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Colombia’s progress in reducing the homicide rate per 100,000 inhabitants is evident, and it moved away from the terrible number of 1990, when the highest rate was recorded (81 murders per 100,000 citizens).
However, in the shadow of this balance are dozens of municipalities whose situation of violence leaves an alarming panorama: the figure even exceeds that of Mexican cities like Tijuana (134), which has the highest homicide rate in the world.
This is the case of Tarazá, a municipality of almost 43,000 residents buried in lower Cauca Antioquia where, according to figures from the Attorney General’s Office, the rate for 2019 was 324 homicides per 100,000 inhabitants, the highest in the country. This index far exceeds that of Cali (48), the city with the most murders in Colombia, and that of Bogotá (14).
But he’s not the only one. Other small municipalities, located in departments historically hit by the conflict, are in a similar situation: Corinto and Argelia (Cauca), Cáceres (Antioquia), Cumbitara (Nariño), Papunaua (Vaupés), Segovia (Antioquia), San José de Uré (Córdoba), Vegachí (Antioquia) and Suárez (Cauca), just to mention the list of the 10 with the highest homicide rate.
These areas appear prioritized in the Strategic Direction plan of the Office of the Prosecutor for the next four years, whose first objective is to increase the clarification of crimes.
(By context, this article could be of interest to you: The Prosecutor’s Office plan to face the most serious crimes)
In this plan, the investigating entity indicates that “These municipalities have in common that they are mostly rural and that they have the presence of Organized Armed Groups and Organized Criminal Groups”.
Analysts and mayors of several of these places, consulted by EL TIEMPO, coincide in pointing out that, although the National Government mentions drug trafficking as the cause of the crimes, there are more elements that explain the dramatic scenario in which they find themselves: absence state, andl control of other illegal economies, lack of social investment and slow implementation of the peace agreement with the FARC are some of these.
And although the homicide rate in Colombia for 2019 was 24 per 100,000 inhabitants, this reduction, explains the Prosecutor’s Office, “was largely driven by large cities, which are those with the highest number of homicides in absolute terms and in which there has been an improvement in recent years ”.
(It could be of your interest to read: Prosecutor clarifies 35 homicides registered in Buenaventura and Buga)
For this reason, it is essential to put the magnifying glass on the very high murder rates in small municipalities, because, as Isaac Morales, an expert in citizen security from the Peace and Reconciliation Foundation explains, when analyzing this phenomenon, it is not only necessary to take into account the population , but rather the particularities of each municipality and, in the case of our country, the historical tradition of the conflict.
An armed confrontation has been seen for several years between groups on the fringes of the law, both ‘Los Caparros’ and the ‘Gulf Clan’
They ask for the presence of the State
Ferney Álvarez, mayor of Tarazá (Antioquia), points out that this municipality “has seen an armed confrontation between illegal groups, both ‘Los Caparros’ and the ‘Gulf clan’ for several years. This confrontation it has meant, for this 2020, 60 homicides, three massive displacements and 558 individual displacements ”.
Álvarez emphasizes that there is little margin for action that the municipal administration has to face this situation, because, he says, “this is a problem of departmental and national competition”.
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Although there is a presence of the Public Force in Tarazá, the local president questions the militarization strategy: “The actions are the same, but if everything remains the same, you have to change the strategy. We need more social investment, more articulation. Alone as a municipality, it is very difficult for us to change the panorama. This changes if the armed groups make peace, but if not, it is very difficult for us to lower the figures ”.
Almost a thousand kilometers to the south, crossing the western mountain range, in Algeria (Cauca), there is a similar drama.
This municipality, with less than 30,000 inhabitants, has a homicide rate of 289 per 100,000 inhabitants, the third highest in the country. During the last years, Algerians have lived in the midst of the crossfire between the ‘Carlos Patiño’ front, of the FARC dissidents, and the José María Becerra front, of the ELN.
For Mayor Jhonnatan Patiño Cerón, “the narrative managed by the Government encourages the growth of these groups, since it is not called to end the conflict, to seek peaceful solutions, but to continue the war.”
The figures of violence in the municipality are chilling: last week’s court had 62 violent deaths and more than 400 displaced families, “but the community speaks of more murders and more displacements that are not registered. They can be many more”, He warns.
Patiño mentions two key elements that can change the situation in the region: first, he says, “that the Government recognize that there is a conflict and look for a real and negotiated solution.
You have to see how you find a solution to the causes that generate this conflict. Inequality, poverty, all that leads to a population willing to get involved in drug trafficking or illegal groups. “
The second factor is compliance with and implementation of the peace agreement, since, according to the president, several members of the groups that are in the area are ex-combatants who had demobilized but, as a result of the non-compliance, became part of the dissent.
On that point, Leonardo González, coordinator of the DD Observatory. H H. and Indepaz conflicts, explains that after negotiations such as the one that the Government developed with the ex-guerrilla of the Farc, two scenarios emerge: the pacification of the territories or the exacerbation of the war in them.
For González, the main reason behind the very high homicide rates in the mentioned municipalities is “The bad transition that has taken place after the peace process in those areas, which are characterized by the diversity of natural resources, but also by being a transit of everything illegal.”
The researcher clarifies that it is not simply about the illicit coca economy, but also about mining, arms trafficking, human trafficking, among others that have a place where the State is absent.
According to him, “in these regions there is a presence of the Public Force, but not a comprehensive presence of the State” that guarantees the substitution of crops for illicit use, educational opportunities that prevent young people from being recruited, or access routes so that the peasants are able to harvest their crops and are not motivated to use the land for illegal crops.
They ask for government support
Didier Osorio, mayor of Segovia (Antioquia), mentions another point that complicates the equation, despite the fact that this year homicides have been reduced by 30 percent in his municipality, where, according to him, there is a constant articulation between the entire Institutionality: “These armed groups have a slight mutation and, while one structure is dismantled, in a week another appears. Besides, with the instrumentalization of minors and foreigners, they strengthen their actions ”.
In the same sense, the Secretary of Government of the neighboring Antioquia municipality of Vegachí, Johan Uribe Palacio, says that “for a sixth category municipality, face a scourge such as homicide when the origin is the dispute between drug trafficking gangs, It is very complex. What one does locally is very ineffective. The solution to this problem has to be structural and government policies ”.
Faced with criticism of the government’s strategy to change the violent outlook in the regions, the High Commissioner for Peace, Miguel Ceballos, said that “the implementation of the agreements is also the responsibility of the mayors, who are also the State.”
Ceballos highlighted the progress in the Development Plans with a Territorial Approach, which has been recognized by the United Nations. Regarding militarization, he pointed out that “although it is true that the presence of the Army is not enough, it is a condition to guarantee security, complemented by the social development projects that are being carried out.”
And he added: “The spirit must be of collaboration and coordinated and articulated work between the national, departmental and local governments, to fight together the true cause of violence, which is drug trafficking and the illegal extraction of minerals, which wants to be controlled. by armed groups such as the dissidents of the Farc, the Eln, the ‘Gulf Clan’, ‘Los Pelusos’ and ‘Los Caparros’, which according to the Prosecutor’s Office are the most responsible for the crimes in those areas.
MARÍA ISABEL ORTIZ AND JULIAN RÍOS MONROY
JUSTICE
