Brazil: Still Against Honduras

Brazil's Minister of Foreign Affairs, Celso Amorim, spoke out against Honduras on 16 February, claiming that elections should not be used to "wash" coup d'etats.

His remarks underline Brazil's continued chagrin over the forced removal of Zelaya, and I'm interested to see how Brazil's stand against Honduran President Lobo will play out across the region. As the US moves to support the Central American country, Brazil may find itself standing alone in the region. So far, however, many countries have yet to show support.

Breaking the Silence

Posts have been thin and sporadic of late - such is the life of a freelance journalist. Wells have dried up, so like most of my brethren, I'm scrambling to keep pace with the changing nature of the media industry…

Here are some updates:

With John Sullivan, I published a piece on how Costa Rica and Panama have been caught in the middle between Mexico and Colombia, where organized criminal operatives from both countries have pushed into new territory.

Since that publication, we have seen a string of murders in Panama City, and just this past week, the head of the Sinaloa Federation in Costa Rica was arrested in Puntarenas (See Southern Pulse newsletter, Networked Intelligence tomorrow afternoon for details).

Honduras continues to provide some interesting developments. Since I published a piece on Honduras and how mainstream media should be focusing on what's going on behind the so-called coup de teat, we've seen a sharp up-tick in narco-flights landing in various points across the country.

Most of the flights, according to both Honduran and Colombian officials, originate in Venezuela, where the bulk of air traffic has shifted - it was once the purview of Colombian traffickers.

And Caracas has quietly become one of the most dangerous places on earth. With over 14,000 murders last year (country wide but many in Caracas), and police as corrupt as ever, Caracas has become a nightmarish place to visit. I'm told that you can't walk on the streets in a business suit after dark, and during the day, you should stick to the main streets. I felt this tension on my last visit to the city in November 2005.

Side streets, apparently, are teeming with young thieves. Dairy products and meat are hard to come by, and soon the entire city will begin rationing water, with rolling "water cut offs," scheduled by the government in 48 hour segments. Can you imagine being mugged for a bottle of water? Back in Mexico, we continue to watch an ever-changing situation. Many of the country's states remain in solid control of one of the many DTOs there, but the agreements between various groups form and break like ice melting and re-freezing from one day to the next.

From what I understand, the Beltran-Leyva Organization (BLO) has hired Los Zetas to strengthen its fight against the Sinaloa Federation. The Carrillo-Fuentes Organization (CFO) cooperates with BLO and the Zetas, and remains very active with its own group of sicarios.

Los Zetas, meanwhile, have targeted Sinaloa and Michoacan.

The Arellano-Felix Organization continues to crumble, and now faces a very real threat from inside Tijuana. The tit-for-tat murder and dismemberment of cops and others in the state of Michoacan indicates that the Zetas are pressuring members of La Familia, who have initiated La Familia Guerrense for the state of Guerrero. The Zetas are also pushing into Sinaloa, and the recent kidnapping if nearly two dozen ranch workers outside of Culiacan indicates that the powers that be in that area are worried about Zeta infiltration. After all, these guys - and their trainees - are well versed in training locals to act on their behalf…

I'll also add that I recently published a piece on diamond smuggling in South America, with a focus on Guyana, Venezuela, and Brazil. The Panamanians will soon open the region's only diamond trading hub, and some are worried that it will become a funnel for illegal diamonds leaving the region.

Honduras: "En route to a failed state"

Friends with NARBPO sent over a translated piece of an interesting editorial out of Honduras. The title "En route to a failed state" indicates, at least, that some people in Honduras are looking at a bleak future.

I would aruge that these spikes in violence are a combination of an ongoing street gang problem and spillover from Mexico.

Here's the translation El Heraldo (5/14/09):

The slaughter of seven workers Tuesday in the town of Arizona (no connection with state of Arizona in the U.S.) , Department (read : state) of Atlantida, on the same day that various more persons were assassinated in different events in the country, is a bloody indication of the increase in criminality to levels never before seen. One day before, on Monday, four policemen lost their lives, two in Olancho and two in Tegucigalpa, which once again manifests that insecurity affects everyone equally, even law enforcement agents. It’s unacceptable that every time more and more Hondurans of all social classes are victims of assassinations, extortions, robberies and all type of criminal acts and that the immense majority of the cases remain an absolute mystery and go unpunished. If the political and administrative chaos continues and nothing is done to combat organized crime, which each time carries out more daring activities, we shall go from being a poor and underdeveloped nation to being a failed state.