Mexico and Central America

Washington, D.C., November 6, 2013 – Four months before the feared Zetas drug cartel kidnapped and murdered 72 migrants in northeastern Mexico, the U.S. Embassy in Mexico City said that narcotrafficking organizations in that region operated with "near total impunity in the face of compromised local security forces." As the date of the massacre drew nearer, another U.S.

Washington, D.C., September 24, 2013 – On September 20, a Guatemalan tribunal convicted the former director of the National Police of Guatemala, retired Col. Hйctor Bol de la Cruz, and his subordinate Jorge Alberto Gуmez Lуpez for the 1984 disappearance of student and labor leader Edgar Fernando Garcнa. The verdict broke new ground in the case of Fernando Garcнa's abduction and presumed murder, by condemning senior police officials for their role in ordering, overseeing, and then concealing the crime.

After weeks of powerful testimony and excruciating procedural wrangling, the trial of former Guatemalan dictator Efraнn Rнos Montt and his intelligence chief Josй Rodrнguez Sбnchez on charges of genocide and crimes against humanity is coming to an end. With Judge Yazmin Barrios's request for closing arguments yesterday, the government's lead prosecutor, Orlando Lуpez, gave more than two hours of summation based heavily on the Guatemalan military plans, manuals, and operational records entered as evidence.

Washington, DC, March 28, 2013 – A radio program on the Dos Erres massacre in Guatemala in 1982, which featured National Security Archive senior analyst Kate Doyle, won a prestigious George Foster Peabody Award yesterday. The program originally aired on May 25, 2012, as part of "This American Life" from WBEZ, and was a collaboration with Pro Publica and Fundacion MEPI.

Washington, D.C., March 19, 2013 – The groundbreaking genocide trial of Efraнn Rнos Montt, retired army general and former dictator of Guatemala, opens today with the presentation of the prosecution's first witnesses. The trial will take place despite repeated efforts by defense lawyers to halt the proceedings with legal appeals and a bid for amnesty. On March 12, the Constitutional Court rejected the amnesty request once and for all, clearing the way for the trial to begin.