The body count in a series of mass graves in Tamaulipas town of San Fernando rose again Wednesday. The discovery of more bodies brings the total death toll to 122, Tamaulipas Interior Secretary Morelos Canseco said Wednesday. Apparently a new grave was discovered late Tuesday, and investigations there are likely to continue in the coming days in what has become a most horrific story.
In its reporting, the AP says 16 San Fernando police officers have been arrested for allegedly “protecting members of the Zetas” and “covering up the kidnappings of bus passengers” traveling on Highway 101, connecting the Mexican town with the US border. An additional 17 individuals with apparent ties to the Zetas have also been arrested. Reports say at least a few have confessed to kidnapping and killing some of the missing bus passengers. The motive for the crimes, however, still seems far from clear.
Insight Crime, meanwhile, reports on interviews the Mexican newspaper El Universal has conducted with witnesses to some of the abductions of recent weeks on the “Highway of Death.” The video interviews can be watched here and are indeed frightening. As Insight notes, one witness recounts her bus being stopped by gunmen at a Highway 101 roadblock. The gunmen, the witness says, entered the bus, forced young women and girls off at gunpoint, stripped them naked, and raped them before driving away in their trucks with the women.
More from the BBC which reports on Tamaulipas as a “failed state within a State.”
In addition to the mass graves in Tamaulipas, Mexican investigators also discovered two other clandestine burial sites this week, one in the state of Sinaloa, near the border with Sonora, and another in the state of Sonora itself. Seven separate pits have now been uncovered at the Sinaloa site and at least a dozen bodies have already been removed there. Four bodies have been pulled from the Sonora site, near the border city of Nogales.
In Juarez Wednesday, the bodies of four men – last seen being detained by police officers in the city – were found in shallow desert graves outside the city.
And again Insight Crime has a map detailing the locations of all the “narcofosas” that have been discovered thus far around Mexico.
Finally, US Ambassador to Mexico Arturo Sarukhan responds to a Friday Dallas Morning News editorial supporting Congressman Michael McCaul’s (R-TX) attempt to designate six Mexican cartels as “foreign terrorist organizations.” Sarukhan rejects the proposal that cartels be designated as such, preferring to call them “very violent, well-financed transnational criminal organizations.” An editorial writer at the DMN has a counter-response in what could be just the beginning of a larger debate.
Today’s bullet points:
· Staying in Mexico, Reuters reports on how mass kidnappings of migrants appear to be a new source of financing for some Mexican cartels, particularly the Zetas. According to the Mexican National Human Rights Commission, at least 11,333 migrants were kidnapped in Mexico between April and September of 2010, many in large groups. Reuters says extortion fees over that six month period totaled more than a half million dollars -- ranging from $200 to $85,000 in more than 100 cases.
· IPS looks at protests led by women in Mexico City last week, denouncing growing worries about femicide, particularly in Mexico’s north.
· In Honduras, FNRP activist Gerardo Torres spoke in New York City Wednesday, arguing the current Honduran government continues to support and engage in violence against the political opposition. The Latin America News Dispatch covered Torres’s talk at Judson Memorial Church yesterday. LANR quotes Torres. “Of the ten journalists killed, seven were known members of the resistance. If this were any other country everybody would hear about this. When they kill ten journalists in Honduras, nobody knows.” Torres also spoke with Amy Goodman at Democracy Now yesterday morning.
· In Honduras’s Bajo Aguan – where conflicts between campesinos and planters have been particularly intense over the last year – El Heraldo reports that a German Bank has decided to freeze a $20 million loan to agro industrialist Miguel Facussé. Roger Pineda, a Facussé associate, blames an international campaign launched by human rights groups for the credit freeze. In the article, he specifically cites the Honduran rights group Cofadeh. After the German cuts, Facussé’s Dinant Corporation still maintains a $15 million credit line with the World Bank and $7 million with the Inter-American Development Bank.
· EFE and El Heraldo report on US South Com chief, Gen. Douglas Fraser’s trip to Honduras this week where matters of drug trafficking and regional security cooperation were to be discussed with the Honduran government. There is also some talk about possibly opening a US base in the country’s north, although I haven’t seen confirmation of that yet.
· In Colombia, the extradition orders for Venezuelan capo Walid Makled were finalized Wednesday. Colombian Interior Minister German Vargas said the formal extradition of Makled to Venezuela could occur within the next five days. AP and El Tiempo report. The Miami Herald continues to protest the decision in an editorial today.
· Reuters says the Venezuelan opposition has set a date of February 12 to elect its presidential candidate. The report lists some of the aspirants, including early frontrunner Henrique Capriles. The list also includes AD veteran Henry Ramos. However, I would imagine the Wikileaks revelation – reported by Spain’s El País this week – that Ramos openly requested financing and support from the US Embassy in Caracas in 2006 will hurt his chances.
· Another first lady looks to be running to succeed her husband, this time in the Dominican Republic. AP reports.
· Arturo Valenzuela, among others, testified about foreign assistance priorities before Congressman Connie Mack’s (R-FL) Western Hemisphere Subcommittee Wednesday. Webcast available here. GWU Professor Cynthia McClintock, meanwhile, gives a report back to WOLA on last Sunday’s first-round vote in Peru, which she observed. Audio available here.
· CS Monitor examines the role of China has played in Latin America’s recent economic boom.
· Slightly different takes from Estadao and Folha on China’s statements Tuesday about Brazil’s bid for a permanent UNSC seat. Read and compare for yourself the Brazil-China statement, alongside the Brazil-US statement of a few weeks ago.
· And in the LA Times, Marc Haefele argues the choice for Latin America is to side with Venezuela or Brazil on matters of press freedom. Argentina, he seems to suggest, is caught somewhere in the middle.
No comments:
Post a Comment