New Mexico district "on verge" of banning plastic bags

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

Police confirm more violence in El Salvador, launch anti-crime actions with army

El Salvador's Police corroborated on 17 July earlier data indicating an increasing number of homicides in the country in spite of the ceasefire declared in March 2012 by the Mara street gangs. Police figures showed that the average daily number of homicides in July nationwide was 8.9, compared to 4.6 for July 2012, the Salvadorean daily El Mundo reported on 18 July, citing declarations by the national police chief Rigoberto Pleités Sandoval. Mr Pleités, who became head of the National Civil Police on 28 May, said that the total 1,190 homicides registered from 1 January to 16 July 2013 remained inferior to the 1,637 registered for that period in 2012. Police he said were doing everything to ensure "the numbers come down." Authorities admit the country has seen a re-surge in crime since late May, attributed in part to the renewal of rivalries between gangs, and the army and police began a joint operation on 11 July in districts most affected by resurgent violence, El Mundo reported. The daily cited a deputy-police chief Mauricio Ramírez Landaverde as saying that the operation, dubbed Medusa, was focused on  five deparments and zones including the sector north of the capital. El Mundo separately reported that the heads of the two main gangs - Mara Salvatrucha and Mara 18 - agreed on 17 July to "suspend acts of aggression" on themselves and residents of the district of Zacatecoluca south-east of the capital, following mediation efforts. This it stated was now the 11th district declared free of violence, although crimes are reported to have continued in certain other districts where the Maras had pledged to end violence. The mediator Raúl Mijango was cited as saying that Mejicanos, a northern suburb of the capital, was to become another "safe" district in "coming days."

Thirty guerrillas surrender in Colombia, one detained

Senior Colombian officials including President Juan Manuel Santos and his Minister of Defence personally received in Cali on 16 July a company of 30 former guerrillas of the National Liberation Army (ELN) who formally surrendered their arms and abandoned their fight against the Colombian state. President Santos said this was the "biggest demobilisation" of fighters in the ELN's history, praising the guerrillas for their decision and the armed forces for the relentless pressures exerted on the ELN, which the state has declared convinced the 30 to surrender. Media reported that state intelligence agents had visited the company's camp several times in preceding weeks, presumably to discuss the mechanics of a surrender. The guerrillas who demobilised at an army base in Cali constituted the Lucho Quintero Giraldo company of the ELN's South-Western War Front, the Defence Ministry reported. "I want to thank all the group, its commander aka Tiger, henceforth Mr Collazos and all of you. You took the right decision," the Presidential Office cited Mr Santos as telling them. He said the "state will receive you with all the guarantees we have promised," allowing them he added to begin to rejoin civilian and family life. The Defence Ministry separately reported on 17 July that troops caught a suspected head of a support or logistical network working with the ELN's Darío Ramírez Castro Front, active in the Bolívar department in northern Colombia. The detained was identified as Bautista his nom de guerre, and caught in the district of San Pablo in southern Bolívar, the Ministry reported. Bautista was being sought for suspected "financing" activities for the guerrilla that included drug dealing, extortion from local farmers and firms and the forcible recruitment of peasants.

