Latin America is one of the most dangerous regions in the world, and according to some international reports, in fact tops the list. Just a few weeks ago, Gallup, a US-based research company, released a worldwide survey on safety perception that showed that Venezuelans are the people least likely to feel safe.

Eleven countries in the ‘top 30′ of Gallup’s ranking – which includes 134 countries – are Latin American, a worrying number that shows the notorious reputation this region has.

Venezuela’s crime problems are among the worst in Latin America, as could be seen in the last presidential election, when both candidates made this issue a key focus of the campaign. Though the Venezuelan government no longer releases official crime statistics, it is well known that the country continues to struggle with high rates of murder, kidnapping, and drug trafficking. In 2012, 40% of Venezuelans told Gallup there were illicit drug trafficking or sales in their area, and 10% said they had had a relative or close friend murdered in the past 12 months. Low ratings on Gallup’s physical security question are nothing new in Venezuela. Indeed, since 2008, less than one third of Venezuelans have said they feel safe walking in their neighbourhood alone at night.

Whilst Venezuela is a conspicuos example of a country with alarmingly high crime rates, it is not alone in Latin America. Hard data shows that high homicide rates are a constant in the region, especially in countries with serious and on-going drug trafficking and gang problems such as Mexico and Honduras.

San Pedro Sula, Honduras; the most dangerous city in the world (photo courtesy of Wikipedia)

The Most Dangerous Cities in the World

‘Seguridad, Justicia y Paz’ (Security, Justice and Peace), also referred to as the Citizens’ Council for Public Security and Criminal Justice, is a civil society organisation from Mexico that emerged in July 2002. Its members describe it as “a non-partisan network, secular and independent.” At the end of 2012, they published a study which ranked the 50 most dangerous cities in the world, based on homicide rates.

While homicides are far from being the only crime there is, they are widely used to measure crime rates because, unlike other types of offenses such as theft or rape, are generally reported to the authoritites. Homicide rate is considered an imperfect index for measuring insecurity and violence.

The report shows that three out of the ten most violent cities in the world are Mexican, while 47 of the 50 most violent cities are located in the Americas, with 40 being in Latin America. The first city on the list that is not in the continent is Cape Town in South Africa, ranked 27th.

Not much has changed on the top of the ranking since the previous year. With a rate of 169 intentional homicides per 100,000 inhabitants (ten more than in 2011), the Honduran city of San Pedro Sula was declared the most violent city in the world for a second year in a row. The city of Acapulco, Mexico, came in second with a rate of 143 murders per 100,000 inhabitants, followed by the Venezuelan capital, Caracas, with a rate of 119.

The report states that “a worsening of public safety and an increase in violence” has occurred in the last few years in countries like Honduras, Venezuela, and Mexico.

Indeed, despite a Mexican city (Ciudad Juárez, in the state of Chihuahua) having been displaced from the top position by San Pedro Sula, the country still has three cities in the top ten, and the violence unleashed in the last few years as consequence of the ‘war on drugs’ is notorious.

Honduran factory worker murdered in San Pedro Sula in 2010 (photo by Globovisión)

The behaviour of various government authorities in Mexico does not inspire confidence in official figures, since there are large amounts of conflicting data. For example, back in 2010 the governor of Chihuahua stated that there were around 4,000 homicides in his state, while the Attorney General offered two other numbers: 5,836 and 7,209. The final figure published by the National Institute of Statistics, Geography and Informatics (INEGI) in December 2011 was 6,421 intentional homicides. With such conflicting information, it is difficult to know for sure what is the real number.

The UN officially published that there were 20,585 homicides in the entire country of Mexico for 2010. In November 2011, INEGI’s researchers noted that this number was inaccurate and should be in fact 38% higher. In their opinion, the mistake was induced by Mexican authorities, who were trying to make the country appear safer than it is.

A similar accusation was levelled at Honduran authorities by Seguridad, Justicia y Paz, who stated in their report the difficulties they found to obtain official information. “We would not be surprised if this lack of information by official sources had the purpose to try and hide the reality of the large cities in the country which is, today, the most violent in the world,” they said.

