Mexican community policemen said kidnapped child

Masked individuals identifying themselves as members of a self-styled community police briefly kidnapped a child in the Ayutla district of the western Mexican state of Guerrero on 4 February, prompting community police chiefs to order their policemen to work unmasked. The masks were very likely intended to help community policemen avoid identification by the criminals they have vowed to fight. Residents of at least four districts in Guerrero have formed the militias to police their part of the state, in response to the authorities' inability to curb violent crime. State authorities and civil observers have already expressed concern about the legalit of such armed groups, but locals have in turn denounced the state's failure to assure security. After the kidnapping, three local community police chiefs decided their policemen would only bear masks during "operations" or patrols, La Crónica de Hoy reported on 5 February. Community forces detained dozens of suspected criminals during January at road blocks set up around relevant districts; they recently announced relatives of 54 detainees held in the locality of El Mesón could visit on Sundays. Separately in the resort of Acapulco in Guerrero masked men raped six or seven female tourists lodged in bungalows on the edge of the city on the night of 4-5 February, media reported. Six were Spanish and one Mexican, and seven Spanish men who were with them were tied up; their belongings were robbed. The group later received medical assistance and counselling, Europa Press reported on 5 February.

Missing policeman's body found in Bogotá

The body of Jairo Alberto Díaz, a 24-year-old policeman who disappeared on 27 January in Bogotá's north-eastern district of Usaquén was found on 4 February, and police were unsure if he had died by accident or been killed as he was found in a spot that had already been searched. Dozens of police agents had searched for him in Usaquén and surrounding areas and the city's police chief initially suspected he had been kidnapped by a gang. A red plastic bag found over him may have hidden him, it was speculated. Coroners were examining the body to determine possible causes of death, the broadcaster Caracol reported. His father told Caracol radio on 5 February that he was convinced "he was killed," as indicated he said by the fact that the body had not decomposed after an absence of nine days. After days of hoping to find his son alive, "what are we going to do now?" he asked in grief.

Troops kill three Colombian rebels, hostages to be freed

Colombian troops shot dead three fighters of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) during operations on 3 February in the district of La Macarena in the south-central department Meta, while a fourth guerrilla, aged 15 years, was caught and handed over to child welfare authorities. The army stated that two other guerrillas surrendered or left the FARC that day, Europa Press reported, citing the Cali newspaper El Tiempo. A rifle, machine gun and mortar were confiscated. The FARC stated in a communiqué on 1 February that they held two policemen kidnapped on 25 January and a soldier kidnapped on 30 January during fighting in the department of Nariño, and intended to release them, the broadcaster Caracol reported on 2 February. The communiqué declared the servicemen to be in good condition and specified that Colombianos y Colombianas por la Paz, a political formation sympathetic to the FARC, must participate in the release, to be "accompanied" it added by the International Committee of the Red Cross. Colombianos is headed by the former senator Piedad Córdoba who has intermittently acted as a mediator between the FARC and the Colombian state. She said on 2 February that she was waiting for the government's permission before meeting with the Red Cross to begin the hostages' release, Caracol reported.

Rebels ambush policemen in northern Colombia

Three policemen were reported killed in northern Colombia  on 1 February in an ambush attributed to the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), press and agencies reported. Suspected guerrillas attacked a patrol car in the Maicao district in the department of Guajira, close to the border with Venezuela, Europa Press reported. The attack seemed to closely follow officials' declarations on troops killing six guerrillas including a FARC chief during bombardments. In the east-coast department of Chocó the departmental ombudsman spoke of local concerns over the FARC imposing an "armed strike" - curfews and restrictions on circulation - on several districts. Luis Enrique Abadía told Colombia's national radio on 1 February that pamphlets were found in districts along the highway leading to the department of Risaralda east of Chocó, announcing an "armed strike" from 1 to 20 February. He said this meant restrictions on movements of the local population and on deliveries to the districts of Mistrató, Pueblo Rico, Condoto and Atrato.

