Colombian forces arrest guerrilla, mobster, dozens more over drugs

Colombian police detained 17 suspected drug traffickers around northern Colombia including a "police inspector" of the coastal district of Maicao who ensured drugs were received there and shipped onto Central America, Caracol radio reported on 2 November, citing the EFE agency. The 17 were suspected members of a group charged with shipping out drugs produced by gangs in several northern departments of Colombia; police detained 13 other members of the group in six months of investigations before the arrests. In the south-western port district of Buenaventura, Police arrested 11 suspected members of the Urabeños, one of Colombia's main gangs, including several described as "minors," Caracol radio reported on 2 November. The Army reported on 3 November the detention at unspecified dates of five individuals in different departments, most for carrying drugs, and of a captain of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) in the southern department of Guaviare. The latter, a fighter dubbed Ycape, was described as in charge of FARC "financing" in Guaviare and one of the organisers of FARC drug production and sales in several southern departments. Police and Navy troops separately caught at an unspecified date a man identified as the main drug trafficker of the Caribbean islands of San Andrés and Providencia; he would likely be extradited to the United States where he was convicted on drug charges in 2009, El Colombiano reported on 3 November, citing the Colprensa agency. The detained, a man dubbed el Mono Lever, fled in 2002 from a Mexican prison where he was serving a 13-year sentence for trafficking.

Right-wing party picks candidate against Colombian President

The party formed around the conservative convictions and political aspirations of Colombia's former president Álvaro Uribe Vélez, Uribe Centro Democrático, chose on 26 October the former finance minister Óscar Iván Zuluaga Escobar as its presidential candidate for 2014. Mr Zuluaga will compete with President Juan Manuel Santos Calderón should he run again for office. Speakers at the Democratic Centre's convention were critical of various aspects of the Government but Mr Uribe and his allies have in recent months been vociferous when denouncing its peace talks with the communist Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), which began in October 2012 and have yet to yield clear results. Mr Santos called the enemies of the talks "vultures" on 26 October. While Mr Zuluaga lacks Mr Uribe's fame, Mr Uribe has already been president twice and cannot aspire to a third term. He will head his party's list of senatorial candidates in 2014 and many suspect he would dominate a hypothetical president from his party. Speaking to the party's convention on 26 October, Mr Zuluaga set out five policy directions including he said the renewal of the "democratic security" policies that curbed crime in Colombia when Mr Uribe was president in 2002-10, El Espectador reported. "Real peace is built with more security and more justice" he said, not following "impunity and political privileges for violent people. We shall relentlessly fight small-time trafficking, extortion, city crimes and terrorism." Mr Uribe deplored the President's vulture comments, particularly it was observed because a FARC commander had at one point qualified opponents of talks as "scavengers." "President Santos calls us vultures with his allies the FARC" he wrote on the website Twitter, El Colombiano reported on 28 October. Mr Santos said on 26 October while visiting Viotá south-west of Bogotá that "we have enemies...who some say look very much like vultures because they live off death...they live spreading everything that is negative...injecting pessimism...they want to continue war." The daily observed that the President's sharp remarks were a "furious" response to provocative speeches made at the Democratic Centre convention.

Mexico counts over 100,000 killings in six-year drug war

A Mexican interior ministry agency reported that over 104,000 people were killed in criminal violence between 2006 and 2012 when Mexico's last president, Felipe Calderón Hinojosa, waged a relentless and controversial war on drug cartels and organised crime, papers reported on 25 October. The present government, led by Enrique Peña Nieto, seemed to face similar levels of violence in spite of boasting better intelligence and a more coordinated approach to fighting organised crime. The figure given by the SNSP (Sistema Nacional de Seguridad Pública) for reported or registered homicides during the Calderón presidency was 104,096 victims. Mexican authorities have repeated that most of these were were criminals and cartel operatives killed by each other or in shootouts with state forces. The report identified 2011 as the most mortiferous year with 22,856 homicides followed by 2010, with 20,681 homicides, the daily Milenio reported on 25 October. The newspaper cited figures showing a steady rise in homicides from 2007 to 2012. The SNSP counted 15,552 homicides in the first ten months of the Peña presidency, which began on 1 December 2012, Milenio reported on 25 October.

Venezuela creates "social happiness" office, food shipped in amid shortages

Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro announced on 24 October the creation of a deputy-ministerial office for "social happiness" tasked with coordinating social programmes and attending to public complaints; the state meanwhile began the "massive" food imports it had promised in response to domestic shortages. Mr Maduro said speaking in the presidential palace, that the Vice-Ministry for Supreme Social Happiness was being created to honour the country's founder Simón Bolívar and its late president, Hugo Chávez Frías. Under tripartite management, it would run some 30 social missions launched in the preceding 14 years, El Universal reported on 25 October. "All these missions are part of the great system of the socialist revolution that goes beyond the...welfare state," he said, adding that local mission heads would inform the government "in real time" of projects' progress and problems. "We have to take these missions to the heavens, that is our thanks to Chávez," he said. One of the country's prominent opposition legislators said Venezuela was starting to look like communist Cuba and the "unending" queues at supermarkets were a "disgrace." María Corina Machado Parisco, speaking on 23 or 24 October in Punto Fijo in the northern state of Falcón, said "Maduro wants Venezuela to be like Cuba...now they'll say we are the ones responsible for the atrocious shortages...They will call us destabilisers as they will shopkeepers, producers and consumers. We all know nothing can be found here - [be it] toilet paper, milk or medicines." The legislator was in the company of opposition candidates for municipal elections scheduled for 8 December, El Universal reported on 24 October. She said on that day "we shall go out not just to vote for our mayors but to raise with this vote our voice...let this voice become a popular mandate to change the regime." Agencies reported on 25 October the arrival of 36,000 tonnes of foodstuffs in Venezuela as announced earlier. More than 400,000 tonnes of food were to be imported from Colombia, Uruguay and Brazil in November and December, Europa Press and the AVN agency reported.

Venezuelan President wants all ministers to join state militia

Venezuela's President Nicolás Maduro Moros said on 23 October that he wanted the regime's civilian militia to have 500,000 members by 2015 and one million by 2019, and "all our ministers...must join...as militiamen and women," the broadcaster Globovisión and agencies reported. He told a meeting of armed forces officers at the Historical Military Museum in Caracas that the National Bolivarian Militia, formed in 2005 and performing a range of public-service or civic tasks, should defend Venezuela's "sovereignty and right to peace." Militia members were recently sent into supermarkets to attend to the public and control prices, Argentina's La Nación reported on 24 October, citing news agencies. The militia includes a "territorial militia" consisting of the "people," and "fighting" units including public-sector employees, the daily reported, observing that opponents have qualified it as the regime's "praetorian guard." Mr Maduro said not for the first time, that the country was the target of an economic war waged by enemies. The country's Oil Minister Rafael Ramírez said the same day that Venezuela envisaged "massive" imports of foodstuffs in the following two months to combat shortages and inflation, without elaborating, Europa Press reported. He was addressing a conference on the Isla Margarita off Venezuela's Caribbean coast. The country was to hold municipal elections on 8 December, a date Mr Maduro declared would become the day of "love and loyalty" to the "legacy" of the late President Hugo Chávez, the official AVN agency reported on 23 October.

