Leaders of MS-13 and Barrio 18 have ordered a reduction of murders in El Salvador and a study projects that by 2019, 42,000 young people between 12 and 19 years will have been murdered in Brazil. Experts say impunity and lack of opportunities are among the main reasons.

While the FARC delegation in Havana warned that the “military siege” against FARC units could terminate the unilateral ceasefire that the FARC declared at the end of 2014, a former ELN guerrilla leader declared the peace process in Colombia “irreversible.” 

Former Peruvian President Alberto Fujimori, in jail for human rights abuses, was given an additional eight-year prison sentence for siphoning public funds to help finance his re-election in 2000. 

Peasant groups in Chiapas accuse a mayor of using paramilitaries against them, former “rural police” self-defense groups in Michoacán clash with Federal Police, while indigenous groups in Oaxaca form their own self-defense groups, and the parents of the missing “normalistas” are met by security forces with tear gas. 

Luciano Hazán, coordinator of the Truth and Justice Program, highlighted progress in the prosecution of crimes against humanity during the dictatorship, and outlined the major problems facing the leaders of all political parties.  He also thinks they should explain their positions on human rights. 

Mexicans believe that their society has been “kidnapped by violence,” because of the horrific number of disappeared and murdered. 

The president of the Argentine human rights organization CELS spoke at the Organization of American States on the compatibility of both finding the truth about past dirty wars and achieving justice.   

President Juan Manuel Santos says that any peace process with the ELN guerrillas will be conditional on their ceasing the practice of kidnapping. 

Despite celebrations of the peace accord between the Guatemalan government and the Izquierdista Unidad Revolucionaria Nacional Guatemalteca (URNG), violence and impunity continue to plague the nation. 

President Santos says there must be some level of accountability, while the FARC released the Army general they had captured.  Santos subsequently reinitiated peace talks, and the FARC called for revisions in the terms of the process.