There is general consensus among sociologists and criminologists regarding the causes of crime in our region. Peruvian political analyst Carlos Basombrío explains: “These factors include rapid, large-scale urbanisation that is incapable of sustaining basic services; extreme inequalities between rich and poor; a culture of violence carved from many years of internal wars; poverty, exclusion, and lack of opportunity for young people; police abuse, corruption, and inefficacy; and the unimpeded availability of guns, drugs, and alcohol, including an overwhelming presence in many cities of small-scale drug trafficking.”

Killing the Watchdogs

Not even the individuals who spread the word to the world are safe. ‘Watchdogs’, who investigate and report from the most dangerous zones of our planet, are willing to risk their own lives just ‘to get the story’. This seems to be especially true in Latin America: according to a recent report by UNESCO, Honduras has the world’s highest number of journalists assassinated per capita.

Since the 2009 coup, Honduras has been one of the Western hemisphere’s most dangerous countries for journalists, with 26 journalists killed in the last four years, according to US-based Freedom House. Their report, published earlier this year, states that: “Harassment against broadcasting outlets has included assaults, threats, blocked transmissions, and power outages.”

Freedom House considers Honduras “to have a culture of impunity, where people who attack journalists are not actively brought to justice.” Many Honduran journalists fear the violence that has been (and is still being) carried out is approved by the government, the 2012 Freedom of the Press report on Honduras stated.

Mexico is not far behind on the ranking. According to a report by the Mexican Centre of Social Communication from 2010, it is the third most dangerous country to exercise the profession.

Is Argentina Becoming Less Dangerous?

Despite the region’s overall danger, it is somewhat of a relief to know that Argentina is getting safer. At least according to official criminal rates.

The Buenos Aires Province’s Ministry of Security stated that overall reported crime in the Province has dropped 5.67%. In the first quarter of 2010, there were 171,342 reported crimes, and in the first quarter of 2011, there were 161,620. The types of crimes included are generally violent ones, such as murder, rape, kidnapping, and theft.

Supreme Court judge Eugenio Zaffaroni (photo by departamentjusticia on Flickr)

“Argentina has gone through some serious situations of social and institutional violence, but currently does not have an alarming crime record, comparing it to the region,” says Supreme Court judge Eugenio Zaffaroni.

According to the latest available data, from 2009, Argentina recorded a murder rate of 5.5 per 100,000 inhabitants – considerably less than the average continental rate of 15.6, as published in the ‘Global Study on Homicide 2011′, prepared by the UN Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC). The same report states that the homicide rate in the Americas “more than doubles the world average (6.9), while with the rate of 17.4 per 100,000 inhabitants, Africa is the continent with the highest rate.”

Nilda Garré, then minister of security, spoke about criminality in Argentina confidently: “According to the UN data, Argentina is well bellow other Latin American countries with regards to homicides.”

For a complete understanding of the UN’s research, it is important to point out that the 2009 study did not include murders in Buenos Aires Province. In 2008, 45% of all the country’s homicides happened in this province, so the results could lose some of its representation.

Even so, Buenos Aires did not make it to the top 50 most dangerous cities. In fact, the homicide rate for the Argentine capital, according to a study by the Supreme Court’s Research Institute, is well below the last city on the list – Barranquilla, Colombia. While in Buenos Aires the rate is 6.57 homicides per 100,000 inhabitants, in Barranquilla it is 29.41.

“If we compare the security situation of Argentina in 2009 with Venezuela, Brazil, and Mexico, the murder rate is much lower. However, when we compare it with other countries in the region, the differences are not so clear. Peru, Chile, and Uruguay do not have very different rates from those observed in Argentina,” explains Lucía Freira, analyst at the Crimes Research Laboratory of the Torcuato Di Tella University.

Despite the hard data, Argentina was still listed between the countries where residents are the least likely to feel safe walking alone at night. It hit 16th place, with Venezuelans and South Africans taking the top spots.

