Troops shoot dead 16 gunmen around Mexico

Mexican soldiers shot dead six suspected criminals who reportedly fired on them in two incidents on 14 October, in the north-eastern state of Tamaulipas. The attacks occurred in the districts of San Fernando and Nuevo Laredo, Proceso reported. In Pánuco in the east-coast state of Veracruz on 13 October, troops shot dead 10 suspected gangsters who also reportedly had fired on them; arms and ammunition were confiscated, Proceso reported on 14 October. It reported separately that a "young man" was shot dead in a "marginal" area of the port of Veracruz; the victim was described as having heavily tatooed legs. In northern Mexico, a man detained for kidnapping was "beaten and burned" to death in a prison in Ciudad Juárez, hours after being sent there from Veracruz where he had been arrested, Proceso reported on 14 October. The 40-year-old was detained on 9 October in the district of Emiliano Zapata in Veracruz, with five suspected members of a kidnapping gang.

Venezuelan president changes ministers

President Hugo Chávez Frías kept Nicolás Maduro as foreign minister of Venezuela days after appointing him vice-president for executive affairs, and publicized several ministerial appointments through messages on the website Twitter, EFE reported on 13 October. General Néstor Luis Reverol was the new interior and justice minister, replacing Tareck El Aissami who was to compete for the governorship of the state of Aragua in polls schedued for 16 December. Reverol vowed on state television to hasten unspecified police reforms and boost security in one of the continent's more crime-ridden countries. Admiral Carmen Meléndez de Maniglia, the first female admiral in Venezuela, was to head the ministry for the presidential office as well as a newly-created ministry to follow up government management. The deputy-minister for Indigenous Peoples Aloha Nuñez was made minister, replacing her former boss Nicia Maldonado Maldonado, who was to run in December for the office of governor of the state of Amazonas in south-east Venezuela. The journalist and state television presenter Ernesto Villegas Poljak became the new Communication and Information Minister, replacing Andrés Izarra. The ministers were sworn into office at the presidential palace on 13 October.

Policemen killed, missing in Mexico

Gunmen fired on a police patrol late on 12 October, killing a policeman and injuring another in the northern city of Torreón, while two suspected criminals and a policeman were killed in a shootout in Los Mochis in the north-western state of Sinaloa, Proceso reported. Six policemen were reported missing on 12 October in Saltillo in the northern state of Coahuila, amid suspicions they may have been kidnapped. Their wives initially reported their absence; local authorities later confirmed they had not gone to work without stating why, Proceso reported. Authorities also arrested on 12 October six members of the gang Caballeros Templarios, suspected of forming an "operational" cell in Celaya and Apaseo el Alto in the central state of Guanajuato, the state's chief prosecutor Carlos Zamarripa Aguirre stated. The detained, including a local police official, were suspected of involvement in extortion, drug trafficking and perhaps murders, Proceso reported. Authorities confiscated 25 cars thought to belong to the group.

Hugo Chávez seen with key role in Colombian talks

Álvaro Leyva Durán, a former Colombian minister and "facilitator" of previous parleys with the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), speculated that the outcome of peace talks with the FARC, to begin on 15-17 October, would depend more on the interventions of Venezuela's socialist President Hugo Chávez than on the Colombian president's "goodwill." Venezuela is "accompanying" talks intended to end decades of guerrilla conflict in Colombia, and seen as having considerable leverage with the FARC. Leyva recently told the newspaper El Colombiano that he was certain President Juan Manuel Santos had "shared the keys" to the talks with Chávez, "to hasten the dialogue." It is "important people should know this. This process will have more to do with what Chávez can do than any goodwill the president might have" he said in remarks published on 12 October. He observed that the conflict with the FARC was now "internationalized" in spite of being internal, for its ideological nature and with the United States' involvement, for the FARC's alleged drug trafficking. To attain lasting peace he said, Colombia would have to unilaterally impose a "full-stop" legal formula ruling out subsequent prosecution and arrests of those involved in the conflict. "I do not think the gentlemen of the FARC...will submit to formulae...applied to the paramilitaries. They do not submit because they believe this implies juridical insecurity," Leyva said, referring to disarmament conditions for thousands of right-wing paramilitaries. Some paramilitary leaders were now serving jail terms for different crimes. Leyva said such a formula should cover "all those who are a part of this conflict," allegedly many. The war was not just with the FARC he said, but with "those who financed the war, with banana growers; there are many officials who combined their strengths and desire to overcome the enemy with the paramilitaries. Many civil servants lost control." Leyva, a member of the Conservative Party, was Colombia's mines and energy minister in 1984-5. Also on 12 October the FARC published on a website a message sent earlier to congratulate Hugo Chávez on his re-election to the presidency on 7 October, EFE reported.

