Georgetown Security Law Brief

Guatemala annuls Rios Montt's genocide conviction

05/21/13:  The BBC reports Guatemala's top court has thrown out the conviction for genocide and crimes against humanity of former military leader Efrain Rios Montt. The constitutional court ruled that the trial should restart from the point where it stood on 19 April. On 10 May, Gen Rios Montt was convicted of ordering the deaths of 1,771 people of the Ixil Maya ethnic group during his time in office in 1982-83. The 86-year-old was sentenced to 80 years in prison. He denies the charges. Monday's ruling throws into disarray the historic trial of Gen Rios Montt, the first former head of state to face genocide charges in a court within his own country. The three-to-two ruling by a panel of constitutional judges annuls everything that has happened in the trial since 19 April, when Gen Rios Montt was briefly left without a defence lawyer. The defence team had walked out of the court on the previous day in protest at what they called "illegal proceedings".

Colombia Farc rebels ask for 'more time' for peace deal

05/20/13:  The BBC reports Colombia's left-wing Farc rebels have rejected criticism that efforts to end almost fifty years of conflict are moving too slowly. Farc lead negotiator Ivan Marquez said achieving lasting peace in Colombia would take "more time". He spoke as the rebels and the Colombian government marked six months since peace talks began. President Juan Manuel Santos has said he hopes a deal can be reached within months rather than years. Peace negotiations began in Cuba in November. Mr Marquez told reporters in the capital, Havana, on Sunday that he did not understand why the pace of talks was being described as slow. Talks remain stalled over the issue of land redistribution in Colombia, the first of a five-point agenda. The Colombian government has promised to return millions of hectares of stolen land to displaced peasants, one of the rebels' main demands. But Bogota insists that the rebels must first put down their guns and cease hostilities.

Former leader of Guatemala is guilty of genocide against Mayan group

05/11/13:  The New York Times reports a Guatemalan court on Friday found Gen. Efraín Ríos Montt, the former dictator who ruled Guatemala during one of the bloodiest periods of its long civil war, guilty of genocide and crimes against humanity. Judge Yasmín Barrios sentenced General Ríos Montt, 86, to 80 years in prison. His co-defendant, José Mauricio Rodríguez Sánchez, who served as the director of intelligence under the general, was acquitted of the same two charges. “We are completely convinced of the intent to destroy the Ixil ethnic group,” Judge Barrios said as she read the hourlong summary of the ruling by the three-judge panel. Over five weeks, the tribunal heard more than 100 witnesses, including psychologists, military experts and Maya Ixil Indian survivors who told how General Ríos Montt’s soldiers had killed their families and wiped out their villages. The judge said that as the commander in chief of Guatemala’s armed forces, the general knew about the systematic massacres of Ixil villagers living in hillside hamlets in El Quiché department and did nothing to stop them or the aerial bombardment of the refugees who had fled to nearby mountains.

Guatemala ex-leader Rios Montt denies genocide

05/10/13:  The BBC reports the former military leader of Guatemala, Efrain Rios Montt, has protested his innocence at the end of his trial on genocide charges. It was the first time General Rios Montt, 86, had spoken during the court proceedings. He said there was no evidence he had ordered the extermination of the Ixil ethnic group during his time in office, in the early 1980s. Gen Rios Montt is accused of genocide and crimes against humanity. An estimated 200,000 people were killed in Guatemala's civil war, the vast majority of them indigenous Mayans. Gen Rios Montt has maintained a silence in the courtroom as the multiple charges have been laid out before him. However, the BBC's central America correspondent Will Grant says that as the closing arguments were being made, he was not going to leave the hearing without protesting his innocence himself. "I have never ordered genocide," he told the three-judge tribunal. "I am innocent. I never had the intent to destroy any national race, religion, or ethnic group." Speaking for nearly an hour, he argued that as president he was in charge of maintaining the integrity of the national territory of Guatemala rather than overseeing the civil war at a local level. "The commanding officer in charge of the units in the El Quiche region is accountable for the actions," he said.

 

US agency is expelled from Bolivia

05/02/13:  The New York Times reports President Evo Morales expelled the United States Agency for International Development from Bolivia on Wednesday, suggesting that it had conspired against his leftist government.  Mr. Morales made the announcement at the start of festivities to commemorate May 1, a holiday in Bolivia and in many other countries that celebrate workers’ movements and organized labor. The agency, which has nine American employees here, had already sharply reduced its presence. The Obama administration had asked for $17 million for the agency’s Bolivia programs this year, a steep drop from its $89 million budget in 2007. A State Department spokesman, Patrick Ventrell, said the United States denied “the baseless allegations made by the Bolivian government,” adding, “Those who will be most hurt by the Bolivian government’s decision are the Bolivian citizens, who have benefited from our collaborative work on education, health and the environment.” The agency said its projects in Bolivia included work to reduce pollution in Lake Titicaca and to support nongovernmental organizations that provide health care for pregnant women, infants and young children. Mr. Morales has often accused Washington of trying to undermine his government. He expelled the American ambassador in 2008 and the Drug Enforcement Administration the following year. He did not give details on Wednesday to back up his assertion that the aid agency was conspiring against him, but he said it manipulated the leaders of social movements in areas where it worked.

