Making the case for the prosecution

       Public prosecutors who are under the Office of the Attorney-General (OAG) play a very important role in the Thai judicial system, but not many people know much about their powers and responsibilities. The Public Prosecution Department (PPD) was established on April 1, 1893, as part of the Ministry of Justice. In 1991, the PPD was changed to the OAG and made responsible to the prime minister. The change in name reflects the broad duties of the office,which are not restricted to criminal prosecution.
       The 2007 constitution provided that the OAG become an independent organisation.To guarantee its independence, especially in case handling, the OAG was separated from the executive branch and now reports directly to Parliament.
       Kayasit Pitsawongprakan, director-general of the OAG's northern Bangkok Criminal Litigation Department, is a man with a very big responsibility, with more than 100 prosecutors and other personnel under his supervision.At any one time he has ultimate responsibility for the proper prosecution of hundreds of cases - some very important and often with political ramifications.
       Mr Kayasit joined the government service 37 years ago and has since held a number of important positions, mostly in the field of litigation. Despite the workload, he enjoys his job and looks forward to two more years in public service before his retirement.
       In an exclusive interview for Spectrum Mr Kayasit was more than happy to answer questions on a number of subjects - some regarded as sensitive - as put to him by Maxmilian Wechsler .What is the role of a public prosecutor in Thailand?We are the lawyers for the state, charged with protecting and helping the people. The role of the public prosecutor is not only to litigate criminal cases, but also to uphold the rights of the people.What is your responsibility?I have responsibility over the northern Bangkok area. Like the police, the Office of Criminal Litigation divides Bangkok into three areas - northern, southern and Thonburi - each with its own director-general. All prosecutors in Thailand are under the Office of the Attorney-General.What falls under your jurisdiction?I am covering criminal cases sent to us by the Metropolitan Police, the Crime Suppression Division and the Crime Against Children,Juveniles and Women Suppression Division.We are also in contact with the Special Branch and other police agencies. We don't handle drugs-related cases. These are under the responsibility of the Department of Narcotics Litigation, which covers all three Bangkok areas.What are the powers of the prosecutor?Basically, after the police complete their investigation, they send the case to the prosecutor, who will process and forward it to the court. We will look at the case and issue a prosecution order or direct the police to do some additional investigating or to examine a witness if we think that more evidence is needed.
       We can also issue a non-prosecution order if the evidence is not sufficient to prosecute and more can't be obtained.
       Furthermore, we can also summon police offices or witnesses to obtain more information. If the police cannot arrest a defendant,for whatever reason, and they have strong reason to believe he/she committed a crime,we can order them to make the arrest.
       The public prosecutor in Thailand cannot arrest anyone. This is the duty of the police.We don't have our own investigation team attached to our office either.Can you summon anyone to be your witness?We can summon only witnesses whom the police have already interviewed; we cannot approach those outside the police investigation.How powerful is the state prosecutor in Thailand?In comparison to the US, the prosecutors are more powerful there. Among other powers,they can investigate a case right from the beginning. For example, if a murder is reported,they can access the crime scene and begin an investigation right away. We can't do that here.How many cases did you prosecute in 2008?The Department of Criminal Litigation handled 16,605 cases.How many of the cases involved foreigners?Not more than 10%. Are the number of cases you are receiving from the police to prosecute going up or down this year?It is going up because the crime rate is increasing.What are the most common crimes you prosecute?In general, cases of larceny make up the biggest group, followed by assault and sexually related offences like rape and crimes against minors such as child abuse. We are also handling political cases. From what I have heard from my colleagues in the provinces, larceny is the most common crime there as well.What cases are the most difficult to prosecute?Forgeries of documents, including passports.They are difficult to prosecute because we don't have enough facilities to determine whether a document is real, counterfeit or altered.
       We have a police scientific department to do the job, but the quality of the equipment is not so good. Also, it is sometimes difficult to get evidence from nationals and officials of other countries.What is your relationship with the police?Our co-operation with Royal Thai Police is excellent. No complaints there.What has been your biggest case so far?There are many to choose from. However,one of the most important involves an attack against the property of the president of the Privy Council, General Prem Tinsulanonda,that occurred in July 2007. The Office of the Attorney-General has decided to prosecute this case, which involves 15 defendants from the United Front for Democracy against Dictatorship (UDD). We are waiting for them to report themselves to the police.
       Another big case is the incident where members of the People's Alliance for Democracy (PAD) entered the premises of the National Broadcasting Service of Thailand in August 2008. We will prosecute this case as well.According to media reports there has been an increase of lese majeste cases from previous years.Can you comment on this?
