De War on Drugs in Mexico - hier verder

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Op maandag 13 juni 2011 18:03 schreef sp3c het volgende:
omdat dat nogal een effectieve manier is om je zin te krijgen

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Op maandag 13 juni 2011 18:08 schreef Papierversnipperaar het volgende:

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Na de drooglegging bleef 1/3 (legaal) alcohol produceren of verhandelen, 1/3 ging iets anders legaals doen, slechts 1/3 bleef crimineel.

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Op maandag 13 juni 2011 18:11 schreef sp3c het volgende:

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dus stopt die oorlog er niet mee

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Drugs barons accused of destroying Guatemala's rainforest


Environmentalists say settlers working for traffickers aiming to launder money or build airstrips have burned down huge tracts

Cocaine barons and farmers have been accused of cutting down swaths of Guatemala's rainforest to carve out airstrips and to launder drug money, threatening biodiversity and ancient Maya ruins.

More than a fifth of the 2.1m-hectare tropical forest - Latin America's biggest after the Amazon - has been burned and cleared by settlers who are often working for drug traffickers, according to environmentalists and human rights groups.

Official figures show the Maya biosphere reserve has lost 21% of its cover since being declared a protected zone in 1990, with impoverished peasants allegedly acting as an advance guard for wealthy drugs-linked farmers. Others put the number even higher.

"The narcos use violence and poverty as tools to push into the reserve," said Claudia Samayoa, director of Udefegua, a human rights advocacy group. "They cultivate land, put in some cattle, but often it's just a front." Poverty, malnutrition, unequal land distribution and the lack of state services gave many such communities little alternative, she said.

A colour-coded map recently published by Guatemala's National Council of Protected Areas (Conap) showed the western half of the reserve covered in orange and red blotches, representing areas burnt more than three times.

Some 306,000 hectares were lost between 2001-06, it estimated.

The incursions are threatening the habitats of hundreds of species of birds and mammals, including jaguars, pumas and tapirs, as well as 3,000 types of plants and Maya archaeological sites. "If left unattended, these threats could spread eastward, undermining the economic productivity of the reserve and deteriorating (its) crucial role as a biological corridor at the heart of the tri-national Maya forest of Guatemala, Belize, and Mexico," said Roan Balas McNab, Guatamala programme director of the Wildlife Conservation Society. The reserve's eastern half, comprising about 1m hectares and the main Maya ruins of Tikal and Mirador, has remained relatively unscathed thanks to greater protection. An earth-mound firebreak which divides the reserve has become a de facto "shield" which deters illegal interlopers entering the east.

Nevertheless Jeff Morgan, executive director of the Global Heritage Foundation, said drug trafficking and cattle ranching could sabotage efforts to promote tourism and protect key archaeological sites. "Conservation of Mirador is critical for Guatemala and the world and provides the best alternative for legal jobs and income."

In the past three years Conap reclaimed 110,000 hectares on the eastern side from an alleged drug lord who "bought" the land from peasants who had been given a 25-year lease to cultivate crops in return for managing the forest.

Incursions into the western side appear to be growing.

Dozens, possibly hundreds of airstrips have been hewed from the jungle. Traffickers transfer cocaine from small planes to vehicles which cross into Mexico.

Cattle ranches are the bigger threat. On the four-hour drive from Flores to El Naranjo there is no forest, only pasture and the occasional cow and horse. Two environmental groups, which declined to be identified for security reasons, said narcos use ranches to build roads and basic infrastructure and to launder money.

Last month armed men massacred 27 labourers on a ranch because the owner, who was not there at the time, allegedly stole 2,000kg of cocaine from Mexico's Zeta cartel.

The state encouraged settlers to "tame" the forest in the 1960s before deciding it would be better to conserve it and promote tourism. A spokesman for Cofavic, a peasant rights advocacy group, said its members were being smeared to justify violent evictions. "They call us narco helpers but we are victims."

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Op maandag 13 juni 2011 18:17 schreef Papierversnipperaar het volgende:

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Het verbod maakt het alleen groter en erger, dus legalisatie is een grote verbetering.

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Op maandag 13 juni 2011 17:55 schreef sp3c het volgende:

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ik zeg niet dat ze het andere niet moeten proberen ... mijn zegen hebben ze

maar de oorlog die nu woed stop je er niet mee en dat moet je niet als argument voor legalisering gebruiken, die stop je door harder te vechten als de cartels en harder op te treden tegen corruptie binnen de eigen gelederen

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Op maandag 13 juni 2011 18:22 schreef sp3c het volgende:

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op dit moment is het een gepasseerd station vrees ik

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Op maandag 13 juni 2011 18:22 schreef StormWarning het volgende:

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Dus eigenlijk vecht het Mexicaanse leger niet hard genoeg? En als ze nog harder optreden gaat dit niet allemaal nog meer uit de hand lopen, maar gaan de kartels toch maar eieren voor hun geld kiezen?

Lijkt me niet..

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Op maandag 13 juni 2011 18:28 schreef sp3c het volgende:

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het Mexicaanse leger vecht met de handen op de rug gebonden en dat is lastig, zeker als die kerel waar die toestemming voor van alles en nog wat moet geven niet zelden door bij de overkant in loondienst is

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Op maandag 13 juni 2011 18:25 schreef sp3c het volgende:
ik ben helemaal niet voor het verbod

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Op maandag 13 juni 2011 18:30 schreef StormWarning het volgende:

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Ja, en hoe ga jij daar nu precies wat aan doen dan, in een arm land waar je vecht tegen steenrijke drugsbaronnen waarbij je niet van plan bent hun bron van inkomsten te elimineren?

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Op maandag 13 juni 2011 18:31 schreef Papierversnipperaar het volgende:

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Hoe kan legalisatie dan een gepasseerd station zijn?

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Op maandag 13 juni 2011 20:01 schreef sp3c het volgende:

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tanks, bommen, dat soort dingen ... daadwerkelijk die oorlog voeren

en ja dan moet je de bron van hun inkomsten ook aanpakken ja, ik ben daar helemaal niet tegen maar het is gemakkelijker om mensen woorden in de mond te leggen schijnbaar

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de verbetering die het op zou leveren is een gepasseerd station, die organisaties zijn er nu eenmaal, ze zijn zwaar bewapend en hebben schijt aan de overheid ... dan kun je steeds 'drugs legaliseren' roepen alsof dat de problemen oplost maar de wapens gaan dan niet ineens weg,

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en hoe kom je uit die quote in godsnaam op "En weer gebruikt iemand de gevolgen van het drugsverbod als argument VOOR het verbod"???

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het is een beetje irritant discussieren met iemand zijn dikke duim

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Op maandag 13 juni 2011 20:05 schreef Papierversnipperaar het volgende:

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"Het maakt toch niet meer uit dus we hoeven niet te legaliseren" is wat ik lees.

