Salvadorean police chief blames rising violence on gang fights, in-fighting

The National Police chief of El Salvador has blamed gang rivalries for a nationwide increase in violence that has recently taken the country's homicide rate to 10 a day, up from the 5-7 officials boasted had become a norm after a ceasefire criminal gangs ostensibly began in March 2012. Rigoberto Pleités said police counted 113 homicides in the first 12 days of August compared to 69 for the same days in 2012, and attributed the rise to territorial fights between the gangs and to internal fighting, El Salvador's El Mundo reported on 13 August. The daily observed that the Police chief would not comment on recent speculations about whether or not the gangs were still abiding by their ceasefire and commitment to gradually end violent crime. "The ceasefire...is not an issue for the police. We have always considered that if two or more groups are fighting and make a non-aggression pact, then obviously that reduces homicide numbers," he said. The police chief said he was not informed of a document reportedly issued by the World Health Organisation classifying El Salvador as the country with the second highest murder rate after Honduras. Salvadorean media reported on the document but it was not immediately clear when it was issued. The list issued by the United Nations agency counted 69.2 homicides per 100,000 inhabitants in El Salvador, and 91.6/100,000 in Honduras, elsalvador.com reported on 12 August; it was not immediately clear if this rate was for 2012 or the first half of 2013. El Salvador's director of public prosecutions (Fiscal-General) Luis Martínez was separately cited as repeating his earlier position that the gangs' ceasefire was "hypocritical" and pledging that state prosecutors would continue their fight against crime, El Mundo reported on 13 August.

Chief prosecutor of Honduras resigns

The head of the state prosecution service in Honduras and his deputy resigned on 25 June, apparently for their inability to cope with widespread crime and ahead of a parliamentary initiative to have the chief prosecutor sacked, media reported. Luis Alberto Rubí, the state's ranking prosecutor (Fiscal-General) and head of the Public Ministry that investigates and prosecutes crimes on the state's behalf, resigned as a parliamentary commission investigating the Public Ministry recommended an impeachment initiative that day, Agence France-Presse and local media reported on 27 June. His term was to end in May 2014, and he stated in his resignation letter to parliament that he was satisfied he had done his duty, which included "maintaining the rule of law and the Public Ministry's autonomy." The deputy-chief prosecutor Roy Urtecho López also resigned "to avoid a crisis in Honduras," AFP reported. The parliamentary security affairs committee earlier attributed to Mr Rubí a range of shortcomings including a "serious failure" to carry out his duties, lack of coordination with other judicial bodies and "inadequate administration" of budgets allocated to the prosecution service, the daily La Tribuna reported on 25 June. An Intervening Committee (Comisión interventora) was apparently the body that informed parliament earlier in June of budget anomalies in the Public Ministry; that committee was to administer the Public Ministry provisionally to the end of July and parliament was not immediaetly voting to appoint a new chief prosecutor and deputy-prosecutor, El Heraldo reported on 28 June. On 26 June, President Porfirio Lobo Sosa insisted while speaking on television that crime was falling in Honduras and the Governmet had the technology now to fight extortion, one of the country's most widespread and oppressive practices, La Prensa reported. The President listed some of the actions taken against crime, including sending the army onto the streets in several districts in the framework of Operation Liberty (Operación Libertad), which began in April 2013.