Honduran leader checks security on buses

President Porfirio Lobo Sosa boarded several buses in Tegucicalpa on 9 October to check on a recent initiative to have soldiers assure security on buses, El Heraldo reported. Honduras has one of the world's highest crime rates. Lobo spoke to passengers and said troop numbers on buses could increase; his presence reportedly provoked congestion on the Bulevar Centroamérica, one of the capital's traffic arteries. On 28 September Lobo personally inaugurated the plan to have two soldiers or two policemen on every bus for 20 routes in Tegucicalpa and the northern suburb of Comayagüela, El Heraldo reported. "People tell me they take a very positive view of soldiers being there, and feel safer," he said as he came off a bus on 9 October. The government began to place security cameras on buses in February 2012.

Eight reported killed around Mexico

"At least" eight people were killed in violent incidents in four states of Mexico on 9 October, including a 16-year-old girl gunned down from a car in the northern city of Torreón, Proceso reported that day. Another victim was a 75-year-old man apparently strangled to death in the north-western town of Santiago Papasquiaro. Suspected criminals separately burned 20 police cars and confiscated vehicles in a police parking in Fresnillo in the north-central state of Zacatecas, Proceso reported on 9 October.

Ecuador's president may stand for re-election

Rafael Correa Delgado, president of Ecuador since 2007, said on radio in Quito on 9 October that there was a "high probability" his followers would ask him to be a candidate in presidential elections due in February 2013, EFE reported. Correa spoke in an interview with a broadcasting association, Asociación Ecuatoriana de Radiodifusión (AER). He said he had not yet decided to be a candidate but his family backed him and it was likely the Movimiento Alianza País (AP) would name him their candidate. EFE listed certain politicians cited as possible contenders so far, including the left-wing Alberto Acosta, former president Lucío Gutiérrez Borbúa, a former banker Guillermo Lasso and the "banana magnate" Álvaro Noboa Pontón. Correa said he would not fall into the "mediocrity" of discrediting aspirants but observed that some mentioned so far were an "embarrassment;" the country he said, "would have to be mad to send bankers back into power." A first round of elections was to be held on 17 February 2013 and a possible second round on 7 April, EFE reported.

Colombia's ex-leader said to be "obstructing" talks

The "foreign minister" of the communist Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) has said that the Colombian state decided to negotiate with the FARC after failing to defeat it, while a "minority" led by the former president Álvaro Uribe Vélez opposed peace talks backed by Colombians and the international community. Rodrigo Granda told La Tribune de Genève in Havana at an unspecified date that "the United States, the European Union, the Vatican" and sympathetic "personalities" in Colombia backed talks due to start informally in Oslo on 15 October, and "the only ones" who would obstruct them were "a small movement of the extreme Right" led by Uribe, El Mundo reported on 8 October. He said talks sought to "silence arms, but also and above all to refound our country." Government and FARC negotiators were to discuss themes including disarmament, rural reforms and the social reintegration of guerrillas. Granda said "all the themes are important and need to be treated calmly and negotiated scrupulously. They have to do with food sovereignty, health, education, the right to work...we have to reinvent Colombia, which is a very unjust country." He dissmissed the idea that the state was negotiating from a position of strength; "if the military could conquer us, the authorities would not have come to the negotiating table," he said. Uribe was president from 2002 to 2010 and weakened the FARC through relentless military action. He has denounced any negotiation with people he recently termed terrorists and drug traffickers. On 7 October he claimed the FARC had a "direct role" in Venezuela's recent presidential elections. Venezuela's socialist government has in the past been accused of aiding or sheltering the FARC; Uribe told Bogotá's Radio Santa Fe "I do not know how certain people can doubt that Venezuela is a sanctuary for the FARC." He said the FARC "controlled" an unspecified "mountainous zone" in the state of Zulia in western Venezuela. Twelve of as many as 30 FARC envoys and negotiators arrived on 8 October in Havana, where part of the talks would proceed, Europa Press reported. The FARC declared a day before that Interpol had suspended international arrest warrants for its negotiators, EFE reported.

