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Poverty, drugs feed Colombian city's violence in Buenaventura

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2008/08/31/MN7IVDGI9....

Poverty, drugs feed Colombian city's violence
Mike Ceaser, Chronicle Foreign Service

(08-31) 04:00 PDT Buenaventura, Colombia -- The grinding poverty in this port city deepens as you approach a slum called San Francisco, where naked children play on mud streets next to shacks perched on stilts.
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Most residents are Afro-Colombians who fear daily violence from right-wing death squads, leftist guerrillas who recruit child soldiers, and police and drug traffickers who engage in periodic shootouts. Across this impoverished city of 350,000 inhabitants, these groups are fighting for control of neighborhoods like San Francisco in what the national press has dubbed Colombia's most violent city.

In recent years, homicides here have averaged about 300 annually - triple the toll of San Francisco, Calif. (98 in 2007), a city with more than twice the population. At 86 per 100,000 people, Buenaventura's murder rate is also twice the national average in a nation whose homicide rate is nearly six times higher than the United States.

As a result, the government of President Alvaro Uribe has sent hundreds of police and marines to patrol San Francisco and other neighborhoods, many of them shantytowns. Security has since improved somewhat in the worst areas.

"Those who are suffering most from this violence are the poor," said a San Francisco schoolteacher who gave her name only as Maria for fear of reprisals. "We all just want to get out."

City violence is rooted in poverty, many experts agree.

Lost jobs, bad fishing
Privatization of the port in the early 1990s eliminated thousands of salaried jobs and local fishermen have been hammered by soaring fuel prices, declining fish stocks and competition from foreign ships. An economic downturn has contributed to poverty rates as high as 80 percent, compared with 50 percent nationally, and an unemployment rate of nearly 30 percent, more than double the national average, according to official figures.

The plight of Afro-Colombians has moved members of the U.S. Congress' Black Caucus to block a proposed U.S.-Colombia free trade agreement, a major policy effort by the Bush administration and its staunchest regional ally, Uribe.

U.S. Congress gets involved
Last year, Rep. Donald Payne, D-N.J., introduced a resolution in the U.S. House of Representatives that recognizes the poor living conditions of many Afro-Colombians and Buenaventura's high homicide rate. They urged Uribe to consult with black leaders about free trade negotiations and drug eradication efforts.

"Afro-Colombians continue to be severely marginalized and disproportionately affected by the armed conflict," members of the Black Caucus wrote before meeting with Uribe in 2006. "There is a chronic deficit of policy and programs to respond to Afro-Colombians, particularly in terms of security, development and human rights needs."

But others say much of the violence is due to drug traffickers, who have been using Buenaventura as a major port for shipping cocaine since 2000.

Also since 2000, Washington has sent more than $4 billion in mostly military aid to help Colombia battle drug traffickers and the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), who use the drug trade to finance their revolution. But even though the guerrillas have been weakened in recent months by government forces, drug production has held steady.

Drug experts say Colombia supplies some 90 percent of the cocaine sold on U.S. streets even though the government has intensified interdiction in recent years of small planes carrying drugs by using U.S. radar systems. Consequently, the drug cartels have shifted to more high-powered boats and small submarine-like vessels. And with its many estuaries, widespread poverty and corrupt public officials, they have carved out a new transportation route along Buenaventura's coastline, these same experts say.

Hungry men easily recruited
"When a man is hungry, he's desperate and is easily recruited to work in narco-trafficking," said Orlando Valencia, a senior city official. "He is a person willing to do anything to survive."

Last year, Colombian authorities captured nine submersibles - as many as during the previous 13 years - while U.S. authorities nabbed several more on the open seas. Officials say many of these subs are built in jungle inlets near Buenaventura and are equipped with fiberglass bodies, diesel engines and sophisticated navigation systems.

Last year, the Navy discovered a sub in eastern Colombia more than 60 feet long, able to carry 10 metric tons of cocaine. In July, Mexican authorities captured a four-man sub carrying 6 metric tons of cocaine that had been launched from Buenaventura.

"As control increases, (the traffickers) keep implementing new strategies and ways to take out the drugs," said Col. Carlos Humberto Serna, acting Navy commander for the Pacific coast region.

In an attempt to lure Buenaventura residents away from drug traffickers and FARC, the Uribe government plans to invest in low-income housing, college scholarships, new highways and expanded port facilities.

"The strategies are there," said Luz Helena Chamorro, an official in the national planning department in Bogota, "but we won't be able to achieve these changes overnight."

Meanwhile, Lucy Giralda, a human rights worker who recently escorted a reporter through the San Francisco slum, said she has yet to see much government help.

"Those of us who live this are alone, without any support from the state," she said. "And the youth are full of hurt, because their parents, their families have been killed."

By mariacvetanoski on Oct 31, 2008, 07:02 in Politics & the war.

mariacvetanoski says on Oct 31, 2008, 07:03:

Most residents are Afro-Colombians who fear daily violence from right-wing death squads, leftist guerrillas who recruit child soldiers, and police and drug traffickers who engage in periodic shootouts. Across this impoverished city of 350,000 inhabitants, these groups are fighting for control of neighborhoods like San Francisco in what the national press has dubbed Colombia's most violent city.