Two thirds of the world’s adult population (67%) feels safe walking alone at night in the area where they live. A figure that rose sharply since the global financial crisis began in 2008. “That is good news for global recovery, because public perceptions of physical security and social order are prerequisites for healthy economic activity. Widespread fears of bodily harm discourage people from venturing out to buy and sell in marketplace, for example, or taking jobs that require them to stay out after dark,” stated Steve Crabtree of Gallup.

Dealing with Criminality in Latin America

Crime and street violence, while prevalent in most parts of the world, are still considered an extreme and intractable problem in Latin America. And there is no visible sign of criminal rates lowering.

Political analyst Carlos Basombrío.

Numerous human rights violations occur as a consequence of efforts to combat crime, including police brutality, restrictive laws that curtail civil liberties, and the militarisation of the public order. Basombrío states: “Because the police in Latin America suffers from lack of training, scarce resources, and, in some instances, complicity with criminals, they frequently abuse and sometimes kill suspects. They almost always enjoy impunity from these acts because many segments of the public welcome such behaviour as means of promoting a safer environment.”

One of the most striking things about security issues in Latin America is the level of interconnectivity that can be found at every level.

“There is no doubt that keeping pace with the sophisticated and transnational nature of criminal organisations will require a sophisticated and transnational strategy – more time consuming, and complex for all actors involved in combating them,” said Maninder Gill, sector manager of the Social Development Department of the Latin America and Caribbean Region with the World Bank.

Addressing the problem of crime, as it affects people’s everyday life, is an enormous challenge for human rights advocates across Latin America, and even more so to defend their right to a secure environment. As Basombrío argues: “The issue of crime presents human rights advocates with challenges that must be resolved, if we are to build legitimacy for human rights principles.”

And that process – if it is ever fully completed – will be extremely long. For those living in or visiting the continent, the best advice is to exercise a greater degree of caution. For when it comes to avoiding crime, you can never be too careful.

How safe do porteños feel in the streets of their city? Click here to find out.

Lead image by Rodrigo Gómez Sanz on Flickr.

Honduran President Porfirio Lobo Sosa (photo: Wikimedia Commons)

A tribunal in Tegucigalpa called for Bulnes’ arrest last Wednesday for interfamilial violence, after finding him guilty of assaulting his ex-wife and making death threats.

The 32-year-old was arrested from a rehabilitation centre in the western department of Olancho and transferred to the country’s National Penitentiary of Támara.

Reportedly, Judge No. 8 of the Tegucigalpa court decided yesterday to allow Bulnes temporary freedom after lawyers insisted that he needed medical attention for depression and anxiety.

Bulnes is to expected face a longer prison term that could last between two and five years for related crimes.

Defense lawyer Marvin Cálix expressed that his client will now be able to “defend himself while free” as he faces pending criminal charges. Bulnes is to appear before the Public Prosecutor for Women’s office, a bureau that deals with instances of gender violence.

Lidia Danery Rosales, Bulnes’ ex-wife, filed a claim against him after he allegedly attacked her in July of 2012, stating at the time: “He hit me and I couldn’t do anything. Afterwards, they took me to a clinic to be treated by the medics, and as soon as I left there I filed a report with the district attorney’s office.”

According to the office of Public Ministry, local courts required him to complete several “precautionary measures,” following the attack although he failed to do so and assaulted Rosales again in October. After this, the district attorney’s office brought the case to the Supreme Court, which placed a restraining order against Bulnes and barred him from the streets of Tegucigalpa for one week.

In November, local courts ordered police to arrest Bulnes following more complaints, though the request was never carried out. Last week’s arrest comes after Rosales filed a claim with authorities on 4th April that Bulnes had threatened to kill her.

The Honduran National Commission on Human Rights (CONADEH) states that some 1,128 women were violently murdered in the country between 2010-2012. Recent reports also indicate that Honduras has the world’s highest murder rate and is the most dangerous country for journalists.

According to the Pan-American Health Organisation, between 17-53% of women in Latin America are currently affected by gender violence, which amounts to roughly 500 episodes in the region every day.

As from this month, Honduras will once again receive oil from Venezuela, this time with the option to finance it with the exchange of agricultural goods.

