Eleven killed in shootout in western Mexico

Gunmen fired on troops patrolling the district of Tepecoacuilco in the western state of Guerrero on 26 September, provoking a gun battle that killed ten suspected criminals and a soldier, CNNMéxico reported, citing information from the state prosecutor's office. The patrol was part of the Operativo Guerrero Seguro operation launched in October 2011 in response to rising violence in that state. According to CNN, Guerrero was the setting of 1,538 homicides in January-September 2011, twice as many as in the same period in 2010, and mostly attributable to rivalries between cartels.

Mexican activist found alive

Aleph Jiménez Dominguez, a Mexican academic reported as missing in the northern state of Baja California on 20 September was found alive in La Paz in the same state on 25 September. He had apparently fled to La Paz from his home town of Ensenada for feeling "threatened and watched" there. The 32-year-old researcher took part on 15 September in a protest in Ensenada during national independence celebrations and was briefly detained, CNNMéxico reported on 25 September. Jiménez was a spokesman in Ensenada for the student protest group Yo Soy 132, which organized the protest against the results of July's general elections and the "imposition" of the president-elect Enrique Peña Nieto. The gathering reportedly led to scuffling between some protesters and municipal police. Jiménez said he felt threatened in following days and had observed suspect cars driving around his house. On 25 September he flew to Mexico City where he was taken to the seat of the National Human Rights Comission (CNDH), presumably to report on the incidents.

Tourism flourishing in Colombia

Colombia may host some 3.3 million tourists by the end of 2012 and expected the figure to "easily" rise to four million in 2014, a Colombian export official said in Madrid on 25 September. Juan Gabriel Pérez, head of Spain for ProExport told a gathering of travel agents that the tourist sector had in "recent years" grown 10 per cent a year compared to a global average of four per cent; he said Colombia had overcome the insecurity that formerly deterred tourists from visiting, El Economista reported. He cited Spaniards as the main group of European tourists in Colombia, with a five-per-cent rise in their number in January-July 2012. Pérez said Colombia would double the size of its stand at FITUR 2013, Madrid's annual travel fair, compared to 2012.

Nine shot dead at Mexican funeral

Gunmen in a convoy of three cars opened fire on a funeral crowd in Torreón in northern Mexico on 25 September, killing nine people and injuring 22, El Universal reported on 26 September. The convoy arrived at the funeral of a 27-year-old man shot dead on 22 September in nearby San Pedro de las Colonias, in the state of Coahuila. Police investigations suggested some in the crowd fired back at the cars; two children or teenagers were among those killed.

Mexico's former education minister dies

Politicians paid their respects on 25 September to Alonso Lujambio Irazábal, a senator of the conservative National Action Party and Mexico's former education minister who died of cancer that day, newspapers reported. Born in 1962, he studied sociology in Mexico, then politics at Yale University in the United States. He worked with the electoral authority from 1997 to 2003, advised the United Nations on designing parliamentary elections for Iraq after the overthrow of its dictator Saddam Hussein, and lectured at Mexico's Iberoamericana and Autonomous National (UNAM) universities. He served as Public Education Secretary from April 2009 to March 2012 when he resigned for ill health; his illness also ended the presidential race he began in 2011 as a pre-candidate. On 29 August - after months of medical treatment - he went to the Senate to swear his oath as a member and received a standing ovation. President Felipe Calderón Hinojosa called him "a kind human being" and example of "good sense and honesty," Excelsior reported on 25 September.

Mexican legislator "stabbed by wife," not mafia

Jaime Serrano Cedilla, the member of a Mexican state parliament stabbed to death on 17 September was apparently killed by his wife not gangsters as initially suspected, the website Infobae reported on 21 September, citing AFP. The Estado de México state judiciary declared that Serrano's wife stabbed him "with a kitchen knife" during a marital dispute "in which there was a lot of verbal and physical aggression," after examining evidence and declarations. Public concern following the killing in the district of Nezahualcóyotl - the constituency where Serrano lived and died - prompted the government to send troops and federal police in response to a perceived crime surge.

Detained guerrilla dies in Venezuela

Luis Freddy Rojas Rincón, a member of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) detained in Venezuela on 19 September died hours after his arrest, apparently for injuries sustained in the shootout that preceded his capture, elcorreo.com reported on 20 September citing statements by the Colombian defence minister. Rojas belonged to Front 33 of the FARC and was sought for his role in a failed bomb attack in Bogotá last August. Separately, Colombian troops shot dead two guerrillas in an undated eight-hour battle in the southern Colombian department of the Cauca, El Correo reported on 20 September. One was Silvino Tapiero Castañeda - Aldemar - a 41-year-old junior commander and training officer thought to have spent  30 years with the FARC. The other - Robinson - was sought for his suspected role in a deadly bomb attack on the town of Villarrica in Cauca in February 2012.