Honduran convicts donate beds to elderly home, in seeming peace gesture

Jailed members of the Mara Salvatrucha, one of the main killing and extortion gangs in Honduras, donated 50 wooden beds they had made to an old people's home in the northern city of San Pedro Sula where they were jailed, the daily El Heraldo reported on 18 June. The Auxiliary Bishop of San Pedro Sula interpreted the donation as a sign of the gangsters' goodwill and desire to change lives, following earlier public declarations that they would abandon crime. Monsignor Rómulo Emiliani, who was acting as mediator in an incipient ceasefire between this and the rival Barrio 18 gang, accompanied the inmates as they delivered the beds to the home where they themselves were said to have elderly relatives. The newspaper cited an unnamed member of the 18 gang as thanking God "as He is always first in these situations," then the bishop for his "support and faith," and stating the gang's desire to show Hondurans "we want real changes in Honduras," one of the continent's most violent states. He said his gang would, at some point, take part in all "social causes" where given an opportunity. The cleric was separately cited as saying that while President Porfirio Lobo had phoned to express support for the planned ceasefire, the state had done nothing specific yet to forward a peace plan. Nor had criminal violence stopped in Honduras in spite of contrary assertions, as recent incidents indicated. A member of the presidential guard was shot dead in Comayagüela north of the capital Tegucicalpa on 17 or 18 June, while driving home with his wife and child, La Prensa and EFE news agency reported. In San Pedro Sula, a 26-year-old bus driver's assistant was shot dead by a thief, after the assistant refused to let him flee from the bus, La Prensa reported on 18 June. Three prisoners and a woman were also shot dead in the capital on 15 June, apparently while the inmates were on leave; they were said to have been shot by a five-member execution squad firing assault weapons, La Prensa reported on 16 June.

Salvadorean mediators to advise Honduras on gangs ceasefire

To help realise the pledge made last May by the two main street gangs in Honduras to abandon crime, mediators of a gangs ceasefire in El Salvador and representatives of the Organisation of American States (OAS) met and talked on 17 June with gang members and Honduran mediators, in what seemed to be a first concrete step to ensure the ceasefire took off in Honduras, the Associated Press reported. An OAS official Ana Martínez told the agency that a meeting held in a prison in the city of San Pedro Sula in northern Honduras was to establish a code of practice and make personal contacts, and took place with the knowledge of Honduran officials. The Auxiliary Bishop of San Pedro Sula, Rómulo Emiliani, who is to act as mediator in what was hoped would become a disarmament and pacification process involving Honduran gangs, was cited as saying that Salvadorean mediators had come to "specifically" back "this effort, transmit to us their experiences and offer their support, always bearing in mind that the context of violence in Honduras" differed from El Salvador's. A spokesman for the Barrio 18 gang who attended the meeting was cited as claiming that homicides had dropped 80 per cent in Honduras since the gangs announced a ceasefire in late May; he added however that "the situation" was "complicated" as police "continue to murder us. They do not arrest us they execute us," AP reported. The agency observed it was impossible to verify whether or not homicides had declined in Honduras in recent weeks.

Gang killings continue in Honduras in spite of pledge to stop

Although the gangs of Honduras pledged last May to end their violent acts, raising hopes that crime could drop in Honduras as it has in neighbouring El Salvador, recent killings attributed to street gangs indicated they had yet to act on their stated intentions. One recent victim of gang criminality was a 31-year-old man shot on 9 June outside the northern city of San Pedro Sula, after he refused to hand over his house to a gang. Relatives of Cristhian Fajardo Sánchez fled the family home after one of the gangs told them they needed the property, but neighbours were cited as saying that he refused to leave - living there in a state of fear and locking himself in every evening after returning from work in a bottling plant, the Honduran daily La Prensa reported on 10 June. Three gunmen reportedly shot him as he walked to work one morning; witnesses said they were waiting for him at a street corner and shot him as he sought to walk past and ignore them. It was not immediately which of the gangs killed him, as he was reported shot on the frontier of the territories of the Mara Salvatrucha and M-18 gangs. In other incidents: the head of the state electricity firm ENEE for the northern city of Progreso was shot there on 11 June as he sought to enter a taxi, and a 63-old-woman was gunned down in Tegucicalpa on 9 June, apparently while cleaning the Protestant church she attended. The killing was attributed to an execution squad of 12 Maras, and police suspected this may have been for the victim's earlier efforts as head of a residents' association to reopen an abandoned police post in her neighbourhood, La Prensa reported. The daily also reported the shooting deaths of a Guatemalan couple while driving in Choloma in the northern department of Cortés, and of two taxi drivers in San Pedro Sula and Tegucicalpa on 9 June.

