Mexican activist "fled for his life" after protest

Aleph Jiménez Domínguez, a spokesman for the protest group Yo Soy 132 in north-western Mexico who disappeared for five days in late September, said in Mexico City on 28 September that he "had to flee" the city of Ensenada in Baja California where he believed unspecified elements might kill him. He told the press "this was an urgent action" and there was good cause for his flight to nearby La Paz; "believe me my life was in danger. You mustn't wait for someone to turn up dismembered or dead for these actions to be valid," CNNMéxico reported him as saying. Jiménez hid from 20 to 25 September; on 15 September he was one of 20 activists detained in Ensenada after a protest, and publicly criticized on 17 September the Ensenada mayor Enrique Pelayo. Jiménez said he then felt he was being followed; he said a black car with glazed windows stopped outside his house and its driver phoned as he stepped out, to say he was "in front of the house, I found him." Jiménez lodged a complaint with the National Commission for Human Rights (CNDH) after travelling to its offices in Mexico City. Yo Soy 132 repeatedly protested against alleged manipulation and fraud in the July general elections, officially won by the Institutional Revolutionary Party and its presidential candidate Enrique Peña Nieto.

Twenty shot, found dead around Mexico

Twenty people were killed in criminal incidents or found dead around Mexico on 29 September, including three policemen and a civil servant's nephew, El Universal and CNN reported that day. In Torreón in the northern state of Coahuila, five suspected criminals died in a shootout with security forces, a state government spokesman declared. "At least" six were killed around Monterrey in the state of Nuevo León, two of them reportedly shot in their car by assassins driving behind them. The nephew of the Health Secretary of the north-western state of Sonora was gunned down late on 28 September in Hermosillo. Three policemen were shot dead on 29 September in San Miguel Teloloapán in the western state of Guerrero, the state prosecutor's office declared. In the north-western city of Aguascalientes, a woman was gunned down as she left the hairdressers. On 30 September, the bodies of three men and a woman who had been shot dead were found in pairs in the districts of Tototlán and Tequila, in the western state of Jalisco. Authorities separately arrested at an unspecified time and place, José Inés Medina Rodríguez, described as a senior operative of the Gulf Cartel in Juárez on the US frontier, El Universal reported on 29 September, citing the Nuevo León Public Security authority.

Guatemalan army evacuates families threatened by gang

The Guatemalan army evacuated late on 26 September five families from their homes near the Mexican border, apparently avoiding their imminent massacre by suspected members of the Mexican drug cartel The Zetas. The families - consisting of 44 people including 22 children - were taken from Santo Domingo Sinlaj in the district of Santa Cruz Barillas to army facilities in Guatemala City, El País reported on 28 September, citing local press reports. The Guatemalan daily Prensa Libre reported that they had for days been confined to their homes by Zetas who control this area and force locals into criminal work; it cited the regional commander General Rudy Ortíz Ruiz as saying that the army had information The Zetas were about to kill and rape 15 men and women for refusing to work for them, and that more families asked to be taken away when troops arrived to evacuate them. Authorities arrested in that zone on 27 September a suspect named as Daniel Juan, identified as the possible "local chief" of The Zetas, El País reported. The prosecutor-general of Guatemala Claudia Paz y Paz also announced the capture of the Zeta chief for Santa Cruz Barillas - named as Juan Nicolás - though it was not immediately clear if this was the same person, AFP reported, citing her remarks to Prensa Libre.

Army bombs Colombian rebels, kills eight

Colombian troops bombed a jungle base of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) on the north-western department of Antióquia early on 27 September, killing "at least" eight rebels including two local chiefs, agencies cited Defence Minister Juan Carlos Pinzón as saying in Bogotá that day. Two of the dead were Efraín González Ruiz the commander of the FARC's fronts 35 and 37, and Jhonatan Lascarro head of a mobile unit and nephew of one of the seven members of the FARC's Secretariat or politburo. Five guerrillas were also detained and one surrendered to troops in the operation near the district of El Bagre, EFE reported.

Ten killed around Mexico

Nine people were killed or found dead on 27 September around Mexico, in the states of Morelos and Veracruz and the western city of Guadalajara, Proceso reported. These included a man shot dead in a bar in Cuernavaca, the capital of Morelos, the bodies of two young men found in a ditch in Morelos - they had apparently been stabbed in the neck - and a businessman and a woman found dead in Playa Vicente in the eastern state of Veracruz. It seemed they had been beaten then shot to death; the businessman, Cecilio Cervantes, had been reported disappeared 10 days before. On 28 September, the body of a man shot to death was found wrapped in a "colourful" blanket near the Country Club in Culiacán, north-western Mexico, El Universal reported.

