Army reported bombing guerrillas in northern Colombia

The Colombian armed forces were reported to have struck at the rebel Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) in rural areas of the northern department of Antioquia on 31 December, with differing figures given for purported casualties. Army and air-force units bombarded positions or a camp belonging to the FARC's Fifth Front in or near the district of Chigorodó; 13 guerrillas were provisionally counted as killed according to the broadcaster Caracol although RCN La Radio reported three fatalities. The armed forces reportedly remained cautious about President Juan Manuel Santos's count of 13 deaths written on the website Twitter, before troops had arrived to verify the scene. RCN cited a senior air-force officer General Hugo Acosta Téllez as saying that searches following bombardments had yielded armaments; he said the raid could prove fatal to the Fifth Front, which he added had few guerrillas left in its ranks.

Nine shot dead "at party" outside Medellín

Media reported the assassination of nine people in a country house south of the city of Medellín in northern Colombia on 31 December. Police were investigating the victims' identities but suspected the killings to be related to drug trafficking, RCN La Radio reported. One of the dead was identified as "possibly" a drug trafficker or head of the criminal gang known as the Oficina de Envigado, the broadcaster Caracol reported. The dead were found in a country house in the district of Envigado; neighbours reportedly told police they had heard nothing but the sound of loud music at the house. Several violent crimes were reported around the country in the closing days of 2012. RCN reported the shooting deaths of four people in the south-western city of Cali on 28 December, including of a child or teenager of unspecified age and a boy aged 19. A 16-year-old boy was stabbed to death in the northern city of Bucaramanga on 29 December as he resisted a bid by two thieves to steal his cap, Caracol Radio reported. The same day a man was shot to death in a "public establishment," perhaps a bar, in Cúcuta north-east of Bucaramanga, Caracol reported.

A dozen killed around Mexico

About a dozen people were killed or found dead in recent days in apparent criminal incidents around Mexico. Six of these were found dead in several districts of the central Estado de México on 30 December, Milenio reported. The daily reported a shooting death in Mexico City on 30 December and another late on 29 December in the northern city of Monterrey. That victim was shot dead after armed men burst into a house party; 11 were injured in that attack, Milenio reported. Three were found dead on 28 December in the Sierra Tarahumara, the somewhat lawless countryside of the northern state of Chihuahua, including a 16-year-old apparently shot in the neck. Four others were injured in gun attacks in two different parts of the state that day, Proceso reported. State police separately arrested eight men including a municipal policeman on 28 December in the north-western city of Ciudad Obregón; they were caught while driving with a private arsenal including AK-47 assault rifles, Proceso reported, citing Notimex. Five suspected kidnappers were arrested on 30 December in the north-eastern city of Nuevo Laredo, apparently while planning to kidnap a local businessman who called police to say he had been followed for days. Arms, ammunition and hand-grenades were confiscated from the gang that included a 15-year-old; police said the group confessed to having carried out several kidnappings in the area, Milenio reported.

Body saw violent crimes increase in Venezuela

All manner of crimes increased in Venezuela in 2012 according to the private body Observatorio Venezolano de Violencia, which estimated in its latest report a total of 21,692 killings in 2012 or homicide rate of 73 per 100,000 inhabitants, Colombia's RCN La Radio reported on 27 December. The body's director told RCN radio that the figure represented an eight to 10-per-cent increase compared to 2011. The Observatorio concluded in its 2012 report that Venezuela was now one of the most violent of countries, in spite of "valuable" measures taken by the socialist government to curb crime. Its director Roberto Briceño-León said there had been a "sustained" increase in crimes since 1999 when he said Venezuela had a homicide rate of 19 per 100,000 inhabitants. He said "Venezuela is currently the most violent state in Latin America...a position of dubious honour it shares with Honduras, to some extent with El Salvador, but it has been a process of continuous growth when this has diminished in Colombia." A summary of its report cited the Venezuelan states with the highest homicide rates as the Capital District including Caracas, with 122/100,000 followed by the state of Miranda with 100/100,000 and Aragua south-west of Caracas with 92. The lowest homicide rates were seen in the southern and western states of Amazonas and Mérida, with 42 and 41/100,000. The report observed however that violence had spread to all parts of Venezuela; "killings increased in houses and on the streets. Assassinations have become the means of committing crimes against property, a mechanism for resolving personal disputes or between neighbours and a form of implementing private justice." The body noted a "loss of respect for police authority" manifest in the figure it cited of one policeman or police official killed every day in Venezuela in 2012. Authorities it stated counted 583 kidnappings - as these were reported - but there were "thousands that are not reported. Kidnapping stopped being a crime aimed at the rich and affects middle-class and working families." Kidnappers it added, were now more competent and flexible.