Seven police officials killed around Mexico

Three security officials of the state of Tamaulipas were found dead in a car on 19 September in Nuevo Laredo by the US frontier, El Universal reported on 21 September. The three worked for the Tamaulipas Public Security Secretariat or police authority: they were its Police Strategy chief, the Armament officer and the head of Analysis, the state judiciary declared. On 20 September, three plainclothes policemen were shot dead outside a bank in Gómez Palacio, in the northern state of Durango, El Universal reported the next day. The policemen were gunned down from a convoy of three cars driving past; they were from the Estado de México, the state outside Mexico City. A municipal policeman was separately shot dead at an unspecified date in Atlahucan in the south-central sate of Morelos, the daily reported, citing declarations by the prosecutor-general's office. Also on 20 September three gunmen were killed in a shootout with police commandos in Piedras Negras by the US frontier, El Universal reported. Autorities were checking to ascertain if they were among 132 convicts who escaped from the Piedras Negras state prison on 17 September.

Mexico's president-elect, Venezuelan candidate in Bogotá

Henrique Capriles, the conservative candidate challenging President Hugo Chávez in Venezuela's October presidential elections was in Bogotá on 20 September, where he met in private with President Juan Manuel Santos, media reported. Santos told Capriles in a "cordial" 20-minute meeting that Colombia was neutral in Venezuela's 7 October elections and the two states must continue to cooperate whatever the election result, the broadcaster Caracol reported. Venezuela's Vice-President Elías Jaua Milano told Radio Caracol that day that Venezuela respected the Colombian president's "sovereign" decision to meet with political leaders of any country, Europa Press reported. On 19 September Santos met with Mexico's visiting president-elect Enrique Peña Nieto, who expressed support for Colombia's planned peace talks with FARC guerrillas and said Mexico and Colombia would cooperate in fighting organized crime, Europa Press reported. Peña Nieto said Colombia's "successful" security policies would become a "reference" for Mexico; Colombia had successfuly reduced crime rates he said, and his government would seek its "support and advice" in future "public security tasks."

Honduras Americas' most murderous state, data disputed

Homicide numbers soared in Honduras in 2011, making it the American country with most killings according to a mid-September report on security by the Organization of the American States (OAS), though Honduran officials said the murder rate was falling in 2012. The OAS, apparently citing figures from inside Honduras, counted 7,104 homicides in Honduras in 2011 or a rate of 91.1 homicides per 100,000 inhabitants (hti), La Tribuna reported on 17 September citing a report by the Associated Press. This was the highest rate since a rising trend began in 2004, the year the homicide rate was 31.9/hti. The OAS found lower murder rates in 2011 in other American states including: 69.2/hti in El Salvador, 41.2 in Jamaica, 49.3 in Venezuela (2009), 37.7 in Colombia (2010), 18.6 in Mexico, 3.7 in Chile and 4.6 in the United States. Available figures showed a near-doubling of the homicide rate in the seven Central American states in 2000-2010, from 26.6 to 43.3, while 12 South American states reduced their homicide rate that decade from 26.1 to 21.1. Honduran authorities believed violent crime was not as bad as suggested by the OAS and the situation improving, in spite of doubts about the reliability of figures. The Security Minister Pompeyo Bonilla said on 18 September that the homicide rate in 2012 was 80.8/hti, while admitting "transparency" was needed in police statistics, La Prensa reported. He said the public should have access to information on police management and statistics by zones. The dean of the National Autonomous University of Honduras (UNAH) Julieta Castellano cited 86.6/hti as the homicide rate for 2011 and said it could drop to about 81 for 2012 if present trends continued. The university-affiliated Observatorio de la Violencia gave a similar rate for 2011. Castellano admitted however that police were not freely providing the university with all the data it sought. "If police are the only ones managing the information it is not credible, I want them to understand that," La Prensa cited her as saying on 18 September. A reduction in homicides was also expressed in terms of frequency: in the first half of 2012 a homicide occurred every 78 minutes in Honduras, being less than every 74 minutes in 2011. Perhaps the reality of living in a crime-ridden country was expressed in readers' comments and reactions on La Prensa's website. Almost all - if not every single reader posting reactions to different reports - expressed distrust of official figures and public declarations and contempt for if not disgust with the country's rulers.

