The Pan-American Post

Who is Funding Illicit Army Training Camps in Haiti?

2012-03-02T06:03:00.001-08:00

Reuters reports on a group of former soldiers in Haiti who have formed an unauthorized force, training and carrying out exercises in an old military base. There are a number of such camps, which are part of a drive to push the government to re-create the army.

Haiti’s army was disbanded in 1995 by Jean-Bertrand Artistide when he returned to power. It had been responsible for massive human rights violations and corruption over the years, and had taken part in a 1991 coup against him.

President Michael Martelly made the revival of the army a central promise of his campaign last year. The force’s dissolution was not written into the constitution, and so it can be recreated with a decree from the president.

But Martelly delayed the move when he came to power, amid fierce criticism from the international community, instead setting up a commission in November to decide on when and if it should go ahead.

The president has argued that the army could combat organized crime and drug trafficking on the island, and respond to emergencies and natural disasters. He argues that the police force suffers from corruption and neglect, which makes it unequal to the task. However, observers have said that Haiti’s energies should go towards reforming and strengthening the police, rather than the more expensive and controversial task of creating an army. A key goal of the UN is to build a new civilian police force in the country -- they have already trained 10,000, according to Reuters, and plan to add another 5,000 to 6,000 in the coming three years.

The UN has criticized the unofficial training camps, calling on the authorities to take action to end the regrouping, which it called an “unnecessary provocation.”

It’s not clear how far the government is behind the camps. Martelly has called on the group to disarm and stop their activites, but Reuters points out that, although the group will not reveal the sources of their funding, they appear to have enough cash to feed and uniform the men attending. The New York Times reported last year on a similar group training in an abandoned nightclub outside Port-au-Prince, and reported that Martelly had visited them on his campaign trail -- “He came to cheer us up and encourage us and said he supported having an army,” said a representative of the camp.

The group in the Reuters report struck a combative tone against the authorities, however. They told the news agency; “if the police decide to attack us, we will provide a response,” and referenced the 2004 coup; “I hope they remember what happened in 2004. I hope they will think twice before doing anything like that."

A major motive for recreating the army is the question of sovereignty, with many in Haiti tired of the UN peacekeeping forces, which have been accused of abuses including rape. Reuters quotes Defense Minister Thierry Mayard-Paul as saying;

We have to take our own destiny in our hands. We can't always be holding hands and asking for help from others.

However, a Washington Post editorial last year questioned Martelly’s motives for wishing to reconstitute the army;

With little support in parliament or from any organized political party, he finds himself perched perilously atop a political system that he has been unable to bend to his will. The temptation must be strong to follow the example of so many former Haitian leaders who found it convenient to fashion a band of loyalists into an armed force beholden to the president and hostile to his rivals.

News Briefs

Venezuela is refusing to stop shipping fuel to Syria, despite efforts by the international community to apply sanctions to the Middle Eastern country over its brutal crackdown on rebels. Venezuela’s Energy Minister Rafael Ramirez saidthat they had sent two loads of 300,000 barrels, saying "Syria is a blockaded country. If it needs diesel and we can provide it, there's no reason not to do it." By contrast Russia’s Vladimir Putin seemed to distance himself from Syria on Friday, saying, "It is up to the Syrians to decide who should run their country ... We need to make sure they stop killing each other," Putin said.

The latest opinion polls show Josefina Vazquez Mota, candidate of the ruling party, gaining on frontrunner Enrique Peña Nieto in the race for Mexico’s presidential elections, reports Reuters. The poll puts Vazquez up 8 points from a January poll to 29 percent, while Peña fell 5 points to 36. Peña has lost credibility with blunders such as struggling to name his favorite books, and with the revelation that he fathered children in two extramarital affair with two different women while married to his first wife, who died.

The Economist looks at Sao Paulo’s mayoral race, which has been shaken up by the entrance of former mayor Jose Serra. He was the main rival to Dilma Rousseff in the 2010 presidential elections, and his election will make it harder for the governing Workers’ Party to win the city and state of Sao Paulo.

The WSJ reports on Brazil’s battle to prevent its currency, the real, from over-appreciating. It has already gone up 9 percent against the dollar this year. President Rousseff criticized the monetary policies of developed countries for “cannabilizing” energy markets.

In two more pieces from the Economist, the magazine looks at advances against guerrilla groups in Colombia and Peru. It notes the FARC’s promise to cease kidnapping for ransom, saying that “Colombia just might be witnessing the beginning of the end of the FARC,” and the capture of a leader of the Shining Path, commenting; “Though the Shining Path is much weaker than the FARC, like Juan Manuel Santos in Colombia Mr Humala would like to be the president who saw the end of his country’s guerrillas.”

Colombia's FARC rebels have announce an “armed strike” in Quibdo, in the Pacific region. Transport companies have suspended buses on routes from the interior of the country to the city, according to El Tiempo. The guerrillas announced the strike by distributing flyers banning all transport in the area from March 1 to 8.

The Organization of American States has warned of the threat drug trafficking groups pose to elections in Latin America, not only threatening politicians but even putting their own candidates forward, reports the AP.

Haiti’s President Michael Martelly has named Foreign Affairs Minister Laurent Lamothe as his pick to replace Prime Minister Garry Conille, who resigned last weekend, reports the Miami Herald. The newspaper describes the nominee as “A self-made entrepreneur and former tennis star.” The challenge will be getting parliament to approve the appointment -- it slapped down the president’s two nominations before Conille, causing a five-month delay when Martelly was elected last year.

The LA Times reports that Mississippi is considering a tough, Alabama-style law on immigration, with proponents arguing that this is necessary to bring down unemployment. According to the article, Republican politicians have credited Alabama’s crackdown with the state’s dramatic drop in unemployment in the final months of 2011.

Mike Allison of Central American Politics has a piece on Al Jazeera on the gaps in the study of El Salvador’s civil war, reporting from a conference on the subject. One of the points he makes is that, while government security forces were responsible for most human rights violations, the use of violence by the FMLN guerrillas has not received enough attention.

The Center for Strategic and International Studies has released a report on police reform in Latin America, and what the US’s role should be in aiding the process.

The NYT reports on a hydroelectric dam project in Patagonia, southern Chile, which is stirring up protest and threatens to change the lifestyle of the gaucho cattle farmers.

In Arrest Sweep, Interpol Targets Latin America Anonymous Hackers

2012-03-01T07:46:00.000-08:00

Interpol infiltrated a group linked to hacking collective Anonymous, leading to the arrests of some 25 people in South America and Europe, members of the hacker movement said Wednesday. According to Interpol, “Operation Unmask” was carried out in coordination with law enforcement agencies in Spain, Colombia, Argentina, and Chile. The operation was intended to target those involved in the April 2011 cyber attack against the website of the Colombian Defense Ministry, as well as the May 2011 attack against Chilean electricity company Endesa, and the August 2011 attack against the Chilean national library.

Those arrested include at least 10 people in Argentina and at least five in Chile, the Associated Press reports. According to Chilean media, there were six detainees, including one Colombian, three high school students, and two college students. The oldest of them is 23 years old. There is little detail on the profiles of those arrested in Argentina, other than the arrests took place in three cities, Clarin says.

Activists reportedly linked to Anonymous said that Interpol made use of “spies and informants” in order to identify and arrest the 25 suspects. They added that the detainees were “careless” and “unsophisticated hackers,” in the words of the AP. The detainees reportedly participated in rather simple cyber attacks which did not cause lasting damage to the websites, but would take them offline temporarily. Notably, after the arrests were announced, the Interpol website was reportedly down Tuesday evening in what may have been a revenge hack, according to the LA Times.

Anonymous launched a number of cyber attacks in Latin America last year. Most were denial of service attacks, in which hackers overwhelm a website with data requests. Hacker group LulzSec took down the website of the Brazilian government and Petrobras, the state-run energy company. Colombia saw attacks against now-defunct intelligence agency the DAS; the websites of the presidency and the Ministry of Justice were also targeted. Most of the attacks claimed a political cause, such as the attacks against Chilean institutions in August, which declared support for the student protest movement.

News Briefs

The Associated Press reports on the largest protest registered against President Michel Martelly since he took office last year. The news agency quotes some protesters who express support for the still-popular former president Jean-Bertrand Aristide, who, according to an unsubstantiated rumor, is about to be “investigated” by the Martelly administration on criminal charges. "If the government plans to arrest him, we're going to burn the country down,” one protestor told the AP. Discontent with the Martelly administration appears to explain this outpouring of support for Aristide. It may also explain the rising popularity of one theory which claims Martelly holds a double nationality, which would bar him from office. Foreign Policy takes a look at the conspiracy theory.

After surgery, President Hugo Chavez tweeted that he is “soaring like a condor,” the BBC reports. New analysis from the AP speculates on what his health problems mean for Venezuela’s political future, noting that his more radical brother Adan and National Assembly leader Diosdada Cabello are his most likely successors. Elsewhere, McClatchy shares a link to the hacked Stratfor e-mails, compiled by WikiLeaks, which suggests that doctors from four different countries are involved in treating Chavez’s condition. And from blog the Devil’s Excrement, a critical look at the relationship between Chavez and the media since the news emerged of his worsening health.

An op-ed from the LA Times recounts “the biggest bust in history,” in which US and Mexico agents found 21.5 tons of cocaine and $12 million in cash in a Mexican warehouse in 1989. But as the op-ed points out, the unforeseen impact of the bust actually changed the dynamics of cocaine smuggling forever. After the loss, the Cali Cartel agreed to start paying its Mexican partners partly in the product, not with cash, which helped create the wealthy and powerful Mexican syndicates still in play today.

El Nuevo Herald with another report based on the hacked Stratfor e-mails released by WikiLeaks, stating that President Chavez’s worsening health is deepening the power rifts in the Venezuelan military.

The AP with a feature and photo essay on Brazilian squatters in unused buildings in Sao Paulo, describing it as the urban version of Brazil’s “landless” movement, which sees unoccupied land “invaded” by the rural poor.

Foreign Policy with interesting analysis on the “soft power” diplomacy practiced by Brazil’s President Dilma Rousseff and her foreign minister, Antonio Patriota. The article argues that the two are pushing for a “revolutionary” kind of multilateralism in global organizations like the UN Security Council and the World Bank, in attempting to reduce the traditional role played by the US.

Guatemala’s vice president has asked Panamian President Ricardo Martenilli to discuss the decriminalization of drugs, AFP reports. Elsewhere, the Atlantic examines the rising demand among Central American leaders to debate drug policy, and concludes that legalization is unlikely to lead to any benefits in the region.

Just The Facts with a blog post on what the 2013 foreign aid request implies for Latin America.

From the Texas Observer, an interesting and well-reported look at how the drug trade has affected one small town in Mexico’s Juarez valley.

In a sign of the worsening relationship between the United Kingdom and Argentina over the Falklands Islands dispute, Argentina has now asked companies to stop importing products from the UK, the Wall Street Journal reports.

El Faro with a moving photo essay on the prisoners lost in the Comayagua prison fire in Honduras.

The Wall Street Journal with a feature on cleaning up Brazil’s junkyard airports.

Colombia Dismisses Attorney General Amid Paramilitary Scandal

2012-02-29T06:18:00.001-08:00

Colombia’s Attorney General Viviane Morales has been removed from her post, while her husband faces accusations that he had dealings with the paramilitaries.

The State Council voted to remove Morales on the grounds that her election in 2010 was illegitimate, as she only gained the support of 14 of 23 Supreme Court judges, when according to the constitution she would need that of two thirds. Morales argues that, as only 18 justices were present on the day of the vote, she did reach the legal threshold.

Her expulsion means that the fraught procedure of picking an attorney general must begin again. The position, which the Associated Press describes as the second most powerful in the country after the presidency, was held by an interim official for a year and four months until Morales was voted in in December 2010. The delay was due to the Supreme Court’s failure to reach the necessary consensus on any one candidate.

President Juan Manuel Santos will now present another shortlist of three candidates to the Supreme Court. Guillermos Mendoza, who was acting attorney general while the election took place, told the AP that Santos could choose Morales as one of his nominees.

Morales has been praised for her efforts to prosecute close allies of former President Alvaro Uribe, jailing his Agriculture Minister Andres Felipe Arias and chief of staff Bernado Moreno.

However, Morales’ re-marriage last year to ex-congressman Carlos Alonso Lucio led three of the country’s most prominent journalists to call for her resignation, on the grounds that Alonso has been accused of links to the guerrillas, the paramilitaries, and the Cali Cartel, as El Tiempo reports.

The attorney general’s recent issuing of an arrest warrant against former peace commissioner Felipe Carlos Restrepo for crimes including arms trafficking and working with the paramilitareis was viewed by some as overstepping the mark. Semana magazine argued that the charges did not fit with what is known of Restrepo, who played a major part in the demobilization of the AUC paramilitary group in the 2000s.

Restrepo has accused Morales of acting out of revenge, saying that her legal action against him came soon after he had accused her husband of dealings with paramilitaries. For Semana, the fact of bringing such heavy charges against an accusor of her husband looks very bad for the attorney general, regardless of whether they are justified.

News Briefs

Hamid Ghodse, president of the United Nations' International Narcotics Control Board (INCB), said that legalizing drugs was “not an option,” pointing out that, even with legal drugs, “crime related to the trafficking of tobacco and alcohol has not disapeared, and in fact is a large part of criminal activity,” reports Prensa Libre. His comments followed Guatemalan President Otto Perez’s calls for debate on the issue. Perez said he was glad that the UN had spoken on the matter, because “this is precisely what we want; to raise the debate.”

A Guatemalan air force helicopter crashed in the northern state of Peten, killing all 10 people on board. It had been on its way to help a civilian helicopter which crashed in bad weather. All three people on the first craft survived. In an indication of the difficulties Guatemala faces in fighting the war on drugs, Defense Minister Ulises Noe Anzueto said that with the crash, the army had lost one of its three functioning helicopters. He said that they had a few more that were out of service, but that the institution did not have the funds to repair them.

Venezuela’s vice president, Elias Jaua, said that President Hugo Chavez was in stable condition after Cuban doctors successfully operated to remove a tumor, though he did not say whether the growth was malignant.

A Puerto Rican congressman who had been running for mayor of San Juan has resigned from the House of Representatives and from the vice presidency of his opposition party, amid accusations of domestic abuse, reports the AP. Hector Ferrer has accused the government of political motives in pursuing the case against him, saying it was an “act of abuse and outrage on the part of the government branch.” He said his former girlfriend had been forced to make the accusations against him by a prosecutor, who threatened to take custody of their son away from her.

Argentina has called on 20 firms to stop importing British products, which Industry Minister Debora Giorgi said would “send a message to those who still use colonialism to get hold of other people's natural resources,” reports AFP.

The INCB report says that Mexico’s cocaine seizures in 2011 were less than a fifth of those in 2010, due to traffickers diverting their business through Central America and the Caribbean. However, seizures of marijuana and methamphetamine, which are produced in Mexico, remained stable.

The BBC has an analysis of the fight against Shining Path rebels in Peru, quoting expert Jaime Antezana who warns that the Peruvian government is focusing on the group as a terrorist threat rather than as a drug trafficking organization. "That means that they will just try to dismantle the armed structure [of the Shining Path]. Meanwhile, drug-trafficking keeps on going up."

Seven employees of Casanare Avanzada, a construction company that was building an oil pipeline in east Colombia, have been kidnapped along with two drivers in the province of Arauca. The authorities said that their kidnappers were probably guerrillas. Both the ELN and the FARC operate in the area, andRCN said that the workers were “apparently” kidnapped by the FARC. If true, this would undermine the guerrillas’ promise just days ago that they would stop kidnapping for extortion purposes.

An opinion piece in the San Francisco Chronicle argues that the deadly conditions in Honduras prisons, where more than 350 inmates died in a fire this month, are caused by a culture of impunity amongst guards, and the failure to bring prisoners to trial, which leaves many languishing in jail for years without being convicted. The author criticizes the US government’s policy towards Honduras, saying that “the United States continues to send military and police aid to a government that violates inmates' human rights.”

The head of Haiti’s police force says that the institution is making progress on getting rid of corrupt police, reports the Miami Herald, stating that almost 1,000 officers were fired between 2005 and 2009. The statements were in response to complaints from a UN human rights official that the process of purging the police was not being carried out quickly enough.

The older sister of Raul and Fidel Castro has died in Havana at the age of 86, reports Univision.

Correa Pardons Journalists in Controversial Libel Case

2012-02-28T06:54:00.002-08:00

After provoking international outcry over his decision to pursue a 42 million dollar libel suit against three directors and the former opinion editor of Ecuadoran daily El Universo, President Rafael Correa announced yesterday that he intends to pardon the journalists. In a 30-minute address, Correa said he will “pardon the accused and grant them remission of the sentences that they rightly received,” although he also cautioned that “forgiveness is not forgetting.” In addition, Correa announced he intends to drop the libel case against Juan Carlos Calderón y Christian Zurita, who authored a book alleging that the president knew that his brother Fabricio Correa had been awarded public contracts.

After the announcement, Foreign Minister Ricardo Patiño told reporters that El Universo executive Carlos Perez can now leave the Panamanian embassy in Quito, where he was granted political asylum earlier this month after Ecuador's highest court found him guilty of libel. The Associated Press quotes Patiño as saying "He's got to be told he can go home now...there was never an arrest warrant. He makes out like he was persecuted." The opinion page editor, Emilio Palacio, has said that although he considers the pardon a “spectacular triumph,” he is still weighing whether or not to apply for asylum in the United States.

But while the El Universo case may be closed, the controversy surrounding it is far from over. As mentioned in last Friday’s brief, an Ecuadoran judge who reviewed the case has fled the country after claiming that lawyers tied to the Correa administration promised her “$3,000 a month and steady work if she would rule against the newspaper.”