In recent years, homicides here have averaged about 300 annually - triple the toll of San Francisco, Calif. (98 in 2007), a city with more than twice the population. At 86 per 100,000 people, Buenaventura's murder rate is also twice the national average in a nation whose homicide rate is nearly six times higher than the United States.

Save the street children of Colombia Now!!

0 funny, 0 helpful.

mariacvetanoski says on Oct 31, 2008, 07:17:

go to the post on the bottom left side of the page that says "No man's Land" for pictures of buenaventura colombia

http://topics.nytimes.com/top/news/international/countriesandterritori...

Save the street children of Colombia Now!!

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mariacvetanoski says on Oct 31, 2008, 07:18:

sorry-go to the bottom right side with the soldier in the first picture that says :
"NO mans land "

http://topics.nytimes.com/top/news/international/countriesandterritori...

Save the street children of Colombia Now!!

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drvannostren says on Oct 31, 2008, 09:10:

another bad publicity story that will easily lead people tothink the whole country is like this. Although I've heard BV is bad but that people still come through there as an infrequent point of entry.

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Planb says on Oct 31, 2008, 09:18:

News Flash : Poverty, Drugs, feed every city's violence

El aire nos ciega, hay vidrio en la arena, ya no me da pena dejarte un adiós

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Sam Salmon says on Oct 31, 2008, 11:18:

"The grinding poverty in this....city deepens as you approach a slum....where naked children play on mud streets next to shacks perched on stilts."

That describes much of what I've seen in the developing world-not news at all.

' a la orden!'

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Mongo says on Oct 31, 2008, 12:42:

mariacvetanoski says on Oct 31, 2008, 07:03 (today): flag

"Most residents are Afro-Colombians who fear daily violence from right-wing death squads, leftist guerrillas who recruit child soldiers, and police and drug traffickers who engage in periodic shootouts. Across this impoverished city of 350,000 inhabitants, these groups are fighting for control of neighborhoods like San Francisco in what the national press has dubbed Colombia's most violent city.

In recent years, homicides here have averaged about 300 annually - triple the toll of San Francisco, Calif. (98 in 2007), a city with more than twice the population. At 86 per 100,000 people, Buenaventura's murder rate is also twice the national average in a nation whose homicide rate is nearly six times higher than the United States."

And yet they still manage to pop out massive amounts of babies. Not real responsible of them to bring kids into that kind of a world.

"Here in Colombia, it's about adding life to your years, not years to your life." Brian Andrews

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PBHjon says on Oct 31, 2008, 12:59:

Poor people, especially poor religious people, always pump out lots of babies. It is a combination of economic, educational, religious, and psychosocial causes. Poor people are more likely to be unable to afford birth control, plus they are less likely to be educated about how to use birth control, plus the church teaches that birth control is a sin. Add to this the fact that some poor mothers, especially teenagers, think that having a baby will make them happier because they will be loved by their baby. There are numerous ways of dealing with the problem; the least controversial is to improve education and job opportunities in a poor community because when people work more and have more money in their pocket, they have less babies (its a well-proven effect). I advocate more controversial strategies - if I could temporarily sterilize poor teenagers until they were in their twenties, and more able to take care of babies, I would love to do so. Unfortunately even talking like that will make people accuse you of being a "nazi."

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Robert Scanlon says on Oct 31, 2008, 13:10:

Good post PBHJon...until the last couple of sentences.

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PBHjon says on Oct 31, 2008, 13:18:

A little bit of controversy never hurt anyone :)

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Pappassito (☼Travelguide writer) says on Oct 31, 2008, 13:54:

Sounds like a good answe to me..

"A wise monkey never monkeys with another monkey's monkey."

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leftside says on Nov 1, 2008, 19:15:

Perhaps leaving out the word "poor" would be better?
" if I could temporarily sterilize teenagers until they were in their twenties, and more able to take care of babies, I would love to do so."

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dwmte7 says on Nov 2, 2008, 18:43:

possibly the physician should, "heal thy self" non solutions, are not solutions. so let's try again. i might suggest we 'start with the heart'
dw

dwmte

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PBHjon says on Nov 3, 2008, 00:00:

leftside, i totally agree with that comment. doing so would radically improve the world, its that simple.

dwmte, please try again. except for some intestinal distress that comes from eating aji picante in a curry dish i made, i am in good health. non-solutions are simply solutions that the majority refuses to implement, even though the benefit would be universal.

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dwmte7 says on Nov 3, 2008, 12:49:

if that's the case, 'physician' start by neutering yourself. oh boy!

dwmte

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cali373 says on Nov 6, 2008, 07:48:

That place is really bad and has gotten worse. Here is my concern. Where is the law and order president, Uribe.

Seems like it does not touch his radar because guerillas are not involved but ex-paramilitaries and drug trafickers. that and the majority are black in the area. Yout see what happens when you change the rules for US AID and not tackle the social issues. the violence does not end, it just goes somewhere else.

And the reason why drugs feeds into violence is because it is illegal. I dont exactly believe in legalization, but I do believe in facts.

Smile if you are a thinker!

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