The Americas Post - Does the UN have any real hope of accomplishing more than hand-wringing?

Senior United Nations officials yesterday drew the world’s attention to threats posed by transnational organized crime and drug trafficking in Central America and called for concerted global efforts to combat the scourge, which they said was spreading to other regions.

“Countries in Central America face a tide of violence, born of transnational organized crime and drug trafficking,” the President of the General Assembly, Nassir Abdulaziz Al-Nasser, said at the opening in New York of the United Nations General Assembly’s thematic debate on “Security in Central America as a regional and global challenge: how to improve and implement the Central American security strategy”.

The debate was aimed at highlighting the individual and collective fight of Central American Governments against transnational organized crime, the focus on that subject in the framework of United Nations policies and actions and the importance of cooperation with, and the support of, the donor community. In June last year, the region’s Heads of State adopted a Central American regional security strategy.

In his opening remarks, Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said: “Caught between drug-producing countries in the South and some of the major consumer countries in the North, proximity has encouraged criminality in the region.”

He highlighted the fact that Central America had become the region with the highest homicide rates in the world: 39 murders per 100,000 citizens in Guatemala, 72 per 100,000 in El Salvador and 86 per 100,000 in Honduras.

Mr. Ban noted that the narcotics problem was not confined to Central America, pointing out that the region was a “bridge” to North America and that the Americas were, in general, a “staging post” for Europe, through trafficking routes in West and Central Africa.

“All of this underscores the need to go beyond a regional approach. Our world is interconnected. Our challenges are linked. Our solutions must be, too,” said Mr. Ban. “That is why, last year, I established the task force on transnational organized crime and drug trafficking. Our approach is rooted in the rule of law and respect for human rights.”

The task force was set up in March 2011 to integrate responses to transnational organized crime into United Nations activities relating to peacekeeping, peacebuilding, security and development, with UNODC and the Department of Political Affairs as co-chairs.

In his message to the thematic debate, UNODC Executive Director Yury Fedotov said that the multifaceted, interconnected nature of drugs and crime called for interregional approaches.

To help counter the threat of drugs and crime in Central America, Mr. Fedotov announced that UNODC had created a regional hub in Panama for Central America and the Caribbean which would link with a reprofiled office in Mexico and other countries in the region.

At the tactical level, Mr. Fedotov said that UNODC was establishing centres of excellence in Mexico on public security statistics and in the Dominican Republic on prison reform and drug demand reduction. The Government of Panama, with the technical support of UNODC, had also established a regional anti-corruption academy.

Mr. Fedotov announced that UNODC would soon release a threat assessment for the region to improve understanding of the situation in Central America and the Caribbean.

The Americas Post - This semi-submergible drug boat was sunk by US and Honduran forces in March

As recently reported in the New York Times, Honduras is the newest front in America’s drug war.  Recent anti-narcotics operations in Mexico have forced over 90 percent of US-bound cocaine from Colombia and Venezuela through Central America. Over 30% of it passes through Honduras, which as a result now has one of the highest homicide rates on the planet.

The latest offensive illustrates the new US emphasis on discrete missions with small numbers of troops, partnerships with foreign military and police forces, and limited goals, whether targeting insurgents, terrorists or criminal groups opposed to American interests.

Using lessons learned in Afghanistan and Iraq, the mission here has been adapted to rules of engagement barring American combat in Central America.  In past operations, helicopters ferrying Honduran and American antinarcotics squads were based in the capital, Tegucigalpa.  New forward outposts patterned on those in Iraq and Afghanistan now allow for much faster response times to interdict drug runs.

American troops here cannot fire except in self-defense, and are forbidden to respond with force even if Honduran or Drug Enforcement Administration agents are in danger. Within these limits, the military provides personnel, aircraft and logistical support that Honduras, the State Department and D.E.A. cannot.

American ambassador Lisa Kubiske, who is responsible for coordinating the complex blend of interagency programs, also oversees compliance with human rights legislation. She describes the Honduran armed forces as “eager and capable partners in this joint effort.”

The Americas Post - Faces of crime victims hover like ghosts over the Ecatepec slums in Mexico City

Mexico’s congress approved a law Monday to recognize and protect the rights of crime victims, a longstanding demand in a country where more than 47,500 people have died in 5½ years of drug-related violence, and thousands more have disappeared.

The law covers the dead, wounded, kidnapped or missing whether they are ordinary civilians or are members of drug cartels and other crime gangs. It also would cover victims of other crimes, like extortion.

The measure has now been passed by both houses of congress and remains to be signed into law by the president, who supports the move.

The law will establish a national registry of victims and set aside funds to compensate them, financed in part by assets seized from organized crime groups. The compensation payments could reach as high as one million pesos ($77,000) apiece.

The law requires authorities to make efforts to identify crime victims’ remains or locate those who might still be alive.

Relatives of people who have gone missing during the drug violence often claim authorities are slow or reluctant to help find missing people.

Hundreds of bodies have been recovered from mass graves, and thousands more have been hacked to pieces, dissolved or dumped in vacant lots. Those victims, often believed to be drug gang members killed by rivals, frequently go unidentified.

The Americas Post - A Mara-Zeta alliance could soon lead to a few new tattoo designs

Guatemalan authorities have begun to see disturbing evidence of an alliance between the Mara Salvatrucha street gang and another of the most feared  criminal organizations in Latin America — a deal that could set back U.S.-backed efforts to fight violent crime and narcotics  trafficking in Central America.

