Over 30 killed in crimes, found dead around Mexico

Crime-related violence continued in Mexico as its president was announcing a planned overhaul of the state's response to organized crime. As if in a country at war, over 35 were killed or found dead around Mexico on 16-18 December, including 17 in a collective bid to break out of a jail. Fifteen of the victims were killed or found dead on or around 18 December, Proceso reported. Among these: a child of seven was one of three - perhaps a family - shot dead while driving on a road near Las Peñitas in the eastern state of Veracruz; two were killed and a child of 13 shot and badly injured in an attack on a house in San Martín Cuauatlalpan in Estado de México outside the capital; the child was taken to hospital. The Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) representative in Salvador Escalante in the western state of Michoacán was shot dead late on 17 December, at a roadside petrol station. Identified by the state prosecutor's office as Miguel Ángel Farfán Ortega, he became the PRI's mayoral candidate for Salvador Escalante in 2011 after his predecessor was found with guns in his car and presumably dismissed. A "cartel grave" (narcofosa) was found on 17 December outside the northern city of Saltillo; it yielded six bodies described as in advanced state of decomposition, Proceso reported on 18 December. One of the bodies was identified as belonging to an electoral official. The website separately reported a gun and grenade attack in Saltillo late on 17 December, launched on the house of an employee of the state prosecutor's office. Nobody was killed. In Tlalpán south of Mexico City, a man identified as the head of a gang called Los Rojos was killed while confined in a hospital late on 16 December, Proceso reported on 18 December; it added he had fled there from another hospital to which he had been admitted after being injured in an attack. Two gunmen dressed as doctors entered his room and shot him in the chest. A shootout on 18 December between prison guards and inmates - in what appeared to be an attempted mass flight - killed 11 prisoners and six guards in a prison in the northern city of Gómez Palacio. Inmates began shooting at guards in watch-towers in a possible signal to start rioting and allow a subsequent breakout, Proceso and Milenio reported. Proceso observed it was unclear where the inmates' weapons had come from.

President presents security plan for Mexico

President Enrique Peña Nieto presented on 17 December a plan to restore "peace" to crime-ridden Mexico, urging a systematic crime policy devoid of "improvisations," based on shared responsibilities and eschewing party political interests, Agence France-Presse reported. Peña Nieto was speaking in the capital to members of the Public Security National Council (CNSP), and state governors, representatives of government branches and rights activists. Peña Nieto cited homicides, kidnappings and extortions as priority targets of reduction. A 10,000-member gendarmerie was to be formed and the national territory divided into five operational zones. The agency cited the plan's six broad outlines as planning a policy with clear objectives, crime prevention through social security programmes to be financed with funds in 2013, respect for human rights, coordination between and reform of security institutions and evaluation of objectives. The armed forces would continue fighting cartels for now he said, while new police were being trained. State governors and officials at the session signed 12 agreements on implementing the plan, El Universal reported. These included measures such as a national training programme for police, drafting police action protocols and including rights activists in the CNSP. On 18 December, Mexico's Prosecutor-General Jesús Murillo Karam spoke in an interview of some of the problems the state has faced in recent years in fighting organized crime, including he said an ill-prepared judiciary and institutions. He said it was "not a problem of government, the judiciary was made for a country at peace," El Universal reported. The judiciary he said had to face the "juncture" of rising cartel violence "as it emerged." He was particularly critical of almost 4,000 preventive or provisional arrests he described as unfair and inefficient; very few of those he said had led to the imprisonment of criminals. Murillo estimated 70,000 people died in drug-related violence under Felipe Calderón Hinojosa (2006-12), the president who began to wage war on the cartels. Murillo said these had broken up with the capture or killing of cartel bosses and prompted the rise of 60 to 80 new gangs or smaller cartels.

Some 30 reported killed around Mexico

At least 29 people were reported killed or found dead around Mexico on 14-16 December in presumed criminal executions or gun battles with state forces. Eight suspected gangsters were shot dead in a gun battle with police on 15 December in Genaro Codina in the north-central state of Zacatecas; police said shooting began when the suspects fired on a patrol. Five suspects were also arrested and arms and equipment confiscated, the dailies Proceso and Imagen reported. On 16 December, soldiers shot dead five suspected gangsters or cartel operatives in the north-eastern city of Tamaulipas, Proceso reported. Four women earlier reported as missing in the northern state of Chihuahua were found dead there in the district of Guachochi on 14 December, their bodies indicating they were "tortured" then shot dead, Proceso reported. The women were apparently last seen on 12 December when they drove out of Creel further to the north, and may have been murdered at a road block set up by criminals in the countryside area known as Sierra Tarahumara. Proceso observed that people had repeatedly reported the presence of road blocks in the Sierra to Guachochi's municipal police as well as the prosecutor's office for western Chihuahua, and no measures were taken. There were nine victims on 14 December alone in the north-western state of Sinaloa, six of these in the form of headless bodies found near the neighbouring state of Chihuahua, Proceso reported. Other victims were: a local politician and a female companion shot dead in the north-eastern city of Ciudad Valles late on 14 December, and a police detective shot dead by suspected car thieves, early on 16 December in the Nezahualcóyotl district of Estado de México. He was apparently stopped while driving and asked to get out of his BMW but refused, Proceso reported.

Socialists retain most regions in Venezuelan polls

The United Socialist Party of Venezuela (PSUV), the party of President Hugo Chávez Frías, and allies collaborating in its Comando Campaña Carabobo kept 20 of the 23 states for which they competed in regional polls on 16 December, opposition parties holding onto three in elections marked by a relatively low turnout. The former presidential candidate Henrique Capriles remained governor of the state of Miranda next to the capital, while his allies retained the states of Lara and Amazonas, El Nacional reported. The daily reported a turnout of 53.9 per cent of eligible voters, down from about 80 per cent for the October presidential elections, according to initial figures released by the electoral authority (CNE). This was reportedly the lowest turnout since the regional elections of 2004. But Venezuela's Vice-President and provisional ruler Nicolás Maduro was triumphant on 16 December, stating that the people had ratified the socialist regime and "dissolved" the opposition Democratic Unity Table (MUD, Mesa de Unidad Demócratica). He told state television by telephone that voters had "liberated" five of the eight states governed by MUD politicians, which was a "great victory we must accept with wisdom, with humility," the broadcaster Globovisión reported. Earlier Maduro advised the defeated MUD candidate in the state of Bolívar "not to go crazy" after he challenged the results and alleged the existence of "a manoeuvre" to ensure his defeat. The results were close in that state. The leading opposition figure Henrique Capriles Radonsky said he was "immensely happy" for people in Miranda, Lara and Amazonas, but "I cannot feel happy for our Venezuela," El Nacional reported. He said officialist parties had presented no programs but allegedly capitalized on the sympathies or concerns generated by the president's current illness. He asserted however that "change is quite, quite close, you can feel it," and "Venezuelans want answers to their problems," including he said that of insecurity. The regime he declared "wanted to be done with me but the people responded."

FARC rebels attack police station in Colombia

The Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) were reported twice so far to have violated the two-month ceasefire they declared from 20 November while negotiating an end to their conflict with the Colombian state; an attack on a police station on 15 December, attributed to Front 34 of the FARC, further reduced the credibility of their pledge. Police in the district of Murindó in the north-western department of Antioquia repelled a 45-minute gunfire attack or shelling of their offices, El Espectador reported, citing EFE and the broadcaster Caracol. A deputy-governor of Antioquia Santiago Londoño Uribe, told Caracol that the FARC had "harrassed" Murindó with gunfire or shelling some 10 times in the past two years. There were no reported casualties in this attack. On 14 December a former president Ernesto Samper Pizano wrote a letter to Colombia's negotiators in Havana urging them to reach an agreement during the ceasefire on "minimal humanitarian" norms to reduce harm to civilians from fighting, RCN Radio reported. Samper was president in 1993-98 although his reputation was tarnished by allegations that a drug cartel contributed funds to his election campaign. Samper wrote that it was "indispensable to protect the civilian population" before peace was attained. The chief negotiator Humberto de la Calle, who was Samper's vice-president in 1994-6, was earlier cited as saying that the aim of talks was not to "humanize" the decades-long conflict with the FARC but end it. Samper wrote that the "humanisation of the conflict whose termination is being negotiated is not an option but an ethical obligation, born of clear constitutional and legal mandates."

