Global Issues IRE Resources '11-'12

She was the presidential candidate of the Green Oxygen Party - a group that she had created after leaving the Liberal Party in 1998

San Vicente de Caguan was also one of the most dangerous areas in Colombia, as it was considered one of the strongholds of the guerrillas protected, forming part of the demilitarized zone of the army.

political kidnapping for extortion that are used purely as a means of financing at this stage of the life of the guerrillas

The U.N.'s refugee agency (UNHCR) has increased the figure of officially recognized internally displaced people in Colombia from 3.4 to 3.67 million, maintaining its undesired position as the first in the world, Caracol Radio reported Monday. UNHCR explains that in 2010 there were 57 "massive displacements," up from 42 the year before, while indigenous communities and Afro-Colombians continue to be the most prominently victimized by forced displacements, who tend to be concentrated in the areas that have witnessed intensified conflict in recent years such as the Pacific coastal regions. The latest U.N. report claimed that ethnic groups have been further affected by the development of illegal mining as a source of finance for illegal armed groups in the country, while inter-city displacement continues to rise, particularly in the Antioquian capital of Medellin. The U.N. agency noted concern for the situation of young people affected by the country's ongoing armed conflict and the emergence of criminal organizations following the 2006 demobilization process that have largely continued the narco-trafficking work of the paramilitaries. The figure of 3.6 million internally displaced people contrasts strikingly with that of Colombian non-governmental organization CODHES, which released a report earlier this year citing 5.2 million displaced Colombians, over 11% of the population, evidently using different criteria with which to classify what constitutes a "forcibly displaced" person. The government's figure by the close of 2010 rested closer to that of the U.N. with around 3.6 million people. The Internal Displacement Monitoring Center (IDMC), however, indicates that "the rates of under-registration are substantially high."

"The national-survey by the Civil Society Follow-up Commission showed that 65,7% of IDPs [Internally Displaced Persons] are registered," the IDMC explains, while the remaining 34.3% are not. The Colombian government puts the percentage of unregistered IDPs at 21%. The IDMC notes that many people remain outside of the government's official registry "as IDPs did not come forward out of fear or ignorance of procedures, and because many who requested it were denied registration."

two scientists

(FARC), a violent insurgency group known for ransoming abductees, has claimed responsibility.

prepare a biological survey of a potential national park.

In this context, the FARC has adopted strategies to strengthen its presence at the local level that play upon the weak mechanisms of accountability that exist in local and regional government. For example, by kidnapping or threatening municipal authorities, the group has sought to establish "armed oversight" over the use of municipal funds

Based on this information, the insurgents have targeted corrupt politicians in their kidnapping and extortion campaigns, though they often utilize public funds to finance their own activities. L

"It's looking more and more like Colombia looked twenty years ago," she said, "where the narco-traffickers control certain parts of the country."

Mexico doesn't even have a viable proclaimed guerrilla force aiming to topple the government. Instead, Mexico has labyrinthine drug gangs murderously fighting it out against each other-while they extort, intimidate, massacre, and conduct firefights with the government.

There is no law there," he warned. "They are the law."

"the most technologically advanced, sophisticated and dangerous cartel operating in Mexico."

Commandos from the Mexican army deserted and set up a cartel, known as Los Zetas.

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IV. Mexico's Drug War Mexico continued its war on drug trafficking that Mexican President Felipe Calderón launched against drug cartels in 2006.

President Calderón announced that his administration would reform civilian law enforcement and the courts, and that "the Mexican army would continue to lead the fight until local and state police forces are free of corruption."20

Local and state politicians have increasingly become targets of violence by the drug cartels, which have also attacked rival gangs. Some murders are particularly vicious, intended to gain media attention and frighten both rival drug gangs and law enforcement officers. "Prosecutors, police chiefs, and thousands of others have been killed," and entire families sometimes come under attack.

Its primary stated objective was to end drug trafficking in Colombia. Later on, it was discovered that the plan had the further objective of defeating the guerrilla movement,

it reaches $7.7 billion. But despite this investment, the U.S.-supported government of Alvaro Uribe has defeated neither the drug traffickers nor the guerrilla movement. To the contrary, the plan's only success has been to guarantee a majority to the parties that supported Uribe in the Congressional elections of March 2006, and to guarantee Uribe's own re-election last May.

The Sinaloa Cartel (Pacific Cartel, Guzmán-Loera Cartel) (Spanish: Cártel de Sinaloa) is the most powerful drug cartel in Mexico[2] and considered by the United States Intelligence Community as "the most powerful drug trafficking organization in the world."

Guzmán-Loera

Organization and the Pacific Cartel

Drugs provide Colombia's biggest source of foreign income, nearly 36 percent of

UN estimated the annual illegal drug sales in the world at $500 billion.

but also in the society that continues to produce them. Before juvenile violence became so widespread, many dramatic changes had occurred in Colombia. First of all, there are historical factors. The gangs emerged in areas characterized by massive rural migration. By and large, the state had completely forgotten these areas by the 1970s. Residents were condemned to the world of "informality"--a world in which the rights and obligations of citizenship were lacking. The sons of these migrants from the Colombian countryside grew up on the edge of legality. They were treated as second-class citizens, to be dealt with only by the police.

In a poll conducted last year in the schools of the Northeastern District, students were asked whom they considered the most important person in the country. Pablo Escobar was named by 21 percent of those surveyed; 19.6 percent chose President César Gaviria; and 12.6 percent named the goalkeeper of the national soccer team, René Higuita.

Causes of Displacement Young people's vulnerability to abuses is the motivating factor for fleeing in many cases. The UNHCHR reports that threats by guerrillas and paramilitaries are the primary reasons for families to seek refuge elsewhere. According to CODHES, in 1998, 36 percent of families fled with their children because of direct threats; 25 percent because of fear; 22 percent because of massacres and killings; 8 percent because of battles; 4 percent because of "disappearances"; 3 percent because of armed attacks; and 2 percent because of torture. According to the ICG, armed conflict accounted for 66 percent of displacement cases in Putumayo in 2002. Families regularly cited fear of forced recruitment of children into armed forces as a reason for fleeing from their homes. For example, 60 families fled from their homes in the municipality of Cunday, in Tolima department in August 2002, following the announcement of a recruitment order by the FARC-EP for everyone over the age of 12, according to the UNHCHR (E/CN.4/2003/13, Annex). In 2002, fighting for territorial control between guerrillas and paramilitaries in western Urabá forced a group of 64 civilians, including 36 children, to flee to the Punusa area of the Darién jungle in Panama, near the Colombian border (UNHCR). World Vision Colombia reports in Victimas Civiles en Medio del Conflicto Armado, 2002, that paramilitary forces committed six massacres during the last quarter of 2002 that provoked displacements of at least 170 people each in Antioquia, Chocó and Córdoba departments. The report also cites 11 massacres by unidentified forces committed during the same period that also forced residents to flee. No specific locations or dates of these events are provided.

"This life was taken simply because he resisted being captured," Colombian prosecutor general Gustavo de Greiff said in a television interview from Bogota, monitored in Miami. "Let this be a lesson to all criminals that sooner or later we will catch them."