As McClatchy notes, the case was ultimately given to Judge Juan Paredes. But when Paredes was asked how he issued his lengthy 150-page ruling against El Universo so rapidly (he allegedly wrote it in a little over 25 hours), he claimed that he relied on Encalada's previous casework. Encalada has denied this, saying that while she gave Paredes a memory stick that contained some analysis of the case, none of it was published in the final sentence.

She claims that the sentence was written by the Correa administration, a claim which seems to be supported by the fact that the sentence was written on a version of Microsoft Word registered to a “Chucky Seven,” which allegedly matches other documents written by Correa's lawyer Gutenberg Vera.

Ultimately, Correa’s pardon may help to quell some of the condemnations he has received in recent months from press freedom groups, but the El Universo case has raised serious questions about judicial independence and the state of Ecuadoran democracy that will be difficult for the president to shake. Considering that polls show domestic support for Correa is around 80 percent, however, his critics will have a hard time delegitimizing him in the eyes of Ecuadoran voters.

News Briefs

· Secretary of Homeland Security Janet Napolitano defended US drug policy yesterday, saying "I would not agree with the premise that the drug war is a failure," and arguing against decriminalization. She made the remarks at a press conference in Mexico City as part of a tour of Mexico and Central America. She is scheduled to head to Guatemala today, where she will meet with President Otto Perez and no doubt discuss his recent pro-decriminalization remarks.

· InSight Crime’s Steven Dudley offers some astute analysis of the FARC’s recent announcement that it will stop kidnapping civilians. According to Dudley, increased pressure from security forces have made it difficult for the Colombian guerrilla group to hold captives for long periods of time, and its profits from the drug trade render the proceeds from kidnapping nearly unnecessary.

· The Miami Herald profiles the recent drop in drug violence in Tijuana, where residents, police and experts offer competing explanations over the relative calm that has fallen over the city.

· The US government has announced that it will begin flying deported migrants back to their home states rather than simply dropping them off at the border. Last October, Mexican President Felipe Calderon said that the US was contributing to border violence by busing deportees to border cities.

· As anxiety over Hugo Chavez’s health rises among his supporters in Venezuela, El Universal reports that the government has continued its official silence on the issue, with no word yet as the results of his medical procedure in Cuba. Meanwhile, the Washington Post has published another round of medical conjecture, with experts claiming that it is increasingly likely that Chavez is “facing an aggressive tumor.”

· Commemorating the anniversary of a harsh military crackdown in the wake of Chavez’s failed 1992 coup, Defense Minister Henry Rangel has assured Venezuelans that the military will never again be deployed against civilians in the county. His remarks come amidst concerns that the Venezuelan military may intervene to keep Chavez in power if he loses the upcoming elections in October.

· Argentine President Cristina Fernandez took on criticism of her handling of last week’s deadly train crash yesterday. According to the AP, she has also hinted at re-nationalizing the country’s railway system.

· La Republica reports that Peru’s captured Comrade Artemio has been transferred to a maximum security naval prison. He will be tried on drug trafficking and terrorism charges, due to take place this summer. More from the BBC.

· In the latest development in ongoing diplomatic dispute between Argentina and the UK over the Falkland Islands, two British cruise ships were denied entry into the port city of Ushuaia yesterday in keeping with a provincial law banning “British vessels, ships partly owned by British companies and ships flying flags from British territories” from entering.

Haiti Loses Prime Minister, in Blow for Post-Quake Reconstruction

2012-02-27T07:24:00.004-08:00

Haiti’s prime minister, Garry Conille, resigned his post, in what appears to be another heavy blow for the country’s efforts to rebuild itself after a devastating earthquake two years ago.

According to the New York Times, Conille “said he knew his job was finished when he called cabinet ministers to a meeting a day earlier: None showed up.”

The Wall Street Journal described his departure as a “paralyzing blow” for the country’s reconstruction. The delay in appointing a prime minister when President Michel Martelly came to power was a major reason behind delays in reconstruction work. His first two choices for the position were struck down by parliament, meaning that there was effectively no government for the first five months of his term.

The Associated Press reports that the resignation could cause foreign donors to lose faith in the current government:

observers fear [it] will prompt international donors to withhold aid pledges and prevent action on the contracts.

Despite large donations from foreign governments and individuals, aid efforts have been very slow and the subject of much criticism.

Conille’s departure was reportedly the result of clashes between him and President Martelly. According to the BBC, the UN has intervened in power struggles between the two men in recent weeks.

The AP said that there were two people in the running to take over, Foreign Affairs Minister Laurent Lamothe and Ann-Valerie Milfort, interim head of the now-defunct Interim Haiti Recovery Commission.

News Briefs

Colombia’s FARC rebel group have announced that they will stop kidnapping civilians, and would free the 10 remaining soldiers and police who are being held, some of them for as long as 10 years. President Juan Manuel Santos said the move was "an important and necessary step, though not far enough, in the right direction." However, as the Wall Street Journal notes, the rebel group said it reserved the right to take “prisoners of war,” and did not make any mention of freeing civilian hostages. An unknown number of people are thought to be being held by the FARC, with some estimates putting the number in the thousands. The statement, published on the site of FARC-linked website Anncol, suggests that the group could be coming closer to opening talks with the government. Santos has said that the group must release all hostages and end the practice of kidnapping before negotiations can begin.

With President Hugo Chavez’s position looking increasingly precarious, Venezuela’s allies are beginning to make plans for a time when his oil-financed handouts could come to an end, reports El Nuevo Herald. The leftist leaderannounced last week that he was going to be operated on again for a growth in his pelvic that was probably cancerous, suggesting that the rumors that his cancer was more serious than he claimed may have some truth to them. The news comes at a very sensitive time for Venezuela’s politics, with the presidential election approaching in October. The opposition coalition MUD recently held a primary election to choose a single candidate to stand against Chavez, and chose Henrique Capriles with a higher-than-expected turnout. Capriles, who appears to stand a better chance than anyone else in recent years of unseating Chavez, is expected to roll back current aid levels to countries like Cuba and Nicaragua. Inter-American Dialogue’s Michael Shifter told the newspaper that Cuba’s free-market reforms were part of an effort to mitigate any future drop in Venezuela’s help to the island.

Mary Anastasia O’Grady has a piece in the WSJ on Guatemalan President Otto Perez’s proposal to discuss the liberalization of drug laws. She notes that “the rhetoric we are hearing against the drug war is not coming from anti-American, left-wing demagogues trying to promote populist, nationalist ideals by stirring up the mob. Today's most vocal proponents of a change in regional drug policy are center-right governments.”

Statistics from the Mexican government show that drug violence has “affected” just over half of the country’s municipalities. This is another demonstration of how localized the violence is, with some areas exceedingly violent and others peaceful, meaning that the country overall has a fairly low murder rate, at less than a third of that in El Salvador. In Monterrey, for example, there werereportedly 1,600 deaths in 2011 due to the dispute for control between the Zetas and the Gulf Cartel.

A bus carrying a group of 22 cruise passengers was stopped by a group of armed, hooded men, and its pasengers robbed in the Pacific state of Jalisco, in a blow for the government’s efforts to advertise the country as a safe tourist destination.

Security think tank Stratfor has seemingly faced another attack from hackers, with WikiLeaks publishing what they say is a set of confidential emails between members of the organization. One interesting exchange relates to Chavez’s health, saying that sources had said his cancer had spread to the lymph nodes.

The New York Times profiles the work of an activist in Honduras whose son was murdered, allegedly by police. “Her biting criticisms have become as much a staple of daily newspapers as the crossword puzzle. She has called the police force a monster and said it would be the fault of the police chief if she were assassinated,” according to the report.

Ecuador is set to hold presidential elections in February 2013, having been put back a month to allow reforms to the electoral laws to take effect. Reuters reports that President Rafael Correa is the favorite to win, though he has not declared yet whether he will seek re-election.

Brazil has said that it will provide more funds to help ease the Eurozone debt crisis, but that this should be accompanied by more power for emerging nations in the International Monetary Fund (IMF).

The NYT has a piece by Paul Theroux on crossing the Mexico-US border at Nogales, in Arizona, accompanied by a wonderful photo essay.

US Judge: El Salvador's Ex-Defense Minister Can Be Deported

2012-02-24T06:35:00.001-08:00

A Florida immigration judge has ruled that there are sufficient grounds to begin deportation proceedings against General Carlos Eugenio Vides Casanova, a defense minister of El Salvador during the country’s bloody civil war. Although the ruling was not published, lawyers familiar with the case told the New York Times that Vides took part in the abduction, rape and murder of four American churchwomen when he was leader of the National Guard in 1980.

This is not only the first time that Vides has been held accountable for these crimes in a court of law, but also the first time that United States immigration prosecutors have held that a top foreign military commander can be deported because of human rights violations. Although the Department of Homeland Security’s Human Rights Violators and War Crimes Unit has deported over 400 human rights abusers since its creation in 2003, Vides is the highest ranking military official to ever face deportation.

These prosecutions are the result of provisions in the 2004 Intelligence Reform and Terrorism Prevention Act (IRTPA), which are intended to human rights violators from entering or residing in the US. As the Center for Justice and Accountability’s Carolyn Patty Blum told the Times, the case against Vides is “highly significant,” as it is “the first case where the Department of Homeland Security has taken this relatively new law and applied it to the highest military commander of their country to seek their removal.”

But while the ruling is important to the future of human rights organizations seeking to deport high-level officials, there is still no guarantee that Vildes will have to leave the country any time soon. As Reuters notes, deportation proceedings could take several more months if he decides to appeal.

News Briefs

· After last Sunday’s deadly prison riot in Monterrey, the Mexican government has announced that it will build eight new federal prisons this year in an effort to ease overcrowding in the country’s prison system. Considering that pre-trial detention is one of the main causes of the overcrowding, however, this measure is only likely to be a temporary fix.

· The Houston Chronicle takes a look at how the prison riot has affected the long-ruling Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) politically.

· The BBC highlights the state of American undocumented immigrants living and working in Mexico. Not surprisingly, these “illegals” face a far easier time in Mexico than their Mexican and Central American counterparts do in the US.

· As Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez leaves for Cuba today to seek medical treatment for a growth which is probably malignant, the Associated Press questions whether he is risking his life by not seeking treatment in the US, Europe or (more realistically) Brazil, which allegedly have better quality cancer care facilities. Chavez himself showed no such doubt during a live broadcast on state television yesterday, during which he pounded the table in front of him and roared “I will live! I will live!”

· Senator Jim Leahy (D-VT) has told the AP that he met with Cuban President Raul Castro yesterday in a visit to the island yesterday, and also spoke with imprisoned US contractor Alan Gross. Although Leay said that efforts to free Gross “still have a long way to go,” he claimed that the meeting with Castro was cordial. The Cuban leader mentioned the case of five Cuban intelligence agents imprisoned in the US, although he did not explicitly suggest swapping Gross for them.

· In the latest controversy in Ecuador President Rafael Correa’s $42 million libel case against El Universo, The Miami Herald reports that a judge who reviewed the case has fled the country and is claiming that government lawyers tried to bribe her. According to Judge Monica Encalada, lawyers tied to the Correa administration promised her “$3,000 a month and steady work if she would rule against the newspaper.”

· After a train crash in Argentina killed 50 and injured more than 700 on Wednesday, the country’s auditor general has blamed the disaster on corruption and a cozy relationship between government regulators and the railway company involved. The Wall Street Journal reports that both allies and opponents of the Fernandez administration alike are calling on the president to revoke the company’s operating license.

· This week’s issue of The Economist accuses the Argentine government of having doctored its inflation figures since 2007. As a result, the London-based magazine announced it is removing the government’s statistics from its economic indicators page.

· In the wake of the recent capture of Shining Path leader “Comrade Artemio,” the Peruvian government is stepping up its operations in the Apurimac and Ene River Valley (VRAE) region, a stronghold of the other branch of the guerrilla group.

· Brazilian Finance Minister Guido Mantega has warned that, due to a forecasted slowdown in economic growth worldwide, the global "currency war" to keep countries’ exchange rates competitive is likely to intensify, the Wall Street Journal reports. However, Mantega assured Brazilians that the country is “well prepared” and has "a large arsenal of instruments" at its disposal prevent depreciation of the country’s currency.

· The Americas Quarterly blog profiles an interesting study by Edward Telles and Liza Steel on the intersection of race and social class in the region. According to the study, “the most pronounced pigmentocracies are Guatemala and Bolivia, which seem to reflect the low status of their especially large Indigenous populations.” Interestingly, the researchers found that darker skin color had little to no influence on educational attainment in Panama, Honduras and Costa Rica. The full study, entitled “Pigmentocracy in the Americas: How is Educational Attainment Related to Skin Color?” can be accesed via the Latin American Public Opinion Project’s website.

Chavez's Health Puts Venezuela's Political Future on the Line

2012-02-23T06:35:00.001-08:00

As more details emerge about the state of Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez’s health, the political future of the country grows more uncertain. In a call to evening talk show Dando y Dando on Tuesday which did not make it into the first round of international coverage yesterday, Chavez revealed that there is a “high probability” that the growth in his pelvic region is cancerous. Although the president insists that his doctors remain “optimistic” about his prognosis, this suggests that his cancer could be resistant to treatment.

Chavez also admitted that he is “not going to be able to continue with the same rhythm,” and said that he would have to “rethink my personal agenda and take care of myself, confront what must be confronted.”

Because of this, the Associate Press suggests that it is increasingly likely that Chavez will have to name a successor, something that he has avoided doing during his 13 years in power. As the Inter-American Dialogue’s Michael Shifter told the AP, “a fierce power struggle and jockeying for position” is all but unavoidable in Chavez’s ruling Socialist Party of Venezuela (PSUV).

So far, government officials have denied this. Vice President Elías Jaua told state TV yesterday that there will be no need for him to assume Chavez’s responsibilities during the upcoming surgery, and denied any kind of internal succession conflict in the government.

Still, if Chavez’s health should deteriorate further, he will not be easily replaced, and it would not bode well for the future of the PSUV in next October’s presidential election. As Reuters, quoting risk consultancy firm Eurasia Group, notes: "Chavez will be reluctant to cede power, and if Chavez were to step aside temporarily and anoint a successor to run in his place, it would send a very negative signal about his health prognosis and, more importantly, his power.”

News Briefs

· The Venezuelan opposition Coalition for Democratic Unity (MUD) has followed the lead of its presidential candidate Henrique Capriles Radonski in wishing Chavez a “swift recovery and long life.” Still, the opposition criticized the president for the secrecy surrounding his health, faulting him for not releasing “precise, clear and medically reliable” information about his condition.

· Girish Gupta writes for the Global Post about Capriles’ chances in the upcoming October 7^th election, noting that his center-left views could put him at risk of not being able to effectively distinguish himself from Chavez in voters’ minds.

· The BBC looks at Mexico’s efforts to “rebrand” itself. In order to draw in more tourism and foreign investment, the Calderon administration has hired British policy advisor Simon Anholt to revamp the country’s public image.

· After a woman pushing a baby stroller in El Paso, Texas was wounded by an assault rifle bullet fired from across the border in Ciudad Juarez on Tuesday, resulting in a veritable media frenzy, El Paso’s reaction suggests media accounts of the “first cross-border shooting victim” were overblown. Residents and authorities alike have largely shrugged off the incident, saying they’re “accustomed to hearing gunfire across the border in Juarez” and don’t intend to take any additional safety measures, according to the AP.

· A report authored by members of an 80-member European Union observer team to Nicaragua’s elections last November alleges a lack of transparency in the proceedings, and calls on the Nicaraguan government to reform its electoral process.

· After Salvadoran President Mauricio Funes voiced measured support for Guatemalan President Otto Perez’s calls to legalize drugs last week, and called for a national dialogue over the issue, El Faro reports that members of both of the country’s main parties (the FMLN and ARENA) have largely rejected any kind of debate over drug decriminalization in El Salvador. Meanwhile, Perez is continuing his efforts to spark debate over the issue throughout Central America. Prensa Libre reports that next Monday his vice president, Roxana Baldetti, will begin a tour of the region to call for dialogue over drug policy and “alternative methods of combatting counternarcotics and organized crime.” Yesterday Mexican Foreign Minister Patricia Espinosa announced that Mexico would be willing to join in an international discussion over drug legalization, although she cautioned that it would not solve the problem of drug trafficking in the hemisphere.

· The Knight Center for Journalism in the Americas blog profiles efforts by supporters of Ecuadorean President Rafael Correa to counter criticism of his recent assault on local media outlets. A group of self-styled “Correistas” have launched a campaign to gather support for a petition calling on the global press to cease its allegedly biased reporting against the president. The campaign has the support of government officials like Secretary for Public Administration Vinicio Alvarado, who has warned that elements of the press are seeking to “damage Ecuador’s international image.”

· The main border crossing between Chile and Peru is open once again after officials in Chile closed it on Monday because rains had washed more than 100 landmines into the main highway connecting the two countries.

· Seventeen Argentine intellectuals have come under heavy fire from both the Argentine public and government for questioning their country’s claims over the Falkland Islands, The Guardian reports. In a paper entitled “Malvinas: An Alternative Viewpoint,” the group of important thinkers, journalists and writers rejected Argentina’s portrayal of the UK as usurpers who have illegally controlled island since 1833.

· Mercopress highlights a report by Mexico’s Economic Research and Teaching Centre (CIDE) which analyzes the salaries of lawmakers throughout Latin America. According to the CIDE’s data, Brazil and Uruguay have the most expensive legislative branch per capita in the region.