Venezuela says US citizen plotted unrest

04/26/13:  The New York Times reports an American citizen has been arrested by Venezuelan authorities who said Thursday that he had been taken into custody because he was involved in a plot to destabilize the country after the recent presidential election. Interior Minister Miguel Rodríguez identified the man as Timothy Hallett, 35, and said he had been trained as a spy and was connected to what Mr. Rodríguez called right-wing groups seeking to provoke violence. “The mission was to bring us to a civil war,” Mr. Rodríguez said, according to the government news agency, AVN. Officials with the United States Embassy in Caracas said they could not discuss the case because of privacy issues. Mr. Hallett had been in Caracas working on a film, The Associated Press reported. It said his father, Emmet Hallett, of Grosse Pointe Farms, Mich., had urged his son to leave the country because of the political situation. Mr. Hallett was arrested by the intelligence police on Wednesday at the Caracas airport as he was about to leave the country, according to a statement from the Venezuelan government, which said that a search of an apartment where he had stayed found videos and photographs. Mr. Rodríguez said that Mr. Hallett had become close to a group of students involved in protests of the election results and that he had received money from nongovernmental groups and passed it on to the students.

253,000 US guns smuggled to Mexico annually, study finds

03/19/13:  The Miami Herald reports some 2.2 percent of all U.S. gun sales are made to smuggling rings that take firearms to Mexico, a scale of illegal trafficking that’s “much higher than widely assumed,” an academic study released Monday found. An average of 253,000 weapons purchased in the United States head south of the border each year, according to the study by four scholars at the University of San Diego’s Trans-Border Institute and the Igarape Institute, a research center in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. Profit margins at many gun stores are razor thin, and thousands of U.S. gun vendors would go out of business without the illicit traffic to Mexico, said Topher McDougal, an economist educated at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology who’s one of the study’s authors. The study’s conclusions are likely to add to controversy over what role U.S. weapons smugglers play in Mexico’s drug violence. Mexican officials have long blamed lax gun laws in the United States for the availability of weapons in Mexico, which has only one gun store and considers gun ownership a privilege, not a right.

US expels two Venezuela envoys

03/12/13:  The New York Times reports the United States said Monday that it had expelled two Venezuelan diplomats in response to the ouster last week of two American military attachés by Venezuela. The two Venezuelan diplomats had already left the country. The State Department identified them as Orlando José Montañez Olivares, a second secretary at the Venezuelan Embassy in Washington, and Víctor Camacaro Mata, a consular officer in New York. The diplomatic tit for tat started last Tuesday when Venezuela said it had expelled two Air Force attachés because of what it described as an effort by the United States to destabilize the country. In a television broadcast, Nicolás Maduro, who was President Hugo Chávez’s vice president, accused one of the attachés of trying to recruit Venezuelan military personnel to conduct destabilizing acts.

British residents in Falklands to hold referendum on status

03/11/13: BBC News reports the people of the Falkland Islands have begun voting in a two-day referendum on whether to remain a British overseas territory.  Argentina has constantly reiterated its claims to the islands, thirty years after it was repelled by a British task force in a 74-day conflict.  The islanders decided to hold the vote in response to Argentine pressure for negotiations over sovereignty.  Some 1,672 British citizens, out of a population of about 2,900, can vote.  Argentine President Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner has said the inhabitants’ wishes are not relevant in what is an issue of territory and sovereignty.  Most Argentines regard the islands, which they call Las Malvinas, as Argentine and their recovery is enshrined in the country’s constitution.

US rescues 71 Haitian migrants near Puerto Rico

03/10/13: The Miami Herald reports federal officials have rescued seventy-one Haitian migrants found stranded on the shores of a cluster of islands just west of Puerto Rico.  US Customs and Border Protection and the Coast Guard first rescued two migrants found on one island and then the remainder of the group from the island of Desecheo off the western coastal town of Rincón.  Customs spokesman Jeffrey Quinones said Saturday that a large number of the Haitians were dehydrated and had bruises and scratches.  They were taken to hospitals for treatment.  The rescue comes a week after sixty-seven migrants from Cuba, Haiti and the Dominican Republic were found in the same cluster of islands.  One Haitian woman was found dead.