Jordan's monarch in Peru for tourism, summit

King Abdullah II of Jordan arrived in Lima on 26 September and was to visit historic sites before attending the Third Summit of South American and Arab Countries (ASPA3) scheduled for 1 and 2 October. The summit aims to promote cultural, economic, education and scientific collaboration between the regions and is hosted by Peru this year. Heads of state expected to attend this summit were the King of Morocco, the Emir of Qatar, the Lebanese president and the head of the Palestinian Authority, Telesur reported on 27 September. Foreign ministers were to meet on 1 October and heads of states and governments the following day. Jordan's king was first to visit the historic city of Cuzco and the Inca citadel at Machu Picchu.

Fifteen killed around Mexico in a day

Fifteen people were shot dead or found dead on 26 September in different parts of Mexico, in apparent acts of violence likely and mostly related to cartels. These included: two employees of the national oil company Pemex shot dead at a refinery in Salamanca, north-west of Mexico City, three men and a woman whose bones or remains were found in a mine shaft in the district of El Oro in the north-western state of Durango, and a man and woman killed in a shootout between police and criminals in Tlanepantla, Estado de México, Proceso reported on 26 September. On the night of 26-27 September, the northern city of Piedras Negras became the setting of dispersed gun battles between Mexican security forces and "armed civilians" or suspected criminals, though it was not immediately clear how many died, Proceso reported on 27 September. At least 131 inmates broke out of the Piedras Negras prison on 17 September, though it was not immediately clear if these were involved in the shootouts. Messages written on sheets left hanging around Piedras Negras that morning warned residents there would be clashes later that day and they should "take precautions." Eight of the escaped convicts were caught by 26 September and one was killed on 25 September, CNNMéxico and Univision reported.

Eleven killed in shootout in western Mexico

Gunmen fired on troops patrolling the district of Tepecoacuilco in the western state of Guerrero on 26 September, provoking a gun battle that killed ten suspected criminals and a soldier, CNNMéxico reported, citing information from the state prosecutor's office. The patrol was part of the Operativo Guerrero Seguro operation launched in October 2011 in response to rising violence in that state. According to CNN, Guerrero was the setting of 1,538 homicides in January-September 2011, twice as many as in the same period in 2010, and mostly attributable to rivalries between cartels.

Mexican activist found alive

Aleph Jiménez Dominguez, a Mexican academic reported as missing in the northern state of Baja California on 20 September was found alive in La Paz in the same state on 25 September. He had apparently fled to La Paz from his home town of Ensenada for feeling "threatened and watched" there. The 32-year-old researcher took part on 15 September in a protest in Ensenada during national independence celebrations and was briefly detained, CNNMéxico reported on 25 September. Jiménez was a spokesman in Ensenada for the student protest group Yo Soy 132, which organized the protest against the results of July's general elections and the "imposition" of the president-elect Enrique Peña Nieto. The gathering reportedly led to scuffling between some protesters and municipal police. Jiménez said he felt threatened in following days and had observed suspect cars driving around his house. On 25 September he flew to Mexico City where he was taken to the seat of the National Human Rights Comission (CNDH), presumably to report on the incidents.

Tourism flourishing in Colombia

Colombia may host some 3.3 million tourists by the end of 2012 and expected the figure to "easily" rise to four million in 2014, a Colombian export official said in Madrid on 25 September. Juan Gabriel Pérez, head of Spain for ProExport told a gathering of travel agents that the tourist sector had in "recent years" grown 10 per cent a year compared to a global average of four per cent; he said Colombia had overcome the insecurity that formerly deterred tourists from visiting, El Economista reported. He cited Spaniards as the main group of European tourists in Colombia, with a five-per-cent rise in their number in January-July 2012. Pérez said Colombia would double the size of its stand at FITUR 2013, Madrid's annual travel fair, compared to 2012.

Nine shot dead at Mexican funeral

Gunmen in a convoy of three cars opened fire on a funeral crowd in Torreón in northern Mexico on 25 September, killing nine people and injuring 22, El Universal reported on 26 September. The convoy arrived at the funeral of a 27-year-old man shot dead on 22 September in nearby San Pedro de las Colonias, in the state of Coahuila. Police investigations suggested some in the crowd fired back at the cars; two children or teenagers were among those killed.

