Over 50 reported killed, found dead in Mexico over weekend

At least 52 were reported killed or found dead in apparent criminal incidents around Mexico over 12-14 April, media reported. Of these, at least 23 bodies were reported found in the states of Coahuila in northern Mexico, Guerrero on its western coast and Quintana Roo on the Caribbean coast through 13-14 April. These included eight bodies found in Cancún on 14 April and 10 shot in incidents in Torreón in Coahuila, CNN reported. Authorities in Cancún suspected the eight may have been killed in a house gangsters used as a body "dump" where four suspects including a 15-year-old boy were found drinking and taking drugs. They were said detained. The 23 also included the bodies of five men aged 25-35 years, found tied in the district of Atoyac de Álvarez in Guerrero, and apparently totured then executed. A message left by them, signed by one of the cartels the Caballeros Templarios, alleged they were "kidnappers and blackmailers." Atoyac is one of the districts in Guerrero where locals have turned to community policing. The review Proceso separately counted 14 presumed victims of crime for 12 April, and 14 at least appeared to have been shot or found dead on 13 April in the northern states of Durango, Chihuahua and Tamaulipas, Proceso and Milenio reported. The latter group included four dismembered, decapitated bodies found on a road in Tamaulipas on 13 April, Proceso reported, and a woman shot dead and found on 13 April in Ciudad Victoria in Tamaulipas. A note left beside her alleged she was an informant of the Defence Ministry, Proceso reported. Separately, a communiqué issued by Mexican authorities counted 1,101 homicides linked to federal offences in the 31 days of the month of March, which exceeded detentions, Proceso reported on 12 April. Victims included 40 state agents killed during service and 25 civilians thought killed by mistake, a communiqué signed by the interior ministry, the Prosecutor-General's office and the Defence and Navy ministries stated. Its figures were compiled by the National Centre for Planification, Analysis and Information to Combat Crime, CENAP (Centro Nacional de Planeación, Análisis e Información para el Combate a la Delincuencia), a body attached to the office of the Prosecutor-General of Mexico. The authorities stated that over 138,000 kilograms of cocaine were seized that month among other illegal substances, and 957 individuals detained.

Venezuelan president declared re-elected, opposition wants recount

Nicolás Maduro Moros was declared winner - by a narrow margin - of Venezuela's 14 April presidential elections, although his rival Henrique Capriles Radonsky said he would not recognize the results until every single vote was recounted. The head of the National Electoral Council (CNE) Tibisay Lucena declared that evening that with 99,12 per cent of votes counted, Maduro had won 7,505,338 or 50,67 per cent of all votes cast, and Capriles 7, 270,403 or 49.07 per cent of votes, Europa Press and Le Monde reported on 15 April. She said 78.71 per cent of electors had voted and insisted the CNE only declared results when "an irreversible trend" was evident. Capriles told a press conference in Caracas soon after Lucena's declarations that it was Maduro who had lost and he would not recognize results "until every vote is counted," Europa Press reported. He urged the CNE that "every ballot box be opened and every vote of the Venezuelans counted, one by one, manually, to corroborate the figures presented by the electoral authorities." He denied reports he had made any pact with Maduro, saying "I do not make pacts with lies or corruption. I do not make pacts with those I consider illegitimate." Several heads of states and foreign politicians, mostly of the Left, congratulated Maduro. An official of the CNE Vicente Díaz declared there would be re-count of all ballots for the narrow difference in candidates' votes this time, in contrast with a recount of 53 per cent of votes in previous polls, CNN reported on 14 April.