Jailhouse recordings and a turncoat kidnapper describe a pact between leaders of the Maras and the Zetas, the brutal Mexican paramilitary drug cartel that now controls much of rural northern Guatemala to dominate drug-trafficking routes from South America to the United States.

In recent months authorities have seen Zetas providing paramilitary training and equipment to the Maras in  exchange for intelligence and crimes meant to divert law-enforcement attention.

Launched a decade ago by defectors from Mexico’s army special forces, the Zetas have already joined local druglords in the Guatemalan countryside and recruited Guatemalan special forces soldiers for operations in Mexico and Guatemala, officials in both countries have said.

There is some evidence that other Mexican cartels have paid Central American  street gangs to sell drugs for them. And Salvadoran authorities said they are aware of informal links between the Zetas and local Mara Salvatrucha bands paid to sell individual shipments of drugs, but officials have seen no formal alliance between the gangs.  A durable treaty with the Maras could bring the Zetas thousands  of new foot soldiers, extending the cartel’s reach into the cities of Guatemala and other countries in Central America where the Maras dominate urban slums.

Guatemalan authorities report that Zetas have trained a small group of Maras in at least one camp in Mexico. Zeta members have spoken of recruiting 5,000 more but their progress on that is unclear, officials said.

Secret recordings of jailhouse conversations between Zeta and Mara leaders mention a deal between the two groups, according to high-ranking investigators.

Previously armed mainly with handguns, Maras, recognizable by intimidating,  dark tattoos that cover swaths of their bodies and often their faces, have begun  carrying AR-15, M-16 and AK-47 assault rifles and military fragmentation  grenades.  In the city of Villanueva in January, a group of Maras armed with assault  rifles burst into a suburban disco and opened fire on a meeting of rivals,  killing five people.

The Zetas’ ultimate goal, according to analysts and  international officials, is to integrate the Maras into their network and become  the most powerful group in Guatemala — criminal or legitimate.

“The Zetas are a paramilitary organization that wants to control all the  legitimate, illegitimate and criminal activities in Guatemala,” said Antonio  Mazzitelli, regional head of the United Nations Office on Drugs and Organized  Crime.

Miguel Angel Galvez, a judge who hears narcotics and organized crime cases,  said the Mara-Zeta alliance was increasingly evident in the cases he hears, and  had been documented in notebooks found on arrested Zetas that detailed payments  to Mara members.

“The Zetas come to a group like the Maras and grab total control,” he  said.

Authorities learned of the alliance after arresting 50 suspected Zeta  members linked to a May 14 massacre on a cattle farm in Petén province that left  27 people dead, 25 of them decapitated, another law-enforcement official said on condition of anonymity for his own personal safety.

The suspects were incarcerated together with Maras, and their secretly recorded conversations contained the first mention of an alliance, the official said.

The Zetas expressed the desire to completely integrate with the Zeta members  of the Mara Salvatrucha and are providing them with military training and  indoctrination in Mexican camps.  Mexican officials have dismantled Zeta training camps in the state of Nuevo  León but declined to comment on the Guatemalan claims. U.S. officials in  Guatemala also declined to comment.

The Americas Post - Biden would prefer to avoid the subject of drug legalization on his Latin trip

Vice President Joe Biden on Sunday began a tour of Latin America under intense pressure from business and political leaders to speak on a topic that no U.S. official wants to address: the decriminalization of drugs.

The presidents of Costa Rica, Guatemala, El Salvador, Colombia and Mexico, suffering the consequences of a failing drug war, said in recent weeks that they would like to begin talks on legalizing drugs. Argentina, Uruguay, Peru and Mexico already allow the use of small amounts of marijuana for personal consumption, while the governments of Brazil and Colombia discussed alternatives to incarceration for drug users.

Business leaders have also taken up the cause.  In February, a conference of bankers, doctors and legal experts in Mexico concluded that current drug control policies do not work and should be reformed.

“It’s a different time when heads of state speak of the need to discuss the issue in depth,” said John Walsh, specialist in drug policy at the Washington Office on Latin America, an independent research center. “A few years ago it would have seemed impossible.”

Dan Restrepo, top White House official for Latin American affairs,  said the vice president hopes to maintain a “substantial discussion” on security issues in Latin America, including the battles drug cartels are waging for control of the lucrative U.S. market. But he warned that American leaders should not expect a change in policy from the White House.

“The Obama administration has been clear in our opposition to the legalization or decriminalization of illicit drugs,” said Restrepo.

Biden will arrived in Mexico City on Sunday to discuss economic and security issues with President Felipe Calderon. On Monday he meets with three candidates for the Mexican presidency, who hope to take over from Calderón.

On Tuesday, Biden travels to Honduras to meet with President Porfirio Lobo, along with the presidents of El Salvador, Panama, Costa Rica and Guatemala, whose countries face the consequences of drug trafficking.  Drug cartels there have killed tens of thousands of people, have crowded prisons, promoted corruption, influenced elections, undermined democracy and threatened their fragile economies.

“I do think that the issue of legalization is being raised by the leaders to Biden, but privately,” said Walter McKay, policy specialist for security issues in Mexico.  Over 47,500 people have been killed there since 2006 in drug-related violence.

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.