Tuesday 12 February 2013

Salvadorean police count two murders in "crime-free" district

A man's bruised body was found on 11 February in the district of Ilopango outside San Salvador, suggesting a second killing in recent days in one of the districts gangs had pledged would be free of violenceLa Prensa Gráfica reported on 12 February. The body indicated the victim had been strangled and possibly stabbed to death and initial police investigations suggested gang involvement; gangs reportedly told police they had nothing to do with the first killing in this district, of an 18-year-old boy on 3 February. Ilopango was among the safe zones listed in the second phase of a national plan to disarm and pacify the Mara gangs. The mayor of Ilopango who has coordinated the ceasefire between gangs locally and the Justice Minister did not immediately attribute the crime to anyone. The minister David Munguía Payés reportedly declared however that police counted 76 homicides in El Salvador in 2013 to 10 February, 263 fewer than for the same period in 2012. La Prensa Gráfica separately reported the arrests on 10 or 11 February of six presumed gang members as they raped a 16-year-old girl, in the district of Apopa north of San Salvador. Three of the detained were described as "minors," presumably children or teenagers.

FARC rebels strike Colombian town, kill two

Suspected members of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) killed a child and a policeman and injured 27 in an apparent attack on civilians in Miraflores in the southern department of Guaviare on 11 February, RCN La Radio reported. The mayor of Miraflores told RCN radio that suspected guerrillas began shooting and throwing grenades at a crowd putting out a fire in two buildings in the town; soldiers and policemen repelled the attack. Nine of the worst injured were taken to hospital in the departmental capital San José del Guaviare. President Juan Manuel Santos urged the armed  forces on 11 February to "persevere" with their defensive task until peace is attained in Colombia "one way or another," observing that "peace is the victory." He was speaking to troops at an air force base in Tolemaida south-west of Bogotá, where the armed forces took possession of six new helicopters and two planes. Santos said FARC attacks had not increased in Colombia this year but were receiving more attention. The FARC he said had reached "their maximum capacity, even the number of our fallen soldiers and policemen has decreased, but there has been more noise about this in the media," the presidential website reported. The number of FARC guerrillas demobilized increased 60 per cent in 2013 he said, compared to a similar but unspecified period in 2012. "They see less and less future [for themselves] and feel more defeated," Santos said. FARC and government negotiators were to renew peace talks in Havana on 18 February, continuing the present theme of discussions, rural land use and tenure, Colombia's public radio reported on 11 February.