Criminals shoot land activist in northern Colombia

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

NGO found, fewer murders were punished in Mexico in 2012

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

Mexico's Interjet begins flights between Bogotá and Mexico City

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

Residents of Bogotá suburb hand in firearms, grenades

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

Media, public question gangs ceasefire in El Salvador

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

Bogotá creates 45 "safe zones" to take taxis

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

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

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

Residents of Colombia's Bucaramanga to separate trash, recyclables

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

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

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

Los Angeles mayor signs in ban on plastic bags

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

Chief prosecutor of Honduras resigns

The head of the state prosecution service in Honduras and his deputy resigned on 25 June, apparently for their inability to cope with widespread crime and ahead of a parliamentary initiative to have the chief prosecutor sacked, media reported. Luis Alberto Rubí, the state's ranking prosecutor (Fiscal-General) and head of the Public Ministry that investigates and prosecutes crimes on the state's behalf, resigned as a parliamentary commission investigating the Public Ministry recommended an impeachment initiative that day, Agence France-Presse and local media reported on 27 June. His term was to end in May 2014, and he stated in his resignation letter to parliament that he was satisfied he had done his duty, which included "maintaining the rule of law and the Public Ministry's autonomy." The deputy-chief prosecutor Roy Urtecho López also resigned "to avoid a crisis in Honduras," AFP reported. The parliamentary security affairs committee earlier attributed to Mr Rubí a range of shortcomings including a "serious failure" to carry out his duties, lack of coordination with other judicial bodies and "inadequate administration" of budgets allocated to the prosecution service, the daily La Tribuna reported on 25 June. An Intervening Committee (Comisión interventora) was apparently the body that informed parliament earlier in June of budget anomalies in the Public Ministry; that committee was to administer the Public Ministry provisionally to the end of July and parliament was not immediaetly voting to appoint a new chief prosecutor and deputy-prosecutor, El Heraldo reported on 28 June. On 26 June, President Porfirio Lobo Sosa insisted while speaking on television that crime was falling in Honduras and the Governmet had the technology now to fight extortion, one of the country's most widespread and oppressive practices, La Prensa reported. The President listed some of the actions taken against crime, including sending the army onto the streets in several districts in the framework of Operation Liberty (Operación Libertad), which began in April 2013.

Guatemalan bus drivers lynch extortionist

Bus drivers in the Guatemalan capital lynched a presumed extortionist on 25 June when he went to collect his money, the daily Prensa Libre reported the next day. The victim was found with his hands and feet bound and was apparently strangled to death with a plastic cable. Extortion is widespread in Guatemala, El Salvador and Honduras, and bus and taxi drivers and stall owners are typical targets. The daily cited police as saying that the victim visited the drivers on 24 June to say he would return the next day for his "bonus;" he was met then by a crowd of  bus drivers and shopkeepers who began to beat him. Prensa Libre stated that 12 suspected criminals have been lynched around Guatemala so far in 2013, and 300 arrested for suspected extortion according to official figures. Police separately shot dead in the capital on 25 June a gunman who earlier sought but failed to kill a bus driver in a possible robbery, also arresting one or two suspected accomplices, Prensa Libre reported on 26 June. Passengers apparently stopped the attempted assault and threw the gunman off the bus, after which he sought to escape with an associate by motorbike, shooting at police on the streets. On 22 or 23 June, the Defence and Interior ministers presented the Guatemalan President with a security report for the period January to the end of June 2013; authorities stated in the report that they had dismantled 69 "structures" involved in murder, extortion and car theft among other crimes, the Ministry reported on 23 June.

Policemen killed, kidnapped, detained, family massacred in Mexico

State investigators in the northern state of Nuevo León arrested at an unspecified date a purported kidnapping gang led by a 28-year-old municipal policeman from the district of Apodaca in that state, Proceso reported on 25 June. The six were held in Apodaca and El Carmen; their most recent kidnapping and one that apparently led to the gang's arrest was on 15 June when it managed to extort the equivalent of some 15,000 USD and a vehicle from an Apodaca businessman. The review observed that this was one of several recent cases of police or former policemen being involved in kidnapping and extortion. Authorities reportedly dismantled on 19 June a kidnapping gang in the north-western state of Baja California that included a former state policeman, it stated. In Mexico City prosecutors had detained on 6 June eight policemen accused of acts of extortion and "express" kidnappings in the capital, Proceso added. Separately three policemen of the district of Tancítaro in the western state of Michoacán were kidnapped and murdered on 25 June, the daily Milenio reported. The mayor of Tancítaro was cited as saying that the three were kidnapped while they patrolled the locality of El Pareo by car; their bodies were found by the district of Buenavista Tomatlán in that state. The head of the police telecommunications department in the west-coast district of Acapulco and a colleague were also reported missing since 19 June and were believed kidnapped, Proceso reported on 24 June, citing the regional daily El Sur. They too were thought kidnapped while driving in Acapulco. Proceso reported on 24 June that an "armed group" shot dead a family of five including children, as it drove in the district of Guadalupe y Calvo in the northern state of Chihuahua. The victims included a seven-year-old boy and an 11-year-old girl.