Mexican troops gun down traffickers, bodies found

Mexican soldiers shot dead at an unspecified date five men identified as members of The Zetas drug cartel, in the district of Córdoba in the east-coast state of Veracruz, the daily Milenio reported on 27 December. Three cars, arms and a rocket launcher were confiscated after the shootout. State authorities identified one of the killed as the Zetas' chief in the Córdoba district, a man dubbed El Pokemón. Authorities in the northern state of Nuevo León presented five detainees on 27 December also identified as Zetas and suspected as involved in at least 22 killings as well as drug dealing in northern Nuevo León, El Universal reported. They were detained in the district of Anáhuac; the state security spokesman Jorge Domene Zambrano said the gang's victims were mostly thought to be members of the rival Gulf Cartel whose bodies were burned on local ranches forcibly taken over by the gang. Ten bodies were separately found in graves in the north-central state of Zacatecas on 26 December; three were found in a secret grave in the locality of Sauceda de la Borda north of the city of Zacatecas, after neighbours called the police for the putrid smell, Milenio reported, citing Notimex. Seven were found further north in the district of Miguel Auza, El Universal reported.

Former president deplores mayor's "experiments" in Bogotá

Colombia's former president Ernesto Samper accused Bogotá's Leftist mayor Gustavo Petro on 27 December of "destabilizing" the capital and dividing its residents while experimenting with his socialist "booklet at the city's expense," RCN La Radio reported. Petro, a Leftist politician and briefly a Marxist guerrilla in the 1980s, became mayor in January 2012 and has followed an agenda to recuperate municipal prerogatives. Samper, a president in the 1990s, alleged on RCN radio that Petro was using the city to "set up a national project of a socialist nature." The mayor has been criticized for his plans to have the city retake full control of rubbish collection, previously contracted out. The ill-prepared transition and dearth of vehicles led to the accumulation of trash in the capital's streets for several days as the new system began technically on 18 December. Samper dismissed the scheme as Petro's "whim," adding "it is like returning to the 50s and 60s. That is returning to Soviet Stalinism. The city has gone back 25 or 30 years." On 25 December, the city's new waste-management firm Aguas de Bogotá reduced the number of districts where it would collect waste - having insufficient vehicles - and agreed to re-distribute zones to private firms formerly involved in cleaning, Lime, Atesa, Aseo Capital and Ciudad Limpia, "in principle for a month," the broadcaster Caracol reported. Meanwhile 25 used waste-collection and cleaning vehicles imported from the United States were in the port of Cartagena and might remain there until January 2013 as importation legalities were being checked and vehicles disinfected, El Tiempo reported. Some vehicles were reported to have potentially hazardous plant and trash residues. The Bogotá government signed contracts on 7 and 13 December to import 160 trash-collection vehicles for Aguas de Bogotá, El Tiempo stated. Separately Colombia's director of public prosecutions (Fiscal-General) Eduardo Montealegre Lynett was reported as stating that his office had begun a "preliminary investigation" to discern possible legal violations in the trash-collection plan. Montealegre said "I have designated a very senior official to evaluate the complaint lodged against the mayor and determine whether or not the actions attributed to the mayor of Bogotá have criminal relevance," Caracol radio reported on 27 December. The state prosecution service would also look for contractual irregularities and environmental violations and state its decision in January, he said.

Fewer cited killed in Colombia at Christmas

Police chief José Roberto León Riaño told RCN La Radio on 26 December that Christmas killings in Colombia dropped 30 per cent this year compared to the 47 counted as killed in 2011, apparently confirming the decline in crimes officials commented on earlier in December. In Bogotá, the mayor Gustavo Petro said there were three killings in the capital on Christmas Eve, down from 16 for the same day in 2011, the broadcaster Caracol reported. He said there were 65 reported homicides in Bogotá in December from 1 to midnight on 24 December, compared to 148 for the same period in 2011. Christmas was however marked by numerous people being burned by firecrackers or hurt in street fights; police reportedly intervened in more than 4,500 scuffles or fights on 24 December. In the northern city of Medellín, authorities counted about 1,000 fights on 24 and 25 December, mostly following drinking and street celebrations, Caracol television reported.

