Outrage Over Honduras Drug Op Spreads

The backlash surrounding US involvement in a controversial drug operation in Honduras continues to grow. The AP reports that residents of the country’s northeastern Mosquito Coast, where the operation took place earlier this month in the municipality of Ahuas, have burned down government buildings in protest and demand that DEA agents leave the area. Locals, including Ahuas mayor Lucio Baquedano, claim that DEA and Honduran law enforcement fired on innocent civilians on a boat in the May 11 incident and ultimately killed four civilians, two of whom were pregnant women.

Jose Miguel Vivanco, the Americas director at Human Rights Watch, has called on US and Honduran authorities to investigate the use of lethal force in the incident, saying “If evidence demonstrates that security forces violated international standards, they must be held accountable.”  

According to the Washington Post, relatives of the victims claim that the victims were on board the boat in order spend Mother’s Day in town.

Both the US and Honduran governments deny any wrongdoing, claiming that the two traffickers were killed and that the operation yielded 1,000 pounds of cocaine.  American officials also maintain that the DEA agents involved never fired their weapons.

But community leaders in the predominantly indigenous region dispute that claim. The BBC claims that several indigenous groups have released a joint statement, declaring “For centuries we have been a peaceful people who live in harmony with nature, but today we declared these Americans to be persona non grata in our territory.”

Honduras Culture and Politics offers a more in-depth look at these organizations, and also provides a highly critical analysis of the coverage presented by the New York Times, which puts a good deal of faith in the testimony of an anonymous US official who insinuates that local villagers may have been paid to facilitate the drug trade. According the blog, however, “The difference between our reaction and that of the Times is this: if you are likely to be shooting at people from a "poor village", you shouldn't be shooting. Period.”

News Briefs

• Elsewhere in Honduras, inmates at a prison in San Pedro Sula have taken rioted and taken over control of the facility from guards, reports the BBC. The AP says that at least one inmate has been killed and 11 others are wounded. Police say they are refraining from entering the prison “in order to avoid a bloodbath.”

• Mariela Castro, Cuban gay rights advocate and daughter of Cuban President Raul Castro, has been granted a US visa in order to attend a conference in San Franciso organized by the Latin American Studies Association. Although members of the Cuban-American community in Miami have criticized the move, the AP notes that Castro was granted a visa in 2002 under the Bush administration. The bigger scandal, as detailed by the Washington Post, is the denial of visas to other prominent Cubans invited to the conference.

• A judge has ordered the two Mexican generals arrested on suspicion of colluding with drug traffickers to be detained for forty days, according to El Universal. A statement issued by the Attorney General’s Office said that several witnesses, fellow military officers included, have already given testimony against the two.

• The Wall Street Journal looks at the drop in the price of Venezuelan bonds after a recent spike, due mostly to the fact that Chavez seems unlikely to succumb to his cancer before the upcoming elections, which he is likely to win. Reuters, however, notes that the country’s economy is growing briskly, mostly due to pre-election public spending.

• Violence in El Salvador continues to decrease, with 76 homicides registered in the first half of this month. National police claim that this number is less than half of the total murders that occurred during the same period last year. Meanwhile Guatemalan President Otto Perez has announced that the homicide rate in that country is down 18 percent, while Prensa Libre puts the decline around 2.15 percent.

• Colombian lawmaker Sigifredo Lopez has been arrested for allegedly assisting the FARC to kidnap several other legislators (including himself) in 2002, 11 of whom were later executed. His motives are still unclear, reports the AP.

• Some 70 students were arrested by police in Chile on Wednesday, as education reform rallies again rocked the capital city of Santiago.

• This week’s issue of the Economist features a look at the slowing Brazilian economy. The magazine argues that the country still has potential, but the government must address some structural weaknesses to exploit this. The issue also has articles on the Colombia-US FTA, the impact of foreign businessmen in Cuba and an update on Mexico's drug war, as well as an obituary of Carlos Fuentes.

• Mexican journalist Alma Guillermoprieto has an interesting overview of the shift in the hemisphere’s drug policy debate at the Summit of the Americas, which she refers to as “the rebellion in Cartagena.”

DEA Commando Teams Spark Controversy in Honduras

Authorities have confirmed that a DEA commando team was present during two shoot-outs with drug traffickers in Honduras this month, which may have left four civilians dead, reports the New York Times. The incident has drawn increased attention to the role of these commandos, known as Foreign-deployed Advisory Support Teams (FAST), and is already prompting a backlash from some Honduran communities, who demand that the DEA exit the country.

