While the administration of Alonso Salazar, the current Medellín´s mayor, invites the community to join a campaign for a more safer city, numbers show other reality. The reduction of alias Don Berna to prison and the consequent destruction of his drug cartel based in Envigado, caused a power vacuum that today is the main reason of the new events of violence among the gangs.About 1,320 persons have been murdered in Medellín during the first semester of 2009, according to several reports from authorities. Even if the curfew for minors have been effective in sectors like Barrio Doce de Octubre, the number seems to rise every day.
Professor Gustavo Adolfo Salazar of the Javeriana University of Bogotá, wrote in Semana Magazine that the number of murders have increased already 60 percent in comparison to what was in 2008 by the same period. The reason is the surrendering of alias Don Berna and alias Rogelio to the authorities and the capture of alias Riñón, the main leaders of the mafia organization in Medellín. Although the Mayor and the national government increased the number of security forces in what is called Comuna 13, sicarios (hire killers), mafia power and massacre continue untouched.
Professor Carlos A. Uribe of the Luis Amigó University of Medellín says that there are in the city around 155 gangs conformed by young people. Every day about 10 to 12 young people of the gangs in the barrios are killed, according to the studies of the University´s center of human development.
Professor Ivan G. of the University of Antioquia, who prefers to remain anonymous, said that in the six first months of the year about 1,500 persons have been killed in the barrios. He said also that much information is hidden:
“War never was ended. The government did not comply to the demobilized gangs. Then, they rearmed. It has to see also with the extradition of Don Berna. During the peace process, the government promised to the gangs plans of employment. The situation was controlled for a time, but it was a time bomb. Then no work. Then the extradition. Then they rearmed again and fight for the control of territories and drug business”, he said.
The sectors of the city that have suffered the consequences of this awaking of the drug war are Castilla, Doce de Octubre, Pedregal, San Javier, Manrique, San Pablo, Altavista, San Cristóbal and barrios of Itagüí.
Professor Iván G., who participated actively in the programs of the Fajardo administration, says about the proposals of Mayor Salazar:
“The proposal of the Mayor of zones of peace is a sophistry of distraction, because there are not real agreements. Everything is imposed by the administration, without talking to the community, thinking with the community, talking with the boys. They want to impose a curfew for minors in downtown, but nobody knows what will happen to the street children, for example. All the programs of Fajardo became just numbers in this administration.”
However the situation, the numbers of tourism still unmoved in the city, in part because the facts of violence are centralized in poor quarters dominated by gangs.
´A Safer Medellín,´ the proposal of the Mayor
But Mayor Alfonso Salazar is working out the situation among several critics. A Safer Medellín is the title of the program intended to face the resurgence of violence in the city.
´We are a big family´, he said, inviting the population of the city to stay together to defeat the violent gangs without fear. The idea is to reduce the numbers of criminality, murders, protecting children and youth, families and everybody in the city. ´The city cannot go back in what we have done in five years,´ says the official promotion of the Mayor.
Mayor Salazar thinks that it is the work of the authorities to prevent murders, destroy drug centers, theft, extortion and the existence of the combos (gangs).
He said during the presentation of his proposal:
“Necesitamos una gran movilización de la sociedad, esta ciudad no se la podemos dejar a los violentos, necesitamos convocar a las fuerzas vivas, y construir entre todos un gran voluntariado en defensa de la ciudad”.
“We need a big movilization of the society. We cannot let this city to the violent people. We need to call the living forces and built together a great commitment to defend the city.”
This map of the Metropolitan Police of Medellín, shows the sectors with more concentration of murders in the city during the first semester of 2009. The blackest circles belong to the biggest numbers of killings. The only sector with no killings is, of course, El Poblado.
The Police report says that to August 9, 2009, there were 1,134 murders in 2009. The 6th District (conformed by 20 barrios), in the Northwestern area of Medellín, was the most affected. It passed from 78 murders in 2008 to 119 in 2009 to the same period.
The most violent sectors by number, according to the Police report:
- Barrio Doce de Octubre, 11 %.
- Barrio Aranjuez, 10%.
- Barrio La Candelaria, 10%.
- Barrio Manrique, 9%.
- Barrio San Javier, 9%.
- Barrio Castilla, 8%.
- Barrio Robledo, 7%.
- Barrio Belén, 6%.
- Other barrios, 30%.
[...] and universities have been victims of violence by armed groups in different times. Recently, the new war drug in Medellín have caused a reduction in the attendance of young people to classes. According to [...]