela. This could lead to an increase in clandestine abortions, risking the woman’s life. In addition, the increase in teenage pregnancies undermines the continuation of studies and the regular inclusion of women in the labor market. The consequences for Venezuelan women Given the humanitarian crisis in the country, those who are in the appropriate economic and physical conditions, mainly choose to leave Venezuela. However, once they arrive in the new country, access to care is not an immediate process. For example, in Colombia, the first country of destination with almost 2 million Venezuelans in the territory, the situation is quite complex. In order to gain access to the health system, it is necessary for the migrant to have a regular migration status. Despite hay que quitarse el sombrero for how Colombia has handled the entries of Venezuelans, the system of access to care is still too rigid for thousands of unregularized migrants. For example, regularization through the PEP, which would allow affiliation with a Colombian medical insurance, is not possible for Venezuelan without an identity document or for those who entered in Colombia through unauthorized points. Specifically, regarding the Venezuelan population in hospitals, 7 out of 10 people are women. This dynamic occurs in all Colombian regions whose hospitals record among the main requests: assistance in pregnancy, childbirth, and treatment for sexually transmitted diseases. Often these are pregnancies at risk for lack of prenatal care due to the collapse of the health system in Venezuela. Finally, the Covid-19 emergency. The pandemic has further complicated the possibilities of access to some form of health care. This was confirmed by the International Solidarity Conference on the crisis of Venezuelan refugees and migrants organized by Spain and the European Union on May 26, 2020. The Union has donated 9 million to contain the spread of the virus and 918 million for vulnerable groups affected by the pandemic. These include thousands of Venezuelan women who since 2014 continue to migrate in search of their right to health.

The status of women within the peace transition process in Colombia

Elena Di Dio 18 January 2021

In the context of the civil war and the resulting transition to peace that is taking place in Colombia, women have taken on a far from marginal role. Both as protagonists and as victims of the violence, Colombian women have certainly influenced the course of the conflict, and thus have actively carved out a space, for themselves, at the peace negotiation table. This result has been achieved mainly thanks to the contribution of decades of debates and analysis on the subject carried out at a global level within the United Nations Organization. Women, peace and security The gender issue has made its way into debates on human rights and, more generally, on the sustainable development of nations in recent decades. The main international organizations have decided to adopt a gender approach in relation to the most varied areas, which until then had never specifically mentioned women. Recent studies have shown how, in the context of post-conflict reconstruction, women’s participation is significant in achieving a more stable and lasting peace. The economic and social recovery of the community also benefits from the integration of women and their political participation. To support this, tools such as the Women, Peace, and Security (WPS) Index, which measures and ranks the well-being of women in each country, are being created. Even the United Nations Security Council, in 2000, has recognized the centrality of the role of women in the reconstruction of post-conflict societies. With the establishment and approval of seven resolutions on women (dealing with peace and security) and the drafting of the recommendations of the CEDAW Committee, it creates the framework that countries must consult and adopt to achieve a sustainable and inclusive peace. Women’s participation not only ensures that the rights violated during conflict are returned to women, but also contributes to the structural transformation of society towards participatory democracy and security for all citizens. The gender approach in the Colombia peace agreement: the role of women During the decades-long conflict between the Colombian government and the FARC-EP