OAS Report Presents Legalization as ‘Drug War’ Alternative

On Friday, the Organization of American States (OAS) released a highly anticipated report on drugs and drug trafficking in the hemisphere, which for the first time includes decriminalization and legalization as potential and valid policy options in the hemisphere.

The first section of the report (.pdf), commissioned at last year’s Summit of the Americas in Colombia, is extremely comprehensive in its analysis of the drug problem, and offers some unorthodox suggestions on drug policy in the hemisphere. While these are not meant to be taken as solutions, OAS Secretary General Jose Miguel Insulza states in his introduction to the report that they are designed to serve as “the start of a long-awaited discussion.”

The report’s main premise is that there is no single drug problem in the Americas, but “many problems related to: a) the different stages of the process associated with controlled drugs (cultivation, production, transit, sale, consumption), b) the ways in which these stages affect the countries of the region.”

Perhaps the most surprising conclusion in the report comes after its assertion that drug use must be addressed as a public health issue.  According to the OAS, “decriminalization of drug use needs to be considered as a core element in any public health strategy.” The report’s authors write that a shift is already underway to emphasize prevention, treatment and rehabilitation, as well as a change “from viewing drug users as criminals or accomplices of drug-traffickers to seeing them as victims and chronic addicts.”

Although most drug policy advocates would argue that not all consumers of every illicit substance are either victims or addicts, the inclusion of this language has been warmly received. Ethan Nadelmann, director of the Drug Policy Alliance, told The New York Times that it “effectively breaks the taboo on considering alternatives to the current prohibitionist approach.” The Guardian notes that the Open Society Foundations’ Global Drug Policy Program has described the report as a “game-changer.”

The report has also been welcomed by some officials in the region, most notably Colombia’s President Juan Manuel Santos, who attended its launch in Bogota on Friday. The president, who has endorsed drug legalization in the past, referred to the document as “a vital piece in the construction of a common way to fight this problem.”

While the first part of the report focuses more on assessing the current state of the drug problem in the Americas, its second part (.pdf) examines possible scenarios for how drug policy might change over the next twelve years. Three different possibilities are assessed, each of which is guided by different policy strategies, including strengthening judicial institutions, stressing prevention and decriminalizing/legalizing certain drugs. A fourth, “cautionary” scenario is also discussed, in which some regional governments make tacit pacts with drug trafficking organizations in a last-ditch effort to reduce associated violence within their borders.

Of course, decriminalization and legalization have long been opposed by the biggest market for illicit drugs in the hemisphere: the United States. Even as it has embraced the idea of drug policy as a public health issue, the U.S. has firmly rejected legalization as a solution to drug violence. This position was recently echoed by U.S. Drug Czar Gil Kerlikowske in an op-ed in Colombia’s El Tiempo. However, with marijuana legalized in Colorado and Washington, and seven states likely to follow in the next few years, the government’s foreign policy position on drug legalization seems untenable. A potential test of this stance will come next week when Vice President Joe Biden arrives in Colombia next week as part of a regional tour.

News Briefs

• On Friday, the Salvadoran Constitutional Court ruled that the appointment of two former generals as heads of law enforcement in the country violated the constitution, El Faro reports. President Mauricio Funes appointed Gen. David Mungia Payes as security minister, and Gen. Francisco Ramon Salinas Rivera as head of the national police, in late 2011 and early 2012 amid concern about a return to “mano dura” security policies in the Central American country. The president has said he will obey the decision, but leaders from the two main street gangs in El Salvador -- who reached a government-facilitated truce partially with the help of Mungia -- say the decision threatens their ceasefire.

• The main doctor charged with treating former Peruvian President Alberto Fujimori has told the press that the imprisoned ex-leader has a worsening stomach condition, and has called for President Ollanta Humala to authorize his release on health grounds. This is unlikely, however, as a medical commission’s findings that Fujimori does not currently suffer from cancer calls into question the health claims made by his family and supporters.

• Writing for Venezuela Politics and Human Rights, Rebecca Hanson looks at the Venezuelan government’s recent launch of “Plan Patria Segura,” a citizen security initiative which involves deploying military units to high crime areas.  The plan is especially controversial because there are “virtually no mechanisms by which citizens can control the military’s treatment of citizens or denounce their abuse of civilians,” according to Hanson.