More locals join community police in western Mexico

One hundred and six local residents were sworn in as new members of the community police of the district of Tixtla in Guerrero on Mexico's Pacific coast, in another sign that such self-defence groups, which have appeared in several parts of Mexico, were staying for now in spite of authorities' displeasure. The recruits included women and had already engaged in local policing for two months several localities of Tixtla, La Crónica de Hoy reported on 14 April, citing declarations from a regional coordinating body CRAC (Coordinadora Regional de Autoridades Comunitarias). The CRAC general-coordinator Eliseo Villar Castillo said "the project of community security and justice" was consolidating itself in parts of Guerrero, where such groups rose to prominence, namely the Costa Chica and inland and central parts of the state. Their aim he said was not to defy the authorities, but he observed locals were tired of the state's apparent inability to check crime. La Crónica separately reported shooting on 13 April between self-defence groups and suspected criminals, in the district of Buenavista Tomatlán, in the state of Michoacán north-west of Guerrero. The army intervened and was fired on though it was not immediately clear who fired on troops nor whether or not anyone died, La Crónica de Hoy reported. On 10 April, President Enrique Peña Nieto said self-defence groups were illegal and his "democratic" government could not tolerate them, Excelsior reported. Peña Nieto said, speaking in Japan, that "beyond what these groups may call themselves, the possible practices they may resort to intending to take justice into their hands are activities going beyond legality, which my government will have to fight." Authorities in Guerrero announced on 13 April that community policemen found outside their designated localities with arms would be detained; this apparently was in part a response to self-defence groups' support for recent teachers' protests in Guerrero. The decision was taken by the Guerrero Coordination Group including municipal and state authorities, the armed forces and state and local police, Excelsior reported on 14 April.

Businessman shot dead outside general's house in Honduras

A businessman was shot dead in his car in Tegucicalpa on 12 April, outside the home of the head of Armed Forces Joint Command René Osorio Canales, Honduran media reported. The victim was identified as the owner of a chain of motels in the capital, and his killers chased him by car to the spot where he was shot repeatedly, the website Proceso Digital reported. This was one of the homicides most recently reported around the country, many or most of which appeared to be executions. Other victims of crime included a three-year old boy shot dead by a stray bullet from a shootout between police and criminals in the northern city of San Pedro Sula, and two boys aged 15 and 22 years, dragged from their homes outside the capital, blindfolded and shot, Proceso Digital reported. The bodies of three executed men were also found in plastic bags in San Pedro Sula on 9 April; two of them were tattooed and all three were strangled to death, La Prensa cited coroners as saying. The report did not specify if the tattoos indicated the victims' affiliation to a gang. On average 20 people were thought to have died daily in criminal incidents in Honduras in the first three months of 2013, Proceso Digital reported, citing the Observatorio de Violencia affiliated to the National Autonomous University of Honduras.

Chief prosecutor says Honduras overwhelmed by crimes

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

Opposition supporter killed in Venezuela as presidential campaigns close

A campaign coordinator for the opposition candidate in Venezuela's 14 April presidential elections was kidnapped on 8 April and later found dead, while masked men on motorbikes attacked opposition supporters after an event on 10 April, injuring 14, media reported. There was to be no more campaigning or publicity after 11 April. Juan Aranda was a coordinator for the liberal candidate Henrique Capriles Radonsky in Pedro María Ureña in the eastern state of Táchira. The killing was being investigated, although the opposition's local campaign chief Alejandro García said he suspected it was politically motivated. Relatives declared that Aranda and colleagues had earlier crossed a group of government supporters while campaigning locally but no incident had occurred, Colombia's Caracol radio reported on 10 April, citing Venezuela's El Universal. The daily separately reported an attack on opposition supporters after a campaign gathering in the nothern district of Mérida on 10 April. Masked men riding bikes began pushing and beating Capriles supporters as they left a gathering, and police were said to have done nothing, Europa Press and El Universal reported. One witness of the attack was the Archbishop of Mérida Baltazar Porras Cardozo, who observed that police let him know they had been ordered not to intervene against those "wearing red." Capriles told the BBC in Caracas on 10 April that - in spite of a contrary impression among observers - he believed he could win the presidency on 14 April as he was now a "national leader" competing against "a very bad candidate," the Acting President Nicolás Maduro. Capriles lost to Hugo Chávez in the elections of October 2012, but he told the BBC he won 45 per cent of votes then "with less than this force," presumably referring to his current support. He suggested the government could not garner more than six million votes without Chávez, while "my take-off point is seven million votes." Should he win, he said, he would seek to work with, not confront, state institutions he said were currently run by "partial" figures and government appointees. He deplored the "fear" he said government propaganda was sowing, as it sought to "make many people believe they will lose something if Capriles wins. They will lose nothing."