Venezuela re-elects its president

Hugo Chávez was elected on 7 October to a fourth term as president of Venezuela, winning some 7,860,000 votes against just over 6,386,000 votes cast for the liberal Henrique Capriles, Europa Press reported. Chávez won 54.84 per percent of all votes counted by 8 October - which were 95.58 per cent of votes cast - the National Electoral Council (CNE) stated; he had already thanked Venezuelans through a message on the website Twitter, Reuters reported on 8 October. His rival conceded defeat and congratulated the president, but urged him to show "respect, consideration and recognition" for "almost half the country" that did not favour "this option keeping itself in power today," Reuters reported. Chávez was to govern Venezuela now until 2019.

Eleven shot, mutilated, found dead around Mexico

Eleven were reported shot or found dead around Mexico on 5 October in incidents likely related to organized crime, the review Proceso reported. In the north-central state of Zacatecas, four gunmen were shot dead by soldiers after they began shooting at a military patrol from a convoy of cars. Another man was shot dead in Valle Hermoso in the north-eastern state of Tamaulipas after he fired on a military patrol; a policeman who had been reported missing on 1 October in Escuinapa in the north-western state of Sinaloa was found shot dead and wrapped in a sheet in Acaponeta, in the west-coast state of Nayarit. He was the officer escorting the director of Public Security in Escuinapa. Other victims included two 14 and a 16-year-old boys shot dead in the central city of San Luis Potosí. Another "young man" of unspecified age was found decapitated that day in San Luis Potosí. In the northern city of Reynosa, police found and confiscated 13 armour-plated buses or lorries in a private lot, as well as arms and ammunition presumably belonging to criminal gangs, Proceso reported on 5 October. Guards at the site began shooting when police arrived; police shot dead one of them and arrested eight. The vehicles, some reportedly stolen, were being converted into armoured cars gangs use in gun battles, Proceso reported.

Over 20 killed, found dead around Mexico

Twenty two people were killed or found dead in apparent criminal incidents around Mexico on 2 October, including children aged seven and 11 years, Proceso reported, citing information given by police. These included: four suspected criminals killed by police in a shootout in the northern city of Saltillo, four men gunned down in a spa or public bath in the northern city of Monterrey, and the bodies of three men and an 11-year-old girl found in San Martín de Bolaños in the western state of Jalisco. Several bodies were found in cars in different parts of the country. A seven-year-old girl was shot dead, apparently accidentally, in the western city of Guadalajara, and two women had their throats slit in the Benito Juárez district in Estado de México, outside the capital.

Defections begin in Mexico's main Leftist party

Fifty members of the Democratic Revolutionary Party (PRD) from northern Mexico resigned from the party on 29-30 September and were to join the civic movement led by Andrés Manuel López Obrador, the former PRD leader who failed to win the presidency in July 2012. The move confirmed fears that López Obrador's split with the PRD after the general elections could divide the party and realign the Left. The 50 were from the state of Nuevo León and their departure was ostensibly in protest at the PRD's "anti-democratic" practice of appointing electoral candidates, CNN and Notimex reported. One defector, Roberto Benavides González, told Notimex that up to 200 party members could leave. Their destination would be the Movimiento de Regeneración Nacional (MORENA), a "civil association" that may become a formal political party before the next presidential elections. López Obrador and many on the Left vigorously challenged the results of the 2012 elections, though critics have claimed his populist style as candidate may have dissuaded some middle-class voters from voting for the Left and cost it the elections. Another recent defector, original party signatory and former parliamentarian Lenia Batres declared on 30 September that the PRD was now a "bureaucratic structure" with limited popular support. She told the website ADNPolítico that the PRD's leader Jesús Zambrano Grijalva had neglected the PRD's "political project" to maintain the unity of "jostling" factions that often had "absolutely opposed interests;" the PRD she said had thus "lost its way. It had a good idea of the country but was taken over by people who may not be of the Left. That is why we are going to Morena." Morena is to hold a congress in November, where it may decide whether or not to become a party. The PRD was founded in 1989 in a split from the governing Institutional Revolutionary Party.