• An AP report looks the issue of entire towns controlled by drug cartels along the U.S./Mexico border, which the agency claim presents a major challenge to immigration reform.

• Diego Garcia-Sayan, president of the Inter-American Court of Human Rights and an author of the a December 2012 decision which found El Salvador’s Amnesty Law did not apply massacres and human rights violations committed during the country’s civil war, continued to speak out against the law in comments at a journalism forum in El Salvador last week.

• The defense lawyer for former Guatemalan dictator Efrain Rios Montt has told BBC Mundo  that he has faith that the ruling against his client on genocide and crimes against humanity charges will be overturned. Meanwhile the full 900-page judgment is available online.

• El Nuevo Diario has published the results of a new CID/Gallup poll which shows that Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega’s Frente Sandinista de Liberacion Nacional (FSLN) is far and away the most popular political party in the country, with 49 percent of respondents expressing support for the party.  No other party received support from more than 5 percent of respondents, suggesting that the FSLN has no effective political opposition.

• While the peace talks between the Colombian government and FARC rebels have lasted for six months, there has still been no preliminary accord on land reform, a major issue for the guerrilla group. Still, lead FARC negotiator Ivan Marquez has said that he is “satisfied” with the pace of talks, El Espectador reports.

• Jorge Rafael Videla, the Argentine junta leader who came to power after a military coup in 1976, died on Friday at the age of 87. La Nacion has a collection of responses to the news from Argentine politicians across the political spectrum, and the Washington Post looks at Videla’s life, calling him a “wily and ruthless player in the military dictatorship’s reign of institutionalized terrorism.”

Costa Rican President Borrowed Private Jet from Colombian with ‘Drug Ties’

Costa Rica President Laura Chinchilla is engulfed in a scandal after it was revealed that she recently made international trips using a private jet belonging to a Colombian with alleged ties to drug trafficking. Two cabinet members have stepped down in response to public outrage, but questions remain about her links to the suspect.

Reuters reports that the Costa Rican attorney general's office is investigating Chinchilla over two flights she made, one in April to Caracas for Hugo Chavez’s funeral, and another last week to Lima to attend a private wedding. These trips were apparently arranged by an individual who introduced himself to Communications Minister Francisco Chacon as Gabriel O’Falan, and claimed to represent Colombian oil company THX Energy. However, this week it emerged that the man was in fact Gabriel Morales Fallon, who is suspected of links to drug trafficking and money laundering ties.

Chacon stepped down on Wednesday as the revelation became public. According to La Nacion, the head of Costa Rica’s Intelligence Directorate (DIS) and Chinchilla’s drug czar have now stepped down as well, citing a failure to properly investigate Morales’ background.

Despite the resignations, responsibility for the incident will likely fall squarely on Chinchilla’s shoulders. As analyst James Bosworth notes, the country prohibits politicians from accepting undisclosed gifts.

The scandal also has implications for the status of organized crime in Costa Rica. While the Central American nation has largely avoided the drug-fueled violence that has gripped other countries in the region in recent years, there is widespread concern about powerful criminal interests exerting increasing influence over Costa Rica’s traditionally stable democratic institutions.

News Briefs

• El Nacional reports that after a ten-day audit of the results of last month’s elections, the Venezuelan National Electoral Council (CNE) has released a statement saying that President Nicolas Maduro’s victory was valid, with a margin of error of only 0.02 percent.  Upon hearing the news, Capriles repeated claims that the audit was “a farce."

• According to the Wall Street Journal, President Maduro is warming up to the food production industry after weeks of attacking it for allegedly driving up prices and fueling scarcity. Maduro reportedly met with Venezuela’s largest food producer Empresas Polar SA this week, and agreed to work together to resolve the country’s historic levels of food shortages.

• The government of Bolivian President Evo Morales has accused the country's largest union of inciting rebellion in recent days. La Razon reports that the president announced that the union is attempting to push for a police coup in the country, ahead of a major demonstration in La Paz scheduled for April 23.

• BBC Mundo has an in-depth investigation on foreign workers in Brazil -- mostly Bolivians, Peruvians and Paraguayans -- who work in conditions of slavery. According to official estimates, some 300,000 Bolivians, 70,000 Paraguayans and 45,000 Peruvians live in the metropolitan region of Sao Paulo, most working in slave-like conditions.

