Central American migrants run gauntlet of Mexican crime

MEXICO CITY, Jul 20 (IPS) - Miguel, a 32-year-old Nicaraguan, and his wife have spent several days at a shelter for migrants in the southwest Mexican state of Oaxaca, where they fled after being robbed, extorted and threatened by corrupt municipal police and youth gang members.

"The police robbed me and the gang members are demanding 2,000 dollars for each of us, to let us continue on our way, and if we don't pay they say they'll keep my wife and only let me go," Miguel (not his real name), who is from the central Nicaraguan city of Matagalpa, told IPS by phone from the town of Ixtepec.

On their way to Nicaragua to get Miguel's birth certificate, passport and other documents, he and his 20-year-old Honduran wife were robbed of their belongings by municipal police in the towns of Orizaba and Mendoza, in the southeastern state of Veracruz.

When they made it to Ixtepec, they were threatened by members of the Mara Salvatrucha, one of the main youth gangs terrorising Central America, southern Mexico and the United States, and sought refuge in the "Hermanos en el Camino" shelter for migrants.

Stories like this have become run-of-the-mill among Central American migrants making the dangerous trek northwards through Mexico to try to cross the U.S. border.

And this is the grim outlook that Felipe González, Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) Rapporteur on the Rights of Migrant Workers and Their Families, will be informed of when he reaches Mexico for a Jul. 25-Aug. 2 fact-finding visit.

"We are going to bring up a number of issues that we have identified as the most pressing concerns," Fabienne Venet, director of the Institute of Dissemination of Studies on Migration (INEDIM), told IPS.

These include "the securitisation of migration, the lack of coordination between federal and local security forces, and human rights violations," she added.

González, a Chilean IACHR commissioner, will meet with Mexican authorities and representatives of international bodies and civil society. He also plans to visit the states of Tamaulipas in the northeast and Veracruz, Oaxaca and Chiapas in the south.

Some 500,000 undocumented migrants from Central and South America cross Mexico every year in their attempt to reach the United States, according to estimates from experts and NGOs. Along the way, they face the risk of arbitrary arrest, extortion, theft, assault, rape, kidnapping and murder at the hands of the police and criminal organisations.

Undocumented migrants cross the porous border between Mexico and Guatemala and ride what is known as the "train of death" from southern to northeast Mexico, through the states of Chiapas, Tabasco, Oaxaca, Veracruz and Tamaulipas. The Mexican government has identified 25 municipalities that are particularly dangerous for migrants along the way.

There are only two million legal immigrants in this country of 112 million people, according to official figures. Of that total, only 24,000 are Central Americans, who mainly use the country as a transit point or work here illegally.

Between January and May, 27,410 Central Americans – mainly Guatemalans, Hondurans and Salvadorans – were deported from Mexico, according to the National Migration Institute.

A group of organisations that work on behalf of migrants' rights will deliver a report to González, protesting the aggressive treatment that undocumented migrants receive at the hands of the Mexican government and its agents, the vulnerability of the defenders of their rights, and the impunity enjoyed by those who prey on the undocumented.

"We want to denounce the harassment and violence of which we, like the migrants themselves, are victims because of our work providing assistance to migrants," Leticia Gutiérrez, a nun who heads the Mexican Catholic bishops' human mobility ministry, told IPS.

The ministry runs 54 shelters and soup kitchens that cater to undocumented migrants in Mexico.

The ministry's staff and shelters have received death threats from both organised crime and the authorities, and have reported that their electric generators have been sabotaged, their electricity cut off, and their windows broken.

The shelters at greatest risk are in Ixtepec, the southeastern town of Tenosique, on the border with Guatemala, and the northern towns of Saltillo and Piedras Negras, on the U.S. border.

Since 2010, kidnappings of undocumented migrants have soared, with dire consequences. In August of that year, the bodies of 72 migrants, most of them Central Americans, were found near a ranch in Tamaulipas state, where they had been murdered by members of Los Zetas, a drug cartel that is heavily involved in the kidnapping for ransom racket.

In December, another 40 undocumented persons were kidnapped in Oaxaca, and disappeared without a trace. Another group of at least 80 mostly Central American migrants were kidnapped in late June in Veracruz; again, their location is unknown.

Mexico's National Human Rights Commission (CNDH) says 20,000 migrants were kidnapped in 2010. Ransom demands were between 1,500 and 5,000 dollars per person, according to the Commission.

This year there have been at least seven cases of attacks on defenders of migrants' rights, compared to two documented between October 2009 and October 2010, according to human rights groups.

"The situation is complicated. The police are in cahoots with organised crime. We are waiting to see what happens; I have no idea how we're going to get out of here," said Miguel, who has asked the Nicaraguan embassy in Mexico for help.

The migrant rights organisations are calling for the creation of a centralised data bank on missing people and unidentified bodies; a system for states to share information; and access by victims' families to this information.

