Adventures of a Gringa

Busted in Copacabana

One of my fellow Latin America-philes was kind enough to write a guest post about a huge Colombian drug kingpin bust in Rio. Brazil has become a major transshipment point for cocaine in the Americas, and big time dealers seem to have even lived in Brazil without much of a hassle--until recently. Joint task forces and Federal Police operations have managed to bring not one but two Colombian drug kingpins down in Brazil, the most recent one in one of Rio's most famous playgrounds.

Narco Arrested in Copacabana

One of Colombia’s most wanted drug barons was arrested while leaving his apartment on the afternoon of April 16.

The apartment wasn't a luxurious residence hidden in the hills outside Medellin or Cali. Nor was it a multimillion-dollar apartment in downtown Bogotá.

It was the intersection of Rua Hilário de Gouveia and Avenida Atlantida on Copacabana beach. A joint task force consisting of three different Brazilian anti-crime organizations and collaboration from the United States’ Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) arrested Nestor Ramon Caro Chapparo, aka “Felipe”, in one Rio's most famous neighborhoods. The US Department of State was offering up to US $5 million for Caro Chapparo’s arrest. 

It’s the second high-profile bust of a Colombian drug trafficker in one week that occurred outside of Colombia. Ramon Quintero, a suspected leader of the Norte del Valle Cartel, was arrested in a bakery in an upscale neighborhood in northern Quito, Ecuador, on April 13. Like Caro Chapparo, the US State Department was willing to pay up to US $5 million for information leading to Quintero's arrest.

However, unlike Quintero, who was a leader of one of Colombia’s most powerful cartels, authorities believe that Caro Chapparo was largely an independent trafficker, who likely used his connections with the former members of the United Self-Defense Forces of Colombia (AUC) to facilitate the transportation of thousands of kilograms of cocaine to the United States, as well as West Africa and Europe via various points along the Brazilian coast.

The timing of Caro Capparo’s arrest occurs within the same week that a Defense Cooperation Agreement between Brasilia and Washington in “defense related matters” and “cooperation in any other military fields that may be of mutual interest to the Parties”.

Although the deal doesn’t specifically call out monitoring drug trafficking, it is likely implied. The US State Department recognizes Brazil, particularly Sao Paulo, as a cocaine export corridor for US and European bound cocaine. 

The arrest of Caro Chapparo highlights Brazil’s relevance as a port of exit for drugs bound for the US and Europe. Caro Chapparo was not the first to fall. In August 2007, Brazilian authorities arrested Juan Carlos Ramirez Abadia, another Norte del Valle leader, in Aldeia da Serra in Greater Sao Paulo. Though the local market, which Veja says is dominated by Bolivian cocaine, exists in Brazil, the presence of internationally wanted suspects such as Caro Chapparo shows that it is Brazil's geographic location, not population, that attracts international drug traffickers.

At the local level, a lethal confrontation between Police and gang members in an attempted bust of a leading trafficker in Vila Alianza on April 20 that left five dead offers a chilling reminder that men like Capo Chapparo are the exception, not the rule, in drug-related arrests and attempted arrests in Brazil.

Eliot Brockner is a Rio Gringa reader. He writes at LatAmThought.

Guest Post: Lessons from Colombia - Medellin vs. Rio

Tiago, a Brazilian American who has contributed guests posts here before, wrote a great piece about his experience in Medellin, even though he has now moved on to the Ukraine after being accepted into the Peace Corps. The post is a part of the new series Lessons from Colombia.

Medellin, Colombia vs. Rio de Janeiro, Brazil: Lessons to be Learned

I went to the city of Medellín this past week - as my time in Colombia comes to a close I am using my last few weeks to get some traveling in, and this was at the top of my list of places to see.

I had heard many things about Medellín during my 6 months in Colombia. It looms large in the Colombian imagination, and stories of its high quality of life, beautiful women, and mild climate serve as both a point of pride and an important example for a nation struggling to determine how it is going to bring its cities into the 21st century without sacrificing the values and traditions it values so highly.

But I wasn't prepared for how amazing a city Medellín really is, and was surprised to realize that it was only the second city I have ever visited that I could see myself living in for the long term (the other being Rio de Janeiro). In this post I will try to explain why I think Medellín should be a model not only for Colombia, but for the rest of the world as well.

Read more after the jump.

