In that town, the third most populous in the South American country, the homicide rate is three times the national average. This year there were shootings in schools, service stations and gastronomic places. What is happening?
Rosario, a town of one million inhabitants located in the main agricultural region of Argentina, has lived for a decade with a voracious escalation of urban violence, to the point of transforming it into the most violent city in the country.
With a rate of 16.4 homicides per 100,000 inhabitants, in 2020 it tripled the national average of 5.3. This figure will be exceeded this year.
Although far from the numbers that mark Tijuana, Caracas or Fortaleza – to mention other Latin American cities with problems of deep violence -, what happens in the largest city in the province of Santa Fe surprises in the Argentine context, which exhibits statistics that They are among the safest countries in the region.
Rosario’s situation is not explained by a single cause, but in public debate it is usually pointed out to drug trade as the main generator of violence. It was raised by the governor of the province of Santa Fe, Omar Perotti: “We have been overtaken by drug trafficking,” he said recently in the framework of a new request for help from the central government. Simplification, however, could make it difficult to fully understand the phenomenon, as explained by several of the sources consulted for this article.
“The homicides do not necessarily have to do with a logic of drug crime,” said Enrique Font, a criminologist, teacher and researcher at the National University of Rosario. His vision is shared by influential political leaders who knew how to participate in Security portfolios, both at the national and provincial levels.
Also by high-ranking representatives of the Judiciary, such as the prosecutor of the Organized Crime Agency Luis Chiappa Pietra: “We are facing a complex scenario, where particular geographical conditions and an important institutional precariousness are combined,” he explained.
For Font, the location of the city plays a fundamental role. Rosario is the main urban center for agribusiness, an activity that dominates the Argentine economy. From the 29 ports located in its metropolitan area 40.2% of national exports come out.
“The illegal circuits, of weapons, people and drugs, always move through the corridors where the main legal charges move,” explained the criminologist, who indicated that in that city “the gangs that historically managed those illegal circuits were always very violent. “
“It happens everywhere: you hit the front lines and the war starts”
Simplifying the debate by appealing to drug trafficking – understood as the production and trade of drugs on a large scale – allowed the provincial governments to get rid of part of the responsibility, since according to the Argentine Penal Code it is a federal crime. In any case, it is the practices of the groups that administer the retail sale of drugs that are the main cause of violence.
“The criminal problems are much more diversified. Rosario is a large city, but the criminal circuits are quite concentrated and localized, and in many cases a neighborhood logic behind the events can be identified,” Chiappa Pietra clarified.
The scene in Rosario turned around in 2013. In May of that year, three bullets fatally wounded Claudio ‘Pájaro’ Cantero, who at that time was the leader of the band ‘Los Monos’, which was always praised as main protagonist of the local underworld. The event unleashed a fight for the territory, becoming a milestone for a strong escalation of violence, according to the agreement of two leaders who actively participated in the structure of the national and provincial executives – who asked to preserve their identity. “It happens everywhere: you hit the first lines and the war starts,” one of the sources described.
At the same time, in 2014 a new criminal prosecution system came into force in Santa Fe, which by providing agility to the processes (among other aspects, the paper file was replaced by oral and public hearings), produced a greater number of convictions. The constant reconfiguration of criminal gangs – with leaders and second lines imprisoned or assassinated – further exacerbated the disputes, which were settled by force of blood and bullets.
Most of the murders are currently committed by hit men, coming from broad social groups marginalized from the labor market, for whom the task became not only an economic outlet, but also a way to build identity. The current crisis acts as a breeding ground for the proliferation of the phenomenon: according to the latest official statistics, in Greater Rosario, 39.4% of the population is poor and 10.6% indigent.
From Argentine Barcelona to the Sinaloa of the Southern Cone?
In 2021, violence reached new levels. On Sunday, November 21, at full time for dinner, two gastronomic spaces received several bullets in their foreheads, generating panic among diners. The acts, which did not turn into tragedy by sheer miracle, occurred within the framework of a string of similar events, which began with service stations and then with schools.
In the latter, the events took place in the hours prior to the start of the legislative elections, held on November 14. “Either they communicate with the mafia or the shootings continue”, it was possible to read in a poster left by the criminals. Although the investigators were unable to unravel the motive for the attacks, Santa Fe Security Minister Jorge Largna described them as “permanent operations of public intimidation.”
Between 2010 and 2020 Rosario almost doubled its homicide rate. The figures are clear: in that period the figure went from 9.8 to 16.4, when in other towns with similar characteristics it remained relatively stable; since 2013 it has never been below 10. At the time of writing, all estimates predicted that 2021 would end up being the third most violent year in this historical series.
From the interviews with the various sources, a word emerges that summarizes the causes and possible responses to the problem: police. The force in charge of crime prevention is “degraded”, “broken” and “absolutely precarious”, according to the words chosen by the interlocutors consulted for this note.
According to sources, until the first decade of the new century, the Santa Fe police guaranteed social peace, but this was broken ten years ago. “Until that moment, more than success in prevention, the State achieved tolerable levels of coexistence with crime. In managing these conflicts, I have no doubt that there was participation of the police. But as of 2013 or 2014, that police disappeared, to become a force completely traversed by the logic of criminal markets “, asserted the member of the MPA, the prosecutor Luis Chiappa Pietra.
In Argentina, each of its 24 districts has its own police force, which operates independently of the federal forces. The one in Santa Fe has long suffered great mistrust, largely due to its proven collusion with the crime. This generated countless changes of leadership and exonerations, as well as motivated successive requests to the national government, which between 2019 and 2021 doubled the presence of federal agents (from the Gendarmerie, the Prefecture and the Federal Police). Nothing succeeded in eradicating the root problem.
For all the interlocutors, the main axis of solution to the conflict is the strengthening of the police institution, an objective that is easy to enunciate although complex to implement. The application of strategic designs –small, but sustainable over time– and the use of democratic security tools –such as the political control of force– seem to be a possible north, to solve a problem that for years has taken hold of daily life from Rosario, a city that knew how to promote itself as Argentine Barcelona, but which today fears becoming the Sinaloa of the Southern Cone.
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