The AP and LA Times report this morning that Julian Leyzaola – the retired Mexican military officer-turned-Tijuana security chief – has been officially appointed to a similar position in Ciudad Juarez. Juarez mayor Hector Murguia made the announcement Thursday, remarking that Lt. Col. Leyzaola’s “experience, honesty and capacity” made him the appropriate choice to take over as director of public safety in Mexico’s most deadly city.
As the AP writes, Leyzaola’s “daunting task” will be figuring how to reduce crime in a city where more than 3,000 were murdered last year alone. But his appointment will likely be accompanied by controversy, given the mano dura methods Leyzaola employed during his tenure in Tijuana.
In late February, the lieutenant colonel resigned unexpectedly from his post there, citing “personal matters.” His strategy, say reports, was defined by close cooperation with the Mexican military he knew best. He purged the city’s police forces, “replacing field commanders with retired military officers who had no policing experience,” says AP, while also overseeing the beginning of over 2000 corruption cases against former Tijuana police officers.
But the new Juarez security chief was so too plagued by allegations of employing indiscriminate force against his enemies, including the use of torture. The AP:
"Several police officers who were charged in early 2009 with helping drug traffickers said Leyzaola or other officers dropped them off at a military base where they were beaten, nearly asphyxiated or forced to endure electric shocks to their genitals. The Baja California state human rights ombudsman said that in August 2009, Leyzaola and other officers tortured five people suspected of killing police."
William Finnegan at The New Yorker had an excellent piece profiling Julian Leyzaola last October that is worth re-visiting. Also, a link here to a post I did, shortly after Finnegan’s profile ran, which raised questions about both the cost of Leyzaola’s Tijuana crackdown and the assertion – made by President Calderon and others – that Leyzaola’s anti-crime strategy had, in fact, reduced violence in Tijuana in any sustainable way. Human Rights Watch, among others, had serious doubts about both of those issues then. They could soon become applicable to Juarez.
Other Mexico stories today:
· The Washington Post paints a distressing picture of Monterrey – once the beacon of North American integration and Mexican prosperity but today a new epicenter in the drug wars, which the paper attributes to an intense rivalry between Los Zetas and the Gulf Cartel. The Post: “Homicides in the city and the surrounding state of Nuevo Leon more than tripled last year, to 828, state prosecutors said, and January's tally of 144 killings was the highest on record.” And while Monterrey business leaders insist that all is not lost, the Post says Felipe Calderon recently announced four new army battalions would be sent to Monterrey and the border region north of the city, meaning things could get more deadly before they get less. In a related story, Insight highlights the economic boom times being experienced by private security firms in Mexico, many of whom now call Monterrey and the state of Nuevo Leon home. The AP says the Mexican Senate called a special hearing Thursday to discuss the ATF’s “Operation Fast and Furious Program” which is believed to have intentionally allowed weapons to be smuggled into Mexico. The LA Times adds that a senior Mexican lawmaker said Thursday that he believes as many as 150 people may have been killed or wounded with weapons which US officials knowingly allowed enter the country. CBS News, meanwhile, says US Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano has denied that she knew anything about the operation, despite documentation indicating that an agent from U.S. Immigrations and Customs Enforcement (ICE), which Homeland Security oversees, was working on the ATF initiative.
· The BBC and the New York Times report on the discovery of the first major cocaine processing plant in Honduras. Honduran officials say it’s the latest sign of Mexican cartel presence in Central America. The Times: “The lab was found Wednesday on a remote coffee farm in mountains 100 miles north of Tegucigalpa after a six-month investigation with the assistance of the United States Drug Enforcement Agency, said Oscar Álvarez, the security minister.” Reports say the lab had the capacity to produce approx. one ton of cocaine per month. It appears to have been operational for the last two or three years. No arrests, however, have been made.
· In El Salvador, the AP on the sentencing of ten gang members and one police officer for the 2009 murder of French filmmaker Christian Poveda.
· And The Guardian with a long report that looks at growing worries about gang violence in Venezuela (video here).
· In Cuba, a new announcement from the Catholic Church about yet another round of prisoner releases. Ten prisoners are set to be released in the coming days, says the AP – among them Oscar Elias Biscet, one of the Group of 75 arrested in 2003. According to The Miami Herald, Biscet is the “most unwavering and best-known dissident” of the 75 jailed arrested in 2003. He, like a number of other dissidents who have been freed in recent weeks, will be allowed to stay in Cuba upon his release. Nine others who were in prison for other crimes will go into exile in Spain. The release of Biscet will mean just three dissidents detained in 2003 remain in prison.