Nineteen or more reported killed in Mexico

At least 19 people were reported shot or found dead around Mexico on 13-14 December in incidents mostly thought related to organized crime and cartels, Proceso reported. These included: two bodies found in the northern city of Coahuila, covered by blankets and with an unspecified message by them signed by Z-40 the head of The Zetas cartel, a policeman shot dead in the north-western district of Otáez in the state of Durango, and three people killed in a shootout in a residential building in the north-central city of Celaya. Nine of the dead were from the north-eastern state of Nuevo León, five of these being shot dead in and at the entrance of a house in the city of Monterrey, Proceso reported. A convict was stabbed to death on 14 December in a prison in the district of Iztapalapa outside Mexico City. This occurred hours before Mexico's Primate Archbishop Cardinal Norberto Rivera was to hold mass at the prison, but apparently did not interrupt preparations for the service held annually in this prison, Milenio reported. A man arrested for killing his wife on 13 December told police he shot her during a row after she would not let him sleep; it was not immediately clear if the shooting had been accidental, Proceso reported on 14 December. Neighbours in the Tláhuac district in Mexico City said the couple were drug users; both apparently had been prosecuted for violent thefts and the victim was on prison leave, the Mexico City chief prosecutor was reported as saying. They argued after returning from a party, when she "turned up the music" and prevented him from going to bed. After her death he fired shots into the air and took a woman and her three children hostage for an unspecified time, before being arrested.

Police detain 16 suspects around Guatemala City

Police detained 16 suspected criminals on 13 December during raids and interventions in the department of Guatemala surrounding the capital; the suspects were sought for presumed involvement in a range of crimes including robbing minibuses, extortion and killings, the daily Prensa Libre reported on 14 December. The daily reported at least six violent deaths on 12-14 December. Four of the victims were found on 12 and 13 December as decapitated bodies in the district of Sanarate north of the capital; one body was identified as belonging to an 18-year-old girl, Prensa Libre reported.

Venezuelan officials cautious on president's health

Venezuela's acting president Nicolás Maduro told a gathering outside Caracas on 13 December that President Hugo Chávez had gone from a "stable to favourable" state as he recovered in Cuba from his fourth operation for a cancer first diagnosed in 2011; he stated however that Chávez previously instructed officials to prepare Venezuelans for "any circumstance." Both he and Venezuela's information minister have spoken of the operation's complexity and of unforeseen bleeding that had required "corrective measures," partly divulging the relevant medical reports. Maduro was speaking at a rally to close the campaign of Tareck El-Aissami, the socialist candidate to become governor of the northern state of Aragua west of the capital, Venezuela's El Universal reported. Venezuela was holding elections state governments on 16 December. He praised Chávez who he said had made Venezuelans better people than they were "five years ago or 10, and our country is infinitely better than 15, 20" or 100 years before. Individualism he said had given way to "humanism" under Chávez, and "when humanity lives socialism, it will live in the Kingdom of Heaven as Chávez has said...we are living a miracle right in the 21st century." Allusions to the other world may have been disconcerting to some, given the uncertainty over the president's health. El Universal cited the country's Information Minister Ernesto Villegas Poljak as commenting that given complications, a "time of caution" was needed before the president could be described as recovering. The former liberal presidential candidate and governor of the state of Miranda Henrique Capriles was reported on 14 December as objecting to what he said was Venezuelan officials' electoral usage of "a person's pain," while expressing sympathy for Chávez. Elections for state governors he said, had "nothing to do with the president's health, so enough of manipulating our people," for whom he asked for more "respect," the Colombian broadcaster Caracol reported.

Fifteen reported killed around Mexico

Some 15 people were reported shot or found dead in incidents around Mexico on 11-13 December, including a pregnant woman shot with four others in a restaurant in northern Mexico. Gunmen were said to have entered a restaurant in Nuevo Laredo on the US frontier, and shot dead five employees including the woman, Proceso reported on 13 December. Four gunmen were shot dead by the army in the western state of Guerrero, reportedly after they began shooting at troops who ordered them stop on a motorway early on 13 December, the commander of the Ninth Military Region Guillermo Moreno Serrano was reported as saying. Police separately shot dead a suspect and arrested two after a shootout on 13 December in the district of Calera in the north-central state of Zacatecas, Milenio reported. The suspects began shooting at one or more police cars driving toward Fresnillo, a city north of Calera, the Zacatecas Public Security chief declared. Soldiers freed a kidnapped woman in Fresnillo on 12 December and arrested four presumed kidnappers, after another woman they held held escaped and informed the police, Milenio reported on 14 December. On 13 December police freed a 20-year-old man held by a gang of three in the western district of Tequila, Milenio and Notimex reported. Also on 13 December, the governor of the state of Chihuahua César Duarte Jáquez ruled out that troops could help police patrol the streets of Ciudad Juárez in his state as announced earlier by a local army commander. Duarte said troops in the city "only provoke tensions in society" and the last time soldiers patrolled Juárez the city lived a "war siege," Proceso reported. It was up to state and municipal authorities to fight crime, he said, using intelligence work and the "clear" pursuit of crimes.

Honduran magistrates denounce "illegal" destitution

Four members of the Constitutional Court of Honduras dismissed by parliament on 12 December denounced the move as "totally illegitimate, illegal and unjust" and violating the separation of powers, adding they would consider their legal options, the Honduran daily El Heraldo reported. The four read out a joint communiqué to the press in Tegucicalpa on the afternoon of 12 December declaring that their dismissal "obviously follows political not juridical reasons," and defended their earlier rulings as legal and reasoned. Parliament and the government made a ruling issued in November by the magistrates, which declared unconstitutional parts of the government's drive to purge the police force of corrupt officers, the basis of moves to dismiss the judges. The Speaker of the National Congress or parliament Juan Orlando Hernández said the destitution had been "traumatic" but not politically motivated; the move he added was with the backing of the President Porfirio Lobo Sosa and the head of the judiciary and president of the Supreme Court Jorge Rivera Avilés, El Heraldo reported. He said "we discussed it with the President...and reached the consensus that it was necessary for the good of the country," while Rivera began to contact possible successors before the destitution process. President Lobo was separately reported as saying on 12 December that he would in following days convene the heads of the legislature and judiciary and other key political figures to initiate an "ample and open" dialogue intended to find a collaborative solution to the crisis.

Lawyers among four executed in Mexico's Chiapas

Two lawyers were gunned down while driving in the southern Mexican state of Chiapas on 10 December, it was suspected by organized crime, Proceso reported on 12 December. The website observed they had left a prison that day near the site of their assassination, on the road between the districts of Chiapa de Corzo and Acala; it reported two other execuctions on 9 December in the state capital, Tuxtla Gutierrez. In northern Mexico, the army announced it would once again patrol the streets of Ciudad Juárez to back the police, two years after a similar measure was ended for its apparent unpopularity. The last government headed by Felipe Calderón withdrew troops from the city in 2010 after reports of abuse and rights violations by soldiers, with Federal Police taking over their duties, Proceso reported on 12 December. The head of the military guarrison in Juárez General Salvador Gutiérrez Plascencia, said military patrols would be temporary and confined to the city's periphery. He added troops would particularly look for military weaponry used by criminal gangs and seek to find how they obtained them.

Honduran parliament sacks four judges

Doubts were publicly voiced in Honduras about the legality of a parliamentary vote on 12 December dismissing four members of the Constitutional Court, a part of the Supreme Court of Honduras. The move was related to the court's ruling on 27 November that "confidence" tests being carried out on police personnel were unconstitutional, although the entire Supreme Court was to meet on 12 December to deliberate on that ruling. The jurists dismissed were those who had ruled against the tests, while a fifth member who had not remained in his position. The ruling had angered President Porfirio Lobo and his allies who have defended a government decree to purge police of corrupt elements as a key component of the state's drive against crime. The daily El Heraldo observed that Lobo had reportedly consulted with the parliamentary speaker Juan Orlando Hernández Alvarado and members of the presidium before parliament debated the dismissal. On 10 December parliament voted that an eight-member committee examine the "administrative conduct" of the four jurists and these, apparently very swiftly, drafted a report justifying a second motion to dismiss them. Parliament debated that after one in the morning on 12 December, and the motion was approved by 97 legislators with 31 votes against. The Speaker defended the motion at the pre-dawn session: "Security is the Honduran people's main concern. What we have detected is worrying, it is practically a conspiracy and we are obliged to debate the subject...this wave of crime cannot continue; while some are working others are conspiring." He did not elaborate on the conspirators but they were presumably those obstructing the president's anti-crime measures. To those who said parliament was meddling with the judiciary's prerogatives, he said parliament had already voted to dimiss magistrates before, as it had in 2009 the president of Honduras. Four new magistrates were appointed after the vote, for a term running to 2018. They were on a list of 45 nominees for membership of the Supreme Court drawn up in 2009, El Heraldo reported.

