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Mexico: 1 body identified, 1 suspect in, on #Ayotzinapa investigation

News breaking this week on the 43 disappeared students:

Mexico Captures Alleged Gang Member Linked to Student Disappearances. Gildardo López Astudillo, nicknamed ‘El Gil,’ said by authorities to have incinerated bodies

Authorities say alleged members of the gang known as Guerreros Unidos testified that Mr. López was in charge of the operation to incinerate the bodies of the 43 students, who were mistaken as members of a rival gang, according to the official investigation.

Guerreros Unidos and rival Los Rojos operate in Guerrero, a center for heroin production. Numerous members of the Guerreros Unidos have been taken into custody and charged. Some of those arrested had originally confessed to the crimes but later recanted, while others have denied any wrongdoing.

#HastaEncontrarlos

Mexico Says More Remains Identified from Student Killings. Government says experts identify second teachers college student from among 43 reported killed in Guerrero

Prosecutors say the students, who had commandeered long-haul passenger buses to travel to Mexico City for a planned demonstration, were mistaken as members of a rival drug gang.

More than 100 people have been detained as part of the investigation and some of them were later charged with various crimes.

The Inter-American group of experts said forensic evidence suggests such a massive fire never took place in the landfill.

Although government officials said they would review the investigation and take into account the Inter-American experts’ report, several senior Mexican prosecutors have defended the initial conclusions.

Ms. Gómez, the Attorney General, said Wednesday that she has ordered the formation of a team of experts to study more than 63,000 fragments of remains recovered from the dump and the river for viable DNA samples, and that experts of the Inter-American group could join that team.

Odds are this will take years to resolve, and it’s very likely the guilty will not serve time: 

Only 4.5% of reported crimes in Mexico are ever investigated and just 1% ever go before a judge, according to a recent study by Mexico’s National Autonomous University. The criminal conviction rate in Mexico is 1.8%.

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The #Ayotzinapa students Carnival of Latin America and the Caribbean

The week’s top headline is that authorities may have found the remains of the 43 student teachers missing since September. The state of decay of the remains makes it necessary that they will be sent to the University of Innsbruck in Austria, which officials said had the most advanced forensics laboratory, for further attempts at identification.

Violent protests and the social media hashtag #YaMeCansé are symptomatic of how Mexicans are fed up with their government’s inability to stop the drug cartels.

ARGENTINA
Factory Explosion Leaves 66 Injured in Argentine City of Cordoba

Argentine Journalist on Trial for Not Revealing Sources

Argentine president Cristina Kirchner admitted to hospital with fever
Cristina Kirchner admitted to hospital for tests after feeling unwell

BELIZE
S&P Switches to Positive on Belize Outlook

BOLIVIA
Concern in Bolivia Over Increase in Sexual Violence Vs. Girls

BRAZIL
Despite Rousseff, extreme poverty grows for the first time in a decade
The number of Brazilians living in extreme poverty grew for the first time in a decade, according to government figures. The Institute of Economic Research reported that the number of people in households with incomes below the poverty threshold of 30 dollars rose from 10.1 to 10.5 million people, which means a 3.7% increase.

Brazil’s economy
After the election, the reckoning

CHILE
Former President Calls for Drug Decriminalization in Chile

COLOMBIA
Colombian Rebels’ Attacks Set Back Nation
Rebel assaults on Colombia pipelines have crimped one of Latin America’s most dynamic economies and raised questions about the outlook for Colombia as a reliable provider of crude to the U.S.

Memorial plaque removed in Colombia
A controversial plaque unveiled last week by Prince Charles in the Colombian port city of Cartagena is removed after local opposition.

COSTA RICA
Costa Rica struggles to manage $1.7 billion in development loans

CUBA
Hiding the Real Cuba

For the 4th time, Castro regime postpones trial of political prisoner Sonia Garro; dozens of activists arrested

DOMINICAN REPUBLIC
The Dominican Republic pulls out of Inter-American Court of Human Rights

ECUADOR
How China’s Appetite Feeds An Ecuadorian Shrimp Boom
With shrimp consumption booming in China and production falling in traditional exporters like Vietnam, Ecuador is stepping in. It’s the latest food chapter in a globalized world.

IMMIGRATION
Amnesty and Impeachment
Absent the credible threat of impeachment, Obama will pardon millions of illegal aliens.

JAMAICA
Reggae, coffee and sunny beaches: Discover Jamaica
OUR WRITER falls in love with the music, culture and people of Jamaica

MEXICO
Mexico gang ‘admits student deaths’
Mexican gang members have confessed to killing more than 40 students who went missing six weeks ago, officials say – but families are sceptical.

