-Analysis-
BUENOS AIRES — It may be too much to use the “bloodbath” as some have to describe what criminals have wrought in Rosario, the riverside district northwest of the Argentine capital. But in one sector there, the size of one-fifth of the city, the rate of criminal killings has become comparable to those of Medellín in the 1980s, the worst years of the Colombian city’s drug cartel violence. These are cold and hard numbers, not hyperbole. Figures show Rosario has a crime rate that is four or five times the average rate of Argentina’s main cities.
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Last week, four civilians including two taxi drivers were shot dead in Rosario, and the culprits very likely work with the same people who have committed other gun crimes in Argentina. It’s the people whose stray bullets end up killing children on the street, or who machine-gunned the home of the provincial governor of Santa Fe (Antonio Bonfatti) a decade ago.
Executions are the very signature of gangs and organized crime. Before the taxi drivers, the new governor and his family had been threatened more than 20 times, and gunmen opened fire on a bus carrying prison employees, though somehow, nobody was hurt.
No such miracle happened for Lorenzo Altamirano, a musician kidnapped and murdered in February 2023. He was neither involved in the drug trade nor a soccer hooligan, but his body was dumped outside the Newell’s Old Boys stadium. The point of the crime: it was a message from one gang to another. You’d think they could have sent an e-mail or a WhatsApp, but they preferred to use a hapless youngster who dreamed of playing guitar in a band.
Violence as business
These gentlemen are simply going about their business, which includes terrorizing folk, shooting at the police or settling scores in the most horrific ways. This is called terrorism, intended as the Medellín mobster Pablo Escobar said, to ensure the government will “learn to respect” its perpetrators, and to let people know that, ultimately, nobody’s safe.
In November 2015, people hung large banners in Rosario’s Arroyito football stadium, during a match with the Boca Juniors, with slogans honoring local criminals. One of those praised was Claudio Cantero, aka, el Pájaro (the bird), head of the Los Monos gang, who’d been fatally shot in 2013. The slogan over the pitch said God Saves His Worst Battles For His Best Warriors (Dios le da las peores batallas a sus mejores guerreros).
Is the location of the murder haphazard?
It was a cheeky gesture presaging a bigger piece of insolence at the Newell’s Old Boys stadium, where a 100-meter banner, unfurled before government and sporting officials, stated “We’re Beyond Everything.” It’s not far off the mark. Even the country’s soccer megastar Messi had his personalized greeting from the Narcos. A Rosario supermarket owned by his in-laws was sprayed with bullets in March 2023, and a message left: Messi, We’re Waiting for You.
Message or institution?
In the case of Emanuel Sandoval – one of the gunmen who had shot at the governor’s residence – there seemed to be no message. He was shot in 2019 inside the home of a judge where he was under house arrest. Curiously, the judge’s brother was the lawyer of the governor whose home had been sprayed, so, was there even a message after all? One of the taxi drivers shot days ago was killed near the police chief’s home. Is the location of the murder haphazard or a very clear message in this murky world?
It is also no doubt a sign of the complex world of complicity between gangsters, politicians, police officials, businessmen and judges. This transversal network generally works, allowing crime to become truly organized and spread its tentacles in an orderly fashion from poor urban districts into middle-class neighborhoods, then ultimately on to the quiet suburbs and exclusive compounds.
This is a network, where some do the dirty work and others, ‘cleaner’ work. Some have bloodstained hands while others keep theirs clean, even as their souls degenerate into a stinking pit of infernal filth. In our part of the world, drugs begin their journey in Bolivia and make their way down the Paraná river toward some of the world’s busiest ports. It’s a perfect business because demand never lets up.
It was dubbed the Chicago of Argentina.
In the 1930s, Rosario was dubbed the Chicago of Argentina as the Italian mafia settled in the area, before a determined state apparatus liquidated their presence.
Can it do the same today? It is difficult to say since times and certain factors have changed. Still, we may be sure of one thing that without dismantling protection and complicity inside the state, gangs and cartels cannot be beaten, no matter how nasty it might get.