• Sources within Colombia’s Ministry of Agriculture have told local press that the Colombian Institute of Rural Development, which oversees land redistribution to and restitution to victims of the country’s armed conflict, has been systematically granting land to wealthy landowners and alleged criminals around the country since 2006. El Tiempo, La Opinion and Colombia Reports have more.

• The Financial Times looks at Uruguayan President Jose Mujica’s attempts to bring his country closer to neighboring Brazil amid a period of cooling relations with Argentina.  Argentine trade restrictions have damaged relations with Uruguay, and Mujica hopes to make up for this by deepening trade with Brazil, calling it a “terrific market we have on our doorstep.”

• Mujica endorsed the marijuana regulation bill under debate in the country’s lower house again this week, in an interview with Spanish news agency EFE. The president cautioned that while he was against marijuana -- he called it a “plague” -- regulating it is better than the alternative, which is letting the market stay in the hands of drug traffickers.

• In another EFE interview, Ecuadorean Policy Minister Betty Tola discusses political opposition to President Rafael Correa’s sexual education and family planning initiatives. Although the teen pregnancy rate in the country rose by 78 percent between 2000 and 2010, conservative and religious sectors remain opposed to  education programs which emphasize birth control use.

• The New York Times profiles the murder of Malcolm X’s grandson, Malcolm Shabazz, last week in a Mexico City bar. Police say he fell for a common tourist trap: “women offering company, cheap drinks or both who lure unsuspecting visitors to a dive bar near the plaza. Staggering tabs await them at last call.” The Times also points out that the incident is proof of the city’s seedier side that persists despite recent economic development.

• The anonymous female author of Blog del Narco, the most popular blog on crime and insecurity in Mexico, has been forced to flee the country due to threats on her life, Animal Politico and The Guardian report. The young woman -- who goes by the pen name “Lucy” -- has told the press that she fled to the United States and then Spain after a colleague of hers vanished last week.

Division Continues in Post-Election Venezuela

Despite an announced agreement last week between opposition lawmakers and legislators of Venezuela’s ruling majority, Venezuelan society remains bitterly divided with no end in sight.

Last week, Democratic Unity Roundtable (MUD) lawmakers reached an agreement with members of the United Socialist Party (PSUV) which looked like it would allow Venezuela’s National Assembly to resume normal proceedings. The agreement, which included a joint statement calling for peaceful dialogue, came after weeks of National Assembly President Diosdado Cabello refusing to grant opposition legislators the floor because they would not recognize Maduro’s election victory.  This tension boiled over on April 30, when a fistfight broke out on the floor of the legislative body, injuring lawmakers on both sides.

Since then, however, the conflict in the Assembly has continued. El Nacional reports that MUD lawmakers refused to turn up at a parliamentary meeting yesterday in which the Assembly’s permanent commissions convened.  In response, Cabello has announced he will not pay their salaries.

"The committees all met yesterday in the Assembly, they weren’t there. Only the committees controlled by revolutionary lawmakers worked. How can I pay them? I can’t. It would be irresponsible on my part to pay those who do not work," Cabello said.

Opposition leaders say they are refusing to attend the meetings until their control of four committees they have held since 2011 is restored.

Meanwhile, opinion polls show the Venezuelan public is becoming increasingly sympathetic to the opposition, with a recent analysis by pollster IVAD suggesting that if new elections were held, 40.8 percent would support President Nicolas Maduro and 45.8 would vote for opposition leader Henrique Capriles.

The International Crisis Group has released a report today noting that Venezuelans have become “divided into two, apparently irreconcilable parts,” and calling on moderate sectors of Chavismo to meet with members of the opposition and establish a national dialogue. Unfortunately, the odds of this happening seem slim at the moment.

News Briefs

• Reuters reports that Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff has ordered her government to stop seizing farmland in order to transfer it to indigenous tribes. After land management regulations were changes last week, sources close to Rousseff told the news agency that she has told her government to refrain from approving indigenous claims to land.

• In a sign of growing Brazilian influence in the world, BBC reports that Brazil is expanding naval operations off the coast of Africa in order to better fight piracy and drug trafficking.