Government to talk to protesting peasants in north-eastern Colombia

Colombian officials said they would talk again with representatives of some 7-14,000 peasants who have been blocking roads since 12 June in districts of the northern department of Norte de Santander, in protest at local poverty and the Government's bid to eradicate coca plantations providing many with a living, media reported on 24 and 25 June. Some officials have accused the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) - the guerrillas thought involved in drug cultivation and trafficking - of infiltrating or organising the protests. The suspicion was strengthened when a FARC representative, the guerrilla dubbed Iván Marquez, stated the FARC's solidarity with the protests from Havana, the daily El Tiempo reported on 24 June. The Government stated that day it would talk to protesters from the Catatumbo region if public order were first restored, particularly in the districts of Tibú and Ocaña. After clashes with state forces in previous days, the districts were said to be calm then, although El Tiempo reported that some 7,000 peasants continued to block the roads from Tibú to Ocaña, Ábrego-Ocaña and Ocaña-Convención. Another of their demands was that the Government rescind mining permits given to foreign firms in this area. A Government team including local mayors, the Governor of Norte de Santander Edgar Díaz and the deputy-interior and agriculture ministers was to meet with protesters in Tibú to discuss grievances and plan a ministerial-level meeting, RCN la Radio reported on 25 June. Díaz told RCN radio that day that the protests were an understandable response to the state's neglect of the area for "30 years." He urged the Government to find alternatives to the coca cultivations it was eradicating. Meanwhile the country's Police chief rebuked regional police forces on 25 June for "doing nothing" to end road blocks he said could eventually become unmanageable, observing it was "no surprise people greatly miss" Colombia's former conservative president Álvaro Uribe Vélez, Bogotá's Radio Santa Fe reported. Mr Uribe vigorously fought crime and guerrilla activities while President from 2002 to 2010, and left office with high approval ratings. Police General José León Riaño might have been referring to a recent poll organized by the History Channel in which Mr Uribe won most votes as the most prominent or admired personality in recent Colombian history. General León told regional colleagues by video-conference that when Uribe was president, "there was a kidnapping and the commander was at the kidnapping site within an hour, leading rescue operations. There was a road block and it was unblocked within an hour, road blocks were not accepted. Not so today, we're blocking all over the place, waiting and waiting while road blocks escalate" until their resolution becomes "very complicated." He told colleagues not to "sit and wait for the conversation table," referring either to planned talks with protesters or ongoing talks with the FARC in Havana, which Colombian media term a Dialogue.

Mexican drug cartel accuses militia of conniving with crime

The drug cartel Caballeros Templarios, which is active in western Mexico, accused a recently-founded anti-crime militia of collaborating with rival gangs in the western state of Guerrero and advised authorities to stay out of its imminent bid to destroy these groups, the review Proceso reported on 23 June. Self-defence groups have emerged in several parts of Mexico in response to violent crime and official corruption, and more so in smaller and rural districts where residents have accused local police and authorities of cowering before the powerful cartels. In this case the Templarios hung sheets in the districts of Atoyac de Álvarez and Coyuca de Benítez accusing the group led by activist Leopoldo Soberanis Hernández of being a front for the gang dubbed Los Granados and the Jalisco Nueva Generación cartel. The gang was described as an offshoot of the dismantled Beltrán Leyva cartel. These, the sheets read, were kidnapping "teachers, tourists, the elderly and making social activists and environmentalists disappear," which the Templars said they would not permit. The cartel told the Mexican state not to "meddle" as it proceeded to eliminate "these stains." According to Proceso the civilian militia's formation was announced during a protest on 20 June by residents of four districts of the Costa Grande sector of Guerrero. "More than 1,000" residents of Coyuca de Benítez, Atoyac de Álvarez, Benito Juárez and Tecpan de Galeana announced they would form the Citizens' Self-Defence Group (Grupo de Autodefensa Ciudadana) as they blocked the motorway linking Guerrero to the neighbouring state of Michoacán. Proceso cited the activist Leopoldo Soberanis as telling a telephone interview that the militia was the fruit of locals' disgust with state "indolence" toward violent crime and to alleged ties between local authorities and troops based in the district of Petatlán with the Caballeros Templarios. He said he wanted his group recognised by the state government and would seek to expand its activities to three more districts in Guerrero including Petatlán. The review observed that the militia's first protest coincided with an incipient tour by the Guerrero governor to promote the state as a tourist destination; Guerrero includes the resort of Acapulco.

