Fleeing violence, Syrian refugees warn of potential massacre (The Christian Science Monitor)

Guvecci, Turkey – Syrian refugees continued to stream into Turkey Thursday, fleeing an expected revenge attack from the regime against their town of Jisr al-Shughur.

Even as Syrian forces began encircling the northwest town, Turkey said its border is open to those trying to escape the violence. By dusk Thursday, 2,400 Syrians had crossed into Turkey at this and another illegal crossing nearby.

"They are killing people, I saw that with my own eyes," says one refugee who gave his name as Abu Ali, a young man in sandals and a T-shirt from Jisr al-Shughur who crossed several times in recent weeks.

Of all the revolutions sweeping through the Middle East, none create a starker dilemma for Turkey than the one tearing apart its ally Syria. So while it is responding to the humanitarian needs of Syrian refugees, it is also going to great lengths to shield Syria from further international criticism.

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Turkish police and local authorities have been ordered to prevent the refugees from telling of their experiences in a city where fighting in the past week caused the death of 120 Syrian security and policemen, according to Syrian authorities.

A closed-circuit camera has been set up along one side of a long fence around the main refugee camp in the town of Yayladagi. Police whistle and wave off journalists who approach the fence; forbidden also are hospitals, where some 35 Syrians are recovering from bullet and shrapnel wounds.

The Turkish regional governor made a visit, passing along the rolling hills, wheat fields, and olive groves of the border line – and its unofficial crossing points – in a convoy of more than 10 vehicles. He eventually stopped at the refugee camp, some miles away, but then roared past waiting journalists – blue and red lights flashing – without making a comment.

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The situation could not be more different than the openness displayed by Turkey regarding Iranian refugees in 2009, and even wounded Libyan refugees brought to Turkey for urgent medical treatment, when some journalists were escorted into their presence in government limousines.

Why Syria is differentFor years, Turkey's Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan has worked to strengthen ties with Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, whose government is now being vilified across the globe for a vicious crackdown that rights activists say have claimed 1,300 lives.

The two leaders refer to each other as "brother," and speak regularly on the phone – most recently on Wednesday. But Syria's dictatorship bears little resemblance to Turkey's democratic system, which sees another test during a general election next Sunday.

Turkey has sought to present itself as a democratic role model across the region a€“ one that takes the side of people power and justice every time. But the contradictions of that policy await the Syrian refugees as they cross the border.

The Syrians who have fled have much to say, and appear eager to do so if not identified.

Abu Ali, who has avoided the refugee camp, says two of his relatives were wounded in protests in the town but disappeared after they went to the hospital. Grim stories are on his mind, creating a profound fear shared by many refugees.

"The military is moving in to kill the people; they are there to intimidate the people – otherwise we wouldn't run away. It has turned into a blood feud, so it is very deep," he says. "Until Assad goes, it will only get worse. They are pressing and torturing the people, because they fear Assad will lose his power."

And if that happens, Turkey is likely to lose some face.

Faint advice from TurkeyMr. Erdogan stated Wednesday that Turkey would "keep our doors open to all Syrians seeking refuge," while Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu said Turkey had "serious concerns about the situation in Syria." Syria must act "more decisively" on political reforms long-promised by Assad, Mr. Davutoglu added.

But that was faint advice from a nation that has increasingly thrown around its diplomatic weight in recent years, a NATO ally that has become a regional player that has taken on Israel and become closer to Iran.

Turkey's promising diplomatic future appears at risk just 12 miles across the border, where Jisr al-Shughur braces for a new level of retaliation from the regime. Syrian government forces are encircling the town to exact "decisive" revenge for the death of 120 security and police forces during what Damascus called an "ambush" by armed gangs.

Eyewitnesses quoted by wire agencies spoke of a military column of 60 transporters with tanks and armored vehicles, and 10 trucks loaded with soldiers, departed from the city of Aleppo and headed toward Jisr al-Shughur.