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Op maandag 13 juni 2011 18:22 schreef StormWarning het volgende:

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Dus eigenlijk vecht het Mexicaanse leger niet hard genoeg? En als ze nog harder optreden gaat dit niet allemaal nog meer uit de hand lopen, maar gaan de kartels toch maar eieren voor hun geld kiezen?

Lijkt me niet..

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Fear and loathing surrounds decriminalisation

Exploring the "failing" drug war, from the Netherlands to Mexico and California to Connecticut.

"The war on drugs has failed," said a recent report compiled by the Global Commission on Drug Policy, which comprised a former UN secretary-general, former presidents of Mexico, Colombia and Brazil, a former US Secretary of State and a host of public intellectuals, human rights activists and politicians.

The well-credentialed group wrote the 24-page report[English/Spanish] describing exactly why and how they came to the conclusion that the "War on Drugs" has failed, and what to do, in terms of policy, to redeem the damage they say it has caused.

The report states: "The implementation of the war on drugs has generated widespread negative consequences for societies in producer, transit and consumer countries," arguing that the drug war has caused massive illegal movement of capital, the loss of many lives and a negative perception of drug users "who are stigmatised, marginalised and excluded".

Alternately, the Commission supports "experimentation by governments with models of legal regulation of drugs to undermine the power of organised crime and [to] safeguard the health and security of their citizens," or, in short: decriminalisation.

But key players in the "war", namely the United States' largest drug enforcement and policy agencies, see things very differently, arguing that current policy is comprehensive and successful.

"The Obama strategy is a balanced strategy that relies on prevention, treatment and law enforcement to reduce drug use and its consequences," Rafael Lemaitre, a spokesperson for the Office of National Drug Control Policy (ONDCP), the US' domestic drug policy department, told Al Jazeera.

"Marijuana use is associated with fatal drug-driving accidents, emergency room admissions and mental illness" including psychosis and schizophrenia, he said - saying that research by the US National Institutes of Health supported this.

"The criminal justice system is one of the most important tools to refer non violent drug users into treatment instead of jail," Lemaitre affirmed.

Taking a more direct line, Dawn Dearden, a spokesperson for the US Drug Enforcement Agency told Al Jazeera: "Legalising narcotics will not make life better for our citizens, ease the level of crime and violence in our communities nor reduce the threat faced by law enforcement officers."

The DEA continues to argue the importance and successes of the drug war - despite increases in consumption of opiates (34.5 per cent), cocaine (27 per cent), and cannabis (8.5 per cent) during the ten years to 2008, according to research presented in the Global Commission's report.

Citing a decrease in drug use among high school-aged youth between 2001 and 2008, and stating that "the number of new marijuana users and cocaine users continues to steadily decrease," Dearden argues that the global drug war has made "significant progress ... in fighting drug use and drug trafficking".

Martin Jelsma, a researcher with the Transnational Institute (TNI) in the Netherlands, who wrote working papers for the Commission and contributed to their findings, disagrees - telling Al Jazeera that enforcement agencies such as the ONDCP and DEA "have the wrong impression that we're dealing with a choice between a war on drugs or a free market".

"A drug-free world is an illusion," said Jelsma. "We need to shift policy priorities towards 'managing' the drugs market in such a way that it brings the least possible damage to consumers and society as a whole."

'Weed Card'

While hard decriminalisation might be difficult to imagine, the door for "soft drugs", such as marijuana, has been cracked open for decades, most famously in the Netherlands.

New policy initiatives in several US states are jumping on the Dutch bandwagon, but in May, the Netherlands announced a marijuana policy shift.

According to the Amsterdam-based Netherlands Tourism and Convention Board, at least seven per cent of tourists who visit the city go exclusively for easy access to cannabis, which is served up in "coffee shops" offering long menus of high-inducing options.

But the country is set to introduce a "Weed Card" for cannabis users, which will make it illegal for coffee shops to sell the herb, either in its fresh or processed forms, to anyone without one. The card will be restricted to Dutch residents aged 18 and over.

Opponents say that the policy shift will contribute to a currently non-existent black market for the drug, and that the country's tourist market will shrink.

Janneke Hendrikx, a spokesperson for the Netherlands Tourism and Conventions Board told Al Jazeera that the organisation will "regret a possible reduction of foreign tourists by introducing the weed pass".

'Headless corpses'

But tourism is not at the front John Gibler's mind. Gibler is an investigative journalist and author of To Die in Mexico: Dispatches from Inside the Drug War.

Greatly contrasting the Dutch experience with marijuana, Gibler has explored the drug war's reality in the world's most violent border region, and he strongly supports decriminalisation.

"People in Amsterdam aren't stuffing headless bodies in the trunk of a car, or hanging dead bodies from bridges," he tells Al Jazeera, an image seen far too often in Mexico.

Al Jazeera's Faultlines explores the violent effects of the 'War on Drugs' on the Mexico-US border region

The city of Juarez, on the border of El Paso, Texas, sees about 3,000 murders every year - no thanks to tight drug policies, says Gibler.

"Illegality has done nothing to stop [the violence], but has done the opposite - fuelling it by creating the profit margins associated with that much wealth," he told Al Jazeera.

Charles Bowden, an investigative journalist and author of Murder City: Ciudad Juarez and the Global Economy's New Killing Fields, told Al Jazeera's Faultlines : "If you want to know one of the biggest causes of death in Mexico, it is the American drug prohibition."

"Al-Qaeda couldn't do to Juarez what the US government's done," he added.

Beyond sky-high murder rates, Gibler told Al Jazeera that border violence stemming from the drug war has an ugly and much deeper reach.

"The rate of almost every other kind of violent crime in Mexico has shot up, which is because of two things. On the one hand it's the drug trafficking organisations expanding into other areas. On the other hand, it's a result of this overwhelming climate of impunity, where people think that they can get away with it; and so many times, the cops are actually or tangentially involved [in the murders]."

In a country where, according to a confidential 2010 report turned over to the Mexican Senate by the Attorney General, only five per cent of murders are investigated, "it issues a kind of post-mortem death sentence, [where] anyone who ends up dead on the street corner is guilty of their own murder", said Gibler.

Given the level of violence, decriminalising small-scale possession or even sales would probably not affect a major difference in Mexico's border region.

Alternatively, Gibler suggests all-in parameters for curbing violence.

"Decriminalisation can't just be at the end point for the users, but it needs to somehow have a regulation package that recognises the entire industry."

Marijuana, a 'gateway drug'

A world away in Connecticut, a US state riddled with Ivy League universities and a murder rate incomparable to Mexico's, marijuana decriminalisation is high on the state's priorities.

In the coming days, the state's governor is set to sign Senate Bill 1014 (SB1014), which would decriminalise small-scale marijuana possession, making it unpunishable to have one ounce (28g) or less of the drug, and punishable by up to $1000 for possession of between one and four ounces.

SB1014 will add Connecticut to a list of 13 other US states where marijuana is decriminalised, and would treat the plant similarly to that state's treatment of alcohol, in that it would be illegal for anyone under the age of 21 to possess marijuana or drive while under its influence.

