1 Americas

Abstract

Key trends

• Conflicts in the region continued to be predominantly criminal in nature and remained very violent, even escalating in some instances. A militarised approach prevailed, often leading to unintended consequences as a result of heavy-handedness and allegations of humanrights violations.

• Criminal gangs in Central America, particularly the MS-13, further consolidated their political power and engagement with local communities.

• Urban conflict is on the rise in Brazil, and Ceará State is now included in this survey as a result.

Strategic implications

• Central American governments’ inability to reduce conflict and related illegal migration to the US undermined relationships with neighbouring countries and the US, a key partner against violent gangs.

• The economic impact of conflict was substantial, particularly as the prevalence of criminal economies and outbound migration contributed to economic depression in countries such as El Salvador.

Prospects

• The peace agreement between Colombia and FARC is unlikely to collapse despite the actions of FARC dissidents.

• Elsewhere in the region, the likelihood of fruitful negotiations with armed groups remained slim.

Notes

1 Carolina Heringer, ‘Homicídios dolosos no Rio têm menor patamar desde 1991; mortes pela polícia chegam ao nível mais alto’, O Globo, 21 January 2020.

2 Sonia Bridi, James Alberti and Monica Reolom, ‘Em 2019, uma em cada três pessoas assassinadas no Rio de Janeiro foi morta por policiais’, O Globo, 19 January 2020.

3 Institute of Applied Economic Research (IPEA) and the Brazilian Public Security Forum (FBSP), ‘2019 Atlas of Violence 2019’, 2019.

4 ‘Região metropolitana do Rio registrou quase 10 mil tiros em 2018’, Fogo Cruzado, 13 January 2019.

5 FIESP, ‘Desemprego fica em 11% em dezembro, mas ainda atinge 11,6 milhões, diz IBGE’, 10 February 2020.

6 Cristina Boeckel, ‘Número de desempregados bate recorde no RJ, diz IBGE’, O Globo, 16 May 2019; ‘IBGE: taxa de desemprego é de 10,9% no Ceará’, O Povo, 15 August 2019.

7 Matheus Rodrigues and Felipe Grandin, ‘Ações policiais com 3 mortos ou mais no RJ batem recorde em 2019’, O Globo, 16 October 2019.

8 Sérgio Ramalho, ‘Polícias mataram 881 pessoas em 6 meses no RJ. Nenhuma em área de milícia’, UOL, 20 August 2019.‏

9 ‘Onda de ataques no Ceará: Veja o número atualizado de ações de facções criminosas’, Tribuna do Ceará, 4 February 2019.

10 Bruno Fonseca, ‘Ministério de Damares é acusado por órgão de combate à tortura de impedir inspeção em presídios do Ceará’, Publica, 15 February 2019.

11 Mecanismo Nacional de Prevenção e Combate à Tortura, ‘Relatorio missão ao estado do Ceará’, 2019.

12 John Paul Saconi and Bernardo Mello, ‘Custo da violência chega a 6% do PIB do Brasil, dizem organizadores do Atlas da Violência’, O Globo, 5 June 2019.

13 Alexandre Hisayasu, ‘PCC 10 anos: 2: 0 poder geográfico’, Estadão, 2016.

14 Fernanda Odilla, ‘PCC ‘batiza’ estrangeiros no grupo de olho na expansão do tráfico de drogas na Europa’, BBC, 1 August 2018.

15 Ana Luiza Albuquerque, ‘Milícia e tráfico ameaçam eleições municipais no Rio’, Folha De S. Paolo, 1 March 2020.

1 Fundación Ideas para la Paz (FIP), ‘Dinámicas de la confrontación armada y afectación humanitarian: Balance enero–septiembre 2019’, 12 November 2019.

2 Immigration and Refugee Board of Canada, ‘Colombia: The Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia, FARC), including demobilization of former combatants; information on dissident groups, including number of combatants, areas of operation, activities and state response’, 18 April 2018.

3 The Inter-American Dialogue, ‘Two Years In, Is Peace Taking Hold in Colombia?’, 16 November 2018.

4 World Bank, ‘GDP per capita (current US$) – Colombia’.

5 Sergio Garcia Hernandez, ‘El 19,6% de los colombianos vive en pobreza multidimensional’, AA, 13 July 2019.

6 Transparency International, ‘Corruption Perceptions Index 2019’, January 2020.

7 Joel Gilin, ‘Understanding the causes of Colombia’s conflict: Weak, corrupt state institutions’, Colombia Reports, 13 January 2015.