       Yes, there has been an increase in this type of offence, partly because of the progress in technology, as it is now very easy to post messages on the internet or to send an email.Do you think that the increase might also be caused by politicians eager to settle a score, using the lese majesty law as their political tool?I don't think so. Lese majeste is usually committed on a website, in an email or during a speech.Do you have the authority to close a website?No, we don't. This is the responsibility of the Information and Technology Department.What is acceptable to you as evidence when someone allegedly makes remarks that constitute lese majeste during a speech?The evidence is usually a tape recording or CD and will be given to us by the police.It is believed among the Thai public and foreigners that every lese majeste accusation has to be prosecuted and sent to the court. Is this correct? This is incorrect. We don't have to accept every case and we can also reject it if the evidence is not sufficient. This has happened on several occasions.
       A lese majeste case will not go automatically to the court. It is not fair that an individual has to go to jail just because they are accused of lese majeste. We have to look at the evidence.How many lese majeste cases are you handling now?The police have forwarded to us about 20 cases, all involving Thai nationals.What about the case involving the whole board of the Foreign Correspondents Club of Thailand (FCCT),who were accused of lese majeste recently?This case is still under investigation by the police and has not been sent to us yet.What is going on with the case against former Prime Minister's Office minister Jakrapob Penkair,who allegedly made a lese majeste remark during a speech at the FCCT in August 2007?This case is with us but we have not yet forwarded it to the court. He was due to see us on September 4, but his lawyer said that Mr Jakrapop couldn't make it as he was engaged in an important mission abroad. He should show up by October 7. This is his last chance. If not, a warrant will be issued for his arrest.Is it your own decision which lese majeste cases should be sent to the court?Every case, whatever the offence, is considered for prosecution not only by myself but by a committee set up by our department. We will look very carefully at the evidence.Have the police forwarded you reports on the cases involving the occupation of Don Mueang and Suvarnabhumi airports by the PAD in 2008, and the attempted assassination of PAD co-leader Sondhi Limthongkul this year?Not yet. Those cases are still under investigation by the police.Why has it taken so long to send the reports?I can't say exactly, but the cases involve so many issues concerning the evidence. It is a time-consuming affair. The police must question many witnesses, for example. Therefore,the police have to be very careful about how they handle everything.Are you handling cases involving the murders of the Saudi Arabian nationals committed here during 1989?Some of these cases are under our jurisdiction,and some defendants have been sent before the court. In some of the cases we issued a non-prosecution order. But as far as I know,the government has decided to re-investigate the cases now handled by the Department of Special Investigations (DSI). Any prosecutions will be handled by the Department of Special Litigations.Is there any problem with corruption in your department?Not at all. Our personnel are well educated and carefully chosen to work as prosecutors.However, I must admit that there was one isolated case, but we dismissed that particular individual immediately.Are you aware of cases where an attempt was made by people with power to influence your staff in some way?We are not influenced by politicians, police or military people. We try to help and to protect the people and the victims.Can a member of the public lodge a complaint with you, for instance, when they can't get help from the police?No, we don't provide such a service.Is there any time limitation for the police on submitting a case to you?The criminal procedure under the law is that if the alleged offender is released on bail, the police have 180 days to submit the case to us.If the person is - for whatever reason - not bailed out, it depends on the type of case. If it is a serious offence - with a possible imprisonment of more than 10 years - the case must be submitted to us within 84 days. However, if the maximum sentence is under 10 years the police must submit the case within 48 days.What will happen if the police do not submit the case to you within those time periods?If the alleged offender is not out on bail the court must release him/her, but it doesn't mean the case is automatically cancelled. It means only that the police don't have authority to keep the alleged offender in custody.In the cases of Don Mueang and Suvarnabhumi airports, the police have been investigating for more than 180 days?In these cases, we haven't started counting the days because the police haven't yet arrested anyone. Whenever they arrest someone then we will start counting. Theoretically the police can investigate a case for a very long time if they don't arrest anyone. The statue of limitations is up to 20 years before a case is dismissed. This, however, applies only to serious offences such as murder.What more powers would you like to have?We would like to have additional powers similar to the ones that the public prosecutor (district attorney) has in the US. For example,being involved in a case right from the beginning. I am talking only about important cases.
       Then we wouldn't have to wait until the police submit their report to us. Right now the police are doing everything.
       If, for example, we could have looked into the Don Mueang and Suvarnabhumi airports cases and attempted assassination of Mr Sondhi right from the beginning, maybe there would have been more progress.
       "A lese majeste case will not go automatically to the court. It is not fair that an individual has to go to jail just because they are accused of lese majeste. We have to look at the evidence KAYASIT PITSAWONGPRAKAN, left

