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U.S. gangs a force in Central American prisons BY ELLIOT SPAGAT
Associated Press
The deadliest prison blaze in a century has drawn attention to an unfortunate U.S. export to Central America: street gangs. Prisons in Honduras and elsewhere in Central America are teeming with inmates who belong to gangs that have their roots in Southern California. Refugees of the region’s civil wars sowed a new breed of violence on the streets of Los Angeles in the 1980s. When the United States stepped up deportations of criminals in the 1990s, they brought their brutal habits with them to El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras, countries with weak law enforcement and an inadequate prison system. The result was growing violence among gang members, and widespread police abuse as authorities rounded up suspects for having gang-affiliated tattoos. Some, like many of the 355 killed in Tuesday’s fire in Comayagua, were never even charged with a crime. “It was just a perfect storm, where they arrived in a country that was unprepared and had no infrastructure,” said Los Angeles police detective Frank Flores, who has been battling U.S. gangs with Central American ties since 1999. The victims of Tuesday’s blaze were still being identified, and it was unclear exactly how many inmates had ties to U.S.-based gangs — the most widely known being Mara Salvatrucha, or MS-13, and 18th Street. But a Honduran government report, which was sent to the United Nations this month, said 57 percent of some 800 inmates of the Comayagua farm prison north of the Central American country’s capital were either awaiting trial or being held as suspected gang members. The gangs haven’t just spread from Los Angeles to Central America. They have spread throughout the United States. The MS-13 has an estimated 30,000 to 50,000 members and associate members worldwide, including 8,000 to 10,000 in the United States, according to the FBI’s most recent National Gang Threat Assessment in 2009. Its “cliques” operate in the Atlanta, Dallas and Washington, D.C., areas. The 18th Street gang is believed to have about the same numbers, with a presence in 44 U.S. cities spanning 20 states, according the FBI. • TURN TO GANGS, 2A n Cries for justice amid tears in Honduras, 3A
INTERNATIONAL EDITION
BY GABRIELE STEINHAUSER AND ANGELA CHARLTON Associated Press
BRUSSELS — Greece’s hopes to finally get its bailout and dodge default next month were boosted Friday, when key European leaders, including Germany’s Chancellor Angela Merkel, sounded confident a deal could be agreed. The leaders of Germany, Italy and Greece are “optimistic” the ¤130 billion ($170 billion) rescue package can be cleared next week, a spokesman for Merkel said Friday after the three held a conference call. Hours earlier, the France’s prime minister warned against letting Greece default. That means the euro curren-
cy union’s main powers are now pushing toward resolving the uncertainty hanging over Greece at a meeting of eurozone finance ministers on Monday. Agreement on the bailout, which comes on top of a ¤110 billion rescue granted in 2010, has been delayed for months due to doubts over Greek political leaders’ commitment to tough new austerity measures as well as the worsening economic situation in the country that kicked off Europe’s debt crisis two years ago. Some eurozone governments’ caution over handing out more money to Athens had investors wondering whether Greece would be forced to default and leave the
Greece is under big pressure to get the green light on the bailout so it can move ahead with a related ¤100 billion debt-relief deal with private bondholders that till take several weeks to implement. That deal has to be completed before March 20, when Athens faces a ¤14.5 billion bond redemption it cannot afford. Tensions between Greece and the rest of the eurozone hit new highs this week as politicians in Athens and other European capitals blamed each other for the problems related to the bailout. Seven people were detained Friday following an anti-austerity • TURN TO GREECE, 2A
DESPITE HOUSING PLEDGES FROM CHAVEZ, VENEZUELA’S HOMELESS CALL RACETRACK HOME
ARIANA CUBILLOS/AP
A government built apartment building sits under construction in Caracas. The country’s cripping housing shortage has left President Hugo Chavez’s government frantically trying to build housing ahead of elections in October. BY JUAN FORERO
Washington Post Service
CARACAS — The chestnutcolored 3-year-olds still take the turns hard and fast on the dirt track at La Rinconada, the onceelegant racing park inaugurated in 1959 as Venezuela began its oil-fueled heyday. But these days, dozens of homeless families live under the vast concrete grandstands, moved by President Hugo Chavez’s government into cramped cubicles to alleviate a critical housing shortage. Water service is spotty, foul-smelling
bathrooms overflow with sewage and gangs of young thieves steal what little residents have. “God takes care of us,” explained Maria Valera, 61, saying the weekend races she sees for free are the saving grace of living at the track. For those trying to survive here — indeed, for thousands more in similar conditions across Venezuela’s capital — it is just another symbol of this city’s long slide into squalor, decay and fear. And that is a serious problem for a leftist populist government that is frantically trying to build
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euro instead. After days of confusion, Germany — the main bankroller for the bailouts — made it clear it wanted to see Greece’s deal through. “The three leaders are optimistic that the finance ministers can find a solution to the pending questions at the Eurogroup on Monday and thereby contribute to the stabilization of Greece,” Steffen Seibert said in a statement, after Merkel, Italy’s Prime Minister Mario Monti and Greece’s Premier Lucas Papademos held a conference call earlier Friday. Papademos later also called Netherlands Prime Minister Mark Rutte, whose country is one of the biggest bailout skeptics.