Report: MS-13 smuggles missile launchers, teams up with Zetas Cartel

03/07/13:  Wired's Danger Room reports MS-13 became El Salvador’s deadliest gang through force of numbers and the power of the handgun — while inking some pretty crazy tattoos. Now if they weren’t deadly enough, the gang is transitioning into adopting heavier weapons while teaming up with Mexico’s Zetas. It’s not easy tracking guns inside the gangster’s paradise of El Salvador, as the Maras are not prone to advertising their alliances and hardware. But according to a recent report from the International Assessment and Strategy Center, a hawkish national security think-tank, the gang is moving “away from a dependence on handguns via the acquisition of automatic rifles such as AK-47s, along with grenades, rocket propelled grenade launchers, and Light Anti-Tank Weapons,” or LAWs. The report’s conclusions also draw straight from the source: MS-13 gang members themselves. Worse, the authors write that the gang recently funneled multiple shoulder-fired SA-7 anti-aircraft missile launchers “to a clandestine arms market that operates in the Bajo Lempa region of El Salvador.” According to the authors’ sources, these SA-7s were first taken from stockpiles in Nicaragua left over from the country’s civil war, transferred to the arms market in Bajo Lempa, and “were eventually sold to the FARC for use in Colombia.”

Cuba bids a sad goodbye to a generous ally

03/07/13: New York Times reports the death of Hugo Chávez sent a ripple of sadness and uncertainty across this island on Wednesday as Cubans mourned the loss of an ideological son and generous ally, and worried about the economic pain that could lie ahead if the new Venezuelan leadership cut off hefty oil subsidies. Granma, the Communist Party newspaper, turned its red masthead to black and white — a gesture Cubans said was rare — and dedicated six of its eight pages to Mr. Chávez’s life, his death on Tuesday, and his legacy. In a statement that covered the front page and was read on national television on Tuesday night, the government hailed Mr. Chávez as a Cuban and pledged its “resolved and unwavering support for the Bolivarian Revolution in these difficult days.”

As Castro era drifts to a close, a new face steps in at No. 2

02/28/13:  The New York Times reports he may have just taken on the toughest job in Cuba. Rivals at home will try to take him down. Enemies abroad will discredit him. Almost anyone with an interest in Cuba — including American spies and Cuban intelligence officers — will dig through his public and private lives, rummaging for secrets or clues about his plans. All the while, Miguel Díaz-Canel Bermúdez, 52, the top contender to succeed the Castros after more than half a century of their rule, will need to display the authority of a future president while acting as if he does not want the job, maintaining the submissiveness and loyalty that the Castros require. Though a stranger to many Cubans, Mr. Díaz-Canel suddenly became the chosen one when he was promoted to first vice president on Sunday as Raúl Castro, 81, announced he would retire after his current five-year term ended in 2018. Mr. Díaz-Canel replaced José Ramón Machado Ventura, 82, and became one of the youngest members of Cuba’s political hierarchy. His elevation raised the curtain on an epic drama that had been envisioned dozens of times over the decades.

Mexican police find improvised border drug cannon

02/26/13:  The Miami Herald reports police in the border city of Mexicali say they have recovered a powerful improvised cannon used to hurl packets of marijuana across a border fence into California. Police told the Televisa network that the device was made up of a plastic pipe and a crude metal tank that used compressed air from the engine of an old car. The apparatus fired cylinders packed with drugs that weighed as much as 30 pounds, police. It was confiscated last week after U.S. officers told Mexican police that they had been confiscating a large number of drug packages that appeared to have been fired over the border. Mexican police on the border have recovered a series of similar devices in recent years.

Mexico’s war on crime now ranks among Latin America’s bloodiest conflicts

02/22/13:  The Miami Herald reports the revelation that as many as 27,000 people may have gone missing in Mexico in recent years renews attention to the huge human toll left by the war on crime that former President Felipe Calderon waged during his six years in office. Combined with the 70,000 dead acknowledged recently by the new administration of President Enrique Pena Nieto, who succeeded Calderon on Dec. 1, the number of the disappeared makes the Calderon tenure the bloodiest period in Mexican history since the Mexican Revolution of the early 20th century. On Thursday, human rights campaigners said the numbers place Mexico far above some of the better-known Latin American human catastrophes of decades past, including the rule of military regimes in Argentina, Chile and Brazil and civil wars in Nicaragua and El Salvador.

