Whitehall pores over ‘big society’ bill in bid to avoid rerun of NHS fiasco
June 19, 2011 No Comment
White paper to reflect David Cameron’s desire to open up public services to private companies The government is preparing to publish its long-awaited and fiercely contested public services reform white paper and has begun to circulate the finished document – dubbed the “big society bill” – around Whitehall. After intense debate, the legislation, which has been delayed for five months, is earmarked for publication next month and is intended to steady the course of the government’s reform programme after its plans for the NHS were waylaid. In the next few weeks, the legislation will be stress-tested across Whitehall to try to prevent it being beset by the kind of problems surrounding the controversial NHS bill. The “open public services” bill will combine policies that have already been embarked on, including: • An emphasis on personal budgets for social care and healthcare, which allow an individual to spend their funding how they see fit – a measure introduced by the Labour government. In social care, 30% of all patients are on personal budgets and this was already due to reach 100% by 2013. In healthcare, pilots have been under way to roll personal budgets out to patients, which the white paper is likely to accelerate. • Parents of children with special needs can make their own decisions about schooling. • Elderly people can choose how money is spent on their care. • Parish councils can take control of parks, playing fields, parking and traffic restrictions – all mechanisms intended to start to enact David Cameron’s “big society” agenda. A report by the thinktank ResPublica , published on Sunday in the Observer, claimed the big society was failing children, with parks and play schemes closing across the country. The bill’s delay from February has partly been attributed to the need to divert resources to the troubled NHS bill, and partly to ideological differences within government. Cameron laid out his vision for public services in February, saying private companies could have a right to challenge state providers and bid to do the work. He pledged the “decisive end of the old-fashioned, top-down, take-what-you’re-given model of public services”, but came up against opposition from Liberal Democrats. Before Cameron’s article on public service reform, Lib Dem leader Nick Clegg delivered the Guardian public services speech in which he appeared to rule out allowing this to happen saying: “There will be no for-profit providers in our publicly funded schools system.” Since then, Cameron’s director of strategy, Steve Hilton, has been pushing to see his vision implemented fully but his task has been made more difficult by George Osborne, who has been urging caution. It is now thought that the white paper will reflect Cameron and Hilton’s desire to open up provision. A government source said: “The truth is, we’ve already been very radical, for instance on education and welfare, but this will build on that – coming out, we hope, just before recess.” Returning to another of his favourite themes, Cameron marked Father’s Day with a trenchant criticism of runaway dads, saying they should be stigmatised in the same way as drink-drivers. In another front of the big society, the education secretary, Michael Gove, will announce on Monday the progress being made in setting up more free schools. In the application round that closed on 15 June, the Department for Education received 281 applications to set up free schools from September 2012. Of the 281 free school applications received, the current analysis shows that 227 are for mainstream schools and of these applications, 77 (34%) are for primary schools; 81 (36%) for secondary schools; 65 (29%) are for all-through schools and four (2%) are for 16-19 schools. The figures show 5% of applications came from existing academy providers and 56% from local groups. The figures will show that the percentage of applications from independent schools wishing to move into the state sector decreased in this application round, at just 18% of the 227 applications, compared with 35% last year. The percentage of schools characterising themselves as faith schools has also fallen – 29% compared with 40% last year. Gove will claim the applicants say they want to set up schools for a number of reasons – including a basic shortage of school places, to support the most deprived children or to provide a good new local school to address historic academic failure. Speaking ahead of his speech to Policy Exchange, Gove said: “Our critics said it was impossible to open a school in little more than a year. Several will open this September. They told us that schools wouldn’t want to become academies. They are converting at a rate of two every school day.” Ed Miliband reiterated his call for “your neighbour is my neighbour” responsibility across society in a Sunday newspaper interview. “It is not just about earning and owning … but it is also about the fabric of our society,” he said. “What kind of country do we want to create for our kids? Public services policy Public sector cuts David Cameron Public finance Economic policy Economics Allegra Stratton guardian.co.uk