Honduran gangs offer to stop violence, lead ordinary lives

Leaders of the two main criminal gangs in Honduras - Mara Salvatrucha or MS13 and the Barrio 18 or M18 - publicly apologised on 28 May for any harm their groups had done to Honduran society and asked the state to help them move on from a life of crime, in a step echoing the gangs' ceasefire in El Salvador that has reduced violent crime there since March 2012. Honduras is currently one of the most violent countries in the world and authorities recently admitted its police and judiciary could barely cope with criminality. Gang spokesmen stated their resolve on 28 May to end this violence, at a press conference organised in prison in the northern city of San Pedro Sula, attended also by the two chief mediators, the Auxiliary Bishop of San Pedro Sula, Rómulo Emiliani, and the Secretary of Multidimentional Security at the Organization of American States (OAS) Adam Blackwell. According to the Honduran website Proceso Digital the ceasefire consisted for now in a total end to criminal violence across the country but not to extortions, which remained as elsewhere in Central America the chief source of money for such gangs. The Maras also pledged they would suspend recruitments, La Prensa reported. Reasons given by spokesmen for the apparent contrition or change of heart included the state's retaliatory violence against gang members and their relatives, the Maras' social ostracism and deplorable reputation and a desire to offer their children a better life. Honduran President Porfirio Lobo was cited as saying the state would give all necessary support to the ceasefire and the "efforts" being made by mediators. He said he spoke by telephone on 27 May to the Auxiliary Bishop who warned him the ceasefire would not be easy to maintain; but Mr Lobo stated his belief that the ceasefire was "for the best," even if the state did not envisage abandoning its capacity to fight crime with force, Europa Press reported on 29 May, citing the President's comments to the press in Tegucicalpa.

Councillor, pensioner, farmers reported killed in Honduras

A municipal councillor of the district of Cucuyagua in western Honduras was shot dead in his car there early on 18 May, as he was about to drive to work. His assassins may have been three individuals said later to have burned and abandoned a car nearby, El Heraldo reported, citing declarations by the police and witnesses. A day before gunmen shot dead a retired company director in the northern city of San Pedro Sula; César Aguilar was killed in his car at a crossing, when a gunman approached from a motorcycle and fired before he could set his car in motion, La Prensa reported. His wife told police Aguilar must have been shot by mistake, as he was in "no trouble" with anyone. In the northern department of Cortés, two peasants were shot dead by security guards on 17 May, as local farmers sought to invade a private estate in the district of San Manuel. The guards were said to have opened fire when a crowd armed with machetes, sticks and stones sought to enter a sugar-cane plantation, La Prensa reported. At least six others were reported killed on 16 and 17 May, including two youngsters shot dead in the capital Tegucicalpa and a 25-year-old policeman shot in his house, also in Tegucicalpa. Witnesses were cited as saying that the three assassins were seen "calmly" leaving the house after shooting the victim while he ate, La Prensa reported. A man's body was left on the street in Comayagüela next to the capital early on 18 May; he was bound with tape and a message stuck to him suggested he had been an extortionist, El Heraldo reported. "For the famous tax," it read, likely referring to the "tax" he may have forced people to pay him.

