“We are a gang, but not as you imagine: we are revolutionaries. What arouse the curiosity of the anthropologist Martin Lamotte, who investigated for four years the international gang Los Ñetas, its codes and its metamorphoses, from crime to political action.
This article was originally published in issue 14 of the journal science notebooks.
You have been investigating the Ñetas gang, also called the Asociación, for more than four years: what is its originality compared to other criminal organizations?
Martin Lamotte. It is an organization whose longevity is impressive since it was created in the 1980s and still exists. Then, the historical framework and the transmission have a very important place there whereas usually, this type of organization has a shorter lifespan, traditionally of the order of one generation. But the main particularity of this gang is its ambiguity because it has both a criminal component and a political component: its members can be involved in the drug and firearms market and, at the same time, the group has a very strong political anchorage.
In Puerto Rico, for example, Carlos Torres Iriarte, founding leader of the gang, became very close to the Socialist Party, from which he protected separatist political prisoners in prison. In New York, in the 1990s, the Ñetas provided order during demonstrations against police violence, encouraged young people to register on the electoral rolls or assisted in the political campaigns of certain elected officials in the South Bronx (area comprising neighborhoods in the southern part of the New York borough of the Bronx, Ed). Finally, they have a very important practice of writing, of a bureaucratic type: the meetings give rise to minutes and the secretaries keep accounts for the internal banking system, the fondo. Above all, the Ñetas wrote a book, the Liderato, which describes in detail the history of Carlos Torres Iriarte, the association, its rules… This institutionalization of writing characterizes the gang.
Can you tell us more about the criminal history of the Ñetas?
M. L. The Ñetas were born in 1981 in the prisons of Puerto Rico when the founding father of the Asociación, Carlos Torres Iriarte (nicknamed Carlos La Sombra, “the shadow”), was assassinated by a rival gang, Grupo 27. If Carlos Torres Iriarte is the founder of the gang, it was his friends who, by killing most of the members of Grupo 27 in revenge for his death, recorded the birth of the Ñetas, in a way. In Puerto Rico, the gang is only present in prison.
Between 1980 and 1990, Puerto Ricans, who are US citizens, moved to New York during large economic migrations to the United States. Those of them who were detained in the New York prison of Rikers Island revived the Ñetas there. Then, in the early 1990s, for the first time in the history of the Asociación, ex-prisoners from Rikers Island developed it outside by creating chapters (“sections”, Editor’s note) in the streets of Brooklyn and the South Bronx. But in 1994, Rudy Giuliani, elected mayor of New York, led a policy of zero tolerance and tracked down the Ñetas, involved in drug trafficking. At the same time, the group spread throughout the city and beyond: two Ecuadorian prisoners from Rikers Island deported to Guayaquil (city in the Republic of Ecuador, editor’s note) established the Asociación there and, in the 2000s, the Asociación established itself in Spain in Madrid and Barcelona, in Italy in Genoa, in the Dominican Republic, in Canada and in Russia.
Born in the prisons of Puerto Rico, the gang, in the early 1990s, will for the first time in its history leave the walls of Rikers Island to deploy throughout New York City. Then, in the 2000s, it established itself in particular in Spain in Madrid and Barcelona, in Italy in Genoa.
How did you establish contact with the Ñetas?
M. L. I met the Ñetas through one of their former presidents, whom I name Bebo in my book. Bebo now works in a neighborhood association where I also worked. One evening, when we were out with young people from the association, he started talking to me about his past. We had many conversations at his office and then at his house, which also built a solid friendship. He then introduced me to members of the gang still operating in New York and wrote to the gang leader in Barcelona asking him to ensure my safety. But ultimately, there are a lot of fantasies about this kind of terrain, fueled by the somewhat cavalier postures of researchers. While talking with fellow anthropologists who have investigated the European Parliament, I realized that my fieldwork was much more accessible and easier to conduct in certain aspects.
Ñetas leaders told you: “We are not a gang even if sometimes we act like one. » How do members define their organization?