Murders said increased in Medellín in 2013, two gangsters caught

State coroners counted 295 homicides in Medellín, Colombia, in the first three months of 2013, that is 40 cases or 15,7 per cent more than for the same period in 2012. The city in north-western Colombia was the setting of police raids and increased police presence in late March against a surge in violence, which authorities said more than halved crime within days. A report issued by the country's Legal Medicine authority counted 90 homicides in the city in January 2013, 101 in February and 104 in March, Caracol radio reported on 8 April. Its report cited the 13-San Javier and Candelaria "communes" as the most violent neighbourhoods respectively with 50 and 45 killings for the period cited. In total it counted 5,231 violent deaths in Medellín from 2010 to the end of March 2013. The security affairs chief for the Medellín city government, Arnulfo Serna Giraldo, commented on 8 April that there were 17 homicides in Medellín in the first week of April, three fewer than for the same period in 2012, adding that he observed a downward tendency in homicides that month. "The projection has diminished. The aim was to end the year with a 52-per-cent reduction but we are at 47 per cent if the trend continues," Medellín's El Mundo reported on 8 April. Recent police operations he said had focused most on the comuna San Javier or 13. "Our greatest concern is to reduce homicides in the city and we shall work so these diminish by the end of the year," he said. Authorities separately reported the capture on or before 6 April of two suspected members of the Rastrojos gang in the departments of Valle de Cauca and Caldas in western and central Colombia, the broadcaster Caracol reported. The detained were identified as a deputy-head of the Rastrojos in the Valle de Cauca, a man dubbed el Choricito (Little sausage) caught in the district of Viterbo, and a gang "nurse" dubbed Alex caught in Trujillo in Caldas. El Choricito was thought to be in charge of drug trafficking in the northern part of Valle de Cauca, but also ordered "assassinations, extortions, kidnappings and disappearances," Caracol reported, citing the findings of a special gangs court.

Colombian soldiers, guerrillas killed in fighting

Three Colombian soldiers died and three were injured on 6 or 7 April in gun battles with the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) in the southern department of Caquetá. Fighting was said continuing in the district of Milán on 7 April with guerrillas of fronts 15 and 49 of the FARC's Southern Block, RCN La Radio reported. The broadcaster Caracol described Milán is one of the districts of southern Colombian with the highest concentration of FARC fighters. In northern Colombia the army shot dead four FARC fighters including a local commander, during anti-drugs operations on 7 April near Panama's frontier, Europa Press reported, citing El Tiempo. The casualties included the deputy-head of Front 57 - James or el Chacal - and a veteran telecommunications operator dubbed Verónica; troops and police also detained two suspected guerrillas in the operations in the Darién section of the Chocó department, and confiscated arms, ammunition and equipment. The army considers Front 57 to be mainly engaged in arms and drug trafficking for the FARC, the agency reported. The FARC separately named in a communiqué four new members of their team negotiating a possible peace with Colombian representatives in Cuba. These were the head of the Western Block Jorge Torres Victoria or Pablo Catatumbo, and three guerrillas named or dubbed Freddy González, Lucas Carvajal and Victoria Sandino Palmera. They were allowed to fly out of Colombia with a suspension on 6 April of army operations in the southern Cauca department and perhaps elsewhere. Colombian media earlier named another possible addition to the FARC team, namely the head of the Southern Block - a guerrilla dubbed Fabián Ramírez - though this was yet to be confirmed, Europa Press reported on 6 April.