Venezuela's Chávez recovering from surgery

Venezuela's acting president Nicolás Maduro announced on state television that President Hugo Chávez had successfully received cancer surgery in Havana on 11 December and was in recovery; Venezuelans would be informed of his physical progress in coming days, Venezuela's state news agency cited him as saying. He said doctors had informed officials who accompanied Chávez to Havana of the "complex" six-hour surgery carried out; these included the speaker of Venezuela's parliament, the prosecutor-general and the science and oil ministers who Maduro said "are like daughters and sons to Chávez more than politicians." He thanked Latin American leaders and officials who had sent expressions of support, but apparently said nothing about a similar statement by the US State Department in recent days. Maduro also urged the "adversaries, opponents and even enemies of our fatherland, and above all those who are Venezuelans, who exude their hate and venom every day: stop it, stop this poison, stop the hate against" Chávez. Maduro urged an extensive voter participation in regional elections scheduled for 16 December.

Former policeman among six killed in Mexico

A former police chief from the north-western state of Sinaloa reported kidnapped on 10 December was found dead the next day with "his face destroyed;" he was one of six people reported killed by suspected criminals in Mexico on 10-11 December. The body of Alfredo Mejía Pérez, the former head of Sinaloa's state Preventive Police was found in the district of El Limón de los Ramos north of the city of Culiacán. Victims that day included three men gunned down in a bar in the northern city of Torreón; armed men entered the bar, and lined the three up behind the drinks bar to execute them, Proceso reported.

Hugo Chávez stirs emotions, sympathies in illness

Moved to tears by his own words or by circumstances, Venezuela's acting president Nicolás Maduro reiterated in public on 10 December the enduring loyalty of Venezuelans to President Hugo Chávez, who was in Cuba for treatment of a resurgent cancer. Maduro was shown speaking to a crowd of supporters, many also in tears, at the inauguration of a cable-car line in Caracas; on 8 December Chávez handed him his powers for his "temporary absence," though opposition politicians were demanding by 10 December that the public be told of the president's state of health. Certain opposition members, and the US State Department, urged that constitutional provisions be respected in case of a power transition, Globovisión reported on 10 December. This meant general elections must be called if Chávez were unable to return to work. Vice-President Maduro prayed for recovery however and said "Chávez has a people, he has us and will have us for ever in this battle from victory to victory," EFE reported. Messages of encouragement and sympathy were emitted by American governments of all persuasions; Ecuador's Rafael Correa was visiting him in Cuba. In Argentina, President Cristina Fernández de Kirchner recalled speaking in Buenos Aires in 9 December that Chávez had helped "Argentina when nobody was helping it," and asked God to "give him back" his health, Venezuela's El Universal reported. The daily observed on 11 December that the illness was of particular concern to Nicaragua's Sandinista regime, a recipient of generous financial help from Venezuela since 2007.

Gang "terrorises" Mexican town, 16 killed

Sixteen or 17 people were shot dead in the town of Guadalupe y Calvo in the northern state of Chihuahua during 7-9 December, apparently by gangsters intermittently patrolling the town unchecked, Proceso reported. The gunmen, described as possible members of a gang associated with the Sinaloa drug cartel, turned the town into a "war zone" when they arrived late on 7 December, Proceso reported citing witnesses. The killings continued after army and police reinforcements were reported to have mobilized in response; five of the victims were killed on the afternoon of 8 December or later. Proceso cited residents as saying on 8 December that they remained mostly at home, while the gunmen circulated around "the streets in absolute calm, dressed in military gear and in super-equipped and armoured" estate vehicles. "They have everything," a resident said; the website observed that residents found out "on the news" that troops were acting to retake control of the area. Separately a "young man" and possible criminal was found dead on 8 December half-naked and apparently after being "tortured," in the district of Carichí in the state of Chihuahua, Proceso reported. A note was left by his body that this was "for killing women and children, which you don't do," signed by La Línea. This was presumably the gang of gunmen of the same name active in Chihuahua in recent years, though there was no immediate confirmation.

Rebel shot dead in Colombia, gang suspects held

Colombian forces shot dead on 8 December a commander of the National Liberation Army (ELN) dubbed Duber in the northern department of Antióquia, the broadcaster Caracol reported. He was described as a veteran bomb-maker and number three in the command hierarchy of the Capitán Mauricio unit of the ELN, Colombia's second largest rebel force after the FARC. The broadcaster also reported the arrest in the same department of a member of one of the country's main drug gangs called Los Urabeños; the suspect identified as Jorge Luis Cordero Márquez or 400, was detained in the district of Yarumal at an unspecified date. Police announced on 7 December the arrests of two other members of Los Urabeños, detained on an estate in the district of Ayapel in the northern department of Córdoba, El Espectador reported. The two, respectively dubbed in the criminal underworld Boca de Perro and Montiel, were sought for suspected crimes including criminal conspiracy and attempted murder in the former's case and illegally making and carrying arms for Montiel. Early on 10 December, five people were shot dead in a shopping centre or store in the district of Villavicencio, south-east of the capital Bogotá. Six were injured in the attack and the gunmen fled, Caracol reported.

Colombian rebels said to have broken ceasefire pledge

They had promised not to attack for two months from 20 November while talking peace with the Colombian state, but this pledge by the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) was apparently broken by a deadly mortar or explosives attack on 8 December, which the army attributed to the FARC. An army colonel said members of the FARC's Sixth Front were suspected to have thrown explosives at houses in a rural zone of the district of Caloto in the Cauca department, killing a man and injuring three women, the daily El Espectador reported. One of the injured was a 16-year-old girl. "We don't know where the ceasefire is because look what happened here," El Tiempo cited a relative of the victims as saying. The daily cited the head of the army's anti-terrorist Apollo Task force General Jorge Humberto Jerez Cuellar as saying that troops were two kilometres from the site of the incident, meaning this could not have been a defensive action. Another army spokesman was reported as saying that there had been no recent clashes in this area. Jerez was cited by the same daily as saying on 20 November that the FARC broke their ceasefire pledge hours after declaring it. They apparently failed in their bid to draw soldiers onto a minefield that day. On 9 December, the FARC publicly urged the Colombian Defence Minister Juan Carlos Pinzón Bueno to start a "verbal ceasefire" and stop his alleged hostility to ongoing peace conversations in Havana. "We urge the Defence Minister to at least end his verbal hostility, which is incessantly firing at the peace process," the rebel and FARC negotiator dubbed Iván Márquez stated in Havana, reading out a communiqué. The statement added that peace depended not just on negotiators but on the "involvement of the national country" and the "common people," El Espectador reported.

Venezuela's ailing leader envisages succession

Venezuela's President Hugo Chávez Frías handed over responsibilities to his vice-president, foreign minister and possible successor as head of the socialist regime Nicolás Maduro Moros, hours before travelling to Cuba on 10 December for surgery against a resurgent cancer first diagnosed in 2011. Speaking on Venezuelan television late on 8 December, he said "With God''s favour we will come out victorious and go forward," indicating that his cancer had recurred in February 2012 and been cured. He said surgery was deemed necessary now as he was in pain and admitted there were "risks" involved, but he reminded Venezuelans "this revolution does not depend on just one man" and had a "collective leadership," Venezuela's state news agency reported. Maduro was now acting president in keeping with constitutional provisions for the head of state's "temporary absence." This could only be until 10 January 2013 when Chávez was to be sworn in for his new presidential term, jurist José Peña Solís told the Venezuelan daily El Nacional. He contemplated a situation of particular political gravity if he did not return to his duties by then for death or physical incapacity. The constitutional jurist Pedro Afonso separately told El Nacional that this would effectively reactivate the electoral machinery. The constitution he said, required the parliamentary speaker - to be chosen with a new parliamentary presidium on 5 January - to take over the executive branch on 10 January and call general elections within 30 days of doing so.

Fifty or so killed in crimes around Mexico

Some 50 people, or perhaps more, were reported shot or found dead in presumed criminal incidents around Mexico on 5-7 December, many in the form of bodies buried in clandestine graves. Among the victims: six men were shot dead on 5 December in the northern city of Gómez Palacio in the state of Durango, while police found a ditch in Jiutepec in the south-central state of Morelos, containing the remains of two adults, a child and a baby. The review Proceso numbered at 14 or more those killed or found dead on 5-6 December. It reported at least 35 victims on 6-7 December, including 13 bodies found in two lorries on 6 December in the districts of Soto la Marina and Ciudad Mante in the north-eastern state of Tamaulipas, and four bodies found hanging from a bridge in the northern city of Saltillo early on 7 December, Proceso reported. The lorries likely contained the bodies of members of The Zetas cartel, as messages were found addressed to the cartel signed by its rivals the Gulf Cartel. In the district of Calera in the north-central state of Zacatecas a ditch or grave was found on 6 December, revealing "at least" 11 bodies.