Syrian officials have vowed to strike "decisively" against the town. The pro-Assad newspaper Al-Watan reported that the military was now ready to launch an offensive in the province that would last for days. An Associated Press description said the report claimed the military would be battling 2,000 armed gunmen.

Residents were fleeing the area "to give the Syrian army a chance to enter all areas and confront the gunmen."

UN criticizes Syria's actionsSuch threats are coming against a background of rising international pressure on Syria.

"We are receiving an increasing number of alarming reports pointing to the Syrian government's continuing efforts to ruthlessly crush civilian protests," said Navi Pillay, the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights in Geneva, today. "It is utterly deplorable for any government to attempt to bludgeon its population into submission, using tanks, artillery and snipers."

The problem for Turkey's government is clear in the fine words used to create this alliance in the past.

At a joint press conference in late 2009 in Damascus, for example, Erdogan said: "Syria is our gate to the Middle East, and it is our second home as Turkey is the second home for the Syrians and Syria's gate to Europe."

Assad claimed that the 51 bilateral agreements signed at the meeting would redraw the map of the Middle East, and the two nations had "become ... an example to be followed of brotherly ties between the two people's and countries."

Assad hailed the "strong and common will that we have possessed [to make] joint future."

Praising Erdogan, Assad was speaking for both leaders when he said "whoever respects himself and his homeland gains the support of his people ... and he who uses his cards above the table, not under that table ... gains the respect of the world."

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Arrest made in Guatemalan massacre

The president says that ex-Kaibiles are believed to be involved in the killingsAuthorities blame Mexico's Zetas cartel for the killingsThe man under arrest has a strong connection with the Zetas, officials say

(CNN) -- Former members of a Guatemalan special forces unit are believed to have been involved in the killings of 27 people on a farm in a northern province, the country's president said.

President Alvaro Colom said Tuesday that the former members of the Kaibiles, as the military group is known, had a hand in the massacre that led to a state of siege being declared in the province of Peten.

Authorities have blamed the killings on the Zetas Mexican drug cartel, which has been linked before to the Kaibiles.

On Tuesday, authorities released details about one suspect who has been arrested in connection with the murders.

Hugo Alvaro Gomez Vasquez, also known as "the Witch," has a strong relationship with the Zetas, the state-run AGN news service reported.

He was picked up on a triple murder charge related to the mass killings in Peten, officials said. He is accused of kidnapping and killing three people related to the owner of the farm where the 27 bodies were found. Investigators did not say if he was directly linked to the 27 dead.

Authorities have sent eight teams into the field, consisting of 25 investigators, to try to shed light on the murders.

The killing spree, which officials said took place late Saturday into early Sunday, is one of the nation's worst since the end of the civil war in 1996.

The killers decapitated several victims and left their body parts strewn across the terrain, police said.

Colom called the killings "sadistic and perverse."

Survivors who described the killing spree included a pregnant woman who said she covered her daughters and begged for mercy, Guatemala's Prensa Libre reported. The woman said the group that attacked the farm consisted of more than 50 armed men in fatigues, who had Mexican accents.

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Guatemala: Massacre work of Mexico drug gang Zetas (AP)

SAN BENITO, Guatemala – Guatemala declared a 30-day state of emergency for the northern Peten region following the brutal massacre of 27 people at a cattle ranch. President Alvaro Colom called the killings sadistic and perverse, and said they were the work of a drug gang.

Colom said he would go to the jungle-covered region to personally direct operations aimed at rooting out what is believed to be a Mexican drug cartel that has taken up residence in Peten.

"Guatemala must face up to this aggression aimed not just at our country but at the whole region," Colom said in an address broadcast to the nation late Monday.

Such declarations traditionally give the army emergency powers, including permission to detain suspects without warrants.

The attack late Saturday and early Sunday on an isolated cattle ranch was of one of Guatemala's largest postwar massacres.