Coroners see murders halved in a year in El Salvador

State coroners counted 545 homicides in El Salvador in the first three months of 2013, 49.9 per cent fewer than the 1,078 registered for the same period in 2012. This was another figure corroborating government officials' assertions that the truce and disarmament process the state has begun with street gangs has considerably reduced crime. The figure given by the Institute of Legal Medicine (IML) was lower than those of the police, its head José Miguel Fortín Magaña said, adding that this was likely for uncertainties in identifying certain body remains, El Salvador's El Mundo reported on 5 April. An IML report indicated that the San Salvador department had the most murders in the first quarter of 2013 with 151, followed by La Paz on the Pacific coast with 49, while firearms caused 343 or 62.9 per cent of the deaths. Almost 70 per cent of victims were in the 15-39 age group, coroners found. The coroners' report indicated that the most violent month in the two periods was January 2012 with 413 killings, followed by February 2012 with 402; the gangs' ceasefire began in March 2012, giving a figure of 263 killings for that months. On 5 April one of the mediators in the truce, the army Bishop Fabio Colindres urged the gangs to stop their extortion activities and maintain their pledge to abandon crime. He was speaking at an event to include the district of San Vicente north of the capital among several municipalities declared as free of violent crime. A day before a spokesman for one of the main gangs MS (Mara Salvatrucha) said "conditions need be generated" to allow the gangs to consider ending extortion, which is a financing mechanism, El Mundo reported. The Security and Justice Ministry reportedly observed a 17 per cent fall over 2012-13 in extortions, described as modest compared to killings. There were 216 complaints to police about extortion in the first quarter of 2013, compared to 262 in the same period in 2012, the daily cited the Ministry as stating. This apparently excluded extortions that went unreported.

Suspected gang chief caught in Guatemala

Guatemalan police and state prosecutors detained on 3 April a suspect identified as the chief in Guatemala of the Mara Salvatrucha - the local branch of one of Central America's main criminal gangs - following a joint operation in Iztapa on the Pacific Coast, Europa Press reported citing Guatemalan media. Marco Antonio Sian Chávez - el Bufón - was one of three suspected gang chiefs detained in 30 operations against gangs around the country that day. Police also caught a suspected gunman of the Maras with Sian Chávez - a 21-year-old dubbed el Enano. The gang leader was sought for his suspected role in at least four killings, of a rival and three alleged police informants, Prensa Libre reported on 4 April. The state attributes most extortions in the country to the two main gangs, M-18 and Mara Salvatrucha.

FARC to shuffle negotiators in Cuba, move closer to ELN rebels

The Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), engaged in talks with representatives of the Colombian state to end decades of civil conflict, were reportedly to envisage changing some of their negotiators in Cuba, in part to show that all factions of the FARC supported the peace process, El Colombiano reported on 5 April.  Details of changes were not given but they may include a member of their Secretariat and head of the FARC's Western Block joining the negotiating team. Rotations were envisaged from the start of talks, the daily cited the Senator Roy Barreras Montealegre as saying, but the move was said also to be in response to a letter to negotiators by President Juan Manuel Santos who asked the FARC to clarify whether or not their Southern and Western Blocks were backing talks. The possible new participant, the guerrilla dubbed Pablo Catatumbo is commander of such units as the Sixth Front and the Jacobo Arenas Mobile Column, particularly active in fighting the army the southern departments of Cauca and Valle de Cauca; he joined the FARC in the late 1980s and its Secretariat in 2008, El Colombiano reported. The daily separately reported on 4 April that the FARC and the National Liberation Army (ELN) - the other, smaller communist guerrilla force - declared in a joint communiqué dated 30 March their intention to join forces to "fortify the Revolutionary Popular Block" and "confront with decision the great oligopolies, transnational capital and imperialism." They did not specify if this meant collaborating to bomb energy-sector installations or kidnap contract workers, a practice of both armies, although mining and related activities in eastern Colombia and specifically the department of Arauca were apparently cited as as a "threat against the people." The communiqué stated that the rebels had also "evaluated the post-conflict" situation when some at least in Colombia, hope the guerrillas will enter public life as politicians.