They are also calling for a programme to address the lack of investigation of crimes against migrants and the impunity surrounding such crimes, and they want the IACHR Tapporteur on the Rights of Migrant Workers and Their Families to play an active role in following up on the Mexican government's compliance with recommendations made by the IACHR and the Inter-American Court of Human Rights.

"The blame cannot only be put on organised crime, and the Mexican government should assume responsibility in the context of its international commitments to protect migrants and guarantee their rights," said Venet. "We are going to ask (the rapporteur) to push for a new approach, focused on the safety of migrants."

"We are caught in the crossfire, between organised crime and the government, and trying not to make them our enemies. We want the government to have instruments to address migration issues in terms of development and to recognise the efforts of those of us who work day to day with migrants," said Gutiérrez.

*More from OneWorld

» International Migration Guide

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10 Best American Crime Novelists

I have left out the usual suspects (Ellroy, Leonard, Hammett, Chandler, Wambaugh et al) in my list of 10 best American crime novelists and I have based my selection on the fact that my favorite authors always deliver high quality yarns. I also think they are better than those omitted!

These 10 best crime novelists always give unalloyed pleasure and never drop their standards from novel to novel.

I have deliberately focussed this article on American writers but note that the UK also offers top level crime thriller writers such as Elizabeth George, Mo Hayder, Ruth Rendell, Ian Rankin and many others.

There is a difference in the 'feel' between American and Brit crime writers. It goes beyond the fact of different geographical locations - although that makes for an excellent variation.

It is the differing cultural outlooks - not just the authors - but those of the protagonists as well as the cultural milieu in which the novels are set. For example, the cops in US crime novels are pretty well always armed; whereas their British counterparts rarely are.

The different legal systems - e.g. for search and seizure also make the difference interesting. I can't decide which I like better, but the USA writers have a style that reflects the character of the US so well that it is a genre on its own within the overall crime mystery genre.

The locations also convey that unique 'american feel' - In Burke's books you can almost smell the wisteria and fecund bayous of Louisiana in which he sets his narratives. You cannot mistake these authors as anything but American from the places they write about - the hustle of New York, the freneticism of LA and the electric atmosphere of menace in Miami (Grippando) cannot be mistaken for anywhere else.

My favourite crime novelists are those whose books I can re-read (periodically) and whose writing skills go beyond great plotting - to skilful narrative and command of the language with great characterizations that one wants to have more of.

I loathe books that are contrived or churned out as is the case with the novels of James Patterson whose early works were excellent reads.

Best American 10 Crime Novelists
Michael Connelly
John Lescroart
James Lee Burke
Robert Crais
Harlen Coben
Dennis Lehane
James Grippando
Lawrence Block
Ed McBain
George Pelecanos

Honorable Mentions
Martin Cruz Smith
Lee Childs
John Sandford
Robert Parker

The 10 best American crime novelists are such, in my opinion, because they always deliver a consistently high standard in the narrative, plotting, characterization and maintain interest from page one to the end.

They are crime writers whose new books are avidly awaited - and whose earlier works always stand up to another read.

And, despite many of them having continuing protagonists (e.g. Harry Bosch, Matt Scudder), they are consistently varied, fresh and leave us wanting more.

Some too, are rich in language usage (Burke) dry and witty dialogue (e.g. Crais, Coben, Grippando) and imaginative plots (all of them).

Burke gives real pleasure in just reading the written word. Pelecanos is great in the way he slowly draws you in and the hook stays well embedded.

Lovers of the crime thriller genre will get immense pleasure reading any of these 10 best crime novelists based in the USA.

Read more about US and UK crime thriller writers at my website Top Fiction Books.

Books make great gifts - or just indulge yourself at My Bookstore

US boosts funds to fight Central American drug crime

Guatemala City – As Central America’s leaders sought more help from abroad this week in their fight against violent drug cartels, it was increasingly clear that solving the region’s security problems would require more than just money.

Presidents attending a two-day regional summit in Guatemala City warned that the current surge of violence, fueled by drug traffickers, threatens the entire hemisphere, and pledges for financial assistance from the US and development banks approached $2 billion dollars.

But doubts remain about whether leaders are prepared to implement the reforms needed to take on organized crime groups that often have more resources than the weak states they terrorize.

US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton called on Central American countries to assume their “shared responsibility” in fighting drug traffickers. She announced that the administration would increase assistance to the region by $40 million to $300 million this year, still a much smaller amount than the billion dollar sums guaranteed to Mexico and Colombia in the past decade.