Colombian trafficker, guerrilla held in Venezuela

Daniel Barrera Barrera - El Loco or Crazy Barrera - apparently Colombia's most sought-after gangster, was arrested on 18 September while speaking in a phone booth in the city of San Cristóbal, south-western Venezuela, the broadcaster Univisión reported. Colombia's President Juan Manuel Santos revealed the arrest, the result of a joint operation between the security and intelligence forces of Colombia, the United States, Venezuela and Great Britain. His suspected crimes included large-scale drug trafficking and collaboration with the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), also thought to be involved in trafficking. He was believed to have sent "tonnes" of cocaine to the United States since he began working in the 1980s and was considered the last of Colombia's great traffickers. Santos said Barrera "has been harming Colombia and the world for more than 20 years, devoting himself to all manner of crimes and perverse alliances with paramilitaries and the FARC." The operation was reportedly coordinated from Washington DC by Colombia's police chief José Roberto León Riaño. On 19 September Venezuelan and Colombian agents arrested a suspected member of the FARC sought for his role in a failed bomb attack in Bogotá, EFE and media reported. Luis Freddy Rojas Rincón was injured in a shootout as Venezuelan police sought to arrest him in a hotel in Jesús María Semprún in the western department of Zulia. Rojas reportedly fled to Venezuela after failing in August 2012 to blow up a police building in Bogotá with a car bomb.

Colombian FARC chief envisages disarmament

The head of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), Timochenko or Timoleón Jiménez, has said the FARC had "great expectations" on ending their decades-long conflict with the Colombian state in coming peace talks and understood this could mean "a veritable farewell to arms," EFE and media reported on 19 September, citing Timochenko's comments to a magazine. Rodrigo Londoño Echeverri - Timochenko - said in an interview with the weekly Voz that "it would not make sense to start a process leading to the definitive termination of the conflict without contemplating laying down arms as the final destination." Abandonment of arms, he said, entailed "the abolition of the use of force and inciting any type of violence to achieve political or economic goals. It is a veritable farewell to arms." The FARC's disarmament is one of the issues to be discussed between the FARC and Colombian negotiators in talks scheduled to start in Havana on 8 October. Timochenko said talks would be successful if unspecified "large majorities inclined toward a political solution" were allowed to talk and  "influence" the peace process in Colombia.

Police chief missing, several killed around Mexico

The police chief of the Pueblo Nuevo district in the north-central state of Durango was reported missing on 16 September - and may have been kidnapped - El Universal reported on 19 September, citing statements by the Durango judiciary. David Barrera González was a policeman for 15 years and the district's police chief for three months. His predecessor was shot dead in late May in the ciy of El Salto in Durango, as reported in newspapers. Around Mexico: a body was found on 17 or 18 September, wrapped in a cloth with a message from cartels in the central city of Zacatecas, the Zacatecas state prosecutor Arturo Nahle García stated. Four bodies were found at unspecified dates in four districts of the state of Morelos south of Mexico City, while four individuals were killed in Acapulco on Mexico's Pacific coast, and one in the northern city of Juárez, El Universal reported on 19 September.

Over 130 prisoners escape Mexican jail

One hundred and thirty two "federal" and local convicts broke out of the Piedras Negras prison in Castaños in the northern Mexican state of Coahuila on 17 September, though state authorities insisted none was "highly dangerous," the daily La Crónica de Hoy reported on 18 September. The prisoners reportedly drilled a hole into the prison's carpentry workshop. Guards were being investigated as the breakout occurred in the morning and the list of prisoners was read out as complete in the afternoon. The interior ministry announced it would send troops to help the state of Coahuila find the convicts, Notimex reported on 17 September. Four people were reported killed that evening in the town of Castaños as police heading toward the prison were fired on; the incident was thought related to the breakout though it was not clear who died in the shootout. Police reportedly arrested one of the convicts in Castaños that night.

Argentine "middle class" protest Kirchner policies

Thousands of Argentines protested in Buenos Aires and other cities on 13 September, banging metal pots and pans in the Latin American tradition, against crime rates and the leftist policies of President Cristina Fernández de Kirchner, media reported. Her officials dismissed the protests as confined to a wealthy minority and "addicts" of the country's right-wing dictatorship of the 1970s. Tens of thousands were thought to have protested at the invitation of Internet pages such as Twitter or Facebook, venting frustration with issues including foreign-exchange controls, insecurity and rumoured plans for constitutional reforms to allow Kirchner to serve a third presidential term from 2015, Reuters reported. There is a two-term limit set by the law, and Reuters observed the government had not so far declared any plan to reform the constitution. The reactions of the president's allies were almost contemptuous: Senator Aníbal Fernández of the Justicialist Party - the political home of several past presidents - said the protests were "put together by professionals" and "fake identities" on the Internet had convened protesters, the daily Clarín reported on 17 September. The head of the rights group Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo (Asociación Madres de la Plaza de Mayo) Hebe de Bonafini issued a communiqué published on 16 September in Tiempo Argentino denouncing the protesters as people who had "cheered" the military dictatorship and were "happy" to see it "kidnap and kill" its opponents;" they "are disgusting," her statement read. Bonafini told a radio station on 17 September that "the people are something else. The pots they were banging were not like the ones we have at home, made of aluminium, dented and charred," La Nación reported. The government's Cabinet Chief Juan Manuel Abal Medina said on 14 September that the government was not bothered by the protests. He told a television programme on 16 September that protesters were "sectors that do not tolerate egalitarian policies" or the government's "inclusive project" meant to benefit "40 million Argentines," La Nación reported. He said Argentina did not have "like elsewhere in the world a strong right-wing party to channel certain demands," for which reason its partisans formerly turned to "the barracks" - the army - and now use "the mass media."

