The Americas Post - Honduran criminals won't have Peace Corps volunteers to prey on anymore

Worsening drug and organized-crime violence in Central America has forced the Peace Corps to pull out of Honduras and halt the flow of new volunteers to Guatemala and El Salvador, that organization has announced.

Last month Peace Corps officials reviewed worsening conditions and decided to withdraw all 158 volunteers from Honduras in January and suspend training for 29 recruits.  That evacuation has now been carried out.

The Americas Post - Plane? What plane? Oh, you mean THAT plane...

An American military aircraft helped monitor the deadly 2010 raid by Jamaican security forces to capture a fugitive crime boss, that country’s prime minister has admitted, in spite of earlier denials by his government.

The U.S. P-3 Orion provided aerial surveillance of the operation to arrest Christopher “Dudus” Coke, Prime Minister Andrew Holness told reporters on Thursday.   The raid ignited a vicious battle in a West Kingston slum that left over 70 dead.

Holness insisted that the U.S. played no other role in the raid in the Tivoli Gardens neighborhood.  ”We would want to reaffirm our position that the U.S. Government or its military did not participate in the operations in West Kingston,” he said.

His statement came just one day after National Security Minister Dwight Nelson claimed that the U.S. had not provided any surveillance of the raid, in spite of a report in The New Yorker magazine.

Holness said that Nelson made the statement in error because he was unaware of the U.S. assistance. Prior official statements had also denied any U.S. role in the raid. The prime minister said the surveillance was coordinated between the Jamaican Defense Force and the “relevant government agency” in the U.S.

“The United States Government initially made an offer to provide surveillance and technical equipment,” he said. “We accepted and followed the normal protocol of exchanging diplomatic notes to provide the government-to-government cover for such assistance.”

Ocsar Derby, director of Jamaica’s Civil Aviation Authority, said Friday that officials with the island’s Defense Force had notified him the U.S. craft would carry out a surveillance mission.

“We made sure to keep other aircraft away from the area,” he said.

The hunt for Coke in his West Kingston slum stronghold provoked fighting that killed 73 civilians and three security officers over the next four days. He was finally arrested by Jamaican authorities and extradited to the U.S., where he pleaded guilty in August to racketeering and assault charges. Coke faces up to 23 years in prison when he is sentenced.

The Americas Post - There's a new sheriff on the streets of Tegucigalpa. Photo Credit: Xinhua

The Honduran legislature decided this week to deploy the army against Mexican drug cartels, hoping to put the brake on growing violence in the most murderous country on the planet.

Lawmakers voted by an overwhelming majority to follow the model used by Mexican President Felipe Calderon, who launched a military campaign against powerful drug gangs after taking office in 2006.

Following that decision, over 45,000 people have been killed in Mexican drug violence.   On a per capita basis, however, the small nation of Honduras is leading every other country in the world in homicides, with 82 murders per 100,000 people last year according to the United Nations.   Some 20 people are killed there on a daily basis.

Officials blame most of the murders on cartels, smuggling South American cocaine through Central America to consumers in the United States.  Honduras also suffers from violent youth street gangs that extort local businesses with death threats.

“This legislation will allow the armed forces to take on policing roles to confront organized crime and drug traffickers operating across the country,” congressman Oswaldo Ramos said.

Some human rights activists say the military is not trained to deal with civilian crimes and have accused Mexican soldiers of torture and disappearances in the drug war.  Those concerns are taken seriously in Honduras, where the military overthrew leftist President Manuel Zelaya in a 2009 coup.

“We have serious doubts about the implications of sending the army to do policework,” said leftist congressman Sergio Castellanos. “They are not prepared to deal with civilians and this will only strengthen their position in society after the coup,” he said.

Recent polls have shown that the move does have popular backing and that people feel safer with soldiers patrolling the streets.

The Americas Post - Even drug traffickers tell their kids to do their homework. Photo Credit: Reuters

Brazilian police on Thursday captured the most wanted narcotrafficker in Rio de Janeiro, as they took steps to occupy the largest slum in that city in preparation for the 2016 Olympic Games.

Antonio Bonfim Lopes, alleged druglord in the Rocinha neighborhood, was captured in unusual circumstances, hiding in the trunk of a luxury car belonging to a high-level diplomat from the Democratic Republic of Congo.  Television images showed the 35 year-old suspect, known as “Nem”, sitting in a patrol car at the point of tears.  Authorities were quick to declare victory.

“This is a historic moment in the fight against narcotrafficking in Rio de Janeiro”, said State Security Secretary Jose Mariano Beltrame.

But in a sign that corruption and partnerships between police and drug gangs continue to be a problem, three agents and two ex-cops were also arrested, together with various traffickers they were trying to help escape the slums in advance of the sweep announced by police.

Home to over 100,000 people, Rocinha rises high on a ridge overlooking some of the most exclusive neighborhoods and beaches of Rio.  It is considered the main distribution point for drugs in Brazil’s second largest city.  Dismantling that operation is the next and most ambitious step in a “pacification” program that has already expelled drug gangs from 18 marginal neighborhoods in hopes of restoring Rio to its former glory.

Police said that when a patrol stopped the car in the early morning hours, the occupants identifying themselves as the Congolese Consul and two lawyers offered them a million reales (US$570,000) to allow them to pass.  Nem, who did not resist, was taken with the others to federal police headquarters from which he sent a message to his children reminding them not to forget their schoolwork.

The Americas Post - Friday doesn't always mean happy hour in Michoacan. Photo credit to: Notimex

Mexican authorities report that at least 21 people were killed Friday in three firefights between soldiers and gunmen and a fight between rival drug gangs.

A minimum of 15 deaths resulted from three shootouts in the western state of Michoacan, according state prosecutor spokesman Jonathan Arredondo.

Arredondo said 10 gunmen were killed in a clash with an army patrol that was attacked in Patzcuaro, an area of Michoacan popular with tourists. Five others died in two smaller battles in Michoacan, with one federal police officer wounded.

It was in Michoacan that President Felipe Calderon launched his armed offensive against organized crime in 2006.  Gubernatorial elections are scheduled there for Nov. 13.   The local violence has been blamed in large part on a pseudo-religious drug cartel known as La Familia, and more recently to a spinoff gang called The Knights Templar.

In the northern state of Sinaloa, six people died Friday in a firefight between two groups of armed men on a highway in the town of Guamuchil, according to assistant state prosecutor Martin Robles.

All six were taken to a funeral home, where gunmen later burst in to remove three bodies. The other three victims may have been bystanders caught in the crossfire, Robles said.

Sinaloa is home to the drug cartel of the same name.

The Americas Post - El Salvador was more dangerous than Iraq

According to a statement released this week by the office of the Geneva Declaration on Armed Violence and Development, six of the 14 most violent countries on this planet are located in Latin America.

Launched by the United Nations in 2008 and now signed by 110 countries, the Geneva Declaration has the stated goal of supporting governments and civil society in their efforts to significantly reduce violence by 2015 and beyond.

“One quarter of all violent deaths were produced in just 14 countries” stated the report titled “Global Burden of Armed Violence”.  Six of those countries with the highest death rates are El Salvador, Honduras, Colombia, Venezuela, Guatemala and Belize.   The document attributed many of the deaths to armed groups involved in drug trafficking.

Violent deaths in Central America averaged 29 per 100,000 inhabitants, followed by South Africa with 27.4 and the Caribbean with 22.4.  El Salvador was the most violent country on Earth, with over 60 deaths per 100k.   Between 2004 and 2009, that average was higher than Iraq, which held second place.  Brazil ranked 18th in the world for violent death rate, while in spite of its drug war Mexico came in at 51st place.