"Fearful" Mexican mayor shown with local mafia

A video uploaded on 29 September on the website YouTube purportedly showed the newly-installed mayor of Teloloapan in western Mexico promise gangsters that police would not meddle with their activities in return for a peaceful town, Proceso reported on 30 September. Ignacio de Jesús Valladares Salgado, from the leftist Democratic Revolutionary Party (PRD), had apparently been kidnapped; "visibly fearful and with a faltering voice" he told his captors he would appoint a "neutral" police chief "removed from the interests of any group," as promised apparently to the local head of the cartel La Familia Michoacana, dubbed El Pez (The Fish). The mayor observed however that other cartels were active in the region "and I am going to keep myself on the sidelines of everything." The captors said "that is what we want," and promised not to act against police, but vowed that if "police against us again," Teloloapan "will burn." The mayor promised to "invite" local policemen not to "become involved with problems that could cause them greater difficulties," and either dismiss agents "stepping out of line" as his interviewers said, or "hand them over to the army." Valladares was elected in the general elections of July 2012. On 30 September, authorities arrested one of the Familia Michoacana's local chiefs, sought for suspected crimes including trafficking and murder. Casimiro Nava León - El Casimiro - was arrested in Toluca, west of Mexico City; he was identified as the head or future head of the cartel in the Valle de Toluca zone, Proceso reported, citing police information. He was caught with arms, ammunition, drugs and cash.

Mexicans did not report 90 per cent of crimes in 2011

Recent research by Mexico's state statistical agency revealed that over 90 per cent of crimes or offences were not reported to the police in 2011, essentially because people believed it would be a waste of time, Europa Press reported on 28 September. The 2012 poll Encuesta Nacional de Victimización y Percepción Sobre Seguridad Pública (Envipe) by the statistical agency INEGI revealed that 20.5 million crimes or offences were not reported and most people did not trust the police. Eighty three per cent of respondents believed the traffic police was "corrupt" and 71 per cent thought the same about municipal preventive police who deal with petty crime. More than 18 million Mexicans - about a quarter of the adult population - were victims of a crime or offence in 2011. Based on information given by victims who were poll participants, the most frequent crimes in 2011 were muggings on streets or on public transport (29 per cent), extortion (19 per cent), car theft (14 per cent), and fraud and threats (both eight per cent).

Venezuela's Chávez deplores campaign violence

President Hugo Chávez Frías deplored on 30 September the deaths a day earlier of three opposition activists during an election campaign event in the Barinitas district in western Venezuela, Argentina's La Nación reported. Two members of the opposition coalition challenging Chávez in general elections due on 7 October were shot dead by presumed Chávez supporters, and another died later of shot wounds. Six members of the officialist United Socialist Party of Venezuela (PSUV) were later arrested as authorities investigated the killings, Europa Press reported on 30 September. Two victims were members of Primero Justicia and Acción Democrática, parties supporting the liberal candidate Henrique Capriles. Chávez declared in the western state of Zulia that he was "very, very" sorry for the deaths "where they were going in a caravan and others were standing at some point and someone fired shots." He said elections were not to be held "with violence," but "vote for vote, with ideas, with peace." On 30 September, the broadcaster Globovisión and other media depicted opposition supporters "filling" central Caracas for their closing campaign rally there. Capriles urged "hundreds of thousands" gathered in the grand Bolívar Avenue to vote out "the violent" and vote "not for me but for yourselves." Chávez he said, had "grown sick in power" and he was "the instrument of change," Spain's ABC and Europa Press reported.