Colombian officials wary of weakened FARC, ELN

The Colombian defence ministry found in mid-December that the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), the guerrilla force that has battled the state for decades, now had fewer than 8,000 members, compared to about 20,000 some 12 years ago, El Espectador reported on 26 December. A ministry report found that the smaller National Liberation Army (ELN) had fewer than 1,500, down from about 4,000 operatives in 2002; it attributed the fall to sustained military action. The report stated that in 2012 Colombia reduced FARC numbers by just under 18 per cent compared to 2011 and just under 22 per cent for the ELN. FARC spokesmen have on occasions insisted the state cannot defeat them and has been forced to initiate negotiations. Colombia's police chief José Roberto León Riaño separately told RCN Radio on 26 December that he feared the FARC were preparing a "terrorist wave" in 2013 and had not respected a unilateral two-month ceasefire purportedly begun on 20 November. Police he said observed that the FARC had in preceding weeks acquired "explosives, war material, most probably to prepare a terrorist wave when the ceasefire," for which he said police were also preparing. The army commander General Sergio Mantilla Sanmiguel concurred, speaking to RCN Radio on 24 December; he said "the FARC are arming...searching and storing" but also making explosives "to attack the population," El Espectador reported. This "is not a serious ceasefire" he said, observing that "they look like they will begin to launch indiscriminate attacks in January." Mantilla put at 1,500 the number of rebels of both armies arrested in 2012.

Fifteen or more killed around Mexico

In the northern district of Morelos near the US frontier, troops shot dead three suspected criminals early on 25 December after they were said to have come under gunfire, Proceso reported. They found arms and ammunition including grenades and a launcher from the Dodge estate car whence shots had reportedly been fired. In the north-western state of Sinaloa gunmen dressed in paramilitary-type uniforms searched houses in the district of El Platanar de los Ontineros on 24 December, looking for individuals written on their execution list; they found and shot dead nine, Proceso reported citing the local mayor's comments to the newspaper El Noroeste. According to Proceso the locality is next to what is termed locally a "Fear zone" (Zona de miedo) in the state, which includes the districts of La Cieneguilla, El Tiro, Zaragoza, Aguacaliente del Zapote and El Llano and where presumably criminals do as they please. Five decapitated bodies were found in a locality near the frontier of the western states of Jalisco and Michoacán on 24 December; four were identified as those of policemen of the district of Pihuamo in Jalisco reported as kidnapped on 23 December. The bodies found in the locality of Los Naranjos had been burned, Proceso reported. It also reported that a Federal policeman was found "executed" and burned outside the north-central city of San Luis Potosí on 25 December. He had been reported as last seen at a house party on 22 December. In the west-coast district of Zihuatanejo, people found a man hanging from a bridge early on 25 December, Proceso reported.

Over 50 killed in Honduras over Christmas

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

Guatemalan prosecutor, six more killed in ambush

Seven people including a public prosecutor were shot dead while driving in north-western Guatemala on 23 December, in an attack suspected to be the work of a drug cartel, the daily Prensa Libre reported. The attack occurred in the San Pedro Necta district in Huehuetenango, the department bordering Mexico; the cars were burned. Of the victims three were identified as the district prosecutor of Chiquimula in eastern Guatemala Irma Yolanda Oliveras, an employee of the social works department of the First Lady's Office (SOSEP) and a businessman named as Luis Antonio Palacios, the Interior Minister was reported as saying. The group was returning in two armoured cars from the inauguration of a hotel belonging to Palacios in the district of La Mesilla in Huehuetenango, or going to La Mesilla as other reports suggested. It appeared the district prosecutor was for some time a target of criminals, possibly of The Zetas cartel whose activities she was tasked with investigating. Prensa Libre cited Guatemala's Prosecutor-General Claudia Paz y Paz as recently commenting on persistent threats to prosecutors in frontier districts like Chiquimula. Police reportedly arrested in August suspected members of the Zetas thought to be planning the assassination of the Chiquimula district prosecutor, though reports did not immediately clarify if she was that prosecutor.