Ohio execution on hold after vein troubles

       US executioners couldn't find a suitable vein in which to inject drugs to kill a 53-year-old murderer,who then got a one-week reprieve from the governor so Ohio prison officials can figure out what to do.
       "This is unchartered territory for us,"prison spokeswoman Julie Walburn said of the difficulty in killing convicted rapist and murderer Romell Broom.
       Governor Ted Strickland issued the reprieve at the request of the prison warden overseeing the execution chamber at the Southern Ohio Correctional Facility in Lucasville. Ms Walburn said prison officials would consult "several people" about how to perform Broom's execution, which by state law must be done by lethal injection.
       Broom is to be executed for the rape and murder of 14-year-old Tryna Middleton in Cleveland in 1984.
       It was not the first time Ohio has had difficulty executing a condemned man.
       In May 2006, Joseph Clark sat up to tell his executioners the drugs intended to render him unconscious were not working.

Militant arrested in pre-dawn NYC raid

       New York City police and the FBI raided homes in the borough of Queens early on Monday as part of an investigation that has tracked a man suspected of sympathising with al-Qaeda,officials said.
       Law enforcement officials provided few details, calling it part of an ongoing investigation by a joint terrorism task force, but members of US Congress briefed by the FBI said there was no imminent danger.
       Authorities launched the raids after a suspect they had under surveillance met with people in Queens, the ethnically diverse borough across the East River from Manhattan.
       Neighbours at one apartment building,where the home of five Afghan men was searched, described an operation in which heavily armed FBI agents arrived in unmarked vehicles and stormed the building early in the morning.
       "It was scary. I wasn't going to stop the FBI and ask them what was going on," said Melissa Khan,28.
       At another building, agents took away four Bosnians - a couple and their two adult children - from an apartment they have shared for three years, said an aide to City Councilman John Liu.
       At least two of the Bosnians appeared to have returned home by Monday night.A man who answered the door refused to speak to reporters.
       A neighbour said she believed a son of the couple, a student at Queens College, remained in detention.
       At the home of the five Afghanis, a man who identified himself as Amanulla Akvari, a 30-year-old taxi driver, said the FBI raided the apartment at 2.30am.
       He was brought in for questioning and released and said he had no idea why his home was targeted. He believed that one of his roommates was arrested.
       "[Investigators] are very good now at tracking potentially dangerous actions and this was preventive," said Charles Schumer, a US Senator from New York who was briefed by FBI officials.
       Peter King, a Republican congressman from New York who was also briefed,said the main suspect "was being watched and concern grew as he met with a group of individuals in Queens over the weekend".
       "There is very good reason to believe that there is a connection to al-Qaeda ...[officers] would not have moved as quickly as they did if they did not believe there was real potential," he added.
       The New York Times , citing a senior law enforcement official, said authorities had uncovered a small group who espoused a militant ideology aligned with al-Qaeda. Neither a specific plot nor a target of any planned attack had been detected, but their activities had aroused suspicion.

Taipei seeks return of Chen's millions

       Taiwan officials are seeking Switzerland's consent to return $21 million frozen in two bank accounts that a court said the island's ex-president illegally obtained and laundered.
       The Taipei District Court last week sentenced former president Chen Shuibian to life in prison for corruption. He was found guilty of embezzling $3.15 million (107 million baht) during his 2000-2008 presidency and receiving bribes worth at least $9 million, as well as money laundering and document forgery. Chen rode to power in 2000 on a promise to clean up corruption.
       The China Times quoted prosecutors yesterday who said they will send the court's verdict to Swiss judicial authorities with a request the money be returned to Taiwan's government.
       In 2008, Swiss authorities ordered the bank accounts of Chen's son and daughter-in-law, Chen Chih-chung and Huang Zui-jing, frozen on suspicion of money laundering.
       The court's verdict said the $21 million laundered abroad included money Chen and his wife had embezzled from a special presidential fund and bribes a Taiwanese businessman paid them in connection with a government land deal.
       The verdict said the couple instructed their son and daughter-in-law to deposit the money in accounts in Zurich-based RBS Coutts Bank AG and Merrill Lynch Bank (Suisse) SA.
       Chen and his wife have denied the charges, saying the money was left over from political donations.
       For the past year, the legal saga has riveted the island of 23 million people.
       Dozens of Chen supporters protested yesterday outside the residence of Tsai Shou-hsiun, the presiding judge in the graft case, saying the verdict was politically motivated. Some held signs bearing the Chinese character for "Shame".
       The protesters also said Chen was unfairly confined to jail during his trial.They pointed to a decision to change the three-judge Taipei District Court panel after it originally freed him on his own recognizance following his indictment last December. The new judges,led by Mr Tsai, accepted the prosecutors'argument that Chen was a flight risk.
       Taiwanese prosecutors are mulling more legal action against the island's former president and his wife.
       Investigators are examining Chen's alleged role in six more corruption cases,ranging from the embezzlement of secret diplomatic funds to taking bribes and money laundering, the China Times said.Chen insists the corruption charges are a political vendetta by the Chinafriendly Kuomintang government for his lifelong push to declare formal independence from China.
       Chen and his wife were ordered to pay a combined fine of T$500 million (518 million baht).