HRW: Mexico security forces colluded in disappearances

02/21/13:  The BBC reports the pressure group Human Rights Watch says Mexico has failed to properly investigate human rights abuses committed by the security forces. The group has documented almost 250 disappearances during the term of former President Felipe Calderon. It says evidence suggests that in more than half of the cases the security forces participated either directly or indirectly in the disappearances. HRW has called on the new government to find the missing. HRW says "state agents participated directly in the crime [of disappearances], or indirectly through support and acquiescence" in more than 140 of the cases they investigated.  In the remaining cases, their researchers were not able to determine whether state actors may have participated. An estimated 70,000 people are believed to have been killed in Mexico since December 2006, when Mr Calderon came to power and declared war on the country's powerful drug cartels. Mr Calderon deployed the army in an attempt to curb the violence, but human rights groups say the levels of human rights abuses against civilians has risen as a result.

Bolivia nationalises three Spanish-owned airports

02/19/13:  The BBC reports President Evo Morales has nationalised three Spanish-owned airports, accusing the foreign investors of "maximising profits" at Bolivia's expense.  The contract of the company managing the airports, Sabsa, was due to last until 2025.  The left-wing leader's move surprised Spain, which said the "unfriendly act" had led it to "reconsider the whole of relations" with Bolivia.  It is Mr Morales' third expropriation of a Spanish firm in less than a year.  The leader said on Monday he had instructed the ministry of public works, services and housing to take "full operational control" of Sabsa, the company running the airports in the cities of La Paz, Santa Cruz and Cochabamba.  Until now Sabsa had been jointly managed by the Barcelona-based company Abertis and Spain's airport authority.

Brazil troops to fight wave of attacks in the south

02/16/13:  BBC reports the Brazilian government has sent military reinforcements to tackle a wave of violence in the southern state of Santa Catarina.  More than 100 vehicles and offices have been attacked in the past month.  The government suspended classes on Friday, a day after bus drivers voted to limit journeys from 0700 to 1900, for fear of attack.  The reason for the attacks is unclear, but police say they could be a reaction to reported abuse in state prisons.  Investigators are trying to find out if the incidents are linked to organised crime gangs.  A video recently emerged showing security officials firing tear gas and rubber bullets at prisoners in a prison in the city of Joinville.  The state government says it is investigating the incident.

Technical difficulties delay DHS plan for upgraded sensors on US-Mexico border

02/11/13: Wired reports the US Government’s plan to install new advanced ground sensors at the Mexican border has been delayed due to bandwidth and frequency problems the.  The delay isn’t the first, and it comes as thousands of aging sensors along the border trigger false alarms that have proved deadly to Border Patrol agents.  The Department of Homeland Security and US Customs and Border Protection (CBP) originally planned to blanket the border with a new generation of “unattended ground sensors” (UGS’s).  According to CBP, the plan hasn’t been canceled outright, but it has been delayed for much, if not most, of 2013.  The problem: the sensors can’t communicate with the rest of the tech along the border.

US simulates mass-migration scenario at Guantanamo

02/11/13: The Miami Herald reports soldiers, sailors and Homeland Security officials came to Guantánamo Bay this weekend to simulate a humanitarian-relief crisis inspired by the tens of thousands of Haitians and Cubans who overwhelmed the base in the 1990’s.  The exact nature of the scenario is classified, and only Pentagon-approved photos of the exercise will be released.  That’s because nobody wants news about it to touch off a real, live Caribbean exodus.  The intent, say organizers, is not to encourage anyone in the Caribbean to get on rafts to reach this Navy base in southeast Cuba, but to be ready in case it happens.  One thing they’ll rehearse is registering 1,000 migrants in a single day, and if history is any guide, the actors should cram inside the processing tent, desperate, undocumented and disorganized.

Mexico arrests security chief for drug lord Shorty Guzman

02/11/13: BBC News reports Mexico has captured the man accused of being the security chief for Joaquín “Shorty” Guzman, Mexico’s most wanted drug lord.  A military spokesman said Jonathan Salas was arrested without a shot being fired in north-western Sinaloa state.  Last year, the Governor of Sinaloa mistakenly announced that Salas, who is also known as The Ghost, had been killed in a clash with the Navy.  Mexican prosecutors accuse Salas of being the man tasked with guarding Guzman, the fugitive leader of the Sinaloa cartel.  Guzman known as “El Chapo” or “Shorty,” was arrested in 1993, but he has been in hiding ever since escaping from maximum-security prison in 2001.  The US State Department has offered a reward of up to $5 million for information leading to Guzman’s arrest.

US stepped in to halt Mexican General's rise

02/05/13:  The New York Times reports the Obama administration had many concerns about Gen. Moisés García Ochoa, including the Drug Enforcement Administrations’s suspicion that he had links to drug traffickers and the Pentagon’s anxiety that he had misused military supplies and skimmed money from multimillion-dollar defense contracts.  In the days leading up to Mexico’s presidential inauguration on Dec. 1, the United States ambassador to Mexico, Anthony Wayne, met with senior aides to President Peña Nieto to express alarm at the general’s possible promotion.  That back-channel communication provides a rare glimpse into the United States government’s deep involvement in Mexican security affairs — especially as Washington sizes up Mr. Peña Nieto, who is just two months into a six-year term. The American role in a Mexican cabinet pick also highlights the tensions and mistrust between the governments despite proclamations of cooperation and friendship.