M. L. It depends on the Ñetas and the interlocutor they are addressing. For example, one of them explained to me: “We are a gang, but not as you imagine: we are revolutionaries. Bebo told me that he had been the leader of a major gang in New York, then later he told me that the Ñetas are not a gang. So the answer varies depending on who is talking, with whom, and when. I use this term because it allows it to be included in the scientific literature and because the president of the group in New York speaks of the passage from gang banging, that is to say from the criminal group, to the gang organizing, in reference to community organizations in neighborhoods dedicated to improving living conditions. Here the term ‘gang’ is still used but the nature of what it means is changing.
What social and anthropological dynamics favor the emergence of this type of organization? Are they present in all capitalist societies?
M. L. Anthropologist Dennis Rodgers has worked on gangs in Nicaragua and made comparisons between such groups. He thus explains that gangs are situated, that is to say that they reflect the local context in which they operate. They are also dynamic structures, which change over time. For example, the Ñetas are not the same group in New York in 1990 or in Barcelona in 2011; and the relationship to the state varies. Nevertheless, they are still populations excluded from the labor market, from a form of socialization and often considered as foreigners. The Ñetas are racialized in Barcelona and New York, where they are among the most precarious populations.
This is a fairly classic phenomenon of capitalist societies. The social breeding ground is there but beware, you don’t necessarily find gangs and gangsters in all the poor ghettos. Moreover, in the work of sociologist Frederic Trasher (1892-1962, Editor’s note) who wrote in the 1920s in the United States, gangs were not defined solely by criminality. It was from the 1970s and the war on drugs declared by the Nixon administration that they were perceived from the criminal angle only.
Precisely, if one of the major figures of the Ñetas recognizes that “the Asociación is a movement of prisoners, therefore the members have committed crimes”, the latter also fight against violence and trafficking, thus joining the policy of state “pacification”. Why do studies, political and media discourse focus exclusively on the violence they inflict?
M. L. In the United States, punitive criminology was born in the very repressive context of the 1970s and then 1980-1990: after having been considered as the consequence of the living conditions of the ghettos during the war against poverty, gangs were presented as the cause, therefore as the enemy. From a political point of view, Rudy Giuliani would have had no interest in recognizing that gangs are not only criminal and that they participate in the pacification of working-class neighborhoods, because he wanted to impose a repressive policy.
The Latin Kings, a rival gang to the Ñetas, and the Latin Queens march up 5th Avenue in New York’s Manhattan borough during the annual Puerto Rican Day Parade, honoring people of Puerto Rican birth or descent.
Andrew Lichtenstein/Corbis via Getty Images
Instead, Barcelona City Council and the State of Catalonia invited Bebo and members of the Latin Kings gang to sign peace treaties. Recognizing them made it possible to stop gang wars, to control them and also to trust them. It was better to work with them than to fight against them.
The Ñetas often talk about justice, a leader told you: “To be Ñeta is above all to fight against abuse in all its forms, to help each other and to progress both individually and collectively in order to live in peace. Is this their ideology?
M. L. Yes, one of the slogans of the Ñetas is Progresar y vivir en paz (“Better and live in peace”, Editor’s note). It is inscribed on the main page of the Liderato book, which shows its importance. Originally, it was to fight against the abuses of the prison administration and then it was extended to all abuses.
The Asociación eventually gained official status in several countries, which led its members to negotiate with political partners, including the police. Did this group have to become institutionalized in order to continue to exist?
M. L. It is indeed a question of knowing what remains of the Ñetas with this pacification and this institutionalization. In Barcelona, they are recognized as social and political actors. The Asociación is legalized in Ecuador and the State of New York recognizes the Asociación Pro Derechos Del Confinados Ñeta Inc. Nyc as a “charitable association”. Leaders know how to manage a group, young people, so this is of interest. However in New York, their pacification corresponds to a phase of internal transformation and decline, in which other elements participate: collapse of the crack market, heavy penalties for small street vendors, gentrification of New York, strong precariousness in their life trajectory…
Why do members of the Asociación subject themselves to a quasi-religious framework, a strict hierarchy and potentially heavy sanctions in the event of breaches which reproduce what they fight outside their organization?
M. L. They reproduce the type of organization they know but the major difference is that they are recognized. In the Asociación, they can be Puerto Ricans, Latinos, a pride emerges from it. There is a claim of this alterity: it is an inversion of the stigma.♦
To read
Beyond crime. Ethnography of a transnational gangMartin Lamotte, CNRS Editions, 2022.
2023-07-20 14:37:03
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