8 United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC), ‘World Drug Report 2019: Executive Summary’, June 2019.

9 White House Office of National Drug Control Policy (ONDCP), ‘ONDCP Reports Cocaine Production in Colombia is Leveling Off’, 26 June 2019.

10 UNODC, ‘Colombia: Monitoreo de territorios afectados por cultivos ilícitos 2018’, August 2019.

11 Ibid.

12 ‘Will Colombia return to war?’, The Economist, 5 September 2019.

13 Maria Alejandra Navarrete and Laura Alonso, ‘Colombia’s EPL Faces Bleak Prospects After Death of Pácora’, Insight Crime, 1 October 2019.

14 FIP, ‘Dinámicas de la confrontación armada y afectación humanitarian: Balance enero–septiembre 2019’.

15 Defensoria del Pueblo, Colombia, ‘Boletín informativo enero-octubre de 2019’, 9 October 2019.

16 Jo Parkin Daniels, ‘Colombia continues to break records for cocaine production, report says’, Guardian, 19 September 2018.

17 UNODC, ‘Colombia: Monitoreo de territorios afectados por cultivos ilícitos 2018’.

18 Juan Carlos Garzon Vergara, ‘¿Cómo lograr la reducción de cultivos ilícitos en 2020?’, FIP, 7 January 2020.

19 Juan Camilo Jaramillo, ‘Half of All Destroyed Coca Crops Replanted in Colombia’, Insight Crime, 29 October 2019.

20 Juan Diego Posada, ‘Major Implications of Former FARC Leadership Returning to War’, Insight Crime, 29 August

2019.

21 Gideon Long, ‘Colombia heads back towards its violent past’, Financial Times, September 2019.

22 Amy Braunschweiger, ‘Interview: The War in Colombia’s Catatumbo Region’, Human Rights Watch, 8 August 2019.

23 FIP, ‘Dinámicas de la confrontación armada y afectación humanitarian: Balance enero–septiembre 2019’.

24 Julia Zulver, Annette Idler and Juan Masullo, ‘¿Verá Colombia un acuerdo de paz con el ELN en 2019?’, Open Democracy, 7 January 2019.

25 Juan Carlos Garzon Vergara, ‘Los desafíos de la sustitución de cultivos ilícitos y las opciones para enfrentarlos’, FIP, 4 April 2019.

26 Colombian Observatory of Organized Crime, ‘Colombia’s Drug Strategy Paradox – Less Coca Crops, More Cocaine’, Insight Crime, 6 August 2019.

27 International Crisis Group, ‘Containing the Border Fallout of Colombia’s New Guerrilla Schism’, 20 September 2019.

28 ‘Ex-FARC Mafia: Colombia’s Criminal Army Settling Down in Venezuela’, Insight Crime, 4 September 2019.

1 Norberto Paredes, ‘MS13: 5 claves para entender el “histórico” juicio de los pandilleros de la Mara Salvatrucha en El Salvador’, BBC News, 11 October 2019.

2 The lower estimates include only hommies, or full-fledged members, who are less than one-third of the overall gang affiliates. Higher estimates include members who served as paid lookouts, messengers and retail crack and cocaine vendors. IBI Consultants interviews with National Police anti-gang unit members and MS-13 members, January to October 2018.

3 Ministerio de Justicia y Seguridad Pública, ‘La nueva promoción está formada con énfasis en policía comunitaria’.

4 Jorge Beltrán Luna, ‘La Fuerza Armada reclutará mil soldados para reforzar seguridad’, El Diario de Hoy, 7 July 2019.

5 Christine Wade, ‘El Salvador’s Legacy of Impunity Hampers Its Ongoing Fight Against Corruption’, World Press Review blog, 12 July 2018.

6 ‘Cifra de salvadorenos deportados se dispara un 53% hasta septiembre de 2019’, La Prensa Gráfica, 21 October 2019.