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Greek prime minister puts figure on new bailout needs for first time as he struggles to get country behind austerity measures Greece will need a second international financial bailout of the same magnitude as last year’s €110bn (£97bn) lifeline in order to avoid a tumultuous debt default, the prime minister, George Papandreou, has conceded while mounting a last-ditch appeal to parliament and the nation to back his austerity programme. Appealing for a vote of confidence in his newly reshuffled government, the Socialist party leader warned that without further aid from the EU and IMF, Athens’s cash reserves would soon run out, inviting a financial crisis that European officials have warned would rapidly contaminate the international financial system. “I ask for a vote of confidence because we are at a critical juncture,” said Papandreou in a speech opening a marathon parliamentary debate that culminates with the crucial vote on Tuesday. The sacrifices required for that aid – more cost-cutting, more tax increases, job losses and massive privatisations – were infinitely better than default, he said, as thousands of austerity-weary Greeks protested outside the 300-seat parliament. “The debt and deficits are national problems that have brought Greece into a state of [diminished sovereignty], one that may have protected us from bankruptcy, but which we need to get out of. The consequences of a violent bankruptcy, or exit from the euro, would be immediately catastrophic for households, the banks and the country’s credibility … the sacrifices people are making are paying off,” he said. It was the first time that Papandreou or any Greek official had broached the subject of how big the new bailout would be. The admission, after weeks of speculation over the size of the package, highlighted the parlous state of the country’s economy despite receiving regular cash injections from the €110bn rescue agreed last May, the biggest bailout in western history. Athens’s debt, which stood at €340bn in December, was estimated to have exceeded €355bn, the equivalent of 150% of GDP, in April. By comparison, the government’s annual income is almost one-tenth of that, at around €40bn. Papandreou called the vote after a first attempt to pass new austerity measures in return for the aid met with fierce opposition from his own Pasok party. After a flurry of defections and the collapse of talks aimed at forming a coalition government, he moved ahead with a radical reshuffle of his cabinet, appointing Evangelos Venizelos, a party heavyweight and political rival, as finance minister to navigate Greece through its worst crisis in modern times. A poll published in the To Vima newspaper showed that around 47% of Greeks are vehemently opposed to the new €28bn cost-cutting plan whose centrepiece is an ambitious privatisation drive that aims to raise an additional €50bn for the cash-strapped state by 2015. Before attending his first summit of eurozone finance ministers in Luxembourg where the details of a new three-year rescue deal for Greece were discussedon Sunday, Venizelos promised austerity measures will be meted out fairly. But public anger is still building on the street – tens of thousands of Greeks were expected last night to gather outside parliament in protest – and unions are preparing a storm of strikes. In an attempt to placate voters, who increasingly have come to identify Greece’s politicians with corruption, he pledged to call a referendum on changes to the “political system” later this year. Reforms would include an overhaul of the constitution and abolishing practices such as the immunity enjoyed by MPs, a source of the discontent that has prompted protestors to scream “thieves” outside parliament as the debt drama has unfolded. The conservative opposition leader, Antonis Samaras, called for Papandreou to step down to pave the way for elections and a renegotiation of the bailout. But Papandreou called for the opposition to “stop fighting in these critical times, stop sending the image that the country is being torn apart”. Greece Europe European debt crisis European banks European Central Bank Europe Euro Currencies Euro European Union Economics Helena Smith guardian.co.uk
Continue reading …Hundreds of people around Vietnam protested China today, as tensions between the two countries continue to rise, reports the AP . About 300 people chanted “Down with China” near the Chinese embassy in Hanoi, while more marched in Ho Chi Minh City and other locations. Relations have deteriorated between the two…
Continue reading …Michelle Obama’s trip to southern Africa this week is giving new life to criticism that the Obama administration is overlooking the troubled continent, reports the Washington Post . The president has been to sub-Saharan Africa only once since taking office— a 24-hour trip to Ghana in 2009 —and critics say the…