Extortion rife in Honduras as government "fails" on security

The Honduran daily La Prensa reported on 7 May on the apparent ease with which street gangs extort money from thousands of businesses and individuals in Honduras - even the Church - raking in the equivalent of over 62 million USD or over 47 million euros a year to finance their organizations. It observed in a separate report on 6 May that certain observers estimated extortion could be earning the gangs twice that amount annually, though this was difficult to measure as most acts of extortion went unreported. Those forced to pay include bus drivers, taxi drivers, shopkeepers, owners of stalls and kiosks and businessmen from whom money was demanded in person or by phone; money was paid in forms including cash, bank transfers and re-charged mobile phones. In Tegucicalpa, members of the Mara gangs were said to collect money in the capital's 16 covered food and grocery markets, and in bus and taxi stops and small shopping centres. In the northern city of San Pedro Sula - one of the most violent cities in the Americas - likewise "all taxi and bus stops" pay, the daily observed. The country formed a National Anti-Extortion Force (Fuerza Nacional Antiextorsión) in March 2013, but the daily observed many individuals did not report extortion, fearing reprisals from gangsters who might or might not be caught and punished. La Prensa cited a driver from San Pedro Sula as saying that "members of the Maras and gangsters have killed hundreds of bus drivers, assistants and taxi drivers since 2009. We do not report because you do not know if the person you are reporting to is part of the extortion or a hired killer." A study cited claimed that some 17,500 small businesses closed in 2012 under the pressure of extortion, La Prensa reported on 6 May. Separately a coalition of Honduran rights bodies concluded on 7 May that the government of President Porfirio Lobo Sosa had failed to assure public security since taking power in 2010, in spite of its pledges, actions and claims. The Human Rights Alliance (Alianza por los Derechos Humanos) including several rights bodies held a press conference that day and issued a communiqué to denounce this failure, but also the alleged complicity of certain officials, which assured the impunity of criminals, EFE reported.

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.

Chief prosecutor says Honduras overwhelmed by crimes

The head of the state prosecution service in Honduras (Fiscalía-General) told parliament on 10 April that 80 per cent of homicides went unpunished as the state was unable to investigate them all, while one of the country's crime observers said over 80 per cent of those killed in Honduras were shot dead. The chief prosecutor of Honduras Luis Rubí told Congress "the country is not prepared for this criminal wave and is totally overwhelmed. Investigating organs do not have the capacity to respond...we are faced with an 80-per-cent impunity in Honduras," the daily El Heraldo reported. Rubí was one of several officials summoned to parliament to account for the country's exceedingly high crime rates. Others who appeared were the Security Minister Pompeyo Bonilla, the national police chief Juan Carlos Bonilla and the jurist Eduardo Villanueva, a presidential appointee tasked with coordinating the purging of the police force of corrupt or criminal elements. Police chief Bonilla said investigations were "in a state of collapse." Separately 70-80 senior police officials including Bonilla may sit through confidence tests applied to other policemen in recent months, as part of President Porfirio Lobo's police purge and after Police agreed their chiefs should take the tests, El Heraldo reported on 11 April. The daily cited the jurist Villanueva as saying that the tests were being planned and could begin in a month. One of the country's crime and rights observer bodies separately revealed in a recent report that 84 per cent of homicides in Honduras were caused by firearms and that someone was shot dead there every 87 minutes, El Heraldo reported on 9 April. The National Commission for Human Rights (Conadeh, Comisionado Nacional de Derechos Humanos) urged legislation and effective mechanisms to reduce more than 650,000 illegal firearms it estimated were circulating in the country. The Conadeh's report counted 20,515 violent deaths in Honduras in the 2010-12 period, presumably from the start of 2010 to the end of 2012, of whom 17,190 were shot to death.

