Costa Rican trade attache kidnapped in Venezuela

Costa Rica's trade attache to Venezuela was kidnapped outside his home near Caracas, and his captors demanded ransom for his release, the Costa Rican Foreign Ministry disclosed Monday.

The abduction of Guillermo Cholele as he arrived at his home east of Caracas on Sunday night was at least the third kidnapping of a diplomat in recent months in the violence-plagued Venezuelan capital. Security forces have seen their authority eroded as ailing President Hugo Chavez often has been abroad for medical treatment in Cuba.

Costa Rican Ambassador Nazareth Avendano told a news conference that Cholele was driven away in his embassy vehicle by an unknown number of captors.

A statement issued by the Foreign Ministry in San Jose, the capital, said that the kidnappers had been in contact with the Costa Rican government and that a ransom demand was received but did not specify the sum.

In January, Mexican Ambassador Carlos Pujalte and his wife were kidnapped, and in November Chile's consul in Caracas was shot and wounded in an abduction. The captives were released within hours in both prior incidents.

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Photo: Nazareth Avendano, Costa Rica's ambassador to Venezuela, speaks with the media at her office in Caracas, Venezuela, on Monday about the kidnapping of trade attache Guillermo Cholele. Credit: Fernando Llano / Associated Press

U.S. Vice President Biden in Mexico says 'no' to drug legalization

REPORTING FROM MEXICO CITY -- U.S. Vice President Joe Biden, on a swing through Mexico and Central America, on Monday adamantly rejected any move toward legalizing drugs.

Biden's comments to reporters came as a number of Latin American leaders have begun to suggest decriminalization as a way to reduce deadly violence engulfing parts of the region.

"It is totally legitimate for this to be raised," Biden said. "It warrants discussion. It is worth debating to lay to rest some of the myths."

He said that ultimately, legalization creates more problems than it solves, including the bureaucratic costs of regulating and distributing drugs plus the damage to public health from consumption and addiction.

Biden also met with Mexican President Felipe Calderon and with the three candidates who are competing to replace him in July 1 elections. Biden said he was confident each of the three would continue a close working relationship with Washington.

The vice president travels on to Honduras where on Tuesday he will sit down with Central American leaders to discuss drug trafficking and other security issues.

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Photo: U.S. Vice President Joe Biden, left, greets Mexican President Felipe Calderon in Mexico City. Credit: Mexican government via European Pressphoto Agency

 

Relatives protest outside site of Mexico prison break

REPORTING FROM MEXICO CITY -- Fires and new disturbances were reported inside and outside the Apodaca prison in northern Mexico, site of a massacre and prison break on Sunday that left 44 people dead and added to an international outcry over prison conditions in Latin America.

Relatives of inmates clashed with authorities outside the prison late Tuesday, while fires were set by inmates inside after word spread of the protest, reports said. Within hours, authorities reported that they had brought the situation under control.

The disturbances began after authorities announced the transfer of some inmates out of Apodaca. The prison is located outside of the industrial city of Monterrey in the northern state of Nuevo Leon.

The killings in Apocada comes after more than 350 trapped inmates died last week in a fire in a severely overcrowded prison in Honduras. A recent report on the Honduran prison system painted a bleak picture of "unhealthy" and "collapsed" facilities that operate as "universities of crime."

The Apodaca incident is believed to have been an operation carried out by the Zetas crime cartel with the help of corrupt prison officials, in which 30 Zetas members escaped and killed dozens of members of the rival Gulf cartel.

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Photo: Relatives of inmates at the Apodaca prison protest outside the prison gates. Credit: Miguel Sierra / EPA

 

At least 44 killed in Mexican prison riot

REPORTING FROM MEXICO CITY -- Dozens of people were killed in a riot inside a Mexican prison Sunday, the latest lethal incident in Latin America's overcrowded, poorly maintained jails (link in Spanish).

By early afternoon, the number of dead at the prison outside the northern industrial city of Monterrey had climbed to 44 and might yet rise, officials said (link in Spanish). Public security authorities in Nuevo Leon state, where Monterrey is located, said inmates rioted in one cellblock about 2 a.m. and the violence spread to a second block.

Initial reports blamed the violence on efforts to transfer some inmates to another facility elsewhere in the country. There were conflicting reports about whether guards were taken hostage and if fires broke out in some of the cells. 

Jorge Domene, the state's public security spokesman, said authorities had regained control of the institution. He said most of the prisoners were incarcerated on drug-trafficking charges and related crimes.

All the dead were killed by knives, other sharp instruments, clubs or stones, Domene said.

