Latin America: Week in Review
Eight Severed Heads Found Near Durango, Mexico; Four Journalists Missing in Mexico
July 28, 2010 By Staff
Plaza de Armas in Durango, Mexico
Today in Latin America
Top Story — Authorities in northern Mexico found eight severed heads outside the city of Durango, after receiving an anonymous tip. The victims are believed to be men between the age of 25 and 30, but authorities have yet to identify the victims or find the bodies, according to the Durango state prosecutor’s office.
The heads were found in four locations throughout the city and were all located within the span of two and a half hours.
The anonymous tip said that two human heads were dumped on each of three main roads leading out of the city of Durango. Workers at a traffic island recovered the remaining two heads on a road leading to the city of Gomez Palacio.
The discovery of the eight human heads comes less then a week after authorities in the Mexican city of Monterrey found a mass grave containing 51 bodies.
Authorities blame much of the violence in northern Mexico on fighting between cartel boss Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman’s Sinaloa cartel and the Zetas gang.
Also on Tuesday, Mexico’s National Human Rights Commission asked the government of President Felipe Calderón to find four missing Mexican journalists. The journalists, a reporter for Multimedios television, a reporter for the newspaper El Vespertino and two cameramen from the Televisa network, all went missing in or near the state of Durango.
“The lack of investigation into attacks on journalists has made them more vulnerable in doing their work,” the government’s rights commission said in a statement, according to the Associated Press.
Just Published at the Latin America News Dispatch
- The Organization of American States has asked the U.S. to reconsider its refusal of Colombian journalist Hollman Morris’ visa to accept a fellowship at Harvard’s Nieman Institute. (You may remember Hollman Morris from The Latin America News Dispatch’s special report on Colombia’s disgraced intelligence service.)
- The Board of Immigration Appeals is reviewing the case of Lesly Yajayra Perdomo. The board’s decision may make it easier for Guatemalan women to claim asylum in the United States, based on the argument that they face high levels of violence in their home country. Read more at the latest installment of Alison Bowen’s blog, Beyond Borders.
Headlines from the Western Hemisphere
North America
- A guard at the Mexican prison, where authorities allege the warden let out inmates at night to commit drug-related murders, has been killed.
- A photo and letter allegedly written by missing Mexican politician Diego Fernandez de Cevallos showed up on Twitter.
Caribbean
- Fidel Castro plans to publish a book in August entitled “The Strategic Victory,” about the revolution he lead in the late 1950s.
- 12 Haitian children, airlifted six months from the earthquake ravaged nation, remain in a Roman Catholic institution near Pittsburgh while U.S. and Haitian authorities decide which country they’ll call home.
- Dominican officials are warning residents living near low-lying areas flooded by recent rainstorms of outbreaks of dengue fever and leptospirosis.
- Thousands of people in Puerto Rico greeted Carlos Alberto Torres, who returned to the island after being freed from prison after nearly 30 years due to his participation in a group that committed violent acts against U.S. control of the island.
- Trinidad and Tobago marked the 20th anniversary Tuesday of a coup where the Islamist radical group, Jamaat-al-Muslimeen, stormed the country’s parliament.
Central America
- Lack of sufficient evidence forced the Nicaraguan Attorney General to drop a case against President Daniel Ortega for involvement in the murder of 64 Miskito Indians in the early 1980s.
- Panama has begun extradition proceedings to bring an American couple to trial for the murder of several expatriate property owners.
- Citing legal costs, Costa Rican President Laura Chinchilla will allow a controversial open-pit mine to resume operations despite the protests of environmental activists.
- A study conducted by Guatemala’s San Carlos University found that 98 percent of Guatemalans living in poverty cannot afford to buy food and risk going hungry.
Andes
- The U.S. State Department reversed its decision to deny a visa to prominent Colombian journalist Hollman Morris, who will now be able to participate in the year-long Nieman Foundation fellowship program at Harvard.
- Venezuelan police arrested six suspected Colombian paramilitaries said to have been involved in the assassination of a Venezuelan mayor and other crimes.
- The punishment of a young indigenous man in La Cocha, Ecuador has raised questions about the extent to which Ecuador’s indigenous communities should be permitted to administer their own sentences for serious crimes like murder.
Southern Cone
- Soccer legend Diego Maradona’s contract as head coach of the Argentine national team will not be renewed after he stipulated that his entire staff remain intact through 2014.
- Chile signed a variety of diplomatic and economic agreements with the Prime Minister of Kuwait on Tuesday, paving the way for a possible free trade agreement.
- Paraguay’s Foreign Affairs minister dismissed as campaign rhetoric a speech made by Brazilian presidential candidate José Serra that criticized Brazil’s “philanthropy” toward neighbors Paraguay and Bolivia.
- Approximately eight men held up and robbed a plane taking off from an airport in the northeastern Brazilian city of Caruaru.
Image: OliverAlex @ Flickr.
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1 Comment
Thank you for covering this topic.
The reasons for the current crisis in Mexico, are many and complex. The state of journalism and the free press, is desperate.
The numbers of reporters kidnapped, assaulted, and killed in Mexico has risen steadily in the past years, since well before the murder of Bradley Will in Oaxaca in 2006.
The official statistics do not report every incident, and reflect a deteriorating situation in which both the free press and other institutions of civil society are increasingly threatened. Amid these incidents, the severing of heads has become a powerful and gruesome symbol of what cannot be said, and what reporters “should not write about.”
In the past years, there have been many other murders and assassinations, including those of mayors, policemen, judges, businessmen and others who failed to yield to corruption. A continued situation of intimidation, threatened or collapsing civil, social and economic institutions prevails, and expands along with the violence.
Just over two months ago, the council of mayors declared that close to half the territory of Mexico had fallen out of their and Federal Control.
I am not sure it is appropriate for your forum, and you may delete them if you wish, but I will link to my translations of Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador (AMLO)’s ten-point plan for Mexico. AMLO outlines both a different perspective on what is occurring and why, and a different plan of action:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h2GqK_vGEuY
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1MHHh0piutc
Mexico continues to appoach its most difficult hours. We pray your goodwill, and the support of all who have an interest in Mexico.
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