Mexico's former education minister dies

Politicians paid their respects on 25 September to Alonso Lujambio Irazábal, a senator of the conservative National Action Party and Mexico's former education minister who died of cancer that day, newspapers reported. Born in 1962, he studied sociology in Mexico, then politics at Yale University in the United States. He worked with the electoral authority from 1997 to 2003, advised the United Nations on designing parliamentary elections for Iraq after the overthrow of its dictator Saddam Hussein, and lectured at Mexico's Iberoamericana and Autonomous National (UNAM) universities. He served as Public Education Secretary from April 2009 to March 2012 when he resigned for ill health; his illness also ended the presidential race he began in 2011 as a pre-candidate. On 29 August - after months of medical treatment - he went to the Senate to swear his oath as a member and received a standing ovation. President Felipe Calderón Hinojosa called him "a kind human being" and example of "good sense and honesty," Excelsior reported on 25 September.

Mexican legislator "stabbed by wife," not mafia

Jaime Serrano Cedilla, the member of a Mexican state parliament stabbed to death on 17 September was apparently killed by his wife not gangsters as initially suspected, the website Infobae reported on 21 September, citing AFP. The Estado de México state judiciary declared that Serrano's wife stabbed him "with a kitchen knife" during a marital dispute "in which there was a lot of verbal and physical aggression," after examining evidence and declarations. Public concern following the killing in the district of Nezahualcóyotl - the constituency where Serrano lived and died - prompted the government to send troops and federal police in response to a perceived crime surge.

Detained guerrilla dies in Venezuela

Luis Freddy Rojas Rincón, a member of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) detained in Venezuela on 19 September died hours after his arrest, apparently for injuries sustained in the shootout that preceded his capture, elcorreo.com reported on 20 September citing statements by the Colombian defence minister. Rojas belonged to Front 33 of the FARC and was sought for his role in a failed bomb attack in Bogotá last August. Separately, Colombian troops shot dead two guerrillas in an undated eight-hour battle in the southern Colombian department of the Cauca, El Correo reported on 20 September. One was Silvino Tapiero Castañeda - Aldemar - a 41-year-old junior commander and training officer thought to have spent  30 years with the FARC. The other - Robinson - was sought for his suspected role in a deadly bomb attack on the town of Villarrica in Cauca in February 2012.

Seven police officials killed around Mexico

Three security officials of the state of Tamaulipas were found dead in a car on 19 September in Nuevo Laredo by the US frontier, El Universal reported on 21 September. The three worked for the Tamaulipas Public Security Secretariat or police authority: they were its Police Strategy chief, the Armament officer and the head of Analysis, the state judiciary declared. On 20 September, three plainclothes policemen were shot dead outside a bank in Gómez Palacio, in the northern state of Durango, El Universal reported the next day. The policemen were gunned down from a convoy of three cars driving past; they were from the Estado de México, the state outside Mexico City. A municipal policeman was separately shot dead at an unspecified date in Atlahucan in the south-central sate of Morelos, the daily reported, citing declarations by the prosecutor-general's office. Also on 20 September three gunmen were killed in a shootout with police commandos in Piedras Negras by the US frontier, El Universal reported. Autorities were checking to ascertain if they were among 132 convicts who escaped from the Piedras Negras state prison on 17 September.

Mexico's president-elect, Venezuelan candidate in Bogotá

Henrique Capriles, the conservative candidate challenging President Hugo Chávez in Venezuela's October presidential elections was in Bogotá on 20 September, where he met in private with President Juan Manuel Santos, media reported. Santos told Capriles in a "cordial" 20-minute meeting that Colombia was neutral in Venezuela's 7 October elections and the two states must continue to cooperate whatever the election result, the broadcaster Caracol reported. Venezuela's Vice-President Elías Jaua Milano told Radio Caracol that day that Venezuela respected the Colombian president's "sovereign" decision to meet with political leaders of any country, Europa Press reported. On 19 September Santos met with Mexico's visiting president-elect Enrique Peña Nieto, who expressed support for Colombia's planned peace talks with FARC guerrillas and said Mexico and Colombia would cooperate in fighting organized crime, Europa Press reported. Peña Nieto said Colombia's "successful" security policies would become a "reference" for Mexico; Colombia had successfuly reduced crime rates he said, and his government would seek its "support and advice" in future "public security tasks."