Speculation Abounds After Chavez's Cancer Reappears

2012-02-22T05:48:00.000-08:00

While visiting a truck factory in his home state, President Hugo Chavez said that he will undergo surgery again, as doctors have found a new legion in his pelvic area (see video here). “I am in good physical condition to meet this battle,” he stated. He added that the lesion is “two centimeters in diameter.” According to Communications Minister Andres Izarra, Chavez chose to make the announcement at the end of Venezuela’s Carnaval time, so as to not overshadow the festivities. Chavez later said that the operation will likely take place in Cuba in the next few days.

Over the weekend, some Venezuelan journalists swapped rumors on Twitter that Chavez had traveled to Cuba for his third operation. Broadcast and radio journalist Nelson Bocaranda was one of the first to do so (he was also the first journalist to break the news last year that Chavez was in Cuba undergoing surgery). Communications Minister Izarra went on to say that asides from the fact that Chavez did travel to Cuba for a check-up, these rumors were untrue. “The President has decided which information to share, there are some things he has kept back. There is a debate over whether public figures have a right or not to privacy and I believe they do have one,” he said, according to El Universal.

It is a debate that will likely intensify in the coming weeks as Venezuela’s campaign season rolls on. Foreign Policy analyzes what the announcement means for Venezuela’s opposition, with a blunt headline that questions, “how do you campaign against a cancer victim?” The article notes that opposition presidential candidate Henrique Capriles has mostly avoided the topic up until now. However:

“Behind closed doors, his advisors are concerned. The uncertainty prevents consensus on strategy. They fear that if they make cancer an issue, Chávez will use his storied communication skills to play the sympathy card and eke out a win -- either for himself or a designated successor. They are also wary of the disease forcing Capriles off his well-rehearsed message of reconciliation and progress in a post-Chávez Venezuela.”

Other media speculated about what this latest announcement implies about Chavez’s health and his ability to campaign and govern. The Miami Herald notes that without more details, it is difficult for doctors to speculate about the seriousness of Chavez’s condition. But the return of another tumor does signal that the cancer is aggressive and resistant to treatment, the newspaper reports. “All of these political things aside, he is someone who is fighting for his life," a professor of oncology told the Wall Street Journal. The Associated Press had similarly grim predictions, noting that despite Chavez’s resistance and pleas for privacy, the curability of his cancer is again a major factor in the race.

News Briefs

The New York Times with a blog post critiquing a high-speed rail project in Venezuela’s western plains, funded by the Chinese government. The train connects some of Venezuela’s most rural and sparsely populated towns, “a train from nowhere to nowhere,” the Times quips. The newspaper argues that even if the rail is a symbolic investment in Venezuela’s impoverished interior, the $200 million project is an ineffective way to meet the needs of the struggling farmers that the rail line is supposed to serve.

Blog Caracas Chronicles with an interesting although brief look at the Brazilian campaign operative currently working for Chavez presidential campaign, a man who has coordinated victories for Brazil’s Lula and Dilma Rousseff, and who was also involved in the successful campaigns of El Salvador’s Mauricio Funes and Peru’s Ollanta Humala.

Reuters reports that a woman pushing a baby stroller in downtown El Paso, Texas, was “struck by an assault rifle bullet fired from across the border” in Ciudad Juarez. According to Reuters, the bullet was apparently fired during a gunfight in Juarez, as police tried to stop an attempted carjacking.

The judge overseeing the case of Guatemala military dictator Efrain Rios Montt has stepped down due to a complaint filed by the defense, the AP reports. The move follows a request by Montt that the case against him be dropped. The military strongman is standing trial on charges of genocide and crimes against humanity.

The LA Times with a brief note on Colombia’s decision to withdraw a plan which would expand the power of military courts when trying alleged human rights abuses. The decision was criticized by former President Alvaro Uribe via Twitter, says Colombia Reports.

Inmates in the Apodaca prison, where alleged Zetas members killed at least 44 members of the Gulf Cartel earlier this week, attempted to start a fire inside the penitentiary, Reuters reports. The fire was apparently in response to the announcement that three inmates, all members of the Zetas according to Excelsior, would be moved to a new location.

Jamaica’s top security official said that gang feuds are behind the island’s rising violence rates, a conclusion supported by a recent report by the United Nation Development Program. Jamaica registered 1,125 homicides in 2011, a drop from 2010 but still significant enough to rank as the world’s third highest homicide rate per 100,000 inhabitants.

The New York Times with an editorial criticizing the recent ruling by Ecuador’s highest court, which upholds a $42 million criminal libel judgement against four journalists.

Colombian think-tank Indepaz released a study profiling the actions and presence of criminals bands, or BACRIMS, across the country. Indepaz measures BACRIM presence in 406 municipalities in 31 departments, a slight increase from the group’s 2010 study. The report follows another study released February 8 by think-tank the Nuevo Arco Iris Corporation, which stated that the BACRIMS are currently active in 209 of Colombia's 1,103 municipalities, in much of the same area once controlled by paramilitary group the AUC.

The Miami Herald reports on increased surveillance measures in Argentina, intended to fight terrorism but raising concerns from civil liberties groups. The measures include a new central government database which will keep fingerprints and facial scans on file.

'Plan Colombia' Advisor to Uribe Called to Testify Over Alleged Paramilitary Links

2012-02-21T06:50:00.001-08:00

In the latest development in Colombia’s ongoing parapolitics scandal, a top official who helped implement the US security aid package known as “Plan Colombia” has been called for questioning over allegations that she had ties members of the paramilitary United Self-Defense Forces of Colombia (AUC). El Espectador reports that Sandra Suarez is scheduled to provide voluntary testimony to the Colombian attorney general’s office tomorrow, where she will be questioned about possible links to AUC commander Rodrigo Tovar Pupo, alias “Jorge-40.” Suarez was first appointed by President Alvaro Uribe in 2002 as the president’s top advisor on Plan Colombia.

In October 2007, imprisoned DAS agent Rafael Garcia told officials that Suarez conspired with Jorge 40 and three former governors to expand the influence of the paramilitary group along the Caribbean coast in 2006, when Suarez was serving as the minister of environment and development in the Uribe administration. Soon after these allegations were made, Suarez resigned from her position as Uribe’s main envoy to Washington over the passage of the Colombian FTA, although she insisted that her resignation was due to the lack of political will to pass the FTA at the time.

Suarez is the latest in a series of top officials in the Uribe administration who have been accused of paramilitary links. Last month AUC commander Diego Murillo, alias “Don Berna” testified that he met directly with Uribe aides to set up clandestine monitoring of members of the Colombian Supreme Court. However, Suarez’s case is especially worrisome given her proximity to Washington as both trade envoy and Plan Colombia advisor. If prosecutors decide to pursue a case against her, it could be very difficult for American officials to continue to maintain that they had no knowledge of abuses of power and illegal acts committed by the Colombian government under Uribe.

News Briefs

· The LA Times reports on the Colombian government’s decision to abandon a proposal that would expand the role of military courts in trying military abuse cases. Instead, the government plans to ask Congress to pass a bill stating that that human-rights abuses including torture, extrajudicial killings, disappearances and rapes are not are not under military jurisdiction.

· Colombia’s second-largest guerrilla group, the National Liberation Army (ELN), has called for a bilateral ceasefire with the Colombian government, and expressed a willingness to accompany it with peace talks. However, as Semana notes, the proposal is not likely to move forward unless the rebels release all of their hostages.

· More details have emerged about Sunday’s deadly prison riot in Nuevo Leon, Mexico. Apparently the “riot” was in fact a massacre of Gulf Cartel members committed by inmates affiliated with the Zetas. Reuters cites Nuevo Leon Governor Rodrigo Medina as saying that all 44 victims who were clubbed and stabbed to death in the incident belonged to the Gulf cartel, and the 30 or so perpetrators were Zetas. After the incident, the attackers fled the prison facility with the help of the guards. The prison’s director, his top aides, and 18 guards have all been fired and are under criminal investigation. The Associated Press uses the incident to highlight the entrenched state of corruption in Mexican state prisons, which are ill-equipped to deal with a wave of high-level criminal arrests resulting from the current security strategy.

· The sister of Mexican President Felipe Calderon was hit with corruption allegations yesterday, after a recording leaked to Mexican press which reportedly capture her planning to buy votes ahead of her unsuccessful bid for governor in the state of Michoacan in 2011. In response to the recordings, members of the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) filed an official complaint against her.

· The US and Mexico have signed an agreement which, if ratified by lawmakers in both countries, will set forth common safety protocols for oil and gas development along their maritime border in the Gulf of Mexico. The New York Times notes that a similar agreement was negotiated in the 1970s, but that the US Senate refused to ratify it in 1980.

· Frustrated with authorities’ slow pace in identifying the bodies, a large crowd of relatives of the victims of last week’s deadly Honduran prison fire forced their way into a Tegucigalpa morgue yesterday to claim the remains of their loved ones, according to the AP. BBC reports that the crowd (most of whom were women) broke into a refrigerated container and tore open several body bags before authorities drove them away.

· Nicaragua Dispatch has an interesting interview with Kevin Whitaker, the U.S. Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for the Western Hemisphere. According to Whitaker, “Nicaragua today looks in some respects like the past. It’s the movement towards (a government model) where civil societies’ contributions are not valued and the only civil society contributions that are made come from groups belonging to the ruling party.”

· The Economist’s Game Theory blog looks at recent measures taken by the Argentine government to crack down on corruption in the national football association.

· Border officials in Chile have been forced to close the country’s main border crossing into Peru after a torrential downpour washed several anti-personnel and anti-tank landmines onto the main road. The mines are left over from a period of tension between the countries in the 1970s.

· With the Carnaval celebrations in full swing in Brazil’s Rio de Janeiro, The LA Times’ Vincent Bevins reports on the less commercialized but more historically grounded Carnaval of Pernambuco, a poor state in northeastern of Brazil.

Mexico Prison Riot Staged As a Cover for Jail Break?

2012-02-20T06:28:00.001-08:00

A prison fight between rival criminal organizations the Gulf Cartel and the Zetas may have been intended to distract authorities while other inmates escaped, officials said Monday. At least 44 people were killed during the Sunday riot, in which prisoners used stones, clubs, and other sharp objects as weapons, reports the New York Times. El Universal described it as the worst massacre in the history of Mexican prison fights. EFE calls it the most serious prison tragedy in the past five years. The Apodaca penitenciary is found just outside Monterrey in Nuevo Leon state, one of the most violent in Mexico due to the ongoing Zetas-Gulf feud.

Nuevo Leon security spokesman Domene Zambrano said that after conducting a review of the prison population, there appeared to be "absences." This lent credence to the theory that the gang fight may have actually been intended to allow some inmates to escape, he said. However, it would be “premature” to say how many prisoners were missing, and whether they belonged to either the Gulf Cartel or the Zetas, he added.

17 prison officials, including the director of security, are being questioned about the gang fight, according to Milenio. It is unclear which gang provoked the confrontation, but it appears that prison guards would have had to allow the instigators to cross over to another section of the prison, in order to fight their rivals.

The Wall Street Journal notes that the Apodaca prison -- which houses 2,700 inmates, although it is built to house just 1,700 -- again calls attention to the endemic problems facing Latin America’s prison population: overcrowding, corrupt staff, and inhumane living conditions. The Apodaca riot followed another deadly prison fight registered last January in Tamaulipas, in which at least 31 inmates died. And, with the recent death of the 359th victim of the deadly prison fire in Honduras, the Apodaca disaster proves again that violent, inhuman prison conditions is a regionwide problem.

News Briefs

The New York Times on Venezuela’s classical music program, designed to train children from some of its poorest barrios. The program, known as El Sistema, is one of the most popular in Venezuela, and has sparked accusations from some prominent Venezuelan classical musicians that President Hugo Chavez is using the training program for political ends.

Both the LA Times and NPR have profiles of Josefina Vazquez Mota, the first female presidential candidate for a major political party in Mexico. The LA Times notes that rather than casting herself as a champion of progressive women’s causes, Vazquez Mota appears to be highlighting her “everywoman” background, which includes emphasizing her conservative Catholicism and opposition to abortion.

An extract from Proceso critiques President Felipe Calderon’s recent assertion that Juarez is turning itself around, as murder rates in 2011 were halved compared to the record seen in 2010, with over 3,000 homicides.

An interesting op-ed in the Miami Herald takes an inside look at a Honduras prison, describing the inhumane conditions in colorful detail, where prisoners face poor hygiene, malnutrition, and lack of space. Another piece from the newspaper notes the tragedy’s aftermath may humanize the way inmates are seen in Honduran society, as families struggle with concerns that the autopsies will be carried out incorrectly. Elsewhere, analysis from The Nation argues that Honduras’ overcrowded prisons are a symptom of the militarization of society which began after the 2009 military coup.

In another prison disaster, 17 inmates escaped from a Peruvian detention center, reports the Latin American Herald Tribune.

The Center for Strategic and International Studies has an audio review of Peruvian President Ollanta Humala’s time in office so far.

Mercopress reports that Argentina is now using “satellite imagery” in order to determine whether foreign vessels are conducting exploration activities with permission in Argentine waters near the Falkland Islands.

Gatopardo has a long journalism piece asking “what would Arizona do without Mexicans?”

An opinion piece in the Washington Post argues that the US should provide Cuba with the resources it needs in order to better allow both countries to respond to and prevent an oil spill disaster. Spanish oil company Repsol recently started deep sea drilling in Cuban waters, where an oil spill could affect Florida and the southeast US coast.

The Inter-American Dialogue has a new report examining the expansion of Chinese loans in Latin America.

La Prensa Libre reports that former Guatemala military strongman Efrain Rios Mott has requested that the case against him be closed. A judge has ordered that the former dictator stand trial on charges of genocide and crimes against humanity.

Justice in Mexico analyzes what the prevalence of lynchings in Mexico says about the public mistrust of judicial institutions.

Mexico to US: 'No More Weapons!'

2012-02-17T07:11:00.003-08:00

In a dramatic attempt to draw attention to the United States’ role as a source of weapons for Mexican drug cartels, Mexican President Felipe Calderon unveiled a massive billboard on the US border yesterday which calls on American officials to stop the flow of guns to the south. The sign, which weighs three tons, reads “No More Weapons!” in English, and its letters are comprised entirely of US guns seized by police officials in recent years.

At the unveiling ceremony, Calderon said that the country needed help from its partners in the US to “stop this terrible violence that we're suffering," adding that "the best way to do this is to stop the flow of automatic weapons into Mexico.”

According to a July 2011 analysis of data from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) authored by three US Senators, 70 percent of the 29,284 traceable weapons seized in Mexico from 2009 to 2010 came from the United States. In speeches and comments to the press, Calderon usually claims that 85 percent of guns used by cartels come from the US. In 2009 ATF officials put the figure even higher, telling Congress that it was around 90 percent.

The gun control lobby has disputed all of these claims, however, pointing out that only a fraction of the guns seized in Mexico have been traced, and thus these figures do not amount to a representative sample. Still, even when compared to the total number of guns seized (traceable or otherwise), the Annenberg Public Policy Center’s FactCheck.org calculates that the percentage of guns which originate in the US is around 36 percent.

Ultimately, whether or not the US is providing 36 percent or 90 percent (or anything in between) is not the issue. At the very least it is clear that US gun stores are a significant source of weaponry to Mexico’s cartels, and captured cartel members have even confirmed it. Instead of bickering about the exact percentage, US officials would do better to put measures in place to keep any weapons sold in the US outside of the hands of Mexico’s drug gangs. Considering the political fallout from the disastrous Fast and Furious program, however, a truly comprehensive remedy to the issue is not likely to come from Washington any time soon.

News Briefs

· In the wake of the fire in Honduras’ Comayagua prison which killed at least 358 inmates earlier this week, the country is facing severe criticism from media sources and activists alike. The New York Times points out that less than half of the inmates at Comayagua had ever been convicted of a crime. The AP reports that the incident “exposed just how deep government dysfunction and confusion go in Honduras,” and rights groups are blaming the tragedy on negligence the overcrowded state of penal facilities in the country. Both the US and Chile have sent forensic experts and materials to help identify the bodies.

· Reuters reports that US border authorities are tightening security in remote areas of the US-Mexico border, despite data which suggests that undocumented immigration is at its lowest since 1972.

· Leftist Mexican presidential candidate Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, who is currently in third place in the polls, has announced that he may retire from politics if he does not win the race. According to Excelsior, the candidate claims he is “tired and has less vigor” than he did six years ago, when he lost to Calderon in the 2006 elections but fiercely contested the results.

· Susan Rice, U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, wrapped up a visit to Haiti yesterday by issuing a veiled criticism of Haitian President Michel Martelly's plans to rebuild Haiti's army, which was disbanded in 1995. At a news conference, Rice described the Haitian National Police as “the body that can best provide daily protection for the Haitian people,” and should devote its resources to strengthening the police force. Martelly has argued otherwise, claiming that a new military is needed to restore security in the country.

· InSight Crime reports on a recent wave of potentially targeted killings of army personnel by gangs in El Salvador, which lends credence to recent reports by police officials that gangs are plotting a nation-wide attack on security forces.

· After Ecuador’s Supreme Court ratified a verdict which forces three journalists to pay $42 million in libel damages for publishing a piece critical of President Rafael Correa, the Panamanian government has granted political asylum to one of them. According to El Universo, the newspaper which published the material in question, Carlos Perez sought refuge in the Panamanian Embassy in Quito.

· Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez seemingly evaded questions from reporters yesterday about whether or not his government has sold diesel fuel to Syria, potentially undermining US sanctions to the country. Reuters reported that a $50 million shipment of diesel was expected to arrive at Syrian ports this week. When pressed on the matter, Chavez told reporters that his country is free to export fuel anywhere it wishes.

· Meanwhile, just days after Henrique Capriles Radonski won last Sunday’s opposition primary, Chavez has begun to strike out at his opponent with his usual flair. Chavez said of Capriles at a ceremony for graduating medical students: “You have a pig's tail, a pig's ears, you snort like a pig, you're a low-life pig. You're a pig, don't try and hide it.”