The first firefight took place on May 6 and the second one of May 18, according to the Times. The FAST teams, whose primary mission is to train the local security forces in combating drug traffickers, were accompanying the Honduran anti-narcotics police at the time. When discussing the May 18 shoot-out, the Honduran government initially said that two drug traffickers were killed and a load of cocaine seized. But a local mayor later contradicted the government’s account, stating that four innocent civilians were killed after the Honduran police opened fire on a boat they thought was smuggling drugs.

These incidents calls attention to the increased role of the US in providing anti-drug aid to Honduras, which includes the creation of three “forward operating” bases in remote parts of the Central American country, meant to act as a launching pad for anti-narcotics operations. But the violent episodes also highlight some of the inherent risks of the FAST teams -- often surrounded in secrecy, when they are involved in anti-drug operations that go wrong, they risk prompting a nationalistic backlash, in part fueled by memories of US intervention in Central America during the Cold War. The AP reports on the first signs of this backlash, as rural communities where the botched anti-drug operation took place have attacked several government offices, demanding that the DEA leave Honduras.


News Briefs

• Mexican authorities announced Wednesday that two army generals, including the former assistant defense secretary, are being questioned for allegedly protecting the Beltran Leyva drug cartel, reports Reuters. Excelsior reports that the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) provided some of the intelligence which helped build the case against retired general Tomas Angeles Dauhare. Dauhare initially raised suspicion among Mexican media when he quietly left his post of assistant defense secretary in 2008, a sudden and unannounced departure for a man whose name was previously mentioned as a possible Secretary of Defense. The other active duty general, Roberto Dawe Gonzalez, is being investigated for links to organized crime during the brief term (September 2009-December 2010) of former attorney general Arturo Chavez. He also once held posts in two of Mexico’s most violent states, Sinaloa and Chihuahua.

• The New York Times on Brazil’s controversial environmental bill, which activists say is too lenient on farmers who clear woodlands for agriculture. The proposed law also decreases the amount of forest that farmers must preserve. Congress passed the bill on April 26, but it will only become law if signed by President Dilma Rousseff. If she instead chooses to veto it, it could become a defining moment of her presidency, the Times argues.

• The Miami Herald speaks with Haiti’s new prime minister, Laurent Lamothe, the fourth to be sworn in so far in just over a year. The newspaper notes that while Lamothe has faced some criticism for his lack of political experience, there is “collective goodwill” hoping that he will succeed in staying on in Haiti’s second-most important political job. 

• The AP with a profile of Venezuelan Foreign Minister Nicolas Maduros, one of President Hugo Chavez’s closest political allies and a rumoured successor should Chavez have to pull out of his presidential campaign due to health issues. The profile outlines Maduros’ background, rising from a union organizer for metro workers to president of the National Assembly to foreign minister. The article also notes that “Maduro is considered by some observers the aide with the closest links to the Cuban government within Chavez's inner circle.”

• The seven members of Brazil’s truth commission were officially sworn in Wednesday, reports Al Jazeera. The commission is charged with investigating human rights abuses conducted from 1946-1988, with a special focus on the military dictatorship of 1964-1988.

• InSight Crime considers an alternate theory for the May 15 bombing in Bogota, wondering whether Colombia’s far-right could have had reason to conspire such an attack, in order to cast the blame on rebel group the FARC and bolster their argument that President Juan Manuel Santos is weak on security issues. Nevertheless, the FARC still appear to be the prime suspect for the case. Elsewhere, Time magazine has analysis on the blast as a reminder of Colombia’s unresolved security problems. 

• Ecuador continues its investigation into the drug-flight which crashed in the rural north last weekend, killing two Mexicans on board. The plane drew attention towards Ecuador’s increased importance as a transhipment point in the drug trade, after authorities announced the aircraft carried at least $1.3 million in cash on board. In the latest development, El Comercio reports that the plane crashed just 35 kilometers away from a cocaine processing lab, raising questions over whether the plane and the lab are linked. 

• The AP with a feature on the financial burden faced by Chilean students, who must borrow heavily in order to afford university education. The news agency observes: “Despite more than a year of mass protests that raised hopes across Chile for education reform, few students have seen any real benefits. Politicians and students have hardened their positions, but the system is still failing families with poor quality public schools, expensive private universities, unprepared teachers and banks that still make huge profits on loans that most Chileans can ill afford.”

• Haiti and the Dominican Republic have agreed to increase their anti-narcotics cooperation, comitting to share technology used for tracking suspect smugglers, reports Infosur. 

• NACLA with a fine article from its new issue reviewing President Ollante Humala’s time in office, noting that during his presidential campaign, he was seen as the left’s most promising option in contrast to the right wing’s candidate, Keiko Fujiori. So far, however, his term has mostly been a disappointment to those hoping he would support popular mobilizations against Peru’s many controversial development projects. 

