Getting closer to the underworld

“In

, horror has been naturalized.

Numerous

have taken control of territories and traffic in weapons, cocaine and non-renewable resources.

Even in this context, it is surprising that the pages written by

(focused on

) are the product of a

and not of a novel.

It is hard for her to believe that there are eight prisons under the total control of their

(detainees).

That that

, have a zoo, swimming pools and ATMs, managed by prisoners.

And that, from one of those eight prisons, called Tocorón, a mega gang has escalated that became a global criminal business, from Chile to Mexico.

And that in Venezuela this is publicly known and absolutely nothing happens.

This is how the journalist and editor

, creator of Sunday supplements for various media, prefaces the shocking book of the Venezuelan.

And that book is only the first.

On stage, Jon Lee Anderson talks with Ronna Rísquez, Bruno Paes Manso and Óscar Martínez, about the three journalistic investigations that Latin American journalists have recently published.

Jon Lee Anderson

, dean of journalists, seems to be a person of faith first and foremost.

This is intuited after his dialogue with the Venezuelan Ronna Rísquez and his peers the Portuguese

, author of

, and the Salvadoran

, who wrote

and

, during the cycle

this summer, which brought together 180 guests, 40,000 attendees and

who followed the meetings from different parts of Latin America.

“The three comrades present here have written books, assuming as reporters, one of the most difficult and dangerous tasks that can be done in Latin America:

,” Anderson opened.

The names of the crime

trafficking

, human

, territorial control, etc.

In Brazil,

that are themselves criminal in nature are known as

.

In Venezuela, those who control crime from prison are called

, and in El Salvador gangs are known as

.

When Jon Lee Anderson began touring the region, there were no cartels, cliques, militias, or pranes.

times

and there was talk of “

organizations that fought for the sake of a supposedly better world,” he recalled.

After the collapse of socialism and the triumph of capitalism 30 years ago, these groups mutated their ideals: "They are no longer climbing the mountain to be like Che, but to acquire money, territory, population control and -in

cases- each time a little more – to dispute the terrain of souls and minds with the governments of the day that, although they are elected democratically

we also know that, unfortunately, they have not materialized as many of us would have wanted or expected”.

Regarding Ronna Rísquez's book, Anderson considered that

book to read

.

You explain in your text that, if this were a real train, the prison would function as a kind of terminal for a train network that runs throughout Latin America, even to Central America, the United States and Chile, ”she spoke with the Venezuelan.

“Between 2014 and the present, very little time has elapsed from the birth of this network to its

.

The prison is managed by the pran, the name given to the head of a prison.

The pran is the one who makes all the decisions, including those that should be taken by the authorities outside the prison.

Thanks to the pran, the prisoners move on motorcycles inside the prison and carry weapons.

There are no State officials inside the prison, and absolute control belongs to the prisoners,” explained Ronna Rísquez.

Clothing

, food and even liquor stores.

A zoo, a

almost professional artificial turf, a gym, restaurants,

apartments and other services are located in this prison, which is self-managed by the prisoners.

A State subjected

“Both the police and the authorities are outside and work for the pran,

to their orders and decisions.

When they realized they were in

, they began to control localities.

Then, they bet outside of Venezuela: Chile, Colombia (especially Bogotá and northern Santander), Peru and Ecuador, on the border between Venezuela and Brazil also operate with more force”, the journalist added.

The Brazilian

"has written a book that is de rigueur reading in Brazil," said Jon Lee Anderson regarding Republic of militias.

“It addresses the formation, evolution and current events of the so-called militias in Brazil, especially in Rio de Janeiro.

We all know corrupt police officers in many Latin American countries.

In Brazil, these militias that

have become entrenched and have become, in turn, criminal organizations that dispute territorial control”, pointed out the teacher from the

.

The Tren de Aragua, the most dangerous band in Venezuela, arrived in Chile

“The phenomenon of the militias emerges from the

in our continent.