· Although the proposed release of six hostages by Colombia’s FARC rebels has stalled, Colombia has officially requested that Brazil take part in staging their release.

· The Economist takes a look at Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff’s first year in office, noting that she has succeeded at stepping out from under the shadow of her popular predecessor, Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva.

Venezuela Opposition Voting Records '100% Destroyed'

2012-02-16T06:40:00.000-08:00

The opposition in Venezuela has burned many of the records with the names of voters who participated in Sunday’s primary elections, the New York Times reports. Representatives from the Coalition for Democratic Unity declared that “100 percent” of the voting notebooks have been destroyed, reports El Universal.

Venezuela’s Supreme Court ordered the opposition coalition to turn over the log books, which listed the identities of at least three million people. The opposition called the ruling “absurd, unconstitutional and disproportionate.” They said that they destroyed the records in order to prevent the voters from suffering reprisals from the government, as appeared to happen when the opposition submitted a referendum to remove President Hugo Chavez from office in 2004. The three million signatures to the referendum became public, and there were reports that the government used the information to persecute the signatories. Many of those who appeared on the list complained of losing their jobs with government agencies, or other government benefits.

Blog the Devil’s Excrement notes that in 2009, the Supreme Court ruled that such voting records are confidential and “cannot be handed over.” Globovision posted a record of the ruling, which, as the Devil’s Excrement points out, appears to be dated incorrectly.

The Miami Herald reports on Chavez’s critique of the opposition coalition, calling them “fascist” for ignoring the court order and burning the voter records.

News Briefs

The New York Times with a feature on the effect of Cuba’s relaxed real estate laws on the housing market. The article notes that the market is still on the small-scale, as brokers remain outlawed in Cuba, and the most significant beneficiaries appear to be Cuban emigres with savings to spare.

The New York Times with a photo essay of the Honduras prison fire which has reportedly killed over 350 people, according to the most recent statistic from Reuters. The Miami Herald, Wall Street Journal, Latin American Herald Tribune, and the LA Times also published updated accounts of the tragedy.

The Times features a poverty program in Venezuela designed to occupy children with classical music. The program’s most famous pupil is Los Angeles Philharmonic conductor Gustavo Dudamel.

The Washington Post on the anniversary of the murder of US law enforcement agent Jaime Zapata in Mexico last year, with a special focus on how his armored SUV failed to prevent his death after he was ambushed by the Zetas.

Argentina criticized the planned visit by several British MPs to the Falklands Islands, calling it more evidence of the UK’s “militarization” of the islands, the BBC reports.

The Washington Post reports on a Caracas horse racing track where hundreds of homeless Venezuelans have found shelter.

The AP on protests in Venezuela against an oil spill which contaminated the local water supply in the eastern Monagas state. The ongoing protests on Wednesday appeared to contradict claims by the government that the spill had been contained.

Ecuador’s Supreme Court ratified the verdict which would force four journalists to pay $42 million in libel damages after they published material critical of President Rafael Correa. The AP reports.

An LA Times editorial has praise for Venezuela’s selection of Henrique Capriles as the official presidential candidate for the opposition coalition.

Senator Richard Lurger (R-Ind.) has an opinion piece in the Miami Herald criticizing the relationship between Iran and Venezuela, urging the US to reduce energy dependence on the Latin American country, and to approve the construction of a pipeline which would ship oil from Canada to the Gulf Coast, currently dependent on refining Venezuelan oil.

The LA Times with a brief feature on the street vendors who make up Mexico’s large informal economy.

The BBC on Cuba’s announcement that the country will attend the Summit of the Americas in Colombia this April if invited, a meeting which typically only involves democratic countries in the region.

Fire Kills Hundreds in Overcrowded Honduran Prison

2012-02-15T06:48:00.004-08:00

More than 300 inmates are feared to have died when a fire broke out in a prison in Honduras

Authorities said that 356 prisoners were unaccounted for out of the total 852, but said that some of these might have escaped. One of the dead is a female visitor who was staying overnight.

The fire began Tuesday night in the prison in Comayagua, but it is not yet known whether it was caused by an electrical fault or by an inmate setting fire to a mattress. Local fire fighters described hellish scenes, reporting that "some 100 prisoners were burned to death or suffocated in their cells. … "We couldn't get them out because we didn't have the keys and couldn't find the guards who had them."

One prisoner told local media that their calls for help were at first ignored. “"For a while, nobody listened. But after a few minutes, which seemed like an eternity, a guard appeared with keys and let us out," he said.”

The tragedy highlights the deep problems of the Honduran prison system -- the Comayagua facility was well over capacity in terms of number of inmates it was designed to hold, according to Reuters.

One reason for overcrowding in Honduras’ prisons is the “mano dura” or iron fist approach to crime, which concentrates on locking up members of youth gangs, sometimes just for being associated with the gangs rather than for a specific crime. Overcrowding and lack of resources means that discipline is poor. Prisons are dominated by powerful gangs of inmates, and criminals often carry on their activities from inside the jails. Some half of all extortions in Tegucigalpa are carried out from within the city’s jail, according to Honduran authorities.

The shortcomings of the prison system have been exposed again and again by incidents in which prisoners lose their lives. In 2004, more than 100 inmates died in a fire in a prison in the city of San Pedro Sula. In 2006, 13 inmates died in a riot in a prison north of Tegucigalpa. Nine died in riots in a San Pedro Sula prison as recently as October.

In 2010 President Porfirio Lobo declared an emergency in July 2010 in nine of the country’s 24 prisons. This latest disaster could force the government to carry out real reforms.

News Briefs

Fresh from his calls for debate on drug legalization, Guatemala’s new President Otto Perez has made more progressive statements on security. Voted in on a tough-on-crime platform, the president has now said that he will tackle hunger as part of his security strategy, declaring that “Hunger is also violence, and is also a security problem,” reports the Assoc iated Press. As website Plaza Publicahas pointed out, more people die in Guatemala from hunger than from violence, with some 18 minors dying each day from malnutrition, and 15 - 17 from violence.

Colombia’s government has contributed to the debate on drug legalization kicked off by Perez, with Foreign Minister Maria Angela Holguin saying that the war on drugs should be a topic for discussion at April’s Summit of the Americas. “The war on drugs certainly has not been as successful as it should be, and it is an issue that the countries must discuss, and soften their position on what to do.” President Juan Manuel Santos has questioned the zero-tolerance attitude to drugs a number of times.

The New York Times’ Latitude blog looks at Venezuela’s opposition candidate for the presidency, Henrique Capriles, who it says is an “understated, sensible and trustworthy problem-solver,” running on the sober slogan “Nobody said it was going to be easy.” Capriles condemned the Supreme Court’s decision to prevent the opposition destroying the records of votes cast in their primary elections, in which he was selected, with a larger-than-expected 2.9 million votes. He calledthe move an attempt to “instill fear.” The WSJ reports that Chavez allies have begun a smear campaign against the candidate, using his Jewish background and affluent family as ammunition, as well as questioning his sexuality.

A piece in the Arizona Daily Star criticizes a state proposal to fund a volunteer militia group on the Mexican-US border, saying sarcastically; “it's always helpful to have more armed and slightly trained people on the border. This is just what the border needs.” The group was created in 2011, and lawmakers are asking for $1.9 million for it

Mexico announced the arrest of Jaime Herrera Herrera, alias “El Viejito,” accused of being a top methamphetamine producer for the Sinaloa Cartel. This follows the seizure of a record 15 tons of the drug last week.

A Mexican government official has called the latest US travel warnings on his country “ridiculous” and “out of proportion.” The warnings, issued last week, cautioned against non-essential travel to 14 of the country’s 31 states, including almost the entire northern border region.

The AP reports on the case of two Colombian priests, killed last year in a double shooting, who seemingly committed suicide by hiring hitmen to kill themselves. One of the men had reportedly been diagnosed with AIDS.

Honduras Culture and Politics blog highlights the “first backlash” against the government’s Operation Lightening, a security surge in which the army has been sent out on patrol with police. It quotes reports that residents of the town of Ocotillo have blockaded the area to protest against the presence of soldiers stationed there. The military are reportedly employing heavy-handed and abusive tactics, pressuring young men to admit to gang membership and checking ID of everyone on public buses.

Actor Sean Penn has brought his influence to bear on the controversy over the Falklands Islands (Malvinas), accusing the UK of “provoking” Argentina by deploying Prince William, a search and rescue pilot, to the islands. "There are many places to deploy a prince," he noted epigrammatically. "It's not necessary when the deployment of a prince is generally accompanied by a warship, to send them into seas of such spilled blood."

El Salvador’s Funes Retreats on Drug Legalization Debate

2012-02-14T06:32:00.003-08:00

Hours after expressing support for the Guatemalan president’s call for a debate on drug legalization, Salvadoran leader Mauricio Funes has beat a hasty retreat, declaring himself opposed to any such initative.

Newly-inaugurated Guatemalan President Otto Perez dismayed some by declaring on the weekend that he would open a discussion on drug legalization in the next meeting of regional leaders. "I want to bring this discussion to the table," Perez said. "It wouldn't be a crime to transport, to move drugs. It would all have to be regulated."

The two presidents met on Monday, and, after the encounter, Funes told press that he was open to “promoting the discussion” of Perez’s proposal, and that it would have to be a regional initiative.

I agree that it is a theme that President Perez should bring to the next meeting of Central American presidents, on the understanding that this is a strategy that shouldn’t be ruled out.

However, later on Monday night, Funes changed his position, stating that

I am not in agreement with the depenalization of drugs; neither the production, nor the transport, nor the consumption.

This hasty clarification seems likely to have been made under pressure from Washington. The US Embassy in Guatemala was quick to slap down Perez’s proposal, a response which the Guatemalan leader classed as “premature.”

Various analysts have suggested that Perez may not actually want to bring about drug legalization, and may rather be using it as a tool to put pressure on the US to contribute more to security. Perez has stated that he will push for the resumption of US military aid to his country, which was suspended during the civil war.

The US has placed certain conditions on resuming this aid, demanding that Guatemala show it is respecting human rights, cooperating with investigations of former members of the military, and with the International Commission Against Impunity in Guatemala (CICIG). One of the demands is that the government release military documents relating to the civil war -- something that may be difficult for Perez to do, as a retired general who has himself been accused of war crimes.

The US has taken a cautious approach towards the new Guatemalan leader, with President Barack Obama waiting until two weeks after the November election to congratulate Perez on his victory.

Washington seems to have successfully exerted pressure on Perez to toe the line in some cases. Contrary to expectations, he declared his support for Attorney General Claudia Paz y Paz, who has campaigned for justice for abuses committed by the military during the war, in a turn of events some attributed to US intervention. He has also sought an extended mandate for the CICIG, a UN-backed investigation unit which has made itself highly unpopular with powerful forces in the country, as detailed in previous posts.

News Briefs

The Associated Press looks at how indigenous groups in Bolivia have turned against President Evo Morales, who had at first presented himself as their champion. The president, himself an Aymara Indian and the first indigenous person to lead the country, came to power in 2005 promising to grant new autonomy to the country’s large native population. He brought in a new constitution specifying that the native groups must be consulted over issues that affect them and their traditional lands. However, Morales has now taken measures that contradict the spirit of this, backing a highway through the TIPNIS national park where thousands of indigenous people live, and carrying out a harsh crackdown against protesters. According to the AP, the lowlands indigenous federation CIDOB is now making an alliance with Morales’ “arch-nemesis,” pro-business Santa Cruz Governor Ruben Costas.

Police in Rio have decided to end their strike until after the city’s famous carnival celebrations are over, and said they will concentrate on fighting for the freedom of their colleagues jailed over the action. Striking police in the northern state of Bahia took the same decision the previous day. Rio Real blog interprets the events as part of the long history of how Latin America elites “have managed the needs and wants of the poor,” noting that there have also been recent strikes among construction workers. Meanwhile, the Bahia strikes seem to have revealed sinister forces at work. Of the 187 murders committed during the 12 days of the strike, some 45 appear to have been “exterminations,” according to reports in O Globo newspaper, with death squads made up of military police officers suspected of being behind them.

US aid to Colombia continues to decline, with President Barack Obama requesting $332 million in funds to aid Colombia in the 2013 budget. This is down about 15 percent from the 2012 budget, and half that of five years ago, reports El Tiempo. It is still higher, however, than the sum requested for Mexico, which is $242 million, down from $281 the previous year. Some $199 million of this is to be channeled via the Merida Initiative.

After winning a primary held by the Venezuelan opposition to field a single candidate against President Hugo Chavez, Henrique Capriles has promised to unite the country behind him and end political polarization. His pledges include depoliticizing the military, and reviewing costly economic cooperation with countries including Cuba, reports the Wall Street Journal. In a dig at the attention-loving Chavez, he also said that as president he would appear on TV only when there was important news to announce.
More from the Miami Herald.

A second journalist has been murdered in Brazil in a week, when Paulo Rodrigues and his girlfriend were gunned down by assassins riding a motorbike, close to the border with Paraguay. He was editor of Jornal da Praca newspaper and website Mercosulnews.com, which exposed corruption in the region. Another journalist, who also focused on exposing corruption, was murdered in Rio de Janeiro state on Thursday, after being kidnapped from his house along with his girlfriend.

Haiti has asked the US for help to reform its judicial system, amid a controversy over the ruling that former dictator Jean-Claude Duvalier, aka “Baby Doc,” should not be tried for human rights abuses. A delegation from the State Department will arrive this week, reports the AP. The UN is also sending a team to Haiti to review the organization’s mandate in the country and consider plans for police reform, while the Caribbean Community has sent delegates to look at earthquake reconstruction efforts.

An NGO has said that there are between 8,000 and 14,000 minors fighting in the Colombian conflict.

Mary Anastasia O’Grady at the WSJ looks at Puerto Rico Governor Luis Fortuño’s plans to switch electiricty supply from oil to natural gas, which she says would help the poor by lowering electricity, but is being blocked by environmentalists.

Jose Fernandez, US assistant secretary for economic and business affairs, says more work is needed before free trade agreements can be implemented with Colombia and Panama, including addressing concerns about labor rights in Colombia.

Venezuelan Opposition Elects Capriles in Primary

2012-02-13T06:39:00.000-08:00

Venezuela’s Coalition for Democratic Unity (MUD) held their first-ever presidential primary yesterday, with Henrique Capriles Radonski beating his four opponents in landslide, taking 62 percent of the vote. Capriles’ nearest rival, Zulia state Governor Pablo Perez, lost by more than 30 percentage points. Opinion polls have consistently showed Capriles to be the frontrunner for the past several months, so his victory did not come as much of a surprise. What was surprising, however, was the primary’s large turnout. More than 2.9 million votes were cast in the election, which El Universal claims that the number represents 57 percent of the opposition base.

Prior to the primary, the MUD had predicted 1.4 million voters, and had said that anything over 2 million would represent a major victory for the opposition. Reuters suggests that yesterday’s strong turnout will “help give the opposition momentum for a campaign where it hopes to portray Chavez, 57, as a Cold War-era ideologue.”

However, this will likely prove easier said than done. Despite the primary’s relatively large turnout, it still only totals around 16 percent of the country’s 18 million registered voters. Recent polls suggest that the president enjoys the support of around 56 percent of the general population.

To beat Chavez, Capriles will likely have to confront the president’s portrayals of the MUD as a tool of elite economic interests. As a self-described “center-left progressive” who admires the economic policies of Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, he may be well-suited to do so. While it is still unclear whether the MUD has what it takes to unseat Chavez after 13 years in office, at the very least the upcoming October elections are shaping up to be more competitive than the 2000 or 2006 elections.

News Briefs

· The leader of one of two remaining faction of Peru’s once-mighty guerrilla group, the Shining Path, was captured by security forces on Sunday after sustaining serious injuries in a gunfight on Thursday. IDL- Reporteros reported that Florindo Eleuterio Flores Hala, alias “Comrade Artemio,” had been shot by members of his own forces who were working for the authorities, although others claim he was hurt in a confrontation with police. The capture prompted Peruvian President Ollanta Humala to announce that the Shining Path was no longer a national security threat, despite the fact that the other remaining faction, based Apurimac and Ene River Valley (VRAE) region, are still active. InSight Crime’s Hannah Stone has more on what Artemio’s capture means for the future of the rebel group.

· On Saturday Guatemalan president Otto Perez Molina announced that he plans to bring up a proposal to legalize drugs at the next meeting of Central American leaders. Although he did not provide specifics on his proposal, he claimed that “it wouldn't be a crime to transport, to move drugs. It would all have to be regulated." Predictably, the U.S. Embassy in Guatemala has criticized the statement, saying that such a move would do nothing to stop violence and organized crime in the region.

· A little over a week after the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) carried out a devastating bombing in the southern province of Tumaco, Colombian security forces claim to have found a weapons cache holding three metric tons of explosives.

· In a two part series (Part 1, Part 2) NPR’s Weekend Edition highlights the current violence and legacy of the 2009 coup in Honduras. The second piece features commentary from ousted President Manuel Zelaya himself, including a quote which bears copying in full: "They took off, and there I was. The democratically elected president of Honduras, standing in my pajamas in the middle of a runway in Costa Rica. I said to myself, 'So this is that great new future everyone is talking about for Latin America?'”

· Reuters reports on a secret stash of military documents from Guatemala’s civil war which is becoming a useful tool in prosecuting war crimes.

· A magnitude 5.8 earthquake hit the western coast of Costa Rica early this morning, but there have been no initial reports of injuries or damage.