guerrilla group, women have been protagonists in various ways. They have fought in the ranks of the revolutionary group (just think about the guerrilla “Negra Karina”, considered one of the fiercest fighters and now actively participating in the peace process). But above all, Colombian women have suffered the conflict on their skin, through sexual violence, or seeing themselves forced to flee their homes with their children. The gender issue in the conflict was not an isolated event. In fact, it is estimated that between 1958 and 2016, 54% of victims and more than half of those displaced by the conflict were women, while between 25 and 26 thousand suffered sexual violence. In line with the recommendations of the CEDAW Committee, the end of the conflict in Colombia has become an opportunity for women victims to become peacemakers. Thus, in 2014, during the negotiations, the first gender subcommittee in a peace process was inaugurated. This specific branch of the commission is responsible for integrating specific measures to improve women’s lives into all agenda items. Formed by representatives from the national government and FARC, the subcommittee inserts women’s perspectives within the agreement itself, through the effort of 18 organizations specializing in women’s rights and in rights of the LGBT+ community, as well as 10 former guerrilla women of various nationalities and 10 sexual violence experts. As a result, since 2014, 60% of the victims who presented testimony to the commission in Havana, where the negotiations took place, have been women. The gender approach, therefore, is implemented in all parts of the peace agreement, through more than one hundred specific measures and outlining eight thematic axes. Equal access to rural property between men and women and guarantee of the rights of agricultural workers with different sexual orientation and/or gender identity are included in the Integral Rural Reform. The political and representative participation of women is guaranteed through measures to prevent the specific risks they may encounter in their work within the decision-making bodies created by the agreements. Access to truth, justice and reparation for the crimes committed during the conflict is also and especially allowed to women, who most of all have appealed to the Truth Commission. Gender victimization has been publicly acknowledged in all its modalities through the strengthening of women’s organizations and their effort towards political and social participation. Thus, the peace agreement, in its gender approach, seeks equality and universality as characteristics of the transition to peace and post-conflict Colombian society. The subcommittee acts concretely in the peace process through the allocation of resources and the regulation of the principle of alternation within autonomous parties and organs. With regards to gender-based violence, various forms of prevention and protection of women are established, as well as measures against impunity for war crimes. Through these interventions, the agreement and the commission aim at the development of a sustainable, stable, and lasting peace. The Colombian woman today Despite these remarkable steps forward against gender discrimination, women in Colombia are still not considered equal to men. In the aforementioned WPS Index, in 2019 Colombia scored 0.691 on a scale of 0 to 1 (where 1 represents the highest level of inclusion), ranking 104th in the world. Women’s political participation, hampered by insurmountable economic constraints for many, is low at all levels: from individual city halls to Congress. Moreover, the high estimates of gender-based violence shed light on a society that, despite good intentions, struggles to detach itself from its internally rooted patriarchy (or machismo). Especially in rural areas, levels of gender insecurity remain remarkably high, surpassed only by those faced by human rights defenders, whose rates of victimization increased further during the quarantine imposed by the spread of the new coronavirus. In this context, the normalization of this type of violence is worrisome: in Colombia, a woman’s testimony against her attacker is not considered legitimate. On gender impunity, local activist Francy L. Jaramillo Piedrahita argues that: “here a man is more likely to be tried for stealing a