Last week, more than 350 people were killed in an overcrowded prison in Comayagua, Honduras; it was the deadliest prison fire anywhere in modern history and underscored deteriorating conditions in jails  throughout Latin America.

Mexico's raging drug war, which long ago pushed violence deep into Central America, is helping to fill prisons in many cities at more than twice the capacity.

In Sunday's incident, the prison at a town called Apodaca, about 20 miles from Monterrey, was reportedly built to hold 1,500 inmates but had a population of 3,000.

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Photo: Relatives of inmates at a prison near the northern Mexico city of Monterrey attempt to break through a security fence in a desperate attempt to get information about rioting that killed several dozen inmates Sunday. Credit: Julio Cesar Aguilar / AFP/Getty Images

Many prisoners trapped in cells during 'horrific' Honduras fire

REPORTING FROM MEXICO CITY -- Authorities said Wednesday that a fire at a prison in central Honduras killed at least 272 trapped inmates, and perhaps more than 300, in scenes one official described as "horrific."

Honduran authorities have yet to determine the cause of Tuesday night's blaze at the prison in the town of Comayagua, but said they were examining whether it might have been ignited by a riot or an electrical failure.

The death toll was expected to rise as rescue workers picked through the charred cells, where many inmates were asphyxiated or burned alive, officials said. Dozens of others, some with severe burns, were taken to hospitals in Comayagua and the capital, Tegucigalpa.

PHOTOS: 'Horrific' Honduran prison fire

Lucy Marder, head of forensic medicine for the prosecutor's office, provided the death toll during a news conference. Honduran media, quoting unnamed sources, said the toll could surpass 350.

Josue Garcia, spokesman for the Comayagua Fire Department, described "horrific" scenes as fire swept through the prison. He was quoted by the Associated Press as saying that about 100 prisoners died in their cells.

"We couldn't get them out because we didn't have the keys and couldn't find the guards who had them," Garcia said. It took firefighters about an hour and a half to contain the blaze, Honduran media said.

Some inmates were able to escape by breaking through the roof, Honduran media reports said. Many others remain unaccounted for.

Photographs taken at the scene showed relatives of inmates gathered outside the fence of the prison, throwing stones at guards in anger and frustration.

The federal prison in Comayagua, about 90 miles north of the capital, was described as a farm in which inmates cultivated crops and raised pigs. It held an estimated 850 prisoners.

Honduran prisons, like many in Latin America, are severely overcrowded, filthy and poorly equipped. Prisoner riots are common. Rioting at another Honduran prison in October left nine people dead.

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Photo: Relatives of inmates on Wednesday throw stones at soldiers on guard at the federal prison compound in Comayagua, Honduras, where a fire killed scores of prisoners. Credit: Orlando Sierra / AFP / Getty Images

Website helps immigrants compare fees to send money home

REPORTING FROM SAN SALVADOR—Immigrants from Central America and the Dominican Republic can go online to compare the cost of sending money from the United States to relatives back home.

Enviacentroamerica.org is a new service that shows how much different transfer services cost in five remittance-sending hubs in the United States: California, Florida, New York, Washington, D.C., and Massachusetts. Fees are calculated based on transfer amounts of $200 and $500.

The main sponsor of the initiative is the Center for Latin American Monetary Studies, a grouping of regional banks, along with support from the World Bank and Multilalateral Investment Fund of the Inter-American Development Bank, or IDB.

"This initiative will help the Hispanic community to better understand the costs and options available before deciding how and with whom to send the money," Paloma Monroy, a remittance specialist from the center, said in a statement this week. She said the tool "will create more transparency in this market, contributing to reduced costs."

Former Guatemalan dictator Rios Montt faces genocide charges

REPORTING FROM SAN SALVADOR -- Efrain Rios Montt, the former dictator of Guatemala who oversaw one of the nation's bloodiest periods, will stand trial on genocide charges and other crimes stemming from a 36-year civil war.

A Guatemalan judge ruled Thursday night that Rios Montt, now 85, will be confined to house arrest while the investigation and judicial proceedings run their course (link in Spanish, with video).

Judge Carol Patricia Lopez determined that Rios Montt and other top military leaders bore ultimate responsibility for acts that troops "were committing against the unarmed, helpless noncombatant civilian population, which meant multiple human rights violations, deaths, disappearances and sexual abuse, and persecution of the Mayan Ixil ethnic group."

The rulings came in a daylong hearing in a Guatemala City courthouse crowded with survivors and relatives of those killed during Rios Montt's rule in 1982-83. He had little to say, telling the judge he chose to "remain silent." In the past, he has maintained that all that happened was in the context of war.

An estimated 200,000 people were killed or went missing in the conflict, the majority indigenous men, women and children.

