Panama Forum

panamajames
Joined 2012
Posts: 5096

10 years ago

Interior of Panama Crime

10 years ago

Someone was asking about Aguadulce recently ....................................................................................

Aguadulce has a lot of crime and the neighbors have been complaining about it for a long time. The causes are debatable, and probably include the destruction of rural economies that have driven communities that once lived off of fishing and farming into the towns, and the movement of formerly incarcerated gang members from the Panama City / San Miguelito / Colon metro area, to places in the Interior where it is safer for them to live and operate, than on their former gang turf. While the mentors behind many of the crimes are adults, police were finding that some three-quarters of those arrested in Aguadulce were minors. People whose lives are affected, however, are not so interested in explanations and statistics, as they are in decisive action to put a stop to the problem.

And so it was that in May and June, the National Police assembled a task force that staged a series of “prophylactic actions” in Aguadulce. They confiscated some 250 bicycles that didn’t have license plates. Did that teach the rotten kids a lesson?

Maybe, but it did little about the crime rate. The futility of it all was underscored early on a Sunday evening, February 9th, when a group of young assailants came to kill Manuel Edgardo Rodríguez Valderrama, 20, who was in a hammock playing with his five-month-old daughter. Six shots were fired, Rodríguez died on the way to the hospital and the little girl was hit in the arm, which doctors are now trying to save. Police say that one of the suspects has been identified and arrested.

Fifteen minutes later, up the road in Rio Hato, a Nicaraguan immigrant was stabbed four times in front of a local bar.

Meanwhile in Coronado, just behind the bus stop at the Jardin Amigo Cheye, Ulpiano Vergara was playing and attracted a good crowd. After the show was over, at nearly three in the morning on February 10, the noted cumbia musician’s son, Ulpiano Vergara hijo, was abducted by six assailants, all of them apparently minors, outside of the bar. Forced into his car, he was robbed of his cash, cell phone and watch and shot in the back. The maleantes left him along the Pan-American Highway between Coronado and Punta Barco, where a passing bus driver saw the wounded young man and took him to the hospital in La Chorrera. This crime appears to have been committed with the perpetrators knowing that the younger Vergara would be carrying a large sum of money

There is this narrative circulating in the community about how crime is directed against foreign expats. As these facts do not fit with that story, those media reciting this narrative do not report them. The Panama News also does not dwell very much on crime, but behind the cost of living it’s the second biggest public concern if you believe in what the pollsters have been saying for a long time now. It’s a regular feature of life in Panama and although not a central theme of this publication it is newsworthy. Crime is likely to work against the incumbents as an election campaign issue this year, both in the metro area and in the Interior. Also, those expats in Coronado and nearby communities who thought themselves safer after the arrests of a number of people who are thought to be the culprits in a string of audacious home and business invasion robberies may be well advised that while some specific crimes may have been solved, the general problem remains.

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