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Former Labour business secretary also says that unions should stop threatening strikes and that people need to ‘face reality’ The former Labour business secretary charged by the coalition with overseeing its contentious pensions reforms has called on his party leader to back his plans and ask union leaders to stop threatening strikes. Lord Hutton said people had to face the “reality” that public sector pension reform was necessary and that strikes would not “make this problem go away”. When asked if Ed Miliband should oppose the threat of industrial action by the unions that backed him to become party leader, Hutton said “of course”. He also said he would like to see Miliband endorse his report. The government and unions have been at loggerheads since the end of last week when ministers went public with plans to extend the retirement age and increase pension contributions for millions of public sector workers. Union leaders felt that ministers had pre-empted negotiations with the announcement. The head of Unison, Dave Prentis, and other union leaders threatened the biggest wave of industrial action since the general strike of 1926 after the chief secretary to the Treasury, Danny Alexander, made the announcement on Friday. The Treasury later said that Alexander was articulating proposals for reform, not settled government policy, but Prentis said that Alexander’s speech had effectively rendered the talks meaningless. Despite making conciliatory noises, Alexander said that the government had “contingency plans” in the event of a major strike. Shadow chancellor Ed Balls warned trade unions not to fall into George Osborne’s “trap” by striking. The chancellor was hoping for the unions to embark on industrial action, Balls said, so that he could blame any weak economic recovery on walkouts. “This is not a political decision from the unions, this is actually their members feeling very upset. George Osborne is desperate to have that confrontation – he’s been saying it for months. The trade unions must not walk into the trap of giving George Osborne the confrontation he wants to divert attention from a failing economy.” His party colleague Hutton disagreed with Balls, telling BBC1′s Politics Show: “There are still negotiations going on and those negotiations should continue. “I don’t personally believe that ministers want to provoke a confrontation with the trade unions – quite the opposite, I think they’re trying to find an agreement. “It’s an uncomfortable truth, but I’m afraid it’s the reality, that the world is changing around us and people are living for much longer, and we have not been paying for those extra years of pensions – the taxpayer has. Strikes won’t make this problem go away, we have to act now. If we don’t act now, it’s our kids who are going to pick up the tab, and it’s not right.” Asked whether he would like to see Labour leader Ed Miliband back his recommendations, Lord Hutton replied: “I’d like him to endorse the report I produced, yes, because I think it does strike the only fair balance.” It also emerged today that the coalition may consider softening changes to women’s pensions after facing a revolt from Tory and Lib Dem MPs. The government would like to increase the age at which women qualify for a state pension from 60 to 65 by 2018, two years earlier than planned by the Labour government. Ministerial talks are supposed to be taking place, with Iain Duncan Smith said to be sympathetic, but in public he will tomorrow say the government is determined. At the second reading of the pensions bill, Duncan Smith will tell MPs that delaying the increase in the state pension age would cost the public finances £10bn. He is expected to say: “We’re heading towards an unprecedented burden being placed on the next generation who will have to pay for their parents’ retirement on top of paying for the national debt. It’s not fair. This bill will address the realities of our increasing longevity by sharing the costs between the generations. We will stand by the 2018 and 2020 timetable.” Three unions are due to strike on 30 June, but the Association of Teachers and Lecturers has said it will call off the walkout if the government is willing to discuss the level of increases to pension contributions. Mark Serwotka of the Public and Commercial Services Union , which represents almost 300,000 civil servants, told the BBC it was very unlikely that the walkout would be called off. Responding to Balls’s warning of a “trap”, Serwotka said: “The problem with what Ed is saying is this: if he’s me, representing people, many of whom are on £15,000 per year – they work hard, they’re on poverty pay, they don’t look forward to a very big pension. If all of that’s being taken away and you work longer, pay more and get less, what frankly are we supposed to do? Are we supposed to sit back, say it’s unfair and do nothing?” Prentis, whose union represents people working for local authorities, the NHS, colleges and the police, said he had not yet balloted his members on action but would if they continued “to be treated with disdain”. “If we go back into negotiations on the basis of dialogue but no changes in the proposals, what’s the point in that?” he told the BBC. “If we can get an assurance that the talks are meaningful … then obviously we’d continue the talks, but we didn’t get that impression on Friday.” Responding to the same suggestion by Balls, Prentis said striking methods would be “smarter”. He told Sky’s Murnaghan programme, “It won’t be like the miners’ dispute where we will be starved back into submission. This will be a lot smarter than that – this will be about regional action, branch action, this will be sustained action. Because I believe that this government will not turn