International
Murder rate plummets amid ‘gangster peace’ in Medellin
| By 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.
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General view of the Comuna 13 neighbourhood in Medellin, Colombia, on February 13, 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
Kristi Noem credits Trump for mass migrant deportations by mexican president
U.S. Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem claimed that Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum has deported “more than half a million” migrants due to pressure from former President Donald Trump.
During a cabinet meeting highlighting the “achievements” of Trump’s administration in its first 100 days, Noem asserted that under the Republican leader’s influence, “Mexico has finally come to the table” to negotiate on migration and fentanyl trafficking.
“The president of Mexico told me she has returned just over half a million people before they reached our border,” Noem stated, criticizing media reports that suggest the Biden administration deported more migrants than Trump’s.
“I wish those deportations were counted,” Noem added, “because those people never made it to our border—she sent them back because you made her.” She went on to thank Trump: “They never made it here because they got the message—because you were so aggressive.”
Noem has made controversial claims about Sheinbaum in the past, prompting the Mexican leader to refute them.
On April 1, Sheinbaum responded to one such statement by declaring, “The president answers to only one authority, and that is the people of Mexico,” after Noem said on Fox News that she gave Sheinbaum “a list of things Trump would like to see” and that Mexico’s actions would determine whether Trump granted tariff relief.
International
Vatican releases special “Sede Vacante” stamps ahead of papal transition
he Vatican’s post offices and select collector shops began selling special edition stamps this week to mark the period between the death of Pope Francis and the election of his successor.
Known as “Sede Vacante” stamps, they feature an image used on official Vatican documents during the interregnum between popes — two crossed keys without the papal tiara. These stamps went on sale Monday and will remain valid for postal use only until the new pontiff appears at the window overlooking St. Peter’s Square.
Until then, they can be used to send letters, postcards, and parcels. “Once the new pope is elected, the stamps lose their postal validity, but their collectible value rises,” said Francesco Santarossa, who runs a collectors’ shop across from St. Peter’s Square.
The Vatican has issued the stamps in four denominations: €1.25, €1.30, €2.45, and €3.20. Each is inscribed with “Città del Vaticano” and “Sede Vacante MMXXV” — Latin for “Vacant See 2025.”
International
Conclave to choose pope Francis’ successor could begin in early may
The conclave, which in the coming weeks must choose the successor to Pope Francis, will strictly follow a precise protocol refined over centuries.
The 135 cardinal electors, all under the age of 80, will cast their votes four times a day — except on the first day — until one candidate secures a two-thirds majority. The result will be announced to the world through the burning of the ballots with a chemical that produces the eagerly awaited white smoke, accompanied by the traditional cry of “Habemus Papam.”
The start date for the conclave could be announced today, as the cardinals are set to hold their fifth meeting since the pope’s passing. Luxembourg Cardinal Jean-Claude Hollerich suggested it could begin on May 5 or 6, following the traditional nine days of mourning. According to German Cardinal Reinhard Marx, the conclave could last only “a few days.”
Although the late Argentine pontiff appointed the majority of the cardinal electors, this does not necessarily ensure the selection of a like-minded successor. Francis’ leadership style differed significantly from that of his predecessor, Benedict XVI, a German theologian who was less fond of large public gatherings. It also marked a contrast with the popular Polish pope, John Paul II.
The Argentine Jesuit’s reformist papacy drew strong criticism from more conservative sectors of the Church, who are hoping for a doctrinally focused shift. His tenure was marked by efforts to combat clerical sexual abuse, elevate the role of women and laypeople, and advocate for the poor and migrants, among other causes.
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