PANAMA
After the Panama Canal Zone

PERU
Putin Welcomes Peruvian President

PUERTO RICO
Murder Rate Down; 2014 May Bring US Commonwealth Its Lowest Number of Homocides in 15 Years

VENEZUELA
Venezuela reaps benefits of Cuban “medical internationalism”

Dengue fever soars by 2,475% in Venezuela’s capital city

Reuters: Bid for Venezuela’s subsidiary Citgo continues
Any deal for Citgo, which could be worth USD 10 billion, could help to reshape the US refining landscape

Idiocy And Airlines In Venezuela

Venezuela shows the biggest global drop in the 2014 Prosperity Index

The week’s posts and podcasts:
Mexico: Remains of #Ayotzinapa students found

He can have my Volvo for US$500,000

Brazil: A petition to the White House

Mexico: 22,000 missing, 43 of them are the #Ayotzinapa students

About last night

Venezuela: $15 smugglers jailed, $3.08 billion a year smugglers go free

Mexico: Iguala mayor arrested

At Da Tech Guy Blog:
Why Obama should not be impeached when he grants executive amnesty

Comparing voting in NJ to voting in FL

Podcasts:
Election night extravaganza

US-Latin America issues with Fausta Rodriguez Wertz & Michael Prada

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Mexico: Remains of #Ayotzinapa students found


Demonstrators last month

Mexican Official: Remains Believed to Be Students Found
Investigators have found the incinerated remains they believe belong to the missing 43 students who were allegedly abducted by police and handed over to a local drug gang to be executed, Mexico’s attorney general said.

The remains will be sent to the University of Innsbruck in Austria, which officials said had the most advanced forensics laboratory, for further attempts at identification. Because of the extent of the incineration, Mr. Murillo Karam said he set no deadline.

Mexico missing student: Gang members ‘confess’ to killing 43 in Iguala and burning their bodies

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Mexico: 22,000 missing, 43 of them are the #Ayotzinapa students

#HastaEncontrarlos

I have been blogging about the 43 student teachers missing since September 26, but, as I pointed out in yesterday’s podcast, they are only a few of the thousands missing/killed by the drug cartels.

How many?
At least 22,000:

But searchers have found plenty of other horrors, including a string of mass graves with 50 unidentified victims that DNA tests show are not the students. Most of those victims were chopped into bits and set on fire.

As the discovery of the other grave sites shows, the mystery of the missing students isn’t an isolated case. The Mexican government estimates more than 22,000 people went “missing” during the last eight years of violence here between cartels fighting each other and security forces. Human-rights groups say the toll could be far higher.

If most of those missing are dead, as rights groups fear, that would significantly raise Mexico’s already staggering death toll of some 100,000 drug-related homicides during the past eight years by more than a fifth.

Before you blame the war on drugs, bear in mind that the cartels (sometimes with the help of the authorities) are killing each other and whoever dares to speak against them:

Mexico’s missing is a somewhat different phenomenon. Here, the crimes tend to be more about money than ideology. Drug and kidnapping gangs have perpetrated most of Mexico’s disappearances, officials say. But, if investigators’ version of events holds true, the case of students shows the line between organized crime and government security forces can be thin.

Disappearing victims has long been a strategy of the warring gangs, who earn the bulk of their income trafficking marijuana and methamphetamine, heroin and cocaine to U.S. consumers.

Someone knows where the 43 students are, but no one is talking.

In other headlines,
Mexico’s 43 Missing Students: Iguala Mayor Jose Luis Abarca ‘Murdered Political Rival’; additionally,

Abarca has been accused in the past of direct participation in torture and murders of activists, while his wife Maria de los Angeles Pineda Villa has links to gangs as members of her family (at least three brothers) are part of the Beltrán Leyva drugcartel.

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Mexico: #Ayotzinapa backlash in Mexico Bronco

The 43 students are still missing. Here are today’s headlines:

Mexican Tied to Missing Students Is Killed
Death of Benjamin Mondragón, Alleged Head of Guerreros Unidos, Comes After Protests

The alleged leader of a Mexican criminal band that prosecutors accuse of colluding with police in the disappearance of 43 college students was killed on Tuesday during a shootout with security forces, federal officials said.

The security forces had tracked Benjamin Mondragón to a house in a suburb of Cuernavaca, just south of Mexico City, where the battle took place, officials said.

The officials said Mr. Mondragón led the Guerreros Unidos gang, which they said collaborated with police in the September shooting deaths of six people and the subsequent disappearance of the college students—whom most officials presume to be dead—in Iguala, a city in Guerrero state.

The death of Mr. Mondragón, known as Benjamón, or Big Ben, came a day after teachers and students burned and vandalized parts of Guerrero Gov. Angel Aguirre’s office and the state’s local legislature, demanding the return of the missing students and the governor’s resignation.
. . . .
But the incident in Iguala is a reminder of what Mexicans call “Mexico Bronco,” or “Untamed Mexico”—a wild land rife with poverty, cronyism and violence. Entire states and hundreds of cities and towns are in the grip of drug gangs and corrupt police and city halls, security experts say. The rule of law is shaky: Fewer than 3% of homicides are solved, officials say.

