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Predictions that the decisive second round of Haiti's presidential elections would be disrupted by the returns of former dictator Jean-Claude Duvalier (1971-1986) and former president Jean-Bertrand Aristide (1991, 1994-1996 and 2001-2004) were not proven correct. Now, in the wake of Michel Martelly's victory, a new potential trigger of unrest is being seen: the reappearance of former soldiers training in expectation of the resurrection of the army disbanded just over 15 years ago.

Media reports about groups of former soldiers undergoing training (ostensibly without weapons) began to circulate in late February. The group that attracted most attention is one that trains on a hill in Carrefour, a poor district that lies just west of Port-au-Prince. More than 100 strong, they are commanded by a former soldier, Nestor Apolon, who wears portraits of both Duvaliers (‘Papa Doc' François and ‘Baby Doc' Jean-Claude) on his key chain and boasts of having been among the rebels who forced the ouster or Aristide in 2004. He is assisted by a former army sergeant, David Dorme.

The rebellion that began in February 2004 did not only involve former soldiers. It was actually started by gang leaders in Gonaïves who called themselves the Front de Résistance de Gonaïves. A separate group headed by former police officer Guy Philippe and former army sergeant Louis Jodel Chamblain, and calling itself the Front de Libération Nationale (FLN), was indeed mainly formed by past members of the military who claimed that Aristide had proceeded illegally when he disbanded the army. After Aristide's ouster, Philippe claimed that the FLN, as the core of a reconstituted army, could have done a better job than the United Nations Stabilization Mission in Haiti (Minustah) in quelling gang violence. Philippe tried his hand at a political career, but failed.

‘Baby Doc' Duvalier returned to Haiti in January, Aristide in March. On both instances there were major mobilisations of security forces to ward off violent unrest. This did not materialise, arguably because the mobilisations were effective as a deterrent. However, there had been no later sign of unrest triggered by the returnees.

The political scene, though, is fragile. Final figures (still under challenge) show Martelly enjoying in congress only the support of the three deputies elected on the ticket of his Repons Peyizan party; Inité, the now-ruling coalition with a plurality of 46 seats in the 99-seat lower chamber (13 of which are being contested); and the Alternativ coalition — that includes the Organisation du Peuple en Lutte (OPL), an offshoot of Aristide's Fanmi Lavalas, which was banned from the election — with eight seats. Inité appears to hold a comfortable majority in the senate.

As regards the growing demand for the resurrection of the army, both Martelly and second-runner Mirlande Manigat declared during their campaigns their support for the creation of some kind of armed force. Martelly has also said that he favours a speedy handover of responsibilities from Minustah to a Haitian force. The chief of the national police, Mario Andrésol (himself a former army officer), has also come out in favour of a military force, and has predicted that there would be thousands lining up to join if a call were issued. Returnee Aristide is, of course the man who disbanded the army in his day.

Right now security is in the hands of fewer than 9,000 members of the national police. Andrésol reckons that more than 20,000 are needed. The problem is money, not the lack of willing recruits, says Andrésol: about 30,000 have applied to join.

CENTRAL AMERICA | Regional security centre. On 18 April, Sica's new operational regional security centre (COSR-Sica in the Spanish acronym) was formally inaugurated on the site of Senan, Panama's aeronaval service, on the banks of the Panama Canal. Its task will be to exchange information and provide follow-up for coordinated operations against organised crime carried out in fulfilment of the Central American security strategy (Esca). The decision to create this centre was taken at a meeting of Sica's security officials in Antigua, Guatemala, last September. An international conference to support the Esca will bring together the region's security officials and representatives of donor countries — which so far include Canada, Chile, Colombia, the EU, Finland, Germany, Italy, Israel, Mexico, the Netherlands, South Korea, Spain, the US and Taiwan.

CUBA | Prisoner releases. Following the arrival of a batch of 37 released Cuban prisoners on 8 April, the Spanish government announce that the Cuban government had completed its release of political prisoners and prisoners of conscience. It noted that of 115 prisoners released, 103 had gone to Spain, accompanied by 647 relatives. Of the 155, only 12 members of the Group of 75 had chosen to stay in Cuba.

The Spanish government's claim has, however, been challenged by José Gabriel Ramón Castillo, a released member of the Group of 75 who has been in Spain since 2008. He said that at least 55 ‘political prisoners who virtually nobody knows' are still being held in confinement. Of these, 52 are on a list compiled by the Council of Rapporteurs on Human Rights in Cuba, and three more, who are imprisoned in eastern Cuba, he knows personally.

Castillo's claim has been endorsed by another member of the Group of 75, Julio César Gálvez, who arrived in Spain last July. He mentioned the cases of three persons, imprisoned, respectively, in 1994, 1995 and 1998, whose situation had been ‘eclipsed' by the attention focused on the Group of 75.

GUATEMALA | Decrease in violent deaths reported. The Grupo de Apoyo Mutuo (GAM), an NGO that monitors human rights, reported on 13 April that in the first quarter of this year there were 874 homicides, compared with 909 in the same period of 2010. The GAM has noted, though, that the monthly death toll this year has been rising: 275 cases in January, 295 in February, and 304 in March.

In Q1 2011, there were 56 lynchings, 15 of which ended in the death of the victims. Of all the homicide victims in the first quarter, 35 were killed in nine incidents classified as ‘massacres' (collective killings). Typical of these was the 7 April attack on a bar in Chiquimula, in which five were killed and 12 injured.

Prominent among the homicide victims were 28 bus drivers and 20 public transport auxiliaries, killed by street gangs for resisting extortion. The next largest group of victims was shopkeepers, most of them presumed to have been killed for the same reason.