Kidnappings imperil talks with rebels in Columbia

02/02/13:  The New York Times reports the recent kidnappings of two police officers in Colombia by the country’s largest rebel group have cast a shadow over peace talks between the rebels and the government, disheartening a nation weary of the decades-old conflict.  The military also blamed the group, the Revolutionary Armed forces of Colombia, or FARC, for the kidnapping of three civilian engineers on Wednesday.  The first of the kidnappings, carried out nine days ago, interrupted a lull in the conflict after the start of talks last fall, and they prompted fears that the FARC might be resuming a tactic much hated by Colombians.

 

What the $97 million drug war in Central America actually bought

02/02/13:  Wired's Danger Room reports the US isn’t just shoveling cash to stem the tide of narcotics in Mexico and Colombia. Quietly, it’s built up its drug war in Central America, too — spending nearly $100 million over four years on advanced gear for local forces. Not that Washington has any idea what it’s gotten for its money.  A new report from the Government Accountability Office provides a rare glimpse into the Central American war on drugs. Between 2008 and 2011, the report finds, the government spent $97 million for gear and training for its Central American partners. On the plus side, it’s laughably low compared to the more than $640 billion (and rising) the US has spent on the war in Afghanistan.  Most of the drug war money is spent on equipment such as vehicles — like aircraft and patrol boats — night-vision goggles, body armor, radios and weapons, and X-ray equipment for scanning cargo containers.

Israel condemns Argentina-Iran probe of 1994 Jewish cultural center bombing

01/30/13: BBC News reports Israel has strongly criticized Argentina for its decision to work with Iran to investigate athe 1994 bombing of a Jewish cultural center in Buenos Aires.  The “truth commission” will be made up of five independent judges, none of whom will be from the two countries.  But an Israeli spokesman said the move was tantamount to “inviting a murderer to investigate his own killing.”  Argentine Ambassador was Atilio Norberto Molteni was also summoned by Israel’s Foreign Ministry.  Argentine courts have blamed Iran for the bombing of the center run by the Israeli-Argentine Mutual Association (AMIA), which killed eighty-five people.  Tehran has always denied any involvement, but Argentine prosecutors say the attack was planned and financed by Iran, and carried out by the Lebanese Shi’a Islamist group Hezbollah.

Ex-dictator ordered to trial in Guatemalan war crimes case

01/29/13:  The New York Times reports a Guatemalan judge on Monday ordered Efraín Rios Montt, the former dictator, and his intelligence chief to stand trial on charges of genocide and crimes against humanity in connection with the massacres of villagers in remote highlands three decades ago.  The ruling clears the way for a public trial for MR. Rios Montt, a former general who ruled Guatemala for 17 months in 1982 and 1983 during the bloodiest period of the country’s long-running civil war. It is a stunning decision for Guatemala, where the military still wields significant power behind the scenes and the country’s elected governments have struggled to build democratic institutions.

Mexico to create new police force in drugs policy shift

12/18/12:  The BBC reports Mexican President Pena Nieto, has announced the creation of a new national police force as part of efforts to tackle crime and violence. Mr Pena Nieto said the new militarised force would initially be 10,000 strong. Troops would continue to patrol until the new force was fully trained, he said, without elaborating. Some 60,000 people have died since 2006 when the previous government deployed the military against the drugs gangs. Mr Pena Nieto had campaigned on a promise to switch the focus of the drugs fight from tackling the gangs to reducing the crime and violence that blight the lives of ordinary Mexicans.

 

Border killings prompt scrutiny of Border Patrol lethal force policy

11/25/12: NPR reports the Department of Homeland Security is examining its policy on deadly force along the US-Mexico border.  In less than two years, US Border Patrol agents have killed eighteen Mexican citizens there, including eight people who were throwing rocks.  Last month, Border Patrol agents responded to a report of two drug smugglers jumping the fence between the twin cities of Nogales, Arizona, and Nogales, Mexico.  As the agents approached, a group of people on the Mexican side began throwing rocks.  The Border Patrol says the agents told the people to stop.  When they didn’t, one agent opened fire and killed a teenager on Mexican soil who wasn’t one of the smugglers.  Since 2010, six of the eight rock-throwers killed by Border Patrol agents were on the Mexican side of the border.

Mexican agencies clash publicly over shooting of CIA employees

11/22/12: The New York Times reports nearly three months after a sport utility vehicle carrying two CIA employees was attacked south of here, divisions have emerged among the Mexican law enforcement agencies trying to determine the motive. In the past week, top officials at the federal prosecutor’s office and the federal police force have clashed over the case in an unusual public airing of differences by rival agencies, both of which have received American training to help fight the drug war.