Cannabis sales, cultivation and trafficking would remain illegal, with punishment unchanged from previous laws.

The law has already passed through the state's legislature, drawing strong support from some state senators and Governor Dannel Malloy, whose desk it is waiting on for a final signature.

But SB1014 has drawn harsh criticism from pro-criminalisation politicians and activists.

Connecticut state senator Toni Boucher told Al Jazeera that decriminalisation of any drug would become a downward spiral.

She said that consequences of "loosening restrictions" on marijuana include "destruction of lives, and the lost opportunities for self fulfillment and lost dreams, and the spiritual losses of lost relationships, lost love and lost hope".

She said she fears "drug users, including marijuana users, may commit murder, or child or spouse or elder abuse, or rape, property damage, assault and other violent crimes under the influence of drugs".

That theory is based on the belief that "marijuana is a gateway drug that ruins lives", as Boucher described to Al Jazeera, citing an article that states that "around nine per cent of those who try cannabis are unable to stop using it, and demand for treatment for cannabis-related problems has increased in recent years in the US and Europe".

The article offers no scientific citations for any of its statistics or claims.

The "gateway theory" says that if someone uses cannabis, their experience will likely lead them into a drug-induced spiral toward "harder" and more addictive drugs, which, it is claimed, lead people to the violent crimes listed above.

The Global Commission on Drug Policy report argues otherwise, saying that, in the Netherlands, where marijuana has been decriminalised for decades, "the percentage of people who inject heroin is the lowest of all EU countries, and there is no new influx of problematic users".

Unconvinced by the gateway theory, Governor Malloy says his support of the law is not based on a vision of drugs flowing freely in the streets and businesses of his state, causing chaos including rape and murder - rather that the "punishment should fit the crime".

"Final approval of this legislation accepts the reality that the current law does more harm than good - both in the impact it has on people's lives and the burden it places on police, prosecutors and probation officers of the criminal justice system," he said.

But opponents of the Connecticut decriminalisation initiative emphasised that people "essentially never" find themselves incarcerated for simple possession of marijuana.

"With, or without the new law, the process has been not to prosecute for small amounts of marijuana," said Boucher.

David Evans, a lawyer and Executive Director of the Drug Free Schools Coalition who was invited by Boucher to testify at the Connecticut state legislature on the issue, told Al Jazeera: "It's just not true that people are being locked up for possession of marijuana. I have never known anybody to go to jail for small possession of marijuana."

Both Evans and Boucher support that idea - that small possession charges should not result in offenders being imprisoned.

Rather, they support Connecticut's status quo, where despite legal regulations requiring harsh punishment of anyone possessing any amount of the illegal substance, they say law enforcement agencies violate their own policies by not incarcerating offenders.

'Cruel and unusual punishment'

Contrast these fears with a reality across the country, in California.

The US Supreme Court decided, on May 23, 2011, that California prisons were overcrowded to the point that they were a physical and mental health risk to those incarcerated.

According to the close 5-4 decision in Brown v Plata [PDF], a sentence resulting in a term in California's prison system is a violation of the US constitution's "cruel and unusual punishment" clause. According to Rebekah Evenson of the Prison Law Project, one of the two co-counsels to Plata, the case was about providing California's prison population "constitutionally adequate healthcare … so you're not essentially charging them with death".

The decision requires that California change the status of about 32,000 non-violent offenders, which would bring the population down to 137.5 per cent of design capacity.

The Supreme Court's dissenting opinions argue the same fears of loosening consequences for non-violent offenders as Boucher did for people who use marijuana, saying that "terrible things [are] sure to happen" [Justice Scalia] and that the decision "will lead to a grim roster of victims" [Justice Alito].

While the above numbers aren't specific to drug-related incarceration, there is clearly a correlation, as 61,388 people were charged with misdemeanour marijuana possession and 208,175 were charged with other non-violent drug-related crimes in California in 2008, according to the Criminal Justice Statistics Center and the Demographic Research Unit.

California is also a state that proposed the decriminalisation of marijuana, a proposition shot down by voters last November.

That initiative would have given the state $1.4bn in tax revenue per year, said California's tax collector, the Board of Equalisation. The board said such a move would also have reversed costs for incarceration, adding up to major potential financial relief for a state in a decade-long budget crisis.

'Legalisation is a non-starter'

While local governments take independent initiatives around drug legality and enforcement strategies, and the Global Commission wants to see the growth of decriminalisation policies, the power behind the "War on Drugs" continues to lie in the hands of agencies aligned with the US government.

Researcher Martin Jelsma, who aided the Global Commission's studies, says he hopes the report will help "break the taboo over talking in a rational manner about alternatives".

"Knowing now [that policy makers] are supported by this distinguished group of international leaders" gives them a chance to "speak out publicly about it", he told Al Jazeera.

But the DEA's Dawn Dearden summed up the US position: "Legalisation is a non-starter for the DEA and the US Department of Justice."

Despite the growing pressure for change, power brokers in the "war" appear inflexible - and global policy looks unlikely to change.

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Mexico reporter, his son and wife shot to death

VERACRUZ, Mexico (AP) — A journalist, his wife, and their 21-year-old son were shot to death inside their home in this Gulf coast city Monday, authorities said.

Journalist Miguel Angel Lopez Velasco and his family were shot with a 9 mm handgun, said Veracruz state prosecutor Jorge Yunis.

Lopez Velasco wrote a column about politics and crime and was editorial director for the daily newspaper Notiver. His son had been working as a photographer for the same newspaper.

Yunis said investigators haven't determined a motive in the killings and no one has been arrested.

Earlier this month, state police in Veracruz found the body of reporter Noel Lopez in a clandestine grave. He had been missing since March. The two reporters are not related.

Police said Noel Lopez died of a blow to the head and that soldiers found his body after a man they arrested in the killings of several police officers confessed to killing him and led them to the body.

Noel Lopez worked for the weeklies Horizonte and Noticias de Acayucan and for the daily newspaper La Verdad.

Press freedom groups say Mexico is the most dangerous country in the Americas for journalists. More than 60 reporters have been killed in Mexico since 2000, according to the National Human Rights Commission.

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Op zondag 19 juni 2011 15:57 schreef Viajero het volgende:

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Papierversnipperaar is inderdaad veel te simplistisch, maar het gecontroleerd legaliseren van drugs is wel de enige oplossing. Je argument dat de drugskartels nu al zwaar bewapend zijn is juist het argument om hun belangrijkste inkomstenbron af te sluiten. Doe je dat niet dan worden ze alleen maar rijker en nog beter bewapend. Oorlog voeren is een dure zaak, zonder de inkomsten uit het monopolie op een extreem populair consumentengoed (drugs) zal de macht van de kartels afnemen.

Het zal de problemen niet direct oplossen, maar het zal wel een begin zijn.

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En het verschil tussen drugs legaliseren en kidnapping en moord legaliseren is dat drugs zoveel slachtoffers maken juist omdat het verboden is. Als je gebruikers helpt, prijzen verlaagt en ervoor zorgt dat dealers geen reden meer hebben om mensen verslaafd te maken dan verlaag je het aantal slachtoffers. Voor kidnapping en moord geldt dat niet.

