gun by http://www.flickr.com/photos/mattborowick/

A few days ago we wrote about the return of curfews and restrictions on male passengers on motorcycles, both created by the government to ensure security in the city, but now, the ones spreading fear are unknown authors of leaflets and fliers sent under doors and passed hand to hand which state that no one is allowed after 9 or 10 pm at night in the streets of certain areas of the city, in an effort to cleanse it of unwanted denizens.

All this has surfaced through Twitter,  on different blogs and in the comment thread of Juan David Escobar's blog post Welcome, Once Again, to the City of Fear, which we mentioned last week.  On the comments, Programator writes:

por la casa de una amiga pusieron lo siguiente: “Acueste a sus hijos o nosotros los acostamos”, toque de queda, 10.00pm, Robledo Kennedy. Es absurdo cómo el tiempo no parece pasar, y volvemos a lo mismo, lo mismo de siempre, inseguridad y peligro en las calles. Por mi casa pasan policias cada rato persiguiendo traquetos en motos, una vez tuve que esconderme en casa de unos vecinos cuando venia del trabajo, porque “Por ahí están, venga, venga mientras pasa todo y se queda aquí”. Y esas palabras asustan, bastante. Y más si las cosas pasan cerca a tu casa.

Solo para mujeres writes in her blog a conversation that is probably taking place throughout the city:

*Mira pues, a mi casa llego una hoja que dice, que dizque no se puede estar en la calle después de las nueve de la noche porque no responden por su vida.

-¡¡¡Hay que susto!!!… pero yo había escuchado que era que no se podía andar en moto.

*No, no mija es que esa la puso Salazar y la que yo digo no se sabe quien, como aquí hay tanto quien prohíba.

The authorities have played down the importance of these threats, according to newspaper El Mundo [es], stating that these groups aim to scare and that what is going on is a turf war. They hope that the extra police forces that are coming to Medellín for the Assembly of the Inter- American Development Bank at the end of the current month will help to defuse the situation.

Regarding the IDB's meeting, El Inspector writes about how there is an urge to present an advanced, organized and peaceful city to the members of the Development Bank:

Tenemos la responsabilidad de presentarles una excelente imagen a los ilustres visitantes, para el bien de Colombia. Pero es más grande la obligación con los medellinenses y paisas en general, de asumir con pantalones que hay una creciente sensación de inseguridad y derramamiento de sangre.

No hay que maquillar cifras de criminalidad y eludir el debate sobre la seguridad. Bienvenidos los del BID, pero también bienvenida la sinceridad.

On LaFm radio, fliers sent in the downtown area of the city were mentioned, with the same result, authorities keep insisting that people shouldn't worry. Out on the streets, the story is quite different.

Angelfire posts on twitter:

Tengo muchisimas ganas de una cerveza hoy, pero pongo un pie en la calle y me dejan como un colador a punta de bala <_> :(

Other tweets state that flyers have been delivered, and that there are 20 dead in 15 days, and that he even witnessed a shooting this morning, with bullets ricocheting off a balcony.

So why is this taking place? The Popular Training Institute has a hypothesis after many years working with marginal communities:

“Mientras existió un “patrón” en la ciudad, alguien con quien negociar, la criminalidad disminuyó, pero ahora que no lo hay, sube. El dilema está en si se negocia con un nuevo actor hegemónico o se fortalece la justicia para combatir la delincuencia”, afirmó Balbín.

On twitter, Medellinites have different perspectives: some believe that paying attention to these threats is to empower the criminals and fall prey to terror, others believe that this is just a small hurdle and the government will deal with it and it won't be able to undo 10 years of peace-building, and others, with a much darker streak, believe that this is part of the cleansing process to beautify the city for the IDB visitors, mentioning rumors on the mayors’ connections with paramilitary groups.

So what can the population do? There is already talk of getting together information and reports, and geo-locating them on a map, so people can see which areas are under threat, how many different types of letters are going around, and where violent incidents have taken place.