Three Venezuelan generals held over "coup" plans, opposition mayor jailed

Venezuela's President Nicolás Maduro said in Caracas on 25 March that three air force generals were arrested the night before, suspected of plotting an "uprising" against the Government. He revealed this at a meeting with foreign ministers of the regional association UNASUR, adding that the officers were "linked to the opposition," Europa Press reported. Colleagues reportedly denounced them, though Mr Maduro said they were being observed for an unspecified period. Separately, Venezuela's Supreme Court sentenced the detained mayor of San Cristóbal in the state of Táchira, Daniel Ceballos, to a year and 15 days in jail and ordered him dismissed for failing to remove protesters' barricades from the streets of San Cristóbal. The mayor is a member of the opposition and San Cristóbal was one of the first centres of anti-Government protests in early February. The court convicted Ceballos after hearing the testimonies of eight witnesses, in a verdict his wife later said was "expected," the newspaper 2001 reported. While Mrs Ceballos said the magistrates were "waiting for a phone call," presumably instructing them to issue a verdict, President Maduro qualified the sentence as "justice." He told a radio program on 25 March that "you fight fascism with justice," referring to his conservative and liberal opponents, the broadcaster NTN24 reported. The socialist majority in Venezuela's parliament also voted on 25 March to confirm the expulsion of the conservative member María Corina Machado, a day after its praesidium accused her of breaking the law over a recent trip to Panama. A representative of the United Socialist Party of Venezuela, Andrés Eloy Méndez, was cited as warning that she could be prosecuted for treason, now that she lacked parliamentary immunity. He said associating with hostile powers could lead to a 30-year prison term, Europa Press and El Universal reported. Opposition MPs challenged Ms Machado's "overthrow," filing an appeal with the Supreme Court, EFE reported.

Troops shoot Colombian guerrilla sought for 60 killings

Colombian troops shot dead a captain of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) thought responsible for certain recent FARC attacks that have killed more than 30 soldiers in the north-eastern department of Arauca, Caracol radio reported on 10 December. The guerrilla dubbed Jainover, identified as a commander in the FARC's 10th Front, was killed in an undated gun fight at an unspecified place near the Venezuelan frontier, possibly in the Arauca department where he was active. The army was cited as saying that after a shootout troops caught up with a car that sought to take Jainover's body into Venezuela; four presumed FARC fighters were arrested in the operation. The Army also attributed to Jainover attacks in 2005 that killed 30 soldiers in the central department of Meta. He was said to have filmed the attacks he orchestrated.

Colombian President changes armed forces chiefs

President Juan Manuel Santos Calderón changed Colombia's senior military and police officials late on 12 August, in a move said intended to boost security in the last year of his presidency; his Defence Minister insisted there were no tensions with the generals over ongoing peace talks with the communist Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC). The new armed-forces commander was General Leonardo Barrero Gordillo, hitherto head of the armed forces joint command in south-western Colombia, while Air Force General Hugo Enrique Acosta Téllez was named head of the armed-forces joint command, Colombia's Colprensa agency reported. General Juan Pablo Rodríguez Barragan was appointed army commander, Vice-Admiral Hernando Wills Vélez the Navy commander and General Rodolfo Palomino López, National Police commander. The agency cited Mr Santos as saying that the appointments were designed to "continue to weaken" insurgent and criminal forces and enhance ties with the population; he praised the work done by the outgoing commanders whom he qualified as having obtained "the most results" against crime and violence in "Colombia's recent history," Colprensa reported. The newspaper El Espectador observed on 13 August that the new commanders had shown competence in field action against crime and guerrilla activities and their appointments came at a time when Colombians wanted firm action against crime and insecurity. Many in Colombia have inevitably compared the Santos government's fight against criminals and guerrillas with those of the preceding administration led by the conservative Álvaro Uribe Vélez, who enjoys very high popularity ratings that sometimes exceed those of Mr. Santos. The outgoing police chief José Roberto León Riaño observed last June on Colombians' "nostalgia" for the former president Uribe, in comments immediately picked up by the press. The remarks apparently left Mr Santos unperturbed at the time; perhaps he knew then he would soon be changing his military high command. The Minister of Defence Juan Carlos Pinzón Bueno was cited on 13 August as saying that the reshuffle was not due to any tensions with the former generals, and specifically not with the outgoing army chief Sergio Mantilla. He was responding to unspecified media speculations. Nevertheless his comments to the broadcaster Blu Radio indicated that communications between himself and army chiefs were frank; "we did have meetings all the time. They are men with strong personalities but they also know perfectly well that the person talking to them is the same way, when it comes to doing their duty," El Espectador reported. The Minister denied General Mantilla had acted as an obstacle to current peace talks with the FARC.