NEW YORK'S 400-YEAR-OLD COLD CASE

       The victim: John Colman. Not much is known about him,much less about his murder.His body was hastily buried and has never been found. A weapon was recovered, but it vanished.The only account of the crime is secondhand, pieced together from a few witnesses,some of whom might have harboured a grudge. The chief suspects were singled out because of racial profiling but were never questioned. No one was ever prosecuted.
       It was on Sept 6,1609-400 years ago when this, the first recorded murder in what became metropolitan New York, was committed. Colman was killed only four days after the first Dutch and English sailors had arrived.
       "There's a reason it's still a cold case,"said Detective Michael J Palladino, president of the city detectives' union, mulling the scant evidence that remains today.
       Some 300 people have been murdered in the city so far in 2009. Typically, half the homicides are solved in the first year and 20% the year after. Relatively few are solved decades after they occur, although some are.So it's about time modern police brains were brought to bear on the murder of John Colman. Some current and former detectives gamely agreed to apply their skills to the case during interviews.
       In addition to Mr Palladino, they were Joseph A Pollini, who commanded the Police Department's cold-case homicide squad and now teaches at John Jay College of Criminal Justice, and William McNeely, a Manhattan South homicide detective. A couple of historians were consulted to add context.
       The facts as they are known (maybe):Colman was an accomplished sailor, one of a handful of Englishmen in Henry Hudson's largely Dutch crew of 16. They sailed into New York Harbor early that September on the 85-foot-long Half Moon , searching for a northwest passage to Asia, and anchored somewhere between Coney Island and Sandy Hook.
       The only contemporary account of the murder was a journal kept by the first mate,Robert Juet (sometimes spelled Jouet and Ivet). His only sources were the four survivors of a reconnaissance mission that Colman had commanded, and their version was taken
       at face value. Mr Palladino saw a problem right there."In this day and age you wouldn't accept that as an answer,"he said."It doesn't seem that there was any intention to investigate."
       Sept 6 was a Sunday.After morning prayers,Hudson dispatched Colman and four Dutch crewmen in a 16-footlong shallop.They ranged as far as 18 miles past sweet-smelling flora to explore what may have been Kill Van Kull and Newark Bay, or even farther north.
       Two 40-foot dugout canoes approached, one with 16 Indians and the other with 14. The four Dutch crewmen later said they were "set upon". They were apparently unable to ignite a small cannon because of rain, but probably mustered enough firepower from muskets to frighten the Indians, the historians suggested. The Indians fired arrows pointed with sharp stones. Two crewmen were wounded.Colman, whose chest may have been sheathed in armour, was struck in the neck and bled to death.
       The survivors rowed for hours searching for the Half Moon . Finally, at 10am on Sept 7, they returned to the ship with Colman's body. He was buried later that day, either in Coney Island, Staten Island, Sandy Hook or Keansburg, New Jersey, at a spot that Hudson named Colman's Point.
       The confusion about a burial site created issues for Mr Pollini."We would have to try and find the body," he said.
       "Upon examining the body, we'd find out how exactly he was killed," Mr Pollini said."Was it an arrow the Indians shot, or blunt force by some sort of instrument that was made to look like an Indian arrow by one of the men on the ship who didn't like him?Two other people were injured. They would be key witnesses. We'd examine their injuries and see how they were inflicted. Everyone on the ship would have to be interviewed.Were there any disgruntled employees, any animosity toward him? Was this an opportune time to get rid of him?"
       Apparently none of those questions were asked in 1609.
       Circumstantial evidence suggests that the answers might have revised the record described by Juet and embellished by historians.
       "The many complaints Hudson and Juet made suggest that the Half Moon crew was a typical blend of sociopaths and working men," said Kathleen Hulser, public historian at the New York Historical Society.
       Juet, whom Hudson himself described as mean-tempered and whom one historian would call his "evil genius", later led a mutiny against Hudson.
       Colman had been recruited by Hudson,apparently as his second mate, after serving as a trusted boatswain on an earlier voyage.Unlike Hudson, he spoke Dutch, although,in a letter to his wife, he contemptuously wrote of the Dutch crew:"Looking at their fat bellies, I fear they think more highly of eating than of sailing."
       Only two days before the murder, in the crew's first encounter with the Indians along the river, some came aboard the Half Moon ,"seeming very glad of our coming", Juet wrote.
       Still, they were probably wary of the new arrivals. The Indians might have heard of Hudson's crew's actions a few weeks before in Maine where, Juet wrote, the crew dragged the Indians from their homes "and took the spoil of them, as they would have done us".Or perhaps they had heard of the explorer Samuel de Champlain's recent bloody encounter with Indians to the north.
       "It might have been retaliation, not aggression," Ms Hulser said.
       "I'm sure they were Indians," James Ring Adams, a senior historian at the National Museum of the American Indian, said of the perpetrators."That leaves a question: Was this a renegade band or another tribe possibly based on Staten Island or from farther north on the river?"
       Perhaps the two canoes were not a war party, but had approached the small boat offering help. Two nights later, according to Juet, Indians benignly came aboard the Half Moon to trade with the crew without betraying any knowledge of Colman's murder.
       "He was English, the crew was Dutch,"said Mr McNeely."You couldn't rule anybody out. We'd detain everybody, including the injured sailors. You couldn't just take the word of somebody else. They could say he was attacked by Indians; it would be easy to make that up. I don't know if that's racial profiling, but it's definitely scapegoating."
       Colman's murder inspired a poem by Thomas Frost:
       "Then prone he fell within the boat,A flinthead arrow through his throat!"Also, a mural in the Hudson County, New Jersey, courthouse in Jersey City.
       "They say a picture is worth a thousand words," Mr Palladino said.
       "If we could force that picture to talk, we could crack the case."

