Latin America is a continent accustomed to dealing with insecurity, but now this problem runs through all its veins almost without exception in any country. Óscar Naranjo (1956, Bogotá) is a reference in an issue that is shaping electoral contests in the region. Specifically, the elections in his nation will take place at the end of the month.
Vice President of Colombia with Juan Manuel Santos, this general previously integrated the National Police for 36 years - participated in operations that ended Pablo Escobar - and was a plenipotentiary negotiator representing the Colombian Government in Havana. He has also been a security advisor to the Mexican Enrique Peña Nieto.
"There is an evolution of crime. We are no longer talking about cartel-type structures like Medellín, Cali, or Sinaloa. They are organized groups that do not have an appetite to produce national impacts or intend, like Escobar, to take national power. They have introduced the idea of criminal governance, which means they exercise control in territories, impose rules of behavior on citizens, co-opt local authorities through intimidation or corruption, and protect their sources of criminal economy," explains Naranjo, visiting Spain to participate in the international seminar 'Latin America under pressure', held at Casa de América and organized by the Carolina Foundation.
Furthermore, these are groups that "are more coordinated transnationally", thus bringing violence to previously peaceful places; whose main objective is to "influence politics" to "gain impunity"; and that "are killing less, but exerting violence that sometimes remains invisible: displacement, confinement, forced recruitment of minors, extortion, and kidnapping."