• Eight people have been charged with sacrificing three victims to the Santa Muerte cult, reports the AP. Authorities first announced the cult killings in early April, which were described as the first confirmed reports of human sacrifices to the deathly saint.  

FARC Urban Militias Could Be Behind Bogota Bomb

Colombian capital Bogota was hit by a bomb on Tuesday in an assassination attempt against a former minister, likely carried out by the FARC rebel group. Two people died and some 50 others were injured in the attack.

The target of the bombing was former Interior and Justice Minister Fernando Londoño, who was traveling in a bulletproof car at the time of the attack. Lodoño’s driver and one bodyguard were killed, and he was wounded in the blast, which took place in prosperous northern Bogota, at 74th Street with Caracas Avenue. The authorities have security camera footage of the man who placed the explosive device, which shows him walking along the street and circling Lodoño’s car before sticking the bomb to a door on the left-hand side, reports Caracol Radio.

The FARC rebel group are the most likely culprits for the attack. They are thought to have been behind another car bomb deactivated a few hours before the explosion, outside a police station in the south of the city. One person has been arrested in connection to the first bomb.


The group’s Eastern Bloc are thought to be responsible for both attacks, working through their urban guerrilla network the Red Urbana Antonio Nariño (RUAN). The rebels have increasingly been relying on non-uniformed militias in recent years, who carry out urban guerrilla attacks like car bombings.

Lodoño was minister early in the presidency of Alvaro Uribe (2002-2010), and resigned in 2003. He remains an Uribe ally, and has criticized President Juan Manuel Santos’ moves toward peace talks with the FARC.

The Miami Herald notes that it would be the first fatal bomb attack carried out by the FARC in Bogota in nearly 10 years, though the guerrillas have not yet claimed responsibility. In 2003 the guerrillas bombed the upscale El Nogal club, killing 36.

The attack was carried out on the day that Colombia’s free trade agreement with the US came into effect. It’s possible that the attack was planned by the FARC to mark this date -- in recent communiques the rebels have criticized the government for opening the country to multinational businesses.

The bombing may also have been timed to coincide with the Framework for Peace, aconstitutional amendment that would give the government special powers to negotiate with the guerrillas and allow former rebels to run for office, and is currently making its way through Congress. Some lawmakers called for the move to be put on hold after the attack, but Congress overwhelming voted to move forward with the legislation, backed by Santos’ government who said they must not give in to terrorism, reports Colombia Reports.

Some reports focus on the blow to the reputation of the city, which is undergoing a rebirth after the worst years of the conflict. The New York Times says the attack “stunned residents in a city that has prided itself on recovering from years of violence,” while AFP describes it as a blow to the forces of change.

News Briefs

• The NYT examines the psychological impact of drug violence on Mexicans, who it says have become inured to gruesome scenes like the 49 decapitated and maimed bodies left near Monterrey, Nuevo Leon. “The apathy — during a presidential campaign, no less — is really just a learned response to repeated trauma, and impotence in the face of horror,” it says. The report notes that the perception that many victims are themselves criminals adds to the detached response to fresh violence. It is likely, for example, that the 49 dead were members of one criminal gang killed by another to show their power.

• On the Nuevo Leon killings, InSight Crime says that they signal a “war without quarter,” and that the victims are probably members of the Sinaloa Cartel or the Gulf Cartel, murdered by the rival Zetas. The Sinaloa have recently been pushing into the Zetas stronghold of Nuevo Laredo, carrying out killings of Zetas members, and this may be retaliation. It notes that the local government said that the dead were members of criminal groups, and not “civilians.” However, as noted in Monday’s post, it is also perfectly possible that the victims were migrants traveling to the US, unconnected to organized crime and chosen for slaughter because of their vulnerability. If one group wanted to sow fear in its rivals or with the public, it would be easier to catch and kill a group of migrants than heavily armed cartel members. The fact that the victims were missing heads, hands and feet, suggests that the killers did not want them to be identified. On Tuesday, to complicate matters further, banners appeared in the state of San Luis Potosi, signed in the name of the Zetas, saying that the group was not responsible for the bodies.

• InSight Crime looks at why criminal groups in Latin America recruit children and teenagers: because they are vulnerable, expendable, cheap and easy to manipulate. According to a new report from Watchlist on Children in Armed Conflict, the average age of new recruits to Colombia’s guerrilla groups fell from 13.8 in 2002 to 11.8 in 2009.