Specifically, this could include a mixture of the following: meat, chicken, eggs, African palm oil, orange juice concentrate, coffee, beans and maize flower.

Oil Installations in Puerto La Cruz Venezuela (Photo by Jumanji Solar)

Jacobo Regalado, minister of agriculture, announced this Sunday that Honduras will export US$60m worth of agricultural produce per month to Venezuela in exchange for fuel.

Under the agreed terms, Honduras will pay 60% of its debt to Petrocaribe every 2 months, with the outstanding 40% to be paid within 25 years. The terms also include a favourable two-year grace period and annual interest of just 1%.

The fuel, which will be supplied on preferential terms by Venezuela’s Petrocaribe, marks the re-initiation of trade that was suspended in June 2009 following the ousting of former president Manuel Zelaya.

The re-establishment and reincorporation of Honduras in this exchange mechanism, part of a wider regional energy cooperation initiative, comes just a month after Honduras’ president attended the 7th annual Summit of Heads of States and Government of Petrocaribe.

Venezuela’s president, Nicolás Maduro, was in the Nicaraguan capital this past Sunday, seeking a similar exchange of fuel for energy. It is no coincidence that this comes at a time when Venezuela is suffering shortages of basic foodstuffs.

In the north of Honduras, in the community of San Manuel Cortés, three peasants were killed and two others wounded on Friday, when they tried to enter the lands that were expropriated last year by the Instituto Nacional Agrario (National Agrarian Institute). Valentín Caravantes, Celso Ruiz y Celedonio Avelar, who died at the scene, were members of the Farmers’ Movement of San Manuel Cortés (MOCSAM), located about 200kms from the capital.

The men entered the land because they obtained an order from the Court of Criminal Appeals, which stated that the evictions carried out in February 2012 against MOCSAM were illegal, reports the National Popular Resistance Front of Honduras (FNRP). “Security guards from the Honduran Sugar Company (CAHSA) fired at the three farmers,” FNRP added.

Brothers Aníbal and Adolfo Melgar were also seriously injured in the shooting and were immediately taken to a hospital in the municipality of San Pedro Sula.

For three years now MOCSAM has been demanding more than 3,000 acres of land which is currently possessed by the CAHSA company and exceeds 250 acres, the maximum a person or a firm can own in Valle de Sula under the country’s agrarian law.

The incident is the latest in a long series of clashes, which have ended up with many deaths over the past few years. In February, more than 1,000 peasants took back land after being expelled by British/South African beverages multinational SAB Miller in August 2012. And earlier this year, in March, the ongoing conflict between farmers and the Honduran government has resulted in the eviction of over 1,500 people from their land in the south of the country.

Story courtesy of Agencia Púlsar.

Protests in Mexico against rising violence against journalists in Latin America. (Photo courtesy of Knight Foundation)

According to a new report by UNESCO, Honduras has the world’s highest number of journalists assassinated per capita.

UNESCO has published several reports on the dangerous situation in Honduras, documenting the escalating number of journalist deaths in recent years, which reportedly peaked last year. In 2012 alone, 20 journalists were reportedly killed in the country and many others subjected to threats and attacks.

According to UNESCO, Honduras also has the highest general number of murders per capita: 92 people out of every 100,000.

A report issued by the Honduras National Human Rights Commission (CONADEH) at the end of March revealed that in the 35 months in which President Porfirio Lobo Sosa has been in office, “at least 27 social communicators lost their lives in violent ways, a quantity which represents 79% of total registered homicides against journalists since 2003.”

Since 2010, the Honduran department of Francisco Morazán has reported ten journalist assassinations, followed by six reported in Cortés, three in Atlántida, two in Olancho, two in  El Paraíso, two in Colón, one in Yoro, and one in Lempira.

The CONADEH report stated that in all but one of the 27 cases, no one was held responsible for the killings.

UNESCO also considers Syria and Mexico to closely follow Honduras in terms of high-risk environments for social communicators. According to a report issued in correspondence with Mexican law Article 19 requiring the publication of the number of journalist assassinations in the country, 74 have been murdered since 2000.