Mexican troops shoot "13 gunmen," Government counts 7,100 killed since December

Soldiers fought a gun battle with suspected members of one of the drug cartels in Sombrerete, a town in the north-central state of Zacatecas on 11 July, killing 13 suspects and confiscating weaponry and items including mobile phones, media reported, citing comments by the chief prosecutor of Zacatecas. Arturo Nahle García wrote on the website Twitter that the battle occurred during a routine patrol in Sombrerete, while witnesses were cited as saying that shooting began when army vehicles unexpectedly coincided with several cars said being driven by the gunmen, Proceso reported on 11 July. The same review reported on 6 July a shootout between police and suspected criminals in the northern city of Monclova, wherein the policemen killed three gunmen described as aged between 20 and 25 years. The suspects reportedly began to shoot at police from a convoy of cars, using rifles or assault weapons. Two or more gunmen were separately said to have shot dead four individuals in a house in Tlanepantla in Estado de México, the state outside the capital, late on 8 July. Police speculated this was a "possible" settling of accounts among local drug dealers, Proceso reported on 9 July. Mexico's interior ministry (Gobernación), put at 7,128 the number of those killed in incidents thought related to drugs and cartels between 1 December 2012 and 30 June 2013, Proceso reported on 11 July. The period constituted the first seven months of the government led by President Enrique Peña Nieto. The dead included 869 reported killed in June, of whom 830 were qualified as presumed or suspected criminals, 31 "public servants" and eight said to have been unrelated to the incidents that provoked their deaths. The ministry stated that 1,096 individuals were arrested in June and being investigated for suspected involvement in federal offences.

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.

Gangsters kill eight policemen in Guatemala, kidnap officer

Suspected gangsters launched an assault on a police station in western Guatemala on 13 June, killing eight policemen and kidnapping an officer; authorities began a massive search for the missing officer César Augusto García Cortez in the department of Quetzaltenango where the killing ocurred. Some 15 men in a convoy of three cars were said to have attacked the police station in Salcajá outside the Quetzaltenango city district. The area was described as on a drug route to Mexico and the attack was said to have followed the recent arrest by police of the bodyguard of a local trafficker, Europa Press reported on 14 June. The deputy-minister of Security Edi Suárez Prera deplored the crime on 14 June as "an act of vengence mainly by drug dealers" in response to the policemen's "positive" work against local crime "within a short time;" the next day he said authorities had identified the culprits, but gave no details, Guatemala's official news agency AGN reported. Guatemala's President Otto Pérez Molina separately announced on 14 June that more than 1,500 troops would soon help the National Police patrol 28 of the country's most crime-ridden districts, Europa Press reprted. The massacre was not the only crime reported in Guatemala in recent days. Three no less were reported killed on 16-17 June in the departments of Quezaltenango and San Marcos, including a 24-year-old man hacked to death and a 51-year-old woman who had her throat slit, the daily Prensa Libre reported. The daily Siglo.21 gave 2,597 that day as the number of reported homicides in Guatemala so far in 2013, without giving exact dates for the figure, with over 85.6 per cent of these implemented with guns. Its report on stated that police believed on the basis of many investigations that while criminals use "few arms to kill many," these seemed increasingly to alternate between killings and were perhaps hired not bought. A spokesman for the police laboratories INACIF said tests on 1,317 confiscated weapons showed that a gun might be used for between two and 38 murders.

