COVID-19: Who is Taking Advantage of the Crisis? The Rising Clout of Criminal Groups in Latin America
Source: https://ciudadanosenred.com.mx/2020/04/18/el-crimen-organizado-durante-la-pandemia/
By: Thais Ricard
DISCLAIMER: The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the KCL Latin American Society or El Cortao
Fragmentation and failure
The coronavirus pandemic has exacerbated pre-existing inequalities and worsened poverty across the world. This is especially striking in Latin America which was already facing a decade of ‘economic weakness and macroeconomic vulnerability’ according to the UN Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean. In 2020, poverty may increase by at least 4.4%, bringing the total number of people living in poverty to 214.7 million which represents 34.7% of the region’s population. This dire economic situation has led to a weakening of social cohesion and expressions of social discontent that have been characterized by historic waves of popular demonstrations, with many having taken place months before Covid-19 arrived.
Protesters criticized the state’s corruption and its incapacity to offer public services such as affordable education and health care. Moreover, they decried the pervading climate of violence and insecurity in deprived areas caused by the presence of criminal groups like drug cartels in Mexico, guerrilla movements in Colombia or maras in El Salvador. Faced with this institutional deficiency, Latin American citizens’ trust in government has declined in the past years, reaching an average trust level of 33.9% in 2018.
Covid-19’s crisis could have bolstered governmental legitimacy through the enforcement of efficient sanitary measures aimed at protecting citizens’ lives. Those measures that comprised border closures and the militarization of public security could have expanded states’ authority as they would have particularly hit the illicit economies of criminal groups, making them more vulnerable than ever. To that extent, Covid-19 would have provided an unexpected opportunity for Latin American states to eventually end cycles of violent delinquency.
Adaptation and Altruism
However, far from being toppled, criminal groups have progressively adapted their activities to the challenges imposed by the pandemic. Globally deprived of extortion and drug trafficking, which had been their main sources of income, they undertook various strategies to remain economically viable. Firstly, they reduced expenses and relied more on savings. The Central American gangs of MS-13 or Calle 18 have cut financial support to lawyers of jailed gang members while the Mexican cartels have decided to sack some of their members. They have also diversified into retail sales of marijuana and synthetic drugs such as methamphetamine and fentanyl, reaping the benefits of price inflations. Finally, the pandemic has led to the creation of new, lucrative, illicit businesses such as medicine smuggling, cybercrime, or kidnapping.
Apart from being economically resilient, criminal groups have surprisingly demonstrated their interest in the public good, and their effectiveness as legitimate political agents, by enforcing quarantine measures. In Brazil, in the Ciudad de Deus favela of Rio de Janeiro, the Comando Vermelho (Red Command) gang imposed a curfew, threatening residents with ‘corrective’ actions if they left their houses outside of designated hours. In the Santa Marta’s favela, traffickers handed out soap and placed signs at the entrance of the favela to remind residents to wash their hands – despite a lack of running water in this area. In the Colombian Department of Cauca, the FARC dissident groups distributed pamphlets threatening fines and military-grade consequences to those who defied the government’s restrictions. In Venezuela, the colectivos, which are pro-government armed gangs, announced lockdown policies even before government agents.
Furthermore, not only did informal armed organizations attempt to protect citizens’ health by implementing restrictive sanitary measures, but they also provided welfare services and food supplies. In Mexico, the Jalisco Nueva Generación Cartel, the Sinaloa Cartel and the Golfos Cartel distributed food and medicine parcels labelled with their leaders’ faces and groups’ insignia. These deliveries must be understood as constituting part of a propaganda campaign aimed at improving their public image as they voluntarily shared pictures of their humanitarian actions on social media. They indeed try to portray themselves as genuine saviours of the people, helping the needy while the state is inefficient or absent.
Latin America under criminal governance?
Undeniably, criminal groups’ actions have been motivated by a desire to secure and extend their power and influence in the long term. They were aware that their members are part of the territories they control and that they therefore had the duty to protect their health to further their criminal activities. Furthermore, they understood that they could later count on those they helped during this crisis for income and recruits. Those measures have thus allowed gangs to entrench themselves more deeply in the communities and gain popular support. Citizens have begun to perceive them as legitimate governing bodies that outperform the state, especially in times of crisis. According to Juan Pappier, an Americas Researcher at Human Rights Watch, this ‘creates the impression that they’re not just there for the drug trafficking or illegal mining or the crimes and they care about the public interest. It also suggests that they are the ones in charge, and they are the ones whose rules you’ve got to follow.’ Even public officials such as former Brazilian Ministry of Health, Luiz Henrique Mandetta, attested the extent of state failure by formally acknowledging the regal authority of criminal groups in neglected areas. This contributes to the blurring of social boundaries between legality and illegality as the criminal may be deemed legitimate.
Informal armed groups have therefore been empowered lately. As unemployment will drastically worsen due to a pandemic-induced economic downturn, citizens – especially the youth in poor neighbourhoods – will be more likely to join those criminal groups that they perceive to be more reliable than governments. However, one should be careful when drawing generalised conclusions. In fact, the pandemic has also severely impacted the informal economy, resulting in the increasingly violent competition between criminal organizations for local markets. Thus, the small groups that had not been able to diversify their income streams, vanished.
A context-specific response to informal violence
It is not too late for Latin American governments to establish authority over areas that they have historically neglected. They must develop region-specific approaches that diagnose the local structural sources and patterns of violence in order to devise tailored policies that will end impunity, deter recruitment by informal groups, deepen official material and technical support to poor communities and create professional alternatives to crime. To elaborate these focused and strategic plans, they should not overlook the importance of intelligence and of data. Plans financed by emergency funds from multilateral lenders will break with the broad failed methods of the past. Undeniably, authorities must show high transparency when implementing these measures to boost people’s trust.
In addition to reducing criminal groups’ influence, these measures would, overall, contribute to the strengthening of democratic systems as Latin American people would not feel inclined to support extremist, unorthodox political agents as they often do when official incumbents misrule.
Thais is a third year History and International Relations student at KCL. Her main research interests are about human rights and security issues such as drug trafficking and insurgency movements. She is particularly keen in analyzing those matters through a gender-based perspective.
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