Colombia rebel group announces unilateral cease-fire

11/20/12:  The New York Times reports Colombia’s main rebel group announced a unilateral two-month cease-fire on Monday, as guerrilla representatives sat down with government negotiators in Havana for peace talks aimed at ending a nearly 50-year war. The government did not immediately respond to the cease-fire announcement. President Juan Manuel Santos has repeatedly said that his government would not declare a truce during negotiations with the group known as the FARC. He hopes to avoid mistakes made in an earlier round of talks that ended in 2002, in which the FARC used a lengthy truce to gain strength.

Man imprisoned in Cuba sues US government

11/17/12:  The New York Times reports a United States contractor imprisoned in Cuba after being convicted of crimes against the state has sued the United States government and the company that hired him, blaming them for his imprisonment and for not warning him about the risks he faced in Cuba. The contractor, Alan Gross, 63, has been jailed since Dec. 3, 2009, serving a 15-year sentence for providing Internet gear to Cubans under a United States program that Cuba views as subversive.

Mexico charges 14 federal police over attack on U.S. officers

11/09/12:  Reuters reports Mexico on Friday formally charged 14 federal police officers with attempted murder for an August attack on two U.S. agents, identified by sources as CIA agents, that embarrassed the Mexican government with its powerful northern neighbor. Mexican security sources have placed responsibility for the attack on corrupt police working in cahoots with drug gangs. The Attorney General's office said it had issued arrest warrants for the 14 federal police officers, charging them with attempted murder and property damage for the attack which peppered a diplomatic vehicle with 152 bullet holes.

Chile secret agents charged over 1976 diplomat murder

11/01/12:  The BBC reports a Spanish judge has indicted seven former members of the Chilean secret police for their alleged role in the kidnapping and murder of a Spanish diplomat during Chile's military rule. The judge also ordered international arrest warrants for the seven accused. UN diplomat Carmelo Soria was working in Chile when he was kidnapped, tortured and murdered in 1976. He is one of about 3,000 people to have been killed during Gen Augusto Pinochet's rule from 1973 to 1990.

Mexico poised to charge police officers in US ambush

11/01/12:  Reuters reports Mexico said on Wednesday it was close to charging police officers with deliberately targeting two US CIA agents in an August attack that caused serious embarrassment to the Mexican government. Mexican investigators have said the attack may have been carried out by corrupt police working with drug gangs. Mexico's attorney general said police were likely to be prosecuted for the ambush of the two agents as they traveled in a vehicle with diplomatic plates on a road south of Mexico City.

Lawmaker warns sequester will weaken border protection

10/24/12: The Washington Times reports more than 8,500 US Customs and Border Protection officers and Immigration and Customs and Enforcement (ICE) personnel face termination in January under the automatic spending cuts scheduled to take effect next year in a bid to attack the spiraling fiscal deficit.  The job losses, in the wake of massive efforts by the Border Patrol to significantly beef up security along the US-Mexico border, would be the result of a “sequestration” in the federal budget, automatic spending cuts of 9.4 percent in 2013 for discretionary defense appropriations and 8.2 percent in 2013 for discretionary nondefense spending.  Representative Norman D. Dicks (D-Wash.) noted in a letter earlier this month that the scheduled cuts at the Department of Homeland Security would roll back “significant progress” in securing the nation’s borders.

US welcomes Cuba decision easing travel restrictions

10/17/12: BBC News reports the United States has welcomed the decision of the Cuban government to abolish the requirement for exit permits.  The State Department said the move was consistent with the universal right to leave or enter any country.  Under the reform, which will take effect in January, highly-qualified professionals such as doctors will still continue to face travel controls, and Cuban exile groups in the US said the change was insufficient and “plagued with restrictions.”  Cubans currently have to go through a lengthy and expensive process to obtain a permit and dissidents are often denied one.  Under the new policy, those who have permanent residency on the island will also be allowed to stay abroad for up to twenty-four months, instead of the current eleven, without having to return to renew paperwork.

US requests immunity for former Mexican President in suit over 1997 killings

09/17/12: Lawfare reports that the Justice Department has filed a Suggestion of Immunity on behalf of former Mexican President Ernesto Zedillo in a suit against Zedillo under the Alien Tort Statute and Torture Victim Protection Act by families of Mexican civilians killed in a 1997 massacre during the Zapatista uprising.  The suit, Doe v. Zedillo, is in the United States District Court for the District of Connecticut.  It does not allege that Zedillo, who was respected as a political and economic reformer and is now a professor of economics at Yale University, had any involvement in the massacre, but rather argues that he should be held accountable as Mexico’s President at the time.  DOJ’s filing can be viewed in full here.