Colombian troops shoot four FARC guerrillas, Police detain 10

Army planes bombed at an unspecified date positions of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) in the west-coast department of Chocó, killing four presumed FARC fighters and later confiscating arms and "abundant" quantities of ammunition, the newspapers El Espectador and El Tiempo reported on 12 June, citing the army. The army, navy and air force collaborated in the raid, thought to have destroyed a camp belonging to members of the Libardo García Mobile Column in the district of Docordó or Medio San Juan. Police operatives separately detained 10 suspected members of the FARC and of the ELN, the other communist guerrilla force in the country, in several districts of the northern department of Antioquia, the broadcaster W Radio reported on 12 June. The suspects, identified as belonging to the FARC's Mario Vélez Front and the ELN's Captain Mauricio Company, were held in the districts of Caucasia, Casanare, Amalfi, Valdivia and Puerto Valdivia, W Radio reported.

FARC guerrillas attack Colombian forces, seven killed

Guerrillas of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) killed seven soldiers and state personnel on 23 May in two attacks in the northern departments of Antioquia and La Guajira, the country's media reported. In the district of San Andrés de Cuerquia in Antioquia, suspected sharpshooters from the FARC's Front 36 shot dead three soldiers, provoking a gun fight in which an unspecified number of guerrillas may have been injured, Caracol radio reported. Three soldiers were also wounded. The newspaper El Colombiano reported that two FARC guerrillas died in this attack and two were injured and arrested. An ambush attributed to Front 59 of the FARC in La Guajira killed two policemen and two immigration officials, Caracol reported. The assailants were said to have thrown grenades or explosives at two cars travelling between the districts of Maicao and Paraguachón near Venezuela's frontier, killing the head of the Migration office in Paraguachón, another Migration officer and two policemen travelling behind them. A female deputy-head of Migration in that district was injured, Caracol reported. Authorities also raised to 11 the number of soldiers killed on 22 May in an attack by Colombia's other guerrilla force the National Liberation Army (ELN), Caracol reported on 23 May. Separately, police and state investigators caught at an unspecified location a suspected member of the FARC's Tenth Front, the presumed guerrilla dubbed Sombrerón, Bogotá's Radio Santa Fe reported on 23 May. The detainee was suspected of involvement in gunfire attacks on police in the north-eastern district of Arauquita and on Navy ships, and in killings of policemen in unspecified incidents.

Armed locals infuriated by army arrests in western Mexico

While locals in the Tierra Caliente zone of the state of Michoacán in western Mexico have welcomed the arrival of federal forces to impose order in the crime-ridden state, tensions emerged on 22 May as self-defence groups or the "community police" of local residents fiercely resisted initial bids to disarm or disband them. Media reported that the arrest of four members of the self-defence group outside the district of Buenavista Tomatlán that day provoked a veritable little revolt, with hundreds marching out with machetes and sticks to block the road between Buenavista and nearbly Apatzingán. Here a standoff between the crowd and federal troops led to heckling and to 28 soldiers and a general being detained for hours until the four were released, Agence France-Presse and the daily Milenio reported on 23 May. In spite of the shouting and evident anger among locals, Milenio's correspondent observed that a measure of cordiality was restored when the soldiers were allowed to move later in the afternoon. The self-defence groups - which have emerged in other parts of Mexico - were a reaction in this part of Michoacán to the depredations and extortions of the cartel Caballeros templarios. France-Presse cited the Mexican interior minister Miguel Ángel Osorio Chong as saying on 22 May that with the army present people no longer had a reason to bear arms, and the army would detain those found armed without good reason. The local population clearly was not satisfied with such words; AFP cited an unnamed member of one local self-defence group as saying that locals expected the army to finish off the Caballeros templarios for good, and locals would even show them where these were "hiding." In another local district, Coalcomán, a "community policeman" told AFP that people had most recently formed the community police there as they were tired of paying extortion money to the templarios, and would remain on guard "until we see results." La Jornada reported on 23 May that army spies would be working in 11 districts of Michoacán in tandem with the deployment of troops; their objectives would be to help find and detain gang chiefs and check the veracity of reports of gangsters' deaths.