Salvadorean president sees "unprecedented" crime fall

President Mauricio Funes Cartagena said in San Salvador on 5 December that his country was living an "unprecedented process" of decline in criminality even as crime rates were rising elsewhere in Latin America, and this partly for the truce that began last March between the main gangs, the Salvadorean daily El Mundo reported. He said at a graduation ceremony for 65 army and airforce officers that El Salvador "faces a unique opportunity to advance on the path to becoming a country with real democracy and peace." This "pacification process" he added was not just for the gang truce arranged by mediators, but also for the efforts of the army and police. The country's Justice and Public Security Minister David Munguía Payés spoke last October of a steady decline in crime in 2012, asserting that it fell more sharply after the start of the gang truce on 8 March and unspecified police operations, El Mundo reported at the time. Munguía cited a 38.4 per cent fall in crime in 2012 compared to 2011 - without specifying dates for the January-October period - and a comparative fall in crimes of 68 per cent for the period after 8 March. Separately El Salvador and Russia signed a security agreement in Moscow on 6 December focused on fighting drug trafficking, El Mundo reported. The agreement was signed by Munguía and the head of the Russian Federal Drug Control Service Viktor Ivanov. Its provisions included exchange of information, "technological investigation" and training programmes.

Nicaragua, Colombia in peaceful standoff over sea frontier

Reports indicated Colombian ships remained present in Caribbean waters which the International Court at The Hague recently ruled Colombia should cede to Nicaragua to settle a border dispute; it was not immediately clear if Colombia was simply ignoring the ruling. Colombia's President Juan Manuel Santos said after the 19 November decision that Colombia would use all peaceful means to defend the rights of citizens living in islands and cays now surrounded by Nicaraguan waters, and he and Nicaragua's President Daniel Ortega agreed on 1 December not to resort to force. Ortega told a military gathering in Managua on 5 December that Nicaragua would not seek UN help against "Colombian frigates" in its territorial waters but use "communication," the broadcaster Caracol reported, citing EFE.  Which resolution could the UN Security Council issue, he asked? "You only need a country to put a veto and there is no solution there," he said, adding there was no hostility now and the two navies maintained communications that were "serene, serious, without aggression." He was separately reported as saying, perhaps at the same event, that he had reassured Santos about his concerns over the fate of the Flor de Mar nature reserve now mostly inside Nicaraguan waters. Ortega said he promised Santos permits would not be given to explore oil in the UNESCO-listed biosphere reserve and that Colombians living in the San Andrés Archipelago would still be allowed to fish in Nicaraguan waters, Portafolio reported on 6 December, citing agency reports.

Mexico City has a new mayor, cabinet

Mexico City changed mayors on 5 December as the leftist Miguel Ángel Mancera Espinosa, elected in the July 2012 general elections, replaced the popular Marcelo Ebrard Casaubon of the socialist Democratic Revolutionary Party (PRD). The mayor of Mexico City has the rank of a state governor. Mancera was the candidate of the Progressive Movement in the elections and backed by several parties including the PRD. He defeated two high-profile rivals in the former president of the Institutional Revolutionary Party Beatriz Paredes Rangel and the conservative anti-crime activist Isabel Miranda de Wallace, backed by the National Action Party. With his victory the Left retained its political control of the capital and enjoyed a very considerable political boost in the otherwise disappointing election. Mancera presented his cabinet on 5 December, a team including former city officials, former ministers and leftist eminences. The most notable appointment was of Cuauhtémoc Cárdenas Solórzano, the capital's first elected mayor in the 1990s and founder of the PRD. Mancera made the researcher René Drucker Colín Science Secretary and the academic and entrepreneur Miguel Torruco Marqués Tourism Secretary, CNNMéxico reported. These were considered close to the former presidential candidate and former PRD leader Andrés Manuel López Obrador, who had reportedly envisaged them as ministers if elected president. Other appointments included: Hector Serrano Cortés as Governance Secretary - effectively deputy-mayor and administrative chief - Jesús Rodríguez Almeida as Public Security Secretary in charge of policing, and Rodolfo Ríos Garza as the capital's chief prosecutor, CNN and the website ADNpolítico reported.

Eighteen or more killed in Mexico in three days

At least 18 people including teenagers were reported killed or found dead in suspected criminal incidents around Mexico on 4-6 December. Victims included three youngsters aged 15, 17 and 22, "executed" in the northern district of Lerdo in the state of Durango, and four women found dead in the district of El Durazno in the north-central state of Zacatecas with "torture" marks on their bodies, Proceso reported on 5 December. A woman and her 14-year-old son were gunned down at home on 4 December in the district of Bocoyna in the northern state of Chihuahua; the mother, Edna Delfina Rodríguez González, was an assistant to the senator of the conservative National Action Party Javier Corral Jurado. Another politician Miguel Ángel Torres, head of the PANAL (Nueva Alianza) party in west-coast Acapulco was gunned down early on 5 December on Acapulco's main coastal boulevard, the Avenida Miguel Alemán. An 18 year-old was shot dead early on 6 December in the district of Naucalpán outside the capital, Milenio and Notimex reported. a 15-year-old friend or relative of the victim was wounded in this attack. The daily also reported the arrests of two suspected kidnappers in the western district of Ometepec on 4 December, in an operation in which police freed a presumed hostage, and of three men found with an arsenal in Víctor Rosales in the state of Zacatecas. Items confiscated from them included assault rifles, ammunition, a machine gun, three cars and communication equipment, Milenio reported on 6 December.

El Salvador's gangs to "disarm" in 10 districts

El Salvador's main criminal gangs agreed on 4 December to a proposal to turn 10 districts into "peace sanctuaries" - apparently without arms or gang violence - in what was described as the second phase of a pioneer decriminalisation process that began in March 2012, the Salvadorean daily El Mundo reported. This phase was announced on 23 November by mediators and the Security Ministry, which were to determine the districts, so far unnamed, the website La página reported. The gangs were to hand over their arms there at an unspecified date to the chief mediators in the process, the former leftist militant Raúl Mijango and the army bishop, Monsignor Fabio Colindres Abarca. A spokesman for the gangs read out a communiqué to this effect at a meeting in a prison in San Salvador attended by the facilitators, gang leaders and an envoy of the Organisation of American States (OAS) Carlos Orozco; the OAS has pledged to aid the process. The gangs concerned were MS-13 or Mara Salvatrucha, M-18, La Mao-Mao, La Máquina and La Mirada Locos. The spokesman, a leader of M-18 dubbed El Viejo Lin, said the disarmament would benefit some 900,000 people and the proposal was a "realistic and objective" step in the process to solve "the problem of violence" in El Salvador. Other gang leaders speaking at the meeting urged a repeal of anti-gang laws, which one said were too many and an impediment "to the continuation of the process." Nevertheless they thanked President Mauricio Funes and the Papal Nuncio, Monsignor Luigi Pezzuto, for their collaboration so far.

Pact with government further divides Mexican Left

Members of the leftist Democratic Revolutionary Party (PRD) distanced themselves on 3 December from the multi-party Pact for Mexico signed earlier by the party's leader Jesús Zambrano Grijalva, echoing the party's earlier reservations about a pact that included the ruling Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI). The PRD, its political allies and protest groups bitterly challenged the PRI's general-elections victory last July, alleging there had been fraud. The pact appeared to open another crack in this party, following the departure of its former leader Andrés Manuel López Obrador to start his own political movement. The Pact for Mexico, promoted by President Enrique Peña Nieto, was to facilitate legislation through prior party agreements. But the PRD's secretary-general and deputy-head Alejandro Sánchez Camacho stated in a communiqué that the party did not recognize the signature and its political committee would debate Zambrano's initiative, El Universal reported. The daily noted that Sánchez belonged to the National Democratic Left current (Izquierda Democrática Nacional) within the PRD, distinct from Zambrano's reforming New Left current, which apparently had more support. He criticised Zambrano for letting himself be "wooed" by Peña Nieto's declarations and said his signature was "in a private capacity" and had "no validity" for lacking the approbation of party mechanisms. Zambrano defended his decision to sign on 2 December as "a risk worth taking," Milenio reported on 3 December. Differences with other parties persisted, he said, but the PRD was committed to reforms in Mexico. "We are profoundly dissatisfied with the state of our country," with problems too big to be solved by a "single force or a single man," he said.