Farmers denounce suspect killings in Honduras

A land activist in Honduras warned on 19 February that killings of farmers and "repression" would not "silence peasants but sharpen the conflict for land" there, speaking after the latest killings of two farmers, one the brother of a lawyer shot in September 2012, the Associated Press reported. The promotion of commercial farming in the Lower Aguán zone in northern Honduras has provoked an ongoing conflict between the local peasantry and commercial farming concerns. Rafael Alegría told AP in Tegucicalpa that nine peasants had been killed in the Aguán valley in 2013 and more than 89 "in the past two years." The latest were Santos Cartagena and José Trejo, killed in the department of Colón on 16 February. Trejo was a cooperative farmer and member of MARCA (Movimiento Reivindicador Campesino del Aguan), one of several groups defending peasants' rights and interests. His brother Antonio Trejo, a lawyer who defended activists, was shot in late September. Cartagena was in the United Peasant Movement of Aguán MUCA (Movimiento Unificado Campesino de Aguán); both were apparently killed in and around the district of Tocoa. AP reported that a court recently confirmed Trejo's MARCA movement as owners of the San Isidro Cooperative, formerly controlled by one of the country's main landowners, Miguel Facussé. His name seems to appear and recur in media when assassinations occur but he has in the past rejected allegations of any involvement in acts of violence. On 20 February four peasant associations issued a communiqué denouncing the government's land policies and observing that recent killings closely followed peasants' recuperation of two estates on 17 February. The associations blamed the conflict on previous governments' land reform legislation of the 1990s and to the present parliament's eagerness to hand over "our country's most productive regions" to foreign investors by designating them as Development Regions.

Mexican, Honduran cities top homicides ranking

The Citizens' Council for Public Security and Penal Justice (Consejo Ciudadano para la Seguridad Pública y Justicia Penal), an independent crime-and-rights observer body in Mexico, published its 2012 list of cities with the highest murder rates; as in previous years, Latin American cities retained their preeminence in spite of "jostling" among them. San Pedro Sula in northern Honduras remained, according to figures obtained, the most murderous city in the world in 2012 with a homicide rate of 169.3 homicides per 100,000 inhabitants. Acapulco on Mexico's western coast was the second city for homicides, with a rate of just under 143/100,000 inhabitants, the Council found. Its ranking for 2012 included:

3 - Caracas, Venezuela with 118.89 homicides/100,000 inhabitants,
4 - Tegucicalpa/capital district of Honduras, 101.99/100,000
5 - Torreón in northern Mexico 94.72
6 - Maceió in Brazil 85.88
7 - Cali, Colombia 79.27
8 - Nuevo Laredo in north-eastern Mexico 72.85
9 - Barquisimeto, Venezuela 71.74
12 - Guatemala City, 67.36
15 - Culiacán in north-western Mexico, 62.06
18 - Cuernavaca, central Mexico, 56.08
19 - Ciudad Juárez, northern Mexico, 55.91
20 - Ciudad Guyana, Venezuela, 55.03
21 - Detroit, United States, 54.63
22 - Cúcuta, north-eastern Colombia, 54.29
24 - Medellín, Colombia, 49.1
32 - Chihuahua in northern Mexico, 43.49
33 - San Juan, Puerto Rico, 43.25
35 - Port au Prince, Haiti, 40.1
36 - Ciudad Victoria in north-eastern Mexico, 37.78
44 - San Salvador, El Salvador, 32.48
47 - Monterrey, northern Mexico, 30.85
50 - Barranquilla, northern Colombia, 29.41.

The Consejo observed that several cities had lowered murder rates enough to drop out of the top 50, including Tijuana in northern Mexico and the eastern Mexican port of Veracruz, but also Panama City. Ciudad Juárez dropped almost 20 positions from its position near the top in 2011, and San Salvador had also improved from a rate of 59/100,000 in 2011 to a little over 32 - all these based on official or available figures used to compile the table as the Consejo cautioned. Its website stated that authorities in San Pedro Sula had complained about the negative image the ranking was giving the city and alleged the figures cited were mistaken, but it responded that the ranking was based "on official figures and regarding the effect of the ranking, which merely recognize reality, that is not what harms the city's image but its violence and rulers' inability to contain and reduce it. Hiding problems never solves them." The mayor of Acapulco, which came second in 2012, said "it is quite deplorable that we should be in this stituation...I've seen the note. It pains me that it should be so," Proceso reported on 7 February.

