The Latin America thread (VE, BR, AR, CU, MX...)

https://americasquarterly.org/article/guatemala-nears-a-pivotal-moment-on-taiwan/

Guatemala's President-elect Bernardo Arévalo stated that he wants to increase trade with China while maintaining diplomatic ties with Taiwan.

I can't see them doing this.

Edited by Ominae on Jan 11th 2024 at 7:19:31 AM

They're not — China will force him to pick one or the other.

I remember Nicaragua doing this (I think) when Ortega was first reelected, but had Taiwanese relations at the time.

Let's get something clear about crime in Latin America.

Yes, it absolutely must be dealt with, it has risen to the boiling point in the last years and something effective must be done.

However, what effective means here cannot just mean killing all criminals and be done with it, crime is correlated with economic and social inequality so unless you also tackle that you are going to end up in an endless warpath which, I'll need to point out, has the very real risk of turning the countries into autocracies in the name of law and order.

Criminality is definitely tied to poverty and economic inequality, but not in the way that most people think. In Latin America especially, it's crime that causes poverty. LATAM is not like in first world countries where criminals maybe are indeed tremulous, regretful orphans waiting for a hug and a warm meal; Latin American criminal syndicates have more in common with a hostile, war-criminal invading army in both behavior and apparel, the difference being that they come from inside the border rather than outside it - and even then that's suspect, considering the Ecuadorian mobs' ties to the Sinaloa cartel or the Venezuelan 'Aragua Train' spreading across the continent.

It's not a simple task, but it's also not gray-vs-grey. Not when these criminals record themselves singing as they murder their kidnapped victims or pose like supermodels with automatic guns, drugs and stolen money - sometimes from inside their prison cells. They certainly are not ashamed of who they are nor what they do; rather, as shown during the past days, they are brimming with such stupendous self-confidence that they think they can openly declare war on a whole country (more hostile army parallels) and win.

EDIT: forgot to change phrasing

Edited by BlackKnight359 on Jan 11th 2024 at 11:25:25 PM

We are not an exception from the rest of the world where poverty and class divides beget crime and criminal opportunists.

Crime did not originate from the ether. It is always tied to class.

I disagree. There are plenty of places where poverty is worse than the average South American country, and crime issues are not as serious. Besides, rich criminals exist.

Give some examples to back this claim up, please.

No one has said otherwise.

Edited by Diana1969 on Jan 11th 2024 at 12:37:52 PM

Crime, like most things is born from balance of opportunity and cost. Poverty lowers the (relative) cost, and class inequality increases (some) opportunity, but they are not the only (or sometimes even main) factors. Like, the drug cartels, even if they established themselves with the help of the fallout of the various class - based rebellions (and geography), are now a self-supporting force that increases crime and decreases governance independent of poverty.

Edited by Smeagol17 on Jan 12th 2024 at 2:19:21 PM

https://www.statista.com/statistics/947781/homicide-rates-latin-america-caribbean-country/

List by murder rates and Latin America leads all the murder rates.

Brazil has a 18 murders per 100K Venezuela has over 40 Ecuador, Colombia and Mexico have over 20.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_intentional_homicide_rate

Even cross checking with countries in Eastern Europe, Africa (North, Central and South) only South Africa has a massive murder rate.

In the Middle East, even with the ongoing ethnic conflicts, murder rates are still lower than the Latin American average. In a continent that didn't have an open war or civil war in multiple decades.

Southeast Asia, even with massive inequality issues, still doesn't get that high as well.

And then in Brazil, the high homicide rates are tied with cartel wars.

The average murder resolution rates in Brazil are just 8%, where the author is known, trialed and jailed ^{link in portuguese} Meaning that at least 92% homicides had the murderer walk free. Which is infuriating for people, knowing that anyone could get murdered during robberies or for any reason while having the murderer getting scot free because the state security apparatus is not enough to prevent those homicides and cope with the sheer numbers of deaths they have to investigate.

And then you have the issues of having the cartels, the Capital First Command getting roots in every single branch of governance in Latin America, from manipulating elections in favor for candidates they support or blocking those they don't like.

Including escalations in violence whenever one cartel wants to expand its turf and leave everyone else in the crossfire, to murdering LE Os and government officials in charge of fighting organized crime and cartels like the PCC having a global reach in North America, Africa and Europe on top of being meshed with Latin America civil governments.

And during my work I've met my share of criminals who entered crime, not because of need, but due to how easy it is. Both to do the crime and to get away with it.

Edited by AngelusNox on Jan 11th 2024 at 5:17:21 PM

Then that's still a case of it being an institutionalized problem begetting such a dilemma, one that "getting the boot they deserve" won't immediately solve.

No, but it will get the sicarios, gang members and the cartel soldiers out of the streets and cull the cartels power to actually threaten people.

Going after the leadership is useless if you still leave a shitload of armed criminals just waiting to either take over the former bosses positions or use violence against anyone trying to oppose them.

A crime boss without his gunmen is just an asshole pointing fingers.

From the petty criminal to the cartel member, they should be afraid of being criminals, they should scared to death of being caught or fighting the police. And it isn't the case in Latin America, where cartel members post of facebook and other social their loot, their guns and their "gangsta" life style.

Stop going easy on criminals and the rest will fall in line.

Edited by AngelusNox on Jan 11th 2024 at 6:26:27 AM

There is also the fact that in some cases if you jail a cartel boss, they can ether direct from jail or just use his power to threaten someone into release him, hell it happen un ecuador were to drug boss escape using the whole chaos to do so(some goes as far as sugesting the whole thing was smokescreen to get them back) and if they croack they usually cause a civil war were they go bloody as it happen in tijuana and accapulco.