Mexican villagers put crime suspects on trial

Some 500 residents of various districts of the western state of Guerrero began on 31 January their own trial of over 50 suspects held in preceding weeks for alleged criminal activities in the surrounding Costa Chica sector, the review Proceso reported. The trial, which state authorities have more or less denounced as illegal, was organized by "community authorities" of the ethnic population of the districts of Florencio Villarreal, Ayutla de los Libres, Tecoanapa and San Marcos, and fruit of a self-defence movement that emerged in early January as residents armed themselves to fight rampant crime. About 250 people attending the first session were armed. They listened to the presentation of the purported defendants in a three-hour event held in hills outside the town of Ayutla; a second session was to be held on 22 February in the district of Tecoanapa, Proceso reported. The gathering also heard members of the Community Police explain the recent history of popular mobilization locally; a founder of the Community Police the priest Mario Campos Hernández, explained that the people was restoring order where the state had failed. He alluded to suspected collusion between some authorities and criminals, which was presented as a cause of this virtual uprising. The head of the Union of Peoples and Organizations of the State of Guerrero (UPOEG) Bruno Plácido Valerio separately denied that state authorities had retaken control of the district of Ayutla and insisted locals would not disarm until they had eliminated crime locally. It is by no means exceptional in Mexico to suspect collusion between authorities and criminals. Most recently the former mayoress of Lerdo in the northern state of Durango placed a notice in a daily accusing a local leader of her party - the conservative National Action Party (PAN) - of associating with criminals. Maria del Rosario Castro Lozano published her charges in El Sol de Durango against the PAN coordinator in Lerdo, Raúl Villegas Morales. She declared she informed the party's National Executive Committee of this in October 2012 but was ignored, Proceso reported on 30 January. How she asked can "we demand that the...governor" of Durango to "clean the state of traffickers when the head of...the PAN in Lerdo has links?"

Colombian hostages freed, six guerrillas killed

Three oil-sector contractors kidnapped in southern Colombia on 30 January were abandoned by their captors the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) on 31 January after these were pursued by the army and plain-clothes agents, Caracol radio reported, citing army declarations. The head of the Army's Sixth Brigade General Germán Giraldo told Caracol on 31 January that the FARC left the two engineers and a topographer in the locality of Fragüita in the southern Caquetá department, apparently to maintain their own mobility. President Juan Manuel Santos said that day speaking in Cartagena de Indias, that authorities had information that two policemen believed kidnapped by the FARC on 25 January were alive, and efforts were underway to rescue them. He said the FARC were mistaken if they believed they could pressure the state into ending its military actions with kidnappings, and vowed Colombia would end its war with the FARC "one way or another," the broadcaster Caracol reported. He thus rejected again the FARC's calls for a bilateral ceasefire; Colombia did not accept he said, proposals to "regulate this war or humanize it," or any "transaction." The Defence Ministry also confirmed an earlier Air-Force communiqué on the deaths at an unspecified date of a FARC chieftain and five guerrillas during bombardments in north-western Colombia. The Defence Minister Juan Carlos Pinzón told Caracol radio that one of the dead was identified as Juan Carlos Arango - Jacobo Arango - the commander of the FARC's Fifth Front and Northwestern Block. He was killed when the Air Force bombarded a camp in the Nudo de Paramillo locality in the department of Antióquia. Police and navy personnel separately caught on 31 January two suspects provisionally identified as extortionists for the FARC; they were found with explosives in the south-western district of Tumaco, the Defence Ministry stated.

Mexican parties reach registration deadline

January 31 was the deadline for political groups to inform Mexico's Federal Electoral Institute (IFE) of their intention to become formal political parties, and this was reportedly done by an unprecedented 26 groupings including MORENA, the formation led by the veteran Leftist Andrés Manuel López Obrador. The IFE was now to consider their applications over a year and a half on the basis of legal requisites including having or mustering in that period at least 220,000 party militants and organizing at least 20 state gatherings with 3,000 participants or 200 district assemblies with 300 attending, La Jornada reported. Another requirement was that from January or February all expenses must be reported, presumably to the IFE. The daily observed that several parties were struck off the parties register this year for their inability to meet legal requisites, including the Social Democratic Party and the Authentic Party of the Mexican Revolution.