IN PICTURES: Mexico's drug war

“The folks at the State Department that are running the Central American Regional Security Initiative – they are very skeptical about the ability of Central American countries to absorb, and spend effectively and wiselyâ€

The Guatemalan capital provided a somber backdrop to the event, where heavily armed police patrolled the streets around the Westin Camino Real. Just days before the conference, candidates for mayor of a town outside Guatemala City considered suspending their campaigns after two opponents were assassinated. Elsewhere in the capital, neighborhood groups started barricading streets with bars and concrete to keep out criminals, Prensa Libre reported. The country’s homicide rate nearly doubled between 2000 and 2009, according to the Interior Ministry.

International donors committed $1.7 billion for security programs in Central America over the past three years, according to a study released this week by the Washington Office on Latin America (WOLA) and the Inter-American Development Bank. The report found a lack of coordination and communication between donors and recipient governments, which led to duplication of efforts and sometimes to conflicting goals.

“It’s not just an issue of quantity, but of quality and sustainability,” said Adriana Beltran, senior associate for citizen security at WOLA, in an e-mailed response to questions. “Many countries have tended to focus on short-term, heavy handed responses that have proven to be ineffective and counterproductive.”

Ms. Clinton said yesterday that efforts are beginning to resolve those problems through more high-level coordination, and this week’s conference was the first ever meeting organized by the Central American Integration System, a regional body founded in 1991, that focused specifically on security.

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But if Central American presidents aren’t able to provide the leadership to find political consensus at home for much-needed reforms, it may not matter how much aid is offered. The struggle to raise taxes is a clear example of the constraints faced by cash-strapped governments like Guatemala, El Salvador, and Nicaragua.El Salvadoran President Mauricio Funes is fighting to implement a wealth tax to finance security spending, a concept modeled off a tax implemented by Colombia’s popular former President Álvaro Uribe.

In Costa Rica, President Laura Chinchilla is confronting resistance to a proposed casino tax, and in Guatemala, the government has struggled to boost revenue beyond 11.8 percent of gross domestic product, far below the Latin American average of 25 percent. Honduran lawmakers gave reason for optimism yesterday when they approved a temporary security tax on withdrawals from large accounts.

Even Clinton acknowledged in her speech that “businesses and the richâ€

The wealthy “don’t get any services from the state,” said Mr. Casas-Zamora, who was Costa Rica’s planning and economic policy minister from 2006 to 2007. “They don’t get healthcare from the state, they don’t get education from the state, they don’t get security from the state, and therefore are not willing to pay taxes.”

Part of their reluctance to pay may also stem from the widespread perception that higher taxes would only finance more corruption and waste.

“Guatemala is one of the least transparent countries in Central America,” said Pedro Trujillo, director of the Institute for Political Studies and International Affairs at the Universidad Francisco Marroquin in Guatemala City. “We don’t know very well how much the government spends. I don’t think your starting point can be that more money is needed until you’ve seen that spending has been efficient, and that funds are short.”

Even as leaders emphasized their willingness to work together, tensions were clear.

Guatemalan President Álvaro Colom said he understood the need to raise taxes, and countered that the region would benefit from strengthened US efforts to cut drug consumption and weapons trafficking.

Largely absent from the discussion was whether the US should begin to consider legalization as an alternative. After decades of fighting a bloody war on drugs, leaders including former Mexican President Vicente Fox are pressing to include it on the agenda, though it’s unlikely to gain much traction in the US, said Sylvia Longmire, author of the forthcoming book "Cartel: The Coming Invasion of Mexico's Drug Wars."

“For so long, the US has looked at itself as Latin America’s savior,” she said. “Sometimes we can help, and sometimes we can’t.”

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Crime Does Not Pay - Except on American Television

It seems almost impossible to find a prime time television show that doesn't have something to do with crime. The huge popularity of the CSI kind of show is amply embellished with dozens of other crime shows that fill the venue to the brim almost every night of the week. Far from being a comprehensive list here are just some of the offerings from the American idea of crime and punishment. CSI, CSI Miami, CSI New York, NCSI, Forensic Files, NYPD Blue, Law and Order, Law and Order SUV, The Closer, Shark, Cold Case Files, First 48, Missing, Without a Trace, Criminal Minds, City Confidential, Psychic Detective, Mission Road, The Shield, etc. What remains after these shows may also be filled with violence, shows like, Alias, The Unit, Smith, to just name a few.

Do we have a stomach for this much violence? And where are your kids when these shows are on? The question "Do you know where your kids are tonight" might have lost all of its import because if they were in front of the TV they will no doubt see more crime than they might ever encounter on the street.

The nature of the crimes shown is changing as well. Perhaps the producers are driven by competition but the graphic depictions of the crimes are becoming more morbid and extreme. The shows also must be digging down to the bottom of the barrel to find the newest twisted offerings of the criminal element. Bizarre seems to be the best word to describe the new trend toward totally off the wall murders and violence. Must we see the bullet as it rips through every muscle and tissue of the body? Do we have to wade into the mind of the criminal who plans out every twisted detail of a crime that most of us could not imagine if we wanted to? When is enough, enough?