• The NYT reports from the Ene River valley in central Peru, where the Ashaninka indigenous group face being displaced by a planned hydroelectric dam project. It says that disruptive hydroelectric dams have become unpopular in some parts of the world, but remain common in Latin America because there are many nations that have a lot of water but few other sources of energy. The NYT notes that the Ashaninka have faced serious threats in recent decades, with some 6,000 people killed during the civil conflict with the Shining Path guerrilla group -- almost 10 percent of the country’s dead.
  With slideshow.

• Upside Down World reports on a plan to build tunnels linking the Colombian city of Medellin to its international airport, burrowing through the hills that surround the city. Campaigners say it could cause a social and environmental disaster, draining rivers and devastating the community of Santa Elena, and the forests and wetlands around it. The plan was originally given the go-ahead by former President Alvaro Uribe when he was governor of Antioquia in the 1990s. Uribe, who remains powerful in the department, owns land near the entrance of the planned tunnel, which is set to rise in value.

• The Miami Herald hails the newly instituted free trade agreement between Colombia and the US as a new era in trade and investment between the two countries, saying that with its “now permanent duty-free access to the United States, the world’s largest market, Colombia’s star is rising.” Meanwhile, a study backed by Oxfam on the impact of the trade pact warns that more small-scale Colombian farmers could be pushed into growing coca as the deal hurts their income from other crops, reports La Nacion.

• The NYT Latitude blog asks why Venezuela’s President Hugo Chavez gets an easier ride from the West than Russia’s newly re-appointed Vladimir Putin, describing their two regimes as “eerily similar.” It notes that “Chavez’s cheerful tropical anti-imperialism has an allure that Putin’s scowling Slavic strongman persona will always lack.”

• Rio Real blog reports on a lunch with Rio de Janeiro security chief Jose Mariano Beltrame, who talks about efforts to stamp out police militias and cut police corruption.

• Foreign Policy has a piece on “Preparing for life after Castro,” reprinted in the Miami Herald.

• Haiti’s government is planning new legislation to govern its developing mining industry, reports the AP. The laws are intended to protect the environment and people who could be affected by mining.

• Mexican writer Carlos Fuentes has died at the age of 83.
  AP, WSJ, NYT.

Argentine VP Under Fire for Alleged Corruption

Argentine Vice President Amado Boudou has come under scrutiny from judicial officials for allegations of influence peddling and money laundering over the past year, but so far managed to stave  off his critics and hold on to his office. Yesterday however, a federal prosecutor asked a judge to open an investigation into illegal enrichment accusations against Boudou, triggering renewed calls for his resignation.

As the Associated Press reports, prosecutors have named as his accomplices Boudou's girlfriend Agustina Kampfer, his friend and business partner Jose Maria Nunez Carmona, and another businessman, Alejandro Vandenbroele, who reportedly served as a proxy for the vice president in a series of shady business deals. Although Boudou denies any connection to Vandenbroele, previous investigations have revealed phone records linking the two, suggesting a potential cover-up.

Boudou, for his part, claims that he is the victim of a character attack by a media “mafia,” led by opposition newspaper Clarin, and has had pressured court officials to replace the main prosecutors in the influence peddling case.

When President Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner chose Boudou as her running mate ahead of last October’s elections, his popularity amongst Argentine youth (the AP referred to him as a “hoodie-wearing, Harley-riding rock ‘n roll guitarist”) was seen by many as a sign that he could be a potential heir to the president once her second term ends in 2015. Considering the blowback from this scandal, however, she will likely distance herself from him, perhaps courting Argentine youth instead by moving closer to popular economist Axel Kicillof, a rising star in her administration.

 News Briefs

·         Last Thursday a federal judge ruled against the National Security Archive’s attempts to declassify the fifth and last volume in a CIA history of the Bay of Pigs invasion, reports the Miami Herald. The court found that, because the volume was allegedly a draft and had not been approved by official CIA historians, it was exempt from declassification. The National Security Archive calls this ruling "a regrettable blow to the right-to-know" and has vowed to pressure the Obama administration to back up its stated commitment to transparency by releasing the documents.

·         Yet another journalist has been killed in Mexico. El Universal reports that police have found the dead body of Rene Orta Salgado, who was missing since Saturday, in the trunk of his car in the central state of Cuernavaca, the capital of Morelos. Spanish news agency EFE claims that the country’s national human rights commission has received a total of 580 complaints of violence against journalists since 2005.

·         Meanwhile, in southern Mexico, a Catholic priest who runs a shelter for migrants and has spoken out against abuse and kidnapping has gone into hiding after receiving death threats. According to El Universal, he has left the country.

·         A new poll conducted by the Dallas Morning News’s Spanish language partner Al Dia and El Universal suggests that concerns about insecurity in Mexico have taken a toll on the country’s traditional wariness towards US intervention. More than half of Mexicans –52 percent– said they favored an expanded US role in fighting crime in their country. 28 percent even called for deploying US troops in Mexican soil.