Protesters Burn State Building in Southern Mexico
Students, Teachers Clash With Police as Anger Flares Over Disappearance of 43 Young People

Missing Mexico students: Iguala eyewitness account

The search continues in Mexico for 43 students who have been missing since 26 September following clashes with the police. Omar Garcia is one of the students who witnessed the deadly clashes in which six people died. Here he describes what he saw that evening and what he thinks may have happened to his 43 fellow students.
. . .
We think the municipal police took them – what we think happened is that they kept them somewhere and then, as we say, “disappeared” them – like so many thousands of others in this country who are missing.

The Twitter tag is #Ayotzinapa

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Mexico: Police confess to handing 3 Italian men to the CJNG cartel

Raffaele Russo, 60, his 25-year-old son Antonio, and his nephew, Vincenzo Cimmino, 29, disappeared on January 31 in Tecalitlán, in the western state of Jalisco.

The state’s governor said the officers had confessed to handing the Italians over to a local criminal gang.

The police had allegedly arrested them at a petrol station beforehand.

What is alleged to have happened?
Raffaele Russo, 60, his 25-year-old son Antonio, and his nephew, Vincenzo Cimmino, 29, had stopped at a petrol station in Tecalitlán, an agricultural town.

The last relatives back in Italy heard from them was a Whatsapp message from Mr Russo saying they had been approached by police officers who arrived on cycles and in a van.

The police told them to follow them, according to the message.

The son of one of the disappeared earlier told Italian radio that the men had been “sold to a gang for €43” ($53; £38), but regional officials said they could not confirm that information.

And the police? (emphasis added)

Four police, including a female officer, have been detained and charged. The Mexican authorities say three more police are being sought in connection with the disappearance.

Following the trio’s disappearance, the town’s entire police force was sent for retraining, although some local media speculated that they were sent away so that they could not be intimidated by local cartel members into changing their story.

As you may recall, the state prosecutor in the 43 missing Iguala student teachers alleges that they were handed by local police to a criminal gang, who killed them and burned their bodies.

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Mexico: AMLO in sheep’s clothing

Andrés Manuel López Obrador, best known as AMLO, is running for president of Mexico.

The thing is, communism doesn’t sell, so he’s wearing moderate clothing,

Mr. López Obrador does not seem to have given up on his dream to revive Mexican corporatism, in which government intervenes heavily in the economy. But he does recognize that his economic instincts are a liability in a national election. So he’s playing them down and marketing himself as a moderate who will defeat crony capitalism and champion social justice.

The promise to fight corruption strikes a chord with Mexicans, and Mr. López Obrador leads with a plurality in early polling in a race that is likely to feature more than three candidates.

But!

But he has two important vulnerabilities. First, there are major contradictions between his economic agenda and the aspirations of the young nation. Second, he is not always viewed by Mexicans as the squeaky-clean messiah he makes himself out to be.

Oh, that.

Remember the 43 missing Iguala students?

Residents of Iguala told La Opinión that the gang moved into the town only after José Luis Abarca became its mayor with Mr. López Obrador’s backing. One local told La Opinión that Mr. López Obrador ignored warnings from townspeople that Mr. Abarca had ties to the cartel.

As if that were not enough, AMLO has proposed amnesty for drug kingpins in exchange for peace with the cartels.

The election is in July. What could possibly go wrong if he wins?

Cross-posted at WoW! Magazine.

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Mexico: Mass grave with 253 skulls found in Veracruz UPDATED

Grieving Mothers Lead Authorities to Mass Grave in Mexico. Amid soaring violence in Veracruz, Mexico, a group founded by mothers of missing people discovered what may be the country’s largest mass grave. More than 250 skulls have been recovered so far. Horrible:

Last Mother’s Day, a few dozen women, all mothers, marched through the central square of this picturesque port city, demanding local authorities find family members who had disappeared, suspected victims of the country’s drug violence. Suddenly, two men dashed out of an SUV, ran up to the women, and jammed crudely drawn maps into their hands.

The maps pointed to a field just off a main highway near a gritty housing project a few miles outside of town. One corner of the map was covered by a forest of crosses. “Bodies,” the map said, with an arrow pointing to the crosses.

And, if that was not horrible enough, it was the women themselves who hired the diggers and had to persuade forensic authorities to look into it while body parts kept turning up. In an area where bodies had been dumped for at least the last four years.

Think about that for a moment.

Is that what would happen in a narcostate?

253 skulls found, only two victims identified:

Pedro Huesca, an agent from the public prosecutor’s office who was 29 when he was kidnapped by armed men four years ago, and his assistant, Gerardo Montiel, who was taken the same day.

And by the way, this is not the Ayotzinapa case, where 43 student teachers are missing and only one man’s remains have been identified.

Cross-posted at WoW! Magazine.

UPDATE
Veracruz: Report Unveils Mexico’s ‘State of Terror’

The report produced by the International Crisis Group (ICG), a non-governmental organization that conducts research and proposes policies for dealing with conflict zones, suggests that before Veracruz can be reformed, there is a need to obtain accurate data revealing the full scope of the violence and corruption, and the government needs to do an overhaul of state institutions.

Full report at the link.

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