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[b]Op

Zit nu trouwens in Mexico, maar hier in DF merk je niets van het drugsgeweld gelukkig.

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Op maandag 20 juni 2011 23:40 schreef sp3c het volgende:


is ook zo maar het argument dat gebruikt werd is mij wat te simpel gedacht
je kunt niet zeggen 'legaliseren' en denken dat alles dan goed is, je zal die oorlog nog steeds uit moeten vechten als je de controle over die gebieden terug wilt krijgen

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http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/feedarticle/9706322

Associated Press= MEXICO CITY (AP) — Mexican President Felipe Calderon says federal police have caught one of Mexico's most-wanted drug lords.

An official in central Aguascalientes state who was not authorized to be quoted by name says authorities have captured Jose de Jesus Mendez Vargas, the alleged leader of the La Familia cartel.

A posting by Calderon on his Twitter account says the arrest "is a big blow" to the drug cartels, but does not name the detainee.

Mexican newspapers also reported that Mendez had been detained. He is known by the nickname "El Chango," or "The Monkey." The government has offered a $2.5 million reward for his capture.

The cartel's top leader was killed in a shootout in December.

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Cocaine addiction linked to brain abnormalities

Cambridge scientists find differences in key areas of grey matter affecting functions such as memory and attention
Scientists have found "significant abnormalities" in the brains of people addicted to cocaine, which could help explain some of the compulsive behaviour associated with using the drug. It may also hint at why some people are more prone to addiction.

Brain scans revealed that cocaine users had a "dramatic decrease in grey matter" in their frontal lobes, according to researchers, which affected key functions including decision-making, memory and attention, while some of their brain's rewards systems were significantly bigger. Karen Ersche of the Behavioural and Clinical Neuroscience Institute at the University of Cambridge, who led the latest work, found the longer a person had been using cocaine, the poorer their attention was, and the more compulsively they used the drug.

"That is the hallmark of cocaine dependence - namely, that most of them are intelligent people who go to great extents to buy cocaine, to get more cocaine, to put their jobs at risk, their families at risk,They feel like they're driven to use more" said Ersche.

The results were published on Tuesday in the journal Brain. Ersche and her team scanned the brains of 60 people who were dependent on cocaine and compared them to scans of 60 people without any history of drug-taking. "We found significant abnormalities in the brains of the cocaine users," she said.

Specifically, the amount of grey matter in the orbitofrontal cortex was reduced in people with cocaine addiction, an area involved in decision-making and goal-directed behaviour.

Other affected areas included the insula, an area of the brain involved in feedback processing, learning and feelings of cravings. The grey matter in the anterior cingulate, involved in emotional processing and being attentive, was also reduced.

In contrast, a region deep in the brain associated with reward processing, attention and motor movements - the chordate nucleus - was enlarged in subjects who were addicted to the drug. This could explain why those subjects were more prone to addiction but the scientists cannot be sure whether the enlargement is a result of cocaine use.

Laurence John Reed, a clinical senior lecturer in addiction neurobiology at Imperial College London, said the "most impressive" results were the basic comparison of controls and stimulant users, which showed how parts of the brain remodel themselves in response to drugs. "This is a striking and visual example of how addictive stimulant use can result in adaptation of very important brain systems which have a direct correlates with behaviour – specifically inattention, impulsivity and compulsivity – and really does underline why we need a much better neurobiological understanding of the processes involved."

Ersche said that, though she found links between brain structure and cocaine use,her research was not conclusive on which came first. "At the moment, correlation shows me a direct relationship - but I don't know which direction the relationship is. Has this been caused by cocaine, or are people who have this abnormality more vulnerable?"

But the work could be used to help in diagnosis and treatment of addiction.

"We basically show that cocaine is a disorder of the brain, which is a big step," said Ersche. "For a lot of people, it is still a moral issue and willpower has nothing to do with the brain."

Knowing that certain brain areas are abnormal, she said, meant that scientists could try to work out ways of training or medicating the brain to get around the damage.

In a separate study published in the journal Heart, scientists at the Foundation CNR-Tuscan Region in Pisa, Italy, found that heavy cocaine use also causes serious damage to the heart, without any obvious symptoms at the early stages. Scans of the hearts of 25 men with long-term history of cocaine use picked up structural damage in 83% of participants and swelling in the lower left ventricle in around 47%. They also found tissue scarring in 73% of addicts, possibly a result of undetected heart attacks.

Around one in five cocaine addicts suffer from an inflammation of heart muscle, known as myocarditis, and the researchers said that a quarter of non-fatal heart attacks among the under-45s are associated with cocaine.

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Veel geld voor aanpak misdaad Midden-Amerika

De Wereldbank heeft woensdag een plan gepresenteerd voor de aanpak van criminaliteit in Midden-Amerika en het Caribische gebied. In de komende jaren krijgen landen in deze regio financiële steun ter waarde van 1 miljard dollar (700 miljoen euro) om de strijd aan te binden met drugskartels en andere misdaadorganisaties.

Pamela Cox, de vicepresident van de Wereldbank voor Midden-Amerika en het Caribische gebied, zei dat tijdens een topontmoeting in Guatemala-Stad, de hoofdstad van Guatemala. De Wereldbank wil de landen in de regio onder meer helpen bij het opbouwen van sterke instituties. Die moeten een tegenwicht bieden aan de toenemende macht van criminele netwerken.

Eerder op de dag had de Inter-Amerikaanse Ontwikkelings Bank al een half miljard dollar toegezegd voor de aanpak van criminaliteit. De Verenigde Staten maakten bekend dat ze hiervoor 40 miljoen dollar extra beschikbaar stellen, boven op de al toegezegde 260 miljoen dollar. Dit bedrag is dit jaar beschikbaar voor allerlei projecten tegen de misdaad in de regio.

Gewelddadigste regio
Volgens cijfers van de Verenigde Naties is Centraal-Amerika de gewelddadigste regio ter wereld als oorlogsgebieden buiten beschouwing worden gelaten. Alleen in Mexico werden sinds 2006 al circa 40.000 mensen om het leven gebracht. Deze moorden hadden vaak te maken met drugscriminaliteit. Criminele netwerken leveren een strijd op leven en dood tegen elkaar om de controle over lucratieve smokkelroutes richting de belangrijkste afzetmarkt de Verenigde Staten.

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Cannabis, cocaine and opium production in decline, UN report finds

Containing drug trafficking proving effective but global rise in illicit use of synthetic drugs for 'legal highs' cause concern

Global opium production fell by 38% in 2010 and cocaine cultivation continued to decline, according to the annual UN report on the world drug market.

The report said that while the global markets for cocaine, heroin and cannabis had declined or remained stable, the production and illicit use of prescription opioid drugs and new synthetics known as legal highs, which mimic the effects of traditional drugs, had increased sharply.