·         Prensa Libre and AP report that Guatemalan officials claim that the United States government is refusing to return a toddler adopted in 2008 to her biological parents in the Central American country. The latter claim that their daughter was abducted in 2006, and because this was before an international treaty on abduction came into effect in January 2008, the US argues it is not bound to return the girl. The child left the country in December 2008, however, casting doubt on these claims.

·         The Brazilian Real has fallen to its lowest point relative to the US dollar in nearly three years, dropping to 1.99 reais to the dollar. The Brazilian Finance Minister has said this will be a boost to Brazilian manufacturers and exporters.

·         The Venezuelan foreign minister has demanded the return of fugitive ex-Supreme Court judge Eladio Aponte, saying that the US is legally mandated to hand him over. In the past month that he has been in the United States, Aponte has made accusations of widespread corruption in Venezuela.

·         Seven members of the FARC have turned themselves in along the Colombia-Ecuador border. According to El Pais, the men handed over 1.2 tons of explosives to military officials.  

·         The Miami Herald looks at the US-Colombia FTA, which officially went into effect today at 1 a.m.

·       Honduras Culture and Politics with a critical look at recent attempts to promote “charter cities” in Honduras. The blog argues that these efforts amount to attacks on Honduran sovereignty, laden with overtones of cultural imperialism. 

Mystery Surrounds Zetas' Dumping of 49 Bodies in Mexico

Police found 49 mutilated bodies -- without heads, hands, or legs -- abandoned on a highway outside Monterrey, Mexico. Local media reported that the bodies showed signs of decay and the victims may have been killed 48 hours before their discovery. None reportedly bore signs of bullet wounds. A graffiti message on a nearby white stone read, “100% Zeta,” reports the AP, implying the criminal groups the Zetas were responsible for the act.

The state attorney general said the victims may be migrants, which is a plausible scenario: the Zetas are known for killing, kidnapping, and terrorizing migrants, most notably in the 2010 massacre of 72 migrants in Tamaulipas state. It is also possible that the deaths form part of a wave of killings, including the discovery of 18 heads in southern Jalisco state last week, that are intended to demonstrate the Zetas’ capacity for terror, as they battle the Sinaloa Cartel for control of criminal enterprises like drug trafficking. "It's a reflection of what has been happening across the country," one analyst told the Wall Street Journal. The fight between the Sinaloa Cartel and the Zetas originally appeared to be concentrated in the key border city of Nuevo Laredo, but these recent acts of violence emphasize that the battle will play out across the nation.

The Washington Post theorizes that the victims may have been killed in another state and driven to the highway outside Monterrey, using backcountry roads in order to avoid attention from the security forces. But the identities and origins of the victims will likely be very difficult to determine. While the state attorney general said there were no reports in recent days of disappearances, this is an assumption that the victims were only taken captive very recently. The Zetas could have kidnapped the victims some time ago and held them in a safehouse before killing them. In one illustrative case, last week in Jalisco the security forces rescued a dozen kidnap victims being held by the Zetas.

The AP provides a list of other notable incidents of Mexico’s crime-related massacres since May 2011. Some incidents could provide other explanations for the victims’ origins: they could be bus passengers, given the Zetas’ killing and kidnapping of bus passengers in Nuevo Leon state last year. The victims could also have been killed because the Zetas suspected they worked for a rival cartel. State authorities cited the fact that some of the bodies had tattoos as evidence for this scenario. But so far evidence for this is sketchy. What is clear is that the Zetas intended the mass body dump to be seen and widely reported. The goal was apparently to not only intimidate their rivals, but the general public as well.

News Briefs

• Colombian rebel group the FARC have contacted the Red Cross and told them they plan to release kidnapped French journalist Romeo Langlois, AFP reports. 

• The Miami Herald with a review of President Michel Martelly’s first year in office, noting that while his government has made a couple of significant policy shifts, including making cholera vaccinations available, his administration has been marred by political infighting. As summarized by one US academic: “Martelly and his team have plunged the country into needless politically linked controversy and gridlock, and reopened polarized strife, in large part because of an orientation toward governance that is tightly inclusive, not widely-embracing of different actors, and takes a ‘my way or the highway’ approach toward differing views.”

• Global Post has an in-depth series looking at prison abuse across Latin America. In Rio de Janeiro, police have turned buildings like horse stables and old warehouses into holding pens, due to the lack of space for detainees. From Peru, a colorful look at the inside of the country’s largest prison, where prisoners operate with a high degree of freedom and self-organization, running arts classes as well as cock fights. The series also includes dispatches from Venezuela, Mexico, and Honduras. 