Suspected gangsters, extortionists held around Colombia

Several suspects thought involved in organised crime and extortion were reported detained in Colombia in recent days, including six members of one of the main national gangs the Rastrojos, while authorities found an explosives cache thought to belong to the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC). In San Martín in the department of Meta south of Bogotá, police detained a suspected member of Los Rastrojos sought by Interpol and likely to be charged with criminal conspiracy, the Ministry of Defence reported on 21 June. Police anti-extortion units (Gaula) arrested five other members of this gang in Soledad, a district next to the northern port of Barranquilla, suspected of coordinating extortion in that district and elsewhere in the department of Atlántico, Caracol radio reported on 21 June. Earlier President Juan Manuel Santos ordered the head of the anti-extortion police to work from Barranquilla, in an apparent response to a surge in extortions in parts of that district. This was apparently affecting bus drivers and stall owners in particular, the Presidential office reported on 19 June. General Humberto Guatibonza Carreño "is going to come and work here in Barranquilla and in Cartagena until this problem is totally resolved," the President was cited as saying after a security meeting in Barranquilla. In southern Bogotá police arrested six or more members of an extortion gang that worked around the capital's main wholesale market Corabastos, the Defence Ministry reported on 20 June. The gang reportedly forced "more than 100" street vendors and dairy products distributors to pay every day the equivalent of between 2.5 USD and five USD to avoid being robbed or beaten. In the department of Cauca in western Colombia, Police confiscated grenades and bullets found in the locality of Cerro Manuel in the district of Timbiquí, and thought to belong to Front 29 of the FARC, Bogotá's Radio Santa Fe reported on 20 June.

Report describes recent history of kidnappings in Colombia

A report issued on 20 June by Colombia's semi-official National Centre of Historical Memory (Centro Nacional de Memoria Histórica) and the consultancy firm Cifras y Conceptos was presented as "the most solid and consistent" history of kidnapping in Colombia from 1970 to 2010 and of its geographical and human anatomy. The report entitled Una Verdad Secuestrada used 1,302,337 data pertaining to 39,058 kidnap victims, and was created with the support of bodies including the Police, the European Union and Colombia's state prosecution service (Fiscalía), Caracol radio reported. The broadcaster reported some of the highlights of its findings: it stated that Bogotá, Medellín and Cali were the cities most affected by kidnapping in that period, with 2,572 registered kidnappings in Bogotá in 1970-2010, 1,920 in Medellín and 1,241 in Cali. Tuluá, a district half-way between Bogotá and the Pacific coast, had the fewest - 153 - kidnappings. The country's two communist guerrilla armies - the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) and the National Liberation Army (ELN) - were found to be the most prolific kidnappers, followed by criminal gangs who nevertheless kidnapped more in cities like Bogotá, Caracol reported. Figures showed that criminals kidnapped most in Bogotá in this period - 840 times - while the FARC had carried out their greatest number of kidnappings in the districts of Miraflores in the department of Guaviare (182 kidnappings there), and in San Vicente del Caguán (152) and Villavicencio (142), respectively in southern and in south-central Colombia. The ELN kidnapped most in Cali (353) and in Valledupar (307) in the northern department of César near the Venezuelan frontier. Graphic representaion of the history of kidnappings showed that kidnappings began to increase from 1990 and rose exponentially around 1996, at the start of what the report termed as a "massification" period. Its chart showed that kidnappings reached a peak in 2000-2002, when they began to decline during a "containment" period, Caracol reported. A decline and stagnation in kidnappings broadly coincided with the two presidencies of Álvaro Uribe Vélez (2002-2010), the conservative leader who waged war on crime and insurgencies.