The crime rate in Cuba is on the rise, fueled by gang and drug crime

The late leader of the Cuban Revolution, Fidel Castro, once called Cuba “the safest country in the world”.

As for the island’s low rates of violent crime and the lack of firearms available among residents, he may have been guilty of that.

His critics, countered that the low crime rate was achieved through intimidation, that Castro’s Cuba was – and still is – a police state that did not criticize its communist-led government, and that ran rampant against the rights of its opponents. .

However it is done, few would deny that Cuban roads have traditionally been among the safest in the Americas.

However, Samantha González doesn’t feel like she lives in the safest nation in the world. His younger brother, an aspiring music producer named Jan Franco, was killed two months ago in a gang-related dispute.

From the lower Havana neighborhood of Cayo Hueso and just 19 years old when he was killed, Jan Franco was stabbed twice in the chest outside a recording studio, caught in the middle of an argument when someone pulled a knife.

“I still don’t understand,” said Samantha, trying to express her grief as she scrolled through old photos of her brother on her phone.

“He was the light of our family.”

Just 20 years old and the mother of a one-year-old boy, Samantha says Jan Franco was one of the young people who lost their lives on the streets in recent months:

“There are too many young people who have been killed this year,” he explained.

“The violence is getting out of hand. They are gangs, and they fight like gangs. That’s where it comes from, the killing and death of young people.”

They often settle their disputes with knives and machetes, he says.

“Almost no one settles a dispute with fists. Everything has become knives, machetes, even guns. Things I just don’t understand,” his voice trailed off.

The situation has become worse because of a new drug in Cuba called “quimico” – a cheap high-quality chemical with a base of marijuana. Samantha says that it is becoming more and more popular among Cuban youth in parks and on the streets.

Previously, even suggesting that Cuba had a problem with opioids and street gangs — especially to a foreign journalist — could get you into trouble.

Cuban authorities have been fiercely protective of their island’s crime-free reputation and are quick to point out that its streets are safer than those of many US cities. Anything that highlights Cuba’s social problems is often painted as biased criticism of their social system or as anti-reformist inventions from Miami or Washington.

However, this was a public perception of the rising crime rate, an opinion shared by many Cubans on social media, that the authorities openly talked about on state television.

In August, the late night talk show Mesa Redonda – where Communist Party officials were invited on air to present the party’s program – was titled Cuba Against Drugs.

During the broadcast, Colonel Juan Carlos Poey Guerra, head of the anti-narcotics division of the interior ministry, acknowledged the existence, production and distribution of the new drug, químico, and its impact on Cuban youth. He emphasized that the authorities are taking action on this issue.

In another program, regarding crime, the government denied that the situation is getting worse, saying that only 9% of crimes in Cuba were violent and only 3% were murders.

However, critics question the transparency of government statistics and say there is no independent monitoring of the agencies that produce them or the methods they use.

On the other hand, the government strongly blames the old enemy, the United States, for both the presence of synthetic opioids in Cuba and the US economic embargo that lasted for decades on the island, which they say is the reason why some Cubans turn to crime.

In a rare interview, the vice president of the Supreme Court of Cuba, Maricela Sosa Ravelo, told the BBC that the problem is being closely watched on social media. He denied the suggestion that many crimes go unreported because the public does not trust the police.

“In the 30 years I have been a judge and magistrate, I do not think that the Cuban people do not trust their authorities,” he said, speaking inside the ornate Supreme Court building.

“In Cuba, the police have a high level of success in solving crimes. We don’t see people taking the law into their own hands – which is happening in other parts of Latin America and elsewhere – which suggests that people trust the Cuban justice system,” he said.

Yet, again, that was not the experience of one recent victim of opportunistic theft on the dimly lit streets of Havana.

Shyra is a transgender activist who regularly speaks about rights in Cuba. He says that his story of being robbed by a man with a knife in the evening is common.

But the response of the police was what disappointed him the most.

Shyra recalls: “Just after the attack, I ran into two police officers on motorbikes on a side street.” Despite his obvious distress, the police ignored his pleas for help.

They told me bluntly: ‘We don’t come for such things.’ They were very scared to hear because I told them where to find the attacker, I showed them where he was going, what he was wearing. But they didn’t pay attention to me.”

In the small apartment she shares with her mother, Samantha González watches videos of her little brother’s resurrection. A crowd of Jan Franco’s friends showed up outside his house and started singing songs he had produced before his new music career was cut short.

When his coffin was loaded into the hearse, the mourners fell silent, except for the soft voice of weeping and prayer.

The burial with him, along with all the young victims of violence on the island, is another part of Cuba’s claim that it is the safest country in the world.