Almost 87,000 Colombians caught HIV virus

There were 86,990 registered cases in Colombia of infection with HIV - the virus that destroys the human immune system and causes AIDS - between the first reported case in 1983 and the end of 2011, the health ministry stated on 1 December, World Aids Day. A ministry communiqué stated that 7,991 infections were for the year 2011 and 93 per cent of those had been through sexual intercourse, Spain's EFE reported. The greatest number of HIV infections that year occurred in Bogotá - 1,609 - while the age groups with most infections were of 25-29 and 30-34 years, with 17.98 and 16.46 per cent of all infections in Colombia. The agency cited an adviser to the ministry as stressing the need for a "community response" and collaborative actions by civic groups to help curb infections, beside the state's promotion of "official access to prevention" and assistance to infected individuals. The ministry stated that infections remained "concentrated" among "more vulnerable" groups, particularly men who had sex with men. Separately, police arrested on 1 December a truck driver who may have "recklessly" infected some 50 women with HIV over several years while knowing he was HIV-positive, El Tiempo reported on 3 December. The 57-year-old who was diagnosed with HIV in 2006, may be jailed for 72 months on the charge of acting against public health. Police said the "50 or more" women he may have infected during his "uncontrolled sexual life" included a 16-year-old virgin whom he raped in 2007. Apparently that encounter first brought him to police attention.

Mexican parties sign Pact to facilitate reforms

Mexico's three main political parties signed the Pact for Mexico (Pacto por México) on 2 December, pledging to collaborate on legislative initatives and forward the agenda of structural and economic reforms touted by the new President Enrique Peña Nieto, Reuters reported. In this pact, the parties would negotiate initiatives before voting and consult with sectors in society when formulating legislation. "We have to talk to build consensus...as politicians we need to turn coincidences into a basis for reaching essential agreements," Peña Nieto said during the signature ceremony in Chapultepec Castle, the former imperial and presidential residence in Mexico City. The agency observed that fundamental reforms were suspended in Mexico in recent years as parties refused to pay the political cost of unpopular initiatives proposed by the conservative governments that ruled Mexico in 2000-2012; this halted cross-party collaboration in parliament. Mexico's interior minister Miguel Ángel Osorio Chong cited the first initiatives to be discussed in this pact as relating to an ordering of public finances in indebted states and municipalities and to fomenting competition in broadcasting and telecommunications. An editorial on 3 December in the daily Excelsior welcomed the move as "an excellent signal for society" and observed that "the first impression" it gave was that "the new government and...the parties really negotiated and offer a serious document with 95 more or less concrete commitments gathering many of the three forces' proposals" in the July 2012 general elections. The pact's implementation, it added, would depend on tax reforms that would "significantly increase" the state's capacity to finance itself, given the inclusion of pledges relating to social security. Spokesmen for the three main parties - the governing Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI), conservative National Action Party (PAN) and socialist Democratic Revolutionary Party (PRD) - also welcomed the pact, expressing hope it would benefit Mexico. The PAN's parliamentary coordinator Alberto Villarreal said his party would not "deny our country the reforms needed for its advancement. We will not be the ones to impede Mexico's advancement and growth," El Universal reported. He was perhaps referring to the two PAN governments' inability to legislate reforms in the preceding 12 years for lack of support from other parties, particularly the PRI.

FARC rebels killed in Colombia, Panama

Four members of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) were killed and three arrested in army operations in two districts of Colombia on 1 December, Agence France-Presse reported. Three died when planes bombed a FARC base in the Vista Hermosa district in the south-central department of Meta; three FARC members were arrested in that locality. Troops also shot dead a FARC rebel in the district of Lejanías, also in Meta. The FARC announced a unilateral two-month ceasefire on 20 December while negotiating in Havana to end their longstanding conflict with the Colombian state, insisting however that their fighters would defend themselves; the government ruled out halting security operations before any agreement were signed. On 30 November Panamanian police shot dead a presumed FARC member and arrested seven in the Chepigana district of the Darién province, near Colombia's frontier, Reuters reported citing police declarations. Police confiscated "20 bags of cocaine" and an unspecified quantity of arms.

Crime violence continues as Mexico changes leaders

Mexico's presidential transition was no excuse for organized crime to interrupt its activities, and about 20 were reported shot dead or found dead between 28 November and 1 December. Ten "at least" were reported killed on 28-29 November, apparently in addition to those reported earlier as killed on 28 November; victims included the police chief of the locality of Cocula in the western state of Guerrero and a colleague, "executed by gunmen" late on 28 November, Proceso reported on 30 November. Two policemen were gunned down on 30 November in Tlajomulco de Zúñiga, south of the western city of Guadalajara. On 1 December, five bodies were reported found around the north-central city of Zacatecas with messages from the Gulf Cartel to their rivals The Zetas. These stated that the executions were because The Zetas had not taken up "the opportunity" their rivals had given them to abandon the area, Proceso reported on 1 December. Four policemen were also killed or found dead in and around the northern city of Torreón on 30 November or early on 1 December, the state government of Coahuila announced. Another recently reported crime was the killing of a 14-year-old "bike-taxi" driver in the state of Morelos south of the capital, for unexplained motives. The teenager, named Miguel Ángel, drove passengers on a vehicle consisting of a passenger seat pulled by a motorbike; apparently stoned to death, he was found on 27 November in the locality of Xoxocotla where he lived, near his burned vehicle, Milenio reported on 28 November.

Youth protest as Mexican president takes office

Media reported over 90 arrests in the Mexican capital on 1 December during protests coinciding with the formal inauguration of Enrique Peña Nieto's presidency. His victory in July's general elections was marked by fraud allegations and a rejection of results by many students and the Leftist coalition led then by Andrés Manuel López Obrador. Public property was damaged in the protests, which the mayor Marcelo Ebrard Casaubon qualified as unprecedented and including "acts of barbarism." Spain's El País wrote of moments of chaos in the capital; Ebrard said 65 of the detained would face vandalism or related charges, Europa Press reported. The website Proceso separately reported protests in several states and districts, as well as a 40-minute delay to Peña Nieto's swearing-in inside parliament for disruptive conduct by left-wing parliamentarians. Allies of López Obrador raised banners that accused the outgoing president of handing over a "blood-soaked" presidential seat - for waging war on crime - or declaring "Imposition Consumed - Mexico in mourning." López Obrador himself addressed supporters in the capital that day, declaring he refused to recognize Peña Nieto for his "illegitimate and illegal" election, Europa Press reported, citing the daily La Jornada. He said the new interior minister Miguel Ángel Osorio Chong should resign for the "violent" response to protests, as should the police minister Manuel Mondragón for not assuring protesters' security. The government also condemned the violence. Peña Nieto separately promised 13 reforming measures that day, addressing the nation as president, Europa Press reported. The initiatives he promised included: introducing a universal social security system, educational reforms, measures to reduce crime violence, legislation to curb debt in public administrations and state governments and constitutional reform to ensure a single legal code and penal procedures applicable nationwide. The president had earlier touted a Pact for Mexico wherein all parties would cooperate to push through systemic reforms, though it was not yet clear if left-wing parties such as the Democratic Revolutionary Party (PRD) would give it their backing.

Mexico has a new president, cabinet

Felipe Calderón formally handed over the Mexican presidency to Enrique Peña Nieto of the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) in a short ceremony in the National Palace in Mexico City, enacted just after midnight on 1 December, CNN reported. Peña Nieto later had members of his Security Cabinet sworn in at the National Palace. He expressed satisfaction then at the completion of an "orderly, legal and transparent" transition of power. Calderón hosted a farewell dinner hours before the handover, while Peña Nieto was to have a more grandiose inauguration as President of Mexico later on 1 December. On 30 November he presented his cabinet to the public, CNNMéxico reported. Among its most prominent members: Miguel Ángel Osorio Chong, a 48-year-old lawyer and formerly general coordinator for Policy and Security in Peña Nieto's transitional team became the interior minister (Secretario de gobernación), and José Antonio Meade Kuribreña foreign minister. Meade was the finance minister since September of the outgoing conservative government, and previously served as its energy minister. General Salvador Cienfuegos Zepeda was the new Defence Minister and Admiral Vidal Francisco Soberón Sanz the Navy Minister, heading a body closely involved so far in the war on drug cartels. Manuel Mondragón y Kalb was made minister for Public Security and Institutional Planning, though it was not clear how long this post would last, given Peña Nieto's plans to eliminate the Public Security or police ministry created by Calderón. Mondragón was a prominent member of the Mexico City government under its outgoing leftist mayor Marcelo Ebrard and the capital's police chief in 2008-December 2012. Luis Videgaray Caso was the new finance minister: a close collaborator of Peña Nieto, he served with him when Peña Nieto was governor of Estado de México, as his election campaign manager and then general coordinator of his transitional team in July-December 2012. Female ministers included: the physician Mercedes Juan López in Health, Claudia Ruiz Massieu Salinas in Tourism, and the leftist Rosario Robles Berlanga in Social Development.