after one or two days, and our members have got to be prepared for that, and I believe that they are.” Alexander said the government was “absolutely not” trying to provoke a battle with unions. “There is a huge amount of room for dialogue,” he told Sky News. “There is a huge amount of detail about public sector pensions that we’ve been discussing in the talks … and we need to take that forward over the coming months.” He insisted the talks could still be constructive, adding: “I don’t think my message is uncompromising at all.” John Cridland, director of the CBI , dismissed the impact that public sector union strikes could have. He said: “Today the most they can do is disrupt people’s lives – it probably won’t disrupt the economy.” Public sector pensions John Hutton Ed Miliband Public sector cuts Public services policy Public sector pay Public finance Pensions Allegra Stratton guardian.co.uk
Continue reading …Former Labour business secretary also says that unions should stop threatening strikes and that people need to ‘face reality’ The former Labour business secretary charged by the coalition with overseeing its contentious pensions reforms has called on his party leader to back his plans and ask union leaders to stop threatening strikes. Lord Hutton said people had to face the “reality” that public sector pension reform was necessary and that strikes would not “make this problem go away”. When asked if Ed Miliband should oppose the threat of industrial action by the unions that backed him to become party leader, Hutton said “of course”. He also said he would like to see Miliband endorse his report. The government and unions have been at loggerheads since the end of last week when ministers went public with plans to extend the retirement age and increase pension contributions for millions of public sector workers. Union leaders felt that ministers had pre-empted negotiations with the announcement. The head of Unison, Dave Prentis, and other union leaders threatened the biggest wave of industrial action since the general strike of 1926 after the chief secretary to the Treasury, Danny Alexander, made the announcement on Friday. The Treasury later said that Alexander was articulating proposals for reform, not settled government policy, but Prentis said that Alexander’s speech had effectively rendered the talks meaningless. Despite making conciliatory noises, Alexander said that the government had “contingency plans” in the event of a major strike. Shadow chancellor Ed Balls warned trade unions not to fall into George Osborne’s “trap” by striking. The chancellor was hoping for the unions to embark on industrial action, Balls said, so that he could blame any weak economic recovery on walkouts. “This is not a political decision from the unions, this is actually their members feeling very upset. George Osborne is desperate to have that confrontation – he’s been saying it for months. The trade unions must not walk into the trap of giving George Osborne the confrontation he wants to divert attention from a failing economy.” His party colleague Hutton disagreed with Balls, telling BBC1′s Politics Show: “There are still negotiations going on and those negotiations should continue. “I don’t personally believe that ministers want to provoke a confrontation with the trade unions – quite the opposite, I think they’re trying to find an agreement. “It’s an uncomfortable truth, but I’m afraid it’s the reality, that the world is changing around us and people are living for much longer, and we have not been paying for those extra years of pensions – the taxpayer has. Strikes won’t make this problem go away, we have to act now. If we don’t act now, it’s our kids who are going to pick up the tab, and it’s not right.” Asked whether he would like to see Labour leader Ed Miliband back his recommendations, Lord Hutton replied: “I’d like him to endorse the report I produced, yes, because I think it does strike the only fair balance.” It also emerged today that the coalition may consider softening changes to women’s pensions after facing a revolt from Tory and Lib Dem MPs. The government would like to increase the age at which women qualify for a state pension from 60 to 65 by 2018, two years earlier than planned by the Labour government. Ministerial talks are supposed to be taking place, with Iain Duncan Smith said to be sympathetic, but in public he will tomorrow say the government is determined. At the second reading of the pensions bill, Duncan Smith will tell MPs that delaying the increase in the state pension age would cost the public finances £10bn. He is expected to say: “We’re heading towards an unprecedented burden being placed on the next generation who will have to pay for their parents’ retirement on top of paying for the national debt. It’s not fair. This bill will address the realities of our increasing longevity by sharing the costs between the generations. We will stand by the 2018 and 2020 timetable.” Three unions are due to strike on 30 June, but the Association of Teachers and Lecturers has said it will call off the walkout if the government is willing to discuss the level of increases to pension contributions. Mark Serwotka of the Public and Commercial Services Union , which represents almost 300,000 civil servants, told the BBC it was very unlikely that