Former Colombian leader's party seeks decisive position in 2014

The party founded by Colombia's arch-conservative former president Álvaro Uribe Vélez was to elect a presidential candidate on 25-26 October and set a strategy for the presidential and parliamentary elections of 2014, which it hoped would make it a decisive - or the decisive - political force that year. Media reported that the Uribe Democratic Centre (Uribe Centro Democrático) would seek four million votes in coming elections hoping to bank on voters' nostalgia for the enhanced security they enjoyed when Mr Uribe was President in 2002-10. Many votes were expected to be snatched from Unity or U Party and Conservatives currently supporting President Juan Manuel Santos Calderón, Cali's El País reported on 23 October. Mr Uribe's actual election support was for now speculative in spite of projected figures set out in El País, but Mr Uribe has an undoubted public support that has likely irked President Santos and divided the U Party, said to harbour an unspecified number of Mr Uribe's admirers. Colombians who took part in a survey in June 2013 voted him as Colombia's most admired personality of recent years. Supporters of President Santos sought on 23 October to downplay Mr Uribe's prospects. The Speaker of the lower legislative chamber Juan Fernando Cristo Bustos qualified the Democratic Centre's bid to take more than 860,000 votes from U and 300,000 from the Conservatives as a "harmless dream," observing that Mr Uribe would more likely become an "important" opposition senator during the President's "possible second term," El País reported. "Without doubt" he said, "Liberalism would be the country's greater political force." The Conservative Senator Arturo Yepes Alzate said in turn that votes were not to be counted like "cattle, not anymore." Those attending the Democratic Centre's convention on 25-26 October were to elect one of three pre-candidates as the party's presidential candidate, namely the former minister Óscar Iván Zuluaga Escobar, diplomat Carlos Holmes Trujillo and the former vice-president and cousin of President Santos, Francisco Santos Calderón.

"Clown" shoots Mexican mobster at birthday party, nine killed around country

A gunman reportedly dressed as a clown shot on 18 October a member of Mexico's Tijuana cartel, one of the country's powerful gangs of the 1990s, at a family or children's party in the resort zone of Los Cabos in Baja California. The victim was identified as 63-year-old Francisco Rafael Arellano Félix who headed the Tijuana cartel with two brothers and was briefly imprisoned in the United States in 2007-8. Reports did not immediately clarify if the cartel remained active. The newspaper Reforma cited witnesses as saying that a "clown" walked up to him and shot him in the chest and head; police and troops apparently failed to find the gunman in spite of a subsequent search, Proceso reported on 19 October. In other incidents, two children aged 12 and 13 and a 19-year-old girl identified as their cousin were shot dead in Mexico City late on 18 October, Tabasco Hoy reported. They were shot with assault rifles used by the Army, and Proceso cited investigations as provisionally attributing the incident to a settling of criminal accounts. The review reported on 19 October the discovery of the bodies of four men shot days earlier, in a ditch south of the district of Culiacán in the north-western state of Sinaloa, while shooting incidents in the western port of Acapulco injured 10 and killed one on 19 or 20 October, Milenio reported. A young man was stabbed to death in the eastern city of Villahermosa early on 20 October, after refusing to "share a can of beer" with two suspected gangsters on the street, Tabasco Hoy reported.

Mayors shot in El Salvador, murders said increased across country

The mayor of the town of Osicala in north-eastern El Salvador was gunned down on 17 October as he drove away from a meeting, the second such shooting within days in the department of Morazán, the Salvadorean daily El Mundo reported on 18 October. The daily observed that an unspecified number of fellow passengers were left unharmed; the mayor, Fredy Edilberto Villeda García, was injured after shooting caused him to crash his car, then shot to death when he staggered out. Gunmen had shot and injured the mayor of nearby Torola on 14 October while the mayor of another neighbouring district San Fernando was cited as saying he survived a similar attack last May. The towns are in the department of Morazán near the frontier with Honduras. The latest attack was provisionally attributed to local highwaymen. The website elslavador.com reported on 18 October that homicides increased across the country from June to the end of September, compared to the same period in 2012. It cited figures from police, coroners and the state prosecution service as indicating 1,903 homicides in a period to 17 October, presumably from 1 June. It did not state how many were killed from June to the end of September but observed there were 257 more homicides in that period, year on year. The homicide rate for October was described as similar so far to 2012.

Venezuelan President says "plot" against him hatched in United States

Venezuela's President Nicolás Maduro insisted on 26 August that the arrest of two Colombians allegedly sent to assassinate him indicated that a plot was being hatched in the United States, and asked President Barack Obama whether he was ignorant of such machinations or involved. Mr Maduro made his remarks after a children's sporting event in Caracas; he said the Government had "coherently" reported on the plot's origins and President Obama would be "the first" not to know about it if he did not, the official AVN news agency reported. "Is President Obama so weak that they take decisions for him...to kill a Latin American head of state without his knowing?" he asked. Or was he too weak to prevent them he asked again, or "has he decided to physically eliminate me?" Officials earlier cited former US diplomats or officials of past Republican administrations, as well as Colombia's former president Álvaro Uribe, as elements allegedly involved in this and previous "plots." Mr Uribe rejected the latest, "infamous" charges; he said "the Venezuelan dictatorship should permit that country to recover democracy and repeat the elections as the last ones were a fraud," Europa Press reported on 27 August, citing comments he made on television. He was referring to Venezuela's April presidential elections. Mr Maduro said killing him would provoke a civil war and that he had observed "extreme nervousness" among the opposition in spite of its bid to "trivialise" the affair. "I have no doubt the main leaders of the fascist Right agree with this type of incident," he said. The country's leading opponent and former presidential candidate Henrique Capriles dismissed the allegations as a "tale," speaking in public on 26 August. He also wrote on the website Twitter that this was another "distraction" intended to "cover up for insecurity, the hospital crisis, shortages, inflation, corruption." The President he wrote had a "record" number of such plots; "of the 11 conspiracies Maduro has denounced, four were to assassinate personalities. He does not know how to cover his incompetence," El Universal reported, citing Mr Capriles's comments on Twitter.

Venezuelan opposition scoffs at "another plot" to kill President

As if in the grip of the Cold War, Venezuela's socialist rulers have denounced yet another foreign-backed plot against Venezuela, this time in the form of a plan - foiled in time - to assassinate either the President or the Speaker of Parliament. On 26 August the Interior Minister Miguel Rodríguez Torres revealed that two Colombians aged 18 and 22, said to be members of a 10-man squad sent from Colombia, were arrested in a Caracas hotel on 15 August, their hotel room revealing an incriminating paraphernalia of guns, binoculars, army badges and pictures of "targets." The Minister said the plan was to kill President Nicolás Maduro, and failing that the Speaker of Parliament Diosdado Cabello Rondón, Cuba's Prensa Latina agency reported. The country's leading opponent Henrique Capriles Radonsky said the claims were laughable. Not for the first time the detained were linked to Colombia's former conservative president Álvaro Uribe Vélez. Mr Uribe, who had precarious ties at best with Venezuela's late leader Hugo Chávez, has become a bête noire for the Maduro administration, which accuses him of conniving with Venezuelan opponents to undermine the regime. Mr Rodríguez suggested Mr Uribe was involved because "he has relations with and is connected to a group of drug traffickers...he is undoubtedly informed of what is happening," Europa Press reported. Mr Capriles told a gathering in Caucagua in the state of Miranda that day that "nobody believes this tale...people merely laugh at these announcements," though he cautioned the incident's "impact" should be observed, Venezuela's El Universal reported. How many times he asked, "have they spoken of plots to kill leaders (magnicidio)...does anyone really believe these lies?" President Maduro in turn thanked "the Government of Colombia for all its cooperation in identifying the gunmen...and the...hired gang," writing on the website Twitter. He added that "the Right's immediate reaction to the gunmen's capture showed these fascist groups' lack of scruples." On 24 August Mr Maduro warned Venezuelans to expect the opposition's "psychological campaign" and "dirty war" ahead of municipal elections set for 8 December, the official AVN news agency reported.