Mexico confirms new ambassador to Brazil

The Mexican Senate confirmed on 20 December the nomination of the former president of the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) Beatriz Paredes Rangel as Mexico's new ambassador to Brazil, CNNMéxico reported. Paredes, one of Mexico's more familiar politicians and usually depicted in colourful ethnic attire, ran as the PRI's candidate to become mayor of Mexico City in the July 2012 general elections; she was soundly beaten by the Leftist candidate and current mayor. She was governor of the state of Tlaxcala east of the capital in 1987-92, Mexico's ambassador to Cuba in 1993-4, president of the PRI in 2007-11 and a member of parliament from 2009 to 2012 among other positions. Brazil has welcomed her nomination. The PRI also changed its president in December after Pedro Joaquín Coldwell stepped down to become the Energy minister. César Camacho Quiroz was on 11 December voted in as the new party president as the PRI changed its presiding board or National Political Council, El Economista reported. Camacho later told CNN in Mexico that the party must "efficiently" back President Enrique Peña Nieto's promised reforms and "find a better way of connecting with" civil bodies, the party's website reported on 22 December. He said nevertheless that close ties should not lead to a merging of or confusion between the government and the party whence the president emerged. Camacho was a former senator and former governor of the State of Mexico, of which Peña Nieto was also governor. He was to be the PRI's president until March 2015. Yvonne Ortega Pacheco, a pregnant single mother and former governor of the state of Yucatán, became the party Secretary-General for the same period. This was the second most important post in the party; both positions were uncontested, CNN observed.

Dozens killed around Mexico, head left at mayor's house

Twenty six or more people were reported killed or found dead in the states of Jalisco, Michoacán, Zacatecas and Sinaloa on 23-24 December in criminal executions and gun battles, these including a dozen policemen shot dead by gangsters, Proceso and El Universal reported. In one incident, three policemen were shot dead in Ayotlán in Jalisco, in a gun fight with 40 armed men who drove into town in a caravan of 10 cars; the gang had earlier fired on police in nearby Degollado, with no fatalities. Nine policemen from the district of Briseñas in Michoacán were killed in that state on the night of 23-24 December, as their patrol came under fire from criminals, El Universal reported. It counted 11 victims of crime in Michoacán that night. It separately reported that six people were shot or found dead on 23 December in the districts Cósala and Culiacán in the north-western state of Sinaloa. A man was shot dead on 23 December in the north-central city of Zacatecas, El Universal reported the police as saying. In the northern city of Torreón, five dismembered bodies were found at the back of a car late on 21 December, Proceso reported on 22 December, citing the local daily Vanguardia. An unspecified message was found by the bodies. A 25-year-old woman was killed in the north-western city of Chihuahua as she sought to protect her four-year-old child from shooting between a suspect and police, Proceso reported. She was driving by the spot where a man began shooting from his car at a Federal police car. On 22 December, a severed head was left at the entrance of a house belonging to the mayor of El Arenal in the western state of Jalisco, with a message from a criminal gang, Proceso reported, citing the weblog narco.com. The mayor, Alejandro Ocampo Aldana, is a member of the Institutional Revolutionary Party and began working in October; the head belonged to a man reported kidnapped on 20 December in the village of Huaxtla. The message was signed by the Alianza de sangre empresa NX (Blood Alliance Enterprise NX) and directed at drug cartels competing in this area The Zetas, the Jalisco Nueva Generación and a gang called Los Sandoval, Proceso reported.

Mexican policemen held for "torture," mayor beats neighbours

Three Mexican policemen from the northern frontier city of Juárez were detained at an unspecified date, accused of beating two detainees and sodomizing one of them with a baseball bat or similar item so he would confess to selling drugs, Proceso reported on 23 December, citing the Juárez daily El Diario. Five policemen were facing charges relating to the incident, which occurred last May, although two had fled, the dailies reported. The plaintiffs had been stopped by police while riding one or two motorbikes; after initial questioning they were taken to a building for more vigorous interrogation: this included beatings and for one detainee, being forced to swallow bullets covered in urine and sodomized with a bat. The two apparently had their heads doused in liquor and were later taken to a local judge and reported for drinking in public. The policemen were ordered detained on 17 November and presented before a judge on 23 December. In the state of Morelos south of Mexico City, the mayor of Tlaltizapán had police beat two of his neighbours after they complained about police cars parked outside their house, Proceso reported on 22 December, citing Mexico's Notimex. When a female neighbour complained to the mayor he ordered policemen to arrest her, while another neighbour who intervened was beaten by police in front of relatives including children. The family later complained to the National Human Rights Commission, which publicized the incident in a communiqué and wrote to the municipality. It was not immediately clear if the mayor faced prosecution.

