"When People Are Mad, They Start to React" to Corruption

José Domingo Guariglia interviews Brazilian corruption map creator RAQUEL DINIZ
There are enough digital tools for citizens to participate in political decision-making, says Raquel Diniz.

Photo Credit: Bernardo Gutiérrez/Courtesy Raquel Diniz

NEW YORK, Aug 30, 2011 (IPS) - The fight against corruption has taken centre stage in the government of Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff, and has led to the resignation or dismissal of several ministers over just a few months.

Civil society groups in Brazil are using digital media to protest against corruption, which is so deeply rooted in politics and economics that it is costing this South American country 43 billion dollars a year, according to the latest report by the Federation of Industries of the State of São Paulo (FIESP), published in May 2010.

Over a few short days, a post on the Facebook social networking site convening a rally in Rio de Janeiro Sept. 20, under the slogan "Todos unidos contra a corrupção" (Everyone United against Corruption) has attracted positive responses from 13,130 people.

But merely protesting is not enough. Citizens also have a role to play in watching over public resources and denouncing cases of misappropriation of funds, said Raquel Diniz, a journalist, filmmaker, and creator of the Mapa Colaborativo da Corrupção do Brasil, an online collaborative map of corruption in Brazil, in this interview with IPS.

"My idea was for people to take some sort of action, that would lead them to realise the seriousness of the problem, and to fight for a country free of corruption," she said in response to questions by email.

Her corruption map, which has been on-line since May, was inspired by maps designed in Spain by the NOLESVOTES (Don't Vote For Them) movement, the map of People's Party (PP) corruption, and the map used by the "Indignant" movement to plan protest camps at the Puerta del Sol in Madrid and in other Spanish cities, which led to the formation of the May 15 (15M) Movement.

Supporters of Diniz's map site are determined to use it to deliver a message of rebuke to the ruling elite.

"Politicians haven't really caught on to the idea; they are too far away, isolated in their shiny office blocks," Diniz said. "Sooner or later they will have to understand that everything has changed. Those who govern must hand over some of their power so that society can be truly democratic."

Map users can pinpoint the geographic location of cases of corruption that have been documented in the press, building up a collective memory that, in theory, will help citizens to access more information about politicians before voting for them in future elections.

Q: Why is it important to have a map of corruption in Brazil?

A: It's an opportunity for people to be informed about corruption cases, to participate in producing the map, in order to stimulate interest in the issue. It's very important that people should get angry when they see the map. I think when people are mad, they begin to want to change things and to fight back against corruption.

Corruption in Brazil is extremely serious, but people are so accustomed to corruption scandals that they seldom take action to change the practice, which is so common among politicians, the police, and therefore society as a whole.

Q: There are similar tools in the region to report and map crime and violence. Where did you get the idea from?

A: I went to live in Spain just as the 2008 economic crisis broke out. I saw the rise of many movements against the government, and the immense growth of communication via social networks. Then I found out about the NOLESVOTES Movement's corruption map, and the map on corruption perpetrated by the PP, the most conservative party in Spain, posted by Leo Bassi (a well-known Spanish leftwing journalist) on his PPLeaks web page.

I came back to Brazil and kept in touch with the growth of the 15M Movement. When I came across a Google map people could use to set up a virtual encampment at the Puerta del Sol (in Madrid), I realised that the Arab world and Europe were living through a time of profound social transformation, whereas here in Brazil it was the reverse. The vast majority of Brazilians are happy with the country's macroeconomic growth and turn their backs on social problems.

The same morning, an environmentalist couple who lived in the (northern) Amazon region were murdered, and that afternoon the lower chamber of Congress approved an amendment to the Forest Code, legalising the use of illegally deforested land which formerly had been protected reserves.

I was extremely angry that day. I felt I had to do something, and I created the map.

Q: What are the main results?

A: The main result was coverage in the principal Brazilian newspapers, and people hearing about the map and helping to construct it. My idea was to prompt people to take some sort of action that would lead them to understand the seriousness of the problem and to fight for a country free from corruption.

As it is an open access site, I always recommend that every post should carry references to articles published in the press, so that the posted data have credibility.

Brazil has a great record of investigating corruption cases, but corrupt people hardly ever go to prison. Any who are convicted just pay a fine and are released, and then they stand as candidates in the next elections. Many of them are voted into office again and exercise power!

Q: In your view, is the internet an effective tool for citizens and government to communicate with each other?

A: It could be very effective, because it's a channel for mutual interaction and the sharing of information. There are enough digital tools in the web 2.0 world, many of them with open access, for citizens to be able to participate in political decision-making.

It would be very easy to institute participative democracy systems for making political decisions, but we are all only just getting to know this new way of interacting.

Politicians haven't really caught on to the idea; they are too far away, isolated in their shiny office blocks. Sooner or later they will have to understand that everything has changed. Those who govern must hand over some of their power so that society can be truly democratic.

Q: Several studies have reported that Latin America is a leader in the use of social networks like Facebook or Twitter. Why do you think this is so?

A: People in Latin America are more sociable than those on other continents; they like to get to know people. Also, society here is very hierarchical, so there are few mechanisms for the social base to participate in building and running the country. The mass media are controlled by the elite, and are dependent on political advertising. The social networks, in a way, are a substitute for traditional mass media.

http://ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=104929

Citizens Chart Crime Using Online Maps

JOSÉ DOMINGO GUARIGLIA

NEW YORK, Aug 19, 2011 (IPS) - "I was walking down the street, talking on my cell phone, when a guy on a motorbike came by and grabbed the phone out of my hand. I ran after him but I couldn't catch him. He had probably been following me."

This message, from a person who had his cell phone stolen in the southern Brazilian city of São Paulo, was posted on WikiCrimes, a web site where citizens who have lost confidence in the effectiveness of police action can report crimes directly.