FARC guerrillas launch deadly attacks in Colombia

Two attacks attributed to the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) on 4 and 5 April killed three soldiers and three civilians and injured 11, while Caracol radio reported continued fighting on 5 April between soldiers and the FARC's Sixth Front around the Corinto district, media reported. Early that day the suspected FARC guerrillas launched a bomb attack on telecommunication installations outside the town of Corinto early on 5 April, killing three soldiers and injuring seven, El Espectador reported, citing comments by the head of army's Task Apollo Force active in the zone, General Jorge Jerez. The day before the FARC fired explosives onto the locality of Guatemala in the district of Miranda, in northern Cauca, killing three including "two children" and injuring four, Caracol radio reported on 4 April. In that attack the FARC began "indiscriminately launching improvised explosive artefacts against houses," El Espectador reported locals as saying. Also on 4 April, a policeman was injured when suspected guerrillas fired on a police station in the district of San Calixto, in the Norte de Santander department, northern Colombia. The attack was attributed to Front 33 of the FARC, the broadcaster Caracol reported.

Foreign politicians drawn into Venezuelan polls, minister calls Paraguay's leader scum

The candidates in Venezuela's 14 April presidential elections have begun to use some blunt talk that may yet become ruder even than words traded in the 2012 campaign between Henrique Capriles and Hugo Chávez. Rudeness was also evident in Venezuelan reactions to foreign politicians' recent comments about Venezuela and its leaders. On 4 April Venezuela's Foreign Minister said he was "obliged to respond" to comments made about Chávez by Paraguay's President Federico Franco, qualifying Franco as "human and political scum." Speaking on TeleSur, Jaua contrasted the late president's "moral and human stature" with "the human and political scum President Franco signifies," but regretted that Franco "is not the last human and political scum who will be able to offend and attack the memory of that historical giant," Europa Press reported. The two states have minimal ties, and Franco recently called Chávez's death a miracle. Another conservative critic of Venezuela was the former Colombian president Álvaro Uribe Vélez, who has several times accused Venezuela of backing Colombia's two communist guerrilla armies. He wrote on the website Twitter on 30 March that Venezuela's President Nicolás Maduro had "raised the tone" by calling his opponents the "heirs of Adolf Hitler" and there was "no limit" to his cynicism; Maduro replied on Uribe's account, asking him if he should have called them "your heirs." Uribe then wrote that Maduro's "partners" - Colombia's communist FARC guerrillas - chain "hostages to wire fences like Hitler," Bogotá's Radio Santa Fe reported on 31 March. Foreign Minister Jaua praised Maduro's response to the "genocidal" Uribe, the website Noticia al Dia reported. Brazil's former president Luis Inacio Lula da Silva separately upset the Venezuelan opposition after stating support  for Maduro on 3 April. Lula told a Uruguayan daily that while not as charismatic as Chávez, Maduro was "an extraordinary human being...who I think is totally prepared" to govern as his predecessor, Globovisión reported. "I think he will win the elections and will govern," Lula said. The Venezuelan parliamentarian Maria Corina Machado called his "rude intervention" the next day "grotesque and unacceptable," and said Lula had become Maduro's "salesman" and "electoral agent." Machado is the foreign affairs spokeswoman on the Capriles election team. His comments Machado said, did not so much befit a former statesman as "a merchant." She said "someone who is unaware of the reality of our country and ignores the problems Venezuelans have to deal with every day has no right to state opinions. We wonder if Maduro has spoken to Lula of the dead taken to the morgues every day, the product of [crime] violence, under the complicit gaze of this government," Globovisión reported on 4 April. Venezuela's opposition has repeatedly accused the regime of neglecting the problem of crime.