A report by the Federation of Associations of Mexican Journalists (Fapermex) indicates that at least 49 associates and family members of social communicators were also assassinated in Mexico within the same time frame.

On 3rd May, World Press Freedom Day, UNESCO Director-General Irina Bokova stated that in the last ten years more than 600 journalists have been assassinated internationally, with impunity for those responsible in 90% of the cases.

An ongoing conflict between farmers and the Honduran government has resulted in the eviction of over 1,500 people from land in the south of the country, according to peasant farmer groups.

Hondurans protest government actions against farmers. (Photo: David Itzi)

The United Farmer’s Movement of Aguán (MUCA), formed in 2001 by 28 groups of peasant farmers aggrieved at not having been beneficiaries of the country’s agrarian reform, have called out to human rights organisations after claiming to have been illegally forced off their own land yesterday morning.

The encounter is another in a long series of clashes, which have resulted in many deaths over the past few years. Honduran palm oil plant owner and former chief economic advisor to President Roberto Suazo Córdova, Miguel Facussé, is accused of land invasion by the MUCA and has been described as having “a private militia that can count on support from the police and army to impose his will” by Reporters Without Borders, a non-governmental organisation defending the freedom of press.

The MUCA have also stated that the police and military are aware of the existence of armed groups belonging to the landlords and do nothing to combat them. “They equip their vehicles, uniforms and weapons to aid their massacres,” said a spokesperson for the organisation.

In February, over 1000 farmers took back land after being expelled by British/South African beverages multinational SAB Miller last August.

Xiomara Castro alongside her husband Manuel Zelaya (Facebook)

A protest organised by the National Front for Popular Resistance (FNRP) of Honduras, paralysed large parts of the capital on Thursday.

Teachers and activists from the FNRP led the marches in Tegucigalpa, and one of their focuses was the new controversial labour and development law. The law, which was approved by congress on Wednesday, includes measures to create “special development regions”, equated by the opposition to an attempt to revive the government’s failed ‘model city’ project.

In October 2012, the Honduran Supreme Court had ruled the creation of ‘model cities’ unconstitutional. The project was for the cities to be privately owned and autonomously run, with their own justice and police system.

“We reject the labour and development regime law that once again brings up the model cities, imposed as part of a perverse plan to disarticulate the nation,” stated an FNRP document read out by Xiomara Castro.

Castro is the wife of former president Manuel Zelaya, who was overthrown in a coup on 28 June 2009. Castro is now the presidential candidate for the Libertad y Refundaciión (Libre) party.

The FNRP also denounced rising living costs, and rejected “the economic and social policies of the de facto regime of Porfirio Lobo [the current president]”.

The statement claimed that thousands of public servants had not received their promised salaries, and that the money “was used for political campaigns at the service of the oligarchy in the last internal elections.”

This is the first protest organised by the FNRP in recent months, after it has focused its recent efforts of formalising its political branch (Libre), and taking their candidate to the presidency.

According to telesurTV, Castro is currently given as favourite for the next presidential elections, which will take place in November of this year. Castro reminded those listening to her speech that the Libre party was “born out of the popular fights in the streets, and the protests against the coup.”

Four out of five judges of the Constitutional Branch of the Honduran Supreme Court were dismissed this morning in what members of the opposition are calling a “technical coup”. The act signifies a deepening of the institutional crisis that has pitted the Legislative and Executive branches against the Judicial branch in the small Central American country.

The four judges had deemed unconstitutional a “purification” plan proposed by President Porfirio Lobo and aimed at the nation’s police, various segments of which have been found to have ties to organised crime. It is the seventh project to be ruled unconstitutional by the Supreme Court recently, among them the controversial “private city” initiative that would have allowed for the creation of autonomous Special Development Regions within the country.

The dismissed magistrates include José Antonio Gutiérrez Navas, Gustavo Enrique Bustillo Palma, Rosalinda Cruz Sequeira, and José Francisco Ruiz Gaekel. Oscar Chinchilla, who voted in favour of both the ‘purification’ and private cities projects, was not dismissed by Congress.