The events of 2019 and their impact on the war in Colombia

Elena Di Dio 18 January 2021

In Colombia, the transitional phase that sees the incessant civil war acquiesce towards peace knows an abrupt halt during 2019, just three years after the signing of the bilateral agreement. What are the new obstacles standing in the way of the peace agreement between the government and the revolutionary armed group FARC – EP? To answer this question, we need to take a step back. Colombia entered the new millennium in a situation of great instability. The guerrilla groups that rebelled against the state, which was considered non-existent in large rural areas of the country, had reached the height of their power. Chief among these armed groups were the FARC-EP (Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia – Ejército del Pueblo). With the presidency of Álvaro Uribe Vélez (not coincidentally nicknamed “the warlord”), the situation was quickly reversed. His controversial counteroffensive strategies, over the course of his two terms in office, brought remarkable results including the beginning of the FARC’s decline. Since his election to the presidency in 2010, Juan Manuel Santos has begun to depart from his predecessor’s political ideas by promoting dialogue with revolutionary forces until a peace agreement is reached. The bilateral treaty addresses numerous issues considered the fundamental causes of more than 50 years of internal conflict. The document lists the various measures that, by mutual agreement, must be taken by both parties to establish peace between the government and the FARC group. However, a few months later, the end of Santos’ term of office calls into question all the efforts made until then. The election of Iván Duque Márquez, a close ally of Uribe, and his manifest intention to modify the agreement, puts former FARC combatants on notice. In addition, the events that have been making the situation in Colombia even more tense since 2019 hint at a concrete threat of a return to war. The FARC: from armed struggle to political struggle and back again First of all, the disarmament of the guerrillas, supervised by a UN commission created ad hoc, is completed by the majority of FARC members, but not by all of them. Some thousands of fighters, in fact, have refused to come to terms with the government. These never came out of the jungle and never abandoned the armed struggle. Their actions have scaled down, in parallel with the number of their members, but their existence endures the peace process. The most recent information on this subject, claims that these groups have sought refuge in Venezuela, while some speculate that they may be affiliated with other guerrilla groups such as the Ejército de Liberación Nacional (ELN). What is certain is that, due to the current circumstances of Colombian politics, the group of demobilized is growing stronger thanks also to the affiliation of those who, after embracing civilian life, have decided to return to live in the jungle as clandestine fighters. Critical issues in the peace process If implemented, the treaty could meet the demands of revolutionary groups and avoid further casualties. However, its implementation is encountering numerous obstacles, as has happened in the past in the history of the Colombian conflict. First of all, the political participation of the ex-members of the FARC has not been assured in the last elections. The new political party has had little prominence, perhaps due to the bad reputation the group has earned through the decades. More importantly, since embracing civilian life, many repentants have seen death at the hands of hit men. Now a widespread practice in Colombia; systematic assassinations of political opposition have claimed the lives of some 200 FARC members and more than 600 social leaders, indigenous tribesmen, and human rights activists since the signing of the treaty. Land cultivation and property management was the main issue that caused the outbreak and prolongation of the conflict over the decades. The Integral Rural Reform and the reconversion of lands previously used for cocaine cultivation are therefore at the core of the peace treaty. Nonetheless, implementation and financing are slow, and peasants are not benefiting at all from the new conditions. The shortcomings of the Truth Courts The issue of victims of the conflict is not being satisfactorily addressed. The frightening figures remain far-fetched, and there is speculation that the actual numbers are much higher. The Truth Commission, not being imperative with its sanctions, struggles to carry out its duties. And so, the victims remain without justice, the perpetrators unpunished and the corpses unnamed. But not only that; the greatest defect of the Integral System of Justice that has been established since the signing of the agreement is that it does not guarantee any kind of protection to those who want to testify for the truth, and the sad tradition of murders in Colombia makes this system seem like a trap for those who want to contribute to peace and justice. The circumstances listed so far make the period of dialogue and mutual concessions that characterized former President Santos’ two terms in office seem like a rip-off of Colombia’s violent rule. Instead of strengthening the foundations of peace, his successor and current president Duque directly undermines them, directing his political propaganda against the agreement with the FARC and financing it with the Fund for Peace, thus making use of international funds for electoral and personal purposes. The threat of a return to civil war in Colombia is therefore becoming more and more concrete as we move into 2019. Some encouraging signs Nevertheless, the support of the international sphere that the peace agreement with the FARC has received cannot be ignored. In addition to the UN and its Security Council, individual states have also been advocating for peace in Colombia, committing to the bilateral ceasefire and as members of the Truth Commission. In addition, there are the citizens who are showing that they have grown tired of the violence and of the systematic murder of the political opposition, which inevitably leads to the death of democracy. This part of the population, with a strong and fresh

