sleeping tight(er)...

crime and assasinations have increased quite dramatically in cali this year, in comparision with past years which have seen decreases and last year which until december had been at an all time low.

possibly due to the change in government and a slightly laxer view on security while addressing other issues and no doubt not helped by the dispalcement of thousands of colombians due to the flooding. organised crime also seems to be increasing and consolidating its hold on valle de cauca (valle). valle , the department cali is located in is home the largest and most prominent colombian drug cartels while other parts of the department are plagued by FARC.

while i have no doubt crime has increades across the country as well as valle, the spot light seems to be on cali at the moment. between january to may 2011 there were almost 750 intentional killings in cali alone, 80 of these attributed to los rastrojos, one of the infamous cartels in colombia an regarded as the hiers to the cali cartel which came to a head in 1995 due to major arrests of the cartel heads amognst other things. there is also news of 'mafia war' type relacions between los rastrojos and los urabeños, another cartel whose turf is more towards the atlantic coast but as always there are overlaps.

this week 700 additional police have been brought into cali to help with security. with more forces to come. there has been mention of possible military personal as part of the new security plan as well, be at the moment i dont see any evidence of this.

the military are widely respected in colombia as, funnily enough, they are relatively free of corruption (well at least at the lower levels) unlike the police who, as in many countries, are largely thugs and here it seems they make most of their money from bribes.

certainly the sight of armed police and military is nothing new here, and something i have become very accustomed too, the military more often than not, carry automatic weapons.