Mexico claims attack on US embassy vehicle was accident

09/05/12: The Miami Herald reports high-ranking Mexican security officials are portraying the shooting of two CIA agents by Mexican federal police as a well-intentioned mishap rather than a deliberate attack.  A series of military and law enforcement officials have emphasized in public statements over the last three days that the twelve federal police were investigating a kidnapping when they encountered the two US agents and a Mexican marine captain and opened fire on their armored sport-utility vehicle.  Navy Secretary Mariano Francisco Saynez said Monday that the attack “was an error and not a malicious act.”  The federal police responsible are currently under a form of house arrest on suspicion of abusing their authority, a charge which can entail both criminal wrongdoing and extreme negligence.

12 Mexican police in custody over US embassy vehicle shooting

08/29/12: The Washington Post reports twelve Mexican federal police have been taken into custody for their involvement in the shooting of two US Government workers who were wounded last week on their way to a Mexican Navy training camp.  The Attorney General announced Monday that the officers have not been formally charged, but may be held for forty days for questioning about possible crimes that include attempted murder, aggravated assault, damage to property, and abuse of authority.  A pair of US government employees, traveling in an armored US Embassy sport-utility vehicle with diplomatic license plates, were pursued in a high-speed chase and shot at by Mexican federal police officers in the mountains south of Mexico City on Friday morning.

Americans shot in embassy vehicle in Mexico were CIA operatives

08/29/12: The New York Times reports officials said on Tuesday that the two Americans who were wounded when gunmen fired on their American Embassy vehicle in Mexico last week were Central Intelligence Agency employees sent as part of a multiagency effort to bolster Mexican efforts to fight drug traffickers.  The two operatives, who were hurt on Friday, were participating in a training program that involved the Mexican Navy.  They were traveling with a Mexican Navy captain in an embassy sport utility vehicle that had diplomatic license plates when gunmen, some or all of them from the Federal Police, attacked the vehicle.  It is currently unclear whether the Americans, who officials said were unarmed, were specifically targeted, if the shooting was a case of mistaken identity, or there was some other reason for the ambush.

Arizona lawmakers want border fence started now despite inadequate funds

08/27/12: The Miami Herald reports members of the Arizona Legislature’s border security advisory committee want the state to begin building a mile of fencing along the border with Mexico even though it has raised only a fraction of the needed money.  The committee has raised just 10 percent of the $2.8 million needed to complete a mile of fencing, but State Senator Steve Smith (R-Maricopa) believes more private donations will come in once construction begins.  Construction could begin by the end of the year using private fencing companies, some donated supplies and prison inmate labor, Smith said.  The project is meant to complement the Federal Government’s border fencing program.  The committee is charged with making security recommendations, but none have been made since it began meeting in March 2011.

Mexico investigating why federal police fired on US Embassy car

08/26/12: The Miami Herald reports Mexican authorities are trying to sort out why a US Embassy vehicle was ambushed by federal police on a rural back road in mountains south of the capital, leaving two US officials wounded.  Officials from both nations said officers were chasing criminals Friday morning when a hail of bullets was fired at the embassy sport utility vehicle carrying the two employees and a Mexican Navy captain.  Mexico’s top police official, Public Security Secretary Genaro García Luna, went to the site of the shooting, indicating the sensitivity and tension over a situation that involved an attack not only on US officials, but on Mexican Navy personnel as well.  A Mexican official said twelve police officers have been detained.

OAS passes compromise resolution on diplomatic missions and Assange

08/25/12: BBC News reports the Organization of American States has passed a motion backing the “inviolability of diplomatic missions” amid the row between the UK and Ecuador over WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange.  Assange is in Ecuador’s London embassy fighting extradition to Sweden over unrelated sexual assault claims.  Ecuador called for the OAS vote saying the UK had threatened to storm the embassy.  But the resolution was reworded after the UK insisted it had made no threat.  The resolution expressed solidarity with Ecuador, but despite a strong plea from Ecuadorian foreign minister Ricardo Patino, there was no reference to any threat against his country’s embassy in London.  The United States withdrew its opposition to the resolution after the text was amended.

Mexico Supreme Court holds military trial for soldiers' killing of civilian unconstitutional

08/22/12: BBC News reports Mexico’s Supreme Court has ruled that a law giving military tribunals jurisdiction to try soldiers for crimes against civilians is unconstitutional.  The judges said the code wrongly extended the reach of military courts.  Campaigners hailed the court’s decision but four similar judgments are needed to set a legal precedent.  The Court was considering the case of Bonfilio Rubio Villegas, who was shot dead by soldiers at a checkpoint in Guerrero state in 2009.  In an 8-2 ruling, the judges held that the suspects must be tried in a civilian court.  “When a person outside the military is either the defendant or the victim, an ordinary judge has authority over this case, not a military judge,” Justice Luis María Aguilar wrote.