Solve Cambodia's land crisis in courts, not with bullets

       WHEN POLICE opened fire on unarmed farmers protesting confiscation of their land in Siem Reap on March 22 this year, four villagers were seriously wounded. Luon Meng - shot in both thighs - will probably be disabled for life.
       Almost six months later, Meng's uncle is still pressing officials to explain why not a single charge has been filed against the police who fired on the farmers or those who ordered them to shoot.
       "Soldiers and police should use their guns to protect people, not shoot them," Meng's uncle - a Buddhist monk named Venerable Luon Savath - told me recently.
       Photographs and video footage that Savath and others compiled on the incident appear to show dazed and stunned farmers - some with gashes and gaping wounds - tied to poles after the shooting, which took place in the presence of provincial officials.
       According to eyewitnesses, the police immediately said that it was legal to shoot the farmers as long as they aimed below the waist.
       Instead of investigating the officers who shot the protesters, authorities arrested and jailed eleven of the farmers, who now await trial on robbery charges. This week the provincial court summoned for questioning three of the farmers who were shot - including one still in hospital, who had to be transported to court.
       The wounded men now face possible defamation charges, for daring to file a complaint about the incident with the Justice Ministry. Such is the nature of "justice" in Cambodia.
       Lawsuits against government critics are the latest in a series of well-worn - and abused - "legal" tactics used by officials and powerful people in Cambodia to silence dissent. Violence is the other tool.
       While the crackdown in Siem Reap was one of the most violent confrontations in a land dispute in Cambodia so far this year, it is no isolated incident.
       Cambodians across the country are increasingly losing their homes, land and natural resources on which their livelihoods depend to make way for commercial development, agri-business plantations, hydro-electricity dams and mining concessions. In Phnom Penh alone, at least 30,000 urban poor have been forced from their homes in recent years. More than 150,000 people nationwide are at risk of losing their land and their homes.
       When communities seek information about land confiscations and peaceful resolution of disputes, they are increasingly met with harassment, intimidation, arrest and violent evictions.
       Government officials often deploy heavily armed police and soldiers to force people off their land without court orders or any form of fair hearing for the owners or occupiers of the land.
       Authorities have arrested or jailed dozens of activists, often on spurious charges, for defending their land rights.
       Most of the Siem Reap farmers driven from their land in March had farmed those fields since the late-1980s. Under Cambodian law, this entitles them to the right to continue farming and eventually obtain title to the land.
       Most farmers in Cambodia, however, have yet to obtain formal titles, which often require bribes or political connections. The people now claiming legal "ownership" are well-connected businessmen with the means to call on virtually every state mechanism for support - courts, district and provincial officials, and finally, police and soldiers.
       Despite the government issuing more than one million land titles since 2002 in a World Bank-supported project, the vast majority of Cambodia's urban and rural poor have been excluded. A World Bank review of the US$24 million (Bt819 million) programme released this week called on the government to remedy the fact that "some land areas have been excluded from titling without clear criteria or explanation provided to the local communities".
       The urgency of Cambodia's land crisis prompted a rare public appeal recently from development partners. In July, the World Bank, the UN, the Asian Development Bank, the European Commission, the Swedish International Development Agency and several embassies called on the government to stop forced evictions until fair and transparent land dispute and resettlement mechanisms are in place.
       The Cambodian government has not only ignored such appeals, but rebuffed them.