• Despite evidence that public opinion is turning against him, Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro is still relying on popular support for deceased President Hugo Chavez to boost his image. Yesterday the president inaugurated the mausoleum of Venezuelan liberator Simon Bolivar, which is seen by many observers as one of Chavez’s last pet projects. Maduro invoked Chavez throughout the ceremony, the AP reports, stressing the similarities between the deceased president and Bolivar.

• In addition to historic levels of food shortages, Venezuela is now seeing scarcity of toilet paper. As with food, the government is blaming this issue on hoarding and price speculation. "The revolution will bring the country the equivalent of 50 million rolls of toilet paper," Commerce Minister Alejandro Fleming announced on Tuesday. "We are going to saturate the market so that our people calm down." Meanwhile, the BBC has a piece on how food shortages have become a politically divisive issue in the country.

• Mexican President Enrique Peña Nieto fired the head of Mexico’s consumer protection agency yesterday in response to a scandal caused by his decision to briefly close a restaurant that refused his daughter the table she wanted. The incident has raised the issue of elite privilege in the country, as Univision has reported.

• The Guardian reports that the Colombian government has uncovered a plot to kill a freelance correspondent and magazine columnist, just two weeks after a high-profile investigative reporter with Semana magazine survived an assassination attempt.

• The Washington Post has a long investigation into recruitment of child soldiers by the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC). While the group is engaging in peace talks with the government in Havana, local experts say it is increasingly relying on minors to fill gaps in its structure in response to increased casualties and desertions. While the exact number of is unknown, human rights groups say there are anywhere from hundreds to thousands of minors in the FARC.

• The Post also features a piece on the marked difference in reaction to President Peña Nieto’s decision to allow less U.S. involvement in the fight against drug traffickers between Washington and Mexico. Many in the latter country see it as a positive move that is long overdue. 

Brazil Steps Towards Legalizing Gay Marriage, Will Colombia Follow?

A judicial council in Brazil has opened the way for gay marriage in the country by ruling that it is discriminatory to relegate same-sex couples to civil unions, an argument that gay rights activists are also using in Colombia.

Yesterday afternoon, Brazil’s National Council of Justice -- a 15-member panel which oversees the judiciary -- ruled that it is unconstitutional for notary publics to refuse to perform marriage ceremonies for gay couples. The landmark decision effectively paves the way for legalization of gay marriage across the country, which is already legal in 10 states.

O Globo reports that the decision could be appealed to the high court, the Supreme Federal Tribunal. It could also face resistance in Congress, especially from influential Evangelical Christian legislators, as the New York Times’ Simon Romero points out.

Despite this, the ruling is a historic step forward for Brazil, and comes after two neighboring countries -- Uruguay and Argentina -- passed gay marriage laws in recent years.

The council’s finding is also noteworthy because it mirrors a 2011 Colombian Constitutional Court ruling which found that same-sex couples should have the right to register marriages with public notaries. Although Colombia’s Congress voted against a gay marriage bill last month, the 2011 decision goes into effect on June 20, when same sex couples are expected to flood notaries around the country to demand marriage equality.

News Briefs 

• El Tiempo reports that Colombia’s chief prosecutor for crimes against humanity, Eduardo Montealegre, has announced that one potential sentence for FARC guerrillas who have committed war crimes would be to assist in de-activating land mines throughout the country. The official said his office is considering this and other alternative sentences as part of a transitional justice strategy.

• One year after signing a free trade agreement with Colombia, there is reason to question the FTA’s benefits to the South American country. Sergio Diaz-Granados noted that exports from Colombia to the U.S. have dropped in an interview with El Espectador, and an analysis by Colombia Reports found that while U.S. exports to Colombia increased by 15 percent this year, Colombian exports to the U.S. are down 13 percent.

• A statistical analysis of Venezuela’s voting machine audit by the Center for Economic Policy Research (CEPR) suggests that the April elections which gave President Nicolas Maduro a roughly 1.5 percent lead is accurate. According to the CEPR, “The odds of getting the April 14 audit result if in fact the unaudited machines contained enough errors to reverse the election outcome are far less than one in 25 thousand trillion.”

• As expected, Venezuela’s only overtly anti-Chavista television network Globovision has been sold, and its new owners have announced that its editorial line will now shift “toward the centre,” according to BBC News and the L.A. Times. However in an interview with El Nacional, new Globovision board member Leopoldo Castillo said that there was no cause for concern about a radical change in the channel’s vision.