the walkout would be called off. Responding to Balls’s warning of a “trap”, Serwotka said: “The problem with what Ed is saying is this: if he’s me, representing people, many of whom are on £15,000 per year – they work hard, they’re on poverty pay, they don’t look forward to a very big pension. If all of that’s being taken away and you work longer, pay more and get less, what frankly are we supposed to do? Are we supposed to sit back, say it’s unfair and do nothing?” Prentis, whose union represents people working for local authorities, the NHS, colleges and the police, said he had not yet balloted his members on action but would if they continued “to be treated with disdain”. “If we go back into negotiations on the basis of dialogue but no changes in the proposals, what’s the point in that?” he told the BBC. “If we can get an assurance that the talks are meaningful … then obviously we’d continue the talks, but we didn’t get that impression on Friday.” Responding to the same suggestion by Balls, Prentis said striking methods would be “smarter”. He told Sky’s Murnaghan programme, “It won’t be like the miners’ dispute where we will be starved back into submission. This will be a lot smarter than that – this will be about regional action, branch action, this will be sustained action. Because I believe that this government will not turn after one or two days, and our members have got to be prepared for that, and I believe that they are.” Alexander said the government was “absolutely not” trying to provoke a battle with unions. “There is a huge amount of room for dialogue,” he told Sky News. “There is a huge amount of detail about public sector pensions that we’ve been discussing in the talks … and we need to take that forward over the coming months.” He insisted the talks could still be constructive, adding: “I don’t think my message is uncompromising at all.” John Cridland, director of the CBI , dismissed the impact that public sector union strikes could have. He said: “Today the most they can do is disrupt people’s lives – it probably won’t disrupt the economy.” Public sector pensions John Hutton Ed Miliband Public sector cuts Public services policy Public sector pay Public finance Pensions Allegra Stratton guardian.co.uk
Continue reading …Amy Winehouse was in not-so-rare form last night, appearing a little too drunk to quite perform on the kickoff of her European tour in Belgrade. During the much-hyped 90-minute performance, Winehouse mumbled lyrics, struggled to keep up with her band, and wandered offstage twice as 20,000 fans booed. Tickets…
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Massacre in Tamaulipas by Zetas drugs cartel fails to stem tide of Central Americans risking el brinco – the jump across Mexico Salsa music piped from the radio and the bus had a name, Teresita, but there was nothing jaunty about the young men with small backpacks who filed aboard in silence, avoiding eye contact. Behind them was home, Honduras, ahead lay the United States, and in between was el brinco , the jump. Also known as Mexico. Not so much a leap as a roll of the dice. The passengers were illegal migrants and they were bracing for perils which, as they travelled through northern Guatemala to the Mexican borderwards Mexico, could strike at any time: betrayal, kidnap, murder. A landscape of stunted trees, cattle and the occasional police checkpoint passed with barely a word spoken on the crammed little bus. There was plenty to say but, as one passenger explained later, better to stay silent. “You don’t know who’s listening.” Extortion by police, falling off a train and getting lost in the desert have always been risks, but the journey has become much worse since organised criminals started preying on travellers. Fifteen Nicaraguans were shot and burned on a bus outside Guatemala City, allegedly because the driver was transporting cocaine without the permission of drug gangs. Mexico is the real danger: mass abductions, ransom demands, tortures, massacres. The bus stopped at the San Pedro river, deep in a tropical forest once ruled by the Maya. The passengers piled out, forming groups of four or five. Canoes would take them to El Ceibo from where they would hike into Mexico. “You’ve got to be optimistic,” said Juan Colindres, 25, expressing hope over experience. Five times he had headed for the US and five times he was foiled in Mexico – robbed by police, robbed by his guide, deported. Each time organised crime’s breath felt closer, he said. There was no safety in numbers. Armed gangs would stop trains with hundreds of migrants clinging to the roof and herd them into waiting buses. “Better to go in a small group so you can dodge a bit,” said Colindres, wriggling his hand. But even small shoals get hooked. Some are sold to gangs by guides, others by fellow migrants known as enganchadoras . Others are handed over by corrupt police and immigration officials. With their backpacks and accents, migrants are easily identifiable. Groups such as the Zetas drug cartel in Mexico find it profitable to demand ransoms from captive migrants’ relatives, especially if they are in the US. They recruit some hostages as footsoldiers. Rumours circulated from about 2006 but the phenomenon exploded into public consciousness only last August when Zetas massacred 72 people – mostly