Ecuador invites UK Assange talks on condition they agree not to enter embassy

08/22/12: Al Jazeera reports Ecuador’s president has invited the UK to talks over the fate of WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange on the condition that Britain guarantee it will not enter the diplomatic mission in London where the hacker has sought shelter.  Assange, who is wanted by Sweden for questioning over sexual-assault accusations, jumped bail and fled to the Ecuadorian embassy nine weeks ago.  “Despite that rude, impertinent and unacceptable remark, we’re still open to dialogue,” President Rafael Correa said on Tuesday, referring to a statement issued by British Foreign Secretary William Hague last week.  Assange made an appearance on a balcony of the embassy, in London’s Knightsbridge District, on Tuesday and called on the US to end its alleged “witch-hunt” against him.

Second Circuit rejects Argentina argument on sovereign immunity

08/22/12: JURIST reports the US Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit on Monday rejected Argentina’s attempt to prevent bondholders from acquiring bank documents regarding the country’s assets outside US territory.  Argentina had asserted that its sovereign immunity was affected by a September 2011 ruling by the US District Court for the Southern District of New York forcing the country to comply with subpoenas sought by a global equity investment company for the collection of five judgments totaling about $1.6 billion.  The subpoenas were served in 2010 on Bank of America and Banco de la Nación Argentina.  The Second Circuit held that because the District Court “ordered only discovery, not the attachment of sovereign property, and because that discovery is directed at third-party banks, Argentina’s sovereign immunity is not infringed.”

Organization of American States to discuss Assange asylum dispute

08/18/12: BBC News reports foreign ministers from North and South America will meet next Friday to discuss the impasse between the UK and Ecuador over Julian Assange.  Ecuador has granted asylum to the WikiLeaks founder who took refuge at Ecuador’s embassy in London in June.  He faces extradition to Sweden over sexual assault claims, which he denies.  The UK says it will follow its obligation to arrest Assange if he leaves the embassy.  Twenty-three members of the Organization of American States (OAS) voted to have the meeting in Washington.  The US was opposed; Washington’s envoy Carmen Lomellin said a meeting of foreign ministers “would be unhelpful and harmful to the OAS’s reputation as an institution.”  She said the US did not “recognize the concept of diplomatic asylum as a matter of international law.”

Despite asylum grant, no sign of resolution in Assange extradition fight

08/17/12: Al Jazeera reports Julian Assange remains holed up in the Ecuadorian embassy in London after the UK refused to grant him the freedom to leave the country amid a diplomatic stalemate between the two countries over his extradition.  Ecuadorian President Rafael Correa said Friday that Assange would remain in Quito’s embassy in London as long as Britain refuses to give him safe passage out of the country.  On Thursday, British Foreign Secretary William Hague said that Britain would not grant Assange safe passage because “there is no legal basis for us to do so.”  He reiterated that the extradition is unrelated to the work of WikiLeaks or any desire by US authorities to try him for publishing diplomatic secrets, but rather the complaints two Swedish women have filed against Assange for sexual assault.

Ecuador grants Assange asylum, UK maintains extradition pledge

08/16/12: The Washington Post reports WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange was granted asylum on Thursday by Ecuador, raising the possibility of a diplomatic showdown between British and Ecuadoran authorities.  The transparency campaigner has been holed up at Ecuador’s embassy in London for nearly eight weeks after seeking refuge there in a bid to avoid extradition to Sweden, where he is wanted for questioning over alleged sex crimes.  The British Foreign Office made it clear Thursday that Ecuador’s decision does not alter Britain’s intention of fulfilling its legal obligation to extradite Assange to Sweden.  The asylum grant is apparently based on Ecuador and Assange’s belief that he will be extradited to the US and persecuted for his activities, despite the fact that the Washington has made no attempt to extradite him or charge him with any crime.

Ecuador denies report it granted Assange asylum

08/15/12: Al Jazeera reports Ecuadorian President Rafael Correa has denied a British media report that his country has granted asylum to WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange.  Correa said he would consult advisers on Wednesday before deciding.  Assange, 41, took refuge at Ecuador's London embassy in June to avoid extradition to Sweden over rape and assault claims, which he denies.  “The rumor of asylum for Assange is false.  No decision has yet been taken.  Awaiting report from the foreign ministry,” Correa wrote on Twitter.  Although Assange has not been charged with any crime by the United States, he fears being extradited there to face charges over WikiLeaks’ publishing of a trove of secret documents, including information relating to the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and countless diplomatic cables.