Deputy-mayor, city official shot dead in Honduras

Gunmen shot dead the deputy-mayor of La Ceiba on the Caribbean coast of Honduras on 29 January, the police reported. Authorities were investigating the motives for the killing of Ángel Salinas, Guatemala's Prensa Libre reported. Dailies noted that three mayors were killed before Salinas in the period from June 2012. These were the mayor of La Labor in the western Ocotepeque department, killed on 18 June, the mayor of Dolores in Ocotepeque, killed on 4 December and the mayor of the central town of Esquías, gunned down with three others on 19 January, Proceso Digital reported  Another municipal official gunned down on 28 January was identified as the head of Purchases and Supplies for the municipality of El Progreso in the department of Yoro. José Rolando Girón Mirada was executed apparently soon after he left his home to go to work, in spite of pleading for mercy while clutching a Bible, Tiempo reported, citing witnesses. Three people including a 12-year-old were separately shot dead on 29 January in the districts of Choloma and Villanueva in the northern department of Cortés, La Prensa reported, while three were reported killed in Tegucicalpa on the night of 28-29 January. One was a taxi driver who had failed to pay extortion money, Tiempo reported.

Homicides continued unchecked in Honduras in 2012

Honduras remained one of the world's most murderous countries in 2012 as its homicide rate remained steady and very high over 2011-12, a university-related body found; observers expressed disappointment at the government's apparent failure to curb violent crime. Expressed as a rate per 100,000 inhabitants, homicides declined slightly from 86.5 in 2011 to 85.5 in 2012, according to a table compiled on 16 January by the Observatorio de la Violencia, a body affiliated to the National Autonomous University of Honduras (UNAH). This may have been for a population increase, for homicides increased in this period from 7,014 to 7,172, El Heraldo reported, citing the Observatorio. There were slight differences with figures earlier reported for 2011. El Heraldo observed that the rate rose some 20 points in the presidency of Porfirio Lobo Sosa, a conservative who took office on 27 January 2010, from a rate then of 66.8/100,000. Presumably based on the Observatorio's accumulated figures, it counted 20,513 violent deaths over 1,095 days of the current presidency. Cited in terms of its daily frequency, the homicide rate in 2012 was 19.65 - meaning almost 20 people were killed around Honduras each day - compared to 19.47 for 2011. The daily also noted: the vast majority of such fatalities in 2012 - 6,565 - was among men while more than a quarter of all reported homicides since January 2010 occurred in the northern department of Cortés. The departmental capital San Pedro Sula is reported as one of the most violent cities in the world. The government's anti-crime measures have included placing security cameras around the capital, and moves to purge the police force of corrupt or criminal members.

President insists security improving in Honduras

President Porfirio Lobo Sosa has insisted that security in Honduras, one of the world's most violent countries, had improved in spite of assertions to the contrary by domestic and foreign observers, the daily La Prensa reported on 16 January. He told pressmen in the capital Tegucicalpa that "everyone feels" security had improved in Honduras even if "there will always be problems," adding that curbing crime was not in any case the task of government. He said he hoped the next government would "keep going, keep working on the security theme and the citizenry has to participate too, everyone must make an effort." He contradicted comments made earlier by his Security Minister Pompeyo Bonilla Reyes who told a local radio station that 800 security cameras placed around the capital had stopped working as authorities owed the equivalent of some five million USD to the firm operating the cameras. Bonilla reportedly declared that the police radio-communication system was also about to be cut off; Lobo dismissed his comments as "a bit dramatic" and said the relevant firm had not "turned off" the capital's security cameras. The government was seeking ways to pay the firm's money, Lobo said. Some of Bonilla's comments were reported by the daily La Tribuna; he was cited as saying that cameras stopped working in early January, and blamed this on the government's cash shortage. According to La Prensa the government had a shortfall in revenues and state employees or some state employees in the health and education ministries but also the armed forces were not paid last December. It reported on 3 January that only about one tenth of a security tax imposed in 2012 to finance policing and security had been spent. The state collected some 857 million Honduran Lempiras (HNL), a little under USD 43 million, between April and 27 December 2012 but only about HNL 80 million had been spent so far, this by the Security Ministry. The tax brought in HNL 90 million in December alone, La Prensa reported. It cited the compaints of members of the business community dissatisfied with paying the tax as well as considerable amounts on private security.