Four Colombian soldiers killed fighting rebels

Four soldiers were reported killed and two wounded in a gun fight with the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) in the south-eastern department of Nariño late on 30 January, while the FARC and state representatives were to resume peace talks in Havana on 31 January. The soldiers were killed when rebels fired on a patrol in the Puerto Sánchez locality of the district of Policarpa, amid ongoing army operations in southern Colombia, El Espectador and the broadcaster Caracol reported. The same day the FARC were thought to have kidnapped three oil-sector contractors in the district of Piamonte in the southern Cauca department, although this had yet to be verified. This followed the FARC's kidnapping of two policemen on 25 January and their recent declaration that they would resume hostage-taking. The engineers were stopped on a road by armed elements outside the district capital, Caracol reported. The National Association of the Kidnapped and Disappeared (Asociación Nacional de Secuestrados y Desaparecidos), a civic body, has stated its conviction that the FARC retained as captives "at least" 20 soldiers and policemen in spite of declaring in February 2012 that it had freed all servicemen. The broadcaster RCN La Radio cited its spokesman Rafael Mora as saying "we are certain that about 20 members of the military remain in the FARC's hands...we have documented data with the complaints and all the information needed in this case to show that the FARC still hold them." That is if they had not been murdered or had not died: RCN cited the mother of the sergent William Gómez Cabrera, reported as kidnapped in 2004 in the southern district of Teteyé, as saying that she had been "told" he was a killed a year later but had no reliable news. "I need to be told the truth. If they murdered him, they should tell me where they left him, where his remains are," she was cited as saying.

Locals form own police in western Mexico

Disgusted with crime and the apparent impotence of authorities, communities in Mexico's crime-ridden western coast are increasingly arming themselves and turning to "community policing," with the implicit approval of local mayors but prompting concern among state officials. The daily Crónica reported on 31 January on 150 members of a "community police" force being "sworn in" before municipal representatives in Florencio Villarreal in the state of Guerrero; these were to patrol 20 nearby localities or districts considered crime hot spots. The local force consisted of local residents and affiliates of the Union of Peoples and Organisations of the State of Guerrero (Unión de Pueblos y Organizaciones del Estado de Guerrero, UPOEG), elected in village assemblies. Organizers said such militias were legal pursuant to Article 39 of the Constitution; they were in any case a measure of public fear and anger at how extortion or kidnapping seemed to continue unchecked in Guerrero and especially in this area, called the Costa Chica. A municipal official attending the ceremony said the mayor of Florencio Villarreal was in favour of such self-defence initiatives, Crónica reported. In another village in Guerrero, Ayutla de los Libres, the community was reportedly to "put on trial" on 31 January 30 individuals held in preceding weeks for suspected ties to organized crime. The Governor of Guerrero Ángel Aguirre Rivero urged the local groups on 29 January to respect the law while appreciating their desire "to help" with security; the head of UPOEG Bruno Plácido Valerio declared in response that crime had "overwhelmed" authorities in Guerrero and society was now "replacing" them for it, "assuming that sovereignty resides in the people not the representatives of institutions," Proceso reported on 30 January. Plácido said self-defence was not illegal, while authorities had failed to assure citizens' security; "it is they who should be judged and sanctioned for being indolent and negligent in the face of crime," he said.