• A new Gallup poll has been released which indicates that Venezuelans have the highest rates of perceived insecurity in the world, with 74 percent of respondents reporting that they did not feel safe walking at night where they live. The Latin American country with the next highest levels of perceived insecurity was the Dominican Republic, with 60 percent.  

• In a New York Times op-ed yesterday, anthropologist Victoria Sanford writes that despite the conviction of Guatemalan ex-dictator Efrain Rios Montt on charges of genocide and crimes against humanity, “it’s too soon to declare victory in Guatemala.” According to Sanford, the next battle is in prosecuting current president and retired general Otto Perez Molina for war crimes. “The Obama administration should call for Mr. Pérez Molina’s resignation and rally support among other members of the Organization of American States to join this call,” she argues.

• According to the AP, Rios Montt’s lawyers claim he is still being treated in a military hospital after allegedly fainting before being scheduled to attend a hearing on reparations to victims.

• Soccer’s worldwide governing body, FIFA, has announced that Sao Paulo could lose its right to hold matches in the 2014 World Cup as a result of delays in the construction of a stadium in the city.

• In a public address yesterday Haitian President Michel Martelly marked two years in office by stressing some of his administration’s accomplishments, like a nationwide tuition program, social programs and rising tourism. The AP notes that while many street protests have been held against the president, a single unified opposition has not yet emerged.

• A construction crew in Belize has destroyed a 2,300 year-old Mayan temple in order to extract rocks for a planned road, authorities in the Central American country have announced. 

Even with Death Squads, Honduran Police are a ‘Lesser Evil’

The Honduran national police are inefficient, corrupt, resistant to reform, and may be conducting extrajudicial killings in an organized capacity, but they’re the only reliable force in the country in the fight against transnational crime. At least, according to the United States.

A new Associated Press investigation illustrates the alarming extent of police corruption in Honduras, claiming that police in the Central American nation are participating in death squads, in which non-uniformed officers target alleged gang members and kill them extrajudicially.

Honduran gang members have been killed or disappeared immediately after a police encounter at least five times in recent months, according to AP reporter Alberto Arce. This fact, along with multiple eyewitness accounts cited in the article, raises questions about whether the United States should continue providing security aid to Honduran police.

The allegations are especially damning considering that National Police Director Juan Carlos Bonilla himself has been accused of participation in death squads. As El Faro reported in a 2011 piece on Bonilla’s record, human rights organizations accused him in 2002 of being a member of an extrajudicial killing squad known as “Los Magnificos” which murdered suspected gang members. He was acquitted in court after the prosecutor in the case was fired mid-trial.

The accusations surfaced again last year when he was appointed police chief, prompting the U.S. government to announce that it would only fund police units “who are not under Bonilla’s direct supervision.” This has been difficult, however, as the hierarchical structure of Honduras’ police means that every policeman in the country technically falls under his command.

This shows the difficult line that the U.S. State Department is walking in promoting an anti-narcotics agenda in Honduras, a major drug transit country. According to U.S. officials, there simply are no other capable partners other than the police. From the AP:

In the last two years, the United States has given an estimated $30 million in aid to Honduran law enforcement. The U.S. State Department says it faces a dilemma: The police are essential to fighting crime in a country that has become a haven for drug-runners. It estimates that 40 percent of the cocaine headed to the U.S. - and 87 percent of cocaine smuggling flights from South America - pass through Honduras.  

"The option is that if we don't work with the police, we have to work with the armed forces, which almost everyone accepts to be worse than the police in terms of ... taking matters in their own hands," U.S. Assistant Secretary of State William Brownfield told the AP via live chat on March 28. "Although the national police may have its defects at the moment, it is the lesser evil."

News Briefs

• On the subject of unlawful police killings, InSight Crime profiles two videos of an apparent extrajudicial murder committed by police in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. The videos, which were obtained by Globo television, show officers shooting at a suspect from helicopter, then congratulating each other on the operation while moving several dead bodies. The incident has been condemned by human rights groups in the country, and police say an investigation into the operation has been launched.