· The Wall Street Journal takes a look at allegations of drug cartel links to Mexico’s Institutional Revolutionary party (PRI), with a focus on Tomas Yarrington, ex-governor of Tamaulipas state. Meanwhile, the L.A. Times’ World Now blog reports on the complex political spectrum in the country, as it applies to the three main political parties.

· InSight Crime examines the implications and likely outcome of the case against Mexican president Felipe Calderon in the International Criminal Court.

· Gay rights activists in Jamaica are expressing cautious optimism over newly-elected Prime Minister Portia Simpson-Miller's pledge to end discrimination against gay people in the country, reports the Guardian. Homophobia is rampant in the island country, and there has long been a law on the books which makes homosexual acts a crime.

· A month after Twitter announced it would censor content at governments’ request, Brazil has become the first country to take the social networking site up on the offer. According to the Associated Press, the country wants to take greater measures to prevent Twitter users from posting about traffic stops or police checkpoints. While Brazil claims the censorship is necessary to prevent traffic accidents, the move will likely draw criticism from civil rights advocates who fear it could be used against individuals reporting on improper activity in police operations.

No More Road Trips, Implies US Travel Warning to Mexic

2012-02-10T05:58:00.000-08:00

The US State Department updated its travel warning to Mexico, warning against “non-essential” travel to virtually all of Mexico’s northern border states: Tamaulipas, Sinaloa, Nuevo Leon, Chihuahua, Coahuila, and Durango.

The LA Times notes that the revised warning is more specific than the one issued in April 2011, offering information on drug violence on a city-by-city and state-by-state basis. This is most likely in response to concerns from Mexican authorities about declining tourism from the US, the newspaper concludes. Northern Baja California, for example, is labeled a place where travelers “should exercise extreme caution,” while south Baja California (home to tourist hotspot Cabo San Lucas) has “no advisory in effect.”

There are other distinctions that are even more specific. Travel to the state of Nuevo Leon is discouraged, except for capital Monterrey, even though US government employees are not permitted to keep their children inside the city. The warning goes on to say that US personnel are also not allowed to visit “gambling establishments,” nor travel outside the city past midnight.

Other parts of the warning go so far to identify specific highways which should not be used. The Washington Post observes that in accordance with the new warning, “a visitor who wants to drive from the United States to Mexico City has no viable route that would be in accord with the U.S. guidelines.”

The level of detail in the new warning is particularly interesting, considering that Mexico reported breaking tourism records last year, with visitors from the US increasing by 10 percent.

News Briefs

The New York Times with an update on the pending police strike in Bahia state, Brazil, a little over a week away from Carnival. The article notes that the strike calls attention to the difference in pay and prestige that the military police receive, versus the civil police. Both forces are on strike in Bahia. And according to cell phone conversations recorded by “intelligence officials,” some of the organizers behind the strike are reportedly planning to commit acts of vandalism in order to strengthen their negotiating position, then expand the strike to Brazil’s richest states, Sao Paulo and Rio de Janeiro.

The New York Times analyzes what Wednesday’s record seizure of 15 tons of methaphetamine means about drug production dynamics in Mexico. David Shirk, director of the Trans-Border Institute at the University of San Diego, told the newspaper that if the product belonged to the Sinaloa Cartel, the largest exporter of meth from Mexico to the US, the 15-ton stockpile of cocaine indicates, “they are clearly operating at a volume they were not able to do 5 or 10 years ago.” Eric Olson from the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars notes that the size of the seizure should be kept in perspective, as, “Seizures, even huge ones, don’t generally change the demand for the drug in the long run.” The Wall Street Journal, meanwhile, quotes a UNODC official who argues that the Mexican criminal organizations are now producing more meth than they can properly sell inside the US.

Residents complain that a foreign coal mining company will destroy the environment in their community, and that the coal exported abroad represents a theft of the country’s natural resources. Sounds like a common social conflict seen in Latin America, except for the countries involved: the small town of Eagle Pass, Texas, versus a Mexican mining company, Dos Republicas Coal Partnership. The New York Times reports that the Eagle Pass residents are “concerned about having a Mexican company that is held to lower standards operate in Texas. Adding salt to their wounds is the fact that the coal, considered to be of too low quality to be burned in the United States, will be shipped to Mexico.”

The AP reports that Venezuelan opposition presidential candidate Pablo Perez encouraged public employees to vote in Sunday’s primary elections, as the opposition coalition claims that the government has pressured this interest group not to group. The AP notes that there is no evidence for this assertion. The Economist has its own analysis of what may happen come Sunday’s primaries, asserting that the opposition coalition is far more organized now than it has been in years. The magazine predicts a victory for front-runner Henrique Capriles, but notes that he “cannot match the charisma of Mr. Chavez.”

Colombia Reports on the arrest warrant issued for ex-President Alvaro Uribe’s peace comissioner, Luis Carlos Restrepo. Restrepo is under investigation for allegedly coordinating the demobilization of a fake FARC front in 2006. The 63 members of the fake front later testified that they were posing as rebels, and were in fact recruited by a former FARC fighter who paid them about $250 each for participating. Restrepo is the third of Uribe’s former close associates to face criminal charges.

Former Panamanian dictator Manuel Noriega was discharged from a public hospital and returned to prison, reports Reuters.

Mexican marines found 15 bodies in a mass grave in Veracruz, the BBC reports. Veracruz saw an explosion of violence last year, with homicides increasing three fold in comparison to 2010.

The LA Times with a feature on the growing popularity of Chinese cars in Latin America.

Guatemala's New President Surprises Critics by Defending Justice

2012-02-09T06:27:00.000-08:00

A UN-backed investigation unit, set up to combat impunity rates in Guatemala, is set to stay in the country until 2015, after President Otto Perez asked for its mandate to be extended until the end of his term.

The International Commission Against Impunity in Guatemala (CICIG) was set up in 2006 as a body of some 180 international staff tasked with helping the domestic legal system to investigate and prosecute criminal organizations that operate within state institutions, known as the “hidden powers.” The Wall Street Journal describes the body “as a kind of shadow attorney general's office,” noting that “the arrangement is unique in Latin America, and experts say the results are as well.”

The CICIG has had success in handling sensitive and high-profile cases including the curious 2009 death of a lawyer who, the commission found, ordered a hit on himself in order to frame then-President Alvaro Colom. Another achievement was the 2010 removal of an attorney general accused of being involved in organized crime.

Its current mandate was set to expire in September 2013, but President Otto Perez, who began his four-year term in January, requested this week that it be extended for another two years. He praised the commission’s work, and said that it was necessary to build up Guatemala’s institutions so that, when the body left, the country would have the institutional strength to cope alone.

The WSJ notes that Perez’s support of the CICIG was a surprise to some experts. The president is a former general who has himself been accused of human rights abuses committed during the country’s civil war. It might have been expected that the president would wish to get rid of the commission. As the WSJ points out, the body’s successes:

had led many in Guatemala's political class to call for CICIG's ouster and even Mr. Colom said in an interview last year that Guatemala would soon be ready to move on without the group.

Another well-received move by the new president was his decision to retain attorney general Claudia Paz y Paz, who has been one of the strongest forces in breaking down the impunity enjoyed by those who committed war crimes.

InSight Crime has praise for the incoming president’s actions so far, commenting that;

While he has only been in office for three weeks, the president seems to be on track to continue many of the more effective security policies of his predecessor, Alvaro Colom, especially as they relate to strengthening the rule of law in Guatemala.

It highlights the fact that he has appointed a former CICIG liaison official as his new anti-drug minister, and has set up a series of special task forces against crimes such as femicide and kidnapping. In another sign of respect for the commission, Perez's interior minister has asked it to help vet staff in his ministry.

The president also expressed his support for Guatemala’s ratification of the statute of the International Criminal Court, which took place last week.

A Haverford professor consulted by the WSJ said that Perez’s actions could be related to his role in signing the peace accords that ended the war in 1996. "There seems to be a domestic project he wants to complete, a job he undertook as a negotiator and signer of the accords."

News Briefs

The conflict over the Falklands Islands (aka the Malvinas) is heating up, with Argentina’s defense minister declaring that the country would “put up” with British presence on the islands, but that if British armed forces land "in our territory we will defend ourselves." Meanwhile the UK government has declared that the Falkland Islands are British because they choose to be, and there will be no negotiations with Argentina over their sovereignty unless the islanders wish it, reports the WSJ. Tensions were raised further by an editorial glitch on tiny Falklands newspaper the Penguin News, which gave a photo of President Cristina Kirchner the file name “bitch.” The name was soon corrected, but the incident was widely reported in Argentine media. Buenos Aires daily La Nacion explaining that was a strong "anglo-saxon term ... signifying disrespect,"according to the Guardian. This follows Kirchner’s declaration that she would take the dispute over the islands to the UN.

Reuters reports on the plight of some 300 Haitians stuck in Peru’s Amazon, after Brazil closed off its border to undocumented migrants from that country. As noted on a previous post, Brazil said in January that it would legalize the situation of some 4,000 Haitians who had already crossed into the country, but would close its borders to others, and allow only 100 citizens from the island country in each month, after they had applied for work visas in Port-au-Prince. According to Reuters, the Haitians are mostly educated and in their 20s. They “sold all their belongings and paid big fees to unscrupulous travel agents to fly to Peru through Panama or Ecuador,” before finding the border closed. They have now taken refuge in a church in the Peruvian border town of Inapari. “‘We don't have money and we are so far from Haiti ... we just ask Brazil to let us in,’ said Joniel Clervil, 22, speaking in English he learned in university before the January 2010 disaster ended his studies.”

Meanwhile, back in Haiti, former dictator Jean-Claude Duvalier, aka “Baby Doc,” is “swank[ing] around the hotspots of Port-au-Prince … as if he were just another member of the capital’s thoughtless, partying elite,” according to an op-ed in the NYT. The newspaper joins a chorus of voices in the US media arguing that the ex-leader must be tried for crimes against humanity. Timemagazine notes that such a trial, dredging up memories of the 30,000 tortured and killed by the regime of Duvalier and his father “Papa Doc,” would be inconvenient for the “national re-branding campaign of President Michel Martelly.”

Haiti’s Prime Minister Garry Conille has been in Washington, appealing not for more aid but for better coordination among donors and faster distribution,reports the Miami Herald.

The New York Times reports on the demolition of La Ocho, a jail in the Mexican border city of Tijuana, which some residents say should never have been destroyed. According to Damien Cave, with the city safer than it has been in years, “the argument has become a proxy for this city’s larger struggle over identity, and how much of Tijuana’s sordid past should shape its future.”

Soldiers made a historic seizure of 15 tons of methamphetamine on the outskirts of Guadalajara, west Mexico. The Associated Press reports that the find is double the total amount of the drug seized in the country in 2009.InSight Crime has reported on a massive surge in production of the synthetic drug in Mexico, which it attributes to the fact that its production is more reliable and profitable than the business of growing coca or marijuana, while Mexican traffickers are being squeezed out of the US market by domestic growers.

Amnesty International has criticized the Panamanian government response to indigenous protests that blocked the Pan-American Highway, in which two civilians died. It called for an investigation into allegations of excessive use of force by police. Democratic congressman James McGovern has written to the US ambassador in Panama City to ask her to convey his concerns to the president over the incident, which took place during protests against hydroelectric projects in indigenous territories.

Peru is also in the grip of unrest over proposed large-scale development projects, and IPS reports on concerns from indigenous groups that there are shortcomings in a law mandating that locals must be consulted over projects on their land.

The Financial Times has a piece on how growing prosperity in Brazil’s favelas means that companies are now falling over themselves to offer services to their residents - the emerging new middle class.

The LA Times reports on problems faced by mentally ill undocumented migrants who are left to face court proceedings without proper legal representation.

Argentina to Take Falklands Dispute to the UN

2012-02-08T06:49:00.000-08:00

After weeks of tension between Britain and Argentina over the disputed Falkland Islands (known in Argentina as the Malvinas), Argentine President Cristina Fernandez has announced that she will file an official complaint with the United Nations Security Council over the UK’s “militarization ” of the islands. At a ceremony to mark the release of a dictatorship-era military report on the 1982 Falklands War, Fernandez accused the UK of using the islands as a “trophy of war.”

Quoting John Lennon, the president urged the British to “give peace a chance,” adding: “We have suffered too much violence already to be attracted to military games and wars.” Infobae reports that she then instructed Foreign Minister Héctor Timerman to file the complaint on June 14, which will mark the 30^th anniversary of the end of the 1982 war.

The announcement was likely made in response to the UK’s recent decision to send Prince William, who is currently a flight lieutenant in the Royal Air Force, to serve on the Falklands. As reported in the February 1^st Post, many in Argentina saw his presence as an act of provocation, and the Fernandez government had accused the UK of sending over Prince William “in the uniform of a conquistador.” Also last week the British navy announced that it would deploy one of its destroyers, the HMS Dauntless, to the area to participate in routine naval exercises, which has further angered Argentines.

While friction between the two countries is mounting, it is still tremendously unlikely to develop into open conflict as it did nearly 30 years ago. Regardless, it is interesting to note the level of support that Argentina has amongst other countries in the region, considering the sensitive nature of the issue and the past hostilities.

Last Saturday the eight member countries of the Bolivarian Alliance (ALBA) bloc met in Caracas, where they approved a resolution similar to a December MERCOSUR motion to ban ships flying Falkland Islands flags from docking in their ports. Afterwards, Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez even went so far as to declare that his country would fight alongside Argentina in the event of another conflict.

News Briefs

· El Economista reports that a new Mexican documentary about the country’s education system has raised the ire of the powerful National Union of Education Workers, known as SNTE. The film was partially financed by Mexicanos Primeros, an education reform advocacy group, and uses information from studies the group has conducted in recent years. The AP claims that much of the footage of classrooms was apparently filmed by students themselves, and shows images such as teachers using cell phones in class and classrooms in disrepair.

· Officials in Mexico have reportedly arrested a lieutenant of the powerful Sinaloa Cartel, Jose Antonio Torres Marrufo. According to the L.A. Times, there is evidence to suggest that guns found in Torres Marrufo’s personal arsenal were purchased illegally through the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms’ controversial Fast and Furious program.

· El Proceso reports that “Narco manta” banners have appeared in the state of Guanajuato which call for a truce between rival drug gangs during Pope Benedict XVI’s upcoming visit to the state’s capital city next month. The banner is signed by the Caballeros Templarios (a successor group of the once-mighty Familia Michoacana), who warn their rivals in the Jalisco New Generation Cartel not to start anything while “His Holiness” is present.

· The AP has an overview of the Venezuelan opposition’s primary elections, planned for next Sunday. While Chavez’s opponents still trail him in the polls, the upcoming October 7th elections are shaping up to be far more competitive than the elections in 2000 and 2006. The wire agency suggests that part of this is due to the appeal of opposition frontrunner Henrique Capriles, who “describes himself as a center-left progressive, saying he admires the approach of former Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva.”

· An Ecuadorean judge has ordered two journalists to pay President Rafael Correa $1 million each because of allegations of corruption the two made in a 2010 book entitled “The Big Brother.” The authors’ claim that Correa was purposefully awarding state contracts to his older brother Fabricio has been deemed libelous and unfounded by the judge.

· After eight days of clashes with police, members of Panama’s indigenous Ngobe-Bugle tribe have agreed to end a roadblock of the Pan-American Highway. In response, the government has claimed it will release the 44 people it detained in the protests. The Ngobe-Bugle began the demonstration last week in an effort to protest the prospect of large-scale development on their western lands.

· Officials in Jamaica melted around 2,000 firearms yesterday in a Kingston cement factory as part of a disarmament campaign on the island. Today they are due to destroy roughly half a ton of ammunition at the factory.

· The U.S. embargo of Cuba turned 50 yesterday, and shows no signs of ending any time soon. NPR’s All Things Considered reports on the rise of U.S. travel to the island in response to President Obama’s relaxation of restrictions, and the BBC takes a look at one legacy of the pre-embargo era: the country’s iconic 1950s American cars.

· The Wall Street Journal profiles the declining influence of the United States in Latin America. The paper suggests that much of this is due to Republican unwillingness to approve Obama’s appointed ambassadors, for fear that he is too soft on leftist leaders. Six countries in the hemisphere (El Salvador, Nicaragua, Ecuador, Venezuela, Uruguay and Barbados) currently lack U.S. ambassadors.

· Jose Cardenas has a new piece in Foreign Policy’s Shadow Government blog about the deteriorating security situation in Honduras. Cardenas’ prescription is a significant increase in U.S. involvement, as well as an extradition treaty between the two countries. He also laments the fact that Honduras’ President Porfirio Lobo “is no President Uribe of Colombia.” However, considering recent allegations that Uribe colluded with paramilitary groups, many Hondurans may be grateful.

Mexico Casino Kingpin Linked to Obama Campaign Donations

2012-02-07T06:45:00.000-08:00

The relatives of a Mexican casino kingpin, who is accused of a range of crimes from drug trafficking, murder, to running a luxury car theft ring, donated more than $200,000 to President Obama’s political campaign, reports the New York Times.

Juan Jose Rojas Cardona is one of the largest casino operators in Monterrey, Mexico. He is wanted on fraud charges inside the US; he also pleaded guilty to smuggling marijuana in 1994, but fled to Mexico before serving his prison sentence. According to the Times, his two brothers, Alberto and Carlos, both based in Chicago, donated $30,800 each to the Democratic National Committee; another two relatives donated an additional $25,600. The brothers also reportedly raised at least another $100,000 from other donors outside the family.

An Obama campaign official told the Times that all the contributions will be returned. There are no records of any donations from the brother with a criminal record, Juan Jose Rojas, known as “Pepe.”