Hondurans, Guatemalans and Salvadoreans – at an abandoned farmhouse in the north-eastern state of Tamaulipas. About 300,000 migrants pass through Mexico each year, the vast majority Central Americans, but keeping track of them is impossible, said Flora Reynosa, head of a state office in Guatemala City tasked with defending migrants’ human rights. Kidnapping had become a plague, she said. Families trek to Reynosa’s little office to supply names of missing relatives. That morning a father had registered the disappearance of a son who left in February, with no word since. Thelma Schaub, a psychologist in the office, said that families’ anguish often leads to neuroses, such as compulsively watching TV news bulletins in the hope of spotting loved ones. Casas del Migrante, a network of church-funded shelters in the region, receives chilling stories. Carlos Lopez, who runs one such centre in Guatemala City, recalled a Honduran who escaped from a farm in northern Mexico with more than 200 captive migrants. Those left behind, and whose ransoms were not paid, were dismembered by “the butcher”, a stocky killer who seemed to enjoy his work. The brinco used to refer to the final jump into the US, but now also refers to running the gauntlet that Mexico itself has become. It started a decade ago when authorities began intercepting migrants to reassure the US that an immigration accord with Mexico would not open floodgates from all Latin America. The crackdown but pushed the flow into the shadows. Mexico’s declaration of war on the drug cartels in late 2006 triggered a brutal competition among gangs to stamp authority on their territories. All vulnerable groups were fair game, few more so than migrants. A few thousand dollars’ individual ransom added up, as victims multiplied, to a lucrative sideline. Some of the most travelled routes passed through Zeta territories. When not doing its own dirty work, the organisation lent its fearsome name as a sort of franchise to smaller gangs. A National Human Rights Commission report in 2009 documented hundreds of mass kidnappings involving about 10,000 people in a six-month period. Victims said police and immigration agencies colluded with gangs. The Tamaulipas massacre is thought to have been a warning to human traffickers who tried to bypass the Zetas. One survivor said three migrants accepted an offer to join the Zetas, for a $1,000 (£615) weekly salary. The rest were blindfolded, ordered to lie on the ground and shot. The outcry prompted a law in April guaranteeing migrants’ rights. But they remain subject to arbitrary detention and deportation. The same month authorities freed hundreds of captives from safe houses, mostly in Tamaulipas. One group said it had been ordered off a bus by immigration officials and passed on to a gang. It is a measure of Central America’s poverty and unemployment that so many still risk the journey. “There’s nothing in Tegucigalpa [the capital of Honduras] for me. And there’s an excellent chance I’ll make it back to the US,” said Edwin Omar, 22, as he waited for a canoe by the San Pedro river. He had been working as an interior decorator in Miami, Florida, before being deported seven months ago. Coyotes – the name given to those who specialise in human smuggling – offer different “packages”. For $5,000 you are escorted from Honduras through Guatemala and Mexico to the US. Make it to the US border on your own steam and you pay $1,500 for help with the final brinco . Prices include three attempts. The El Ceibo crossing into Mexico has few official controls, reducing the risk of deportation, but is rife with Zetas. The El Carmen crossing is the reverse. For many the journey is a rite of passage. Seven Honduran teenagers in a Guatemala City shelter said they left home on a whim but were now marooned, having used all their cash to bribe police at checkpoints. Odanis Acuna, 35, a Cuban asylum seeker, warned them against Mexico. “I was robbed and stripped naked. I’m lucky to be alive.” Two of the teenagers are resolved to return home. Even without predatory gangs, journeys can end in tragedy. Cristobal Tambriz, 17, lost his grip and fell under a train in central Mexico. It sliced off his lower right leg. The Red Cross is helping with a prosthetic limb but a bleak future awaits on the family’s dust-blown farm. “I wanted to send back money, now I won’t even be able to work here.” Last September Laura Coc, 22, left the family’s hilltop house near Yesuj, outside Guatemala City, to join a brother and boyfriend in New Jersey. The family went into debt to pay a coyote 20,000 quetzals (£1,550). Coc apparently died of sunstroke in the Arizona desert. No body has turned up, tormenting her mother, Maria, 50. “I want to bury her,” she said, crying. “I want my daughter home.” Guatemala Mexico Honduras United States Drugs trade Rory Carroll Jo Tuckman guardian.co.uk