• Highlighting the pain felt by relatives who have lost loved ones to Mexico’s crime wars,  the New York Times has a moving profile of a family in Colima state, who lost one family member after gunmen opened fire in his car shop. As few of these deaths are investigated, and many of them are written off as being related to organized crime, survivors must often deal with this stigma, the Times reports. 

• The LA Times predicts that widespread disillusionment among young Mexican voters will help project Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) candidate Enrique Peña Nieto to the presidency. The latest polls now show Peña Nieto leading in the polls at 45 percent, while leftist candidate Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador is now in a second-place tie with ruling party candidate Josefina Vazquez Mota, reports Reuters. Some younger voters now see the PRI as emblematic of change, while many others will likely sit out the election in expression of disgust with Mexico’s democracy, the LA Times reports. Part of the problem is legislation which previously barred independent candidates from running, and only allowed party bosses to select the candidates that run for office, giving voters little say in the matter. This system has since been changed, just not in time for July’s presidential elections. Elsewhere, the Washington Post profiles Peña Nieto, and asks what his campaign symbolizes for the evolution of Mexican politics: “The question that obsesses observers in Mexico is whether Peña Nieto represents the old PRI -- autocratic, corrupt, dominated by personalities Mexicans call ‘dinosaurs’ -- or the new PRI, which promises transparency, competence, and clean hands.”

• The Wall Street Journal with analysis on the resurgence of Peruvian guerrilla group the Shining Path, in light of last week’s resignation of the Defense and Interior Ministers. 

• Colombian paramilitary warlord Salvatore Mancuso said Friday that he supported former President Alvaro Uribe’s re-election campaign in 2006, in an interview with Caracol radio. The campaign used the cash for advertising, bus transport, and food, Mancuso added. He also said that he’d had direct meetings with Uribe but declined to specify further. As Verdad Abierta points out, Mancuso’s statements are hardly surprising. Other paramilitaries have made similar allegations during Colombia’s Justice and Peace process, the judicial process designed to give former paramilitaries reduced terms in return for their open testimony. 

• The LA Times on the small town on the US-Mexico border where the mayor, police chief, and ten other people were arrested last year for smuggling guns to Mexico. The town, Columbus, is just four miles away from the Mexican town of Palomas, and residents move easily between the two, symbolic of how invisible the border can be in everyday life. The article is accompanied by a photo essay. 

• A crossword puzzle that spelled out several words -- including “Adan,” the name of President Hugo Chavez’s brother, and “asesinan,” or kill -- has stirred controversy in Venezuela, the AP reports. One prominent Chavez supporter, a television personality, declared that the words were a “message.” The puzzle creator told the New York Times that he has already voluntarily spoken with intelligence agents, stating, “I have nothing to hide.”

• Via the Christian Science Monitor, blogger Riogringa has good analysis on how the upcoming Rio+20 conference will serve as a test of Rio de Janeiro’s ability to host such “mega-events.”

• Honduras Culture and Politics with a well-argued critique of President Porfirio Lobo’s claim that if the US reduced its drug consumption, this would reduce criminal activity in Central America.

• From Al Jazeera, some good analysis on El Salvador’s political climate, as the three major parties prepare for the 2014 presidential elections. 

• Chile’s Supreme Court blocked construction of a controversial hydroelectric dam project in Patagonia, reports the Latin American Herald Tribune. 

• Plaza Publica with a report on a Guatemalan citizen found dead inside a stable during the Kentucky Derby.

2 Cabinet Ministers Resign as Peru Falters in Fight Against Shining Path

Peru’s Defense and Interior Ministers both resigned Thursday over criticism of their handling of the latest offensive against rebel group the Shining Path. Congress was threatening to remove them by vote this Saturday, and with President Ollanta Humala absent on a state visit to Asia, it created the impression of his government under serious threat from critics.

The security forces have been struggling to respond to the Shining Path’s kidnapping of dozens of gas workers last month. Since then, ten members of the security forces have died during the jungle offensive intended to track the rebels down, in the remote valley known as the VRAE. Public opinion of the offensive turned sour after the father of a slain police officer had to travel personally to the jungle to recover his son’s body.

One former defense minister told AFP that this latest political firestorm reflect the failures of the state’s militarized policy against the Shining Path. “We picked the wrong strategy thinking that what happens in the VRAE can be solved by military and police,” he said, adding that the area was in more need of housing, health, and education funds.

Humala appointed the two ministers last December as part of a wider reshuffling in his Cabinet, which included naming a former military officer as his prime minister. At the time, the reshuffling was seen as an attempt to create a cabinet that was tougher on security issues.