Guerrilla commander, two fighters shot in raid in northern Colombia

Colombian troops shot dead early on 25 August three fighters of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) including one identified as head of Front 57 and a key drug trafficker for the FARC, in a raid on a camp near Panama's border, agencies reported on 26 August. Authorities regularly accuse the FARC of producing and trafficking drugs - this being with extortion among their funding mechanisms - and the FARC occasionally reject the charge. The Defence Ministry identified the commander, a man dubbed Sílver, as involved in sending drugs into Panama, the Telam and EFE agencies reported. The daily El Tiempo observed that Sílver was dubbed the capo of the FARC and that the state believed him to have amply financed the FARC Secretariat with drug funds. The Army separately reported on 25 August that a member of the FARC's Front 41 surrendered to troops in the district of Agustín Codazzi in the northern state of César, asking to be admitted into the rehabilitation programme for guerrillas. The fighter was dubbed Geiner or Checho and described as 28 years old. In the eastern city of Cúcuta, Police detained during undated raids 10 suspected members of the Rastrojos, one of the country's main criminal gangs, Caracol radio reported on 26 August. The broadcaster cited the city's police chief Colonel Carlos Rodríguez as saying that the 10 were were believed engaged in local drug dealing and extortion, and would be investigated for possible involvement in killings.

Colombia's former president may run for Senate

Álvaro Uribe Vélez, Colombia's former conservative president and, according to polls, one of the country's most popular political figures, was said to be considering running for a Senatorial seat in elections scheduled for March 2014. Mr Uribe has in recent months become an outspoken critic of his successor as president, Juan Manuel Santos Calderón, and denounced ongoing peace talks with the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), the guerrilla force he battered relentlessly when President from 2002 to 2010. Mr Santos, who has generally sought to avoid public spats with his predecessor, told a television interview on 21 August that Mr Uribe would make a good senator and was "welcome" in the Senate. After months of speculation about Mr Uribe's political future, he seemed to have conveyed his decision to head the list of his own party the Democratic Centre, to Senator Liliana Rendón Roldán, Europa Press reported on 24 August, citing the Senator's comments to Caracol Radio. She was cited as saying she was confident the list could win 25 to 30 seats in the Senate, which would be almost a quarter or third of its 102 seats. The presidential "Unity" party she said, should "tremble, let's see how many senators and representatives they will get, people are tired of so much tepid water and the Democratic Centre list will sweep through." Observers sometimes state that the Unity party backing the current president, and including both Conservatives and Liberals, hides an unknown number of Mr Uribe's supporters or admirers, reluctant to publicise their sympathies before presidential elections set for May 2014. The Democratic Centre's main weakness appeared for now to be the absence of a charismatic presidential aspirant, with several figures cited as possible candidates who had very limited public following or recognition compared to the present and last presidents.

Grave in Mexico said to yield bodies of youngsters missing for months

After months of speculation over how a dozen individuals could disappear without trace in Mexico, and anger at the state's inability to find them, authorities were on 23 August cited as saying that tests on six of 13 bodies found buried in Tlalmanalco in the central Estado de México indicated they may well belong to 12 or 13 youngsters kidnapped in Mexico City on 26 May. A deputy-state prosecutor for Mexico City or Estado de México said the grave yielded 13 bodies not seven as reported initially, and six were identified as belonging to the missing kidnap victims, Europa Press reported on 24 August, citing Mexican press reports. Judicial authorities had in recent months faced the ire of relatives of the disappeared for their apparent confusion and half-competent investigations. A conservative member of the capital's legislative assembly said authorities found the grave by luck while looking for an arms cache, not for any "serious investigative work," Milenio reported on 23 August. Federico Döring Casar, a member of the National Action Party in Mexico City's legislature, said police went to the spot after an anonymous caller phoned to say arms could be hidden there. Assembly members were cited as saying that the "Heaven case," named after the nightclub where the youngsters were kidnapped, remained open until authorities find and punish the murderers. Milenio cited another Federal District legislator Santiago Taboada Cortina as saying that the case showed organised crime was present and active in the capital, contrary to the assertions made by the city's mayor that the cartels and criminal gangs had not come to the capital. Separately, two men were found hanging by a road on 21 or 22 August in the north-central state of Zacatecas, in a suspected tit-for-tat killing between two drug cartels, Proceso reported. The Zetas cartel was suspected to have hanged the two, apparently in reprisal for the Gulf Cartel "torturing" and hanging on 18 August a boy an a girl aged 19 years, with a note by them alleging they were kidnappers. Presumably the victims had ties to the rival cartels. In the northern state of Durango, the brother of the mayor of Canelas was found dead on 23 August, and reported as murdered by unspecified means; the director of public prosecutions Sonia Yadira de la Garza had cited him as suspected as involved in criminal activities, Proceso reported on 23 August.

Colombian troops shoot guerrillas, mayor detained for drug ties

Colombian troops shot dead three guerrillas in fighting on 23 August in the northern department of Córdoba and the west-coast department of Chocó. The Defence Ministry reported the killing of a commander of the National Liberation Army (ELN) in the district of Bagadó in Chocó, a man dubbed Darwin, Walter or Ñarro and described by the Ministry as a fighter of more than 20 years; he was identified as commander of the Manuel Hernández el Boche front, a unit of the ELN's Western War Front. Troops also shot dead in the district of Tierralta in Córdoba two members of Front 58 of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC). The army identified one of them, a 25-year-old, as an "important bombmaker" for the FARC, Radio Santa Fe reported. On 23 August President Juan Manuel Santos Calderón ordered the state's envoys to leave Havana and return to Colombia after FARC negotiators interrupted ongoing peace talks to "analyse" a possible national referendum concerning the talks' results, el Colombiano reported. The FARC suggested resuming talks on 26 August but Mr Santos said talks would resume when Colombia deemed it suitable; he said "in this process the FARC are not the ones to determine breaks or set conditions," el Colombiano reported. State agents separately arrested 10 including a mayor and two policemen suspected of drug trafficking and working with two of the continent's main drug cartels, Radio Santa Fe reported on 23 August. The detained were suspected to have sent some 100 tonnes of cocaine a year toward Central America, the United States and European countries over an unspecified time, and to have had ties with the Sinaloa and Zetas cartels as well as the FARC and local gangs. One of the detained - variously caught in districts including Bogotá, Cali and Medellín - was identified as the mayor of Milán in the southern department of Caquetá, Radio Santa Fe reported.