Continue reading …Massacre in Tamaulipas by Zetas drugs cartel fails to stem tide of Central Americans risking el brinco – the jump across Mexico Salsa music piped from the radio and the bus had a name, Teresita, but there was nothing jaunty about the young men with small backpacks who filed aboard in silence, avoiding eye contact. Behind them was home, Honduras, ahead lay the United States, and in between was el brinco , the jump. Also known as Mexico. Not so much a leap as a roll of the dice. The passengers were illegal migrants and they were bracing for perils which, as they travelled through northern Guatemala to the Mexican borderwards Mexico, could strike at any time: betrayal, kidnap, murder. A landscape of stunted trees, cattle and the occasional police checkpoint passed with barely a word spoken on the crammed little bus. There was plenty to say but, as one passenger explained later, better to stay silent. “You don’t know who’s listening.” Extortion by police, falling off a train and getting lost in the desert have always been risks, but the journey has become much worse since organised criminals started preying on travellers. Fifteen Nicaraguans were shot and burned on a bus outside Guatemala City, allegedly because the driver was transporting cocaine without the permission of drug gangs. Mexico is the real danger: mass abductions, ransom demands, tortures, massacres. The bus stopped at the San Pedro river, deep in a tropical forest once ruled by the Maya. The passengers piled out, forming groups of four or five. Canoes would take them to El Ceibo from where they would hike into Mexico. “You’ve got to be optimistic,” said Juan Colindres, 25, expressing hope over experience. Five times he had headed for the US and five times he was foiled in Mexico – robbed by police, robbed by his guide, deported. Each time organised crime’s breath felt closer, he said. There was no safety in numbers. Armed gangs would stop trains with hundreds of migrants clinging to the roof and herd them into waiting buses. “Better to go in a small group so you can dodge a bit,” said Colindres, wriggling his hand. But even small shoals get hooked. Some are sold to gangs by guides, others by fellow migrants known as enganchadoras . Others are handed over by corrupt police and immigration officials. With their backpacks and accents, migrants are easily identifiable. Groups such as the Zetas drug cartel in Mexico find it profitable to demand ransoms from captive migrants’ relatives, especially if they are in the US. They recruit some hostages as footsoldiers. Rumours circulated from about 2006 but the phenomenon exploded into public consciousness only last August when Zetas massacred 72 people – mostly Hondurans, Guatemalans and Salvadoreans – at an abandoned farmhouse in the north-eastern state of Tamaulipas. About 300,000 migrants pass through Mexico each year, the vast majority Central Americans, but keeping track of them is impossible, said Flora Reynosa, head of a state office in Guatemala City tasked with defending migrants’ human rights. Kidnapping had become a plague, she said. Families trek to Reynosa’s little office to supply names of missing relatives. That morning a father had registered the disappearance of a son who left in February, with no word since. Thelma Schaub, a psychologist in the office, said that families’ anguish often leads to neuroses, such as compulsively watching TV news bulletins in the hope of spotting loved ones. Casas del Migrante, a network of church-funded shelters in the region, receives chilling stories. Carlos Lopez, who runs one such centre in Guatemala City, recalled a Honduran who escaped from a farm in northern Mexico with more than 200 captive migrants. Those left behind, and whose ransoms were not paid, were dismembered by “the butcher”, a stocky killer who seemed to enjoy his work. The brinco used to refer to the final jump into the US, but now also refers to running the gauntlet that Mexico itself has become. It started a decade ago when authorities began intercepting migrants to reassure the US that an immigration accord with Mexico would not open floodgates from all Latin America. The crackdown but pushed the flow into the shadows. Mexico’s declaration of war on the drug cartels in late 2006 triggered a brutal competition among gangs to stamp authority on their territories. All vulnerable groups were fair game, few more so than migrants. A few thousand dollars’ individual ransom added up, as victims multiplied, to a lucrative sideline. Some of the most travelled routes passed through Zeta territories. When not doing its own dirty work, the organisation lent its fearsome name as a sort of franchise to smaller gangs. A National Human Rights Commission report in 2009 documented hundreds of mass kidnappings involving about 10,000 people in a six-month period. Victims said police and immigration agencies colluded with gangs. The Tamaulipas massacre is thought to have been a warning to human traffickers who tried to bypass the Zetas. One survivor said three migrants accepted an offer to join the Zetas, for a $1,000 (£615) weekly salary. The rest were blindfolded, ordered to lie on the ground and shot. The outcry prompted a law in April guaranteeing migrants’ rights. But they remain subject to arbitrary detention and deportation. The same month authorities freed hundreds of captives from safe houses, mostly in Tamaulipas. One group said it had been ordered off a bus by immigration officials and passed on to a gang. It is a measure of Central America’s poverty and unemployment that so many still risk the journey. “There’s nothing in Tegucigalpa [the capital of Honduras] for me. And there’s an excellent chance I’ll make it back to the US,” said Edwin Omar, 22, as he waited