Child killer lynched in Guatemalan town

An angry mob beat and burned to death a man who apparently killed two schoolchildren with a machete on 12 September, in the north-central Guatemalan town of Tactic, the Honduran daily La Prensa reported on 15 September. Witnesses said 35 or 40-year-old Julio Saquil entered a school and slit the troats of an eight-year-old girl and 13-year-old boy, before furious staff and locals seized and lynched him inside the school. Officials identified him as having a criminal record, Reuters reported on 13 September. Hours later, a mob publicly beat and almost lynched four individuals suspected of being thieves or accomplices of Saquil, though these were finally handed over to police, Guatemala's Siglo 21 reported on 14 September. The United Nations System in Guatemala deplored the killings on 14 September and urged the Guatemalan state to act against criminal violence, the Cuban website Prensa Latina reported. The website cited a local rights body Grupo de Apoyo Mutuo (GAM) as counting 4,899 homicides in Guatemala in the period January-31 August 2012, apparently six per cent less than the same period in 2011. GAM observed that the government of Otto Pérez Molina, elected in 2011, was faltering in its promised bid to significantly reduce crime. The government reportedly envisaged a 20 per cent reduction in crime in 2012 compared to 2011. Meanwhile 180 or more suspected criminals were lynched around Guatemala in 2011, Reuters reported. The education ministry closed the school in Tactic indefinitely, while staff and pupils were to receive counselling, Siglo 21 reported.

Policemen attacked in southern Colombia

A grenade attack on a police patrol injured three policemen and "totally destroyed" their car in southern Colombia, El Espectador reported on 16 September, citing police statements. The ambush in the district of La Hormiga in the department of Putumayo was perpetrated at an unspecified date by "heavily armed" individuals police suspected were of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia. Separately, authorities confiscated 12 tonnes of cocaine and marijuana around Colombia in raids and operations over three days, EFE reported on 16 September. Operations undertaken by the anti-narcotics police (DIRAN) also yielded 42 tonnes of "controlled chemical substances," presumably used as or to produce narcotics.

Mexico's future president to visit American states

Enrique Peña Nieto was to begin a tour of Latin American states on 17 September and scheduled to meet with Guatemala's President Otto Pérez Molina on his first stop, El Universal reported. Collaboration in fighting organized crime was to be a leading theme in his conversations, the daily stated. Peña Nieto was to travel to Colombia on 18 September, Brasil 19-20 September, Chile 20-21, Argentina 21-22 and conclude his trip in Peru on 24 September.

"Rapist" kidnapped, tortured and "crucified" in Mexico

A suspected rapist was forcibly taken from police custody and apparently tortured, castrated and murdered before being "crucified" on a roadside pole in the district of Contepec in Michoacán, western Mexico, the Notimex news agency reported on 7 September, citing the Prosecutor-General's office. A note nailed to his chest - apparently with a pick-axe - stated that "this happened to me for being a rapist" and warned the same would happen to "chatterers," presumably anyone informing on the incident, the review Proceso was cited as reporting. The 24-year-old victim had been charged with an armed rape attack on 3 September; he was reportedly kidnapped by armed men when police took him for a medical checkup and found dead on 7 September.

Sixteen bodies found in northern Mexico

Mexican soldiers found on 14 September nine bodies hanging from a bridge in Nuevo Laredo, a city bordering the United States, EFE reported that day. Some belonged to individuals earlier reported to have been kidnapped in a bar here. The same day troops found seven bodies by a road in the district of San Fernando in the north-eastern state of Tamaulipas, CNN reported. The bodies were of middle-aged men, with hands tied and gunshot wounds, the Tamaulipas prosecutor's office stated. Spain's El Pais reported on 16 September that authorities were increasingly attributing a recent splurge in violence in parts of Mexico - especially in August - to a rift within The Zetas, Mexico's most violent drug cartel. A suspected conflict had emerged between the established Zeta leader Heriberto Lazcano Lazcano and his former deputy Miguel Angel Treviño Morales - El Z-40 - cited in reports in late August as seeking Lazcano's overthrow.