Central America, Guatemala, Latin America: Week in Review
Remains Of 99 People Found In Guatemalan Mass Graves
April 23, 2012 By Staff
Today in Latin America
Top Story — Forensic anthropologists working at a former military outpost in Guatemala have unearthed the remains of at least 99 people who were massacred in Guatemala’s Alta Verapaz region during the country’s 1960-1996 civil war. The anthropologists discovered 15 separate mass graves at the site, now used as the United Nations’ Regional Command for Peacekeeping Training. According to statements from survivors and family of the victims, there should be 200-300 people buried in the area. The victims, including men, women, and children, were members of indigenous Mayan communities targeted by the Guatemalan military in Alta Verapaz, and their remains showed evidence of being bound. Since 1992, Guatemala’s Office of Human Rights and the Association of Relatives of Detained and Disappeared of Guatemala has located about 6,000 skeletons and identified 65 percent of the victims found, but the UN estimates that over 200,000 people died during Guatemala’s civil war.
Read more from ABC News.
Headlines from the Western Hemisphere
North America
- Gunmen killed retired Mexican Gen. Mario Acosta Chaparro on Friday in Mexico City, according to authorities. The general was accused but exonerated for ties to the Juarez drug cartel in 2000.
- At least fifteen people were killed when gunmen burst into a bar in the state of Chihuahua on Friday.
- A 2009 recording of Maricopa County, AZ sheriff Joe Arpaio revealed that he made light of a U.S. Justice Department probe into allegations that he was violating civil rights and abusing power with local immigration patrols.
Caribbean
- Cuban actors Anailin de la Rua de la Torre and Javier Nunez Florian both disappeared after their plane arrived in the U.S. for a premiere of their film “Una Noche” at the Tribeca Film Festival.
- Multimillionaire Michael Brown, convicted of fraud for duping four clients out of $62 million, was extradited from the Dominican Republic to Britain.
- U.S. actor Sean Penn now spends about half the year in Haiti as the CEO of the J/P Haitian Relief Organization.
Central America
- A wooden ship known as a rum-runner for Al Capone will provide tours of the Panama Canal locks and has been refurbished for its 100th anniversary.
- Salvadorans in Los Angeles renamed an intersection after slain Salvadoran archbishop Msgr. Oscar A. Romero, who was murdered in 1980.
Andes
- The Venezuelan government denied rumors that Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez was dead after a nine-day absence from Venezuelan television.
- Colombian soldiers said they seized 2 tons of cocaine in Narino province after raiding a drug laboratory they claim belonged to the FARC.
- Peruvian President Ollanta Humala said that the controversial Conga mining project will meet environmental requirements.
- Peruvian President Ollanta Humala’s approval rate in April improved to 56 percent, according to an Ipsos Apoyo poll conducted on Sunday.
Southern Cone
- Spain’s foreign minister asked other nations to sanction Argentina until Spanish firm Repsol YPF SA is compensated for the expropriation of its Argentine unit.
- Paraguayan soccer star Salvador Cabañas, who survived being shot in the head in Mexico City in 2010, played in the opening game of the Primera B third-tier Paraguay championship.
- Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff’s approval rating rose from 59 to 64 percent, the highest level since Rousseff took office in January 2011.
Image: International Rivers @ Flickr.
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