• As mentioned in yesterday’s post, one possible way for Guatemalan ex-dictator Efrain Rios Montt to avoid his 80-year sentence on genocide charges is by using his advanced age to appeal for a pardon on health grounds. A cynical observer might think this plan was set in motion yesterday, when Rios Montt was taken to a military hospital after allegedly fainting. Prensa Libre and the AP report that the incident occurred just as the former dictator was on his way to attend a hearing on reparations to the victims of military operations linked to the crimes he was sentenced for.

• While peace talks between FARC rebels and the Colombian government are progressing well and both sides are publicly optimistic about their outcome, the government is standing firm in its position that there will be a time limit for the talks. Speaking on RCN Radio, Peace Commissioner Sergio Jaramillo stressed that the administration of President Juan Manuel Santos will not continue negotiations into next year. 

• When Paraguayan President-elect Horacio Cartes takes office in August, his Colorado Party will control Congress. Official election results released on Friday show that the Colorados will have 44 of 80 lower house seats, and 19 of 45 Senate seats in the next term.

• The government of Uruguay is pressing forward with its plan to make the country the first in the world to legalize marijuana production and consumption, despite widespread opposition to the initiative. A Cifra poll published last week showed that 66 percent of Uruguayans are against the legalization of cannabis, but El Pais reports that ruling Frente Amplio party lawmakers in the lower house are moving ahead with the plan anyway.

• A new policing initiative, which involves coordination between the Venezuelan armed forces and the national police, went into effect yesterday in the state of Miranda. According to Venezuelan Politics and Human Rights, the initiative was announced last week by President Nicolas Maduro, who framed it as a move to reduce violent crime in the country. Meanwhile, EFE reports that the government has created a new unit charged with investigating homicides. Both of these are products of Maduro’s election campaign, which focused heavily on security issues.

• Although Maduro has accused Empresas Polar, Venezuela’s main food company, of reducing output and hoarding products in order to create scarcity, the company’s main executive has denied this. AP reports that Empresas Polar CEO Lorenzo Mendoza announced yesterday that his company has actually increased production of cornmeal over the past four months, and offered to buy government owned corn processing plants to boost output further.

• The Nicaraguan government has claimed that the Chilean AFP photojournalist it deported over the weekend was initially arrested because he passed over a police cordon near President Daniel Ortega’s residence. 

What Next for Efrain Rios Montt?

Guatemala’s General Efrain Rios Montt has been sentenced by a first-instance court to 80 years in prison for genocide and crimes against humanity, but legal challenges to the ruling persist, and there is a chance that the 86 year-old former dictator could request a presidential pardon.

On May 10, former Guatemalan dictator Efrain Rios Montt became the first former head of state to be convicted of genocide by his country’s own court system, and the first ex-dictator in Latin America to be convicted of crimes against humanity. After hearing final arguments from the prosecution and defense, the tribunal ruled that Rios Montt was responsible for genocide and crimes against humanity, as he directly oversaw military activities and did nothing to stop the killing of 1,771 Maya Ixil civilians in a 1982-83 military campaign. The tribunal sentenced him to 80 years in prison for the crimes, 50 for genocide and 30 for crimes against humanity. Co-defendant Jose Mauricio Rodriguez was found not guilty of either charge.

The conviction is an important victory for Guatemala’s democratic institutions, especially its court system. While the country still has one of the lowest conviction rates in the region, with less than ten percent of cases filed resulting in convictions, the trial demonstrates that major improvements have been made to judicial independence. This progress has been in a large part due to the work enterprising Attorney General Claudia Paz y Paz, as well as the UN-backed International Commission against Impunity (CICIG), which has been dedicated to cleaning up the country’s court system and going after dirty judges.

It is important to note, however, that this is not the last word for General Rios Montt, as his legal team has vowed to challenge the ruling in a higher court. He may also eventually request a pardon on health grounds, as imprisoned former president Alberto Fujimori has done in Peru (although there is reason to doubt the Peruvian ex-leader’s health claims). While Perez Molina released a statement last week promising to respect the ruling, he has denied that genocide occurred in Guatemala in the past, and in a Friday interview on CNN en Español stressed that the “ruling is not yet firm.” If Rios Montt requests a presidential pardon, it seems that Perez Molina would likely grant it.