Mexican activist "fled for his life" after protest

Aleph Jiménez Domínguez, a spokesman for the protest group Yo Soy 132 in north-western Mexico who disappeared for five days in late September, said in Mexico City on 28 September that he "had to flee" the city of Ensenada in Baja California where he believed unspecified elements might kill him. He told the press "this was an urgent action" and there was good cause for his flight to nearby La Paz; "believe me my life was in danger. You mustn't wait for someone to turn up dismembered or dead for these actions to be valid," CNNMéxico reported him as saying. Jiménez hid from 20 to 25 September; on 15 September he was one of 20 activists detained in Ensenada after a protest, and publicly criticized on 17 September the Ensenada mayor Enrique Pelayo. Jiménez said he then felt he was being followed; he said a black car with glazed windows stopped outside his house and its driver phoned as he stepped out, to say he was "in front of the house, I found him." Jiménez lodged a complaint with the National Commission for Human Rights (CNDH) after travelling to its offices in Mexico City. Yo Soy 132 repeatedly protested against alleged manipulation and fraud in the July general elections, officially won by the Institutional Revolutionary Party and its presidential candidate Enrique Peña Nieto.

Twenty shot, found dead around Mexico

Twenty people were killed in criminal incidents or found dead around Mexico on 29 September, including three policemen and a civil servant's nephew, El Universal and CNN reported that day. In Torreón in the northern state of Coahuila, five suspected criminals died in a shootout with security forces, a state government spokesman declared. "At least" six were killed around Monterrey in the state of Nuevo León, two of them reportedly shot in their car by assassins driving behind them. The nephew of the Health Secretary of the north-western state of Sonora was gunned down late on 28 September in Hermosillo. Three policemen were shot dead on 29 September in San Miguel Teloloapán in the western state of Guerrero, the state prosecutor's office declared. In the north-western city of Aguascalientes, a woman was gunned down as she left the hairdressers. On 30 September, the bodies of three men and a woman who had been shot dead were found in pairs in the districts of Tototlán and Tequila, in the western state of Jalisco. Authorities separately arrested at an unspecified time and place, José Inés Medina Rodríguez, described as a senior operative of the Gulf Cartel in Juárez on the US frontier, El Universal reported on 29 September, citing the Nuevo León Public Security authority.

Guatemalan army evacuates families threatened by gang

The Guatemalan army evacuated late on 26 September five families from their homes near the Mexican border, apparently avoiding their imminent massacre by suspected members of the Mexican drug cartel The Zetas. The families - consisting of 44 people including 22 children - were taken from Santo Domingo Sinlaj in the district of Santa Cruz Barillas to army facilities in Guatemala City, El País reported on 28 September, citing local press reports. The Guatemalan daily Prensa Libre reported that they had for days been confined to their homes by Zetas who control this area and force locals into criminal work; it cited the regional commander General Rudy Ortíz Ruiz as saying that the army had information The Zetas were about to kill and rape 15 men and women for refusing to work for them, and that more families asked to be taken away when troops arrived to evacuate them. Authorities arrested in that zone on 27 September a suspect named as Daniel Juan, identified as the possible "local chief" of The Zetas, El País reported. The prosecutor-general of Guatemala Claudia Paz y Paz also announced the capture of the Zeta chief for Santa Cruz Barillas - named as Juan Nicolás - though it was not immediately clear if this was the same person, AFP reported, citing her remarks to Prensa Libre.

Army bombs Colombian rebels, kills eight

Colombian troops bombed a jungle base of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) on the north-western department of Antióquia early on 27 September, killing "at least" eight rebels including two local chiefs, agencies cited Defence Minister Juan Carlos Pinzón as saying in Bogotá that day. Two of the dead were Efraín González Ruiz the commander of the FARC's fronts 35 and 37, and Jhonatan Lascarro head of a mobile unit and nephew of one of the seven members of the FARC's Secretariat or politburo. Five guerrillas were also detained and one surrendered to troops in the operation near the district of El Bagre, EFE reported.

Ten killed around Mexico

Nine people were killed or found dead on 27 September around Mexico, in the states of Morelos and Veracruz and the western city of Guadalajara, Proceso reported. These included a man shot dead in a bar in Cuernavaca, the capital of Morelos, the bodies of two young men found in a ditch in Morelos - they had apparently been stabbed in the neck - and a businessman and a woman found dead in Playa Vicente in the eastern state of Veracruz. It seemed they had been beaten then shot to death; the businessman, Cecilio Cervantes, had been reported disappeared 10 days before. On 28 September, the body of a man shot to death was found wrapped in a "colourful" blanket near the Country Club in Culiacán, north-western Mexico, El Universal reported.