Over 25 killed, found dead around Mexico in days

Twenty six at least were reported killed or found dead around Mexico through 18-21 August including 12 killed in the north-western state of Sinaloa, two state detectives murdered in Guerrero and seven bodies found in Estado de México in central Mexico. The 12 killed in Sinaloa on 20-21 August included four car passengers shot in an ambush in the countryside outside Culiacán and three gunmen shot dead by police whom they had attacked at an unspecified spot, Milenio reported on 22 August. The daily separately reported that a person died and two were injured in a shootout in Tepito in Mexico City on 21 August, in what witnesses declared was a fight over drugs. The bodies of two undercover policemen engaged in intelligence work in the west-coast state of Guerrero were found on 20 August, buried near a village in the district of Juan R. Escudero and indicating they had been tortured and shot; armed men reportedly kidnapped them on 5 August in the village of El Ocotito in Chilpancingo, Proceso reported on 20 August. The review observed that a gang called Los Rojos was now dominant in the Chilpancingo district and that Federal Police detained 10 suspected members of the gang in El Ocotito during July. Police unearthed seven bodies from a grave in Tlamanalco de Velásquez in the Estado de México outside the capital, and were investigating to ascertain whether or not they could belong to some of the youngsters kidnapped from a Mexico City after-hours club on 26 May. Authorities were to perform tests before making declarations, Milenio reported, citing the chief prosecutor of capital Rodolfo Ríos. At least four individuals were reported killed in the eastern states of Tabasco and Campeche between 18 and 21 August, including a bus driver gunned down in Cunduacán on 21 August, a man "burned alive" in a car in Cunduacán on 18 August and two shot dead near Balancán or Campeche that day, Tabasco Hoy reported.

Mexico's Guerrero state accused of "harrassing" civilians, ignoring crime

The Citizens Council for Public Security and Penal Justice, a non-governmental body observing security trends in Mexico, observed on its website on 21 August that residents of Chilpancingo, the capital of the western state of Guerrero, were living under a "systematic" regime of extortion and threats from criminal gangs, and state authorities were doing very little about it. The body reported that civic groups from Chilpancingo denounced on 14 August that all those earning a living in the district - from taxi drivers, to businessmen to the self-employed - had to pay extortion money to the local mafia or face retaliation against themselves or relatives. Retribution could take the form of kidnapping, property destruction or murder; the website reported on 16 August that 14 businessmen from the state or district were "presently" believed kidnapped. It stated on 21 August that many locals suspect that at least certain district or state officials were collaborating with criminals, as suggested by the fact that citizens were sometimes threatened by phone while meeting with officials to report criminal activity. The Citizens Council observed that the state governor Ángel Aguirre Rivero was protecting criminals "by omission," or by failing to act against crime, while residents of Chilpancingo were "sick and tired, desperate and ready to resort to arms to defend themselves," as in other parts of Mexico. Businessmen and activists in Guerrero were separately reported to have accused the Guerrero government of harrassing them for complaining about crime and insecurity. Members of a local grouping the Citizens Council for Security and Development (Consejo Ciudadano para la Seguridad y el Desarrollo de Guerrero) - lodged a complaint against state governor Aguirre for harrassment, while the local president of the national employers' association Coparmex complained that state prosecutors had summoned him and demanded he "prove" allegations that criminals were extorting money from businesses in Guerrero. Jaime Nava Romero said the Guerrero government had better prosecute crimes not "delegate its responsibility to society," and said the state was responsible for his personal security, Proceso reported on 21 August.

Troops disarm militia in western Mexico amid protests

Soldiers detained and disarmed on 14 August 45 members of the self-styled, self-defence group (Autodefensa) of Aquila in the western state of Michoacán in a rare intervention against one of the groups Mexico's government denounces as illegal. The groups have emerged in several states, but particularly in Michoacán and Guerrero in reaction to the extensive, violent and near-unchecked activities of criminal gangs there. This was presumably the militia that briefly took over the Aquila municipal government in late July, disarming the police; the newspaper Milenio reported on 15 August that it had controlled Aquila since 23 July. When troops arrived in town to arrest four or five members of the militia including its leader Agustín Villanueva, they found that 40 other members of the militia carried weapons used exclusively by the armed forces and other arms thought to have belonged to the Aquila police. They were disarmed and detained for the illegal possession of such arms; the army later stated that some 300 locals sought to obstruct the operation and effectively held 30 soldiers hostage for six hours. Sixty local residents were said to be travelling to Mexico City to demand the release of the 40 militiamen, La Jornada reported on 16 August. Self-defence groups in the nearby districts of Buenavista Tomatlán and Tepalcatepec were said separately to have threatened to "paralise the state" with unspecified actions from 19 August if these were not released, La Jornada reported. The acting governor of Michoacán Jesús Reyna García has accused the militia of "sowing fear" in and around Aquila and obstructing circulation, although according to Milenio he had not explicitly accused the group of having ties to organised crime. He was cited as saying he was not informed of the other militias' threats.

Daily sees "slight" fall in murders in Bogotá for arms ban

The ban on carrying arms in Bogotá, imposed in recent months by the city government and the army, is said to have had an "insufficient" effect on reducing violent crimes, according to the newspaper ADN. The daily is freely distributed on the streets; it was citing figures from the police and state coroners. The daily's website reported on 14 August that there were 708 homicides in Bogotá from 1 January to the end of July 2013, five per cent less than the 743 homicides counted for that period in 2012; 453 of those killed in the period cited in 2013 were shot dead, evidently in spite of the existing arms ban. The ban is regularly renewed, and the capital's police chief Luis Martínez Guzmán said it was best it be maintained. Police confiscated 1,473 "illegal weapons" in the capital in the first seven months of 2013, ADN reported.

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.

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.

Residents hand in firearms in northern Bogotá, given tokens

Residents of the district of Usaquén north of Bogotá handed in on 29 July lethal objects including firearms and grenades in exchange for supermarket vouchers in another of the disarmament events that have become part of the measures taken by the city government to curb crime in Colombia's capital. Twenty three residents responded to the local municipality's calls to leave items that included in this case 25 hand grenades and 10 firearms; children handed in plastic guns and "martial toys" in exchange for T-shirts, caps, chocolate and board games, the office of the Bogotá Government Secretary coordinating security in the capital reported. Usaquén had a population of a little under 480,000 in 2012. Those who disarm this way are exempt from police investigation; in Usaquén they received shopping vouchers to spend in Éxito supermarkets on food and household items but not alcohol or tobacco. The mayoress of Usaquén Julieta Naranjo Luján termed this first disarmament event in Usaquén a success, telling a gathering it would "reduce homicides, crimes and personal injuries to much lower levels in the city." The Usaquén Police chief Colonel Pedro Ruiz Pulido was cited as saying that there were 33 homicides "so far this year" in Usaquén, of which 88 per cent were committed with firearms. Authorities attributed 91 per cent of homicides registered in Usaquén to "personal problems resulting from social intolerance" and acts of vengence "mostly" following excessive drinking, the office of the Bogotá Government Secretary reported.