Honduras Americas' most murderous state, data disputed

Homicide numbers soared in Honduras in 2011, making it the American country with most killings according to a mid-September report on security by the Organization of the American States (OAS), though Honduran officials said the murder rate was falling in 2012. The OAS, apparently citing figures from inside Honduras, counted 7,104 homicides in Honduras in 2011 or a rate of 91.1 homicides per 100,000 inhabitants (hti), La Tribuna reported on 17 September citing a report by the Associated Press. This was the highest rate since a rising trend began in 2004, the year the homicide rate was 31.9/hti. The OAS found lower murder rates in 2011 in other American states including: 69.2/hti in El Salvador, 41.2 in Jamaica, 49.3 in Venezuela (2009), 37.7 in Colombia (2010), 18.6 in Mexico, 3.7 in Chile and 4.6 in the United States. Available figures showed a near-doubling of the homicide rate in the seven Central American states in 2000-2010, from 26.6 to 43.3, while 12 South American states reduced their homicide rate that decade from 26.1 to 21.1. Honduran authorities believed violent crime was not as bad as suggested by the OAS and the situation improving, in spite of doubts about the reliability of figures. The Security Minister Pompeyo Bonilla said on 18 September that the homicide rate in 2012 was 80.8/hti, while admitting "transparency" was needed in police statistics, La Prensa reported. He said the public should have access to information on police management and statistics by zones. The dean of the National Autonomous University of Honduras (UNAH) Julieta Castellano cited 86.6/hti as the homicide rate for 2011 and said it could drop to about 81 for 2012 if present trends continued. The university-affiliated Observatorio de la Violencia gave a similar rate for 2011. Castellano admitted however that police were not freely providing the university with all the data it sought. "If police are the only ones managing the information it is not credible, I want them to understand that," La Prensa cited her as saying on 18 September. A reduction in homicides was also expressed in terms of frequency: in the first half of 2012 a homicide occurred every 78 minutes in Honduras, being less than every 74 minutes in 2011. Perhaps the reality of living in a crime-ridden country was expressed in readers' comments and reactions on La Prensa's website. Almost all - if not every single reader posting reactions to different reports - expressed distrust of official figures and public declarations and contempt for if not disgust with the country's rulers.

Colombian trafficker, guerrilla held in Venezuela

Daniel Barrera Barrera - El Loco or Crazy Barrera - apparently Colombia's most sought-after gangster, was arrested on 18 September while speaking in a phone booth in the city of San Cristóbal, south-western Venezuela, the broadcaster Univisión reported. Colombia's President Juan Manuel Santos revealed the arrest, the result of a joint operation between the security and intelligence forces of Colombia, the United States, Venezuela and Great Britain. His suspected crimes included large-scale drug trafficking and collaboration with the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), also thought to be involved in trafficking. He was believed to have sent "tonnes" of cocaine to the United States since he began working in the 1980s and was considered the last of Colombia's great traffickers. Santos said Barrera "has been harming Colombia and the world for more than 20 years, devoting himself to all manner of crimes and perverse alliances with paramilitaries and the FARC." The operation was reportedly coordinated from Washington DC by Colombia's police chief José Roberto León Riaño. On 19 September Venezuelan and Colombian agents arrested a suspected member of the FARC sought for his role in a failed bomb attack in Bogotá, EFE and media reported. Luis Freddy Rojas Rincón was injured in a shootout as Venezuelan police sought to arrest him in a hotel in Jesús María Semprún in the western department of Zulia. Rojas reportedly fled to Venezuela after failing in August 2012 to blow up a police building in Bogotá with a car bomb.

Colombian FARC chief envisages disarmament

The head of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), Timochenko or Timoleón Jiménez, has said the FARC had "great expectations" on ending their decades-long conflict with the Colombian state in coming peace talks and understood this could mean "a veritable farewell to arms," EFE and media reported on 19 September, citing Timochenko's comments to a magazine. Rodrigo Londoño Echeverri - Timochenko - said in an interview with the weekly Voz that "it would not make sense to start a process leading to the definitive termination of the conflict without contemplating laying down arms as the final destination." Abandonment of arms, he said, entailed "the abolition of the use of force and inciting any type of violence to achieve political or economic goals. It is a veritable farewell to arms." The FARC's disarmament is one of the issues to be discussed between the FARC and Colombian negotiators in talks scheduled to start in Havana on 8 October. Timochenko said talks would be successful if unspecified "large majorities inclined toward a political solution" were allowed to talk and  "influence" the peace process in Colombia.

Police chief missing, several killed around Mexico

The police chief of the Pueblo Nuevo district in the north-central state of Durango was reported missing on 16 September - and may have been kidnapped - El Universal reported on 19 September, citing statements by the Durango judiciary. David Barrera González was a policeman for 15 years and the district's police chief for three months. His predecessor was shot dead in late May in the ciy of El Salto in Durango, as reported in newspapers. Around Mexico: a body was found on 17 or 18 September, wrapped in a cloth with a message from cartels in the central city of Zacatecas, the Zacatecas state prosecutor Arturo Nahle García stated. Four bodies were found at unspecified dates in four districts of the state of Morelos south of Mexico City, while four individuals were killed in Acapulco on Mexico's Pacific coast, and one in the northern city of Juárez, El Universal reported on 19 September.