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June 17, 2009
Good News about the Displaced Family From Cali and More Bad News About Colombia
My coworker El Negro has just informed me that his displaced friend, who has been supporting her family with almost nothing since coming from Cali about six months ago, has finally gotten all her government benefits together and has found a house. Of course, I can imagine that the house is little more than a room in a poor, violent neighborhood, but it is at least a foundation for a new life in Medellin.
Interestingly, at the same time that I write two posts dealing with displacement, the UN has just released a report that ranks Colombia's displaced population as one of the largest in the world. More specifically, about 3 million Colombians (in a country of 45 million) have been displaced by violence. Most statistics on Colombian displacement hover between 2 and 4 million, depending on the research methodology, how recent displacement has to be in order to count as displacement, etc.
The Economist Intelligence Unit has also recently ranked Colombia as the most violent country in the Western Hemisphere according to a system that takes into account such figures as militiary expenditure proportional to GDP, violent crime rates, internal political conflict, etc. Quite a bad position to be in for a country so proud of its recent progress in terms of security, especially given that Latin America is, statistically, the world's most violent region. The Economist also ranked Bogota, Colombia's capital, as the worst capital to live in in the Americas, mostly because of pollution, traffic and violent crime.
The Miami Herald, which is generally a pro-Uribe newspaper, has been investigating the false positives scandal form months. Just as a reminder, the scandal involves allegations of hundreds (maybe even thousands) of murders of innocent civilians by the Colombian military, who then presents such deaths as guerrillas killed in battle. According to the Herald, the entire Colombian military structure encouraged such abuses. The government has repeatedly insisted that the few proven false positives are isolated cases in a very complex civil war, rather than a broad structural problem.
Whenever these foreign reports come out, they make news in Colombia. Interestingly, foreign rankings and reports are pretty much the only mainstream news stories that remind Colombians of just how difficult life here is. While there are frequent reports on crime, poverty and corruption, Colombians remain convinced that this is generally a 'normal' country with a great government.
Not to get political again, but I think these views on Colombia from abroad confirm that whatever progress the country has made in combatting violence, social inequality and the influence of criminal groups (in my opinion, very little progress under the current administration) has been insufficient.
In Medellin, I hear more and more every day that security here is guaranteed not by the state, but by the Office of Envigado. Many people I know have told me that, if there is a problem in their neighborhood, most people go to the Office before they go to the police or local administration.
The Office is no longer a myth; it is a very real drug trafficking organization with a firm hold on Medellin. Recently, they were found to have links with Hezbollah, with whom they collaborated to ship drugs throughout Asia. They have plenty of contacts throughout Mexico and Central America. While they don't have a single identifiable leader or a clear number of footsoldiers like rival druglords Los Rastrojos, Cuchillo and el Loco Barrerra, they may be the most powerful criminal organization in all of Colombia.
Needless to say, there are plenty of well-honest people working for Colombia. I'm lucky to be surrounded by many such people at my office. Nevertheless, despite all my pessimism and criticism of the Colombian government, I really did not expect to find Medellin - the crown jewel of Colombia's transformation under Uribe - crippled by so much poverty, violence and corruption.
Posted by Pablo Rojas at June 17, 2009 12:27 PM