SOCIAL CONFLICTS NEVER SOOTHED: El Salvador falls into a new wave of violence

Martina Bossi 10 July 2022

Saturday, March 26, 2022 will remain in the memories of Salvadorans as the most violent day in the last twenty years. In just a few hours, 62 homicides were reported nationwide in El Salvador. To deal with the serious emergency, on March 27 the Legislative Assembly approved the Regime of Exception, at the initiative of President Nayib Bukele expressed in the Council of Ministers. This Regime was to last for a period of thirty days but was renewed month by month and is still in effect. Through this Decree, constitutional guarantees typical of a truly democratic society were suspended, such as: freedom of association and assembly (Article 7 of the Constitution of the Republic, p. 2-3); the right to information (Article 7 of the Constitution of the Republic, p. 2-3); the right to information on the grounds for detention and defense (Art. 12 inc. 2 Cn, p. 3); the 72-hour limit on administrative detention (Art. 13 inc. 2 Cn, p. 3-4); and the inviolability of correspondence and telecommunications (Art. 24 Cn, p. 5). To try to understand how this rapid escalation of events came about, it is necessary to give an overview of the actors involved. THE SALVADORAN MARAS The origins of these organized criminal groups date back to the end of the civil conflict that culminated with the signing of the Peace Treaties in 1992. Within a few years of abandoning violence as a political means, the U.S. government, which had taken a central role in the Salvadoran conflict, initiated a policy of deporting criminals to their countries of origin. The members of the California gangs who thus returned to El Salvador brought with them the organizational patterns typical of U.S. crime, and these inevitably ended up influencing the criminal groups here, transforming them into a more organized, complex and violent phenomenon. The new gangs, known as “maras” or “pandillas,” grew rapidly, deeply marking the postwar period in El Salvador. The violence associated with the Salvadoran mara phenomenon flows in four directions: war between rival gangs, gang violence against communities, state violence toward maras, and violent responses of maras toward the state. Living in a given territory defines membership in one pandilla rather than another, even if it is only a few blocks away. These spaces are out of state control and this is where Salvadoran criminal life develops. Access to the areas is controlled and limited to certain times of the day, punctuated by a strict curfew. The people who live in these areas are forced to pay the constant extortion that fuels the maras phenomenon economically. This coercive power that has gone unchallenged, combined with violence and constant threats, forces thousands of people to leave their neighborhoods, their cities or their countries. The undeniable impact that pandillas have on daily life in El Salvador has meant, over the years, periodic attempts at negotiation conducted by the government with the aim of countering the phenomenon. PREVIOUS GOVERNMENTS’ APPROACH Public institutions address the problem on a daily basis, but have so far failed to solve it definitively. In 2003, when the ARENA Party – of nationalist, conservative and neoliberal orientation – was in government, repression was first introduced as a strategy to eliminate maras. Thus, for the next five years, leading members of the criminal groups were imprisoned. The political reaction caused, in addition to the overcrowding of prisons, a forced redistribution of power within the criminal gangs, which, right from inside the prisons, reformed their internal system, even to the point of strengthening it. In 2011, the first government of the FMLN – the current leftist political party inspired by revolutionary Augustin Farabundo Martí, a former guerrilla in the conflict that ended in 1992 – experimented with a new approach to dealing with the problem of the maras: a kind of détente that included, among other interventions, the transfer of leaders to less secure prisons in exchange for their commitment that the murder rate perpetrated by their affiliates would decrease. Although this truce promoted by the then ruling party did indeed lead to an exponential and unprecedented reduction in the number of murders in El Salvador, it was never accepted by the public and the political establishment-including some officials and leaders of the FMLN itself. Distrust also justified by the fact that the politicians who had promoted this strategy never fully clarified the government’s actual role in this arrangement with the maras, thus dispelling once and for all doubts about the total transparency and bonhomie of the operation. In 2014, another change of government returned the pandillas to maximum security prisons, giving them the status of terrorist organizations. The response of these criminal groups was not long in coming. Indeed, 2015 was marked by major violence and killings, especially of Salvadoran police and military personnel. In turn, the police and military began to adopt strategies increasingly typical of a country at war, going so far as to perpetrate territorial control procedures that were not entirely legal. NAYIB BUKELE AND THE WAR AGAINST TERRORISM The 2019 presidential elections saw the victory of Nayib Bukele, an independent candidate of the Nuevas Ideas party – promoter of a social conservatism diametrically opposed to the political system that had been established so far among the previously mentioned parties. The overwhelming victory, also won thanks to his promise to fight hard against the violence of the maras, allowed Bukele to change Salvadoran politics from within, implementing economic reforms – very famous, also and especially for the criticism he drew on his presidency, is the one related to Bitcoins – but also judicial and pertaining to the national security sector. Last 2021, on the occasion of the debut of the new Legislative Assembly, Bukele ordered the dismissal of five magistrates of the Constitutional Chamber and the Attorney General’s Office through what has been dubbed a “Self-Coup.” In their place were inserted trusted officials from Nuevas Ideas. In general, the political strategies undertaken so far by Bukele have proven to be imprudent, reckless, and