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Photo: Relatives of massacre victims from the Mayan Ixil ethnic group gather in a Guatemala City courthouse on Thursday to hear charges against former dictator Efrain Rios Montt. Credit: Moises Castillo / Associated Press. 

Leprosy a serious problem in Brazil, Sudan

Animators in Britain decided to drop a scene that made light of leprosy from an upcoming movie, "The Pirates! Band of Misfits,"  after leprosy support groups complained. Leprosy is still a serious problem in many parts of the world, including Brazil and the Sudan, as this map from the World Health Organization shows:

Image: Leprosy rates as reported to the World Health Organization in January 2011. Source: World Health Organization

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Another military official replaces civilian in El Salvador

REPORTING FROM SAN SALVADOR -- El Salvador's president, Mauricio Funes, has named a newly retired military man to head the National Civilian Police, stoking protests from opponents who say such an appointment violates the spirit of peace accords that ended the nation's civil war 20 years ago this month.

The naming of Gen. Francisco Ramon Salinas Rivera, who retired from the army last week, follows a similar decision by Funes to name a former military officer as minister of justice and public security, a position that also had been held by a civilian (link in Spanish).

Funes said his new police director has the right credentials to confront a spiraling wave of violence engulfing the nation, fueled by the twin forces of drug traffickers and deeply entrenched street gangs.

"Mr. Salinas Rivera has had an outstanding role within the government's security, shown a great professionalism, and has a profound knowledge of the problems related to delinquency," Funes said.

Funes was elected president as the candidate of the leftist Farabundo Marti National Liberation Front (FMLN), the political faction made up of former guerrillas.

Former Guatemalan dictator Rios Montt may face genocide trial

REPORTING FROM SAN SALVADOR -- Former Guatemalan dictator Gen. Efrain Rios Montt will appear in a civilian court Thursday to face possible prosecution on genocide charges stemming from the army's "scorched earth" civil war campaign of the 1980s.

 

"El General," as Rios Montt is known in Guatemala, faces accusations that include torture, genocide, forced disappearances, state terrorism and crimes against humanity. Now 85 years old, Rios Montt has always denied such charges, claiming that he was never in the battlefield during the war.

 

Nobel Peace Prize laureate Rigoberta Menchu of Guatemala has also accused Rios Montt of burning the Spanish Embassy in 1980. Protesters against the army's killings of Mayan Indians were holed up inside the diplomatic post and 31 were killed in the blaze -- including Menchu's father, Vicente.

 

About 200,000 people were killed or went missing during the 36-year war against small groups of leftist guerrillas. The military razed entire villages, slaughtering civilians. Rios Montt's 17-month rule, from 1982-83, was one of the most brutal periods.

 

Human rights officials praised the fact that the Guatemalan justice system has finally started to take on such cases, especially given the impunity that top military officials have long enjoyed. Praise has also come for new Atty. Gen. Claudia Paz y Paz, appointed in 2010, who has appeared determined to take on the atrocities of the past. 

  

But the Washington Office on Latin America, or WOLA, warned that the Guatemalan Defense Ministry and some government agencies "lack transparency ... [and demonstrate] unwillingness to provide still-classified information from the military archives that could be relevant for these trials."

 

Still, WOLA said, forcing Rios Montt to appear in court "is historic, and this trial could bring about justice for those who suffered during his regime."

 

Until this month, Rios Montt was immune from prosecution because he was a member of the Guatemalan Congress. He lost his immunity Jan. 17, when his term expired. In Thursday's court appearance, a judge will decide if there is enough evidence against him to warrant a trial.

 

A trial of Rios Montt could also prove uncomfortable for new President Otto Perez Molina, himself a former military man who served under Rios Montt.

 

In a ground-breaking case last August, four members of the Guatemalan Special Forces, known as the Kaibiles, were sentenced to 6,000 years in prison for their role in the 1982 "Dos Erres Massacre" of more than 200 people. The verdict paved the way for other high-level military officials, like Rios Montt, to be tried for alleged involvement in genocide.

 

"We do not want revenge,"  Eduardo de Leon Barrios, director of the Menchu Foundation, told The Times. "What we want is to set a precedent so that genocidal massacres never happen again."

 

In a 1995 interview with The Times, when he ran unsuccessfully for president, Rios Montt acknowledged that he was "the one responsible" for much of what happened in those dark years "but not the guilty party."

 

"I do not justify anything," he said. "I found a government that was destroyed, a state that was destroyed, a state that had been looted, a state without law. I put it in order."

 

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Photo: Retired army Gen. Efrain Rios Montt arrives at the Guatemala City Human Rights office in December. Credit: Saul Martinez / EPA