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Vigilante Justice: Anger Fuels A Lynching Wave In Argentina

Lynching in Merlo, Argentina
Lynching in Merlo, Argentina

It happens intermittently in Latin American countries. Residents exasperated with rampant criminality, police ineptitude and impunity decide to give criminals the lesson of their lives — or the last lesson of their lives.

This practice associated more with rural Central America or Mexico is rearing its ugly head in Argentina, where rising crime has been fueling dissatisfaction with the state’s ability to keep the peace and protect private property.

Three lynching incidents were reported in Argentina over a period of 72 hours this past week.

On April 5, residents of Garupá in northeastern Argentina sought to lynch the brother of a man held in the shooting of an 18-year-old. The detainee was one of several held, whom neighbors accused of constituting a “family” of local thieves. A mob of hundreds caught the brother of one of them and beat and “stoned” him — until police stopped them three hours later when the target of the anger was near death.

In Merlo, outside the capital, a young man was caught breaking a van window, which led the owner of the vehicle and other neighbors to beat him until police arrived, according to the website MerloGBA, which posted pictures of passersby observing the beating.

In Santiago del Estero, locals beat a 17-year-old as he left home on April 7, after they found out he had stolen and sold a bike. They then drove him to where he had left the bike, the local paper El Liberal reported.

Here’s a recent episode captured on video:

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Migrant Lives

What's Driving More Venezuelans To Migrate To The U.S.

With dimmed hopes of a transition from the economic crisis and repressive regime of Nicolas Maduro, many Venezuelans increasingly see the United States, rather than Latin America, as the place to rebuild a life..

Photo of a family of Migrants from Venezuela crossing the Rio Grande between Mexico and the U.S. to surrender to the border patrol with the intention of requesting humanitarian asylum​

Migrants from Venezuela crossed the Rio Grande between Mexico and the U.S. to surrender to the border patrol with the intention of requesting humanitarian asylum.

Julio Borges

-Analysis-

Migration has too many elements to count. Beyond the matter of leaving your homeland, the process creates a gaping emptiness inside the migrant — and outside, in their lives. If forced upon someone, it can cause psychological and anthropological harm, as it involves the destruction of roots. That's in fact the case of millions of Venezuelans who have left their country without plans for the future or pleasurable intentions.

Their experience is comparable to paddling desperately in shark-infested waters. As many Mexicans will concur, it is one thing to take a plane, and another to pay a coyote to smuggle you to some place 'safe.'

Venezuela's mass emigration of recent years has evolved in time. Initially, it was the middle and upper classes and especially their youth, migrating to escape the socialist regime's socio-political and economic policies. Evidently, they sought countries with better work, study and business opportunities like the United States, Panama or Spain. The process intensified after 2017 when the regime's erosion of democratic structures and unrelenting economic vandalism were harming all Venezuelans.

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