THE HOME STRETCH
BY ALISSA J. RUBIN
CUBAN DISSIDENT URGES POPE TO INTERVENE, 4A
109TH YEAR I ©2012 THE MIAMI HERALD
Merkel optimistic of striking Greek deal by Monday
Afghan girl pays the price for elder’s crime ASADABAD, Afghanistan — Shakila, 8 at the time, was drifting off to sleep when a group of men carrying AK-47s barged in through the door. She recalls that they complained as they dragged her off into the darkness, about how their family had been dishonored and about how they had not been paid. It turns out that Shakila, who was abducted along with her cousin as part of a traditional Afghan form of justice known as “baad,” was the payment. Although baad (also known as baadi) is illegal under Afghan and, most religious scholars say, Islamic law, the taking of girls as payment for misdeeds committed by their elders still appears to be flourishing. Shakila, because one of her uncles had run away with the wife of a district strongman, was taken and held for about a year. It was the district leader, furious at the dishonor that
SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 18, 2012
housing ahead of an October presidential election in which Chavez will be challenged by a young, energetic opposition candidate, Henrique Capriles. Even among the masses of destitute in this country — for 13 years the backbone for Chavez’s so-called people’s revolution — there is a tinge of despair that El Comandante has been unable to deliver on a long-held promise: housing. Just 200 yards from where thoroughbreds rumble, Valera said she is opting to wait for Chavez to provide a new home. But she and
New York Times Service
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had been done to him, who sent his men to abduct her. Shakila’s case is unusual both because she managed to escape and because she and her family agreed to share their plight with an outsider. The girl’s father’s
GERMANY’S PRESIDENT QUITS AMID CORRUPTION ALLEGATIONS, 6A
reaction to the abduction also illustrates the difficulty in trying to change such a deeply rooted cultural practice: He expressed fury that she was abducted because, he • TURN TO AFGHAN, 2A
IN REVIEW, MOODY’S PUTS GLOBAL BANKS ON NOTICE, BUSINESS FRONT
• TURN TO VENEZUELA, 2A
Vatican, in celebratory mood, shaken by leaks BY ELISABETTA POVOLEDO
Shakila, 10, was abducted in the act of ‘baad’ — the giving of girls as payment for crimes committed by family elders.
her family — she says there are about 50 of them here counting extended relatives — have been waiting for more than 14 months, leaving some in despair. “We are waiting for him to resolve things because we know he will give to us,” Valera said, as her grandchildren squealed and ran along darkened corridors. “He said that all of us who are here would go to our own apartment.” It is an often-heard refrain across Caracas, a city of about 5 million. Tens of thousands of
a battle among officials jousting for power in a papal court whose anointed leader, they say, is more concerned with theological questions than with the day-to-day affairs of state. Every journalist who follows the church has described the current controversy as part of “a clash between cardinals in the Curia,” even though the Vatican is denying it, said Paolo Rodari, who writes about the Vatican for two newspapers. The e-mails and letters and documents that have been published “could not get out unless they came from someone inside,” he added. The Vatican has not denied the letters’ authenticity, but it has issued numerous statements saying the media have blown the matter out of proportion.
VATICAN CITY — As the world’s Roman Catholics prepare for the addition of 22 members to the College of Cardinals, the Vatican has become embroiled in an embarrassing scandal in which a number of leaked documents have drawn back the curtains on the church’s inner workings. The internal church squabbling, predictably dubbed “Vatileaks” by the Italian media, became public about three weeks ago with the disclosure on television and in newspapers of confidential letters written by a top Vatican official who had denounced alleged corruption and financial mismanagement in Vatican City. The widespread feeling among experts who follow the Vatican is that the letters were a volley in • TURN TO VATICAN, 2A
AND THE OSCAR GOES TO . . . SOCCER CHEATS, SPORTS FRONT
INDEX NEWS EXTRA..............3A U.S. NEWS ...................5A OPINION........................7A COMICS & PUZZLES ..6B
2/18/2012 5:27:10 AM
MIAMIHERALD@HOY.COM.EC
More To Do In Quito MUSEUMS 1. CITY MUSEUM,
2. MIGUEL DE SANTIAGO MUSEUM (SAN AGUSTIN),
3. METROPOLITAN CULTURAL CENTER,
4. CASA DEL ALABADO MUSEUM OF PRE-COLOMBIAN ART,
5. CAPILLA DEL HOMBRE (CHAPEL OF MAN),
6.
MINDALAE MUSEUM. ñ
FOR KIDS 7. ECUADORIAN NATURAL SCIENCE MUSEUM,
8. YAKU MUSEUM OF WATER,
OTHER ATTRACTIONS 9. LA RONDA STREET,
10. JUNIN STREET, 11.PANECILLO MONUMENT, 12. ARTISAN MARKETPLACE, ¡ ¡ 13. BOTANICAL GARDEN,
14. CABLE CAR
– MORE WAYS TO SEE QUITO QUITO ETERNO ¡
SUNDAY
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