Venezuelan opposition fears regime allies may "sabotage" vote machines

A member of the opposition election team in Venezuela claimed on 3 April that one or perhaps more members of the Unified Socialist Party of Venezuela (PSUV) backing Acting President Nicolás Maduro's presidential election on 14 April, could "sabotage" vote machines for having an access code, though apparently results could not be changed with that code. This was apparently the "grave" matter the opposition candidate Henrique Capriles had earlier said he would divulge. Ramón Guillermo Aveledo, coordinator of the Simón Bolivar Commando (Comando Simón Bolívar) backing Capriles said opposition technicians noted during an inspection on 30 March that a technician of the PSUV was "able to activate a voting machine as he was in possession of the code" needed to start or run the system, Globovisión reported. "This key cannot be in the hands of political organizations," he told a press conference in Caracas, adding however that the code did not allow its holder to access voters' identities or change results. It could "affect the functioning of the machines...it can sabotage the equipment and make it defective," he said. The head of the National Electoral Council (CNE) Sandra Oblitas replied on state television on 4 April that the election process in Venezuela was "absolutely inviolable, invulnerable and incorruptible," and warned "one must be cautious about observations made and their tone...those who made these observations were obliged to recognize the system's security," the official AVN news agency reported. She said technicians of the political parties checked the system "daily." It was not immediately clear if international observers would be watching the elections. On 3 April the head of the Organization of American States (OEA) José Miguel Insulza said the Venezuelan government had "unfortunately" not invited the OEA as observers. He told Spain's EFE in Madrid that while the quality of elections had improved in Latin America, Venezuela was among cases where the state apparatus was used to favour "a particular candidate." "The problem will not be on voting day...my concern is not over fraud if one may use that word, the concern is that a government and the opposition are not talking. There is no political dialogue" he said, or "relationship between political forces."

Over 50 reported killed, found dead in Mexico in days

Every day in Mexico yields a steady stream of violent deaths - many related to drugs and cartels - that make corresponding figures in other Latin American countries seem paltry or risible. At least 51 were reported as killed or found dead from late 28 March to 2 April. The review Proceso counted at least 14 killings around the country on or just before 29 March; victims included five shot to death that day in a dispute between unspecified individuals gathered in a house in the north-western district of Sinaloa de Leyva, Proceso reported. At least 13 were killed on 30 March: these included a policeman who was among five shot dead in the state of Morelos, a decapitated body found in the northern frontier city of Juárez, and two men executed and left hanging from a bridge in Atizapán de Zaragoza in central Mexico, Proceso reported. It reported separately the kidnapping of five men described as in their 20s, while driving before dawn on 30 March in the west-coast state of Guerrero. An unnamed individual "who apparently escaped" from the incident was cited as saying that gunmen forced the five into three cars on a road between Acapulco and Zihuatanejo, in the district of Atoyac de Álvarez, Proceso reported. Five were shot dead and 16 injured on 31 March in attacks on two bars in the western city of Guadalajara, and nine dismembered bodies were found at the back of a van outside the north-eastern city of Victoria, Proceso reported. The review observed that a surge in violence in Ciudad Victoria was attributed to an intensifying turf war between the Gulf and Zetas cartels. Five presumed members of a family were murdered in a village outside the north-western resort of Mazatlán in Sinaloa early on 2 April, Milenio reported. They were found in the village of Chilacayota, three of them in a house "with torture marks," state prosecutors were cited as saying. These may have been among the 10 Proceso counted as killed on 2 April, as it stated six of them were killed in the state of Sinaloa. In the eastern state of Veracruz, authorities publicly presented on 2 April 10 municipal policemen detained at an unspecified date when they were caught selling drugs. State police and marines caught the policemen of the district of Coatepec selling synthetic drugs by a road outside the state capital Xalapa; firearms and "497 doses of green weed, apparently marijuana" were taken from their cars, Milenio reported on 3 April. The policemen confessed to complementing their policing work with drug dealing, while one admitted collaborating with an unspecified gang or cartel, Proceso reported.