Colombian town votes to block local mining by multinational

Almost all voting residents of the district of Piedras in the central Colombian department of Tolima voted on 28 July to block the continued activities of the mining firm Anglo Gold Ashanti (AGA) after deciding they threatened local water supplies, the review Semana reported. It observed this was the first such vote in Colombia, one of several Latin American countries where mining activities have angered local populations. Just over 5,100 residents of Piedras were eligible to vote and 3,007 did, with 2,971 voting against the firm's continued activity and 24 voting in favour, Semana reported. The review observed that local opposition to the firm began in early 2013 with protests against a gold processing centre in nearby Doima whose activity it was thought would use millions of litres of water needed for farming. An AGA spokeswoman was reported on 18 July as telling W Radio in Bogotá that the firm's activities used a small part of local water supplies and AGA did not in any case need permission to continue working, apparently responding to a suspension order from a regional environmental authority Cortolima. The mayor of Piedras organised the vote after consulting with Tolima's Administrative Court and according to Semana, the results were binding pursuant to the Law 134 of 1994. There was no immediate consensus on this however as authorities in Bogotá were reported elsewhere not to recognise municipal authority over mining affairs. El Espectador reported on 28 July that the Mines Ministry had decreed on 9 May that local bodies could not vote or decide on mining affairs, such decisions pertaining to national mining and environmental authorities. Residents of Piedras believed the decree did not supercede the vote, which was a participatory mechanism foreseen in Colombian legislation, El Espectador reported.

Eight shot in two Mexican states, police arrest 10 gang suspects

Eight suspected criminals were killed on 28 July in two shootouts in the states of Chihuahua and Sonora in northern Mexico, agencies reported. Police shot dead four suspected gangsters in the locality of Trincheras in Sonora after gunmen in three cars blocked, then began firing on one or more federal or state police cars on patrol that evening, Milenio reported, citing Notimex agency. The daily observed that Trincheras was now "for months" without municipal policemen. An unspecified number of gunmen left their cars and ran away after the shootout. In Chihuahua, four men were killed in a shootout between gangs in the district of Camargo, while two women and a five-year-old child in a nearby car were injured, Proceso reported. Police found the four gunmen in their car, which also yielded items including "military-type" uniforms and two assault weapons. In the northern state of Coahuila, police detained on 28 July 10 suspects identified as members of the Zetas drug cartel and thought involved in crimes including murder and kidnapping in the districts of Parras de la Fuente and the La Laguna region including Torreón, Lerdo and Gómez Palacio, El Universal reported. Authorities confiscated from them arms used by the army, grenades and mobile phones among other items, the daily stated. The Zetas cartel was thought to have hung sheets in several spots in the north-central state of Zacatecas, informing "the people of Zacatecas" that it would make its "presence known so you know we are here," Proceso reported on 28 July. A decapitated body was found by one of the sheets, in the district of Guadalupe. Others were visible over bridges and roads in the districts of Fresnillo, Valparaíso and Zacatecas. The messages followed the arrest in mid-July of the Zetas' chief, the gangster dubbed Z-40, and warned the public he remained alive and head of the cartel; everything remained "well structured and this will not be over until it is over." The sheets indicated that a group called Los Chapulines were the "real culprits" behind unspecified kidnappings in that state, Proceso reported.

More policemen killed in attacks in western Mexico

Mexican authorities raised from two to four the number of policemen killed in seven attacks gangs launched on police convoys on 23 July in the western state of Michoacán; the press earlier reported six attacks, which the police repelled, killing 20 assailants. The seventh ambush occurred late on 23 July on the road between Lázaro Cárdenas and Colima in the district of Aquila, though no criminals were immediately reported killed here. In total 30 policemen were injured in all attacks that day, La Crónica de Hoy reported. The daily reported separately that members of the community police of the district of Aquila abandoned after four hours the municipal government offices they occupied on 24 July; it cited the occupation as the first action taken by this particular force, reportedly now including some 200 armed locals, since its formation days before. The mayor of Aquila Juan Hernández Ramírez urged the Mexican government to send more troops to the area, observing however that the community police used no violence when disarming the municipal police and briefly usurping its duties. The governor of Michoacán Jesús Reyna told Milenio television on 24 July that an unspecified number of troops and police were to be sent to the state after recent attacks, while urging the state to act "with greater decision" against crime there, Milenio reported. The neighbouring state of Querétaro was in turn reported to be sending troops and police to "fortify" its border with Michoacán. Prominent parliamentarians reacted with consternation at organised crime's increasingly brazen presence in Michoacán. The ruling Institutional Revolutionary Party's coordinator in the Senate Emilio Gamboa Patrón said the attacks were "indefensible... the chaos...shooting at each other for 18 hours. This shows things are not well," La Crónica de Hoy reported on 25 July. The opposition Democratic Revolutionary Party's coordinator in the Senate Miguel Barbosa Huerta said criminals' capacities appeared to "exceed" those of the state, while Jorge Luis Preciado Rodríguez of the conservative National Action Party urged the government to "get tough" in Michoacán.

New Mexico district "on verge" of banning plastic bags

Most city councillors of Santa Fe in New Mexico were reportedly backing a proposal to be voted in August and intended to ban distribution by shops of free plastic bags, the website of the Albuquerque Journal reported on 22 July. One councillor was reported as having suggested in preceding days a subsequent, undated ban on plastic bottles. The daily reported that almost no councilmember opposed the initiative, although the Santa Fe Chamber of Commerce had urged the municipality to wait for the completion of an ongoing study on solid waste. Several west-coast cities including Los Angeles and Seattle have imposed similar bans to curb use of millions of bags that often are not recycled and pollute both the land and sea. The daily reported that the ordinance would ban "most single-use plastic bags" and require shops to charge most customers "no less than" 10 cents for paper bags, but allow "some smaller plastic bags" such as thin bags used for fruit and vegetables. Eateries were to be allowed to provide bags for food taken out.

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.

Guatemalan authorities catch suspects over police massacre

Guatemala detained on 14 July nine individuals including a policeman suspected of involvement in the murder on 13 June of eight policemen in Salcajá in the western department of Quetzaltenango. A ninth policeman was kidnapped during the assault on the police post, and later found dismembered in various spots near the Mexican frontier. The suspects were caught amid 38 raids carried out in La Democracia in Huehuetenango that also yielded assault weapons, 15 cars and cash in different currencies worth around 15,000 USD, Spain's El País reported, citing declarations by the Interior Minister Mauricio López Bonilla. The daily cited the director of Guatemala's public prosecution service Claudia Paz y Paz as saying "we have enough evidence indicating that the detained are responsible for" the crime. Media cited authorities as interpreting the massacre as a punitive act against the kidnapped policeman, an officer at the station who apparently had taken or stolen money and cocaine belonging to the gangsters thought involved in the crime. He was not killed immediately but kidnapped to reveal where he had hidden them.