Wrestling and ultimate fight shows take up the slack and they are often watched by children. They almost serve as a primer for when parents will let them sit and watch the blood and gore of the crime shows. Are they just innocuous fillers? Children don't know that the wrestling shows are choreographed, rehearsed and already decided on long before they get to the arenas and TV Screens. But here's the rub, millions of adults don't know it either or they just don't want to know.

Harmless entertainment? The next time you see a wrestler thrown from the top of a ladder to a table outside of the ring or being beaten over the head with a metal chair look up. Look up at the thousands of youngsters with their eyes and jaws stretched open to the limit. Those children are the most likely candidates for becoming the next subject of the crime shows.

Media in general doesn't care about countless studies that positively link violent shows and games to school violence and later to street crime. There's a buck to be made and who's worrying about your kids?

The law enforcement figures in the crime shows are touted as heroes. They doggedly persist with forensic tools, savvy and determination until the criminal is finally stopped. There is a kind of falsehood about their heroism because it is like the case of the person who constantly sweeps out the cobweb but never does anything about the spider. Men and women who espouse a change of heart in individuals like preachers and evangelists are ignored or labeled as bible thumpers or charlatans that pander to the meek and those who are not as self reliant.

The public trend is to view the preacher as someone on the level of a used car salesmen and thereby dismiss the message of the messenger. As in any profession not all preachers come out pristine...so what. This is a quiescent or passive form of hypocrisy. No one ceases to see the doctor just because some of them have been sued for malpractice. No one refuses to call the cops when their in trouble just because some cops are dishonest. The message will stand regardless of how many preachers fall. What is that message?

Put simply the Bible says that the real problem with society can always be narrowed down to one single element and one single person at a time. The problem is the individual human heart; it is as prone to its own selfishness and devices as it was thousands of years ago. It can only be dealt with by conversion. Reformation, religion, police, psychiatry, social programming and nothing else can permanently change the human heart. Christ alone through the indwelling power of God's Holy Spirit can change the human heart. Christ deals with the spider not the cobweb.

If man was intrinsically good and every heart was a wellspring of benevolence then our world would not be in the shape it is today. Crime shows would be non existent. And the scripture would not say...The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked: who can know it? Jeremiah 17:9

Of course the great and mighty god we know as the dollar will keep the crime programs on the production line regardless of what a few preachers say, that's understood. And just how much does crime pay. There are no clear statistics on the matter but a safe guess would be in the multi billions of dollars. The producers, actors and others making the crime shows have little doubt that the old adage "Crime Doesn't Pay" is just a bunch of phooey.

The accountants who keep the books for the media could readily prove that for the moment crime does pay. Those who keep the book of life would remind us that..."The wages of sin is death." Romans 6:23

The sponsors of the crime shows are paying dearly to have their products aired on these shows and we are paying dearly by having our senses bombarded to the point of numbness. The cost to our children is that they have become a generation of violence fed

future potential crime suspects. The weak minded, misguided and violent prone are taking advantage of an education in crime brought to them at no cost replete with ideas for crimes they could never have generated on their own.

Do we actually love violence? It would seem we do and every great nation, kingdom or empire before us did as well. In fact a careful examination of the historical pattern would reveal that every major power in this world has experienced a rise in violent activities just before they reached the peak of their power. Unfortunately the only thing that remains after reaching the peak of power is the fall from power and that too was usually very violent. The love of violence or just a preoccupation with it has consequences on a larger scale. That too is what brought ancient kingdoms to their end. America can produce nothing that would cause it to escape the same fate unless we awake. Although the call may not be heard above the roar of the trendy crowd and the noise of money it still stands. What is that call and what is that warning? Come see.

The LORD trieth the righteous: but the wicked and him that loveth violence his soul hateth. Psalm11:5

Yea, in heart ye work wickedness; ye weigh the violence of your hands in the earth. Psalm 58:2

Thus saith the LORD; Execute ye judgment and righteousness, and deliver the spoiled out of the hand of the oppressor: and do no wrong, do no violence to the stranger, the fatherless, nor the widow, neither shed innocent blood in this place. Jeremiah 22:3

My face will I turn also from them, and they shall pollute my secret place: for the robbers shall enter into it, and defile it. Make a chain: for the land is full of bloody crimes, and the city is full of violence. Ezekiel 7:22, 23

They hatch cockatrice' eggs, and weave the spider's web: he that eateth of their eggs dieth, and that which is crushed breaketh out into a viper. Their webs shall not become garments, neither shall they cover themselves with their works: their works are works of iniquity, and the act of violence is in their hands. Isaiah 59:5, 6

Rev Bresciani is the author of two Christian books one that is entirely on the second coming of Christ. He is a contributing columnist for several online news and commentary sites. His articles are read throughout the world. Please enjoy a visit to http://www.americanprophet.org