7 Interviews with MS-13 senior leadership, El Salvador, July 2019.

8 ‘El Salvador no registró ningún homicidio el día 4 de enero’, Univision, 5 January 2019.

9 ‘El Salvador sentences gang members; murder rate dropping’, Associated Press, 17 August 2019.

10 Ministerio de Hacienda, ‘Propuesta de Financiamiento Plan de Control Territorial’, 2019.

11 ‘Ejecuciones extrajudiciales en El Salvador: el informe en que el Estado reconoce por primera vez está práctica por parte de la policía’, BBC News, 29 August 2019.

12 US Customs and Border Protection, ‘U.S. Border Patrol Southwest Border Apprehensions by Sector for Fiscal Year 2020’, 2019.

13 International Monetary Fund, ‘El Salvador’, data as of 22 May 2019.

14 José Afane, ‘El Sector Informal’, La Prensa Gráfica, 22 July 2019.

1 Krispy is a marijuana derivative sold in blocks and laced with chemicals. In interviews the drug was described as much more powerful than marijuana, and is favoured by criminal groups because it is more addictive and sells at much higher prices.

2 On 18 October 2019, Juan Antonio ‘Tony’ Hernández, brother of President Juan Orlando Hernández, was convicted in the Southern District of New York on multiple counts of drug trafficking, weapons trafficking and related offences. During the trial key witnesses directly linked the president to his brother’s drug-trafficking structure and to taking money from cocaine cartels for his campaigns. This strengthened the perception that the president operates on behalf of certain cocaine cartels and that his administration lacks legitimacy. See ‘Former Honduran Congressman Tony Hernández Convicted in Manhattan Federal Court of Conspiring to Import Cocaine Into the United States and Related Firearms and False-Statement Offenses’, US Attorney’s Office, Southern District of New York, 18 October 2019.

3 ‘Homicidios en Honduras han aumentado en relación con el 2019’, El Heraldo, 28 October 2019.

4 Presidencia de Honduras, ‘Miembros de la PMOP son héroes del order público’, Prensa Oficial, 29 August 2019.

5 ‘Situación de derechos humanos en Honduras’, Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, 27 August 2019.

6 World Bank, ‘Honduras Overview’, 10 October 2019.

7 World Bank, ‘Informal employment (% of total non-agricultural employment) – Honduras, 2006–2017’, September 2019.

8 ‘Alrededor de 153 abogados han sido asesinados en Honduras entre 2002 y 2018’, El Nuevo Diario, 3 December 2018.

9 ‘Periodistas asesinados en Honduras’, Pasos de Animal Grande and Comisionado Nacional de los Derechos Humanos (CONADEH), 2017.

10 Sarah Kinosian, ‘Call for fresh Honduras election after President Juan Orlando Hernández wins’, Guardian, 18 December 2017.

11 Interviews with MS-13 senior leadership, Honduras, June 2018. The description of the battles for control of the key crossing point to Guatemala came from MS-13 senior leaders in a visit to the crossing points in June 2018. The strategy of moving to rural areas and controlling key crossing points was described in multiple interviews with the MS-13 and police units in San Pedro Sula, Omoa and the Honduras–Guatemala Copán region.

12 ‘La tasa de homicidios en Honduras aumenta por primera vez tras el declive iniciado en 2012’, Notimérica, 26 December 2019.

13 Ibid.; ‘Homicidios en Honduras han aumentado en relación con el 2019’.

14 ‘57 masacres se han registrado este 2019 en Honduras, según el OV-UNAH’, Tiempo Digital, 9 November 2019.

15 World Bank, ‘Intentional Homicides (per 100,000)’, 2018.

16 Marlon González, ‘Graft, gangs, bad conditions fuel Honduran prison killings’, Associated Press, 23 December 2019.

17 ‘57 masacres se han registrado este 2019 en Honduras, según el OV-UNAH’, Tiempo Digital, 9 November 2019.

18 Human Rights Watch, ‘Honduras events of 2018’, 2019.

19 Ibid.

20 ‘Mas del 90% de crímenes de peridistas y abogados están impunes en Honduras’, EFE, 15 February 2019.

21 ‘Al menos dos muertos en un motín en una cárcel de alta seguridad de Honduras’, eldiario.es, 30 June 2019.