Colombia detains guerrilla captain, fighter deserts

Colombian troops caught near Venezuela a member of the outlawed National Liberation Army (ELN), a fighter dubbed Diego or el Gringo sought by Interpol for suspected activities including sedition, extortion and criminal conspiracy, media reported on 14 July. The 26-year-old was described as a go-between for ELN chiefs in two Colombian departments; he was caught in the district of Saravena in the north-eastern department of Arauca, Spain's EFE agency reported. A member of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) separately surrendered to troops in southern Colombia "recently," explaining he fled soon after the FARC forced him to execute a 17-year-old companion, the daily Perú 21 reported on 13 July. The desertor, a fighter dubbed Chispa from the FARC's Front 48, reportedly spent three days in the jungle and surrendered in the district of La Tagua in the Putumayo department. He told the army that one of the Front commanders, a man dubbed Robinson Cucarro, had ordered shot the teenager for losing a "wooden rifle used in training." He was said to have forced Chispa to shoot him for opposing the decision, Perú 21 reported, citing a statement by the Colombian navy.

Criminals shoot land activist in northern Colombia

Unidentified gunmen shot dead on 11 July an activist working to restore stolen lands to their owners in the northern Colombian department of Bolívar, El Tiempo reported on 15 July. The Colombian Government has encouraged rural families who fled lawless districts in past years to return and reclaim lands stolen from them; decades of conflict between the state and the two communist guerrilla forces have fomented insecurity and relative lawlessness in parts of Colombia that have become breeding grounds for armed gangs and paramilitaries engaged in activities including extortion and land grabbing. The national broadcaster Señal Colombia regularly publicises the progress of the Government's land restitution programme, depicting contented peasants resuming farming activities in bucolic settings. Yet the programme was bound to generate resistance - which in Colombia often means violence - from those who took over stolen lands. The 31-year-old activist José Segundo Turizo, said to have been shot in the neck and head in the district of Tiquisio, was coordinating the restitution of the lands to 14 families. The daily described him as a farmer and father of five. Separately, the daily Vanguardia Liberal reported on 15 July that 19 people were shot or found dead around the capital Bogotá over the weekend of 12-14 July.

Salvadorean President re-appoints general as Defence Minister

El Salvador's President named on 11 July the former public security and justice minister David Munguía Payés as Defence Minister, weeks after the Constitutional Court ordered his removal as Minister of Justice for being a soldier, Salvadorean media reported. General Munguía was becoming Defence Minister for the second time; the first time was between 2009 and 22 November 2011. President Mauricio Funes promptly appointed him to replace José Atilio Benítez who resigned for unspecified reasons, and few explanations were given to the press for the change, the Salvadorean daily El Mundo reported on 12 July. General Munguía was credited when Minister of Justice with having played a facilitating role in the ceasefire the main criminal gangs began in March 2012 with the help of mediators. The Government officially had no direct role in the ceasefire though it approved it as a first step toward the country's gradual pacification. Mr Funes said on 11 July that the appointment showed he was confident the general would continue to transform "the Armed Forces into an institution obedient to civilian power."

NGO found, fewer murders were punished in Mexico in 2012

The Mexican research body Citizens Council for Public Security and Penal Justice (Consejo Ciudadano para la Seguridad Pública y Justicia Penal) observed on 9 July a rise in the country's impunity rate - already very high for most crimes - citing figures compiled by the national statistics agency INEGI. It reported on its website that official figures showed that in 2012 16 per cent of homicides ended in convictions, "which means the authors of 84 of every 100 killings avoided punishment and were free to continue killing." The Council stated that a "slightly" greater number of homicides were punished in 2012 than in 2010 and 11, "not because more killers are being caught...and convicted," but for the "fewer homicides." In absolute terms it stated, the number of killers convicted in 2012 was the lowest since 2003, and convictions for homicides began to fall in 2007. "For that reason homicides increased 141 per cent in just five years, going from 11,775 in 2006 to 28,375 in 2011," it wrote. The Council stated that statistics showed that "the majority of local governments have contributed almost nothing to reducing violence," and any decline in regional violence was due either to action by federal authorities or to drug cartels or gangs overcoming rivals and imposing their control of a particular territory. One of the country's police generals painted a sorry picture of the state of Mexico on 12 July, denouncing the "generalised deceit" he said was harming the Mexican polity. The former deputy-minister of defence General Tomás Ángeles Dauahare was receiving an honourary doctorate that day, though he had previously faced prosecution for alleged ties to organized crime apparently on the basis of false testimonies. He said Mexico faced "the threat of chaos" and deplored the "informality" he said had first harmed the economy and was now discrediting the state; he was presumably referring to a range of undeclared activities. "Simulation, diatribe, deceit and lies that sow disunity and rupture have become common currency," the newspaper La Jornada cited Dauahare as saying. "There is frequent evidence these days of social agitation and street violence, one hears the discourse of hate, and messages of social rancour and resentment. All this generates fear, uncertainty and discouragement," he said, while urging Mexicans to unite around "the Constitution and laws." The retired general became on 1 May an adviser to Mexico's defence minister.

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.

Mexico's Interjet begins flights between Bogotá and Mexico City

The Mexican airliner Interjet, which covers routes inside Mexico and the American continent, began from 11 July direct flights between Mexico City and Bogotá, moving to exploit an anticipated increase in travel between the two states, members of the Pacific Alliance trading block. Interjet was to fly once every day, leaving Mexico City before 10:00 a.m and returning from Bogotá at 15:25, Mexico's El Universal newspaper reported, citing comments by the Interjet CEO José Luis Garza. The Interjet website was initially promoting tickets "from" a little over 520 USD, which at first glance seemed cheaper than similar flights operated by the Colombian airline Avianca. Interjet moved some 7.2 million passengers on all its routes in 2012, El Universal reported. It separately cited Mexico's travel monitoring system as counting a 30 per-cent increase in the number of Colombians who flew into Mexico, from 125,882 in 2011 to 163,072 in 2012.

Residents of Bogotá suburb hand in firearms, grenades

Municipal authorities of the district of Usme south of Bogotá were satisfied with the response to a disarmament day organized in that district, which yielded more than 20 firearms and weaponry thought directly related to violent crimes including the 31 homicides reported in Usme from 1 January to 31 May. The Bogotá municipality led by the Mayor Gustavo Petro has pursued disarmament as one of the means of reducing murders in and around the capital. The undated disarmament day brought in a range of items including "13 firearms," nine grenades, a "home-made grenade launcher" and "home-made shotgun," the Bogotá Government Secretary, the office that coordinates the capital's security affairs, reported on 9 July. Those who surrendered such items were exempted from investigations or prosecution for possession of arms, and given vouchers for the Éxito supermarket chain, a Deputy-Government Secretary of Bogotá Hugo Zarrate declared. He said disarmament "alongside other policies" had by 31 May reduced the homicide rate to 14.8 per 100,000 inhabitants, compared to 16.8 for 2012. It appeared he was speaking about all of Bogotá, though the report did not specify.