Colombian rebels vow to pursue kidnapping

Politicians in Colombia were indignant at the declaration by the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) that they "reserved the right" to kidnap members of the armed forces as before, in spite of ongoing peace talks with the Colombian state. The FARC's negotiating team in Havana issued a communiqué or posted one on the website Twitter, referring to hostages as "prisoners of war" who had surrendered to them, though apparently they stated they would not kidnap for ransom, El Espectador and the broadcaster Caracol reported on 30 January. The FARC's announcement apparently did not mention the two policemen kidnapped by them on 25 January. Colombia's Vice-President Angelino Garzón said the FARC were "challenging" the talks with their announcement and said the government should consider the conditions in which it was talking to the FARC. He said Colombia was able in any case to end the insurgency by military means, Caracol reported. The state's chief negotiator at the talks Humberto de la Calle Lombana likewise urged the FARC "to say once and for all at the conversations table if they want peace, but do not waste the government's and Colombians' time," qualifying the two policemen as hostages, not prisoners, El Espectador reported on 30 January. Colombia's former conservative president Álvaro Uribe Vélez, a critic of the peace talks from the start, accused the government of effectively legitimizing the FARC by talking to them. He told a radio program that "what the government is doing with this policy is to authorise kidnapping," RCN La Radio reported. It was nonsense he said to discuss land tenure with the FARC when these he alleged were the main agents depriving people of their lands; "they validate the FARC as prophets of the land," he said. "Fierce fighting" was separately reported on 29 January between troops and the FARC, in the southern districts of La Unión Peneya and Puerto Asís; the army killed three guerrillas and captured four while four soldiers were injured, Caracol television reported.

Deputy-mayor, city official shot dead in Honduras

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

Over 20 reported killed, found dead in Mexico

The review Proceso put the death toll from presumed criminal incidents in Mexico from late 28 January through 29 January at 16; the dead included suspected criminals, policemen, unidentified civilians and an 11-year-old girl, earlier reported as kidnapped and found dead in the district of Tecomán in the western state of Colima. Five others were found in ditches or makeshift graves that day in the north-central state of Zacatecas, in the districts of Noria de Ángeles and Sombrerete, Proceso reported on 29 January. The number excluded the group of musicians kidnapped early on 25 January in the northern state of Nuevo León and whose bodies were found days later on an estate. Seventeen members of Kombo Kolombia were now believed to have been massacred, while police were interrogating one survivor to find out about the conditions and motives of the killings, Proceso reported. Separately authorities arrested on 29 January 24 people including 14 foreign nationals, described as forming an extortion and kidnapping gang that operated in northern Mexico; the gang called itself Defenders of Christ, Proceso reported. The group, headed by a Venezuelan who arrived in Mexico as a tourist in 2006, reportedly operated in the northern district of Torreón and the north-eastern district of Nuevo Laredo near the US frontier. The suspects were detained on a road between Nuevo Laredo and Monterrey, after relatives of their victims gave information to police.

Pacific block to lift tariffs on most goods

Chile, Peru, Colombia and Mexico, member states of the Pacific Alliance trading block, were to agree before 31 March on removing tariffs on 90 per cent of their traded products and gradually reduce tariffs on remaining goods and services after that, Chile's President Sebastian Piñera announced in Santiago de Chile on 27 January. The four states' presidents were attending the summit of Latin American States and the EU (Cumbre Celac-EU) concluding that day. The states were also to set rules to define the origins of traded products and regulate access to their markets and investment flows. Piñera said the block was the "most important and profound integration process in Latin American history." The annual value of exportations was placed at USD 500 billion and the four countries currently provided a market of some 215 million people, the website peru21 reported. The Alliance formed in 2011, is to hold a summit in Cali in 2014. Beside the four members several states have the status of Observers; Costa Rica was reportedly to become the next member. Separately Colombia and Peru signed a free trade agreement with the European Union expected to enter into force in the first half of 2013, Peru21 reported. This has been ratified in Peru and is to be ratified in Colombia.