With the security forces’ campaign dragging, it seems as though Congress intended the vote against the Interior and Defense Ministers as a means to indicate they too could take action in other ways. Along with the resignation of the Vice President in January in response to corruption charges, this is only the latest upheaval within Humala’s inner circle.

The other question is whether the resignations will be enough to cause a serious shift in Humala’s security policy in the VRAE, where some 500 rebels are thought to operate.

News Briefs

• The Wall Street Journal reports on unhappy military officers in Haiti, expectant that President Michel Martelly will keep his campaign promise of reinstating the island’s army, or at least give them nearly 20 years of backpay, dating back to when the force was disbanded in 1995. As the article points out, Martelly’s campaign promise has backfired on him. In light of criticism from the international aid community, when he came to power he chose instead to create a commission to debate whether his plans for a reinstated military should go ahead. Since then, retired groups of military men have been a thorn in his administration’s side, setting up training camps and even storming Parliament in protest. The Journal notes that one of the main challenges is not so much the elderly military retirees, but the young, unemployed men who have latched onto the movement, presumably due to lack of other opportunities. As the chief of police told the newspaper, "It's a bunch of old guys that have surrounded themselves with young people. There are maybe 200 noncommissioned officers. They can be paid their back pay and they'll go away, but what do we do with all these new recruits?"

• Foreign Policy on an interview given by a former Venezuelan official who alleges that rival elements of the military are fighting one another for control of drug trafficking routes. “The mounting revelations paint Venezuela as a budding narcostate -- a country where big-time drug trafficking money has not just bought this and that judge, or this and that prosecutor, but has taken control of the state as a whole,” the article declares. Another former official in exile, the former head of Venezuela’s main anti-drug agency, made similar allegations of a military war over drug routes in an interview with El Universal last week. But as InSight Crime points out, both these former officials “have an axe to grind, and an interest in casting the Chavez administration as deeply infiltrated by criminals.”

• The New York Times on a small Colombian town that was destroyed by mudslides last year, due to heavy rains, accompanied by a slideshow. Gramalote was once an important farming town near the Venezuelan border, the article notes, but now residents are returning in order to practice another trade: collecting scrap metal and stones from the ruins. The fact that President Juan Manuel Santos’ administration has not yet reconstructed the town raises questions over Colombia’s ability to respond and rebuild after its increasingly destructive rainy seasons. 

• In another indication that Asia is becoming a more important trading partner for Latin America over North America or Europe, President Santos signed a series of oil deals with China during a visit week, reports the Wall Street Journal. 

• Mexico has cited the improvements in New Mexico’s prison system -- once subject to the break-outs and riots commonly seen in Latin America -- as an example for improvements in their own penal system. InSight Crime observes, “In at least one sense, the US is an inappropriate model for Mexico. The US has the largest prison population in the world, both in per capita and in absolute terms... Not surprisingly, much of the US advice to other nations appears to be how to better imprison large numbers of people.”

• The Economist reviews El Salvador’s gang truce, and points to Belize as an example of how short-lived these deals can be. Belize came to an agreement with gang leaders last September, and met their demands for jobs, costing the government $20,000 per week. Not only did such measures prompt criticism from other interest groups that the government was ignoring their demands in favor of criminals, but the truce did not last. After a wave of gang killings, March was Belize’s most violent month in two years. 

• A Haitian has testified that six UN peacekeepers from Uruguay sexually assaulted him, reports Reuters.  It is the latest allegation of UN misconduct on the island: notably, a force of Nepalese peacekeepers were found to have brought cholera to Haiti, causing the 2010-2011 deadly outbreak. 

• Argentina passed a law which allows people to change their gender identity without undergoing a medical procedure first, giving it some of the most liberal laws on transgender issues in the world, reports Reuters. 

• The New York Times reports on the finding of ancient Mayan calendar writing and astrological recordings in Peten, Guatemala. As the Wall Street Journal points out, the calendar will likely garner a strong amount of public interest, thanks to the well-publicized fact that the Mayans predicted the end of the world in 2012. Rest assured, however: one of the newly discovered calendars projects the world will continue for another 4,000 years. A more detailed look at the findings is set to be published next month in National Geographic.

• The Economist with analysis on Argentina’s nationalization of oil company YPF, noting that the government’s poor record of managing expropriated firms does not bode well. This is especially the case of the national airlines and water company, which are run badly and do not make profits, the magazine reports. However, the magazine notes that with a respected oil engineer now charged with running YPF -- and with Brazil’s state-run company Petrobras as an example of success -- the oil firm may prove more successful.

• Just in time for Mother’s Day, the Miami Herald on the long road that Colombia’s flower exports must travel in order to make it to US floral stores on time.