22 United States Department of Homeland Security Customs and Border Protection, ‘US Border Patrol Southwest Border Apprehensions by Sector Fiscal Year 2019’, 2019.

23 World Bank, ‘Honduras Overview’.

1 Executive Secretariat of the National Public Security System (SESNSP), ‘Incidencia Delictiva Del Fuero Común 2019’, 20 March 2020; SESNSP, ‘Número de delitos por cada 100 mil habitantes 2015–2020’, 20 March 2020.

2 ‘Ley de la Guardia Nacional. Texto vigente’, Diario Oficial de la Federación, 27 May 2019.

3 Alfredo Corchado, ‘Mexico stands by Lopez Obrador, poll says, even as violence soars, economy crumbles’, Dallas Morning News, 1 December 2019.

4 Ibid.

5 Congressional Research Service, ‘Mexico: Background and U.S. Relations’, 2 May 2019, p. 20.

6 Ibid., p. 20.

7 Brian J. Phillips, ‘How Does Leadership Decapitation Affect Violence? The Case of Drug Trafficking Organisations in Mexico’, Journal of Politics, vol. 77, no. 2, April 2015.

8 Victoria Dittmar, ‘The Mexico Crime Bosses Peña Nieto’s Government Toppled’, Insight Crime, 24 September 2018.

9 Reporting on conflict-related homicides is made challenging by such factors as the massive proliferation of criminal groups in the last decade, the severe difficulty in sorting low-level informal murder from organised-crime murder and a lack of scrupulous reporting. A dataset of homicides allegedly related to organised crime from 2006 to 2010 was published on the presidential web page in January 2011. Met with criticism from local attorney offices and the press, the federal government stopped publishing official data on homicides related to organised crime in the country. Mexico has two official data sources on homicides: the first, gathered by the National Institute of Statistics and Geography (INEGI), provides the total number of homicides (dataset up to date to December 2018); the second, gathered by the SESNSP, provides open case files for total, intentional and non-intentional homicides and was available up to February 2020 at time of press. Additionally, some newspapers (such as Reforma and Milenio) and civil-society organisations have collected information and released their own estimates of executions and homicides related to organised crime.

10 SESNSP, ‘Número de delitos por cada 100 mil habitantes 2015–2020’.

11 President of the United Mexican States, ‘Informe de Gobierno 2018–2019’, 1 September 2019, p. 22.

12 SESNSP, 2019.

13 President of the United Mexican States, ‘Informe de Gobierno 2018–2019’, p. 22.

14 SESNSP, 2019.

15 Ibid.

16 The US Ambassador to Mexico, Christopher Landau, acknowledged that the US is co-responsible for the violence in Mexico, owing to the high demand for drugs and the free sale of weapons in the US. Jorge Martinez, ‘US is responsible for violence: Landau’, Milenio, 2 December 2019.

17 Kristine Phillips, ‘As Trump pushes for a wall, authorities keep finding drug tunnels under the U.S.–Mexico border’, Washington Post, 15 January 2019.

18 Parker Asmann, ‘Nearly 50 Groups Active in Human Trafficking in Mexico: Report’, Insight Crime, 7 August 2017.

19 Juan Antonio Le Clercq Ortega and Gerardo Rodríguez Sánchez Lara, (eds.), ‘La impunidad subnacional en México y sus dimensiones IGI-MEX 2018’, Índice Global de Impunidad México, April 2018.

20 According to the Organization of American States and the Centre on Environmental, Economic and Social Policy. See María Amparo Casar, ‘Costos de la Corrupción’, October 2016.

21 According to INEGI’s National Survey of Occupation and Employment. See Lozano, ‘Mucho combate a la pobreza, pero en México 4 de cada 5 la padecen’.

22 See President of the United Mexican States, ‘Plan Nacional de Desarrollo 2019–2024’, 30 April 2019.

23 ‘Tras la tragedia: crece el Huachicol’, Reforma, 12 January 2020.

24 Committee to Protect Journalists, ‘Killed since 1992’, accessed 30 March 2020.

25 SESNSP, ‘Incidencia Delictiva Del Fuero Común 2019’.

26 Ibid.

27 ‘Fue 1 de diciembre día más violento del sexenio’, Reforma, 2 December 2019.