Homicides up in Guatemala?

Yesterday, I came up with several questions about the violence in Guatemala. It wasn't an exhaustive list of questions and one group that I didn't question was nongovernmental organizations.

Why do some NGOs continue to write about an increase in the murder rate when it sure doesn't appear that it is increasing? Surely, they're not working hard to get Perez Molina elected.

Then later that day, the highly respected Mutual Support Group (GAM) announced that2,496 murders occurred during the first nine months of the year in Guatemala, a three percent increase over the same period in 2010. And I thought that that's not good.

The director of the Mutual Support Group (GAM), Mario Polanco said at a news conference that the 85.66% of the crimes committed between January and September were with guns.

He explained that of the 2.496 killed, 2.136 are men, including 40 children and 360 women, of which 9 are minors.

Polanco said the killings increased by 3% over the first nine months of 2010 when there were 2.421 homicides.

That didn't sound like go to well with my post on how murders are in decline. However, we have to remember that GAM doesn't actually measure homicides. GAM tracks homicides reported in the news. Carlos Mendoza at CABI tackled this on Thursday as well. Since they only count homicides covered in the media, they always under report, to varying degrees, how many people are actually murdered each month.

It would be more accurate to report that, based upon GAM's numbers, the Guatemalan media has reported 3% more murders during the first nine months of 2011 compared to the same period in 2010. That’s not the total number of murders, just what the media has reported. Unfortunately, one then has to ask why the Guatemalan media has reported on more murders in 2011 compared to 2010 when the number of murders documented by the National Civilian Police has gone down during that time period.

Honestly, I wish the GAM's numbers were accurate. If they were accurate, Guatemala would be on a pace for approximately 3,328 murders in 2011 rather than the 3,900 - 4,100 we think that it is.

Homicides Soar in Central America?

A recent report from the United Nations, as summarized by the AP, states that homicides have soared in Central America over the last few years. Well, sort of. 

The AP article doesn't actually give any evidence that it has soared - it just gives 2010 figures - but why quibble. To really show that homicides have soared you need to tell us how many murders there used to be. We'll give them the benefit of the doubt and say that's the evidence is in the UN document.

Here's more from the AP article.

Honduras and El Salvador have the highest homicide rates in the world as killings reach a crisis point in Central America, a United Nations report said Thursday.

The study on homicides by the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime blamed organized crime for the region's surge in violence.

Honduras had 6,200 killings in 2010 out of a population of 7.7 million people, while El Salvador with 6.1 million people had 4,000 homicides.

The 2011 Global Study on Homicide calculated a rate of 82.1 homicides per 100,000 people for Honduras and 66 per 100,000 people for El Salvador. Cote D'Ivoire in West Africa followed with 56.9 and the Caribbean nation of Jamaica with 52.1. The United States had a homicide rate of 5 per 100,000 people in 2009, the report said.

Honduras Human Rights Commissioner Ramon Custodio said Thursday that he was worried about rising crime and feared worse figures are yet to come.

Notice anything? That's right, the AP story on the world's most violent countries didn't even mention Guatemala. I wouldn't go that far. While the murder rate has been declining for the last two years, Guatemala is still a very dangerous country in which to live, work and travel, particularly if you are in Guatemala City.

In addition, if your headline is UN study: Homicides soar in Central America, you need to write about more than El Salvador and Honduras. We already know that Guatemala wasn't mentioned, but the same goes for Belize, Nicaragua, Costa Rica or Panama. If you want to make the point that violence has soared in Central America because it very well might have, you need to mention more than two out of the region's seven countries.

Some Questions on Violence in Guatemala

As the murder rate continues to decrease in Guatemala, year over year and month over month, 

Marco Augusto García, president of the Coordinating Committee of Agricultural, Commercial, Industrial and Financial (Cacif), noted that there has not been a decline in the statistics of criminal acts in the country.

"We have been affected by almost the same average annual violent deaths. We do not see a decrease on that side. The statistics reflect that, "he explained.

At some point you really have to wonder who benefits from denying the Colom administration's success in reducing the murder rate. Sure you can't give entire credit to Colom and his government, but the president and his administration have got to get some credit.

Is it in the media's interest to portray a deteriorating (or non-improving) security situation because it dislikes Colom? Is the media playing up the violence even when murders are decreasing because their offices are primarily located in Guatemala City where most murders occur?

Is it in the interests of businesses that sell security-related services to the Guatemalan population to highlight how bad it is? Is it in the interests of the PNC and military to say how conditions are deteriorating so that they can get their new super tucanos?

Is denying a decrease in the murder rate all part of a conspiracy to ensure that Otto Perez Molina gets elected?

Stranger things have happened.