Over 35 shot dead around Mexico

Over 35 were killed in criminal "executions" and shootouts between gunmen and state forces around Mexico in the 19-21 December period. Of these 14 were reported dead on 19-20 December, including a 22-year-old who died in a shootout with the army on 20 December in the northern state of Chihuahua. Five bodies were found that day by a road in the north-central state of San Luis Potosí, with unspecified messages left beside them from one of the drug cartels, Proceso reported. Authorities in the east-coast state of Veracruz declared that troops and police shot dead on 20 December a man identified as Jesús Daniel Vargas Ramírez - El Popeye - head of The Zetas cartel in the district of Cardel or José Cardel in Veracruz, Proceso reported. The website counted at least 22 victims of criminal and related incidents from late 20 to 21 December. These included: 10 people including five teenagers killed in the northern district of Monterrey late on 20 December, and seven or nine shot dead in and around the western resort of Acapulco, including a journalist and a court official. On 21 December, authorities of the northern state of Nuevo León presented eight detainees identified as members of the Zetas cartel thought involved in the murder of 11 policemen including a police chief in 2011, Proceso reported. The state security spokesman Jorge Domene Zambrano declared that the eight were thought to have kidnapped then executed the police chief of Apodaca and 10 colleagues, in the district of Benito Juárez in April 2011, and were suspects in several murders in 2012. They were detained at an unspecified time in December.

Colombians debate land use, to aid peace talks

A three-day meet in Bogotá to gather Colombians' opinions on land use, and planned earlier to complement peace talks between the state and Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) concluded on 19 December with some 400 proposals to be sent to negotiators in Havana. The Forum on Integral Agrarian Development organized by Colombia's National University and the United Nations in Colombia, was attended by some 1,200 delegates from 15 civilian sectors nationwide. Opinions, compilled by UN rapporteurs, were to reach Havana before 8 January when negotiations were to resume. Land ownership is a key theme in negotiations. Spain's ABC newspaper observed on 20 December that a little over one cent of proprietors owned over 50 per cent of Colombian lands, and ownership had been a detonator of the ongoing conflict. One group absent at the forum however was the National Federation of Cattle Farmers (Federación Nacional de Ganaderos, Fedegan), whose president termed unhelpful the airing of numerous "antagonistic" positions on land use, ABC reported on 19 December citing news agencies. Another website cited the Fedegan president as saying that his association refused to condone "executioners," meaning the FARC. Colombia's President Juan Manuel Santos said in a radio interview that Fedegan's absence and failure to "at least send proposals" made "no sense," but admitted cattle farmers had suffered from guerrilla activities in past decades. The Fedegan's president he said, had "very clearly and from the start been critical of a rapprochement with the FARC," a posture he said was "valid."

Nicaragua convicts Mexican "pressmen" on drug charges

A Nicaraguan court convicted on drug-trafficking and related charges on 19 December 18 Mexicans detained on 20 August 2012 after they entered Nicaragua parading as employees of the Mexican broadcaster Televisa. Over nine million USD and cocaine traces were found in some of the six vehicles they drove displaying Televisa logos; Televisa has denied they were employees. The 18 were found guilty of drug trafficking, money laundering and membership of criminal organizations, CNN reported citing Mexico's Notimex. Prosecutors asked for the maximum 30 years sentence envisaged for the charges but the presiding judge Edgard Altamirano was to issue a sentence on 18 January 2013, Nicaragua's La Prensa reported. Toward the close of the trial on 18 December, police testimonies indicated that a woman identified as head of the group had repeatedly telephoned a number identified as belonging to a vice-president of Televisa, Spain's EFE reported. Members of the Economic Investigations Directorate at the Nicaraguan police testified that Raquel Alatorre Correa dialled a Mexican number, said to belong to Televisa's Amador García Estrada, between 25 July and 24 August. The group also carried letters apparently signed by García although Nicaraguan prosecutors were waiting for the executive to send them a sample signature in January for verification. EFE cited a prosecutor as saying that Televisa had formally asked Nicaraguan justice to investigate whether or not someone inside Televisa had signed  letters for the group.