President voices Colombia's anger at Hague ruling

President Juan Manuel Santos said in Colombia on 29 November that he was "shocked" and "deeply hurt" by the recent ruling by the International Court at the Hague that ceded chunks of its sea territory to Nicaragua to settle a border dispute. He told a policy event in the northern town of Apartadó that the ruling had hit Colombians' "morale" but vowed to use all legal means to ensure it "does not harm" their rights. This he said he would do peacefully but "firmly," without "shouting" at Nicaragua's President Daniel Ortega, whom he was scheduled to meet informally on 1 December, El Tiempo reported on 29 November. Colombia has reportedly engaged lawyers to design a plan of response to the ruling. Santos said separately in Bogotá that day that Colombia would not implement the ruling until the rights of Colombians living in the San Andrés Archipelago - the islands now effectively surrounded by Nicaraguan waters - are assured. Colombia already announced it would leave the Bogotá Pact treaty that gave the Hague Court authority to arbitrate between American states, though it remained bound by its provisions for another year. President Santos was expected to meet with Daniel Ortega in Mexico City as both were to attend the formal handover of presidential powers on 1 December. The decision to leave the Pact was criticized by certain observers in comments published by the daily El Espectador on 29 November. The jurist Fabián Augusto Cárdenas told the daily that Colombia could still be "taken to court" in disputes for another year "when the withdrawal comes into effect. In fact the cases that were already before the court will continue their ordinary course." An example was given by Ecuador's foreign minister, who was cited as saying that Colombia's departure from the Pact would not affect Ecuador's ongoing legal action over the effects on its people and territory of chemical fumigation of coca plantations in Colombia, near the frontier. The daily also cited jurist Mauricio Herdocia Sacasa as saying that while other states could not in the future force Colombia to accept arbitration in disputes, it too would be unable to take them to court. "Whoever shuts the door to others is doing the same to himself, in a world where there is always conflict and there will always be more powerful countries that will seek to impose their will. The Bogotá Pact is the innocent victim of this dispute," he said.

Colombia, rebels end first round of peace talks

Colombian negotiators and members of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) concluded their first round of peace talks in Havana on 29 November that focused on rural policies, and were to resume talks on 5 December, El Tiempo reported. The two sides began talks in October meant to end decades of internal conflict. Both sides repeated at press conferences the mechanisms the Conversations Table has envisaged for public participation and contribution to the negotiating process, including a a website designed from 7 December to publish communiqués and register public comments, and a debate to be held in Bogotá on 17-19 December. The two sides also agreed to seek the conclusions of consultations with regional communities organized by parliament in preceding months. Colombia's chief negotiator Humberto de la Calle asked the public to make "relevant and useful" contributions focused on the subjects of negotiation: land use or agrarian policies, political participation by the FARC, drug trafficking by the FARC and their disarmament and compensation of victims. The FARC negotiator known as Iván Marquez observed separately that mutual confidence had increased and the FARC would like to discuss an accord to "regulate" the "war" and minimize harm done to civilians. The daily separately cited President Juan Manuel Santos as saying in Colombia that "we are ready for peace" but there would be no ceasefire until "we sign the agreement of this second phase," presumably meaning the satisfactory conclusion of direct talks as set out in the talks agenda.

Over 30 killed, found dead around Mexico in a day

Thirty two people were reported shot or found dead around Mexico on 28 November, the websites of Milenio and Proceso reported that day, including two policemen. One policeman, reported as kidnapped hours previously, was apparently tortured before he was found hanging from a bridge on the edge of Gómez Palacio in the northern state of Durango. Another police official was shot in his car outside a hospital in the northern city of Chihuahua as he arrived to donate blood to an injured colleague, Milenio reported. In other incidents: in Torreón next to Gómez Palacio the remains of a "mutilated corpse" were found scattered around streets in the city centre. Three men were gunned down in a workshop and a couple shot dead while talking in the street that day, also in Torreón; seven were reported shot dead in different parts of the north-western state of Sinaloa, while a gun fight between gangs killed four participants in the locality of Huitzila north of the western city of Guadalajara. Marines were reported separately to have found on 28 November "at least" nine bodies buried in two ditches near a nature reserve in the west-coast district of Acapulco.

Ecuador's exiled ex-leader not to run in polls

Abdalá Bucaram's return from exile to run for Ecuador's presidency in February 2013 might have been interesting at the very least given his reputed antics and lively personality, but it was not to be. The National Electoral Council (CNE) approved a protestant preacher instead to represent Bucaram's populist PRE (Partido Roldosista Ecuatoriano) party and compete with the incumbent Rafael Correa Delgado. The evangelist Nelson Zavala Avellán would run for the presidency and former legislator Denny Cevallos Capurro would be the PRE's vice-presidential candidate, Agence France-Presse reported on 27 November. The CNE rejected Bucaram's candidacy on 19 November, stating that he was not present at his registration. Bucaram was in Panama, and faced possible prosecution for charges relating to financial malfaisance or embezzlement during his presidency in 1996-7. The CNE also obligated Cevallos to renounce her parliamentary position to confirm her candidacy; she was the substitute legislator for Bucarám's son, Abdalá Bucaram Pulley. She told the Ecuadorean daily El Universo that Zavala had the "same political weight" as Bucaram and expressed confidence the PRE ticket would reach the second round. If elected, she said, she would expand the vice-presidency's current social vocation. The CNE has approved  eight presidential candidacies for elections due on 17 February 2013, AFP reported. These were, aside Zavala, President Correa, the banker Guillermo Lasso Mendoza, former president (2003-5) Lucio Gutiérrez Borbua for the centrist Sociedad Patriótica, the leftist and Correa's former energy minister Alberto Acosta Espinosa, two conservatives - Álvaro Noboa and Mauricio Rodas Espinel - and a jurist running as an independent, Normay Wray Reyes. President Correa was apparently ahead in voting intentions.

Ecuador's president reshuffles cabinet

Several new ministers were sworn into office in Quito on 28 November, amid a partial reshuffle allowing some former ministers to run for positions in general elections scheduled for 2013, agencies and press reported. In the changes the former heritage minister María Fernanda Espinosa Garcés became Defence Minister, her old post going to the deputy-minister for heritage Maria Belén Moncayo. Espinosa replaced Miguel Carvajal Aguirre, Ecuador's El Telégrafo reported. The new Policy Coordination Minister (Ministro coordinador de política) was Betty Tola who returned to the post she left in August 2012 following a disputed legislative initiative over military pensions. Rafael Poveda became the new Minister of Strategic Sectors (Ministro coordinador de Sectores Estratégicos), replacing Jorge Glas Espinel who was to be a vice-presidential candidate in coming elections for the Alianza País (or PAIS) party backing Correa. Other appointments were of Lorena Tapia Núñez as Environment Minister - her predecessor was to run for a parliamentary seat for PAIS - of Lorena Escudero to head the migratory affairs department (Senami) and of Leonardo Berrezueta Carrión as Private Secretary to the Presidency. Tapia Núñez was the acting minister since 12 November, while Berrezueta began working as presidential Secretary on 9 November, and was formally appointed on 16. Born in 1978, he was a deputy-interior minister for security affairs from May 2011 to late January 2012 and an adviser to the Presidency from June or July to November 2012, the government bulletin El Ciudadano reported on 16 November.

Colombia leaves arbitration treaty after court ruling

Reflecting Colombia's anger at a 19 November ruling by the International Court at the Hague that ceded part of its sea territory to Nicaragua, President Juan Manuel Santos announced on 28 November that Colombia would leave the 1948 Bogotá Pact that gave the Court authority to arbitrate in frontier disputes. Santos made the announcement at gathering of coffee growers who cheered him, and said the decision was to prevent a repetition of such a ruling. He said this did not mean Colombia was no longer committed to peacefully resolving such disputes as the Pact demands of signatories, but that in keeping with "the highest national interests" land and sea frontiers should be set by treaties "as has been the juridical tradition in Colombia," RCN Radio reported on 28 November. The ruling had meant to settle a dispute over sea frontiers, but considerably reduced access to rich fishing waters for inhabitants of the San Andrés Archipelago, a range of islands and dependent cays belonging to Colombia, which in some cases would become surrounded by Nicaraguan waters. There was also concern in Colombia that Nicaragua would later explore and drill for oil in some of the waters given it, which are now a protected natural zone. Santos said Colombia "denounced" the treaty before the Organization of American States on 27 November, which effectively meant it was leaving. The pact or American Treaty on Pacific Settlement, which entered into force in 1949 and was ratified by 15 American states, foresees a range of diplomatic and legal means for resolving disputes, including arbitration by The Hague. The decision apparently did not affect Colombia's obligation to respect this ruling and its formal departure would be in a year. But the broadcaster cited Vice-President Marcelino Garzon as saying that "an understanding and agreement" was now needed between Colombia and Nicaragua that would "favour the fishing population." He said the dispute was now "in the hands of the United Nations."