In Brazil, it is a problem that is more than 40 years old, from the time when drugs began to be exported throughout the world in Medellín, becoming an important sales

, ”said Paes Manso, who has a PhD in Science Politics from the University of São Paulo.

Brazil is currently the

in Latin America.

"As a consequence, jobs began to assume the informality of the world of crime, with the militias being a kind of criminal governments, which emerged as

and very lucrative way of survival," added the journalist.

If at first these militias seemed like self-defense groups, it didn't take long for them to dominate the sale of drugs and

.

“In Rio de Janeiro, 50% of the territory is controlled by militias.

Another 25% is controlled by drug trafficking”.

Paes Manso's book focuses on the figure of

, a policeman who participated in the special police forces of Rio.

But crime turned out to be more profitable for him.

“Magalhães da Nóbrega dedicated himself to crime because he had no future within the police;

This is how he became one of the biggest criminals in Brazil.

In addition to having allies in the underground gaming world, he had a desk of hit men and assassinated the enemies of the mafias in games for assignments.

In addition, he had

.

He is suspected of being one of the organizers of the assassination of left-wing councilwoman

.

In addition, he worked in the political desk of

and his son.

The book is called Republic of militias because, after the new republic and 30 years of democracy, the system entered into a crisis”, closed the author.

Adriano Magalhães da Nóbrega is suspected of being one of the organizers of the assassination of left-wing councilor Marielle Franco.

Jon Lee Anderson linked that Brazilian republic of militias and the Venezuelan one of pranes with the situation in El Salvador.

Óscar Martínez, editor-in-chief of Elfaro.net, recalled that in his country the largest criminal organizations are

.

“The most famous is the

, which Donald Trump recently made famous after the murders on Long Island, using it as a workhorse to get into the ring with an enemy that he was obviously going to defeat, ”said the reporter.

Óscar Martínez put numbers to the Salvadoran reality: 21,000 square meters of surface area, 6.5 million inhabitants and 2.5 million in the US and

.

“The gangs are a legacy of the Central American civil war,” the reporter advanced.

Not an ideological legacy, but a legacy of abandonment.

For 12 years, in El Salvador we killed each other in a barbaric way, with all the

, going through the repressions of South American and Central American countries, with an extremely violent army that repressed a population that wanted a little more oxygen to live”.

During the

, tens of thousands of young Central Americans left the region to search for a place to live in peace.

And most of those people came to southern

, in the United States.

What they found there were

extremely violent

Gang members from Mara Salvatrucha and Barrio 18 stand together in formation today, the maximum security penal center in Izalco (El Salvador).

EFE/ Rodrigo Sura

“In California

black, supremacist, Asian gangs, among others.

In a kind of allergic reaction, these boys who had fled from a violent country organized themselves and thus the Mara Salvatrucha was born, as a way of defending themselves from the environment”, added Óscar Martínez.

These young people were

to El Salvador and for the journalist “this is the most lethal injection that the United States could put into our Central American bodies.

deported gang members, when there were not even public institutions in the country,” the journalist recalled.

Thus, these boys, sons of a poor farmer, grandchildren of a poor farmer, great-grandchildren of a poor farmer, found in the gang “a way of renaming themselves and inhabiting the world in a different way.

, but instead of being Miguel Ángel Tovar you can be El niño de Hollywood, have a weapon, the respect of the people”.

© El papel literary, literary supplement of the Venezuelan newspaper El Nacional.

The Aragua Train

Ronna Rísquez Dahbar

266 pp.

The Aragua Train, by Ronna Rísquez (Dahbar).

A Republic of militias

Bruno Paes Manso

Todavia

298 pages.

A Republic of militias, by Bruno Paes Manso (Still).

The Hollywood boy

Óscar Martínez

Grupo Editorial México

272 pages.

El niño de Hollywood, by Óscar Martínez (Grupo Editorial México).

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