Femicides in Ecuador; Assassination Attempt Thwarted in Mexico; 'Impunity' in El Salvador Amnesty Law

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Articles in SourceMex, NotiCen and NotiSur for April 10-12

Operación Cóndor Trial in Argentina Has Far-Reaching Implications

Four decades after the events in question, a trial for crimes against humanity began on March 5 in the Argentine capital Buenos Aires that is perhaps the most important in history, in the opinion of Miguel Ángel Osorio. Osorio is the federal prosecutor in the trial of those who carried out Operación Cóndor, the coordinated repression by the civilian-military regimes in the Southern Cone in the 1970s . The trial for the cross-border repression will implicate the dictators of Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Paraguay, and Uruguay. It gathers and unites portions of various processes opened between 2008 and 2012 and includes the cases of 106 victims of Operación Cóndor. -Andrés Gaudín   Read More


"Total Impunity" In El Salvador Under Amnesty Law; Truth Commission Turn 20

Tributes held in late March to slain Salvadoran Archbishop Óscar Romero (1917-1980) capped a month of poignant, civil-war-related anniversaries in El Salvador, which remains deeply divided regarding the dark legacy of its dozen-year internal conflict (1980-1992). -Benjamin Witte-Lebhar   Read More


The Danger of Being a Woman in Ecuador

Femicide--the murder of a woman for being a woman and where sexual, domestic, or workplace violence can be determined--remains a major problem in Ecuador. A report from Comisión de Transición Hacia el Consejo Nacional de las Mujeres y la Igualdad de Género found that 77% of the murders of women in four cities in the country involved femicide. Of the 170 deaths of women reported in 2012 in Guayaquil, Esmeraldas, Cuenca, and Portoviejo, 80 were murders, and 62 had signs consistent with femicide. And a separate investigation by the Observatorio Metropolitano de Seguridad Ciudadana in Quito found that 21 cases of femicide were reported in the capital city of Quito in 2012 and 28 cases were reported in 2011. -Luis Ángel Saavedra    Read More

U.N. Concern Runs High on Haiti's Urgent Need to Establish Rule of Law and Hold Much-Delayed Senate Election

Michel Forst, until last month--and for the previous five years--the UN-appointed independent expert on Haiti's human rights situation, and Nigel Fisher, as of February the head of the UN Stabilization Mission in Haiti (MINUSTAH), coincide on their concerns regarding the situation in this poverty-stricken, French-speaking Caribbean island nation. They share a very pessimistic view of Haiti as a country not ready to face its many and sizable challenges. On Feb. 7, Forst submitted his final, six-chapter, 21-page report, emphasizing the critical importance of establishing the rule of law in Haiti. George Rodríguez   Read More

Authorities Thwart Assassination Attempt against Federal Senator, Deputy from Zacatecas

In early April, Mexico's Centro de Investigación en Seguridad Nacional (CISEN), thwarted an assassination plot against two prominent center-left politicians from Zacatecas, Deputy Ricardo Monreal Ávila of the Movimiento Ciudadano (MC) and his brother Sen. David Monreal Ávila of the Partido del Trabajo (PT). Investigators s aid the would-be killers might have been hired by Zacatecas businessman Arturo Guardado Méndez, who appeared to have a personal vendetta against the Monreal brothers..  -Carlos Navarro   Read More

Mexico Facing Severe Drought Again in 2013

With Mexico facing severe drought conditions again this year, the federal government has announced stringent conservation measures to preserve already tight water supplies, particularly in a large area just south of the border with the US. Estimates released by the Secretaría de Medio Ambiente y Recursos Naturales (SEMARNAT) and the Confederación Nacional Campesina (CNC) indicate reservoirs in northern Mexico have fallen to between 25% and 30% of capacity because of extremely low precipitation for an extended period. The situation is most dire in the northern and central states of Sonora, Chihuahua, Durango, Zacatecas, Coahuila, Tamaulipas, San Luis Potosí, and Nuevo León, but even some southern states like Oaxaca and Guerrero are facing drought conditions.  -Carlos Navarro   Read More