Evidence indicates that Pepe has a far more troubled history of shady political donations and links to organized crime inside of Mexico. Proceso magazine labeled Juan Jose the “czar of gambling” in a cover story by veteran crime reporter Ricardo Ravelo last year. Pepe’s involvement in the gambling industry is inherently suspicious, as it is widely believed to have been permeated by organized crime, as casinos are a useful outlet for laundering dirty cash. A US State Department cable, released in 2009, stated that Cardona and his brother Arturo have “close ties to the Beltran-Leyva Cartel.” The brothers’ support from National Action Party (PAN) politicians created a “self-protective triangle” which allowed them to run their casinos in Monterrey, traditionally Gulf Cartel territory, the cable adds.

In order to obtain licenses to operate casinos, or to otherwise convince authorities to look the other way, casino magnates like Juan Jose Rojas frequently bribe local politicians, promising them a monthly percentage of the revenue from the casinos. As the Proceso report details, despite the fact that “Pepe” Cardona was wanted by the FBI in the US, this did not prevent the PAN’s Secretary of Government from granting him some 30 licenses to operate gambling houses. In 2005, the DEA and the FBI filed an expedient for Cardona’s arrest, but Mexican authorities took no action.

Juan Jose Cardona may have been able to operate with impunity inside Mexico for so long, thanks to his fundraising for Mexican politicians. According to a 2009 US State Department cable, Pepe and another brother, Arturo, each donated $2.5 million to Adalberto Madero, Monterrey’s PAN party mayor until 2009. Madero was arrested in 2011 for accepting bribes from Casino Royale, where 52 people died in an arson attack last year. Juan Jose and Arturo Cardona also donated money to the political campaign of PAN politician Zeferino Salgado, who also accepted free campaign advertising and a helicopter as a gift from the two brothers, according to the cable.

The Cardonas’ political allies reportedly extended outside of the PAN party. The Proceso report details the Cardona brothers’ support from Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) politicians, in particular state representative Felipe Enriquez Hernandez, a current candidate for mayor of Monterrey.

Given this long history of shady dealings inside of Mexico -- “Pepe” Cardona was also accused of killing off a rival casino and strip club operator, in order to create a monopoly over Monterrey’s gambling industry -- the Obama campaign made a wise move when they chose to return the donations. Even though there is no indication that any of the contributions were dirty cash, according to the Times report, the associations with Pepe cast too dark of a shadow over what may have been well-intentioned political donations from his US-based family members. But while there is no evidence that Pepe Cardona had a direct influence over campaign politics in the US, Mexico is quite a different story.

News Briefs

Caracas Chronicles visits a small town in Venezuela, population 3,500, to report on what kind of support Venezuela opposition parties are cultivating far outside of the capital.

The Brookings Institute with some insightful analysis on what the recent kidnapping of Mexico’s Ambassador to Venezuela says about crime rates inside the country. The overall rise of kidnappings and homicides in Venezuela casts doubt on the assumption that falling income inequality, such as experienced by Venezuela over the past decade, leads to reduced crime.

In Paraguay, President Fernando Lugo threatened to deploy the security forces in the Alto Parana province, where farmers have occupied land used by Brazilian soy agribusinesses.

An Op-Ed in the LA Times critiques the recent ruling by a judge in Haiti that former dictator “Baby Doc” Duvalier should not stand trial for human rights abuses.

The Council on Foreign Relations examines some of the political questions raised by the discovery and development of huge energy resources in Latin America.

Adriaan Alsema at Colombia Reports has an editorial criticizing the treatment of journalist Hollman Morris by the administration of former president Alvaro Uribe.

DEA agents in Puerto Rico filed a discrimination suit against the agency, claiming they were paid less and received riskier assignments than the agents hired in the US.

A study by the Latin American Public Opinion Project at Vanderbuilt University found that residents in Guyana, Haiti and Belize are more likely to justify bribes than those in other Latin American and Caribbean countries.

The Nuevo Herald reports on the new restrictions that dictate how journalists should cover elections in Ecuador, a law which became effective Monday.

Surinam and the Caribbean island Santa Lucia are applying to become members of the ALBA economic group, an organization associated with the region’s social democratic governments, especially Venezuela. From Mercopress.

The LA Times with a feature story on Mexico’s bicentennial tower, widely criticized for its cost of construction ($79 million) and its so-called “horrible” design, according to one Mexican art critic.

Brazil Sends Military to Keep Order as Police Strike in Salvador

2012-02-06T06:27:00.001-08:00

Brazil sent 3,500 federal troops to keep order on the streets of Salvador, after murders shot up during a police strike weeks before carnival is set to begin in the northeastern city.

Some 10,000 Bahia state officers began striking Tuesday to demand better pay and conditions, as well as amnesty from prosecution for the strike. Some armed police set up roadblocks, while others are occupying the city’s legislative assembly. The government has declared the action illegal, and ordered the officers to surrender.

The strike has triggered a crime wave in the city, with some 89 murders reportedly taking place since it began, which media reports say is at least double the previous week. Reuters reports that shops are being looted, while assaults and car thefts have shot up. Brazzil blog reports on a sense of chaos in the city, with trash going uncollected and ATMs empty of cash.

An elite federal force of some 40 officers has been sent to eject the strikers from the assembly, and arrest their ringleaders, reports the AFP. The Wall Street Journal said that the situation had calmed on Sunday with the presence of the federal troops, but the strikers have refused to step down. One anonymous police officer reportedly told media "The government knows that 99 percent of us are armed. If they try to evict us there will be a bloodbath." On Monday morning some 1,000 army troops were surrounding the assembly building, and had used rubber bullets against strikers trying to join their colleagues inside, wounding at least two, reports O Globo. The occupiers include women and children, according to the Rio-based newspaper.

The state officers, who on average earn $867 a month, are demanding a 50 percent pay rise, according to the AFP. They are not alone in their dissatisfaction; police in Ceara and Maranho states have also recently carried out strikes, while Rio de Janeiro is currently being threatened with a strike by police, fire fighters and lifeguards starting February 10 -- a week before the world-famous carnival.

The strikes provide another example of how economic inequalities persist despite Brazil’s fast-expanding economy, with poverty and high violence rates damaging the country’s image on the world stage. Both Rio and Salvador are among the cities set to host World Cup soccer games in 2014, and both are expecting massive influxes of tourists for their carnivals this month.

The LA Times has more on the theme of inequality, with a piece on the forced evictionof thousands of residents from Sao Paulo’s Pinheirinho slum, which “brought a storm of criticism that some of the poor and marginalized are being cast aside in the race to profit from growth.” The newspaper notes that Sao Paulo is now the most costly city in the Western Hemisphere;

Incomes and property values are rising, new consumers are spending more, and international investors are winning big returns. But investments in health, education and infrastructure have not kept up, economists say.

By contrast, the Washington Post looks at the increasing number of young professionals choosing to relocate to Brazil. Some 1.5 million foreigners were living in the country last year, up around a third from the previous year. One hedge fund manager from the US told the newspaper that:

he runs into the executives of big firms at the gym, and he is a cab ride away from 80 percent of the firms on the Sao Paulo exchange. “Those interactions are priceless,” he said. “You don’t get that in New York.”

News Briefs

Mexico’s conservative ruling PAN party has selected Josefina Vazquez Mota as its candidate for the July presidential elections. She is the first woman to run as the candidate of one of the major parties, and declared after winning the nomination that, “I am going to be the first woman president in history.” Vazquez’s major rivals for the post are Enrique Peña Nieto, from the centrist PRI party which ruled Mexico for some seven decades until 2000, and Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador of the leftists PRD. The NYT notes that Vazquez’s ties to Calderon, having been education secretary in his cabinet, could be a hindrance to her campaign, with many sick of the surging violence accompanying his war against the drug cartels. Bloggings by Boz points out, however, that she has enough distance from Calderon to avoid having to run on his record. A December poll showed 21 percent of voters favoring her, against 42 for Peña Nieto and 17 for Lopez Obrador. The PAN candidate has already clashed with front-runner Peña Nieto, after he failed to give the price of tortillas and explained that he was not a “housewife.” In response, Vazquez told press that she was “a housewife who knows what happens every day at the dining table and in the kitchen.”
More from Reuters.

The ALBA bloc met in Caracas on the weekend and shot off a volley of anti-US policies, as well as announcing plans for closer economic cooperation. The group expressed their support for the Syrian regime, and signed a document backing independence for Puerto Rico. They also agreed to each place some 1 percent of GDP in a joint fund to pay for development projects. Suriname and Santa Lucia are seeking membership of the eight-country group.

Police in Panama have clashed with protesters, killing at least one and injuring 39, in clashes over proposed mining projects in indigenous territory. The dead man, a member of an indigenous group blocking the Pan-American Highway, was shot in the chest on Sunday as police attempted to clear the road, reports the Associated Press. The closure, which had gone on for more than a week, left some travelers trapped on the road without food supplies, and paralyzed commerce through the country.

Panamanian former dictator Manuel Noriega, currently serving a prison sentence after returning to the country from France in December, has been hospitalized with a suspected stroke.

The Miami Herald has a piece on the growing focus in US election debates on fears over Iranian links to Latin America, with some politicians suggesting that Iran could use the region to launch attacks on the US. Andres Oppenheimer plays down these concerns, arguing that “the Iran-Latin America connection will overshadow a much-needed discussion on enhancing U.S. economic ties with Latin America.”

A boat carrying migrants from the Dominican Republic capsized on its way to Puerto Rico, killing at least 17 people. Thirteen have been rescued. The Associated Press reports on the story of one passenger: “Maria Sobeida Guzman, a 28-year-old mother of three who also survived the journey, said she paid just over $1,000 for the illegal trip to Puerto Rico, where a cousin promised to get her a job giving manicures.”

Mary Anastasia O’Grady at the WSJ looks at the primaries of Venezuelan opposition coalition MUD, highlighting Maria Corina Machado as the best candidate for those who would like to see Venezuela move away from socialist policies. “Ms. Machado talks the language of markets and liberty. She speaks of 'Peoples' Capitalism' and of ending Venezuelan dependence on the state. She is the only candidate who has called for private investment in the oil sector.”

The Washington Post has an op-ed on how lax US gun control laws contribute to violence in Mexico.

The Miami Herald has a gallery of photos from Haiti, with images of some brighter moments in the troubled country.

'Armed Children' in Venezuela Highlight Country's Politicization

2012-02-03T06:39:00.000-08:00

Photos showing Venezuelan children holding what look like assault weapons at a pro-Chavez event in Caracas have sparked a controversy in the country, in a reflection of the political polarization of Venezuelan society.

On January 23, a left-wing community organization known as Colectivo La Piedrita celebrated the anniversary of the end of the dictatorship of Marcos Perez Jimenez in 1958. This week, photos of the event appeared on the internet which appeared to show children wearing bandanas over their faces and holding M-16 assault rifles. They were seated in front of a mural depicting Jesus and the Virgin Mary holding Kalashnikovs.

As InSight Crime reports, other photos which appear to be taken at the same event show that Venezuelan lawmaker Robert Serra was present. Serra is a member of President Hugo Chavez’s United Socialist Party of Venezuela, suggesting at least some level of official support for the incident. Serra denies that he was at the event, claiming that the pictures of him were taken on a previous occasion.

La Piedrita, for their part, claims that the weapons were actually made of plastic, and that the photos are being taken out of context by counterrevolutionaries.

Since the photos emerged, the Venezuelan opposition has used them to blast Chavez, who has promoted the development of civilian “militias” in the country. Zulia state governor Pablo Perez, for instance, criticized the display by saying "Instead of guns, these children should have a computer, a book, a bat, a ball, a glove, or a musical instrument.”

In response to such criticism, the Chavez administration has condemned the incident. On Tuesday Interior Minister Tarek El-Aissami called it “morally reprehensible,” and yesterday Chavez himself said that it was irresponsible, claiming that such images hurt his Bolivarian revolution.

This is not the first conflict that Chavez has had with his more radical supporters in Colectivo La Piedrita. In 2009 he called for the arrest of the group’s leader Valentin Santana after the latter publicly threatened several members of the opposition. Back then, he warned that the group had potential to develop into a state of its own, into “a terrorist group that goes around making death threats.”

News Briefs

· The BBC reports that Brazilian Minister of Cities Mario Negromonte has resigned after facing corruption allegations. Negromonte is the seventh member of President Dilma Rousseff’s cabinet to resign since she took office in January 2011. The scandals do not appear to be affecting her popularity, however, as a recent poll by Brazilian daily Folha de Sao Paulo shows that 59 percent of Brazilians support the Rousseff administration.

· In a protest against proposed mining projects in their land, members of Panama’s Ngobe-Bugle tribe have blocked several roads along the country’s border with Costa Rica. A spokesperson for the tribe told the AP that they refuse to negotiate with the administration of President Ricardo Martinelli, but are pursuing talks with members of the legislature.

· It seems Cuban President Raul Castro is acting on his vow to crack down on corruption on the island. At a recent Communist Party Congress meeting, the Cuban leader called corruption “one of the main enemies of the revolution.” According to the Associated Press, the government has instructed party officials and bureaucrats to watch a video on corruption, in an apparent “stern warning that [the government is] serious about cracking down on graft.”

· The World Radiocommunication Conference, a summit held every three to four years by the United Nations’ International Telecommunication Union, has approved a resolution condemning unlawful U.S. interference into Cuban airwaves through such projects as Radio Marti.

· El Universal reports that Mexican President Felipe Calderon is stepping up operations in the western state of Michoacan, sending more than 4,000 troops to the region. The effort is likely an attempt to weed out the remnants of the once mighty Familia Michoacana and their most powerful successor, the Caballeros Templarios.

· The AP has a nice piece on the continuing evictions in Rio’s slums in preparation for the 2014 World Cup and 2016 Olympics. While the government claims that families are being given a fair price to relocate, residents say otherwise.

· One day after a bombing in southern Colombia killed 11, El Tiempo reports that another explosion in the western Cauca province has killed at least six people. Officials have blamed both attacks on FARC rebels. In the wake of the bombings President Juan Manuel Santos has called the guerrillas “hypocrites,” saying that they talk of peace while carrying out terrorist attacks at the same time.

· AP has a piece on the curious case of two Chilean backpackers who were arrested in separate incidents in Peru, apparently on suspicions of espionage. The incidents are likely the result of a rivalry between the two countries, which have been engaged in a maritime border dispute with the ICJ for several years.

· The latest issue of the Economist features an in-depth look at Mexico’s powerful monopolies, as well as a piece on the state of baseball in the Dominican Republic, Puerto Rico and Venezuela.

· The New York Times’ Lens Blog profiles the work of photojournalist Jean-Marie Simon, who chronicled the most violent years of the Guatemalan Civil War. Simon’s photos offer a haunting testimony to the violence of the era, and are a reminder of the gravity of the charges against ex-dictator Efraín Ríos Montt. Meanwhile, Mike Allison has written an insightful op-ed for Al Jazeera English which offers an excellent summary of the state of the case against the Guatemalan general.

· From the Guardian: “Climate change sceptics have acquired a new explanation for why glaciers are retreating: it's not global warming, it's theft.” According to Chilean media, police in the country have arrested an individual for allegedly stealing five tons of ice from a glacier in Patagonia which he hoped to sell as “designer ice cubes” to exclusive dining establishments.

Four Charged in Plot to Smuggle el-Qaddafi Son to Mexico

2012-02-02T06:57:00.000-08:00

Two Mexicans and two foreign nationals have been charged with trying to smuggle the son of former Libyan dictator Muammar el-Qaddafi into Mexico last November. According to the AP, the plot involved smuggling al-Saadi Gadhafi out of Libya, on a plane that would have taken off from Mexico. The first escape attempt in July 2011 fell through, after the hired pilot refused to conduct a secret landing inside the North African country. The conspirators hatched a second plot, but the authorities were tipped off and the suspects were arrested last November.

The conspirators also planned to buy luxurious properties in Mexico where al-Saadi Gadhafi would have found refuge. The properties included a $1.25 million apartment in Mexico City, and a beachfront house in Puerto Vallarta with an estimated value of $600,000. Puerto Vallarta, a Pacific resort popular with celebrities, cruise ship tourists and flashy businessmen, presumably would have supplied al-Saadi an easy place to blend in and lie low.

The Mexican government first announced the arrest of the suspects last December, identifying a Canadian woman as the leader of the group. A Canadian security company also helped with the arrangements, sending the company CEO to inspect the Mexican properties meant to house the dictator’s son. At the time, the security company CEO told Canadian newspaper the National Post that the plan was to be conducted with the approval of the Mexican government, which was to supply the required documentation. The Mexican government has denied these allegations and there is no evidence to suggest that this was the case. But the accusation did speak to concerns that Mexico, struggling with problems related to money laundering and organized crime, could be perceived as an appealing hideout for international criminals.

News Briefs

A bomb exploded Wednesday outside a police station in Tumaco, Nariño, among Colombia’s most troubled regions, reports Semana. At least 70 people were injured in the attack. The municipality has the highest rate of coca production in the country, according to a 2010 UNDOC report. The coca trade has fed the armed conflict in the area, where all of the main actors in the Colombian conflict -- the FARC, the ELN, and BACRIM groups the Rastrojos and Aguilas Negras -- are present. According to the Minister of Defense, the Rastrojos collaborated with the FARC in carrying out the attack. By Thursday morning bomb attacks were registered in two other towns in other parts of the country. Colombia Reports has the update.

The AP reports on Bogota’s 90-day ban on carrying weapons in public. Skeptics argue that the measure may do little to reduce violence and crime inside the capital for the long term, contending that the ban does little to address the availability of illegal weapons. According to think-tank Nuevo Arco Iris, only 10 percent of Bogota’s homicides are committed with the 160,000 guns that are legally registered inside the city.

Remittances sent from abroad to Mexico rose 7 percent last year, the LA Times World Now Blog reports. This is the biggest increase registered since 2006, when remittances began to drop and in some cases reverse, with families in Mexico wiring money to support unemployed family members living outside the country.