The UN estimates that 210 million people, about 5% of the world's population, used some kind of illicit drug last year at least once. The most popular drug remains cannabis, with 170 million users. An estimated 39 million "problem drug users" use heroin, cocaine and other class A substances.

Sandeep Chawla, director of policy of the UN office of drugs and crime, said the rise of new synthetic drugs reflected their lack of dependence on plant cultivation. Instead they could be produced from readily available industrial chemicals close to potential consumers without the need to set up global trafficking chains.

The sharp decline in opium production to 4,860 tonnes was due to a blight that wiped out most of the opium harvest in Afghanistan last year, the report said, although experts expect it to recover this year. A 20% increase in opium production in Burma did little to compensate.

The UN said it was more encouraged by the continuing decline in the area under coca cultivation, which has shrunk by 18% since 2007 to 149,000 hectares.

The last decade has seen coca cultivation in Colombia more than halve from 163, 300 hectares in 2000 to 62,000 last year. The UN experts say this decline has not been offset by small increases to 61,200 hectares in Peru, which on one measure has replaced Colombia as the largest producer of coca in the world, and in Bolivia.

The UN's policy director also pointed to successes in containing the emergence of West Africa as a major transhipment point into Europe for cocaine over the past decade. It is estimated that about 21 tonnes of cocaine were trafficked via West Africa to Europe in 2009 – down from 47 tonnes two years earlier.

Chawla also cited the fact that the majority of seizures now took place in South America rather than US or western Europe as further evidence of progress.

The UN report describes the fall in Colombian coca cultivation, which declined a further 15% last year, as remarkable but sounds a cautious note about the actual impact on production. Chawla said increased yields and changes in the way the leaves are processed meant the jury was still out on whether the decline was reflected in falling cocaine production levels.

However, Chawla did say that increased counter-narcotics operations, including fumigation and eradication programmes, and the withdrawal of Farc rebels from parts of the country, contributed to the sharp decline in cultivation.

It has taken a decade of US support and more than $5bn (£3bn) in aid through Plan Colombia. In 2009 and 2010, Colombian authorities seized at least 10 times more cocaine than their Peruvian counterparts – and half of it was caught before it even crossed the border.

Coca's traditional home in Peru is in the central jungle valleys on the eastern slopes of Andes cordillera. Around half of Peru's cocaine comes from one in particular, the Ene-Apurimac river valley.

Conditions are perfect for growing coffee and coca but most of the 350,000 population – nearly half of whom live in dire poverty – choose to grow coca. For many families it is their caja chica – a "small box" from which they can get ready cash for school uniforms, extra supplies or just keep something for a rainy day.

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Bolivia to withdraw from drugs convention over coca classification

President Evo Morales says chewing coca leaves is a cultural heritage and ancestral practice

Bolivia is set to withdraw from an international narcotics convention in protest at its classification of coca leaves as an illegal drug.

President Evo Morales, who is also the leader of one of the country's main coca producers' unions, has asked Congress to pass a law that would take Bolivia out of the 1961 United Nations Single Convention on Narcotic Drugs.

The government says that the convention contravenes the Bolivian constitution, which states that the country is obliged to preserve and protect the chewing of coca leaves as a cultural heritage and ancestral practice.

Bolivia has long argued that coca in its natural state is not an illicit drug. The plant is legally grown in the country for medicinal and traditional purposes. An international attempt to remove its chewing from the UN list failed in January, so the government now wants to withdraw from the convention altogether.

Under the draft law, which has already passed the lower chamber of Congress and is likely to pass in the Senate, where Morales's party has a two-thirds majority, Bolivia would keep its international obligations in the fight against drug trafficking. Foreign minister David Choquehuanca said the country could rejoin the convention next year, but with a reservation: that it be allowed to consume coca legally.

"[This] is an attempt to keep the cultural and inoffensive practice of coca chewing and to respect human rights, but not just of indigenous people, because this is an ancient practice of all Bolivian people," Choquehuanca said.

Opposition politicians argue that the government is surrendering to traffickers. "Internationally, we're giving a bad impression as a country," said opposition congressman Mauricio Muñoz. "There will be disastrous and irreversible consequences for Bolivia. And we think this is the wrong path the president is taking, not to fight drug trafficking head on."

Bolivia is the third largest coca producer in the world, much of which is diverted for making cocaine for Brazilian and European markets. But while recently admitting that coca cultivation has grown in the country, Bolivia maintains that it cannot defeat drug traffickers without a reduction in the consumption of cocaine in the west.

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Heroïneteelt in het nauw door plantenziekte

Doordat een plantenziekte vorig jaar de papavervelden in Afghanistan trof, is de wereldwijde productie van opium, de grondstof voor heroïne, met 38 procent gedaald. Dat meldde vandaag de VN-organisatie tegen drugs en criminaliteit (Unodc).

In 2010 werd in totaal 4860 ton opium geproduceerd. Circa 3600 ton daarvan kwam uit Afghanistan. Yury Fedotov van de Unodc verwacht dat de Afghaanse productie in 2011 weer flink zal toenemen.

Volgens de VN heeft Myanmar zich ontpopt als grootschalig leverancier van opium. De teelt steeg daar met 20 procent. Daardoor was het door de junta geregeerde Aziatische land in 2010 goed voor 12 procent van de wereldwijde productie van opium.

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Calderon apologises to drug war victims - Video

Mexican president says sorry to families who have lost relatives, but refuses to apologise for using army in crackdown.

Felipe Calderon, the Mexican president, has apologised to victims of the country's war with drug cartels during an emotional meeting with bereaved families, but said that far from regretting his decision to use the army, he felt he should have ordered them to act sooner.

Speaking during the event, which was broadcast live on television for several hours on Thursday, Calderon listened to accusations from people who had lost relatives in the violence that his government's strategy had failed the Mexican people.

About 40,000 people have died since Calderon ordered the army to engage in a crackdown on drug cartels in 2006.

"As a father, as a Mexican and as president, I am deeply aggrieved by Mexico's pain," he said in a hall inside
Chapultepec Castle in central Mexico City.

"All those who work for the state are responsible, and I agree we must ask forgiveness for the people who died at the hands of these criminals, for not having acted against these criminals."

Calderon's ruling National Action Party has faced harsh criticism over its handling of the drug war, and polls suggest that the centre-right grouping will likely be displaced from power in the July 2012 presidential poll.

'Ravages of war'

Thousands have marched in the streets against Calderon's strategy of employing the army in the crackdown, and more than 200 groups signed a June 10 document calling for an end to the military offensive.

At the meeting, however, Calderon refused to apologise for that aspect of his government's plan.

"If there's anything I regret, it's not having sent [the army] sooner," he said, as the interior minister, attorney general, public security minister and other top officials looked on.

He said that the issue had now gone beyond drug trafficking, and was now "about organised crime and violence".

Members of the grieving families, however, appeared to be unconvinced by Calderon's arguments.

