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Fearful that Central America was becoming overrun by organized crime, perhaps worse than in the worst parts of Mexico, the State Department, the D.E.A. and the Pentagon rushed ahead this year with a muscular antidrug program with several Latin American nations, hoping to protect Honduras and use it as a chokepoint to cut off the flow of drugs heading north.
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the antidrug cooperation, often promoted as a model of international teamwork, into a case study of what can go wrong when the tactics of war are used to fight a crime problem that goes well beyond drugs.
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“You can’t cure the whole body by just treating the arm,” said Edmundo Orellana, Honduras’s former defense minister and attorney general. “You have to heal the whole thing.”
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A sweeping new plan for Honduras, focused more on judicial reform and institution-building, is now being jointly developed by Honduras and the United States. But State Department officials must first reassure Congress that the deaths have been investigated and that new safeguards, like limits on the role of American forces, will be put in place.
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the new plan, according to a recent draft shown to The New York Times, is more aspirational than anything aimed at combating drugs and impunity in Mexico, or Colombia before that. It includes not just boats and helicopters, but also broad restructuring: several new investigative entities, an expanded vetting program for the police, more power for prosecutors, and a network of safe houses for witnesses.
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The country’s homicide rate is among the highest in the world, and corruption has chewed through government from top to bottom.
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The foreign minister, Mr. Corrales, a hulk of a man with a loud laugh and a degree in engineering, said he visited Washington in early 2011 with a request for help in four areas: investigation, impunity, organized crime and corruption.
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the killing — along with the soaring homicide rate and the increased trafficking — sounded alarms in Washington: “It raised for us the specter of Honduras becoming another northern Mexico.”
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there were no detailed rules governing American participation in law enforcement operations. Honduran officials also described cases in which the rules of engagement for the D.E.A. and the police were vague and ad hoc.
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Members of the Honduran police teams told government investigators that they took their orders from the D.E.A. Americans officials said that the FAST teams, deploying tactics honed in Afghanistan, did not feel confident in the Hondurans’ abilities to take the lead.
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Representative Howard L. Berman of California, the ranking Democrat on the House Foreign Affairs Committee, wrote to Mrs. Clinton, “Unfortunately, this is not the first time the United States has come perilously close to an overmilitarized strategy toward a country too small and institutionally weak for its citizens to challenge the policy.”
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Mr. Brownfield, the assistant secretary, said it was impossible to “offer a zero risk program for interdicting drugs in Central America.” He noted that the shootings during interdiction raids happened in the middle of the night, in remote locations that were hard for investigators to reach. Despite these challenges, he said that investigations were conducted and that he was “basically satisfied” that he knew what had happened.
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From the moment the Honduran pilot departed in his aging Tucano turboprop, just before midnight, he was in radio contact with Colombian authorities, who regularly receive radar intelligence from the American military’s Southern Command.
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Mr. Corrales, the foreign minister, and some American officials have concluded that the downed planes amounted to misapplied military justice, urged on by societal anger and the broader weaknesses of Honduras’s institutions.
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Creating a stronger system is at the core of what some officials are now calling Anvil II. A draft of the plan provided by Mr. Corrales shows a major shift toward shoring up judicial institutions with new entities focused on organized and financial crime.
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The D.E.A.’s role will also probably change. A
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“It’s a tragedy; there is no confidence in the state,” she said, wearing black in her university office. The old game of cocaine cat-and-mouse tends to look like a quicker fix, she said, with its obvious targets and clear victories measured in tons seized.
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“This moment presents us with an opportunity for institutional reform,” Dr. Castellanos said. But that will depend on whether the new effort goes after more than just drugs and uproots the criminal networks that have already burrowed into Honduran society.
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Brazil police's takeover of slums from gangs is a mixed blessing - latimes.com - 0 views

www.latimes.com/...-20121125,0,4954477,full.story Brazil crime gangs police

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For Cuba, a Harsh Self-Assessment - NYTimes.com - 0 views

www.nytimes.com/...ment-as-cuba-looks-within.html cultural values Cuba civility

shared by Javier E on 24 Jul 13 - No Cached

President Raúl Castro unleashed his fiercest and lengthiest public lecture to date on the demise of Cuban culture and conduct. In a speech to the National Assembly, Mr. Castro said that Cubans’ behavior — from urinating in the street and raising pigs in cities to taking bribes — had led him to conclude that, despite five decades of universal education, the island had “regressed in culture and civility.”
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Cubans build houses without permits, catch endangered fish, cut down trees, gamble, accept bribes and favors, hoard goods and sell them at inflated prices, and harass tourists, Mr. Castro said.
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And that is just the start: Islanders yell in the street, curse indiscriminately, disturb their neighbors’ sleep with loud music, drink alcohol in public, vandalize telephones, dodge bus fares and throw stones at passing trains, the president lamented. “They ignore the most basic standards of gentility and respect,” Mr. Castro continued. “All this is going on under our noses, without provoking any objection or challenge from other citizens.”
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“He should have taken responsibility,” said Alexi, who asked that his full name not be used because he was discussing the Cuban leadership. Cubans’ morals had been broken, he said, by the “special period” of severe economic hardship that followed the collapse of the Soviet Union, when many people resorted to stealing, scams and, in some cases, prostitution to get by
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growing up in an environment where cheating and duplicity were a way of living had bred cynicism. “This cynicism feeds into people’s lack of engagement,” she said. “Individual responsibility toward the collective is very low.”
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Still, Havana has avoided the rampant crime and drug violence that plague many Latin American — and American — cities. And in spite of complaints about deteriorating manners, many Cubans maintain a sense of community and remain close to family, sharing food or helping out friends and neighbors.
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Standing shirtless outside his small house, Alexi pointed to his 24-year-old son, fixing a hubcap on the sidewalk. “How could I raise him with the same morals, when just to put rice, beans and pork on the table requires all kinds of illegalities?” he said. “I had to teach him the values of survival.”
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Cubans complain that sliding professional standards, inexperienced teachers who are barely older than their students and a lack of public facilities have helped corrode people’s civic-mindedness.
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Mr. Castro proposed a combination of education, promotion of culture and enforcement to restore the country’s civility. He called on workers’ unions, the authorities, teachers, intellectuals and artists, among others, to hold other Cubans to standards of behavior.
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