For more on the significance of the ruling, see coverage in the L.A. Times, The New Yorker and New York Times, although Mike Allison of the Central American Politics blog makes the excellent point that “just about everyone who is writing in English is supportive of a guilty verdict." This is especially obvious in the NYT piece, which characterizes Rios Montt’s defense statement as “rambling,” ignoring the fact that a judge denied his previous request to read a prepared statement, forcing him to improvise.

News Briefs

• The AP and Prensa Libre report that Rios Montt is currently being held in the Matamoros military prison in Guatemala, where a group of around 50 supporters rallied to demand that a higher court nullify the verdict against the official.

• On Friday, the Washington Post ran a piece on Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro’s efforts to seek legitimacy for his government outside of his country’s borders, profiling his recent visit to the Mercosur countries of Brazil, Uruguay and Argentina.

• After detaining a Chilean AFP photojournalist for several days without officially charging him, the Nicaraguan government has finally deported him to Costa Rica for allegedly violating migration laws.

• The New York Times looks at the high- profile “mensalão,” corruption scandal in Brazil, which ended with stiff penalties for government figures accused of making payments to legislators to ensure their support for legislation. However, none of those convicted have as yet gone to jail for the crimes, and a series of appeals filed by defense lawyers this month suggests that several will receive significantly lighter sentences.

• Peru’s official statistics agency has found that the poverty rate in the country dropped to 25.8 percent last year, bringing President Ollanta Humala closer to his stated goal of halving it (from 30 percent to 15 percent) before leaving office in July 2016.

• The Wall Street Journal is unsurprisingly critical of the selection of Brazilian Roberto Azevedo as new World Trade Organization (WTO) director-general, a move which was hailed by developing countries. In an editorial in today’s paper, the WSJ questions whether he will serve as the “Dr. Kevorkian” of the “sick” WTO, making the international organization obsolete.

• The L.A. Times has more on the Brazilian government’s announcement last week that it intends to import 6,000 Cuban doctors to offer medical care to local clinics in its rural interior. The announcement was met by criticism from medical associations in the country, who argue that the Cubans have insufficient medical training. However, the government claims the move is necessary to provide medical care in areas where it is difficult to come by. The city of Sao Paulo, for instance, has four times as many doctors per person as in the northern jungle region of the country.

• In response to news that the homicide rate in Guatemala has begun to increase after four straight years of decline, Elyssa Pachico of InSight Crime offers some analysis of the trend, suggesting that it may be a response to increased insecurity in neighboring Honduras, or a product of increased instability in the country’s criminal underworld.

• The AP has an investigation into Brazil’s auto industry, which it claims relies on inferior materials and safety features to compete with other international auto producers. The country boasts the fourth-largest auto market in the world, but dangerous driving conditions and inferior models results in an auto accident death rate which is four times greater than in the U.S.

Guatemala’s Rios Montt Trial Hears Closing Arguments

With the case against a Guatemalan ex-dictator and his former chief of intelligence on charges of genocide and crimes against humanity nearing a close, it is now up to the prosecution to lay out its best case that the two acted on a clear intent to eradicate a Mayan ethnic group during the country’s armed conflict.

After weeks of uncertainty and repeated delays in proceedings, the trial of former Guatemalan dictator Efrain Rios Montt and his former intelligence chief Mauricio Rodriguez Sanchez has moved to its final phase. Yesterday afternoon the head of the tribunal overseeing the case, Judge Yasmin Barrios, made the announcement after the defense team said it was unable to present any witnesses, a claim it has made repeatedly over the past weeks, according to NISGUA’s rundown of the proceedings.

While in the past this has worked as a successful postponement tactic for the defense, its value apparently wore off.  Judge Barrios announced that she would not accept further delay in the trial, and called on the public prosecutor’s office to present its closing argument. Prensa Libre and El Periodico report that public prosecutor Orlando Lopez began by presenting an analysis of the military’s counterinsurgency strategy during Rios Montt’s 1982-83 rule, asserting that internal army documents proved that both the former dictator and his intelligence chief were aware of and promoted the military’s classification of Ixil people as an internal enemy of the state.

Along with testimony of the 98 Ixil victims, expert anthropologists and forensic scientists who participated in the trial, this is evidence that the two are guilty of both genocide and crimes against humanity, Lopez argued. As punishment, he said his office was seeking the maximum penalty under the law: 75 years’ imprisonment.