"I'm here representing the pain of all the Mexican mothers and all the people without support who suffer the ravages of this war," said Maria Elena Herrera, a middle-aged woman whose four sons have gone missing, with tears streaming down her face.

"My sons are honest workers who were victims of this war. There are thousands of cases like this.

"Mr Calderon, this all demonstrates the government cannot safeguard justice. The only option the government leaves our sons is to condemn them to die because of this war." Herrera said.

Also present at the meeting was Javier Sicilia, a well-known poet whose son was killed in drug-related violence.

Sicilia told the president that he was "obligated to apologise to the nation and in particular to the victims".

Calderon, however, maintained that he would not apologise "for having acted against the criminals that are acting against the victims".

"In that sense, Javier, you are wrong," he said.

Though unusual, this was not the first time Calderon had met with victims of crime and drug-related violence, having organised a similar meeting last year in Ciudad Juarez, the city that has been the focal point of violence.

Assassination attempt

The violence in that city, meanwhile, continues, with Lieutenant Colonel Julian Leyzaola, the local chief of police, targetted in a failed assassination attempt on Thursday.

Leyzaola's convoy was attacked by a group of gunmen. His bodyguards opened retaliatory fire, injuring one of the assailants, who was subsequently detained.

Following the incident, security forces cordoned off the area in the La Chavena neighbourhood of the city.

About 230,000 people have fled Ciudad Juarez over the last two years, as a war between drug cartels had led to a spiral of killings.

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LulzSec leaks Arizona law enforcement papers (Updated with excerpts)

LulzSec announced Thursday evening the publication at Pirate Bay of a trove of leaked material from Arizona law enforcement agencies. Arizona's Department of Public Safety confirmed shortly thereafter that it was hacked.

In the press release included with the dump, a LulzSec affiliate outlines a more activist agenda than is usually associated with the group.

We are releasing hundreds of private intelligence bulletins, training manuals, personal email correspondence, names, phone numbers, addresses and passwords belonging to Arizona law enforcement. We are targeting AZDPS specifically because we are against SB1070 and the racial profiling anti-immigrant police state that is Arizona.

The documents classified as "law enforcement sensitive", "not for public
distribution", and "for official use only" are primarily related to border
patrol and counter-terrorism operations and describe the use of informants to
infiltrate various gangs, cartels, motorcycle clubs, Nazi groups, and protest
movements.

Every week we plan on releasing more classified documents and embarassing
personal details of military and law enforcement in an effort not just to reveal
their racist and corrupt nature but to purposefully sabotage their efforts to
terrorize communities fighting an unjust "war on drugs".

Hackers of the world are uniting and taking direct action against our common
oppressors - the government, corporations, police, and militaries of the world.
See you again real soon! ;D


With more than 700 bulletins, email archives, images and other files, the 440MB package will keep readers busy for days. A few excerpts from the most obviously newsworthy documents follow.

Amid countless AZDPS emails covering subjects ranging from internal training, policies, events and goings-on in the criminal underground, this remarkable circular:

"BELOW ARE PICTURES TAKEN AFTER A RAID ON A DRUG DEALER'S HOUSE IN MEXICO. ARE YOU READY FOR THIS???AREN'T WE GLAD THAT WE HAVE AN OPEN BORDER POLICY BETWEEN US? JUST LOOK AT HOW WELL ITS PAYING OFF........ I THINK ALLOWING MEXICAN TRUCKERS IN THE U.S. IS A GREAT IDEA!!! JUST TAKE A LOOK AT THE MILLIONS OF REASONS WHY......... SEE HOW WELL THESE TRUCKERS ARE DOING? WHAT THE @#@%*@ ARE WE THINKING??? Notice that nearly 100% of this money is U.S. Currency!!! Do you now wonder why the cost of living has catapulted in our country??? I don't...... Some of the illegal aliens we're letting in can afford anything at any cost!!! And for the ones who cannot........ We'll give it to them anyway!!!AND WE HAVE TWO BORDER PATROL AGENTS IN PRISON FOR SHOOTING AND WOUNDING A WELL DOCUMENTED MEXICAN DRUG DEALER! WHO, BY THE WAY, WAS ARMED AND ALSO HAPPENS TO BE A CONVICTED (BY MEXICO) MURDERER . MAKES A LOT OF SENSE, DOESN'T IT??? AUTOMATICS, SILENCERS...... THEY'RE ALL HAVING A NICE LAUGH ABOUT THIS STUFF AT OUR EXPENSE!!! And we want to give ILLEGAL ALIENS amnesty and not build the border fence because of funding!?!?!? SEND THIS TO EVERYONE, INCLUDING YOUR LOCAL CONGRESS REPRESENTATIVE. Our country is bleeding from the outside in!!! Don't you think it's time we take back what WE have sacrificed for over 140 years for??? I do. Build the fence higher and deeper, tighten border control, and send EVERY illegal alien home!!!"

In another email, there's discussion of the Mexican government using recently-bought radio gear to intercept U.S. communications:

"The FBI asked the Mexican Government to sign an "Intercept Agreement" stating that they would not use these devices to listen to U.S. Government radio traffic, and the Mexican Government declined to sign the agreement. The implication is that obviously the Mexican Government intends to do a lot of listening."

quote:

54 mensen met drugs opgepakt tijdens Defcon.1

Tijdens dancefestival Defcon.1 in Biddinghuizen zijn 54 processen verbaal opgemaakt tegen personen voor het gebruik of het bezit van verdovende middelen. Dat heeft politie vandaag laten weten.

Op het tweedaagse evenement kwamen 45.000 mensen af. Volgens de politie was de sfeer goed en gezellig en kijkt ze tevreden terug op het verloop. Agenten in burger richtten zich vooral op drugsdealers. Wie betrapt werd kreeg meteen een dagvaarding en werd van het terrein gezet.

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Toevoeging aan cocaïne doet huid afsterven

Cocaïne wordt sinds enige tijd op grote schaal vermengd met levamisol, een stof die bij drugsgebruikers een afstervende huid kan veroorzaken. In Amerika zijn de eerste slachtoffers opgenomen met afstervende oren en neuzen. Ook in Nederland is al een gebruiker ziek geworden van deze vervuilde cocaïne.

Dat meldt het AD vandaag. Levamisol wordt doorgaans door dierenartsen gebruikt om varkens en runderen van wormen af te helpen.

Explosief gestegen
Drugshandelaren blijken dit poeder nu ook massaal te gebruiken om cocaïne te versnijden. In Amerika is 80 procent van de cocaïne inmiddels vermengd met levamisol, maar ook in Nederland is het gebruik ervan sinds 2005 explosief gestegen, blijkt uit cijfers van het Trimbos-instituut. 60 tot 70 procent van de cocaïne die gebruikers vrijwillig laten testen, bevat sporen van levamisol.

'Dat cocaïne wordt vermengd is van alle tijden. Vroeger gebeurde dat met mannitol. Nu zien we dat het gebeurt met levamisol', zegt Sander Rigter, wetenschappelijk medewerker bij het Trimbos-instituut. Onduidelijk is waarom juist deze stof wordt gebruikt.