Protests continue in northern Colombia, set to expand

Weeks of protests by peasants and coca farmers in the Catatumbo region in northern Colombia had yet to abate on 8 July, even as the national ombudsman urged the Government and protesters to maintain dialogue amid prospects of strikes spreading across the land. Protests and road blocks began in the Catatumbo region of the Norte de Santander department around 10-12 June in response to the state's bid to erradicate coca plantations; other protests were being reported in districts including San Roque in the northern César department, Ricaurte in the south-western department of Nariño and Guapi in Cauca, western Colombia. Some politicians have accused the two communist guerrilla forces of fanning peasant discontent - at least in Catatumbo - to protect their own, alleged drug-trafficking activities. The Ombudsman Jorge Armando Otálora Gómez urged the sides to talk and end the Catatumbo protests and that the Government take appropriate action ahead of strikes announced for 19 August by sectors including coffee growers, Radio Santa Fe reported on 8 July. Mr Otálora said 50 "community councils" representing Colombians of African descent in the Pacific-coast Chocó department had also convened a "mobilisation" for 17 July, apparently to do with the legality of local mining activities. The Interior Minister Fernando Carrillo Flórez accused the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) of using the Catatumbo protests as leverage in their ongoing talks with the state in Havana, which he said the state "will not permit," the national broadcaster Señal Colombia reported on 8 July, citing Mr Carrillo's comments to El Tiempo. The Minister said the protesters' demands coincided with the FARC "agenda" aired in Havana and were being "cheered" from there; "social demands are valid but we reject" he said that "armed actors" use them. The former socialist senator Pilar Córdoba in turn cited Catatumbo's enormous coal and oil reserves as a factor in the conflict, observing that local peasants no longer tolerated living in misery, Radio Santa Fe reported on 7 July, citing Ms Córdoba's comments on the website Twitter. Talks she stated were proving complicated as "the peasants know the Government will fail again" to honour pledges to improve their lot. Coca cultivation was the "consequence of rural misery," she stated, and the "solution, to fumigate them," useless. She depicted Catatumbo as a region with a 30-per-cent illiteracy rate, environmental degradation and pervasive violence for the ongoing war with the FARC and ELN guerrillas. Meanwhile she added foreign firms had for a century "fattened" their accounts with Catatumbo's oil.

Media, public question gangs ceasefire in El Salvador

The website elsalvador.com observed on 6 July that hopes raised by the ceasefire the main street gangs began in 2012 - and especially a pledge to stop violent crime in specified municipalities - had "slowly faded away" amid the recent spike in killings across El Salvador. It counted 103 killings in 12 of the country's 14 departments "in the latest escalation of violence," though it gave no dates for these. Mexico's Notimex agency was cited as reporting 12 killings on 1 July, 20 the next day and 24 on 3 July, which were figures far above the four-seven killings a day officials had boasted had become a general norm after the ceasefire began in March 2012. The Salvadorean President was cited as saying on 6 July that the rate returned to "6-7" killings a day in the preceding 48 hours, due he said to police and other actions, which he did not specify. Elsalvador.com observed however that residents were noting little difference in districts where the Mara gangs had agreed to eschew violent crime, as violence and extortion continued there as elsewhere. President Mauricio Funes discussed the recent violence on 4 July with one of the ceasefire mediators, the former leftist guerrilla Raúl Mijango. The mediator asked that the government continue backing the process and aid the social reintegration of criminals, Notimex reported. Mr Mijango had promised that week that the violence would fall again within 72 hours, which prompted politicians to attack him, presumably for what seemed like an excessive level of complicity or familiarity with criminals. On 6 July the President also asked the opposition ARENA party and its leader Norman Quijano González to stop their "electoral" attacks on the ceasefire whose necessity he alleged ARENA accepted, the Public Security Ministry reported. Mr Funes said the mediator Raúl Mijango told him that members of ARENA had informed him ARENA was itself interested in maintaining dialogue with the Mara gangs should it win the presidential elections scheduled for February 2014. Mr Funes told a radio interview that "in fact they want to talk but right now during the elections it doesn't suit them to go with the ceasefire." ARENA he said, presently sought to depict the ceasefire as "a dark pact between the government and gang members, between President Funes and gang members...don't be hypocritical and mean... don't appear like you're telling the public you would not make a pact with criminals."

Bogotá creates 45 "safe zones" to take taxis

Bogotá's transport authority set up 45 "yellow zones" in the Colombian capital where it recommended travellers take a cab, in a bid to allay public fears about the risks of taking a taxi on the street, Bogotá's Radio Santa Fe reported on July 3. Police regularly advise people not to take taxis on the street, especially at night, and media have observed that the capital's thousands of taxi drivers include an unspecified minority of former criminals. The broadcaster did not elaborate on the security system, but cited the authorities' list of street sections where safe taxis could be found. A Bogotá court separately ordered jailed five suspects recently caught with arms, drugs and credit cards thought to have been robbed from taxi passengers, Radio Santa Fe reported on 2 July. Police were reportedly alerted about their suspect conduct and presence in a hotel in central Bogotá on 20 June, and inspection of one or several rooms revealed items including firearms and forged documents. The five were to be charged with possessing arms, drugs and forged documents, Radio Santa Fe reported.

Over 2,100 shot dead in Guatemala in January-June 2013

Guatemalan Police stated that "about" 2,185 people were shot dead in the country between 1 January and 23 June 2013, and 252 stabbed or cut to death, the daily Prensa Libre reported on 3 July, observing that the greatest number of crimes occurred in the capital and its environs. The resulting figure of 2,437 presumed crime victims was close to the homicide figure given by Police for the first six months of 2012, and well below 2,902 victims police counted for a similar period in 2011. Guatemala's new National Police chief Telémaco Pérez García, admitted speaking to the newspaper Siglo.21 on 2 July that the decline in murders had "stagnated" in the country after falling in 2011-12, but said "I think we will reduce them" by following the Interior Ministry's anti-crime strategies. He said he would pursue plans to make the police force more professional, including through dismissals of corrupt or incompetent elements and by imposing a "change of attitude" in the corps. There was a shortage of police weaponry he admitted, but he told the paper weapons were distributed in such a way as to ensure no policeman went on patrol unarmed. The general took office on 2 July. President Otto Pérez Molina also appointed a new Minister of Defence in late June, General Manuel López Ambrosio who replaced Colonel Ulises Anzueto Girón and would take office in mid-July, the official AGN news agency reported on 30 June.

Twenty or more killed around El Salvador in crime re-surge

A four-year-old girl was one of 20 or more people killed around El Salvador over 1-3 July, in a crime surge recalling the violence that preceded the 2012 ceasefire between the country's Mara street gangs. Salvadorean media gave prominent coverage to the shooting death of the girl - hit by a bullet apparently aimed at her mother, while she played in a front yard or inside her house in the district of Jucuapa east of the capital. She was identified as possibly the daughter of a former gang member living in the United States, the Salvadorean daily El Mundo reported. The daily attributed territorial rivalries between street gangs for the surge in crimes around the country, and observed nobody had yet been arrested by 2 July. The website elsalvador.com counted at least eight killings from late 2 July to early 3 July; it showed in a linear graph a sharp rise in killings in the country after April 2013, about a year after the start of a gangs ceasefire officials had many times celebrated as having halved murder rates within months. The graph showed that the country witnessed a peak in murders at about 200 a month in early January 2013, this falling to around 140 in early April, then rising to between 175-7 in early May and to over 180 in early June. Readers' comments on the website expressed the public's outrage, as some urged the imposition of death sentences and others that the army be sent to fight the Mara gangs. The Public Security and Justice Minister Ricardo Perdomo recently told a television programme that the average daily murder rate for the period 1 January-26 June was 5.7, down from 8.7 for the same period in 2012, the Ministry website reported on 26 June. Mr Perdomo said there were 541 fewer murders in this period compared to the same months in 2012, though the report did not give a number.