Musicians' bodies found in northern Mexico

Four or five of 12 bodies found "so far" in a ditch or well on an estate near Mina in the northern state of Nuevo León were reported on 28 January as belonging to the musical band Kombo Kolombia, whose 18 or 20 members were likely kidnapped by criminals early on 25 January, the state's security affairs spokesman Jorge Domene Zambrano declared. One of the victims was Colombian. Police were investigating the motives for the killing, although media were already speculating this could have been a punishment meted out to the band by one gang or cartel for having performed for a rival gang, Milenio reported. The bodies indicated the victims had been stripped, tortured and shot. Separately, two unidentified "civilians" were killed on 28 January in a shootout between soldiers and gunmen in the district of Lagunillas in Michoacán, west of Mexico City; firing began when troops arrived at the locality of El Correo after residents had called authorities to report the presence of armed men, Milenio reported. Three suspected criminals were killed the same day in the north-central city of Zacatecas when presumed rivals stopped their car and shot them, Milenio reported.

Colombian ministry reports drug arrests, equipment found

The Colombian Defence Ministry reported on 28 January arrests and confiscation of equipment it said were significant blows against regional drug trafficking. Three leading members of a trafficking ring active in the San Andrés Archipelago and thought to have sent drugs to Central America, Mexico and the United States were held on or after 20 January, the Ministry stated. They were believed to have ties with one of the country's big gangs, the Rastrojos, and faced possible trafficking and murder charges. The navy also found and confiscated at an unspecified date, communication equipment thought to belong to another gang, the Urabeños, in two sites in the western department of Chocó. These included radios, GPS equipment and related items used to direct boats on the high seas, as well as guns and bullets, found under houses in Charambirá and Togoromá in the Litoral de San Juan district, the Defence Ministry stated on 28 January.

Mexico to change ambassadors in Cuba, Canada

Mexico was to recall two ambassadors sent to Cuba and Canada by the previous conservative government and replace them with appointees closer to the ruling Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) and its foreign policy postures that included better ties with Cuba's communist regime. The Leftist former governor of the state of Michoacán Lázaro Cárdenas Batel was to become ambassador in Cuba, replacing Gabriel Jiménez Remus, while a veteran diplomatist and former deputy-foreign minister Julián Ventura Valero would replace Francisco Barrio as ambassador in Canada, La Jornada reported on 28 January. The daily observed that good ties with Cuba characterised the foreign policy of PRI governments and that these deteriorated in the presidencies of Vicente Fox and Felipe Calderón of the National Action Party. Cárdenas is a member of the Democratic Revolutionary Party (PRD) and son of its founder, the former Mexico City mayor Cuauhtémoc Cárdenas Solórzano; his grandfather was Lázaro Cárdenas del Río, President in 1934-40. In spite of initial protests against the 2012 general-election results and allegations of fraud against the PRI, the PRD has moved closer to the new government and signed the Pact for Mexico proposed by the PRI, designed to ease legislation. La Jornada cited unnamed foreign ministry sources as describing the appointment as a "gesture of friendship" to Cuba. Media carried pictures of a meeting in Santiago de Chile on 27 January between President Enrique Peña Nieto and Cuba's Raul Castro Ruz, on the sidelines of the summit of Latin American states and the EU. Unspecified sources cited by La Jornada stated that Mr Castro congratulated President Peña at the meeting on the PRI's return to power in 2012 and observed Cuba had had better relations with Mexico when the PRI governed; the PRI and Cuba's current regime coincided from the 1960s to 2000.