       On Monday, Prime Minister Hun Sen announced the termination of the World Bank's land-titling project. The reason, he said, was that the partnership with the World Bank was "difficult and complicated" and "had too many conditions".
       The government has become as impervious to the humanitarian appeals of its international donors as it is to the plight of its poorest citizens. But there is growing awareness among the poor of their rights under local and international law.
       On Thursday [Sept 10], farmers representing tens of thousands of people nationwide gathered in Phnom Penh, seeking responses to land rights complaints they submitted a month ago. Many of these people will now face threats to their personal security, as well as spurious legal battles that could land them in prison.
       Rather than filing lawsuits against or opening fire on land-rights activists, the government should resolve these complaints.
       Land disputes should be settled in an independent court, not by armed police and soldiers. Ownership should be determined by Cambodia's Land Law, rather than wealth and political connections. Until authorities can properly implement and respect Cambodia's Land Law, the government should enact a moratorium on forced evictions.
       The government should also ensure the safety of peaceful land-rights advocates such as Sovath, whose calls for justice have been met by threats and intimidation. Soldiers threatened to storm his temple to confiscate the video he compiled of the shooting and its aftermath.
       The Siem Reap crackdown caused villagers to go into hiding, fearful of being shot or arrested.
       "Many farmers fled, leaving their cooking pots behind," Savath told me. All they had was fear, frustration and empty stomachs. They struggled to hide from local authorities, police and soldiers, who neither respect nor fear the law or human rights because they have power."
       Unarmed farmers being shot and city dwellers being forced from their homes at gunpoint are grim reminders of the country's past under the Khmer Rouge regime of the 1970s. This is not what international donors have in mind when they make annual pledges to cover more than half of Cambodia's national budget.
       Savath laments the difficulties faced by landless villages throughout Cambodia: "Now when farmers raise their voices about loss of their land, they are threatened, jailed, or brought to court and sued."
       In his home province of Siem Reap, the situation has turned grim.
       "The farmers' paddy fields used to be busy," he said. "The sound was sweet and joyful with farmers singing, laughing and dancing to deal with the hard work. Now the fields are for weeping. They are grief-stricken places. This is because the rich have collaborated with the powerful to take the land."

Calderon removes his top drug war official

       Mexican President Felipe Calderon on Monday removed his attorney-general who had spearheaded the government's anti-drug campaign that has so far failed to defeat powerful cartels.
       Mr Calderon told reporters that Eduardo Medina Mora had resigned and would be replaced by a relatively unknown former law enforcement official. He gave no details about the reasons for the move.
       A crackdown by thousands of troops and federal police has been unable to bring warring rival mafias to heel.
       More than 13,000 people have died in drug violence since Mr Calderon took office in late 2006.
       He has staked his presidency on the war against the drug cartels and the US has backed him by promising $1.4 billion in aid such as training and equipment for Mexican security forces.
       But the drug cartels are killing about 20 people a day in Mexico, often after torturing them, and traffickers have infiltrated many state and municipal police forces.
       The outgoing attorney-general admitted "successes and errors like in all human endeavours" but defended Mr Calderon's campaign against drug gangs like the rival Sinaloa and Gulf cartels.
       "The historic decision to limit the power of criminal organisations with all the power of the state was fundamental for our future as a nation," Mr Medina Mora said. He will be replaced by Arturo Chavez, a former official with the attorney-general's office.