Thursday 27 June 2013

Prosecutor fears El Salvador gangs "breaking" crime pledge

One of El Salvador's regional prosecutors voiced concern on 26 June that the main street gangs might not be respecting the ceasefire they began in 2012, judging by rising crime figures for June and specifically a surge in crime in the prosecutor's own department, Chalatenango north of the capital San Salvador. State prosecutor René Peña was speaking to the press following a police operation that caught 19 members of streets gangs sought in relation with several murders, the website elsalvador.com reported. He said he could neither confirm nor dismiss the suspicion that the national ceasefire between gangs, which officials say have roughly halved murder rates since March 2012, was broken. The ceasefire seemed to have generated more enthusiasm in the executive branch, led by President Mauricio Funes, than among prosecutors. Mr Peña said he could affirm that the daily murder rate in his department had risen from "one or two" to eight. The website reported 23 June to be so far the most violent day in El Salvador in 2013, with 14 homicides.

Nine Colombian guerrillas surrender to troops, six detained

Four members of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) were reported on 26 June to have surrendered to troops in Juradó in the western department of Chocó, handing in weapons and leading troops to a drugs cache; they were among nine fighters abandoning the FARC in recent days though dates were not specified. The four were identified as members of the FARC's Front 57; at the hideout troops found 478 kilograms of cocaine said to be worth some 15 million USD, the newspaper El País reported on 26 June. The army reported on 26 June that three members of the FARC's Front 41 surrendered to troops in the districts of San Diego in the northern department of César and Riohacha in the north-coast department of La Guajira. On 25 June it reported two other surrenders and the capture of five suspected collaborators of the FARC, in the southern district of Puerto Leguizamo in Putumayo. The two, identified as members of Front 48 of the FARC, surrendered in the locality of La Concepción, handing over arms and ammunition. Five "collaborators" were caught in the same locality; they included an 18-year-old bomb maker who apparently began to work with the FARC at the age of nine, the Army reported on 25 June. On 26 June it reported the capture of another FARC collaborator, a man dubbed Huesito identified as an expert in making and placing anti-personnel mines; he was apparently caught in the district of Miranda in the department of Cauca. The Army destroyed at an unspecified date an abandoned FARC camp in the southern district of San Vicente del Caguán, it reported on 27 June. Members of the Teófilo Forero Castro Mobile Column were thought to have used the camp, described as large enough for some 50 fighters and with amenities including three toilets.