New Series: Lessons from Colombia

Inspired by a new found obsession with Sergio Fajardo, I decided to start a series to show how Brazil can learn from lessons in Colombia and, perhaps, vice versa. Brazil, like the United States, is a world leader, especially in the region, and there's a latent disdain for other Latin American countries (and a lot less latent for Argentina) for being beneath them (similar to some Americans' ethnocentric mentalities). While Brazil looks to its neighbors for trade potential and as a helping hand during diplomatic crisis, it doesn't seem to consider them real peers. Colombia is still viewed as a cesspool of drug trafficking, responsible for feeding Brazil's own narco-trafficking problems, and Colombians in Brazil are often teased about being drug dealers.

But the truth is that Brazil and Colombia have a lot in common and a lot to learn from one another. Though they don't share the same language or colonizers, they do share a similar history and contemporary situation.

Brazil is the largest country in Latin America, with 8,514,877 square kilometers and the largest population in South America, with nearly 199 million people. Colombia is the fourth-largest country in South America, with 1,138,914 square kilometers and nearly 46 million people, the second-largest population in South America. Both countries had large populations of indigenous tribes living there before European colonization, and still have significant communities in rural areas. They also both had large numbers of African slaves who were forced to work the plantations and cash crop farms, some of whom escaped and formed independent communities (palenques in Colombia, quilombos in Brazil). While both countries are ethnically diverse, both have had a difficult time coming to terms with inequality and racism, which is what we're going to take a look at today.

Both Colombia and Brazil have affirmative action bills in Congress to decide if the government will impose racial quotas. In Colombia's case, the law would create quotas in universities, government jobs, and the military, with incentives to increase the amount of Afro-Colombians in political parties and corporations. In Brazil, the bill has already been approved by the House of Representatives, and is currently stalled in the Senate. But unlike Colombia's bill, Brazil's is much more limited: the law would create racial and socioeconomic quotas in all federal universities (although there are already affirmative action programs at nearly twenty government-run universities). The bill proposes that 50% of all spots at public universities be set aside for students from public high schools; of that 50%, half of the spots would be set aside for blacks and indigenous students, depending on the state's ethnic make-up, and the other half of the spots would be set aside for low-income students.

But both bills face a great deal of controversy. In the past in both countries, governments have unsuccessfully tried to "whiten" the population,  and later created measures to try to prevent racial discrimination. But in both countries, where the myth of racial harmony prevails, there is "structural discrimination" in which blacks make up the poorest and least educated strata of society, more vulnerable to health problems and with higher mortality rates. Though both bills are supported by black civil rights groups, not all blacks support the measure, since some fear would create more racial strife and enforce a separation of ethnic groups.

In addition, both countries have difficulty defining who would be covered by the law, since racial definitions are much vaguer than in countries like the United States. In Colombia's 2005 census, 10.6% of the population defined itself as black, but experts say that the number is probably around 26%, since some people of mixed race don't define themselves as black. If this were in fact the case, Colombia would have the largest black population in Latin America after Brazil. According to the Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics, 42% of Brazilians consider themselves pardos, or mixed race, and only 7% consider themselves black. Brazil has the largest population of African descendants outside of Africa, but many Brazilians dislike defining themselves based on race.

The other problem with the quotas is that some claim the bills have little to do with discrimination. In Colombia in particular, there are outcries of foreign influence, especially from the United States, since similar affirmative action programs were implemented there, and because the US Black Caucus plays an important role in trade with Colombia. In Brazil, some argue that the problems aren't related to race, but rather to poverty in general. In both countries, some argue that the law shouldn't focus on perceived "segregation," but rather on leveling the playing field with better social and economic policies.

In Colombia, the debate continues as the bill makes its way through Congress, but in Brazil, supporters of affirmative action received an important win last week. The University of Brasilia (UnB) already sets aside 20% of its openings for blacks, and was the first public Brazilian university to do so, in 2004. On July 31st, the head of the Brazilian Supreme Court, Gilmar Mendes, denied an appeal made by the Democratic Party to overturn affirmative action at UnB. The political party argued that the quotas violate the "constitutional right of human dignity" and the universal right to an education. While the judge defended the constitutionality of racial quotas, he emphasized the need to focus more on socioeconomic quotas, rather than racial ones. "In Brazil, it seems there is no distinction between whites and blacks, but rather between the rich and the poor," he included in his decision.

While both Colombia and Brazil's legislatures decide the future of affirmative action, they could learn from each other's experiences and debates. They have a great deal in common and as such, a great deal to offer one another.

You can also read this post over at LatAm Thought!