Government admits crime wave

Crime wave alarms Panamanians, foreigners
by Eric Jackson

People have been talking about it more and more. The violent criminal element has been getting ever more active, and ever more brazen. Yes, there are Colombians or other non-citizens involved in some of the crimes, but from the cases that the police have been able to solve, scapegoating the foreigners is in most instances an escape from reality into the refuge of prejudice.

Over the past few years the heavily armed home invasion robbery, in many instances preceded by the poisoning of guard dogs, has been ever more common. The maleantes have generally chosen wealthy targets, but increasingly have attacked middle class foreign retirees. The most shocking of these in recent days was the July 22 invasion of the La Cresta highrise residence of Uruguayan ambassador Domingo Schipani. A lone gunman got past the Edificio Imperial's security guards, burst into the apartment, subdued the ambassador and his wife and made off with cash and jewelry reported valued around $200,000.

The home invasion fad started in Panama City's upscale neighborhoods and Colombians were allegedly involved in several of the high profile earlier ones. Now, however, foreign residents in the Interior are being increasingly targeted and the culprits are more often than not desperate young local men, sometimes led by somewhat older veteran criminals. Since December of last year there have been home invasion attacks on foreign residents in Panama Oeste, Cocle, Los Santos and Chiriqui provinces.

Recent high-profile assaults have included the July 7 attempted kidnapping of a Canadian couple in Santa Ana, Los Santos, where they were building a home. An employee who lives nearby heard gunshots and went to the scene, prompting the assailants to flee. The husband was treated for wounds in each leg and the wife for cuts to her head and neck. Three days earlier in the Veracruz neighborhood of Arraijan, prominent animal welfare activist Olga Kottmeier and Herman Smith were assaulted on the street by two armed young men, one of whom shot Kottmeier in the head. It appears that she will survive, but the wound was serious and life-threatening. Then there was the robbery of two tourists by a Panama City cab driver and two accomplices on July 23, in which an British man was shot in the hip.

There are many Panamanians, including among the criminal element, who presume that all foreigners, and particularly all Americans, are wealthy. To that extent there are hoodlums who figure that the gringo is the choice target for a robbery, even cases where all evidence is to the contrary. (Remember, most criminals are not particularly smart, let alone well educated.) But despite the notion, often promoted by the most obnoxious and aloof elements of the so-called "expat community," that Americans are special targets of the crime wave, this is generally not the case. The criminals just pick those whom they figure would be easy sources of quick pickings and most of the victims are not in fact Americans.

And what effects are being seen from the hundreds of surveillance cameras around Panama City, and the 1,000 extra cops that the Torrijos administration has put onto the streets? Possibly a bit higher arrest rate. Possibly a calculation that, since getting away with something is everywhere less probable, places which used to be considered by maleantes to be risky turf are now being turned into crime scenes and once calm locales are getting panicky.

For example, on July 21 the remains of a Colon Free Zone merchant were found in and around the Hotel Intercontinental Miramar and the gory sensationalists in some of the Spanish-language media --- and an English-language website that habitually pirates such publications --- presumed that it was a particularly gruesome crime. It turned out that the man fell from the 46th floor, but as of this story being written no results of an investigation about whether it was homicide, suicide or accident had been released.

The assumption of the worst comes easily when one of the mayor's bodyguards is slain while coming home from work, when a Banco Nacional employee is found bound and shot execution-style, when every day's news carries reports of gang shootouts somewhere in the metro area, when a decapitated man's body is found in Colon's Arco Iris neighborhood.

The growing phenomenon of "express kidnappings," wherein people are abducted and forced to withdraw all their money from ATM machines, then released, adds to the climate of fear among middle class and wealthy sectors of the population, including upscale foreigners.

And for all of these anecdotes, the government is now admitting that there are statistics to support the widespread perception of rising crime. In 2006, the Torrijos administration reports, there were 371 homicides. In 2007 there were 444. In the first six months of 2008, there were 251.

All serious crime reports went up 18 percent in 2007 over 2006, and this year is on an upward course over last, according to the government.

Considering that Panama is a country of three million, we are overall less violent than the United States, most probably because our population is less heavily armed than that of our neighbors to the north. The victims of the murders that happen here are largely themselves criminals, who are caught up in organized crime business disputes or turf battles between armed youth gangs. Armed robberies of small grocery stores, delivery truck drivers and taxi cabs account for many of the non-criminal victims. Another substantial part of our murder rate is in the course of domestic violence. Thus, despite the desensitizing effect of lurid crime coverage in some of the news media, it's considered unusual and shocking when people come under armed assault in their homes or on the streets.

Violent crime is a perennial political issue and lately has been rising in the lists of voters' top concerns. However, it's one of those things that all politicians say they oppose and which hardly anybody believes that one leader or one party is better set to deal with the problem than anyone else.