A political movement linked to Peruvian rebels the Shining Path have withdrawn their request to become a formally recognized political party, reports the AP. The group, known as Movadef, is headed by the attorney who once represented the Shining Path’s leader, Abimael Guzman, currently serving a life sentence in prison.

An editorial in the Washington Post critiques the recent ruling by a Haitian judge which said that former dictator Jean-Claude Duvalier, aka “Baby Doc,” should only stand trial for corruption charges, not for human right abuses.

Miguel Pinedo, the former president of Colombia’s Congress, was convicted for ties to paramilitary ties, from Colombia Reports. The article includes a nice timeline of how Colombia’s “parapolitica” scandal has developed over the years. According to Verdad Abierta, after serving as the head of Congress from 1999 to 2000, Pinedo sought aid from paramilitary leaders to help win re-election in 2002.

The Washington Times reports on China’s expanding agricultural investments in Latin America, particularly in Argentina and Brazil, where China imports millions of tons of soybeans each year.

Two US missionaries were killed inside their home just outside Monterrey, Mexico, in what appears to have been a violent burglary, reports the BBC and the AP. It is the second killing involving US missionaries in a year in Mexico’s northern border states, following the murder of another couple in January 2011 in Tamaulipas state.

Brazilian President's Cuba Visit More Economic than Political

2012-02-01T06:40:00.000-08:00

Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff arrived in Cuba on Monday, for her first official state visit to the island since taking office in January 2011. Prior to her arrival, some analysts questioned whether the Brazilian leader would use her visit to bring attention to the human rights situation in Cuba, or perhaps even meet with opposition groups. Last week her government issued a temporary visa to dissident blogger Yoani Sanchez so that she could attend a film festival in February, in a move that some saw as indirect criticism of the Cuban government.

As it turns out, however, Rousseff used her visit primarily to discuss trade relations between the two countries. AP reports that she met with President Raul Castro yesterday to sign a series of cooperation agreements, and announced that her country would be giving some 600 million dollars in credits to help Cuba purchase Brazilian food products and agricultural equipment. She also briefly visited the port of Mariel, where Brazilian engineering firm Odebrecht is completing a massive 800 million dollar modernization project. Additionally, Rousseff met with the aging Fidel Castro, whom Reuters refers to as the “revolutionary hero of her youth.”

The Brazilian leader refused to criticize the human rights situation on the island, reportedly telling Brazilian media "One should sweep one's own house before criticizing others. We in Brazil also have (human rights problems). So I am willing to discuss human rights from a multilateral perspective." According to her, whether or not the Cuban government allows Sanchez to travel to her country in February is an internal decision which should not be judged by outsiders. In a blog post on Monday, the Cuban blogger said she would find out about the decision on February 3^rd.

While Rousseff refused to comment on the political situation in Cuba, she did offer some criticism of the U.S. prison base in Guantanamo Bay, according to the Miami Herald. She also criticized the 50 year-old U.S. embargo against Cuba, saying it “brings more poverty and serious problems” to the Cuban people.

Rousseff will depart Cuba today for Haiti, where she is expected to meet with the Brazilian-led peacekeeping force there, as well as further her country’s economic role in the country.

News Briefs

· The New York Times reports on the growing tension between Argentina and Britain over the Falkland Islands, otherwise known as the Malvinas. Prince William, who is currently serving as a flight lieutenant in the Royal Air Force, will be posted there this week in a move that some Argentines see as an act of provocation. Argentina has accused the UK of sending over Prince William “in the uniform of a conquistador.” His deployment comes just two months before the 30^th anniversary of the Falkland Islands War, in which more than 900 forces on both sides lost their lives. Meanwhile, the British navy has announced that it will deploy one of its new Type 45 destroyers to the area to participate in routine naval exercises, which has further angered Argentines.

· Colombia’s largest rebel group, the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), have indefinitely delayed the proposed release of six hostages. In a statement on their website, the FARC claim that informants within the armed forces have told them that the government has “unjustly militarized” the area which the group had planned to use as a staging point for the release in an attempt to conduct a military rescue. El Tiempo reports that the government denies this claim, saying that it had never been given the coordinates of the release from the guerrillas and was thus unable to send a military presence there.

· According to Animal Politico, a Mexican army general and 29 soldiers under his command are facing charges of torture, homicide and drug trafficking. The AP quotes Security Secretary Alejandro Poire as saying that the crimes are "deplorable and reprehensible," and confirming that General Manuel Moreno Avina and his troops troops are being tried in a military court. The general himself allegedly ordered the execution of at least six civilians from 2008 to 2009 during his time stationed in Ojinaga, Chihuahua, which is along the Texan border.

· Speaking at a luncheon in Guadalajara yesterday, Mexican President Felipe Calderon was interrupted by a youth who stood up and heckled the leader about his controversial security strategy, asking "When will this war be over? Where will you live when your term is finished?" According to La Jornada, Calderon took the hecking in stride, quickly responding “here in Guadalajara, mi estimado” and adding that his government could not stand by as young people are attacked and extorted. The LA Times’ World Now blog has more on the incident, as well as an overview of past instances where the president has been publicly confronted for his military-led counternarcotics strategy.

· Despite the fact that a judge ruled on Monday that former Haitian dictator Jean-Claude Duvalier could not be tried for human rights abuses, the Associated Press reports that he may still face lesser corruption charges, for which he would be sentenced to no more than five years in jail.

· The U.S. State Department has pledged to help Guatemala dispose of precursor chemicals used to make meth. The Central American country seized 310 tons of precursor chemicals earlier in the year, but claimed it lacked the technological capacity to safely dispose them. In early January, The Associated Press reported that the powerful Sinaloa Cartel is ramping up meth production in neighboring Guatemala. According to the AP, the Central American country could be producing as much as or more of the drug than Mexico, which is generally considered the top source of U.S.-bound meth.

· Polling firm CPI claims that Peruvian President Ollanta Humala has an approval rating of 54.5 percent after his first six months in office, despite discontent in some rural sectors over his handling of anti-mining protests. State owned news agency Andina notes that this is higher than the support his two immediate predecessors had after their first six months. Alan Garcia had a popularity of 45.3 percent after his first six months, and Alejandro Toledo before him had an approval rating of 30.6 percent.

· Panamanian President Ricardo Martinelli received a draft of a new constitution from a special commission yesterday. If passed by a referendum, the draft would call for the creation of a Constitutional Court and would prohibit the reelection of congressmen. As security Analyst James Bosworth points out on his blog, the draft is surprising for its lack of any language which would allow Martinelli to stay in office beyond 2014.

· Indigenous marchers in Bolivia have once again organized a protest related to President Evo Morales’ controversial plan to build a highway through the Isiboro-Secure reserve in the Amazon (known as TIPNIS). Morales cancelled the project last October due to a series of rallies by indigenous organizations. However, as the BBC reports, this time groups have taken to the streets of La Paz in favor of the plan, saying that it would bring much-needed economic development to the region. In response, the Bolivian government has said it will dialogue with both groups in order to come to a decision on the highway.

· Foreign Policy’s Michael Shifter has written an insightful critique of the debate between Republican presidential candidates in the lead up to the Florida primary, which Romney has won in a landslide. According to Shifter, the candidates talked too much about Fidel Castro and not enough about drug policy, meaningful immigration reform and promoting economic development in Latin America.

Colombian Ex-Paramilitary Boss Spills Details of Govt Plot

2012-01-31T06:51:00.001-08:00

A Colombian former paramilitary chief has testified that his organization, the United Self-Defense Forces of Colombia (AUC), worked with the government and the country’s intelligence agency, the DAS, to carry out a plot to spy on and discredit the Supreme Court during the administration of former President Alvaro Uribe. He also said that the AUC helped spy on journalists and opposition figures.

Diego Fernando Murillo, alias “Don Berna,” gave his statements to Colombian courts via videolink from the US prison where he is serving a sentence for drug trafficking. This is the first testimony he has given since suspending his cooperation with Colombian justice in 2010.

Key members of the Uribe administration have already been jailed as they await trial for colluding with the DAS to carry out illegal wiretapping of perceived opponents, though no mud has so far been made to legally stick to the former president himself. The victims included members of the Supreme Court, as well as journalists and opposition groups. But Don Berna’s testimony breaks new ground in providing testimony of the AUC’s involvement. As La Silla Vacia puts it;

Don Berna is the first of the heads of the paramilitaries to admit in court that there was a “partnership” between the paras and the government of Alvaro Uribe, in this case to discredit the Supreme Court.

The plot against the court was pushed forward, according to the ex-commander, with a meeting between Don Berna’s representatives and close presidential aides at the presidential palace in Bogota in 2008 to hand over information on the court to the government. As Colombia Reports explains, the court was at the time investigating the ties between the paramilitaries and allies of Uribe, in what was known as the “parapolitics” scandal. Don Berna said that "The idea was to find a way to discredit the court so that it would lose credibility in its investigations." He claims that he was transferred to La Picota prison in Bogota in the late 2000s not as a punishment, as the government claimed at the time, but to make it easier to work with the government in their plot against the Supreme Court.

Journalist Daniel Coronell, himself a victim of wiretapping, reported on the accusations, saying that, if Don Berna’s testimony is corroborated, "it becomes clear that the so-called meeting of the 'Casa de Nari' [presidential palace] (April 2008) was another link in a criminal operation that included wiretapping, surveillance and financial tracking against judges and journalists."

Don Berna said that the AUC had been closely allied with the DAS, which had offered logistical support and protection to his men;

When [now jailed ex-DAS director] Jorge Noguera was appointed, [AUC] commander "Jorge 40" told the majority of commanders that someone who had his full confidence had reached the top and that we could count on him for whatever we needed.

The ex-commander said that the DAS had given him equipment to carry out secret recordings of opposition figures, which were then handed over to the government. Former president of the court, Jaime Arrubla, said that Don Berna’s testimony proved what he and his magistrates had been claiming for years, and that people had called them paranoid.

The DAS’s dissolution has been on the table since the wiretapping scandal broke in February 2009, and is now being carried out.

Don Berna’s testimony implicates the Uribe administration still more closely in murky dealings with the AUC, and could be a precursor to Uribe himself facing legal consequences. As Colombia Reports puts it, “The former president has always defended his subordinates and has accused Colombia's Prosecutor General's Office and Interior Minister German Vargas Lleras of politically persecuting members of his administration.” The united front of his inner circle could, however, be starting to crack.

News Briefs

Mexico’s ambassador to Venezuela was kidnapped along with his wife in Caracas, and held for some four hours before being released in a slum area of the city, reports the Wall Street Journal. They were abducted while leaving a party around midnight on Sunday, in what is known as an “express kidnapping,” where the victims are only held for a brief period while their personal effects are stolen, and sometimes a small ransom negotiated. El Universal reports that government sources say the couple were released after negotiations involving the Mexican authorities, and the payment of a ransom. The incident follows the kidnappings of a Chilean diplomat and a US baseball player in November last year.

A new report by Global Financial Integrity calculates that Mexico’s economy lost some $872 billion between 1970 and 2010 to illicit financial outflows, including money laundering and tax evasion. This is worth more than 5 percent of the country’s GDP, and the group’s head called it an “enormously damaging drainage of resources.” Shannon K. O’Neil at CFR says that “The report’s most interesting finding is that this illicit capital is not necessarily or mostly drug money. Instead it comes from Mexico’s large underground economy. In these markets the goods being traded are not necessarily in and of themselves illegal. What’s illegal is the under-the-table way that they are bought or sold.”

Veracruz state treasury secretary was caught with a suitcase containing some $1.9 million, touching off a political row. He claimed the money was legitimate, and was to be used to pay for an advertising campaign.

Mexico is facing the most severe drought it has ever suffered, reports the New York Times, leaving some 2 million people without access to water. The Tarahumara indigenous people are among the worst affected, and are undergoing a serious food crisis. The Mexican Army said that the drought has also affected marijuana and opium poppy growers, with experts noting that traffickers are increasingly turning to synthetic drugs, like methamphetamine, which are more reliable.

Former Haitian dictator dictator Jean-Claude Duvalier, aka “Baby Doc,” should not stand trial for human rights abuses including torture and murder, but only on corruption charges, according to a ruling by a judge in that country. The WSJ hints at political reasons behind the ruling, pointing out that current Haitian President Michael Martelly is widely considered to be sympathetic to the ex-leader, and has argued that a trial could cause further divisions in the country. Human Rights Watch criticized the decision, which will be reviewed by the attorney general, saying that it would “entrench Haiti's culture of impunity by denying justice for Duvalier's thousands of victims.”

Bloggings by Boz and the Mex Files look at the chances of Mexican presidential hopeful Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, noting that his chances could be seriously improved by various errors on the part of rival Enrique Peña Nieto of the PRI, who has admitted to the existence of various children conceived with other women during his marriage to his now-dead wife.

IPS reports that support for Honduran leader Porfirio Lobo has dropped to its lowest points in his two years in power, averaging some 4.6 points out of 10 in a recent poll, with rising violence and insecurity at the heart of the discontent.

Upside Down World looks at a hydroelectric dam project in Santander, east Colombia, which, three years into its construction, “has already decimated the traditional local economy, wrecked the eco-system and disrupted the social and cultural life of the community.” Residents claim they were not properly consulted over the project, which is set to provide some 10 percent of the country’s electricity.

Mary Anastasia O’Grady at the WSJ argues that promises of reform by Cuba’s regime get more coverage than the death of a dissident on hunger strike; “while Raul Castro's announcements about 'reform' have made headlines and topped television news around the globe, we had hardly heard of Villar Mendoza or the resistance movement he belonged to.”

Colombia’s President Juan Manuel Santos declares “war” on illegal mining, saying that it is a big source of funding for illegal groups like the FARC rebels.

Colombia President Calls Drug War a “Stationary Bike”

2012-01-30T06:33:00.000-08:00

President Juan Manuel Santos expressed more support for the legalization of illicit drugs while speaking at a panel at the Cartagena Hay Festival of Literature and Arts. As Semana reports, his remarks followed a comment by another panelist, Nicaraguan writer Sergio Ramirez, who stated, “I know this cannot be an opinion of the state and the president of a republic cannot express this, but as an ordinary citizen, I can. The solution is decriminalizing drugs.”

Santos responded: ¨And I say it as president of a republic: this solution would be acceptable to Colombia, if the rest of the world goes along.”

Colombia Reports has a video of the remarks.

Santos has emerged as one of the most explicit supporters of drug legalization in the region. This is partly possible because, as the former defense minister and as a president who has continued Colombia’s tough military campaign against drug-trafficking groups the FARC and the so-called “bandas criminales” (criminal bands - BACRIMs), it would be hard to accuse him of being “soft” in the drug war. As Semana notes, Santos made reference to this experience while speaking at the Cartagena panel:

“He said that while in the Defense Department, he learned that the DEA’s measure of success, in the US, was measuring the price of cocaine in the streets of Chicago, Los Angeles, in New York. ‘So if the price of cocaine went up in these cities, we could all give ourselves a little pat on the back,’ he said.”

Referring to such experience appears to be a key part of Santos’ strategy when discussing drug legalization in such explicit terms. He is able to present himself as a drug war insider who has seen all the rules of the game, and knows what does and does not work. “[The drug war] is like a stationary bike. You look up and around and you’re in the same place. The scenary’s changed but the problem persists.”

But while Santos has spoken in favor of drug legalization many times over the years, in terms of actual policy, his approach is not that radical. Other top figures in the Santos administration, including the prosecutor general and the Minister of the Interior, have also said the issue deserves to be debated. But the administration has not pushed to legalize drugs inside Colombia, nor has Colombia done much to raise the issue at international bodies like the United Nations. As Colombia Reports points out:

“The Colombian President has promoted a discussion on a possible revision of the war on drugs on several occasions, but has always reiterated that Colombia does not want to take the initiative to avoid being stigmatized. According to Santos, the debate should be started by drug consuming nations rather than the drug producing nations.”

One sign that Colombia truly intends to promote more debate on a liberalized drug policy would be if the country expressed more explicit support for Bolivia’s campaign to decriminalize the coca leaf. This is probably the best example of a Latin American country pushing for a more liberalized global drug policy in terms of actual policy, instead of

The Pan American Post has more analysis on Santos’ rhetoric on drug legalization from November 2011, when the president told a British newspaper he would “welcome” a more open policy.

News Briefs

Foreign Affairs looks at the Venezuelan presidential contest, in light of the decision of a prominent opposition candidate, Leopoldo Lopez, not to run. The magazine judges that this greatly improves the chances of Henrique Capriles, a popular former governor often presented as a rising star of Venezuela’s opposition, and whom Lopez endorsed. The magazine notes: “If he does win the primary, Capriles Radonski's most valuable quality is that no one can accuse him of belonging to Venezuela's political past. At 39, he is younger than Chávez... Moreover, he has avoided explicitly criticizing Chávez's ideological agenda. He understands that competing directly against Chávez's popular social agenda is an unwinnable fight. So instead, he relies on credibly delivering political reconciliation, fighting crime, and promoting a more effective and less politicized perspective of social programs.”

Blog the Devil’s Excrement also has useful analysis on Lopez’s withdrawal from the presidential contest, judging the move to be “politically masterful.” Lopez was already lagging in the polls behind Capriles, but more significantly, thanks to a ruling by the Venezuelan court which banned him from holding public office, but which was overturned last year by the Inter-American Court of Human Rights, it was unclear whether Lopez could actually assume the presidency if he won the election. According to Devil’s Excrement, Lopez’s decision to withdraw guarantees a better chance for his Voluntad Popular party, which looks set to combine forces with Capriles’ party Primero Justicia. Foreign Policy has its own take on the Venezuelan presidential contest, judging that no matter who wins, “Venezuela’s political and economic conditions are likely to worsen.”