· Also on reforms in Cuba, IPS has a hopeful look at the sorts of public debate being held in the run-up to April’s Sixth Cuban Communist Party Congress. As of early February, IPS says more than seven million Cubans had participated in meetings called by the Party to discuss issues of social and economic policy. And there are apparently a variety of signs that alternative debates about the direction of the island are being permitted on blogs, new websites, email listservs, etc.
· The report comes out as Brazilian state oil giant, Petrobras, withdrew unexpectedly from a deal to help conduct oil exploration off Cuba’s northern coast. Brazilian foreign policy adviser Marco Aurelio Garcia traveled to Havana yesterday with the news, suggesting his country needed to first focus on developing its own offshore oil production before helping Cuba.
· The BBC with the latest look at deepening Venezuela-China economic ties, including long term worries about a new form of Venezuelan dependency. Infolatam/EFE report that Iran’s Vice Minister for Latin America, Behuz Kamalvandi will arrive in Bolivia today for a two-day visit. Among other things, the Iranian vice minister is expected to visit a milk processing plant and hospital which his country has helped fund.
· On regional integration, Mercopress reports that UNASUR is will become legally “effective” today during a meeting held in Quito. The regional body’s charter is expected to be officially approved. Representatives from UNASUR’s twelve member countries are expected to be on-hand for the event, which will also include the laying of the first stone at the site of a future UNASUR headquarters in the city. There’s also a report from Colombia’s El Tiempo this morning that a deal may be in the works for Venezuela’s Ali Rodriguez and former Colombian foreign minister, María Emma Mejía to each serve one year as UNASUR secretary general.
· Venezuelan rights group, Provea, says hunger strikes are becoming an increasingly common means of protest by Venezuelans critical of the Chavez government. AP reports.
· The Miami Herald looks at the Santos government’s proposed plan for land redistribution in Colombia – a plan the president says will return some 750,000 acres to displaced farmers. President Santos, meanwhile, also threatened expulsion against any multinational corporation operating in Colombia which agrees to pay ransom to rebel groups that have kidnapped company employees. BBC reporting: “Any company which pays a single peso to these bandits, leaves the country,” Santos declared Thursday after rumors about a deal between FARC rebels and the Canadian oil company Talisman Energy surfaced. One employee of the company still remains in the hands of the FARC after a kidnapping incident earlier in the week.
· Reuters reports on the allegations of drug trade links which have entered Peru’s presidential race in recent weeks – and the major fork in the road the country may now be facing. Reuters: “After a decade of rapid economic growth, optimists say Peru could go on to lift millions out of poverty and emulate the example of neighboring Chile, one of Latin America’s most successful and stable countries. But if it doesn’t do more to rein in the drugs trade, Peru could be overrun by Mexican cartels or see a surge in violence like that which destabilized Colombia in the 1980s and is hurting Mexico now.”
· Human Rights Watch is calling for an investigation into new threats against Honduran human rights defender and the former Inter-American Commission of Human Rights president, Leo Valladares Lanza. Valladares tells HRW that he has received “intimidating phone calls, and noticed people monitoring his home and following him after he questioned the increasing power of the Honduran military since the 2009 coup.” HRW’s José Miguel Vivanco on the threats and shortcomings of the Lobo government: “The Lobo administration's inability to ensure that human rights defenders can do their job and express their views without reprisals is frustrating. If someone with Leo Valladares' experience and international exposure is getting serious, credible threats, it is crystal clear that the human rights community in Honduras is facing risks.”
· The National Security Archive with more reporting on new Guatemala Wikileaks cables dealing with issues of corruption in the country’s law enforcement institutions.
· Kim Ives at Haitianalysis.com on a movement by some grassroots organizations in Haiti to boycott March 20 presidential elections and demand the return of Jean-Bertrand Aristide. A letter from various international intellectuals and activists supporting the movement ran in The Guardian last week and is included.
· At the CS Monitor, a short and interesting interview with Ecuador’s Rafael Correa, conducted by Professor Abraham Lowenthal, about regional and domestic issues.
· And finally three opinions about President Obama’s trip to Latin America: WOLA’s Adam Isacson, AS/COA’s Christopher Sabatini, and Eric Farnsworth.
No comments:
Post a Comment