Files for lawsuit against CIA stolen in ‘suspicious’ break-in at UW

Seattle Times: University of Washington police are investigating a break-in at the offices of the director of the school’s Center for Human Rights after a computer and hard drive containing sensitive information about a recent lawsuit against the Central Intelligence Agency were stolen.

The center says that the office of Angelina Godoy was burglarized sometime between Thursday and Sunday. Godoy reported that the hard drive contained “about 90 percent of the information” relating to research in El Salvador that is the foundation of a freedom-of-information lawsuit the center filed Oct. 2 against the CIA. Read more. 

Mexico, the End of the ‘American Dream’ for Child Migrants

IPS: By Edgardo Ayala

Thousands of Central American minors, like this 16-year-old Guatemalan migrant, make the dangerous journey across Mexico every year in the attempt to reach the United States. Credit:Wilfredo Díaz/IPS

SAN SALVADOR , Oct 1 2012 (IPS) - For many undocumented child migrants from Central America, Mexico is the end of the road in their endeavour to reach the United States, driven by economic reasons, gang violence and domestic violence.

“Children have always migrated, and they have always been the most vulnerable,” Mexican academic Carolina Rivera, of the Centre for Research and Higher Studies in Social Anthropology (CIESAS) in Mexico, told IPS.

Since the flow of Central American migrants to the United States intensified in the 1980s due to the civil wars lashing the region, family breakdown has become a bigger and bigger problem. Parents leave in search of a better future and leave their children in the care of grandparents or other relatives.

According to estimates by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, around 15 percent of the 11.5 million undocumented Latin American migrants in the United States are from Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador.

Added to the need for family reunification and the traditional economic reasons are other motives, like domestic violence, driving children and adolescents to leave the region, said Rivera, who has experience in the field with Central Americans in Mazatán, in the impoverished southern Mexican state of Chiapas. Read more.

The New Face of Forced Displacement in Latin America

InSight Crime: Written by Sibylla Brodzinsky

Forced displacement has a long history in Latin America. For decades - and even centuries in some countries - entire villages, families and individuals have sought refuge in the nearest town or neighboring country, fleeing the crossfire between two groups and threats to their lives.

Today, millions of Latin Americans are facing a new challenge that is leading to a familiar scenario. Organized crime -- which takes the form of large narco-trafficking cartels, street gangs, local drug dealing groups, leftist guerrillas, and private armies -- is displacing thousands of people in the region.

“Violence perpetrated for criminal rather than ideological ends remained a primary cause of displacement,” notes the Internal Displacement Monitoring Centre, which recorded 5.6 million Latin Americans living in displacement in 2011, mainly in Colombia, Mexico, Guatemala and Peru.

The reasons are many. Organized crime removes people who interfere with their business. They take over key territories for smuggling drugs, people, weapons or other merchandise. People also flee when criminal groups forcibly recruit their children, their neighbors. Sometimes these criminals simply want to flex their muscles, forcing people to leave to prove their point.

Since organized crime in Latin America knows no borders, neither should journalistic coverage of its effects on citizens. To investigate how criminal organizations affect fundamental rights, an alliance of digital media in the region -- under the coordination of InSight Crime and with the support of the Internews non-governmental organization in Washington DC -- explored the new face of displacement in Latin America. Read more. 

Central American Drug War: Government Negotiates Reduction in Homicides with Gangs

More details on the alleged deal between El Salvador's government and the Mara Salvatrucha gang. 

ElFaro.net: "Last week, between Thursday and Saturday, around 30 gang members, leaders of the Mara Salvatrucha and Barrio 18, were moved from El Salvador's maximum-security prison to less secure jails. Among them were"Viejo Lin", "Chino Tres Colas", "El Diablito" and "El Trece." The transfers were part of a pact between the gangs and the Salvadoran government." read more

Drug War - Central America: El Salvador Denies Negotiating with Gangs

InSightCrime: "El Salvador's government has denied reports that it made a deal to give imprisoned gang bosses better living conditions in exchange for a reduction in violence.

Last week, El Faro reported that, according to its sources, the transfer of 30 gang members from a maximum security prison to lower security facilities was part of a government deal to bring down rates of violence. The transfers took place between March 9 and 11. El Faro spoke to a gang member on the outside who received an order on March 10 to keep violence to a minimum, as their side of the bargain. He immediately called his men to cancel two murders that had been planned for later that day.

Some of El Faro's sources suggested that payments had also been made to the gang bosses. In the seven days following the transfer there were a total of 44 murders, averaging just over six a day. This constitutes a drop of 53 percent from the first 12 weeks of the year, according to El Faro.

Defense Minister David Munguia called a news conference on Friday to deny El Faro's allegations. "I want the following statement to be loud and clear ... the government of the republic is not at any time negotiating with any gang," he declared." read more

Drug War: Did El Salvador Officials 'Negotiate' with Street Gangs to Bring Down Violence?