Officials see fall in murders, extortion in El Salvador

The office of the Prosecutor-General of El Salvador issued a report on 27 December observing a dramatic fall in reported murders and extortions in 2012, attributed in the former case to a truce between gangs that began in March and to police action. The head of the Anti-homicide Unit at the prosecutor-general's office Oscar Torres told the press that day that there were 2,517 registered homicides in the country from 1 January to 19 December, 1,728 cases less than in the same period in 2011, El Salvador's El Mundo reported the next day. Torres said that 2,573 arrest warrants against murder suspects had led to 1,703 arrests and ultimately, to 922 convictions. The officer dealing with extortions at prosecutor-general's office, Allan Hernández, separately cited a 10 per cent drop in reported cases of extortion, presumably in the same period, and a 40-per-cent increase in related convictions. He said however there were no figures or any "real documented form" to show a direct link between this and the gangs' ceasefire. Salvadorean authorities have in recent months expressed satisfaction at the apparent fall in violent crime in the country even though certain critics intermittently insist many crimes go unreported. The recent homicide figures were deplorable compared to those of Costa Rica, where the local Red Cross reportedly counted 211 killings in 2012. But they were better than those of the most crime-ridden Latin American states like Venezuela or Honduras where 50 or so were reported killed over Christmas. No killings were apparently reported during the 22-30 December period in El Salvador, with police counting 33 deaths in car crashes or drownings.

Over 50 killed in Honduras over Christmas

Over 50 people were reported killed in violent incidents across Honduras on Christmas Eve, while the capital's Escuela hospital received a steady stream of injuries from guns, knives and machetes, agencies and press reported citing police and hospital sources. A police spokesman told EFE agency that 30 were known to have died in acts of violence on 24 December and 11 in car accidents, while remaining deaths were to be investigated. Forty four people were admitted to the emergencies wing of the Escuela hospital in Tegucicalpa between Christmas Eve and midday on Christmas Day, El Heraldo reported on 26 December, observing that most were effectively drunk. Among them 28 had been injured by handguns and 16 by knives or machetes. La Prensa cited police as counting 52 violent deaths and 73 injuries across the country, though it was not immediately clear if this included part of Christmas Day. Of the victims of crimes, 24 died in San Pedro Sula and its environs, La Prensa reported on 25 December. One of these was the lawyer Juan Antonio Romero Rodríguez, shot in San Pedro on 24 September by two men who stopped his car. The website Proceso Digital observed this was the second killing of a lawyer in recent days, in a country where lawyers are frequently targetted for elimination. It reported the killing on 20 or 21 December of the lawyer José Ramon Logos and a client in the northern city of El Progreso, both shot as they left a courtroom.

Honduran magistrates denounce "illegal" destitution

Four members of the Constitutional Court of Honduras dismissed by parliament on 12 December denounced the move as "totally illegitimate, illegal and unjust" and violating the separation of powers, adding they would consider their legal options, the Honduran daily El Heraldo reported. The four read out a joint communiqué to the press in Tegucicalpa on the afternoon of 12 December declaring that their dismissal "obviously follows political not juridical reasons," and defended their earlier rulings as legal and reasoned. Parliament and the government made a ruling issued in November by the magistrates, which declared unconstitutional parts of the government's drive to purge the police force of corrupt officers, the basis of moves to dismiss the judges. The Speaker of the National Congress or parliament Juan Orlando Hernández said the destitution had been "traumatic" but not politically motivated; the move he added was with the backing of the President Porfirio Lobo Sosa and the head of the judiciary and president of the Supreme Court Jorge Rivera Avilés, El Heraldo reported. He said "we discussed it with the President...and reached the consensus that it was necessary for the good of the country," while Rivera began to contact possible successors before the destitution process. President Lobo was separately reported as saying on 12 December that he would in following days convene the heads of the legislature and judiciary and other key political figures to initiate an "ample and open" dialogue intended to find a collaborative solution to the crisis.