for a canoe by the San Pedro river. He had been working as an interior decorator in Miami, Florida, before being deported seven months ago. Coyotes – the name given to those who specialise in human smuggling – offer different “packages”. For $5,000 you are escorted from Honduras through Guatemala and Mexico to the US. Make it to the US border on your own steam and you pay $1,500 for help with the final brinco . Prices include three attempts. The El Ceibo crossing into Mexico has few official controls, reducing the risk of deportation, but is rife with Zetas. The El Carmen crossing is the reverse. For many the journey is a rite of passage. Seven Honduran teenagers in a Guatemala City shelter said they left home on a whim but were now marooned, having used all their cash to bribe police at checkpoints. Odanis Acuna, 35, a Cuban asylum seeker, warned them against Mexico. “I was robbed and stripped naked. I’m lucky to be alive.” Two of the teenagers are resolved to return home. Even without predatory gangs, journeys can end in tragedy. Cristobal Tambriz, 17, lost his grip and fell under a train in central Mexico. It sliced off his lower right leg. The Red Cross is helping with a prosthetic limb but a bleak future awaits on the family’s dust-blown farm. “I wanted to send back money, now I won’t even be able to work here.” Last September Laura Coc, 22, left the family’s hilltop house near Yesuj, outside Guatemala City, to join a brother and boyfriend in New Jersey. The family went into debt to pay a coyote 20,000 quetzals (£1,550). Coc apparently died of sunstroke in the Arizona desert. No body has turned up, tormenting her mother, Maria, 50. “I want to bury her,” she said, crying. “I want my daughter home.” Guatemala Mexico Honduras United States Drugs trade Rory Carroll Jo Tuckman guardian.co.uk
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Mangueira, hideout of one of Rio’s largest drug factions, is also home of one of city’s best-known samba schools Hundreds of Brazilian police and marines have swarmed through a Rio favela renowned as a centre for samba lovers, in the most striking move thus far to “pacify” the city before the 2014 World Cup and 2016 Olympics. Drunk revellers still packed the streets of the city as a column of armoured vehicles began rolling towards Mangueira, a notorious hideout for one of the city’s largest drug factions. Overhead, Huey helicopters tore through the morning sky; on the ground 750 security operatives, among them marines, filed in past bullet-pocked walls. Home to around 53,000 people, Mangueira is the most symbolic shantytown so far to be occupied by the so-called “pacification forces”. Famed for producing legendary samba artists such as Cartola, Nelson Cavaquinho and Carlos Cachaça, Mangueira is also home to the city’s best-known samba school, the Grêmio Recreativo Escola de Samba Mangueira. On Sunday, the samba school’s doors remained shut as police poured into the favela. Normally welcomed with gunfire, the troops instead found eerily quiet streets and white banners calling for “peace”. The traffickers had fled. “They’ve taken everything,” said one special forces operative, pushing his way into a concrete shack that had been used to distribute cocaine, marijuana and crack. The doors had been bricked up and the drugs had long gone; only two toothbrushes and a broken fridge remained. Next door, Pastor Eduardo Barbosa Marques monitored the police’s arrival from inside his empty church – the Temple of Blessings. “I’m not expecting many people for this morning’s service,” he admitted. “But tonight we’ll all be here to glorify the name of the Lord.” “The government knows what is best and we have to respect that and let the police do their job,” added the 46-year-old preacher. Thirty minutes’ walk across the favela, special-forces found another gang HQ. Inside were three red sofas and an empty wrap of cocaine, featuring a picture of Osama bin Laden. On the wall outside gang members had left a message: “Screw the pacifiers: Shoot Them!” But there was no shooting, only an awkward silence as police moved from house to house, seeking information from residents who didn’t want to talk. “People are still a little scared because this will mean having contact with different people,” said Simões do Nascimento, president of Mangueira’s residents association. “But people are asking for peace and we hope everything goes well.” Silvia Ramos, a social scientist and co-ordinator of Rio’s Centre for Studies on Public Security and Citizenship, warned that while the retaking of Mangueira was an advance, deadly clashes between police and drug traffickers were still commonplace in more distant parts of the city. “It is a turning point for the pacification project. [But] if Rio de Janeiro’s opinion makers and media get comfortable… after this victory… the project will fail. The possibility exists – and it is very worrying – that in pushing the gunfights further away the city will demobilise,” she added. At the foot of the favela, Jorge Bombeiro, a local samba composer, headed out with a ukulele as helicopters circled overhead. Like many he was reluctant to talk. What did he think of the occupation? “All I know about is samba,” he said. Brazil Drugs trade Tom Phillips guardian.co.uk
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