A sudden mid-August upsurge in violence in eastern Port-of-Spain led to a first-ever political event: a meeting between Prime Minister Kamla Persad-Bissessar and opposition leader Keith Rowley to work out a consensual approach on anti-crime measures. It also triggered a police response that was harshly criticised by the legal profession as pushing the boundaries of acceptable procedures — and there was some irony in the fact that homicide figures for the first eight months of the year are actually much lower than a year earlier. The event that prompted these responses was a spate of six killings within 24 hours…

Over the last three months the government of President Porfirio Lobo has announced the creation of three new police forces, billed as the means to achieving a “rapid reduction” in the level of criminal violence that has given Honduras the highest murder rate in the world. The plan is to start fielding them in September, less than two months before the presidential elections and less than four before the end of Lobo’s term in office. The first of these forces, approved by congress last June, is the Tropa de Inteligencia y Grupos de Respuesta Especial (Tigres), a paramilitary armed rapid-response…