Immuunsysteem
Volgens waarnemend hoofd Irma de Vries van het Nationaal Vergiftigingen Informatie Centrum (NVIC) kan de huid afsterven doordat levamisol bij langdurige inname het immuunsysteem aantast. De Vries bracht de omvang van het probleem in kaart. 'Het aantal witte bloedlichaampjes gaat omlaag en dat vermindert de weerstand. Hierdoor kunnen bloedvaatjes gaan ontsteken en uiteindelijk afsterven.'

quote:

Migrants kidnapped in Mexico


About 80 Central Americans believed to be US-bound seized after masked gunmen target train in south-eastern Mexico

Masked gunmen stormed a train in south-eastern Mexico and kidnapped at least 80 Central American migrants presumably bound for the US, a priest who runs a migrant shelter said.

The Rev Alejandro Solalinde said migrants who had escaped the attack had told him that armed men in ski masks and civilian clothes intercepted the train as it headed northwards through Veracruz state on Friday. The gunmen allegedly forced migrants to climb down from the top of the cars and bundled some into at least three waiting cars.

Solalinde, who runs a migrant shelter in nearby Oaxaca state, said he suspected the Zetas drug cartel of being involved because it operates in the area.

The train was scheduled to stop at the community of Medias Aguas in Veracruz but continued on to an isolated area, the witnesses told Solalinde..

The federal government's National Immigration Institute said it was assisting with an investigation by federal prosecutors and state officials in Veracruz and Oaxaca. Agents with Grupo Beta, a government-sponsored organisation that aids migrants, have gone to the area of the alleged kidnapping to look for witnesses, it said.

The priest said some of those who had escaped had told authorities about 250 migrants were on the train. Most of them were from Honduras and Guatemala.

Thousands of Central American migrants enter Mexican territory without permission each year, many bound for the US.

A report released in February by Mexico's National Human Rights Commission said at least 11,333 migrants were abducted between April and September 2010.

One of the worst attacks in recent history occurred in August 2010, when 72 migrants were killed in the northern state of Tamaulipas near the border with Texas. The Zetas are suspected in that killing.

Police also recently made arrests in the suspected December kidnapping of 50 migrants in Oaxaca.

quote:

Mexico president feels 'misunderstood' in drug war

MEXICO CITY (AP) — Mexican President Felipe Calderon says he feels "misunderstood" in his government's fight against drug trafficking and crime.

Calderon told Milenio Television in an interview broadcast Tuesday that his conscience is clear despite mounting violence. Government figures the struggle against and between drug gangs has claimed more than 35,000 lives since 2006. Others put the toll near 40,000.

The president said he did what he had to do and cited some successes, such as the capture of 21 of the country's 37 top drug lords. But he said people need to see other types of accomplishments, such as "peace and quiet in their homes."

"I know that there is a misunderstanding. If we explained ourselves better, I think people would not just be more disposed to support (our policy), but we could move forward more rapidly," Calderon said.

He asserted that many people do support his strategy, though "perhaps silently."

Calderon said he plans to remain in Mexico after his term ends if security permits.

quote:

Guatemala becomes killing field as drug wars spread through Central America

Welcome to El Naranjo, a town gripped by fear and suspicion of the Mexican narco gangs

It is called a war, but there is no frontline or thunder of battle in this scorched wilderness. There is only a no man's land where the dead pile up in silence and the living have nothing to say.

Twenty-seven farm labourers were decapitated and had their heads strewn across a field one recent night, but ask neighbours and they reply with blank looks and apologetic shrugs, as if it happened in a distant land.

Two well-known peasant leaders were killed in separate incidents as if by phantoms. Broad daylight, but no witnesses. Months later, some in the community profess ignorance it even happened. "Ricardo Estrada and Jorge Gutiérrez are dead?"

Yes, they are dead. As are three Mexicans shot in a house last week, according to neighbourhood whispers. A pick-up spirited away the bodies and the home owner scrubbed the blood before police arrived. They decided nothing happened.

Welcome to El Naranjo, a sun-blistered one-street town on Guatemala's northern frontier, once in the middle of nowhere, now in the middle of Latin America's drug war. Mexico's narco-fuelled bloodshed, with 36,000 dead in four years, is dripping here and across much of central America.

The isthmus has been a transit point for Andean cocaine for decades, but its importance to cartels has multiplied since the US coastguard shut down alternative Caribbean routes. Competition has sharpened since Mexico's crackdown flushed some narcos south, notably the Zetas, a particularly brutal bunch who seek to annihilate rivals.

The region can ill afford such visitors. Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador are already world murder capitals because of poverty, youth gangs and dysfunctional, feeble states. Hurricanes and climate change, which disrupt agriculture, do not help. The massacre of the peasants – targeted allegedly because the ranch owner stole Zeta cocaine – has filled the region with foreboding. "This is a war without quarter," Guatemala's president, Álvaro Colom, told the Guardian. "There is a lot of infiltration, a lot of corruption. We need a Nato-type force to fight back."

Alarm bells are ringing across the region. General Douglas Fraser, head of US Southern Command, called organised crime Central America's gravest threat. Last week, Hillary Clinton pledged $300m in US anti-narcotics aid to the region, an increase of more than 10% from 2010. The International Commission Against Impunity in Guatemala, a UN-mandated body, said the country risked becoming a narco-state.

That has already happened on a local level in Petén, a vast, 2m hectare (5m acre) nature reserve on the border with Mexico that contains rainforest, Mayan ruins – and the marks of interlopers. From the air you see dozens of long, thin gashes in the jungle canopy: airstrips for cocaine-laden planes. The aircraft, worth a small fraction of the cargo's US street value, are so often abandoned there is a cemetery for them.

On the ground you can travel for days without seeing another soul, but when the forest gives way to pasture and bony cattle it means a town is close. El Naranjo is a few hours' bumpy drive from where the peasants were slaughtered. It reeks of fear.

Don't mention this to anyone here, please," begged one shopkeeper, after casually mentioning that los pesados (literally "the heavy ones"), favoured his $130 snakeskin boots. He had inadvertently broken a rule: don't talk about narcos, not even in euphemism.A community leader who requested anonymity said Zetas were forcing people to choose sides, breeding a paralysing suspicion. "There are eyes and ears everywhere." He shook his head. "One of the least populated places on the planet and it's claustrophobic."

Community leaders were too nervous to meet UN officials in a nearby municipality. El Naranjo's only journalist, Carlos Jiménez, a one-man radio station, has made a video to be aired if he is murdered. "It names names, says things I can't say in this life."

Nobody trusts phones. "They are tapped so we speak to our people up there in codes," said Ramón Cadena, who is based in Guatemala City as Central America director of the International Commission of Jurists. "Terror is multiplied when people know they can be killed and nothing happens afterwards."

A music store reflects El Naranjo's mood: instead of ballads it was playing the sellout CD of an evangelical preacher's hell and damnation sermon: "Pray now, because judgment is upon us!"

