ConflictBarometer_2016

THE AMERICAS
ily concerned with high-level corruption, anti-government
groups demonstrated against hydroelectric projects.
Following the 2015 negotiations regarding the establishment
of a new commission, President Juan Orlando Hernández and
the Secretary General of the Organization of American States,
Luis Almagro, signed an agreement on January 19 to set up
the Mission for Support against Corruption and Impunity in
Honduras (MACCIH). The agreement provided MACCIH officials
with unrestricted access to state documents and the authority
to investigate cases of corruption. On June 6, a former
member of the Honduran Social Security Institute (IHSS) directorate
was arrested on charges of money laundering and
passive bribery. Two weeks later, the President of Honduras'
Supreme Court (CSJ), Rolando Argueta Pérez, announced that
MACCIH would be also responsible for the selection of judges
to head special anti-corruption tribunals. On November 9,
MACCIH criticized the selection process of three magistrates
of the High Court of Auditors (TSE) for lack of transparency.
Throughout the year, protests against hydroelectric plants
turned violent and human rights activists were attacked and
killed. On March 3, unknown assailants shot dead Berta
Cáceres, the renowned president of the human rights organization
COPINH, in her apartment in La Esperanza, Intibucá department.
Cáceres had been involved in the protests against
the Agua Zarca dam near San Francisco de Ojuera, Santa
Bárbara department. In reaction, over 120 NGOs in Europe
and the US declared their solidarity. Six months later, the
judge in the Cáceres case was attacked on her way home
and robbed of the case file. On April 15, several unidentified
men attacked participants of an international solidarity
meeting near the construction site of Agua Zarca with machetes,
sticks, and stones, injuring seven people, some of
them gravely. The participants accused the police of not providing
protection and identified some of the attackers as associates
of the hydroelectric company Desarrollos Energéticos
S.A. On May 9, security forces dissolved a demonstration
of 150 COPINH-affiliated protesters in the capital Tegucigalpa,
Francisco Morazán department, using batons and injuring
several protesters. On July 5, unknown assailants tortured
and killed the COPINH activist Lesbia Yaneth Urquía, whose
corpse was found the next day at a waste dump in Marcala,
La Paz department. She had been involved in protesting the
hydroelectric plant Aurora I in the district San José, La Paz.
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JAMAICA (DRUG GANGS)
Intensity: 3 | Change: | Start: 2010
Throughout the year, police seized small arms and tons of
drugs, mainly marijuana.
On April 13, around 200 members of the Jamaican Constabulary
Force and the army launched an operation in Harbour
View, St. Andrew, in order to arrest Marlon Perry, leader of the
Duppy Flames Gang. While Perry escaped, one gang member
was shot dead and another was injured. On June 9, police
killed two members of the West Bank Gang in Maverley,
Kingston, St. Andrew. While police said they were hit during
a shoot-out, residents claimed that they had been killed
while sleeping. In a similar incident on July 15, police killed
one alleged gang member in Tivoli Gardens, Kingston. Subsequently
residents protested the killing by putting up road
blockades and throwing stones at police, injuring one. The
Jamaican Defense Force was called in to provide support and
patrolled Tivoli Gardens the following day. On August 10, police
in Clarendon killed Rohan ''Virus” Stevens, leader of the
Web Lane Gang. Steve ''Frenchie” Allen of Tivoli Gang was
shot dead in an encounter with a police patrol in Kingston on
September 12.
The probe of the 2010 Dudus Coke affair continued. On June
15, the official Tivoli Enquiry Report was presented to parliament,
recommending compensation for the victims and an
official apology by the government.
Incidents of inter-gang violence and violence against civilians
continued in 2016. In the run-up to the general elections in
February, three people were killed at events of the Jamaican
Labour Party (JPL) in St. James, which the police attributed it
to a rivalry between Sparta and Rebel gangs.
After tensions between Tivoli Garden and Denham Town
gangs had arisen in March and April, police and military forces
increased their operations in the respective areas of West
Kingston, St. Andrew. Violence in the area flared up again
in November, after the son of Christopher ''Dudus” Coke was
shot and injured. In September, inter-gang violence escalated
in St. James, especially Montego Bay and adjacent neighborhoods.
Over 200 people were killed in the parish between
January and the end of September.
After the return of Tesha Miller, imprisoned in the US for
two years, intra-gang violence escalated in Spanish Town, St.
Catherine, over the leadership of the Clansman Gang. Additional
security forces were deployed and the police imposed
various curfews.
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MEXICO (CNTE ET AL.)
Intensity: 3 | Change: | Start: 2006
Conflict parties:
Conflict items:
drug gangs vs. government
subnational predominance
Conflict parties:
Conflict items:
CNTE et al. vs. government
system/ideology
The violent crisis over subnational predominance between
various drug gangs and the government continued. Gangrelated
violence affected especially the parishes of St. James,
St. Catherine, Kingston, Clarendon, and St. Andrew. According
to the police, around 700 people were killed in gang-related
violence between January and mid-November. In addition,
security forces killed 61 people between January and June, as
reported by the Independent Commission of Investigations.
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The violent crisis over the orientation of education policies
between the National Coordination of Education Workers
(CNTE) and the government led by Enrique Peña Nieto continued.
In the course of the year, CNTE staged disruptive and often
violent protests preponderantly taking place in the states
of Chiapas, Oaxaca, Michoacán, and in the capital Mexico
City, Federal District, to oppose the implementation of the