Cocaine trade turns backwater into hideout for brutal assassins | World news | The Observer

Cocaine trade turns backwater into hideout for brutal assassins World news The Observer: "newly elected president, Porfirio Lobo, took office and Zelaya, his term expired, voluntarily went back into exile. But since then the traditional ruling class which toppled Zelaya – with limited protest from the US – has been paralysed by escalating violence centred in the north of the country. Critics say state elements are in the pay of gangs that take Colombian cocaine from Venezuela to Honduras, then to Mexico and the US.
Journalists have been gunned down almost every week. Text messages to Gerardo Chevez, a reporter for Radio Progreso, say he will be next. Political activists, especially Zelaya supporters, have been abducted, abused and killed. A Jesuit priest, Ismael Moreno, received death threats after sheltering a woman who said she was raped by police."