Journalist Kidnapped in Honduras

While much of the international press coverage of the region is focused on the kidnapping of French reporter Romeo Langlois by the FARC, another journalist has been kidnapped in Honduras. According to La Tribuna, HRN radio news manager Alfredo Villatoro was taken hostage by unknown abductors on his way to work Tegucigalpa yesterday morning.

Authorities arrested ex-police sergeant Gerson Basilio Godoy in connection with the kidnapping, but El Heraldo reports that he was released after ten hours in custody. Basillo was dismissed from the police force in September 2011 for his alleged links to a kidnapping and extortion network.

He initially drew the attention of officials when he was seen driving a Toyota pickup truck which had been seen parked in front of Villatoro’s house yesterday morning, and which bore a scratch on one side which featured paint residue presumably belonging to the journalist’s vehicle. There have been no other announced arrests in the case, and although Villatoro’s family has said they have been contacted by the kidnappers, his whereabouts are still unknown.

The incident is yet another reminder of the dangers faced by Honduran journalists, and comes just days the disappearance and subsequent murder of reporter Erick Alejandro Martinez. Martinez, a member of the Honduran resistance movement, went missing on Saturday and was found dead on Tuesday. Human rights groups say he was the 22^nd journalist to have been killed in the past two years under the administration of President Porfirio Lobo. Honduras Culture and Politics seizes on the accusations made against ex-policeman Basilio Godoy, noting that through a combination of a lack of cooperation by police officials and the absence of international pressure, Lobo’s promises to reform the country’s notoriously corrupt police force have largely been unfulfilled.

News Briefs

·         La Prensa Grafica and the Associated Press report that the Salvadoran Supreme Court has refused Spain’s request to extradite the 13 former military officers accused of murdering six Jesuit priests in 1989, ruling that the men were protected by the ban on extraditions that existed during that time.

·         OAS Secretary General arrives in Ecuador today to meet with President Rafael Correa in order to discuss the role of the multi-lateral organization in the hemisphere. Correa has been a firm critic of the OAS and the Inter-American Human Rights System in general, which he says is “totally dominated by the influence of the US.” The Americas Quarterly blog has more on the visit.

·         The New York Times takes a look at Cuba’s impressively low AIDs rate. While the country’s policies of quarantining HIV-positive individuals in the 1980s and early 1990s were widely criticized as heavy-handed, Cuba now has one of the smallest AIDs epidemics in the world, with only 14,038 documented cases. The HIV infection rate on the island is 0.1 percent, or one-sixth the rate of the United States and one-twentieth of nearby Haiti.

·         The NY Times’ Ciudad Juarez Journal also has a feature on youth culture in Juarez, claiming that the relative decrease in violence in the border city has been accompanied by a kind of renaissance in street art and fashion.

·         Mexican authorities found 15 dead bodies yesterday near Lake Chapala, in Jalisco state, according to El Universal. The LA Times’ World Now blog notes that the lake is a popular destination for American retirees, but has seen a sharp increase in violence in recent years, with three Americans being killed in shootouts in the area last year alone.

·         The LA Times profiles the front-runner in Mexico’s upcoming presidential elections, the PRI’s Enrique Peña Nieto. According to the paper, only an unforeseen incident (such as Peña Nieto committing a major gaffe in the last remaining candidate debate, the arrest of a high-ranking PRI official for corruption, or the capture of Mexican fugitive Chapo Guzman) could have any chance of altering the election against him.

·         Meanwhile, a poll conducted by GEA/ISA for Milenio suggests that leftist Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador is neck and neck with the PAN’s Josefina Vázquez Mota amongst decided voters. AMLO may have a slight lead with 24.9 percent, but is closely followed by Vazquez Mota with 24.1. AMLO is doing better amongst undecided voters, leading Vasquez Mota 19.5 to 18.8 percent among that demographic. Both polls show Peña Nieto with a 15 to 20-point lead, however.

·         The Wall Street Journal reports on a series of energy agreements signed this week between Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos and Chinese president Hu Jintao. According to the WSJ, the agreements “come as the U.S. ally rethinks its traditional reliance on markets in the north and west,” and could divert Colombian coal and oil exports away from the US and European markets in the future.

·         Despite objections from religious groups concerned about promoting homosexuality, the Chilean Senate has passed a bill aimed at ending discrimination on the basis of race, gender, ethnicity, disability, religion and sexuality. President Sebastian Piñera has endorsed the bill and is expected to sign it into law shortly.

·         Greg Weeks over at Two Weeks’ Notice blog has an interesting post up about the politicization of polls in Venezuela, and the huge differences between polls conducted privately and those done by state media.