Forty killed in violence around Mexico

At least 40 were reported killed or found dead in violent incidents around Mexico on 24-28 January, including armed criminals, cartel operatives, policemen and eight folk singers who were apparently "tortured" then shot. Six victims were reported as gunned down in the central state of Hidalgo on 25-26 January in two killings police provisionally attributed to the cartel Caballeros Templarios, Proceso reported. The review reported 11 killings in several states on 24-25 January, including of a policeman shot while eating by a food stall and a member of the Sinaloa drug cartel. The gangster was killed by municipal police during response to a car theft in Juárez in the northern state of Chihuahua; he was identified as number 11 in the cartel's hierarchy, Proceso reported on 25 January. The policeman was identified as police chief of the village of Tlajomulco de Zúñiga in the western state of Jalisco. Five at least were reported shot dead on 26 January in or near the districts of Ocampo and Ciudad Juárez in Chihuahua. One was a 19-year-old gunman killed by soldiers during an attempted highway robbery and another a policeman of Ciudad Juárez, Proceso reported. Seven suspected criminals were killed on 25 or 26 January as gunmen in cars traded fire on the road between Magdalena and Tequila in the western state of Jalisco, Proceso reported, citing Notimex. Troops shot dead three presumed gangsters early on 27 January, apparently responding to firing from a house in Fresnillo in the north-central state of Zacatecas; the patrol had arrived after authorities received calls there were armed men in the house. The bodies of eight members of the musical group Kombo Kolombia kidnapped days before were found on 28 January on an estate in the district of Mina in the northern state of Nuevo León; The group, whose members were numbered in reports at 16 or 20, was thought to have been kidnapped on the night of 24-25 January in the nearby district of Hidalgo as it prepared to play a concert, Milenio reported on 28 January.

Seventeen reported killed around Colombia

Four were reported shot dead on a road in the northern department of Antioquia on 27 January, while 10 people were reported killed in brawls or criminal incidents in Bogotá on 26-27 January. Police were investigating to find out if the four, found shot outside El Bagre in the district of Zaragoza, had been killed by criminals or guerrillas, RCN La Radio reported. Coroners in Bogotá separately reported 10 violent deaths in the capital on the night of 26-27 January, which apparently belied the city's declining trend in violent crime. Seven of these were killed by gunfire and three with knives or similar implements, RCN radio reported. The mayor of Bogotá Gustavo Petro said on 25 January that homicides decreased in January 2013 compared to January 2012 - from 16 to 12 per 100,000 inhabitants. Bogotá would become a "peaceful space" he said if the trend continues, Caracol radio reported. In the northern district of Sincelejo, three were shot dead at a family gathering on 26 or 27 January, when gunmen entered a house and began to "shoot indiscriminately," Caracol television reported. Police were separately reported to have detained dozens of suspected criminals in northern Colombia; the national police chief José Roberto León Riaño declared that 27 suspected drug traffickers were detained in Riohacha and Cartagena de Indias on the Caribbean coast, Caracol radio reported on 26 January. This followed the recent discovery in Cartagena of just under four tonnes of cocaine hidden in a container. León separately announced the arrests of 22 suspected extortionists in Cartagena; the suspects presented themselves to local businesses as members of major criminal gangs - presumably to frighten their victims - Caracol reported on 26 January.

Two policemen kidnapped in Colombia

Two policemen were kidnapped on 25 or 26 January by the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) in a district in the Valle del Cauca department east of the city of Cali, media reported. The two were kidnapped while investigating reports of extortion and criminal activity in the locality of La Granja between the districts of Florida and Pradera; apparently they unexpectedly met with members of the Gabriel Galvis Mobile Column of the FARC's Sixth Front, El Espectador reported on 26 January, citing the Cali newspaper El País. The broadcaster Caracol reported the policemen to be alive; the FARC kidnapped an engineer in the same area that day, though he was released hours later. On 26 January President Juan Manuel Santos urged the international community to maintain support for ongoing peace talks with the FARC, speaking after meeting with the French Prime Minister in Santiago de Chile. They met on the sidelines of the summit of Latin American and the EU. He said the state would maintain "pressures" on the FARC before an agreement was signed.

Gang members surrender to troops in Colombia

Fifteen members of the Urabeños, one of Colombia's main criminal gangs, surrendered at an unspecified date to the navy in the district of Pilizá on Colombia's Pacific coast, El Espectador reported on 25 January. The group, led by a gangster dubbed El Tigre, apparently decided to surrender together, arriving at a meeting point in two boats that also carried seven women and 13 children or teenagers; these were perhaps relatives being taken under protection. The group was taken to Quibdó, capital of the Chocó department; arms and ammunition were also confiscated. The navy has stated that some 40 members of criminal gangs were detained on Colombia's Pacific coast in January 2013.