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SPAIN: Latin Kings Gang a “Cultural Association” in Barcelona

Tito Drago

MADRID, Sep 21 2006 (IPS) - The Spanish chapter of the Latin Kings, a gang that emerged in Chicago decades ago and spread throughout the United States and more recently to Spain, is undergoing a legalisation and integration process in Spain’s northeastern Catalonia region, although its members continue to be targets for law enforcement.

The Latin Kings has formally been accepted as a cultural association in Catalonia and the provincial capital Barcelona – a move that was interpreted by analysts as the start of what could become a nationwide process aimed at keeping gang members out of violence by integrating them into city life.

Police sources told IPS that the members of the Latin Kings number around 200 in Catalonia and over 700 in Madrid, although they clarified that these are merely estimates, since there is no formal registry of gang members.

In late 2005 in Madrid, the then delegate of the central government, Constantino Méndez, announced the presentation of a project focused on social integration of the gang. Although the initiative was taken up by the current delegate, Soledad Mestre, it has failed to prosper because it depends on the provincial government, in the hands of the centre-right Popular Party, which does not support the idea.

A spokesman for the Madrid government told IPS that “these gangs are illegal, and as long as they are illegal, they deserve to be cracked down on.” When asked if there is any prospect that they will be legalised in Madrid, he answered: “that has not even been considered.”

In March, Madrid’s chief prosecutor, Manuel Moix, sought prison sentences for 16 gang leaders on charges of illicit association, and nine of them went to prison.

That brought the number of Latin Kings members sent to prison for charges like illicit association, rape or knife attacks to over 70 since early 2005.

The government of Socialist Prime Minister José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero has expressed two positions, considered complementary. On one hand, it says that anyone who commits a crime, whether or not they belong to the Latin Kings, must be brought to justice. But at the same time, it recommends that efforts be made to integrate gang members in society, to encourage them to abandon violence.

The Latin Kings, originally established as a civic group for the advancement of the Puerto Rican community in Chicago in the 1940s, is now one of the largest and most organised gangs in the United States, with some 25,000 members in 34 states.

Although it started out as a Latino self-defence group, by the 1970s the gang was heavily involved in drug trafficking and frequently committed murders.

The members of the Almighty Latin King and Queen Nation (ALKQN) – the gang’s formal name – identify themselves with the colors gold and black, and the five pointed star.

According to “Gang World”, an article by Andrew Papachristos, a researcher at the University of Chicago, which was published by Foreign Policy magazine, the gangs spread to Spain as a result of mass deportations from the United States of Latin American immigrants with criminal records.

A similar phenomenon occurred in Central America, where mass deportations of Salvadorans from the United States led to the spread of gangs like the Salvatrucha and M-18.

However, in Spain and the rest of Europe, gangs like the Latin Kings are not as violent as they are in the United States, Papachristos pointed out.

The main rivals of the Latin Kings in Spain are the Ñetas.

The process of legalising the Latin Kings began in Catalonia in July as an initiative of the provincial governing coalition, made up of the Socialist Party (the regional chapter of the ruling Spanish Socialist Workers Party or PSOE), the United Left (a coalition based on the Communist Party), and Esquerra Republicana de Catalunya (an independent regional left-wing party).

The Latin Kings were formally presented as the “Cultural Association of Latin Kings and Queens of Catalonia” in a public ceremony on Sep. 14 in Barcelona.

The president of the new “association”, Melody Jaramillo, an Ecuadorian immigrant known as “Queen Melody”, said the group’s new legal status would benefit the adaptation process of Latin American immigrants in Catalonia and help them obtain equal opportunities.

The group’s statutes establish that the aim is to foment intercultural relations, values education and training for young immigrants, through non-profit activities.

Queen Melody said that in the next few months, the association will begin to organise vocational training workshops, sports competitions, music recording sessions, documentary productions and assistance to the homeless, for which it will receive funding from civic centres. It also hopes to receive financial aid from the Catalonian government.

In the same ceremony, the new cultural association expressed gratitude for the support received from the Barcelona city government, the Human Rights Institute, the University of Barcelona and the Joan Cabot Catholic parish.

Queen Melody said her organisation is on friendly terms with the Ñetas of Catalonia, and will continue to have a good relationship with that gang, whether or not it is legalised, because “we are like a family, like brothers and sisters.”

The members of both gangs “have been treated as criminals,” and “we will fight to integrate in society and be fully accepted, without discrimination,” she said.

In Spain, both gangs are made up of young immigrants or the Spanish children of immigrants.

The violent members of the Latin Kings are in the minority, said “Oskito”, who preferred not to give his real name. He came to Madrid four years ago from Guatemala and neither denies nor confirms that he belongs to the gang.

“But what can we do if we are attacked by others, except defend ourselves?” he added, saying he wanted “to be treated just like any other young person, like anyone else who lives around here.”

When it was pointed out to him that the gang has been legalised in Catalonia and that a similar process could occur in Madrid, he said he doubted that because “the right governs here and the right doesn’t want immigrants, even if they are peaceful or hard-working.”

The Latin Kings began to make the headlines in Spain in 2003, when the police investigated several murders and reached the conclusion that they were the result of fights with the Ñetas.

The authorities also discovered that although the local structure of the gang is similar to the organisational structure seen in the United States, there is a major difference: violence is not a structural aspect of the Latin Kings in Spain, nor are they involved in drug trafficking.

Oskito explained that the gang members meet in parks, stand in a circle and greet each other, using their nicknames. The gang-leaders – the “kings” and “queens” – then ask if they have any health issues or other problems, whether they have eaten, and if they have a place to sleep, in order to offer them help if they need it. The members range in age from 15 to 25. “Only a handful are older than that,” he said.

When asked whether it is true that they steal, he replied that “We are not organised to do thatà.although that doesn’t mean that we have to put up with poverty, and sometimes we get by however we can” – an effort that according to the police includes theft and muggings.

When he presented the proposal for recognising the gang as a cultural association last year, Méndez pointed out that the members are all youngsters, and said “we believe that a minor requires specific protection in our society,” which means action should be taken against the gang-leaders who incite violence while social measures are negotiated to integrate other members of the gang into society.