Police counted 44 killings in El Salvador over Easter

El Salvador's National Civil Police (Policía Nacional Civil) counted 44 homicides around El Salvador between 23 and 31 March, which it stated was nine fewer than in the same period in 2012, La Prensa Gráfica reported on 2 April. The figures included deaths in drunken brawls and from gang activities. A deputy-head of the Police Mauricio Ramírez Landaverde reportedly attributed eight of the killings to drunken incidents, while the deputy-police chief for Public Security Howard Cotto said 26 were for "social violence...we have fully established that 12 of the 44 homicides, that is 27 per cent, were for fights between gangs." The police stated that the most violent departments for the period were San Salvador with 14 homicides, La Libertad, north west of San Salvador with six homicides, and Sonsonate on the Pacific coast with six. It was not immediately clear if the total figure included two women the daily reported as killed in the late hours of 31 March in the north-western district of Coatepeque. At least two other persons were reported killed around the country following the Easter period, including a man reported as kidnapped on 1 April, La Prensa Gráfica reported on 3 April. He was found shot dead on 2 April in Apopa north of the capital, one of the districts earlier declared as free of violent crime as part of an ongoing process to disarm the country's gangs. Officials maintain the truce has considerably reduced crime. On 2 April the country's Minister of Justice David Munguía Payés said on television that officials and personalities involved in the truce would soon tour Washington DC as guests of the Organization of American States, to inform politicians, think tanks and members of the Salvadorean community there about of the truce but also seek funding for the truce, which involves the social reintegration of criminals. The delegation would include Munguía, truce mediators and police officials, the Ministry website and La Prensa Gráfica reported on 3 April.

Youngsters gunned down in Medellín

Four young men including a 15-year-old were reported shot to death near a football pitch in Medellín, north-western Colombia, late on 1 April, though authorities were not yet sure why, the Medellín paper El Colombiano reported on 3 April. Unnamed witnesses reportedly told police that gunmen arrived and asked the men if they were selling drugs, and shot them with "automatic weapons" when given a negative response. A security official reportedly said the boys did not have criminal records but were reputed to have bought drugs at the spot. A policeman was separately shot dead in the district of Andes south of Medellín on 2 April when suspects sought to prevent policemen searching a property for arms, El Colombiano reported. A father and two sons were arrested over the shooting. Police also arrested at an unspecified date in the district of Necoclí on Colombia's north-western coast, a man identified as one of the regional bosses of the criminal gang Los Rastrojos. The suspect, dubbed el Pantera, was thought to be a head of the Rastrojos in the southern department of Nariño and to have fled to Necoclí from the district of Barbacoas in Nariño, El Colombiano reported on 3 April. Police suspected that the detainee was, while in hiding, busy networking with local criminals, El Colombiano observed.

Venezuelan leader says Hugo Chávez blessed him through a bird

In what is perhaps a modern, socialist, equivalent of an apotheosis, Venezuela's President and presidential candidate Nicolás Maduro has not shirked from linking his deceased predecessor to celestial affairs, first comparing his followers' grief for the death of Hugo Chávez to that of the Apostles for Christ, and now saying Chávez blessed him through "a tiny little bird" hovering over him on 1 or 2 April. This followed from a short cartoon he had placed on the Internet showing Chávez, who died of cancer in March, flying to Heaven as a bird, CNN reported on 2 April. Maduro made the comments on 2 April while addressing a crowd in the western district of Barinas at the start of the campaign for the 14 April elections. He said "a little bird" flew into a chapel where he was praying alone in the nearby district of Sabanetas, and flew three times above him, which he interpreted as a blessing from Chávez ahead of the polls, El Nacional reported. It seems however that credulity is not what it used to be, as the opposition candidate Henrique Capriles has accused him of lying several times in recent months. There were no immediate reports of his reacting to the claims although Capriles vowed on the website Twitter to shortly inform voters of an unspecified but "very grave" matter relating to the elections, Globovisión reported on 3 April. The candidates began moving around Venezuela as the short campaign period began; Capriles was in the eastern district of Maturín in Monagas on 2 April, although reported earlier as starting his campaign in Barinas where the presidential party was gathered. In Maturín he criticized again the regime's largesse with Venezuelan petrodollars, telling a crowd "you know how oil resources are given away...used to present ambulances and police patrol cars to other countries, and give them light bulbs. Is that because nothing is needed any more in any neighborhood of Monagas? I think a lot is missing," Globovisión reported on 2 April. Separately on 3 April, the conservative president of Paraguay - which cut ties with Venezuela in 2012 - said he considered Chávez's death "a miracle" for the harm he had done to Paraguay. Venezuela was one of several American countries to isolate Paraguay after parliament sacked its Leftist president, Fernando Lugo; Paraguay was notably excluded from regional trading blocks. Federico Franco Gómez told a business gathering at the Ritz hotel in Madrid that "for me it is a miracle Mr Chávez should have disappeared from the face of the earth...yes, because he greatly harmed my country...Paraguay is not a territory for Bolivarian ideas," Europa Press reported. He accused Chávez of complicity in killings and kidnappings for having given asylum to a small militant group, the Paraguayan People's Army (El Ejército del Pueblo Paraguayo). Paraguay is to hold general elections in April 2013.