Truth is Crime is a hydra, it require A LOT of stuff to clamp them down in many ways posible, from better police, to flexible laws to lower members and more, but as smeagol said, there is a point it become self generating because crime become a force that get the idea they can have a said in how things are run and worst, they can be very much right about it.

Crime as encompasing factor need to be deal with social reform but crime as group of people who do awfull shit and get waaaay to powerfull NEED to be deal with.

By the way, if it was up to me, I'd have the government of Brazil doing what Ecuador did. Consider all criminal gangs(Primeiro Comando da Capital(Capital First Command), Comando Vermelho(Red Command), etc.) terrorist groups.

Edited by CosmosAndChaos on Jan 12th 2024 at 3:15:50 PM

They pretty much are.

Just the amount of times they organized attacks against police units, burned and destroyed public infrastructure, attempted to car bomb the Barra Funda forums and the amount of times they engaged in political intimidation, should have sent them to the terrorist list like FARC is.

And I thought Brazilian criminals were disgusting, but there's always someone worse in Real Life.😡

Edited by CosmosAndChaos on Jan 14th 2024 at 3:52:51 PM

Other places have higher poverty, but Latin America stands out for very high economic inequality. A huge divide between the rich and poor is one if the things that contributes to crime - if the system is so clearly rigged in favour of the rich, why respect it? If you can’t live a decent life by legal means, who not do so by illegal means? South Africa is another country outside of Latin America with that combo of high inequality and high crime.

Cracking down on crime without dealing with the social conditions that produce crime (i.e., without major income redistribution) is not going to be a solution.

Edited by Galadriel on Jan 14th 2024 at 11:23:24 AM

Arevalo's inauguration was delayed today because of the continued back and forth bullshit with Guatemalan politicians in Congress trying to prevent him from taking power, despite protests and pressure from the United States. Some have gone as far as to accuse Congress of attempting a coup against Arevalo.

700 hundred people in Mexico have left their homes and fled a gang war near the borders of Guatemala.

The two gangs fighting are the Jalisco New Generation cartel (CJNG)  and  the Sinaloa Cartel

The area is valuable as a transit route for illegal immigration.

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-latin-america-68067681

......................

Tens of thousands of Argentinians protested yesterday against President Javier Milei's plans to slash workers' rights.

Forty five days after his inaguration, Milei is promising  deregulation, deep spending cuts and the devaluation of the peso and to abolish rent caps.

Also

Milei himself blame decades of irrisponsible overspending by left-wing populist governments for the economic situation in Argentina (inflation 200% and poverty 40%)

He said that shock treatment is the only way to save the country, and that those who opposed him will  usher in "a social catastrophe of biblical proportions".

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-latin-america-68085197

Edited by jawal on Jan 24th 2024 at 2:18:40 PM

I am from Mexico, while currently living in Spain, in fact I had been 5 years and a half out of the country (3 years an a half in the US, the rest, almost two years in Spain).

Indeed I moved out of the country when I learn who was elected as President back in 2018, technically applying a Screw This, I'm Outta Here. Yeah, I decided to move out and when I got my first chance (a job opportunity in Chicago while still working for a Mexican company) I left my country.

Every Sunday (except in NFL nights) I made a weekly call with my mom and she always hear the news in the radio (she is not fond of social media) and she tells me every week how my country is getting worse every single week.

The president, Lopez Obrador, took a sort of Cult of Personality look and he decide to govern under his own rules, but the worst part is when he is addressed about the violence in Mexico.

"Abrazos, no balazos" (Hugs, no gunshots).

Under that, he dismanted the Federal Police body (and with that, removing every strategy they had against the Drug Cartels), he put the Army to do tasks completely different (like building a cheap airport out of Mexico City or destroying the Yucatan jungle to extend an old and useless railway) and even he does his best to protect the big Narco heads (he once, went to el Chapo hometown to visit´s Chapo´s mother).

Consequences? The Cartel provide the muscle to keep the people afraid, to make the opposition to suffer big blows because the violence increased in the states where Morena is not governing (take a look to Guanajuato, where several massacres put to blush the numbers in the current Israel-Hamas war) and what the President said regarding the victims?

"Era gente viciosa que pago las consecuencias" (They were adicts and they had to pay the consequences)

I applied my own Screw This, I'm Outta Here knowing that my country was in problems, but with the president doing his own Screw This, I'm Outta Here and adding his cult of personality, I think I took the right decision, sadly, I cannot take my parents and my wife´s parents here...

Edited by Travsam on Jan 25th 2024 at 10:01:48 AM

Brazil is going the same path as well.

I'll drop the LEO career if things don't get better and I'll see if I can get a visa to Portugal or Canada.

Sometimes it looks like, while dangerous is better to be in the illegal or black market rather than to have an honest business (actually there is one honest business that seems to be happy with those other markets: WEAPONS).

You see the USA sinking down due to the drugs created from fentanile that is being manufacturated and distributed by the Mexican drug cartels that is trying to take control of the business not only in Mexico but also in the US and South America, what happens? That the violence is spreading through all the continent, as long as they begin to get positions in every country, with every organized gang.

While poverty and violence is hitting, too much young people are left to only two options: to run away or to join a gang and became cannon food, that leads to more poverty, to more violence, and obviously to have the US blocking more the borders.

Because it seems that for the drug lords, being a good man and having a decent job is the least thing they want from the people.

Most of this isn't wrong (it's startlingly right, actually), but the border stuff is well beyond the threat of the drug trade.

It's not as though the Federal Police were doing a good job handling the Cartels in the first place, but AMLO is busy militarizating the state, which...surely that won't have consequences down the road.

Edited by Diana1969 on Jan 25th 2024 at 9:29:59 AM