Inequality is at the root of violence in Latin America and its solution

The inequality Social change and an economic model based on the exploitation of people and the environment are at the root of the violence that plagues Latin America and, therefore, must also be the starting point in the fight against it, according to experts gathered this Tuesday at Casa de América in Madrid.

Police strategies are also part of the package of measures with which to address this complex problem, as defended in his conference by the Peruvian criminologist Nicolás Zevallos, but they will fail if they are not accompanied by others, such as “the fight against the informal economy or drug consumption”, as he added in an interview with EFE.

The Colombian sociologist Paula Jimena Náñez stressed that “The armed conflict has been functional for a development model that needs to control territories and people.”

A specialist in Colombia, Náñez gives as an example this country that, “After the peace agreements, he saw how violence was reconfigured with other actors who took their place and used the same weapons to defend drug trafficking routes, human trafficking or illegal mining, among other businesses,” Add.

Violence is the tool with which economic interests are defended and those who suffer it are “communities of peasants, indigenous people and Afro-descendants” especially vulnerable, because “inequality is the main problem in Latin America”

The citizen suffers violence ever closer

“Violence is structural,” Zevallos acknowledges, “but the methods used by organized crime change.”

“There are no longer large criminal structures with vertical control, as in the time of the Colombian cartels, but rather small gangs that associate with each other and operate as a network,” clarifies.

“As they are local gangs, the citizen has them close and suffers their extreme violence more strongly,” toGrega.

Violence against women worsens

Also violence against women, another of the vulnerable groups that criminal organizations target, “it has worsened”according to Mexican criminal analyst Sandra Gallegos.

“The phenomenon is very complex,” he warns, “but one of the causes of the resurgence of the semantics of violence against women is the general security crisis, which has a historical matrix and has now entered a new phase of territorial plundering.” ”.

Faced with a panorama in which insecurity is increasing, the experts gathered this Tuesday at the conference “Territories of Violence. “Crime in America” They agree that the path to take is to fight against inequality and in favor of the rule of law.

Bukele’s model is not exportable

Gallegos defends the importance of taking measures against the lack of access to justice for women who are victims of gender violence, as began to be done in her native Mexico after the ruling of the Inter-American Court of Human Rights on the femicides of Juarez City.

For his part, Náñez believes it is crucial to have laws that defend the most vulnerable and the environment, and considers it a progress that 25 countries have signed the Escazú Agreement.

Zevallos also advocates for global solutions, which take into account that the source of income for organized crime is very often outside the American continent.

“The militaristic vision is not the solution,” adds Náñez, who regrets the good press that the model applied by the president of El Salvador, Nayib Bukele, has.

“Police measures do not solve the problem on their own, they displace it, as happened in Colombiawhere the pressure against drug trafficking transferred part of the crime to Ecuador”, argues.

“It must be recognized that Bukee managed to reduce crime rates, but its model is not exportable because it did so thanks to control of the territory that is impossible in larger countries”emphasizes Zevallos.

Despite these reluctance, the Peruvian criminologist recognizes that “The problem is going to worsen in the coming years” and the recipe that Bukele offers “It is the one that will be applied the most because it is perceived as a model of success,”

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