Honduran parliament sacks four judges

Doubts were publicly voiced in Honduras about the legality of a parliamentary vote on 12 December dismissing four members of the Constitutional Court, a part of the Supreme Court of Honduras. The move was related to the court's ruling on 27 November that "confidence" tests being carried out on police personnel were unconstitutional, although the entire Supreme Court was to meet on 12 December to deliberate on that ruling. The jurists dismissed were those who had ruled against the tests, while a fifth member who had not remained in his position. The ruling had angered President Porfirio Lobo and his allies who have defended a government decree to purge police of corrupt elements as a key component of the state's drive against crime. The daily El Heraldo observed that Lobo had reportedly consulted with the parliamentary speaker Juan Orlando Hernández Alvarado and members of the presidium before parliament debated the dismissal. On 10 December parliament voted that an eight-member committee examine the "administrative conduct" of the four jurists and these, apparently very swiftly, drafted a report justifying a second motion to dismiss them. Parliament debated that after one in the morning on 12 December, and the motion was approved by 97 legislators with 31 votes against. The Speaker defended the motion at the pre-dawn session: "Security is the Honduran people's main concern. What we have detected is worrying, it is practically a conspiracy and we are obliged to debate the subject...this wave of crime cannot continue; while some are working others are conspiring." He did not elaborate on the conspirators but they were presumably those obstructing the president's anti-crime measures. To those who said parliament was meddling with the judiciary's prerogatives, he said parliament had already voted to dimiss magistrates before, as it had in 2009 the president of Honduras. Four new magistrates were appointed after the vote, for a term running to 2018. They were on a list of 45 nominees for membership of the Supreme Court drawn up in 2009, El Heraldo reported.

Honduran president denounces "press plot"

Honduran President Porfirio Lobo Sosa denounced on 7 December two newspapers for allegedly colluding with judges against him, and accused them of plotting to have him dismissed before his term expires in 2014 after they published declarations critical of his government. "There is a conspiracy, see the El Heraldo newspaper and La Prensa today and yesterday...what they are doing is dangerous for this nation and is going to create a problem for us," similar he claimed to his Leftist predecessor Manuel Zelaya's overthrow in 2009. He was speaking at a military academy in Tegucicalpa. He said he knew "who is gathering, where they are meeting and what they are doing," and named the dailies' owner Jorge Canahuati Larach as implicitly involved in unspecified machinations, El Heraldo reported. Canahuati is one of the country's prominent businessmen. Lobo was reacting to the publication on 5 December of statements by Supreme-Court judges denouncing his "attacks" on judicial independence and specifically its deliberations on a bill to purge the police of corrupt elements with confidence tests. The Supreme Court was to decide whether or not subjecting policemen to such tests was constitutional. Lobo publicly wondered on 4 December if judges were "on the side of delinquents or of honourable people in this country," prompting a rebuke by judges published in dailies. El Heraldo observed that several dailies published the judges' statements but Lobo had inexplicably focused on El Heraldo and La Prensa. Opsa, the group which owns the two papers, rejected the president's accusations in a communiqué. Former president Zelaya reacted in turn, saying both sides had a point and "should be listened to," the website Proceso Digital reported. He said Lobo believed judges were impeding his bid to cleanse the police while the Court's "juridical rationale" had to be considered. The lie detector he said, "cannot be the only element for dismissing a policeman." The head of the armed forces joint command also warned on 7 December that the armed forces would not "permit a political game to play with the country's democracy," El Heraldo reported. René Osorio Canales told the press in the capital that "nobody is thinking of a coup," which he said could not happen without the army's participation. The army he said would not allow "an interested group to create disorder and chaos in the country. On the contrary we are here to foment democracy and show solidarity with the President."