Adviser says Mexican Government reducing criminal violence

Óscar Naranjo, the former Colombian National Police chief now advising the Mexican Government on fighting crime, spoke on 21 May of a decline in murders related to organized crime in Mexico, apparently attributable to the actions of the government headed by Enrique Peña Nieto. General Naranjo was reported as saying in Bogotá that there was a 17-18 per cent drop in cartel-related murders since the Peña presidency began on 1 December 2012; he was apparently relying on figures given out by the Mexican interior ministry (Gobernación) and concluded that the Meixcan government was "beginning to respond in an effective manner to social-type phenomena," presumably meaning crime, La Jornada reported on 22 May. Naranjo said there were 4,249 homicides "presumably linked to organized crime" in the four months from 1 December 2012, 685 killings or 14 per cent less than the 4,934 killings of similar characteristics for the same period in 2011-12.

Mexican army said to have "restored order" in crime-ridden Michoacán

The daily Milenio reported on 22 May that five days sufficed for the army to impose a measure of peace and security to the violent state of Michoacán in western Mexico, where armed locals had in recent months faced off criminal gangs but also harrassed local authorities suspected to be collaborators with crime. The daily observed that in three districts, Buenavista Tomatlán, Tepalcatepec and Coalcomán, the army retored order without firing a shot, while no violence related to organized crime, "ordinary" murders, marches or protests were reported through 16-22 May. On 16 May the Mexican Government sent General Alberto Reyes Vaca to Michoacán where he was to be the state's Public Security Secretary, with extraordinary powers being drawn up to give him command of local and state police bodies as well as thousands of troops and federal policemen sent to Michoacán to stamp out crime. Certain mayors who had fled their districts as armed local stormed municipal buildings were considering returning to their offices. Locals were however cited as saying that while the self-defence groups would not interfere with army operations they would retain their arms, fearing the return of the cartels once soldiers leave. Mexico's interior minister, Miguel Ángel Osorio Chong, said in the state capital Morelia on 21 May that federal troops would remain in Michoacán until there was peace in the state, and vowed there would be no "ceasefire or pact with organised crime," La Jornada reported. He was speaking after a meeting of the federal Security Cabinet attended by senior officials including the provisional Governor of Michoacán Jesús Reyna García, the Prosecutor-General of the Republic Jesús Murillo Karam and the Navy and Defence ministers. Osorio said the Government would build a new army base in southern Michoacán and invest money in social programmes and training for the state's police forces. La Jornada separately reported on 22 May that the Government had sent 2,500 soldiers to the state in preceding days; these were to undertake a range of security-related tasks.

Army sent to fight crime in western Mexico

The Mexican government sent about 1,000 army and navy troops on 19 May to the worst parts of the crime-infested state of Michoacán, gripped in recent months by criminal violence and a state of near-war in parts between drug cartels and armed residents. The troops were sent to the sector called Zona Caliente where they were to patrol some of the most troubled districts, namely Buenavista Tomatlán, Coalcomán, Apatzingán and la Ruana; food and supplies had to be taken to districts that have effectively faced siege conditions from gangs in recent months, El Informador reported on 20 May. It observed that in several districts the local population had expelled local authorities including police suspected to be collaborating with crime. This may have been the case most recently with the district of Coalcomán where armed men almost lynched several municipal policemen. In La Ruana residents lined the main street into the town and cheered soldiers as they drove in, Milenio reported on 20 May. Supplies had to be taken to that town, which was described as besieged so far by the cartel Caballeros Templarios, reported to be reacting to townsmen's decision to arm against crime. The leader of the local "community police," Hipólito Mora, agreed to suspend street patrols and let soldiers take over security in La Ruana, but stressed his group would not disarm but resume patrols if and when troops leave, Milenio reported. Michoacán's provisional state governor Jesús Reyna described the arrival of troops on 19 or 20 May as intended to restore normality to the state, which he declared was not in a "state of war," Proceso cited him as saying. The daily Provincia reported separately on 21 May, citing unnamed military sources, that some 5,000 federal forces may have been sent to the state in recent days including soldiers, marines and federal policemen.