Petare, Venezuela: the most violent slum in the world

Elena Di Dio 18 January 2021

Dulce Nombre de Jesús de Petare is the full name of the suburb east of Caracas in Venezuela, known as one of the most populated slums in the world. Precisely, with its 369 000 inhabitants, Petare occupies the seventh place in the world ranking, second only to Neza-Chalco-Itza, (Mexico) in all of Latin America. Petare, like many other slums in the world, is composed of an informal and precarious housing conglomerate, located on the fringes of a metropolis (in this case Caracas, capital of Venezuela, with its 6 million inhabitants), which very rarely benefits from local and national public policies. Here, criminal gangs have therefore occupied the political vacuum by taking over local economies for illicit business. The city looks like a cluster of red brick buildings exposed or covered with colored plaster, held up by concrete structures to even out the difference in height caused by the slopes of the mountains surrounding the Venezuelan capital, on which the slum rises. The roofs, made of sheet metal and other makeshift materials, suggest a certain precariousness and poverty of the urban sector. The origins of the slum The area where Petare is located was first populated in the 16th century, following a land concession to one of the first conquerors. The various Spanish landowners who inhabited the area founded the town in 1621 under the name of San Jose de Guanarito. The name Dulce Nombre de Jesús de Petare derives from the 18th century church, with the same name, that formed a nucleus of the colonial settlement, and where a Franciscan friar settled to assist the Indian workers. The area was in fact very fertile and was dedicated to the production of coffee, cocoa and sugar cane. The town was quickly absorbed by the metropolitan area of Caracas, which over the years experienced a great growth of population due to people who poured into the city from the countryside in order to improve their economic conditions. However, the slum has retained its commercial core. It is also home to two universities: Universidad Santa María and Universidad Metropolitana. Venezuela’s most recent political history has seen millions of disenfranchised citizens recognize Chávez’s Bolivarian revolution as the chance for social, economic, and racial inclusion in a deeply unbalanced society. But now, with their lives disrupted by the economic and social disaster resulting from the implementation of Maduro’s policies, many of these citizens are turning against the president. Indeed, Venezuela’s economic decline has caused an exponential increase in the number of inhabitants of informal urban sectors (slums) such as Petare, due to the collapse below the poverty line of a large segment of the population. The most violent slum Petare is to be considered a city within the suburbs of Caracas, Venezuela, as it is itself divided into hundreds of neighborhoods. The narrow, nameless streets leave no room for visitors, making it an impregnable stronghold. Since the city is located at an altitude of almost one thousand meters, one of the few ways to access it is by Metrocable: a cable car that departs from the center of Caracas, located in the lowest part of the valley, and takes pedestrians to the highest points of the mountain. This type of transportation is integrated into the public transportation system of the municipality of Caracas, and is very common in the large mountain metropolises of Latin America. Survival is the daily challenge of the slum inhabitants: they live in extreme poverty in a country that can no longer provide a reliable source of water or electricity. Some sectors of the Petare slum remain without water for periods of days on end, and blackouts rage nationwide, leaving the whole of Venezuela without electricity. Its unique urban conformation allows organized crime to proliferate. The Petare slum is one of the poorest areas of Venezuela, and the rate of armed robberies, murders and kidnappings reaches a very high figure here, making this area the most corrupt in Caracas. According to Business Insider’s report, the Venezuelan capital earned the title of the world’s most violent city in 2015. Although this number has been debated, the homicide rate stands at 119.87 per 100,000 inhabitants. The country’s shocking level of violence is directly related to its social, economic and political dysfunction, and also by the political-economic crisis Venezuela has lived since 2013. Petare is the “home” of organized criminal gangs and constantly fighting each other, it is where the reign of crime is accentuated without restraint. The real sectors that make up the slum are the subject of territorial dispute for the control of illicit activities. Wilexis’ mega gang Wilexis Alexander Acevedo Monasterios, a.k.a. “the Wilexis,” has begun to be frequently mentioned, since 2014, among Petare residents for his illicit activities, climbing the lists of the most wanted by the municipal and state police, the national police, and the Cuerpo de Investigaciones Científicas Penales y Criminalísticas (CICPC). The young fugitive quickly distinguished himself from the other criminal gangs in Petare for his actions to control the territory. By establishing, unofficially, various sectors of the slum as “Zonas de Paz” in fact, he established himself in the criminal world, becoming the undisputed leader of the largest gang in the slum. As stated by an anonymous informant, the Peace Zones have enshrined the power of Wilexis, who has begun to equip more and more people with weapons and then affiliate them with his gang and poses “as if he were king of them all.” These areas are characterized by the absence of controls: the access to the inside of the slum is informally forbidden to the police and, in the rare occasions in which they try to enter inside the control zone of Wilexis, they are punctually forced to engage in violent clashes with the members of his gang. More than 200 criminals are part of the “Wilexis” gang. Its members range from 13 to 28 years of age and the crimes they are most frequently guilty of are: murder for hire, drug trafficking

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