The trial will continue today, when civil plaintiffs from the Association for Justice and Reconciliation (AJR) and the Center for Human Rights Legal Action (CALDH) will each provide their final arguments. After this, the defense will have an opportunity to present its closing arguments as well, the lawyers of the accused will likely focus on legitimacy of the trial itself rather than the charges, as they have done throughout the proceedings.

While the trial has revealed somewhat clear evidence of war crimes, implicating the defendants in genocide will be a tall order, despite the best arguments of the prosecution. As the Human Rights Data Analysis Group’s Patrick Ball told Plaza Publica in a recent interview, homicide data from the era is consistent with the prosecution’s argument that the Ixil were specifically targeted, but proving “genocidal intent” requires a relatively high burden of proof. For this reason, the closing statements of the AJR and CALDH today will be extremely important to the outcome of the case. Rios Montt is the first former head of state to be tried for genocide in his own country, and if a guilty ruling based on conclusive evidence would be a major victory for both Guatemala’s rickety justice system and international human rights norms in general.

News Briefs

• Yesterday brought good news for those who believe the Obama administration has not paid enough attention to the region. The White House has announced that Peruvian President Ollanta Humala and Chilean President Sebastian Piñera will travel to Washington to meet with Obama in June, and Vice President Joe Biden will make visits to Colombia, Brazil and Trinidad and Tobago next week.  

• The visit by Humala and Piñera may present difficulties for the administration, however, as both Latin American presidents have recognized the electoral victory of Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro, while Obama has not. There is also a chance that the visit by Humala will spark criticism from the president’s opponents on the right, as his recent attendance of a Central American summit in Costa Rica did. Nicaragua Dispatch reports that the fiercely anti-ALBA Representative Ileana Ros-Lehtinen of Florida has lashed out against Obama for failing to condemn Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega for his “successful attempts to violate the Nicaraguan constitution multiple times.”

• The UN Office on Drugs and Crime, in conjunction with Peru’s National Commission on Development and Life Without Drugs (DEVIDA), has released a new study on “pasta base,” a cocaine derivative drug which has reached epidemic levels of use throughout the Southern Cone. The study looks at the international distribution chain of the drug, as well as domestic consumption in Peru. According to the authors’ findings, consumption has risen in Peru as well, and the median age of first use has fallen from 15 in 2006 to just 13.

• Mexican authorities have announced that three investigators working for INTERPOL, as well as a federal officer, have gone missing in the border city of Ciudad Juarez. Excelsior reports that unofficial sources claim the agents were tracking a high-level suspect in the city before they disappeared on Monday.

• The L.A. Times looks at the slow pace of the police vetting process in Mexico. According to data obtained by the Mexican nonprofit Common Cause, less than 50 percent of the 515,000 state and municipal police had been tested as of February, and nationwide less than one-third of the police who have failed tests have been dismissed.

• David Smilde of Venezuela Politics and Human Rights takes a look at recent opinion polls in Venezuela, which show growing support for the opposition and majority support for a complete audit of the April 14 elections.

• AFP reports that opposition lawmakers in Venezuela have reached an agreement with members of the ruling party majority which will allow the country’s National Assembly to resume normal proceedings, after weeks of National Assembly President Diosdado Cabello refusing to grant opposition legislators the floor because they would not recognize Maduro’s election victory.

• The government of Bolivia has found itself clashing with yet another social movement. After three days of demonstrations the Bolivian Workers' Center (COB), the largest organization of unions in Bolivia, is demanding a pension increase by organizing a strike at the country's largest tin mine and blocking major highways. La Razon reports that police broke up one roadblock in the west of the country after demonstrators allegedly used dynamite to destroy a bridge.

• A top Vatican official has publicly condemned the popular “Santa Muerte” figure in Mexico, which has become a venerated folk saint for many in the rural north of the country as well as many actors in its criminal underworld. Speaking at an event in Mexico City, Vatican Culture Minister Cardinal Gianfranco Ravasi said the image was blasphemous and was an affront to the faith.

• Nearly a year after the Colombia-U.S. trade agreement went into effect, the country still struggles with alarming levels of violence aimed at union workers. Julio Roberto Gomez, president of the country’s General Labor Confederation (CGT), told Caracol Radio yesterday that his union’s statistics suggest that 64 percent of all union worker killings worldwide occur in Colombia.