Forbes interviews Laura Chinchilla

Forbes magazine has an interview with Costa Rican President Laura Chinchilla up on its website. In it, the interviewer asks why drug cartels have become such a problem for Costa Rica. Chinchilla answers that

The most important factor is location. We are in the middle of the most important drug producers in the South and the most important drug consumers in the North. Since we are in the middle, what you find is a lot of activities in transporting and exporting through Central America. But we cannot move. [laughs] We have to raise the barrier so we can be able to protect our country.

It's not a great question in that it's pretty obvious that CR is right in the middle of the producers and consumers. However, Forbes readers might not know this. Chinchilla found her answer funny as did I.

Anyway, if the most important factor that explains why drug cartels are causing problems in Costa Rica and Central America is the problem of geography, there's not much that can be done about that.

Strengthening the political and judicial institutions in El Salvador, Honduras, Guatemala, Nicaragua, and Costa Rica is a good thing. Reducing poverty and inequality is another important goal. Making sure that you have enough highly trained police and military to tackle the problems’ affecting you country is a positive development as well.

However, none of this will make a dent in the supply (Colombia, Peru, Bolivia) or demand (the US and Europe). At best, we’re looking at an argument that says we want to make it more difficult for drug traffickers to use the Central American mainland to ship their drugs to the US. Our goal is to make them go back to using the sea or some other alternative. 

Guatemala Targets Intellectual Author of 2008 Bus Massacre

Guatemalan authorities will officially ask the Mexican government to extradite Marvin Barrios. Barrios is the alleged intellectual author of a massacre that killed sixteen people (Nicaraguans and a Dutch man) on a bus in November 2008. He was arrested in Mexico in August.

Guatemala is also filing an extradition request for Barrios’s girlfriend, Sara Mansilla, who was arrested along with him and allegedly participated in the massacre, the Cicig spokesman said.

Barrios faces murder, criminal conspiracy and drug trafficking charges in connection with the attack on a bus in November 2008 in eastern Guatemala that left 16 people dead.

The bus was attacked because the killers thought cocaine was hidden in one of the vehicle’s compartments, Cicig investigators said.

Juan Carlos Policarpio (life) and Rony Terraza (three years) were convicted and sentenced for participating in the massacre in 2010. 

CICIG and the Guatemalan courts have definitely had their successes in recent years. At the same time, there appear to have also occurred gross miscarriages of justice (Portillo). If Mexico does extradite Barrios and he is convicted in Guatemala, it will be another important victory for the Colom administration, the judiciary, and CICIG.    

Ortega Extends Lead in Nicaragua

CID-Gallup has new polls numbers two months ahead of November's Nicaraguan elections. According to its most recent poll, Ortega's support now stands at 46% well above the 40% threshold required for a first round victory. Fabio Gadea of the Partido Liberal Independiente (PLI) places second with 34%. Both candidates are up nearly 2% from CID-Gallup's last poll. 

Here's the support for the remaining contenders. Arnoldo Aleman comes in third with 10%. Enrique Quiñónez (0.6%) of the Alianza Liberal Nicaragüense (ALN) and Roger Guevara (0.4%) of the Alianza por la República (Apre) trail the pack with less than 1%. 

The survey was conducted prior to Guevara's opinion piece in the Wall Street Journal where he indicated that Chavez and Ortega would in all likelihood help Iran launch a military strike against the United States. 

The survey was carried out from September 10 to 16 among 1,200 people 16 years and older. The poll has a margin of error of 2.95% with a 95% confidence level.  (h/t Boz)

Otto Perez leads everywhere

Carlos Mendoza of The Black Box has two articles on the September 11th election in Guatemala. The first one appeared in Plaza Publica on Wednesday. This article took a look at the strengths and weaknesses of the two candidates that will advance to November's runoff. 

In the first round vote, the Patriotic Party's Otto Perez Molina attained the highest vote in 222 of the country's 333 municipalities. Manuel Baldizon of Lider, on the other hand, won a plurality in 83 municipalities. Medoza finds that Perez performed better in more violent, urban, wealthier, and non-indigenous municipalities than he did in less violent, rural, poorer, and indigenous municipalities. 

On Friday, he broke the data down into somewhat more precise categories based upon what quartile the municipality occupied relative to the rest of the nation. The tables here help to better visualize Perez' strength across the board and also appear to undermine some of the initial reads on Perez' performance. 

For example, Perez performed better in the more violent municipalities (combine violento and muy violento) than he did in the less violent municipalities (pacifico and poco violent). However, he performed nearly equally as well in muy violento, violento, and pacifico municipalities which leads one to believe that Perez' mano dura platform was not much more effective where he probably thought it should have been (very violent municipalities). 

Keep in mind that these municipalities were separated based on each one's murder rate (murders per 100,000). If we were able to categorize the municipalities by perceptions of insecurity, one might get a different understanding of how Guatemalans voted a few weeks ago. Not to mention that if you were able to look at individual level data.

What's interesting to me, at least, is that Perez received between 32% and 38% no matter how you slice the data - dimensions of insecurity, rural/urban divide, wealth, ethnicity, and human development.