The Pan-American Post: "A new report by El Faro suggests that, confronted with a surge in homicide rates, the government of El Salvador may have struck a deal with the country’s two largest street gangs – Mara Salvatrucha (MS-13) and Barrio 18 – in order to reduce violence.

Last week, officials transferred around 30 imprisoned leaders of these two gangs from maximum security institutions to prisons with more relaxed rules on visitations. According to El Faro, sources within law enforcement, intelligence, and the gangs themselves claim that this was done as a favor to the gang leaders after they issued orders to their subordinates to cut down on killings in the country." read more

Drug Policy Debate: El Salvador’s Funes Retreats on Drug Legalization Debate

Ah, yes, the U.S. is such a "good neighbor" and "equal partner" (Obama) with Mexico and Central American countries that we will "protect" them from even entertaining any deviation from U.S. drug prohibition policy and "convince" them of its continuing necessity, even if that policy destroys their very fragile democracies, their societies and the lives of their people.

The Pan-American Post: "Hours after expressing support for the Guatemalan president’s call for a debate on drug legalization, Salvadoran leader Mauricio Funes has beat a hasty retreat, declaring himself opposed to any such initative. ... The two presidents met on Monday, and, after the encounter, Funes told press that he was open to “promoting the discussion” of Perez’s proposal, and that it would have to be a regional initiative.

However, later on Monday night, Funes changed his position, stating that, "I am not in agreement with the depenalization of drugs; neither the production, nor the transport, nor the consumption." This hasty clarification seems likely to have been made under pressure from Washington. The US Embassy in Guatemala was quick to slap down Perez’s proposal, a response which the Guatemalan leader classed as “premature.”" read more

Mexico Drug War Cartels: The Zetas in Guatemala

InSight Crime does an indepth analysis of the grow of the Zeta cartel and the threat it poses to Central America.

InSight Crime: "The Zetas, Mexico's most feared and violent criminal organization, has moved operations to Guatemala. In the process, they have shifted the balance of power in the region, undermining and overwhelming Guatemala's government and putting its neighbors in El Salvador and Honduras on high alert. They have also introduced a new way of operating. The Zetas are focused on controlling territory. In this they are the experts, creating a ruthless and intimidating force that is willing to take the fight to a new, often macabre level. Whoever becomes Guatemala's new president will face this challenge with little resources and government institutions that have a history of working for criminal organizations of all types. In sum, the Zetas are a test for Guatemala and the rest of the region: fail this test, and Central America sinks deeper into the abyss. "

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Drug War - Central America: How Central America's Crime Wave Has Spared Nicaragua, So Far

InSightCrime: "Nicaragua, along with its neighbors Panama and Costa Rica, is often described as a country that dodged the wave of organized crime violence swamping Central America, but that could be about to change.

The numbers are clear; Guatemala, El Salvador and Honduras, the three nations in the “Northern Triangle,” all had murder rates of more than 40 per 100,000 inhabitants in 2010, with Honduras on course for a staggeringly high rate of 86 per 100,000 this year. Meanwhile the three countries to the south all kept their rates below 25. Nicaragua, despite being the poorest nation in the isthmus, has one of the lowest murder rates, at 14."

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Weapons Traffic: El Salvador Military Weapons: More Trafficked than Stolen

From the website, Insight - Organized Crime in the Americas: More on how the "northern triangle" countires of El Salvador, Honduras and Guatemala are being inundated by the drug war in Mexico.

El Salvador Military Weapons: More Trafficked than Stolen: "El Salvador has called for regional action to stop weapons being stolen and sold to Mexican drug traffickers. But as a look at recent incidents in Central America shows, these 'robberies' of weapons often seem more like inside jobs carried out by corrupt elements in the military."

Whack-a-mole drug war: El Salvador Fears Ties Between Cartels, Street Gangs

Part 3 of NPR's series on the drug war in Central America

El Salvador Fears Ties Between Cartels, Street Gangs : NPR: "As the Mexican government has attacked the cartels, several of them have been moving into Central America, where security forces are ill-equipped to confront them. The migration of the cartels into Honduras, Guatemala and El Salvador has given the region the highest homicide rate in the hemisphere.

In El Salvador, there's fear that the Mexican cartels are aligning themselves with the country's ubiquitous street gangs."

Whack-a-mole drug war: El Salvador Grapples With Upswing In Drug Traffic

Part 2 of NPR's series on the drug war in Central America: El Salvador

El Salvador Grapples With Upswing In Drug Traffic : NPR: "As Mexico's drug cartels come under sustained attack by President Felipe Calderon's forces at home, several of them have started outsourcing. Los Zetas and the powerful Sinaloan cartel have been expanding their operations in Central America, where security forces often lack the resources to confront them.

The World Bank warns that the Mexican cartels pose a huge threat to development in some of the poorest countries in the region, like El Salvador."