WikiCrimes in Brazil, and similar initiatives in Venezuela, Panama, Mexico, Argentina and Chile, provide interactive maps that people can use to anonymously report crimes, describe what happened and pinpoint the location. In this way, crime mapping identifies danger zones - crime hotspots - within a region with generally high crime rates, to enhance people's awareness, preparedness and safety.

According to a report on Citizen Security and Human Rights, by the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, in early 2010 Latin America was the region with the highest average murder rate in the world, 25.6 per 100,000 population. Young people aged 15-29 were the most frequent victims, with a murder rate of 68.9 per 100,000 people in this age group.

The crime maps seek to supplement the paucity of official crime reports at police stations, and to guide implementation of policies to fight crime, Vasco Furtado, a systems engineer who created WikiCrimes, told IPS.

"It's very common nowadays to hear about someone who has been mugged, but who is not going to report it to the police because they are convinced nothing would be done. Surveys of victims of crime in Brazilian cities show that under-reporting in the most densely populated areas may be as high as 60 percent for some offences," he said.

WikiCrimes receives crime reports from around the world, although most originate in Brazil.

In Venezuela, crime data maps can be accessed at the VicTEAMS and QuieroPaz sites.

VicTEAMS was created in 2009 in reaction to the thousands of hold-ups, kidnappings and murders committed in Venezuela, and especially in the capital, Caracas, considered the second most dangerous city in Latin America after Ciudad Juárez, Mexico, according to a study by the Mexican Citizens' Council for Public Security and Criminal Justice (CCSP-JP).

An online Crime Map of Mexico City was created by the newspaper El Universal, and a Buenos Aires province "map of insecurity" was funded by Argentine businessman and centre-right lawmaker Francisco de Narváez.

Crime map sites have also been set up in Chile and Panama. The Chilean crime map distinguishes between official crime reports and online reports from citizens, and Mi Panamá Transparente (My Transparent Panama), created by a group of journalists and non-governmental organisations, widens the focus to include swindles and corruption.

The crime problem in Venezuela is exacerbated by the lack of official statistics, said Ángel Méndez, a consultant at Tendencias Digitales, a firm that carries out market research in the field of information technology.

"Venezuela is one of the most violent countries in Latin America, and unfortunately there are no official statistics to monitor the violence. Body counts from the morgues are published in the media every Monday, but there is no crime database available," Méndez told IPS.

Citizens as agents of change

According to VicTEAMS, online maps are a useful tool towards reaching the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), a series of targets adopted in 2000 by the international community to drastically reduce poverty, hunger, inequality, illness, mortality and environmental degradation across the globe by 2015.

The team responsible for crafting the web site attended an international workshop on "Engaging Citizens in Development Management and Public Governance for the Achievement of the MDGs", organised by the U.N. Department of Economic and Social Affairs and the government of the Spanish region of Catalonia in the regional capital, Barcelona, in June 2010.

The meeting produced the Barcelona Declaration on "The Critical Role of Public Service in Achieving the Millennium Development Goals", stating that "citizens' engagement has to be considered to accelerate the progress towards reaching the MDGs," and governments should work alongside citizens to address social problems proactively.

Wider access to the internet in Latin American countries has been crucial to the rise of online tools like crime maps. Governments and NGOs in the region are promoting free or low-cost access to information and communication technologies for low-income sectors of the population.

A Brazilian government programme called Computers for Inclusion, and the Infocentres that provide access and computer literacy courses in Venezuela, are typical of such initiatives.

Crime maps and the problem of data accuracy

The interactive capability of crime maps and other online tools can hinder their effectiveness, due to incomplete or inaccurate crime reporting.

"At WikiCrimes we are concerned about false reporting. It is up to users to provide the system with information that boosts its credibility. Links can be added to videos, newspapers, photos or any other document that supports the informant's credibility," Furtado said.

On interactive crime maps, the incidents reported depend on the goodwill of citizens, but cooperation with government agencies can be decisive.

"The authorities do not view WikiCrimes as their ally, because it challenges the status quo. They are afraid of being pressured by society," said Furtado.

Academics like Iria Puyosa, an expert on social networking and social capital, say "the problem of violent crime in Latin America will not be solved by online maps," which are useful to a limited extent, for fighting invisibility and the absence of information, she told IPS.

The impact of social networks

The connections between the worldwide web and other innovative technology, like cell phones, favour online crime reporting. According to information from Tendencias Digitales, 27 percent of internet access is dialled up by mobile phone in countries like Venezuela, and a large proportion of citizens use smart phones to report crimes or traffic conditions, via Twitter.

In fact, Latin America is the world's second region for users of social networks like Facebook and Twitter as a proportion of the population, after North America, according to SocialTimes, an information source on social media.

The July 2011 Web 2.0 Ranking produced by Tendencias Digitales named Chile, Brazil and Venezuela as the top three Latin American countries for social media use.

"We are more inclined to sharing and paying attention to what people are saying. For instance, Facebook penetration, measured as a percentage of the population, is 26 percent in Latin America compared to 20 percent worldwide. Performing the same calculation for Twitter, we find its penetration in Venezuela is eight percent, compared to three percent for Latin America and the rest of the world," said Méndez, quoting figures from the study.

Twitter accounts like @SINviolenciaMX (violence-free Mexico) foster the development of a user network where people can both post and receive information about crime zones or traffic jams.

However, Puyosa stressed that messages from smart phones or social networks cannot be regarded as "real" crime reports.

"Effective denunciation of a crime, with the aim of evoking a law enforcement response, must be made formally to the police. Victims may vent their feelings of frustration via Twitter or Facebook, but these are not effective channels for reporting crime," she said.

http://ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=104830