LatinNews Daily Report - 19 November 2013

SECURITY | More violence in mining triangle. On 18 November police reported the deaths of two people in the municipalities of Bonanza and Mulukukú, in the so-called ‘mining triangle’ in the indigenous North Atlantic Autonomous Region (Raan) on Nicaragua’s Caribbean coast. Since August the area has been the target of a special security police plan after a spate of violence left more than 20 dead in late July. At the time, the director of the local human rights NGO Centro de Prevención de Violencia (Ceprev), Mónica Zalaquett, told reporters that the violence could have stemmed from organised crime. Pablo Cuevas, a lawyer for another human rights organisation, Comisión Permanente de Derechos Humanos (CPDH), linked it to ongoing reports of armed groups operating in the north of the country. The government of President Daniel Ortega denies both theories, blaming “delinquency”. The Managua government is keen to downplay any security concerns amid its continued efforts to trumpet Nicaragua as a safe haven in the region. In May, the  national police chief, Aminta Granera, told reporters that the country’s homicide rate had dropped to 11 per 100,000 inhabitants, down from 12 the previous year – significantly less than the astronomical rate of 86 per 100,000 inhabitants in neighbouring Honduras in 2012 for example. Yet the Raan and the neighbouring Raas have significantly higher rates – of 18 and 42.7 respectively.

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