Thursday 18 July 2013

Police confirm more violence in El Salvador, launch anti-crime actions with army

El Salvador's Police corroborated on 17 July earlier data indicating an increasing number of homicides in the country in spite of the ceasefire declared in March 2012 by the Mara street gangs. Police figures showed that the average daily number of homicides in July nationwide was 8.9, compared to 4.6 for July 2012, the Salvadorean daily El Mundo reported on 18 July, citing declarations by the national police chief Rigoberto Pleités Sandoval. Mr Pleités, who became head of the National Civil Police on 28 May, said that the total 1,190 homicides registered from 1 January to 16 July 2013 remained inferior to the 1,637 registered for that period in 2012. Police he said were doing everything to ensure "the numbers come down." Authorities admit the country has seen a re-surge in crime since late May, attributed in part to the renewal of rivalries between gangs, and the army and police began a joint operation on 11 July in districts most affected by resurgent violence, El Mundo reported. The daily cited a deputy-police chief Mauricio Ramírez Landaverde as saying that the operation, dubbed Medusa, was focused on  five deparments and zones including the sector north of the capital. El Mundo separately reported that the heads of the two main gangs - Mara Salvatrucha and Mara 18 - agreed on 17 July to "suspend acts of aggression" on themselves and residents of the district of Zacatecoluca south-east of the capital, following mediation efforts. This it stated was now the 11th district declared free of violence, although crimes are reported to have continued in certain other districts where the Maras had pledged to end violence. The mediator Raúl Mijango was cited as saying that Mejicanos, a northern suburb of the capital, was to become another "safe" district in "coming days."

Thirty guerrillas surrender in Colombia, one detained

Senior Colombian officials including President Juan Manuel Santos and his Minister of Defence personally received in Cali on 16 July a company of 30 former guerrillas of the National Liberation Army (ELN) who formally surrendered their arms and abandoned their fight against the Colombian state. President Santos said this was the "biggest demobilisation" of fighters in the ELN's history, praising the guerrillas for their decision and the armed forces for the relentless pressures exerted on the ELN, which the state has declared convinced the 30 to surrender. Media reported that state intelligence agents had visited the company's camp several times in preceding weeks, presumably to discuss the mechanics of a surrender. The guerrillas who demobilised at an army base in Cali constituted the Lucho Quintero Giraldo company of the ELN's South-Western War Front, the Defence Ministry reported. "I want to thank all the group, its commander aka Tiger, henceforth Mr Collazos and all of you. You took the right decision," the Presidential Office cited Mr Santos as telling them. He said the "state will receive you with all the guarantees we have promised," allowing them he added to begin to rejoin civilian and family life. The Defence Ministry separately reported on 17 July that troops caught a suspected head of a support or logistical network working with the ELN's Darío Ramírez Castro Front, active in the Bolívar department in northern Colombia. The detained was identified as Bautista his nom de guerre, and caught in the district of San Pablo in southern Bolívar, the Ministry reported. Bautista was being sought for suspected "financing" activities for the guerrilla that included drug dealing, extortion from local farmers and firms and the forcible recruitment of peasants.