The purging of the Honduran police force would have called for “confidence tests,” including drug testing, polygraph tests, and background checks for embezzlement to be carried out among officers. The plan was proposed by Lobo after two university students, including the son of National Autonomous University Dean Julieta Castellano, were killed by police officers in October of 2011. Investigations surrounding the case revealed that sectors of the police were involved in drug trafficking, kidnapping, grand theft auto, extortion, and other crimes.

The session of Congress was called by National Congress President Juan Orlando Hernández and began at 1:30am local time. After a seven hour recess, the judges were dismissed with 97 out of 128 votes in favour of the motion, from deputies representing five parties. All four of the judges had been appointed by the opposition party, Partido Liberal.

It has been reported that members of the Honduran armed forces were in the Legislative Palace and surrounding areas when the vote took place.

Opposition deputy Wenceslao Lara called the decision a “technical coup” of the nation’s Judicial branch, as well as a “violation of the Constitution”.

According to Honduran law, the case must be brought to the Supreme Court and resolved today, as the decision was not reached unanimously.

The Honduran Supreme Court ruled today that the decree that allowed the creation of ‘private cities’, with their own laws and police, was unconstitutional.

The controversial decree voted in January 2011 and supported by President Porfirio Lobo was designed to allow these private cities or Special Development Regions (RED) to have their own law enforcement, tax system and even autonomy on monetary and immigration issues.

A lower court had already ruled the decree unconstitutional on 3rd October and the Supreme Court reinforced the decision after appeal. This latest decision is final and cannot be overturned.

The spokesman for the Supreme Court, Danilo Izaguirre, told The Associated Press that with 13 votes for and two against the highest judicial authority in the country had ruled that the decree would “privatise the Honduran state and make it disappear, transforming it into a large commercial corporation.”

The actual building and development of these cities had already been granted to the American investment group MGK. Octavio Sánchez, Lobo’s chief of cabinet, had defended the decree, declaring it was the chance to “create from scratch a region in Honduras where the best practices in terms of education, healthcare, justice and security could be implemented”.

Jari Dicson, a member of the Association of Jurists for the Rule of Law under whose name the legal procedure was initiated, said he was satisfied with the court’s decision.

“This has been a fight by independent lawyers and professionals who believe in the defence of the law, when we analysed the constitutional status of the RED we understood that no government can give any type of concession to anyone for them to put in place their own government, police and judges. “

This was the case of a state within a state and that’s illegal. Those who approved this project were betraying our homeland and accepting that the Honduran people are incapable of ruling their own country” stated Dicson.

Porfirio Lobo arrived in power in 2009 following a constitutional crisis in which democratically elected president Manuel Zelaya was overthrown. Human rights activists have since then reported that the government violated human rights during and after the coup.

An independent Truth Commission has found that the current Honduran government is violating human rights.

The Truth Commission, an organisation approved and supported by 22 national and international NGOs, released a 306-page document entitled “The Most Relevant Voices Are Those of the Victims”.

The report counts 5,418 human rights violations between the military coup in June 2009 and August 2011. The report states that police, armed forces or government officials carried out 84% of these violations of which 60% occurred in the six first months after the coup.

The report also says “the effects of the coup continue, and before and after the elections carried out in October 2009 the governments have used and continue to use terror as tool for social control”. It also lays responsibility on big private companies and various actors of the financial industry that supported and facilitated the coup.

Elsie Monge, a member of the Truth Commission, said “it is unacceptable, that those responsible of these violations don’t receive any punishment while the victims, who are only fighting for their rights, are massacred, taken to court and sentenced without any evidence”.

The military overthrew democratically elected president Manuel Zelaya from the centre-left Liberal Party on 28^th June 2009 and replaced him with Roberto Michelletti. Michelletti remained in power until December 2009, the period in which the report dates the majority of human rights violations.

He was then succeeded by the current president Porfirio Lobo Sosa from the right-wing conservative National Party under which human rights violations have continued according to the report released this week.