Gunmen believed to belong to Mexico's Zetas cartel killed 27 farm laborers, including two women and two children, and left their severed heads scattered across the pastures of the cattle ranch.

A message written in the blood of the victims was daubed across a wall of the ranch house, threatening the owner.

A 23-year-old laborer who survived the attack said he was stabbed in the stomach, but his attackers were distracted by an attempt by some of the other victims to flee. The chilling scene was related by the surviving farm worker, who spoke to The Associated Press Monday from his hospital bed in a nearby town. Authorities asked that the survivor not be named for security reasons.

The survivor said he fell to the ground as he was being stabbed, and at that moment some of the ranch employees tried to flee, distracting his attacker. He said he was able to walk, badly wounded, to safety.

"I don't know how I survived," he said.

The man had worked planting forage crops at the ranch, when gunmen arrived late Saturday asking for the owner — a man authorities said had links to the drug trade.

The only other survivor was a pregnant woman whose young daughter clung to her so fiercely and cried so loudly the killers let her go. Relatives of the woman said the attackers spoke with Mexican accents.

Mexico's brutal Zetas drug cartel has set up shop in Guatemala in the largely indigenous region along the countries' shared border.

The police finally came Sunday morning, but the violence continued Monday in nearby areas of Peten, a jungle-covered, strategic drug-trafficking region with a murder rate double the national average and far higher than the most violent parts of Mexico.

Colom, who toured the massacre site Monday, said as many as 40 to 50 armed commandos stormed the remote ranch on a one-lane dirt road about 19 miles (30 kilometers) from the nearest paved highway. They are believed to be part of a group called "Z 200."

Two men were killed and one suspect in the massacre was taken into custody after a confrontation with police Monday morning, while grenades were tossed at a home and business in a town near San Benito, where the bodies were taken for identification.

Authorities blamed the Zetas for all the attacks, which included the killing of the brother of a slain Guatemalan drug capo on Saturday.

Investigators are looking into ties between the ranch owner, Otto Salguero, and drug trafficking, Colom said. The message written in blood on one of the ranch building's walls said the killers were looking for Salguero, whose whereabouts is not known. Colom said Salguero owns four ranches and hundreds of head of cattle.

But none of the victims had ties to drug cartels, authorities said. Rather they were innocent ranch workers and their families caught up in an increasingly bloody war mirroring the Zetas quest for territory in Mexico.

The Zetas are blamed for two recent mass killings in Mexico as well, 183 bodies found in mass graves last month and a massacre of 72 migrants last August, both in the state of Tamaulipas bordering Texas.

Mexican drug cartels now operate virtually uninhibited in parts of Central America. U.S.-supported crackdowns in Mexico and Colombia have only pushed traffickers into a region where corruption is rampant, borders lack even minimal immigration control and local gangs provide a ready-made infrastructure for organized crime.

The Guatemalan government recently ended a two-month siege near Peten in the neighboring mountainous state of Alta Verapaz, also a prime corridor for smuggling drugs from Honduras to Mexico, where Zetas roamed the streets with assault rifles and armored vehicles and even controlled when people could leave their homes.

Peten has been a strategic drug-trafficking zone with jungle landing strips used by several cartels, according to the 2010 U.N. World Drug Report.

Both the Zetas and Mexico's Sinaloa cartel have interests in Peten and may be competing for territory, the report says.

But Peten is also popular with foreign tourists, who are drawn to the region's jungles and Mayan ruin sites like Tikal. The violence may wind up affecting the vital tourist trade in the largely impoverished region; the British Embassy issued a travel advisory citing advice from Guatemalan authorities to temporary avoid visiting Peten due to the violence.

Authorities blamed the Zetas for the murder Saturday of Haroldo Leon, the brother of alleged Guatemalan drug boss Juan Jose "Juancho" Leon. "Juancho" himself was killed in 2008 in an ambush.

