Friday, January 13, 2012

Friday Morning in Central America


Here are a few links to get you through the morning.
In Guatemala, a judge told former first lady SandraTorres not to leave the country while she is under investigation forpossible misuse of government funds when she managed President Colom's socialprograms. While she hasn't been charged, a complaint was filed against her last year. I don't think that anyone would be surprised if the former first lady and her husband used the social programs to benefit support for his administration and her electoral campaign. It's deplorable, but not surprising. Is there anything else to the charges?
In El Salvador, the government has confirmed that it hasreceived a formal extradition requestfrom Spain for 13 former military officers linked to the killing of sixJesuits, their housekeeper and her daughter in 1989. Two of the 15 wanted bythe Spanish court are currently in the United States. Foreign Minister HugoMartinez said that the request has been forwarded to the high court forconsideration.
The Institute of Legal Medicine says that it never reportedthat only 10% of murders were gang-related. 
"We have never said that is 10 percent (the percentageof homicides committed by gangs), what happens is that police investigations donot (...) 70 of 100 around where the murder was committed, did not report whowas the perpetrator, only 30 reported who was the perpetrator. Of these30, hence the confusion likely, 10 said they had been gang, "said Magana,who said to be responsible for half of national newspapers.
So, in general, police are only able to identify murderer in 30% of the cases in which they investigate. And one-third of those that they do "solve" is gang-related. 
The Tripartite Commission comprised of the ILM, PNC,and FGR has not met yet. They will come up with an official murder tollsometime later this month or February. Then we'll know for sure whether themurder rate has gone up and by how much.
In the same article, Contrapunto also provides additionalstatistics from last year's murders.
Sonsonate was the department's most violent country in 2011with a homicide rate of 110.4 per 100,000 population, followed by San Salvadorand La Libertad with a murder rate of 83.8 and 70.6 murders per 100,000inhabitants, respectively.
With regard to gender, 14.8 percent of those killed in 2011were female and 85.2 percent men.
The Vatican Insider has a detailed report on Thepeace mosaic that caused a “war.” It's about the destruction of themural on the face of the cathedral in San Salvador.

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