Just how much the Honduran government knows about the presence of Mexican cartels in its territory is being called into question following the March discovery of the first cocaine processing lab in the Merendón hills of the north-western department of Cortés, which borders on Guatemala. Security Minister Oscar Alvarez first ventured that the lab could belong to the Sinaloa cartel, but a little over a week later, following evidence collected at the lab which led them to another location, the police concluded that the lab was run by Los Zetas. The police used what they discovered in the Merendón hills to locate a depot in San Pedro Sula where they found a large arsenal and cocaine base similar to that found near the lab in Cortés. Evidence at this depot clearly indicated that it belonged to Los Zetas, not the Sinaloa cartel.

Only days before the discovery of the lab in Cortés, Alvarez had publicly confirmed that the Sinaloa cartel and Los Zetas were active in Honduras, particularly in the western departments of Ocotepeque and Copán, which border on Guatemala, and the northern ones of Atlántida and Colón, on the Caribbean coast. However, said Alvarez, these organisations had not established themselves permanently in Honduras, but rather operated through local trafficking organisations.

This does not match the findings of the comprehensive 2010 study of the spreading influence of Mexican cartels in Central America, ‘Drug Trafficking Organizations in Central America: Transportistas, Mexican cartels and Maras', by the Mexico Institute at the Woodrow Wilson Center and the Trans-Border Institute at the University of San Diego.

This study notes that both the Sinaloa cartel and Los Zetas have been purchasing real estate in Honduras, the former along the Pacific coast and the border between Honduras and Guatemala, the latter along the northern Caribbean coast, linking up with Guatemala via Copán-Zacapa. The study also points out that while the Sinaloa cartel tends to operate through local gangs, Los Zetas displaces the locals by force.

Cortés, where the cocaine processing lab was found, lies along the ‘fault line' between the areas of influence of the two Mexican cartels. The discovery of a big Los Zetas arsenal in San Pedro Sula, capital of Cortés, suggests that Los Zetas may have been preparing to contest this territory by force, replicating in Honduras the wars raging between them and the Sinaloa cartel in Mexico.

Cocaine processing labs have been cropping up outside the coca producing countries in South America, but never so far north in Central America. This had been explained on two grounds. The first is that in the refining process the ratio of cocaine base to cocaine hydrochloride is roughly 2:1, which means that transporting base is a weightier and hence riskier proposition than moving HCl. The second is that while coca growing has been spreading into Ecuador and Argentina, there has been no evidence that it has gone into Central America. When the lab was discovered in Cortés, Alvarez ruled out any possibility of local cultivation (while not ruling out the possibility that there might be more processing labs).

This might merit closer examination. It is not so long ago that Colombia was not considered apt for coca cultivation. Similarly it is worth recalling the fact that before Peru and Bolivia were found to be ideal for large-scale coca cultivation, colonial powers grew coca commercially in Sri Lanka and Indonesia.

On 12 April Costa Rica and Nicaragua held their first formal bilateral meeting since their territorial dispute began last October. The only thing on which they agreed was the date of their next meeting. Earlier in the month the dispute had spiked again when Nicaragua sought to prevent an inspection of Isla Portillos by Ramsar Convention experts.

The International Court of Justice (ICJ), in its 8 March ruling, had made one exception to its order barring both sides from sending military or civilian personnel to the disputed island: the dispatch of environmental experts to prevent irreparable damage to the disputed wetlands, on the condition that this personnel be accompanied by personnel of the Ramsar Convention and that the other party be notified in advance.

Costa Rica notified Nicaragua on 30 March that Ramsar experts would be inspecting the area where it alleges that harm has already been done to the wetlands. Nicaragua objected on the grounds that this visit would breach the ICJ ruling, and subsequently announced that it would issue formal protests and denounce what it described as a Costa Rican ‘provocation'.

The inspection began on 5 April, but on the following day the helicopter carrying the Ramsar experts was prevented from landing by a group of militants of the Sandinista youth engaging in a ‘peaceful reaffirmation of sovereignty'. This notwithstanding, the Costa Rican government described the inspection as a success. Costa Rica issued a formal protest against Nicaragua for obstructing the inspection.

Nicaragua proceeded to denounce Costa Rica for ‘repeatedly' violating its airspace on 5-6 April with its own helicopters and those identified as belonging to the Ramsar Convention. On 6 April, at the inauguration of the new term at the Universidad Nacional Autónoma de Nicaragua in León, President Daniel Ortega accused Costa Rica of refusing to dialogue and seeking to draw both countries into a ‘major confrontation'. He said that Costa Rica had not given up its intention to annex areas in Nicaragua such as Rivas, Granada, the San Juan river and Lake Granada ‘as they did in 1857' — the latter being an allusion to the episode in which the inhabitants of the disputed border territory of Guanacaste voted in a plebiscite to be incorporated into Costa Rica.

On 12 April the deputy foreign ministers of Costa Rica and Nicaragua sat down at Peñas Blancas, each at a table on his side of the border, in the presence of the Mexican and Guatemalan deputy foreign ministers. After two hours they issued the ‘Declaration of Peñas Blancas' containing the only agreement they had reached: the date and venue of their next meeting: 5 May in Guatemala.

Resolution of the dispute over Isla Portillos will take its time. On 14 April the ICJ set the calendar for the first hearing of the substantive phase of the suit brought by Costa Rica against Nicaragua. The former has until 5 December to present its case on 5 December 2011, the latter until 6 August 2012 for its response.

Another ICJ decision involving both countries will be handed down earlier, on 4 May. It involves a Costa Rican request to be heard in the case brought by Nicaragua against Colombia over maritime jurisdictions (as well as a Honduran request to be accepted as a party to the case). Nicaragua has objected to both requests, and accused both countries of conspiring with Colombia.