POLITICS: Anti-crime Campaign Shakes Chile

By IPS Correspondents Reprint | | Print |

Gustavo Gonzalez

Santiago, May 3 1998 (IPS) - Sales of firearms, electric stun guns, paralyzing nerve gases, alarms, guard dogs and virtually every other type of security or self-defense device is soaring throughout Chile.

For several months, a widespread psychosis about crime has had the curious effect of creating insecurity over security. While the concern about crime have a solid foundation, some observers o think that the recent hype is politically motivated.

What is true is that assaults, robberies and rape are no longer just another story in the tabloid press. The serious media increasingly is reporting in depth on crime in Chile, suggesting the growing preoccupation of the public, which has been taken up by authorities.

The government of Eduardo Frei has proposed the creation of a Vice Ministry of Security within the Ministry of the Interior, which would control both the Carabineros (militarized police) and the civil Police Investigation Unit.

changes also have been proposed for parole and prison work programs, after several violent crimes were committed by inmates out on day-work programs or on bail. Authities admitted that several recent crimes were the work of people who had been released from prison before completing their sentences.

The greatest worry, however, has been a steepo rise in robberies and assaults in private homes and buses, and by rapes in which women were attacked in their cars, on th e street or in parking lots. Besides being assaulted, victims have had their cars stolen and forced to reveal the “pin” numbers of credit cards in order for criminals to steal money from bank machines.

One of the most publicized cases took place last month in Santiago’s swank Las Condes residential area where the city’s wealthiest people are concentrated. A young women was robbed and raped in the parks that surround a busy intersection.

The mayor of Las Condes, Joaquin Lavin, and Senator Carlos Bombal, both from th e right-wing Independent Democratic Union (UDI), made claims that the perpetrat or was an inmate who allegedly left prison with the help of corrupt guards. Police investigations, however, proved their accusations wrong, although the man who committed the crimes was another inmatea drug addict who had been granted day liberty by the courts.

Prison guards, who come under the Ministry of Justice, filed a suit against Lavin and Bombal, who responded by stating that they would continue with their campaign against crime.

The UDI is the party closest to the now retired dictator Gen. Augusto Pinochet, who led the military regime in Chile from 1973 until early 1990. Since March this year, Pinochet has been serving as a “Senator for life.”

The UDI and National Renovation (RN), the other party of the right-wing opposit ion, accuse the center-left Frei Administration of having a weak hand with criminals and having an erratic public security policy.

Their campaign is having an effect among certain sectors. In a street poll taken by a television station about possible public security measures, an old woman screamed for the return of Pinochet, and others demanded the government cracks down on crime.

The government, in defending itself, argues police statistics actually show a drop in crime in comparison to 1991. In that year there were 120 bank robberies and the Vice Minister of the Interior, Belisario Velasco, says that this year there have been 13 bank heists and seven supermarket robberies.

Maria Pia Guzman, a congresswoman for RN, stated however that crimes increased almost 60 percent from 1995 to 1996, becoming increasingly violent as delinquent gangs assault and rob in the streets and in private homes.

Various statistical sources suggest conclusion different to both the government s and the oppositions regarding the increase in crime, although there seems to be consensus about the increasing violence of crimes. On the 25 of this month, a gang of seven individuals help up a city bus in Valparaiso, 120 kilometers west of Santiago, robbing all the passengers and keeping them captive for four hours. Two of the assailants raped a 16 year old woman.

This case increased criticism of the judicial system because the police quickly apprehended the rapists and it became known that they were delinquents which had been released from jail a month earlier after paying bail of less than two dollars.

On April 27, President Frei announced an integral policy against crime, including administrative, judicial and police initiatives. The government also asked television stations to refrain from broadcasting programs featuring crime and violence.

Mario Morales, a retired general of Carabineros and the current director of the prison police, believes that this recent panic is exaggerated, stating that the crime rate in Chile is lower than in any other Latin American country.

The latest report about Chile published by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) establishes a link between public insecurity and the crisis of sociability. The study points out that 78.1 percent of people consider that likely that they will b e robbed on the street or on a bus, although crimes of this type only affect some 20 percent of the population, and usually without any violence.

The same report states that 87.7 percent of the people believe that they will not receive help from others around them in the face of any assault on the street. Nearly 90 percent of Chileans doubt that the perpetrators of a serious crime against them would ever receive an appropriate jail sentence. (FIN/IPS/ggr/ff/hd- ip/mg/98)