The town's mayor, José Alfredo Morales, 52, was one of the few to go on the record. Over roast chicken in a deserted diner he detailed how settlers had carved farms out of the jungle 40 years earlier, how guerrillas and government troops spread mayhem in the 1980s, and how criminality exploded after the 1997 peace accords.

As conversation turned to recent events, the restaurant owner stationed himself within earshot but gazed at the street, seemingly oblivious. The mayor started tailoring his answers to the volume of passing traffic. During lulls he talked about the weather and cattle. While pick-ups rumbled past, sabotaging the eavesdropping, he rattled through more sensitive topics.

The state neglected the region, he said, so los pesados traditionally supported the community with infrastructure – roads, churches, clinics – and handouts. Rival groups coexisted more or less in peace until a new group arrived "looking for space" – the mayor extended his elbows in demonstration. "Now they all hate each other. It's got very complicated."

At the end of the interview he raised his voice: "So basically what I'm saying is people are very happy here. It's all very quiet Todo tranquilo."

El Naranjo is quiet, for now. After the massacre the government declared a temporary "state of siege" in the region, enabling the army to impose a curfew, chase suspects and support the feeble police force. Dozens of vehicles and weapons, including assault rifles and grenades, have been impounded. About two dozen Zeta suspects have been arrested and paraded before cameras. Well-fed narcos who used to strut around town with pistols on their hips have melted away.

It added up, said President Colom, seated in his palace in Guatemala City, to a crackdown that showed the state could defeat narco-trafficking. "Our resources are limited but we are responding to this very serious threat."

On a laptop he showed air routes, depicted as red lines, shut down with US help, forcing traffickers to use land routes. Authorities were purging corrupt police, bolstering the judicial system and deploying military units to narco hotspots. He suggested the region form "a type of Nato" to fight organised crime.

Colom, at times so softly spoken as to be barely audible, asked Europe and the US for more counter-narcotic aid and to rein in cocaine consumption. He lamented rampant money laundering and said Guatemalan elites ducked taxes needed to strengthen governance. "But we are not a failed state. We have a strategy."

In an office overlooking a parade ground with clipped lawns, the defence minister, General Juan José Ruiz, was even more bullish. Two thousand soldiers and 1,000 police were reclaiming Petén from the drug lords, he said. "We are sorting it out. We've caught senior people, seized armed caches."

It would be a similar "success story" to the army's retaking of Alta Verapaz, a region overrun by narcos late last year. That was, to say the least, a bold claim. Days earlier, the remains of Allan Stowlinsky, a kidnapped assistant public prosecutor, were dumped in five black plastic bags around the justice ministry in Cobán, the capital of Alta Verapaz.

Guatemala was reaping the legacy of chronic lawlessness which left state institutions weak and powerless, said Sebastián Elgueta, a researcher on Central America at Amnesty International. "The current violence has not occurred in a vacuum. Massive human rights violations, war crimes and genocide have gone unpunished. In Guatemala impunity is the norm, justice the exception."

Few in Petén expect the relative calm to last. Mexico's Gulf and Sinaloa cartels still have their proxies in the area and the Zetas are busy recruiting, said an army colonel in the region. "They are offering very good wages, higher than the competition."

A resident of El Naranjo who served in the army in the 1980s said a former comrade had joined the Zetas and was tasked with recruiting five men. "He offered me 15,000 quetzals (£1,205) per month"– a fortune by local standards. The former conscript said he declined. "Once you're in, you can't get out."

The army has imposed a curfew but the teenage conscripts in khaki who patrol on foot and in pick-ups have no chance of uprooting a narco-trade rooted in the town's very existence, said one community leader. "It's theatre. Everyone knows los pesados are still here."

In contrast to "traditional" narcos, who garnered local support by offering basic services and amenities, the Zetas, many of them former members of the Mexican and Guatemalan special forces, prefer to gain control through terror.

They allowed one female labourer to survive the farm massacre so she could bear testimony as a warning to others. The workers were rounded up, she told reporters, and surgically stabbed so they remained alive but could not run. Then one by one, over eight hours, they were interrogated and beheaded.

An atrocity worthy of Apocalypse Now's Colonel Kurtz, but there is no madness in this tropical realm, just a ruthless, relentless, calculating quest for market share.

Fifty years of war and bloodshed

Guatemala was a sleepy backwater until the CIA orchestrated a coup in 1954 to oust the leftwing government and protect US economic interests. A series of military governments, backed by US aid, battled leftwing guerrillas for decades in what became Latin America's bloodiest civil war.

More than 200,000 people died, mostly impoverished Mayan villagers targeted in a genocidal campaign by government troops and militias. Special forces known as Kaibiles, whose training included biting the heads off chickens, committed numerous atrocities, notably the slaughter of civilians in Dos Erres in 1982.

Peace accords were signed in 1996, Bill Clinton apologised for US complicity in the war, and democracy took hold. But Guatemala failed to escape the gun. A feeble state, a corrupt ruling elite, and impunity for criminal gangs, many linked to security forces, produced murder rates that exceed the war-era casualty toll.

Poverty and unemployment are rife. Almost half of children suffer chronic malnutrition, one of the world's highest rates, stunting their growth and mental development.

Areas once ravaged by war are suffering a new wave of violence: Mexico's Zetas, a drugs cartel formed by former Mexican special forces, have recruited former Kaibiles and other Guatemalans to wrest control of narco-trafficking routes from established rival cartels.

quote:

Op zaterdag 25 juni 2011 17:48 schreef Papierversnipperaar het volgende:

[..]

Het artikel gaat verder, veel verder....

quote:

Op woensdag 29 juni 2011 00:44 schreef Papierversnipperaar het volgende:

[..]

We begrijpen het niet. Opgelost.

quote:

Op woensdag 29 juni 2011 12:48 schreef waht het volgende:
Si, trabajo es muy importante.

quote:

Onthoofde lichamen afgeleverd bij Mexicaanse dagbladen

Twee lichamen zonder hoofd zijn bij een tweetal Mexicaanse kranten op de stoep gegooid. De lijken werden vergezeld van dreigementen aan het adres van Mario Lopez Valdez, gouverneur van de noordwestelijke deelstaat Sinaloa, en de burgemeester van Mazatlan, Alejandro Higuera.

“We denken dat de twee incidenten in Mazatlan tegelijk hebben plaatsgevonden. Bij dagblad Noroeste werd een onthoofde man gedumpt. Eenzelfde voorval deed zich voor bij de krant El Debate”, zei een openbaar aanklager volgens de Australische krant Courier Mail. De gebeurtenissen worden gezien in relatie tot de drugsoorlog die hevig woedt in Mexico.

Journalisten zijn hun leven in Mexico allerminst zeker. Ze genieten een wettelijke bescherming tegen het vrijgeven van hun bronnen. Wereldwijd sterven er nergens anders zoveel journalisten als in het Midden-Amerikaanse land. Gemiddeld komt er jaarlijks elke vijf dagen een verslaggever om.