Venezuelan presidential aspirants set to begin race

Venezuela's opposition presidential candidate Henrique Capriles Radonsky was to begin his campaign on 2 April, hoping a second time - and against the odds observers believe - to take the presidency on 14 April, this time from an Acting President and heir to the late Hugo Chávez, Nicolás Maduro Moros. Capriles said on 29 March that he would begin campaigning in the state of Barinas south west of Caracas, where the presidential party also began its campaign on 30 March. Maduro spoke at a rally that day in the city of Barinas, a day after Capriles toured coastal districts of the state of Falcón where he was pictured waving at beach-goers from a boat in the district of Tucacas, Globovisión reported. He told the press that Venezuela needed a national government so people "who think differently can live better, so there are no blackouts like here" in Falcón. His campaign he said would be a "spiritual battle" against "lies, and fresh lies this time. Venezuela needs a government that works with the truth...there are two candidates here, the candidate of truth against the candidate of lies, and that is Nicolás." The Information Minister Ernesto Villegas termed the "Hate Commando's" decision to start campaigning in Barinas a "provocation," writing on the website Twitter on 29 March that Capriles was copying Maduro's earlier decision to campaign there and even his route, the state's AVN agency reported. Maduro told supporters in Barinas on 30 March that Capriles was a "little bourgeois who hates us and envies President Chávez," and keen to "start a campaign of violence" from Barinas. "I have proof of what they are planning, and they have decided to enact the first act of violence on Tuesday in Barinas. That is why the little bourgeois decided to come and provoke the people of Barinas and start an electoral campaign" with a "message of hate," El Nacional cited Maduro as saying. Capriles will have to overcome the use the government will make of lingering grief for Chávez, which Maduro compared on 30 March to the Apostles' grief for Jesus Christ when he died. Maduro also presented himself as the moral candidate opposed to the "anti values" bequeathed by capitalism, El Nacional and Globovisión reported. If young girls "prostitute themselves" in Venezuela he said, it was "because they kept giving us, for years and years, the culture of prostitution in...soap operas and television series" from the United States.

Almost 50 reported killed, dead around Mexico

Twelve at least were reported killed or found dead in presumed criminal incidents in Mexico on 25-26 March, including several teenagers and a political activist linked to the ruling Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI). Gerardo Israel Facio Huerta, a leader of the Citizens' Networks (Redes Ciudadanas) grouping in the northern state of Durango, was said kidnapped at a roadside restaurant on 24 March and found floating in a canal in the city of Gómez Palacio the next day, Proceso reported on 26 March. Investigations indicated he was stabbed in the neck, Proceso reported. A hot-dog seller died in a hospital in the northern city of Monterrey on 27 March, two days after being shot by his food stand for refusing to pay money local gangsters had demanded, Proceso reported. Thirty-four-year old Enrique Ramírez Rosas had opened his stall a week before. Also on 27 March, unidentified individuals dumped seven rubbish bags containing human remains by a military base in the north-eastern city of Victoria in Tamaulipas; authorities were not yet certain how many bodies the bags contained, Proceso reported. The review reported no less than 10 violent deaths around the country for 26-27 March, and 10 through 27-28 March. A gunman separately shot dead seven people in a bar in the northern city of Chihuahua on the night of 28-29 March, Milenio reported. The daily Excelsior reported that the victims were said to have been shot by a masked man "apparently" wearing a police-type uniform. In the western state of Guerrerro, state prosecutors declared on 29 March that a clandestine grave found on 27 March in the district of Acapulco had "so far" yielded eight bodies, Proceso reported.