BOGOTA, Colombia (AP) — Right-wing populists have been making headway in some of Latin America’s biggest economies, promising a strong-arm approach to combatting crime and illegal immigration as an answer to the left-wing populism that took hold in the region just a few years ago.Although homicide rates have broadly declined across Latin America compared to a decade ago, spikes in some countries and a regionwide rise in other crimes have made conditions ripe for conservative populists to blame migrants and pitch heavy-handed strategies popularized by El Salvador’s president, Nayib Bukele.Disaffected voters are embracing such tactics despite concerns that they could encourage human rights abuses or threaten democracy.Here are highlights from the AP’s reporting:
The numbers paint a complicated portraitLatin America and the Caribbean last year saw their combined average homicide rate drop by more than 5% compared to 2024, with the median rate reaching about 17.6 per 100,000 people, according to InSight Crime, a think tank focused on organized crime in the Americas.But there are a few key exceptions. Drug-fueled killings have increased in Peru and Colombia, the world’s top cocaine producers, as well as in neighboring Ecuador, whose major ports traffickers see as a gateway to European markets.Last year, authorities tallied 2,400 homicides in Peru and 14,780 in Colombia, which were the most in each country since at least 2020. Killings rose a remarkable 31% in Ecuador year-on-year, to 9,216.