Colombian army shoots four guerrillas, Police dismantle drug gang in Bogotá

The army shot dead four fighters of the National Liberation Army (ELN) in an undated attack in the north-eastern department of Arauca, also detaining a suspected female guerrilla, Caracol radio reported on 15 May. The broadcaster cited sources from the Army's 16th Brigade as saying that the guerrillas were veterans from different ELN fronts, gathered in the unnamed locality to plan joint actions. The Colombian army and air force separately destroyed on 14 or 15 May a clandestine air strip and drug laboratory thought to belong to the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) in the eastern department of Vichada near Venezuela, the Ministry of Defence reported. Coca leaves and semi-processed substances at the laboratory were said turned over to "competent authorities" and destroyed on the spot. Authorities believe the installations tracked down in the district of Cumaribo belonged to Front 16 of the FARC; the report stated that the army had so far destroyed two air strips and 18 drug-processing laboratories thought run by the FARC in 2013. In Bogotá, police detained 12 suspected members of a drug-dealing and crime gang active in central Bogotá, estimated to have daily sold drugs worth the equivalent of some 2,700 USD, Caracol reported on 15 May, citing declarations by Bogotá's police chief Luis Martínez Guzmán. More arrests were expected in following weeks, the broadcaster stated.

Colombia catches gang suspects, Police count fewer Bogotá murders

The army caught nine suspected members of criminal gangs in operations in northern Colombia, including six suspected members of one of the main trafficking and killing outfits, the Urabeños, Caracol radio and the EFE agency reported on 13 May. The six suspected Urabeños were caught with firearms and hand grenades in a rural part of the district of Caucasia in the Antioquia department and were to be charged with illegal arms possession and trafficking. Two were identified by their pseudonyms El Fiscal and Finura and described as former paramilitaries. Troops separately caught in the district of Zaragoza three suspected members of another gang Héroes del Nordeste (North-east Heroes), including their purported chief in that district, EFE reported. In the capital Bogotá, police launched an operation on 8 May against mobile phone theft and street crime in which they detained six suspects including a purported head of a thieving gang active in one of the city's main avenues, the website of the Bogotá Government Secretary reported on 10 May. The detainee, a man dubbed Caricortado (Scarface), was described as a veteran thief of mobile phones and previously detained four times but later released for being underage. The city's Government Secretary who coordinates security policies, Guillermo Alfonso Jaramillo Martínez, said police were focusing on mobile thefts as killings had declined in Bogotá but persistent mobile thefts "generate a sense of insecurity among people." Police also confiscated 1,000 knives or sharp instruments and detained five suspected street dealers, the Government Secretary reported. The Bogotá police chief said police counted 380 homicides "so far this year," 76 cases less than the 456 homicides counted for the same period in 2012, Caracol radio reported on 13 May. General Luis Martínez Guzmán cited the neighbourhoods with most killings as Ciudad Bolívar and Usme in southern Bogotá and Bosa in the west.

Army extends firearms ban in Bogotá, shown to cut murder rate

The army extended through May a firearms ban imposed in the Colombian capital Bogotá at the mayor's request, which officials believed had led to a comparative reduction in homicides, the Bogotá city government reported on 2 May. The ban apparently in force from 1 February to 29 April 2013 affected civilians and legal entities and was renewed from midnight on 2 May to midnight on 30 July 2013; the first such ban was imposed from 1 February to 29 April 2012, the office of the city's Government Secretary coordinating security affairs reported. Figures seemingly indicated a link between banning guns and fewer homicides: there were 166 reported homicides using guns in Bogotá from 1 February to 29 April 2013, down from 196 for the same period in 2013, and in contrast with 232 homicides cited for 2011, presumably for the same three-month period that year when there was no ban. The report stated that in the February to late-April period, police caught 40 suspects in flagrante delicto and 212 whom courts had ordered detained in relation with homicides. Hundreds of guns were also confiscated or handed in since 2012, the municipality stated. The ban did no apply to the armed forces, members of the diplomatic corps, registered security personnel and officials of the judiciary. Separately, police said they had detained 1,466 people in Bogotá so far in 2013 for stealing mobile telephones or related devices, RCN La Radio reported on 7 May. Police most recently detained eight suspected of selling stolen mobile devices in the districts of Fontibón and Kennedy in south-western Bogotá; in all 3,940 stolen devices were recovered this year, RCN radio reported.

