Buenos Aires: Crime and Poverty

                Argentina was labeled by the US media as a model of democratic transformation in Latin America. Argentina has a total population of forty million but almost 13 million live in Argentina’s primate city, Buenos Aires. The city is consumed by poverty, but it also has extreme wealth. There are walls built to separate the slums from the middle-upper class neighborhoods.  Countries with large gaps between rich and poor tend to have much higher crime rates. This epidemic exists horribly in Buenos Aires. Crime and poverty are Buenos Aires’ largest obstacles. So why is this “model of democratic transformation” facing such serious problems? Many reasons persist but US policy and influence seems to be the most impactful on these problems. Specifically, the War on Drugs and neo-liberalism coupled with a conservative police state.

                Over half of the country’s population live below the UN declared “poverty-line” and a government study found that in 1998, 58% of the total population had been robbed the previous year. In 2000, the country suffered total economic collapse. Since the collapse of the economy, the issues of unemployment, poverty, and crime have only gotten worse. In 2010, the Global Post reported that crime was the most important issue facing Argentina.  

                In 1976 the government of Argentina was overthrown in a coup d’etat. The US was quick to put in a dictator that was favorable to its interests. According to a human rights commission, 458 political assassinations occurred from 1973 to 1975. The same old story in South America. Isabel Peron was overthrown by paramilitary forces, death squads were roaming the country. America was all over this coup just as it has historically been. We have to be sure that our economic interests are safe. The main targets of these death squads and political assassinations were the left-wingers, the socialists, and the nationalists. Didn’t matter what you believed in, if you were on the left, you were a communist. The military put down the opposition through intimidation and death.

                Following the coup and the injection of a pro-US dictator in Argentina, came huge loans from the international economic institutions. The country was given huge loans in order to allow US companies to come in and “build infrastructure”. These US companies were essentially handed the money from the loans and built things that would help their company prosper, not what was best for the people. Huge pieces of land were bought up by large corporations, forcing the rural population to move to cities in order to look for work. The barrios developed quickly. None of the money from the loans was given to build homes for the new workers, so people did what they could to build homes for themselves on the outside of the city. The city expanded. No more jobs were really created. A few but not as many as had been destroyed. The economy tanked. The country couldn’t pay back the loans. A bill was forced on the people that they couldn’t support. Corporations were stripping the country’s wealth from its people. The collapse was inevitable.

                But I want to take a step back and look at another factor, Reagan’s “war on drugs” and Plan Columbia. It’s like the “war on terror”, what does that even mean? No clear enemy, just feeding the machine. Going around killing a bunch of innocent people because we are morally superior and know what’s best. Reagan declares this war on drugs so the US military starts fighting drug crime in other countries. Plan Columbia was created by the Clinton administration. They come up with this great idea. Let’s just fly over the country and spray pesticides. US military planes essentially repeat what they did in Vietnam just with a different chemical. This time the intended targets were drug crops. You can imagine the repercussions of this. There is a link to a doc called “Plan Columbia” in the right column of my blog. It is too much to get into now. But there have been deaths and birth defects. The chemicals are destroying much more then drug crops. The chemicals make it so nothing can grow after they kill the plants. The land is no longer arable. This is destroying a lot of the country’s agriculture. The result of all this is that instead limiting the drug problem, the US is creating the need for it to manifest itself in other places, closer to major airports and ports. Drugs have infested the major cities of South America, including Buenos Aires. And not drugs like we have here. Drugs like Paco, or cocaine sulfate, which is the combination of the drug that proceeds and is left over after production. It is very cheap.

                The drugs are cheap and there are a lot of them. With no jobs in the slums, what choice does a person have. This industry forms naturally in a slum. There is cheap labor and hard workers. There is a huge demand for cheap drugs in the US and Europe so a lot is produced. People need work, children have much more access to drugs and no education. There are reports of 11 year olds that are addicts. Desperation is a drugs breeding ground. With drug use comes more crime. The poor are the perpetrators and the victims of crime.  It’s a viscous cycle and becomes all one knows.

                During the coup, the police were ordered and encouraged to be violent and repressive. The attitude is established within the Argentine police system. And since the government is basically a slave to US interest, the US rubs a little more salt in the wound. The Conservative think-tank named the Manhattan Institute (Rudy Guliani is a major contributor) is paid by the Argentine government to assist with penal policy. The conservative answer to crime, as displayed so beautifully in the United States, is to put more boots on the ground. You put a bunch of officers on the ground and you arrest a bunch of people. That is how you appear to be tough on crime by raising arrest rates. “Crime prevention” becomes political rhetoric.  These neo-conservatives tell Argentina it needs to put more money in the penal system, hire more officers and arrest more people. Who gets arrested? I think we can all answer that question pretty easily. The poor, the child-addicts, anybody that is desperate enough to commit a crime. The war on crime becomes another war on the poor.

                A couple of big corporations and their cronies in the government have put these people in this place. It is so sad.  The US calls Argentina a model for democratic transformation and all is forgotten. The US doesn’t acknowledge the people who were killed to make sure their economic interest was safe. The US, with the help of its biggest lackey, the media makes all the real news disappear. No one talks about why there is extreme poverty or crime in the slums of Buenos Aires. Our answer is to put up a wall between the rich and the poor. To secluded them from society and blame them for their plight. This horrible system and leadership that wants to reap all the benefit and take no account for all the wrong they have done. They just use economics and statistics to dismiss it as an inevitable human condition. It’s all bs. And they get away with it. No more. People are waking up, I feel it. Out