When Politics Becomes Criminal and Crime Becomes Political

Violence has been a fixture of Latin America history: the brutal pre-Columbian civilizations, the Conquest, the chaotic nation-forming and state-building in the 19th century, the revolutionary violence of the 20th century and the bloody response from ruthless elites and finally, the current violence of poverty, inequality and exploitation.

In recent years, two types of violence have received greatest attention: political violence--guerrillas, repression, torture and disappearances--and crime, the plague on the lower and middle classes--robbery, kidnappings, rape, street murders. But the newest form of violence is an unorthodox and contradictory combination of political and criminal violence that for lack of a better word we call social. It is a symbiosis of both types of violence, and it is sowing great confusion in nearly every Latin American society. There are many examples, but three stand out, in nations where violence in the past has been widely varying: Brazil, Colombia and Mexico.

The Brazilian northeast has been buffeted by poverty, droughts and strife at least since slavery and the late 19th century Canudo revolt, immortalized by Euclides da Cunha in his “Rebellion in the Backlands.” Today, a new drought has led to supermarket looting, highway closings and land seizures that are beginning to threaten the fragile political peace constructed over the past 15 years. These crimes are not just spontaneous acts carried out by desperate and starving peasants who lost their crops because of the drought, but neither are they part of a huge conspiracy orchestrated by the radical Movement of the Landless (MST), in turn manipulated by Workers’ Party presidential candidate Luis Inacio “Lula” da Silva to undermine President Fernando Henrique Cardoso’s bid for reelection. They stem from a combination of the political and the strictly criminal.

Needless to say, the acts of violence have been decried by the Brazilian establishment, but it has not yet attempted to crack down. On the other hand, the more progressive sectors of society prefer to justify the behavior of the northeastern victims of the drought without supporting flagrant violations of the rule of law. Thus the MST, the church and the left and center-left all refuse to censure the perpetrators of the seizures and looting, while Cardoso and his backers hope to persuade Brazilians to repudiate the looters as the government launches a relief effort that should have begun months ago.

Something similar though ideologically opposite is occurring in Colombia. As the guerrilla war spreads, it is becoming evident that the Colombian military is incapable of defeating the oldest rebel army in Latin America. The Colombian Revolutionary Armed Forces (FARC)--led by the legendary Manuel “Trueshot” Marulanda, who rose up in arms in the early 1950s and has been presumed dead on many occasions--are stronger than ever and have provoked the emergence of brutal paramilitary groups in the countryside. The recent massacre of 21 civilians suspected of sympathizing with the guerrillas in Puerto Alvira is a symptom of this degeneration of the political conflict. Landlords, drug lords, former military officers and peasants opposed to the guerrillas are resorting to a form of violence that is no longer exclusively political.

The violence generated by the paramilitary groups--just as that of the FARC--cannot be reduced to simplistic explanations. The right-wing, quasi-fascist reaction has awakened varying reactions in Colombia. Significant factions of the armed forces and the government are in complicity with the paramilitary groups; the head of the army has himself acknowledged that the military are unable to defeat an insurrection that has gotten out of control. Hence the ambivalent response of Colombian society to the social violence: No one approves of it entirely, but when it coincides with the interests of several segments of society, it receives discreet support and encouragement.

Then there is Chiapas in Mexico. The Zapatista uprising of Jan. 1, 1994 was a classic example of purely political violence. But its sequel is far more complex. Together with the counterinsurgency policy of the Mexican armed forces, Chiapas is a hotbed of social violence that reaches far beyond the political sphere but cannot be called purely criminal either. The emergence of various paramilitary groups stems from a sinister mixture of revenge and political manipulation of ethnic, political and religious resentment and even of family and social ambitions. The hatred of the so-called PRIsta communities, aligned with the Institutional Revolutionary Party, for their Zapatista counterparts springs from these passions. Now and then, the feelings are mutual. Local authorities and the administration of President Ernesto Zedillo have fanned these sentiments, channeling them partly against foreign observers or Zapatista sympathizers.

The issue has divided Mexican society. The Mexico City political and intellectual left can scarcely disguise its sympathy for the Zapatista cause; still, it is barely emerging from a long march toward democracy and elections, incompatible with violence. The Mexican government seems to be encouraging much of the violence, but has been forced to distance itself from the outrageous excesses of its followers in Chiapas.

The fragility of the rule of law in Latin America and the narrow and shallow nature of its democratic political culture have combined with a decade and a half of economic stagnation in an explosive mix. The result is not unlike the Los Angeles riots of 1992, except that in Latin America it is lasting longer and spreading farther.