Taxi muggings spread unease among Bogotá residents

By taking a taxi in Bogotá you are also taking the risk - smaller or greater depending on the day, the hour and the neighbourhood - of being robbed, beaten, stabbed or just possibly killed. The risk is far smaller than the fear it has generated, and affects both taxi drivers and passengers in an atmosphere infected with mutual suspicion. While passengers may perceive the taxi as a potential trap wherein it is difficult to manoeuvre in self-defence, drivers are presumably perturbed by any suspect movement behind them, in spite of a dividing screen. The public were recently reminded of the danger of taking a taxi at night after a US Drug Enforcement Administration agent was stabbed to death in a taxi late on 20 June, evidently by the driver and a gang of accomplices who sought to rob him. The daily El Tiempo reported on 3 July that based on cases registered with the police, taxi muggings happen mostly on weekday evenings and in neighbourhoods where people leave restaurants and bars. The newspaper observed that only two cases were reported this year to have occurred at the weekend. Muggers it reported were indifferent to the victim's gender and all muggings occurred inside the vehicle. Police counted 35 such muggings between 1 January and 26 June 2013, compared to 71 cases reported for the same period in 2012, El Tiempo reported; it cautioned that the figures excluded taxi thefts that were unreported. The neighbourhoods with most cases of taxi muggings were Chapinero in central Bogotá, Barrios Unidos adjacent to Chapinero and Usaquén in north-eastern Bogotá. Most cases were reported to have occurred in Chapinero - a commercial and residential district that also concentrates gay bars - with 17 such muggings reported for the period cited in 2013 (31 in 2012). The next district most affected was Usaquén with five such muggings (nine in 2012), while taxi muggings dropped in the two comparative periods from 10 cases to one in Teusaquillo - a middle-class neighbourhood next to Chapinero and home to university institutions and a student population.

Residents of Colombia's Bucaramanga to separate trash, recyclables

Authorities in Bucaramanga, a city of more than 500,000 residents in north-eastern Colombia, instructed residents of the city and its suburbs to separate recyclables from household waste from 1 July or pay a fine after September, the dailies El Espectador and Vanguardia Liberal reported on 1 July. The decree, applicable from that day, appeared innovative and Colombian media commented on it in preceding days; recyclables like plastic, paper and glass were to be prepared in separate bags for municipal collection once a week, either on Wednesday or Thursday depending on the municipal trash collection routine, the dailies reported. Residents failing to separate would initially be admonished and face fines after 1 September. El Espectador cited the city official Consuelo Ordóñez as saying that the Bucaramanga district produced 58 per cent of all the rubbish in the Bucaramanga Metropolitan Area, followed by Floridablanca with 20 per cent and Girón with 11 per cent, though no figures were given of trash volumes. Sustainability was one of the 10 components of the current mayor's policy plan for 2012-15.

Figures show fall in crimes in Mexico in 2013, but not kidnapping

The Observatorio Nacional Ciudadano, a private body that monitors crime and security trends in Mexico, revealed on 27 June that police figures for the first quarter of 2013 showed a drop in Mexico's "higher impact" crimes like homicides and violent robberies, but not kidnappings, which increased 16.9 per cent in the first quarter of 2013, presumably year-on-year. The report for the period January to the end of April 2013 was based on public complaints or reported crimes registered with the Public Security National System (Sistema Nacional de Seguridad Pública), a federal government agency. The Observatory's website cautioned however that the figures excluded unreported crimes. Its graphic summary of five "high-impact" crimes for the period January 2012-late April 2013 showed for example that while the average 17 extortions reported daily in the first quarter of 2013 were less than the 20 daily extortions reported over 2012, the figures likely represented just five per cent of all extortions. The Observatory's director Francisco Rivas gave the press on 27 June some of the report's highlights: kidnappings he said were the "high impact" crime that most increased in 16 months from January 2012 to the end of April 2013, rising 31.4 per cent. Homicides fell 13.8 per cent between January 2012 and the end of April 2013 and 10 per cent from January 2013, he said. In the first quarter of 2013, based on the official figures: reported extortions fell by 18.5 per cent, violent thefts by 3.6 per cent and car thefts 5.2 per cent. One of the country's most notorious kidnapping cases occurred on 26 May, when 12 or 13 youngsters were taken from an after-hours club in the capital's Zona Rosa district. These had yet to be found although authorities recently interrogated three suspects. The Zona Rosa is a neighbourhood of bars and restaurants, hitherto considered reasonably safe. The office of the chief prosecutor of Mexico City stated on 27 June that interrogations indicated the kidnapping was likely linked to a vendetta between two gangs of street dealers active locally, Proceso reported, citing agency reports. On 27 or 28 June, relatives of the disappeared and activists filled Tepito, the district of Mexico City where the 12 lived, with pictures of the kidnapped, perhaps hoping to jog memories or encourage residents to give information, Milenio reported. A reward equivalent to just over 770,000 USD was being offered to anyone providing information that would lead to the kidnapped, Milenio stated.

Over 25 reported shot around Mexico

No less than 27 were reported shot dead around Mexico between 25 and 28 June, in incidents including shootouts with troops and police, gun fights between gangsters and criminal executions. Gunmen shot dead four employees of a cosmetics firm in the northern city of Juárez as they sprayed the firm's premises with gunfire early on 28 June, the broadcaster Azteca reported. Four men were executed the evening before in Madera in the northern state of Chihuahua; a note was left by the dead alleging they had been kidnappers, Proceso reported. The executioners were said to have arrived in 10 cars, then placed the victims against a wall and shot them. Eight were killed in the evening of 27 June in Fresnillo in the north-central state of Zacatecas, in shootouts between gangsters and with the army, the website Zacatecas en linea reported. Six of the victims apparently ran into an army patrol while fleeing the first shootout in two cars; they fired on the army vehicle and were shot dead. In the state capital Zacatecas a man was shot dead in a bar very early on 27 June, Azteca television reported. Early on 28 June police shot dead an armed man in the district of Cuautlán de García Barragán in the western state of Jalisco after a patrol came under fire, El Siglo de Torreón reported. Four gunmen and a soldier were killed early on 26 June in a shootout near a school in the northern city of Reynosa, national media reported. This and a shootout late on 25 June in San Fernando south of Reynosa left in total nine dead on 25-26 June in the state of Tamaulipas bordering the United States, Proceso reported.

Los Angeles mayor signs in ban on plastic bags

Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa signed into law on 27 June a Los Angeles city council vote to end the distribution and use of plastic bags in Los Angeles, making it the largest city so far in the United States to banish plastic bags, agencies and press reported. The ban would take effect in a six-month period from 1 January to June 2014, while the city was to hand out a million reusable bags to residents of poorer districts, the Associated Press reported. Those not taking their own bags to shops would have to buy paper bags for 10 cents, and shops would have to compile quarterly reports on the number of bags sold, AP reported. Antonio Villaraigosa's term as mayor was to end on 1 July.

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.