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Massacre in northern Guatemala leaves 29 dead (AP)

By SONIA PEREZ and LAUREN VILLAGRAN, Associated Press Sonia Perez And Lauren Villagran, Associated Press – Sun May 15, 11:23 pm ET

GUATEMALA CITY – Assailants killed at least 29 people — decapitating most of the victims — on a ranch in a part of northern Guatemala plagued by drug cartels, national police said Sunday.

The massacre took place early Sunday in the town of Caserio La Bomba in Peten province near the Mexico border, according to National Civil Police spokesman Donald Gonzalez. Among the 29 dead were two children and two women.

It is one of the worst massacres since the end of Guatemala's 36-year civil war in 1996.

Gonzalez said police are investigating whether the attack is related to Saturday's killing in Peten of Haroldo Leon, the brother of alleged Guatemalan drug boss Juan Jose "Juancho" Leon.

"Juancho" Leon was killed in 2008 in an ambush that Guatemalan authorities blame on Mexico's Zetas drug cartel, which has increasingly wrested control of the drug trade outside Mexico, at times by eliminating their competition.

Guatemalan police said the victims of Sunday's massacre were bound and their bodies showed signs of torture. They were believed to have worked on the farm. Police found a message written in blood at the scene saying: "Salguero, we're coming for you." Police did not say who Salguero was.

Authorities said soldiers were searching the area for the unidentified assailants and didn't offer a motive for the attack.

"This is a terrible event that we must clarify and investigate regardless of the consequences, whoever is the author of this massacre," said Guatemala Prosecutor General Claudia Paz y Paz.

Late Sunday, authorities said they had found a wounded survivor of the massacre, who stayed alive by pretending to be dead. But officials did not release any details of what the survivor said.

Guatemala is a major transshipment point for drugs, the U.S. State Department said in its latest narcotics report. Its weak law enforcement, rampant corruption and proximity to Mexico have drawn Mexican drug cartels into its border regions.

In February, the government lifted a two-month-long state of siege that it had declared in Alta Verapaz province, which neighbors Peten province, during which security forces were sent to quell drug-related violence.

The state of siege gave the army emergency powers — including permission to detain suspects without warrants — and resulted in the arrest of at least 20 suspected members of the Zetas.

The Zetas are a group of ex-soldiers who began as hit men for Mexico's Gulf drug cartel before breaking off on their own, quickly becoming one of Mexico's most violent organized crime groups and spreading a reign of terror into Central America. They are notorious for their brutality, including beheading rivals and officials. Authorities have linked them to a series of massacres and mass graves in northern Mexico.

The Zetas began controlling cocaine trafficking in the Alta Verapaz region in 2008 after killing "Juancho" Leon.

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Associated Press writer Lauren Villagran contributed to the report from Mexico City.

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Columbine High closes on 12th anniversary of massacre

Is the horror of Columbine, which erupted 12 years ago today, slowly moving into the realm of distant history?

Most major Colorado newspapers today did not carry front-page stories today on the anniversary of the killings of 12 students and a teacher and the wounding of 23 in a brazen assault by two students. The shooters, Dylan Klebold, 18, and Eric Harris, 17, killed themselves during the siege.

Those close to the tragedy, of course, will forever remember the brutal attacks that shocked the nation. The Denver Post notes that the school is closed today in memory of the tragedy and a memorial to the victims in nearby Clement Park is open to the public.

Denver's KDVR TV reports that a new documentary about the shootings and the aftermath called "13 Families" recently opened in Colorado.

Carlsbad Patch, a local Colorado online news site, carries YouTube footage of the shooting combined with 911 calls and asks readers for their comments on the tragedy.

It notes that April 20 is the birthday of Adolf Hitler and has also become a counter culture day to celebrate cannabis. As a sign, perhaps, of the passage of years since Columbine, their question to readers: "Does 4/20 have any significance to you or do you see it as just another day?"

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