Latin economies hurt by crime
By Andres Oppenheimer
BUENOS AIRES -- When I arrived in Argentina from a hemispheric meeting of economy ministers in Lima earlier this week, I couldn't help noticing that officials at the conference had failed to address the issue that is making the biggest headlines in this country: violent crime.
Of course, you may say. The economy ministers who gathered at this week's Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) annual meeting in Lima deal with economic issues. Why should they spend time talking about crime? Isn't that something that should be left to law enforcement agencies?
Not at all. The wave of kidnappings and violent muggings in Latin America's largest capitals is reaching such levels that it has become one of the biggest obstacles to growth. Violent crime forces businesses to pay high insurance and protection costs, discourages domestic and foreign investment, scares away tourists, encourages capital flight and further erodes people's trust in democratic institutions.
This week, there was an outburst of public anger in Argentina over the death of Axel Blumberg, a 23-year-old engineering student who was shot in the head by his kidnappers in a murky incident as his father was about to pay a ransom for his release.
The victim's father, Juan Carlos Blumberg, reported the crime to the police and had been negotiating with the kidnappers for about a week. But the police opened fire on the kidnappers' car before the payment took place, and the young man's body was found later in a dump.
DEMANDING JUSTICE
Hours later, the father made an emotional appeal to put pressure on the government to investigate what happened, amid widespread suspicions of police negligence if not complicity with the kidnappers. Many Argentines who didn't even know the victim have published paid obituaries in newspapers to demand ``Justice for Axel.''
Juan Carlos Blumberg is to lead a massive demonstration in front of the Argentine Congress today, demanding longer sentences for criminals and less lenient treatment of repeat offenders.
But Blumberg's case was only the latest of its kind. At least two other kidnap victims were killed here recently. Another young man was kidnapped for 43 days, and had his right index finger cut by his abductors before being released after his family paid a $35,000 ransom.
FEAR RISING
A new poll by Graciela Romer and Associates shows that fear of crime has risen dramatically in this city, and is almost tied with unemployment as the most critical issue in people's minds. When asked in March which are the country's most pressing problems, 67 percent said crime, up from only 39 percent in November.
It's happening in virtually all Latin American countries. According to the Switzerland-based World Health Organization, Latin America is the world's most violent region.
There are 27.5 homicides per 100,000 people in Latin America, compared with 22 in Africa, 15 in Eastern Europe and one in Western Europe's wealthiest countries. In the past decade, homicide rates have risen by 380 percent in Peru, 330 percent in Colombia and 300 percent in Argentina.
The World Bank estimated in 1998, when crime rates in many countries in the region were lower than today, that Latin America's per capita income would be 25 percent higher if it had a crime rate similar to that of the rest of the world. And the Inter-American Development Bank said around that time that crime cost the region about 14 percent of its gross domestic product every year.
Yet, incredibly, most Latin American economy ministers at the IDB annual meeting in Lima demanded bigger loans for roads and bridges, and some asked for more money for small businesses, but I didn't hear any ask for more loans to improve law enforcement agencies and train judges.
They should be asking for money to fight crime. According to a recent study by the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, D.C., less than 1 percent of the $4.4 billion a year in development assistance from international financial institutions to the region is going to ''rule of law'' programs.
That's absurd. It will do little good to build new roads and bridges, if economic activity slows because of peoples' fears of ending up like Axel Blumberg.
Source: Miami Herald
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