Latin America security by the numbers Share This /

Venezuela gave Nicaragua US$2.56 billion in assistance, much of it oil or energy related, between 2007 and the first half of 2012.

“In 2010, Brazil spent more than US$350 million on 14 Israeli-made Heron UAVs for surveillance of the Amazon rainforest and border regions,” reports John Otis in GlobalPost.

Mexico’s Milenio newspaper, which keeps a count of organized crime-related homicides, counted 12,394 such murders in 2012. This is up slightly from 12,284 in 2011 and down from 12,658 in 2010. The newspaper counted 54,069 organized crime-related homicides during the six years when recently departed President Felipe Calderón intensified Mexico’s fight against trafficking organizations.

In a six-day span between January 3 and January 8, Colombian guerrillas, probably the ELN, bombed the Caño Limón-Coveñas oil pipeline twice in Norte de Santander department.

El Salvador’s coroner’s office recorded 2,641 homicides in 2012, 39% lower than the 4,360 homicides it counted in 2011. The office also recorded a drop in forced disappearances after a March 2012 pact between the country’s principal street gangs (maras).

Guatemala counted 5,174 homicides in 2012, down 8.9 percent from 2011. It was the third straight year in which homicides fell.

Colombia’s police counted 14,670 homicides in 2012, the lowest number in 27 years, for a homicide rate of 31 per 100,000 people, down from 70 per 100,000 ten years ago.

Colombia’s Defense Ministry estimated that the FARC guerrillas now have less than 8,000 members, and the ELN guerrillas have less than 1,500 members.

Ciudad Juárez, Mexico, recorded 750 homicides in 2012, down from 2,086 in 2011 and 3,116 in 2010.

Demobilized paramilitary members participating in Colombia’s “Justice and Peace” process have confessed to committing 1,064 massacres, over 25,000 homicides and 3,599 forced disappearances.

Mexican military courts have convicted 16,460 soldiers for the crime of desertion since 2006.

Peru’s Interior Ministry has set aside US$32.5 million to improve police presence in the Apurímac, Ene and Mantaro Valley (VRAEM) region in Ayacucho department, which is dominated by remnants of the Shining Path guerrilla movement.