Eight reported killed around Mexico, policemen sacked

Eight were reported killed in presumed criminal incidents around Mexico on 17-19 December, including a "Venezuelan model" and two policemen whose bodies were found in a burned vehicle, Proceso reported. The policemen were found in the district of Salvador Escalante in the western state of Michoacán; one of them it was thought could be the police chief of Santa Clara del Cobre, south-west of the city of Morelia in Michoacán. The brother of a prominent local businesswoman was also found dead in a ditch south of Morelia. On 17 December, four suspected kidnappers shot dead a businessman in the locality of Villa Seca outside Toluca de Lerdo in Estado de México, as he resisted being forced into a car. A 24-year-old girl identified as Venezuelan model Daysi Yeniree Ferrer Arenas, was found dead on 18 December in the western city of Guadalajara; she had been shot in the head three times. Authorities raised to 23 the number of deaths from rioting and a failed attempt on 18 December to break out of a prison in the state of Durango. The state's Public Security chief Jesús Antonio Rosso told Milenio newspaper that nine guards and 14 inmates had died in violence that erupted in the prison in Gómez Palacio. On 19 December, 125 policemen in the northern state of Coahuila were relieved of their duties and banned from working in the security sector after failing "confidence tests" designed to establish their probity and professionalism, the state's Public Security chief told Milenio Televisión. Many Mexican policemen have the worst reputation with the public, for suspected corruption and ties to criminals. Gerardo Villarreal said these could not be recruited elsewhere in Mexico and the state would decide whether or not more policemen would be dismissed in 2013.

Officials see fewer murders, crimes in Bogotá

Murders and "high impact" crimes were said to be continuing a downward trend in Bogotá, with a reported 29 per cent drop in homicides in November 2012 year-on-year, city officials declared on 13 December. There appeared to be 104 homicides in Bogotá in November 2012 - compared to 147 in November 211 - and this was the lowest figure in 10 years, the capital's police chief General Luis Eduardo Martínez Guzmán stated, while speaking at a presentation with the Bogotá Government Secretary or security chief Guillermo Asprilla Coronado. Martínez gave 1,143 as the number of homicides registered so far in 2012, 22 per cent below 1,460 homicides for either the same period in 2011 or all of 2011. Homicides registered for the first 13 days of December were reported to have dropped 59 per cent compared to same time in 2011, December being termed "historically" the most violent month. Asprilla said "we have the homicide phenomenon under control in Bogotá. Our objective is to take the figure to a single digit." Other figures given for the first third of December 2012 were: a 46-per-cent drop in car thefts compared to the same time in 2011, a 30-per-cent fall in personal thefts or muggings and a 47-per-cent drop in shop thefts. On 18 December the prosecutor-general's office ruled that Asprilla be dismissed from his post and banned from public office for 12 years after investigations indicated a conflict of his private interests and public duties, the broadcaster Caracol reported. As Bogotá Government Secretary Asprilla is in charge of security and justice policies among other duties and is effectively a deputy-mayor; he was the acting mayor in in June 2012 when Mayor Gustavo Petro fell ill. But apparently he remained to date an attorney to plaintiffs who have taken the municipality to court after the explosion of a trash heap in 1997; damages could be paid for that. He has said he did not hide his legal activities and withdrew from the case after entering the city council, El Tiempo reported. Asprilla was reportedly to continue working while appealing the ruling.

Two FARC rebels killed in southern Colombia

The Colombian army killed two rebels of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) during gun battles in the southern department of Caquetá, at an unspecified date, the daily El Espectador reported on 18 December. The guerrillas were killed in a rural part of the Solano district; the army declared operations were continuing in the zone. One of Colombia's senators was separately reported as urging the states guaranteeing the current peace talks between the FARC and the state to press the FARC to release child soldiers, whom she described as "kidnapped for the war." Norway and Cuba are acting as guarantors of the talks and Venezuela and Chile are "accompanying" them, though Venezuela and Cuba's socialist regimes likely enjoy greater influence with the FARC. Gilma Jiménez Gómez a senator of the Green Party, recently said that "if the FARC do not return underage recruits, which means kidnapped for the war, the process will be illegal...and immoral," El Espectador reported on 18 December without dating her remarks. She said "recruiting" children in the FARC was a euphemism for kidnapping. It was not clear if the subject was to be specifically discussed during talks in Havana, while no figures were given for the number of children in the FARC's ranks. Jiménez formerly headed the social welfare department at the Bogotá municipality; she was elected to the Senate for four years in 2010, El Espectador reported.