Twenty one reported killed around Mexico in a day

The review Proceso numbered at 21 those reported killed or found dead in Mexico on 26-27 November, mostly victims of drug cartels or of gun fights with security forces. These included a father and his three adult sons shot dead on a road in the Urique district of the northern state of Chihuahua, Proceso reported. In one incident the body parts of three men were left inside and on a car in the northern city of Torreón. In the eastern and western states of Veracruz and Michoacán respectively, the army shot dead eight suspected criminals in gun fights, reportedly responding to gunfire in both cases. Separately, authorities made a public presentation of six policemen held for their presumed role in the execution-style killings on 18 November of eight individuals in the district of Indé in the northern state of Durango, Proceso reported. The victims were relatives of the mayor of Indé Ernesto Núñez Rodríguez and included a pregnant 21-year-old and her four-year-old son. He told investigators that four individuals arrived at his property that day and began shooting at a gathering of 13 people there. Eight of those ran into a cellar where they were shot by two "state policemen" who followed them and who then set fire to the cellar. The mayor said five other relatives including a 15-year-old were still missing after the attack.

Teenagers among recent murdered in Honduras

The bodies of four "young men" were found before dawn on 27 November near the National Stadium in northern Tegucicalpa, hours after they were kidnapped from hostels in the district of Comayagüela north of the city, the daily El Heraldo reported. The victims were apparently strangled to death; one was 14 years old. They were among seven individuals kidnapped by a group of men, some wearing police uniforms. The three other youngsters remained unfound. Police were investigating to determine whether or not the incident was related to the killing of three youngsters in Comayagüela a week before. El Heraldo reported at least eight other violent deaths around Honduras during 21-27 November, including: a Cuban national shot dead outside a mechanical workshop on 26 November near the northern town of El Progreso; a land activist from the MARCA association, shot at the bus station on 25 November in the northern port of Trujillo and three 17 year-old boys stabbed to death in separate incidents in Comayagüela on 24 November, and in the northern port of Cortés on 22 November.

Colombia holds suspected murderers, guerrillas

Colombia was reported to have detained all of three gang members sought for the massacre of 10 peasants in northern Colombia on 7 November, the last being caught at an unspecified location on 24 November. President Juan Manuel Santos said in Santa Marta on Colombia's northern coast that day that the state had honoured its promise to catch the culprits, El Espectador reported. He also thanked neighbouring Panama for arresting or helping catch at an unspecified location, two presumed members of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) with 540 kilograms of cocaine. The state separately arrested at an unspecified date in the north-eastern town of Saravena a member of Front 38 of the FARC, described as one of 25 terrorists most sought in the eastern state of Arauca, El Espectador reported on 25 November. The detained - identified by the pseudonym El Culeco - was thought to be in charge of tracking troops and officials in Arauca and to have been involved in an attack in December 2010 that killed two policemen. In separate operations in districts west of the capital Bogotá, police detained nine members of Colombia's Communist Party and of the leftist Marcha Patriótica association, all suspected of being collaborators or members of the FARC, El Espectador reported on 24 November. The detained were described as students, teachers and trade unionists and arrested in Manizales, Pereira, Cali and Palmira; police handed them over to the judiciary in Manizales the capital of the Caldas department, for more investigations. Their defence lawyers reportedly declared that authorities were trying to revive cases and charges for which the suspects had been tried and acquitted. Marcha Patriótica seeks among other goals a negotiated end to the state's conflict with the FARC; it was formed in 2012 in the wake of protests against the policies of the then conservative president Álvaro Uribe Vélez. The Communist Party was founded in 1930.

Over 50 killed, found dead in Mexico in week

At least 53 were reported killed or found dead around Mexico in the period 19-24 November, likely all or most the victims of criminal incidents and mostly in the northern state of Chihuahua; these ranged from most recent shooting deaths to skeletal remains found in clandestine graves. The latter included three ditches found on the periphery of Juárez in Chihuahua, which police observed contained "at least" 11 remains of victims of whom some may have been killed two years before, Proceso reported on 24 November. Eight half-naked bodies were also found that day by a road in the Rosales district near Ciudad Juárez, Proceso reported, citing the local Diario de Juárez. Signs indicated the victims had been tortured then shot to death. In total 13 were reported killed or found dead in the northern states of Chihuahua and Sonora on 20-22 November, Proceso reported separately. In what is now a custom among cartels and gangs in Mexico, several victims were decapitated, dismembered and "bagged," as with two dismembered bodies found in black plastic bags at the back a car in the south-central state of Oaxaca on 20 November. Other victims included a 22-year-old beauty queen and two soldiers, among five killed in a shootout between suspected criminals and troops in the north-western state of Sinaloa on 24 November. Susana Florez - titled Sinaloa Woman 2012 - died in a gun battle that began when suspects fired on an army patrol in El Palmar de los Leal in the Mocorito district; her boyfriend was one of gunmen and also died, Proceso reported on 26 November.

International court issues ruling in Caribbean dispute

The International Court at the Hague issued its ruling on 19 November to settle a maritime frontier dispute between Colombia and Nicaragua, recognizing some of each country's territorial demands but disappointing Colombia by giving Nicaragua portions of the Caribbean it had hitherto administered. The ruling was to settle a dispute over territory thought rich in oil and fishing resources. Nicaragua was given two chunks of water east of the vertical Meridian 82 line, while Colombia retained sovereignty over seven disputed islets dependent on the San Andrés Archipelago including two now surrounded by Nicaraguan waters, El Colombiano reported on 19 November, showing also a map of the delineation. The area conceded to Nicaragua was 531 square kilometres while only 65 were given to Colombia, Spain's El País reported. Colombia had sought all waters east of Meridian 82 and its president said the court should have confirmed texts signed in 1928 and 1930 that set that as the frontier. Nicaragua had in turn sought a frontier line more to the east, running north-eastward and including Colombian waters as well as the disputed cays. While Nicaragua hailed the ruling as a victory, Colombian politicians expressed grief and there was no immediate consensus on how to respond. President Juan Manuel Santos said on 20 November that Colombia would do all it could to defend its rights, while Colombia's representative before the Court, Julio Londoño, said the government would study the ruling before deciding on a course of action. Foreign Minister María Ángela Holguín, apparently faced with considerable criticisms, said in San Andrés on 20 November that she was ready to resign if that "appeased" the people of the San Andrés department, but that this was no time to be looking for scapegoats, El Espectador reported.

Over 27 killed, found dead in Mexico over weekend

Mexico's investigative review Proceso counted 27 presumed victims of crime, either shot or found dead around Mexico on 18 and 19 November, including a five-year-old killed by accident. These included "at least" ten bodies found in two clandestine graves in Zumpango in the western state of Guerrero; police found the graves after they detained and interrogated on 18 November five presumed members of a gang called Los Rojos, in the district of Chilpancingo in Guerrero. A five-year-old boy was shot and killed while travelling in his father's car, caught in crossfire between police and criminals in the northern city of Gómez Palacio. Separately the state government of Nuevo León in northern Mexico announced on 19 November the arrest of a criminal "cell" of 19 or 24 members associated with The Zetas cartel, led by a man and a woman and including five working policemen and five teenagers. Investigators linked the group to "at least" 16 kidnappings, 12 killings and unspecified acts of extortion. Police confiscated items from them including cash, arms, cars, drugs and "planks for torture," Proceso reported, citing the state security spokesman Jorge Domene Zambrano.

Over a dozen killed in Mexico in a day

Gun fights between state forces and presumed criminals in two districts of Mexico killed nine including a soldier on 18 November, while 10 policemen were arrested for suspected collusion with organized crime, Proceso reported. The shootouts occurred in the northern district of Indé and in Ocampo in the north-western state of Michoacán; in Ocampo 10 local policemen were arrested after the shootout, including the district police chief and deputy-head. A gang boss or perhaps local representative of one of the cartels - dubbed El Constans - was killed in this shootout. Three men were separately shot dead on a road near Ciudad Juárez by the US frontier; 150 bullets were fired into them from AK-47 assault rifles, Proceso reported. The three were identified as from the nearby district of Guadalupe, and were driving a car without a licence plate. A university lecturer was separately shot dead in the district of Chihuahua on 18 November; he was named as Adolfo Zuñiga de la Torre, a member of the chemistry department at the Autonomous University of Chihuahua, Proceso reported. A policeman died in hospital in the northern city of Saltillo, after he was injured in a car chase and shootout with suspects in that city, Milenio reported on 19 November, citing Notimex.