Colombian army kills FARC guerrillas, politician shot

Troops shot dead seven fighters of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) and arrested another in fighting on 4-5 May in the south-western Colombian department of Nariño, agencies reported, citing army declarations. The armed-forces commander for south-western Colombia General Leonardo Barrero Gordillo said the fighting was against the FARC's Front 29 in the locality of Leyva, on the frontier between the departments of Nariño and Cauca, Spain's EFE reported on 5 May. Barrero described this as the "fourth blow" this year against Front 29, which he said had lost 58 men in 2013 in deaths, arrests and desertions. In separate incidents a member of a Christian political party and a land claimant were killed in the northern departments of César and Antioquia. The Minister of Agriculture Juan Camilo Restrepo Salazar condemned on 5 May the killing that day of Iván Restrepo García, one of the many Colombians reclaiming properties from which they were expelled in past years, in areas of Colombia affected by conflict or insecurity. Land grabbers in such cases were generally suspected to be paramilitaries, gangsters or communist guerrillas. The government has begun a programme to restore such lands and Restrepo was reportedly registered as claimant to a plot of land in the Bello district in Antioquia. He was shot in his house there, in spite of unspecified protective measures given him by the state, RCN La Radio reported. The Minister wrote on the website Twitter that land restitution policies would continue "with determination" in spite of "sharpshooters" and "regardless of who the despoiler was," RCN radio reported. Unidentified gunmen also shot dead Gustavo Briceño, a member of MIRA (Movimiento Independiente de Renovación Absoluta), a small, independent party, at an unspecified date in Valledupar in César. Briceño was a pre-candidate for Senate elections in 2014, Agence France-Presse reported.

Colombian army shoots FARC guerrillas, talks scheduled with ELN rebels

Army planes bombed two camps of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) in north-eastern Colombia at an unspecified date, in operations that killed three rebels and led to the arrest of two female guerrillas including a FARC "dentist," El Espectador reported on 23 April. One of the detained was identified as the guerrilla dubbed Yulitza or La Tota, dentist to the FARC's Front 10 who was in the district of Tame in the Arauca department to give treatment to members of the Alfonso Castellanos mobile column. Arms, explosives and dentistry equipment were confiscated, the army said. The army shot dead five other FARC rebels in undated operations in the countryside of the Puerto Rico district in the southern Caquetá department, El Espectador reported on 22 April. One of the dead was identified as Jorge Parrilla, presumed deputy-chief and accountant of the Teófilo Forero column. The army stated it also caught four other suspects in the locality of Alto Carmelo, described as members of the FARC's "support networks" presumably in Caquetá. Colombian and FARC representatives reportedly began their eighth round of peace talks in Havana on 23 April, while the government was expected to begin a similar process of talks in mid-May with the ELN (Ejército de Liberación Nacional), the other communist rebel group in Colombia, El Espectador reported on 22 April. This followed weeks or months of informal contacts and expressions of interest on both parts, and would also take place in Havana. Each side was to have five negotiators, El Espectador reported on 22 April.