Colombian negotiators set to resume talks with rebels

Colombian negotiators left Bogotá for Havana in Cuba on 18 November, and were set to resume on 19 November talks to end decades of fighting with the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), although this round of talks was initially planned for 15 November, El Espectador reported. Colombia's chief negotiator Humberto de la Calle Lombana told the press at Bogota's airport that Colombia knew "clearly and without ambiguities" what it wanted from talks and reminded the FARC that the polity and economics of Colombia were not being discussed. "the Government and the guerrillas have separately said what we both agree on: we are not arriving in Havana to negotiate Colombia's model of development nor government policies, likewise we are not asking the FARC to abandon or negotiate their ideas," he said. He reiterated the government's position that there would be no ceasefire nor any concession to the guerrillas during talks, as he said this had given the FARC advantages in previous parleys. De la Calle said the talks were to last months not years and should yield "practical, possible" results, not "disappointments." He boarded a Colombian airforce plane accompanied by other "plenipotentiary" negotiators, the Colombian High Commissioner for Peace Sergio Jaramillo, the former armed forces chief Jorge Enrique Mora, former Peace Commissioner Frank Pearl and the industrialist Luis Carlos Villegas. Former police chief Oscar Naranjo, another plenipotentiary negotiator, was expected in Havana on 20 November. Meanwhile the FARC and the other leftist guerrillas of the National Liberation Army (ELN), continued their violent activities inside Colombia. The FARC were attributed a bomb explosion on 11 November near a police station in Suárez in the southern Cauca department, which  injured 25 people. On 17 they were suspected to have blown up a part of the Transandino pipeline in the southern Nariño department, causing crude oil to pour into the nearby Sucio river, which flows into the larger Putumayo, El Colombiano reported. The ELN were separately the suspected authors of a bomb attack that killed one person and injured two on 17 November, in the district of El Tarra in northern Colombia, El Espectador reported.

Mexican anti-crime coordinator removed from post

Mexican dailies reported on 16 November the resignation "for strictly personal reasons" of the head of the prosecutor's office dealing with organized crime - SEIDO - while indicating that the departure came at the request of Mexico's Prosecutor-General Marisela Morales Ibañez. She was said to have sought the removal of José Cuitláhuac Salinas Martínez as well as the deputy-prosecutor in charge of assaults and car thefts, for "anomalies" found within that office and "possible indications" of criminal conduct by members of its staff, the dailies El Informador and El Universal reported on 16 November. According to CNN Salinas Martínez had resigned weeks before but was provisionally kept in his post. His office, like other public institutions in Mexico, was feared infiltrated and corrupted by drug cartels. Salinas, who took office on 1 November 2011, was also reported to have refused to dismiss officials as requested by the Prosecutor-General. The prosecutor-general's office appointed Rodrigo Archundia Barrientos as acting head of SEIDO (Procuraduría Especializada en Investigación de Delincuencia Organizada).

About 30 killed, found dead in Mexico over three days

More than 30 people were reported killed or found dead from apparent criminal incidents around Mexico on 14-16 November, including gangsters, civil servants and policemen and children, Proceso reported on 15 and on 16 November. The victims included: an official of the state prosecutor's office gunned down while driving in the north-central district of Guanajuato, seven shot dead in the western resort of Acapulco, and two policemen shot dead, in the south-central state of Morelos and in Piedras Negras near the US frontier. The decomposing body of a 12-year-old boy was found on 15 November in Madera in the north-western state of Chihuahua; police believed he was strangled or suffocated to death 30 days earlier. Eleven or 12 of the dead were suspected gangsters shot dead in gun battles with troops in different parts of the country. In one incident gunmen in a convoy of 10 cars began firing on a military patrol in the north-eastern district of Tamaulipas; in another late on 16 November troops shot dead four suspected gangsters on a road in the northern state of Zacatecas, El Universal reported on 17 November. The troops were said to have fired after coming under attack. The former mayoress of Tiquicheo in the western state of Michoacán was found dead on 15 November, in Cuitzeo in the same state, El Universal reported on 17 November. María Santos Gorrestieta Salazar was twice the target of attempted assassinations when she was mayoress in 2008-11, in 2009 when a gun attack killed her husband and in 2010.

Mexican president blames crime for thousands of deaths

Mexico's outgoing president, Felipe Calderón Hinojosa, defended his six-year administration's war on drug cartels and said it was "irresponsible" to blame the state or himself for the thousands of violent deaths reported since 2006. He was responding in an interview with the daily Milenio published online on 15 November, to critics who have blamed some 50-60,000 deaths on his decision to fight crime using federal police and the armed forces. One of these was his predecessor Vicente Fox Quesada, who said on 14 November that this had been "a lost war." Calderón told Milenio the dead were to do with "criminals who are killing people, some innocent others probably linked to rival cartels." Violence in Mexico he said "is not a consequence of the Federal Government's actions" but "of violence which we have seen rising in many states," because he said cartels were no longer just sending drugs outwards but seeking to control Mexican territory. This was "a change in the dimension of criminality that was never understood," he said. Mexico he said now had "powerful" armed and police forces, and he praised the intelligence services that had helped catch 25 of Mexico's 37 most wanted criminals, during his term. He said he found Mexican intelligence "totally devastated" when he succeeded Fox, as it had been dismantled. This had been done for the perception that it had been used before 2000 as a "political instrument" to "spy on opponents", and there "was something in that" Calderón admitted. Mexico was governed from 1929 to 2000 by the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI), a centrist party that became increasingly authoritarian and is set to recover the presidency on 1 December. The conservative National Action Party (PAN) to which Fox and Calderón belong, won elections in 2000 and Fox became president. But aside his later criticisms of Calderón, he angered the PAN by backing the PRI candidate in the 2012 general elections. Calderón told Milenio he had not spoken to Fox for some time. Fox in turn told the broadcaster Univisión on 14 November that he had "time and again" advised Calderón not to use the army to fight cartels, but "he did exactly the opposite and we are seeing the consequences today." The only way to win against drugs he said "is by being with our children, educating and informing them and taking responsibility for our children's behaviour." He said the state could not be expected to protect "our children and prevent them from accessing drugs." He also chided the United States for allegedly doing little to curb the habits of its "60 million" drug users. "We are doing all the work for them," he said.

At least 20 killed in Mexico mid-week

"At least" 20 were reported killed or found dead around Mexico on 12-14 November, presumed victims of criminal violence and most likely of organized crime. These included: a bus driver shot before a bus-full of passengers in Acapulco on the western coast, four gunned down outside a brewery in Ciudad Valles near the eastern port of Tampico, five bodies found at the back of an estate car in Ecatepec outside Mexico City and two including a journalist shot dead in Tehuacán, in the eastern state of Puebla, Proceso reported on 13 and 14 November. The journalist was shot while driving from an assignment; the other victim was a former policewoman, CNN reported. In the north-eastern state of Nuevo León, police arrested on 10 November, 22 suspects identified as members of the Gulf Cartel and working in a team led by a 19-year-old, Proceso reported on 14 November. The "cell," including three members aged 15-17, was thought involved in drug trafficking, kidnapping and murders in the district of China where the suspects were arrested, Nuevo León's security spokesman Jorge Domene Zambrano said. Authorities revealed on 13 November the arrests of three other presumed members of cartels, Proceso reported. These were identified as Mario Arturo Zurita, head of The Zetas in the northern district of Saltillo arrested on 12 November, and two members of the Cartel Jalisco Nueva Generación, detained on 9 November in the eastern port of Veracruz. Separately the mayor of El Bosque in the southern state of Chiapas and two municipal offficials were shot and injured in an ambush, while driving to nearby Simojovel on 13 November, Proceso reported.

Colombian police arrest gang bosses at "summit"

Police forces arriving in helicopters bust a meeting of criminal bosses on an estate in western Colombia on 9 November, arresting 27 leading members including the two chiefs of Los Rastrojos, a gang involved in drug trafficking, extortion and murders, EFE reported on 11 November. Members of this gang recently gunned down 10 farm workers, apparently for their employer's failure to pay protection money. The gangsters were meeting outside the town of La Virginia in the Risaralda department to discuss strategies in south-western Colombia, EFE cited Colombia's police chief José Roberto León as saying. The detained included Nelson Mauricio Taborda or Mascota (Pet), who led the Rastrojos following the arrest last July of their chief Diego Pérez Henao, and his deputy dubbed Picante (Spicy), whom the police chief described as "extremely dangerous." He said Picante was thought involved in several murders that included brutal methods like the dismemberment of victims, a practice apparently learned from unspecified Mexican cartels. The gang's chiefs for seven or eight departments of Colombia were reportedly among the 27 held, EFE and El Espectador reported.  The daily cited President Juan Manuel Santos as saying on 10 November that the state had ever-improving intelligence on the workings of such gangs and would keep arresting new leaders "as they emerge."