Businessman shot dead outside general's house in Honduras

A businessman was shot dead in his car in Tegucicalpa on 12 April, outside the home of the head of Armed Forces Joint Command René Osorio Canales, Honduran media reported. The victim was identified as the owner of a chain of motels in the capital, and his killers chased him by car to the spot where he was shot repeatedly, the website Proceso Digital reported. This was one of the homicides most recently reported around the country, many or most of which appeared to be executions. Other victims of crime included a three-year old boy shot dead by a stray bullet from a shootout between police and criminals in the northern city of San Pedro Sula, and two boys aged 15 and 22 years, dragged from their homes outside the capital, blindfolded and shot, Proceso Digital reported. The bodies of three executed men were also found in plastic bags in San Pedro Sula on 9 April; two of them were tattooed and all three were strangled to death, La Prensa cited coroners as saying. The report did not specify if the tattoos indicated the victims' affiliation to a gang. On average 20 people were thought to have died daily in criminal incidents in Honduras in the first three months of 2013, Proceso Digital reported, citing the Observatorio de Violencia affiliated to the National Autonomous University of Honduras.

Oil firm's helicopter crashes in Peru, 13 killed

Thirteen passengers and pilots were killed when a helicopter exploded and crashed in northern Peru on 7 April, Europa Press reported. The craft belonged to an oil company, Perenco, which helped authorities look for survivors. There were none. Witnesses were cited as saying that the helicopter exploded in the air and crashed 10 minutes before landing at the company's base, in the department of Loreto, the daily Correo reported on 7 April. Mechanical failure was blamed provisionally as investigations continued, La Republica reported. Separately a soldier was killed and another injured in a "terrorist attack" on 5 April on an army base near the town of Kiteni in the central department of Cuzco, the army declared. An army communiqué accused "sharpshooters from terrorist elements" of killing a sergeant and injuring a petty officer in an attack it qualified as a response to "actions the Government has undertaken in the zone," Europa Press reported. The army maintains anti-terrorism bases in this area, the setting for the activities of traffickers and communist guerrillas of the Shining Path, which authorities seemed to blame for the killing. The victim was a young recruit who recently joined the army after finishing his military service, La Razón reported. It cited a former head of the armed forces Joint Command Admiral Jorge Montoya Manrique, as calling for more military resources to end the rebellion of the Shining Path, notorious in the 1980s for its brutality. He said troops needed better equipment to "avoid more misfortunes...this country needs troops and to improve its security they need more and better resources." On 6 April the head of the Armed Forces Joint Command Admiral José Cueto Aservi said there could be more attacks on anti-terrorism bases in the province of La Convención where the killing occurred, La Razón reported. "I hope people understand we are in a war zone. They hide to attack. It is a very difficult zone, which they know better. They murder and withdraw into the hills inside the jungle" he said, referring to guerrillas or drug traffickers.

Colombian soldiers, guerrillas killed in fighting

Three Colombian soldiers died and three were injured on 6 or 7 April in gun battles with the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) in the southern department of Caquetá. Fighting was said continuing in the district of Milán on 7 April with guerrillas of fronts 15 and 49 of the FARC's Southern Block, RCN La Radio reported. The broadcaster Caracol described Milán is one of the districts of southern Colombian with the highest concentration of FARC fighters. In northern Colombia the army shot dead four FARC fighters including a local commander, during anti-drugs operations on 7 April near Panama's frontier, Europa Press reported, citing El Tiempo. The casualties included the deputy-head of Front 57 - James or el Chacal - and a veteran telecommunications operator dubbed Verónica; troops and police also detained two suspected guerrillas in the operations in the Darién section of the Chocó department, and confiscated arms, ammunition and equipment. The army considers Front 57 to be mainly engaged in arms and drug trafficking for the FARC, the agency reported. The FARC separately named in a communiqué four new members of their team negotiating a possible peace with Colombian representatives in Cuba. These were the head of the Western Block Jorge Torres Victoria or Pablo Catatumbo, and three guerrillas named or dubbed Freddy González, Lucas Carvajal and Victoria Sandino Palmera. They were allowed to fly out of Colombia with a suspension on 6 April of army operations in the southern Cauca department and perhaps elsewhere. Colombian media earlier named another possible addition to the FARC team, namely the head of the Southern Block - a guerrilla dubbed Fabián Ramírez - though this was yet to be confirmed, Europa Press reported on 6 April.