The New York Times has a feature on urban graffiti in Sao Paulo, one of the most visual symptoms of Brazil’s social ills. According to the article, the graffiti subculture, known as pichação, is unlike other forms of urban street art found in the rest of the world, thanks to its reliance on heavy rollers instead of spray paint. The practice is also risky, with some graffiti artists willing to scale skyscrapers in order to paint them.

Raul Castro aggressively defended Cuba’s one-party system during the Communist Party’s national conference, reports the AP.

The Miami Herald details the history of church-state relations in Cuba, in anticipation of the pope’s visit to the island this March.

Reuters has a feature on the piles of trash accumulating along the US-Mexico border. The garbage is increasingly harder to clean up because migrants are increasingly forced to use more remote border crossings, the article says.

Fox News Latino examines Mitt Romney’s position on immigration policy, after the former governor spoke at a conference of conservative Hispanic leaders in Miami last Friday. On a similar note, Foreign Policy has a long piece arguing that the Republicans will likely lose the Hispanic vote in the November presidential elections, because they have been forced to adopt the “anti-immigrant narrative being driven, in large measure, by the views of the Republican base -- and in particular the Tea Party wing.” In more news related to the US presidential campaign, Romney just received the endorsement of Puerto Rico’s governor, the Latin American Herald Tribune reports.

World Meets US has a good translation of an Op-Ed first published by La Jornada, detailing the ways in which US military contractors have benefited from the Mexican drug war. According to the article, under the Merida Initiative contracts with US companies reached $6.4 billion by 2008.

A fire in a Peruvian drug rehabilitation center killed 27 people Saturday, reports the AP. The tragedy calls attention to the lack of resources dedicated to drug addiction treatment in Peru, according to EFE.

An editorial in Canada’s Globe and Mail calls for more lax visa requirements for Mexicans looking to enter the country.

Mercopress profiles the son of Argentine President Cristina Fernandez, Maximo Kirchner, steadily becoming a greater political influence in Argentina thanks to the expansion of his political youth group, La Campora.

The AP on Chavez’s threats to nationalize banks which refuse to finance government-backed agricultural projects.

The Independent reports on the corruption scandal dogging Argentina’s Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo, with more than 60 people facing allegations of fraud and taking kickbacks. The Mothers was one of the most prominent groups to protest Argentina’s military dictatorship.

Time reports on Cuba’s offshore oil exploration, causing many US officials to wring their hands over the risks of a possible spill that could affect Florida’s shores.

El Salvador Proposes Hardline Anti-Gang Policies

2012-01-27T06:47:00.001-08:00

El Salvador’s security and justice minister has called for the country to unify behind a plan to destroy the “maras” or street gangs, which he claims are behind 90 percent of all murders committed in the country.

El Faro has an interview with retired General David Munguia Payes, formerly defense minister and now head of the country’s security cabinet, who has promised to cut murders by 30 percent in 2012. He told the website that it is necessary to unblock legal “bottlenecks” and put gang members in prison, saying that it could be necessary to lock up 10,000 people.

Our system of laws, which has very high guarantees of civil liberties, would be ideal for a society which had normal behavior, but it can’t process the entire quantity of crimes that are being committed … Our proposal is to fix this system, to open those bottlenecks, so that the system can process the large amount of crime that we have, to put the criminals where they should be, and take them off the street.

The minister denies proposing an “iron fist” strategy against crime, arguing that instead the plan is “to squeeze where you have to squeeze and let go where you have to let go.” Munguia suggests a targeted anti-gang strategy similar to that of Rio de Janeiro’s Police Pacification Units, in which the security forces would arrive in an area, break down criminal structures, and gain the confidence of the population, before leaving a reduced police presence there. He also argues for dedicated anti-gang units of the police, and the use of states of emergency to place a curfew on minors and allow police to enter homes without a warrant.

Munguia’s comments will fuel concerns that the country is pursuing an increasingly militarized security strategy, as set out in Wednesday’s post.

As El Faro points out, Munguia's arguments rest on the key statistic that gangs are responsible for 90 percent of homicides. The website points out, however, that the minister has not given evidence for this figure, and that police say gangs committed 20 percent of murders, while govt forensic office (IML) put it as 10 percent.

Munguia told the site, however, that in many cases it is obvious that a victim has been killed as a result of gang warfare:

When you find a young guy dead with tattoes … if this dead person is between 14 and 35 there is a large possibility that they are a member of a gang … Or if they were killed in the zone of influence of a gang...

One of his arguments is that in Guatemala and Honduras most murders are carried out by gangs and the armed wings of drug trafficking groups, but “here we don’t have armed wings of drug trafficking. In this country those that kill are the gangs.” However he does say that the gangs in El Salvador dispute for territory with trafficking groups like the Perrones and the Texis Cartel.

A piece in IPS identifies a wider range of culprits for the high murder rate; “drug traffickers, organised crime, rogue death squads, state security forces and domestic violence.” It quotes Mauricio Figueroa, head of the Quetzalcoatl Foundation, as saying Munguia's information is "considerably mistaken, unacceptable and not credible,” and that he is trying to use gangs as a scapegoat to introduce new versions of iron fist policies that were employed by previous governments.

El Salvador finished 2011 with a murder rate of 70 per 100,000. By Munguia’s arguments, if the maras were broken up, the country would then have a rate of around 7 per 100,000 -- which would make it one of the safest places in Latin America.

As Tim’s El Salvador blog points out, the impunity rate throws Munguia's statements into doubt:

you have to question anybody who says they know the proportion of murders committed by gangs or drug-traffickers when the PNC [national police] says it has been able to solve only 34% of the murders in the country.

New Briefs

Efrain Rios Montt, a former military strongman who ruled Guatemala for over a year in the 1980s, has refused to speak in a court hearing over atrocities committed by the army during his time in power. The New York Times reportsthat prosecutors gave presentations on tortures, rapes, and mass killings committed by forces under his command, but that, when asked for a comment, the 85-year-old said “I prefer to remain silent.” After 12 hours of hearings, the judge ruled that Rios must stand trial on genocide charges over the deaths of some 1,771 people, part of the destruction of entire communities of Mayan indigenous groups during the country’s civil war. As noted in Monday’s post, even Rio’s appearance in court “is a victory for those who have sought to hold high-ranking military officials responsible for their abuses in the country’s civil war.”

A 20-story building and two others collapsed Wednesday in central Rio de Janeiro, with at least seven bodies recovered from the wreckage so far. Rescue workers are searching for another 20 people still missing amongst the rubble. The Wall Street Journal reports that it appears that the buildings were weakened by construction work, which may have been taking place without a permit and in violation of building codes. The tragedy is a massive setback for the image of the city, due to host the soccer World Cup and Olympics in the next four years. Rio Real blog notes the “shocking truth” that “ in Rio de Janeiro (and perhaps all of Brazil?), renovations are the full responsibility of the project engineer and the building owner. No government inspections are carried out– except for when the building first goes up.” It lists the other catastrophes Rio has seen in the last year, “exploding manhole covers, trolley, ferry and bus accidents, metro stoppages and electrical blackouts”, which are preventing the city reaching its full potential.

With more from Brazil, the Economist looks at the situation of the country’s Afro-descendents, who according to the 2010 census now makes up 51 percent of the population. The article reports that this group earns around half that of white people, on average, while a battle over affirmative action splits both the left and right wings of politics. Some argue that these schemes are themselves racist, dividing “a rainbow nation into arbitrary colour categories.” The Economist concludes that “A combination of stronger legal action against discrimination and quotas for social class in higher education to compensate for weak public schools may work better.”

The Economist also has a piece on why Nicaragua is one of the safest countries in Central America, despite its poverty. It notes that the country’s rejection of iron fist policies, with the mass jailing of gangs, may have been a factor, as this can backfire by providing a massive population of criminalized youths, as in neighboring countries like Honduras and Guatemala.

With more on the issue of gangs in Central America, the New York Times has an op-ed on Honduras, in which it argues that the US media generally attributes the violence in that country to the phenomena of gangs and drug trafficking, when in fact “the coup was what threw open the doors to a huge increase in drug trafficking and violence, and it unleashed a continuing wave of state-sponsored repression.” It highlights the murder of more than 300 people by state security forces since the coup, as reported by human rights group COFADEH, and of more than 13 journalists since President Lobo took power. This follows a spate of reports and opinion pieces in the US media on violence in Honduras, some of which provide valuable insights and some of which, as pointed out on yesterday's post, do not.

The Washington Post has a piece on the growing role of security contractors in Mexico as the drug war rages, their wages paid by US aid programs, the Mexican government, or private firms. However, as the report notes, tight gun laws mean they cannot legally carry arms.

Nicaragua has passed legal measures which impose greater penalties on those committing violent attacks against women. The country saw 76 females murdered in 2011.

The US government knew that the Argentine government was stealing babies from dissidents during the military dictatorship, according to testimony from a former diplomat.

Some 30 pounds of cocaine was delivered in fake diplomatic cases to the UN headquarters in New York. They had been sent from Mexico, and authorities think they went astray and ended up in the UN mailroom by mistake.

The Associated Press points out that presidential hopeful Mitt Romney rarely mentions his Mexican heritage, even when trying to woo Hispanic voters. His father was born in Mexico, and Romney still has relatives living in Chihuahua.

Gingrich Proposes Cold War Approach to Latin America

2012-01-26T07:05:00.000-08:00

Republican presidential candidate Newt Gingrich took a break from attacking GOP rival Mitt Romney yesterday to criticize President Obama on his Latin American policy. Speaking to an audience at Florida International University, Gingrich accused the Obama administration of not being doing enough to promote democracy in Cuba. “They worry about an Arab Spring in Egypt, where we give billions of dollars of aid every year, they worry about an Arab Spring in Syria,” said Gingrich. “I don’t think it’s occurred to a single person in the White House to look south and propose a Cuban Spring.”

He then proposed a more active approach to Cuba. Recalling the Cold War, Gingrich pointed to the Soviet containment policies adopted by Ronald Reagan, British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher and Pope John Paul II as examples of using “every non-military tool” to promote regime change.

The GOP candidate than turned to Venezuela, calling the Chavez government a “major growing problem.” He claimed that Chavez was facilitating an Iranian penetration into the region, and even warned of the potential for Iran to develop military bases “and other assets” in the hemisphere. Surprisingly, Gingrich evoked the Monroe Doctrine, saying that Iran’s influence in Latin America constituted the first overt violation of the 19^th century era policy since the 1820s.

This is not the first time that a presidential candidate in this election season has mentioned the Monroe Doctrine. At the CNN Foreign Policy Debate in November, Governor Rick Perry called for a “21st Century Monroe Doctrine” to be applied to the region.

Such inflammatory rhetoric coming from Gingrich, who some polls suggest may be the new Republican frontrunner, is alarming. For one thing, as detailed in the January 13^th Post, Iran’s influence in the country is extremely limited, and does not constitute a major security threat to the U.S. In his dire warning of Iranian penetration, he overlooked the recent tensions between Iran and Brazil, the emerging powerhouse in the region.

His proposal for Cuba is similarly off the mark. U.S. intervention in Cuba on the scale of its recent activities in Libya or Egypt would likely be widely unpopular. In fact, the long history of U.S. intervention is one of the main sources of support for the government in Cuba.

News Briefs

· On the same day as Gingrich’s speech, Fidel Castro had some harsh words for the Republican primary race, describing it as a “contest of idiocy and ignorance.” In a column published Wednesday on Cubadebate, the former Cuban leader said he was appalled by the way in which the candidates were competing to demonize the Cuban state. He also claimed that international media accounts of the death of political prisoner Wilman Villar have been largely untruthful.

· Argentine President Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner is back in office after receiving surgery to remove her thyroid gland. The Associated Press reports that the president signed a series of agreements with the country’s provinces as her first official act since temporary leaving office on January 4^th.

· According to the BBC, the backlash against a police eviction of more than 6,000 people from an illegal settlement in Sao Paulo continues to grow. Amnesty International has said the move violated "a raft of international standards.”

· A search of several congressional offices in Mexico has revealed several hidden listening devices. Although the specific congressmen who found bugs in their office has not been revealed, El Universal claims that lawmakers from all three major parties (PAN, PRI, and PRD) were wiretapped. Because the technology of the bugs appears to be slightly dated, officials believe that they may have been in place for years. It is not clear who is behind the wiretapping, but the Calderon administration denies having any part in it.

· A new report by U.S. security firm STRATFOR says the Zetas are the largest drug cartel in Mexico, controlling more than half of the states in the country. As InSight Crime has reported, Mexico crime analysts have been making this claim for a while, and it does not mean that the Zetas are more dominant than their rivals, the Sinaloa Cartel.

· Guatemala’s Prensa Libre reports that judges in the country have prohibited Marllory Dadiana Chacón Rosell and three other Guatemalan citizens from leaving the country after the U.S. government accused her of drug trafficking and money laundering. According to the U.S. Treasury Department, Chacon is “one of the most prolific narcotics traffickers in Central America.” The Guatemalan press has had a field day with the accusations, with elPeriodico even going so far as to call her the country’s “Narco Queen.”

· Venezuela’s attorney general, Carlos Escarra, passed away yesterday from a heart attack. Escarra was a longtime ally of Chavez and took part in writing the new Venezuelan constitution that was approved in 1999. More from Venezuela’s El Universal.

· The Chavez administration today announced that it had formally begun Venezuela’s withdrawal from the World Bank’s International Centre for Settlement of Investment Disputes. The AP says the government claims that the decision was made in order to “protect national sovereignty” in the face of several multi-million dollar claims from companies which have been nationalized.

· An electric surge in Costa Rica caused a blackout in neighboring Nicaragua on Tuesday night, leaving almost the entire country without power. Tensions are still high between the two countries after a 2010 border dispute, and the blackout incident has caused some to question whether it was in fact accidental, as Costa Rican officials claim.

· Michael Allison has an insightful response to yesterday’s Miami Herald editorial in which the paper called for the U.S. to “get serious” about the security situation in Honduras and Central America as a whole. According to him, the Herald overlook the role the U.S. played in militarizing the region during the civil wars of the 1970s and ‘80s, as well as the country’s continued support for corrupt governments like Honduras’.

El Salvador Accused of Militarizing Security

2012-01-25T06:43:00.001-08:00

El Salvador’s left-leaning President Mauricio Funes has angered many by appointing an army general to head the police force (PNC), which critics say is constitutionally defined as a civilian body. The move has stoked fears of a new militarization of El Salvador’s security apparatus.

The president’s choice of retired Major General Francisco Ramon Salinas Rivera stirred particular criticism amongst his own party, the FMLN. The party was formed from a coalition of guerrilla organizations which fought the 1980-1992 civil war against a military junta ruling the country.

The appointment of Salinas has caused an outcry because one of the conditions set out in the peace accords was the establishment of a civilian police force, and the dissolution of the old police bodies which were run by the defense ministry. As El Faro puts it;

For the first time in the history of the PNC a soldier is taking the reins of an institution which was conceived as separate from the military establishment responsible for the grave violations of human rights during and before the civil war.

El Faro notes that the police force is divided between those officers who came from the army and those who demobilized with the FMLN, with the FMLN-aligned faction arguing that the military lack the experience of policing work to head the organization.

This latest appointment follows Funes’ naming on November 22 of retired GeneralDavid Munguia Payes as minister of justice and public security. Munguia is the first military man to hold the position since the end of the war, and replaced a former FMLN guerrilla. Funes also dismissed the head of the State Intelligence Agency (OIE) in December, leaving as the acting head Colonel Simon Alberto Molina Montoya, a former advisor to Munguia. Another Munguia associate has now been appointed in his place, with Molina as deputy head. The Committee in Solidarity with the People of El Salvador (CISPES) comments that “Since Perdomo has no professional experience in the area of intelligence, many expect that active-duty Colonel Simon Molina Montoya, who is the newly-appointed 2nd in command of OIE, will be calling the shots.”

Taking these appointments together, El Faro comments that:

In two months the president has dismantled the civil scaffolding of the public security cabinet in order to bring in soldiers.

The president has responded to his critics by denying that a militarization is taking place, and implying that their objections are based on the political implications of his decisions, namely the removal of FMLN figure from high-ranking positions. He said that the discussion

may be revealing the loss of shares of power within institutions that need not be under the control of any particular party. The police are an apolitical body and respond to the interests of the state.

However, the warnings about a militarization of public security seem to be borne out by the new police director’s statements that, “It is necessary to use units of the navy in [troubled parts of the country] to restore order, econonmic activity, and reduce crime."

Some have accused Funes of acting at the beck and call of the US, with the FMLN’sRoberto Lorenzana commenting at the time of Munguia’s appointment “This was not a decision that the President made; he is simply a spokesperson. It’s a decision that was made somewhere in the US capital.” However, it is possible that it could also be related to Funes’ wish to assert his will against that of his party. As Al Jazeera reported, a diplomatic cable released by WikiLeaks commented that the previous security minister had been chosen more by FMLN “hardliners” than by Funes himself.

Funes has spoken in favor of bringing a more military element into security in order to battle the soaring rates of crime. As Just the Facts notes, the president has in recent months;

warned that the country is in a “new war” whose “enemy” is “strongly armed criminal bands.” Funes added that critics who worry about “militarization” have “prejudices” that are “anchored in the past.”

However, many disagree that bringing in the military is the solution to organized crime. Benjamin Cuellar of the Central American University told the BBC that "betting on the Armed Forces as a solution to our problems" would land El Salvador in a war on drugs which "is already lost and whose victims will be on our doorstep".

When Funes came to power in 2009, he was the first FMLN candidate to win the presidency since the party was formed in the peace deal that ended the civil war in 1992. The party was helped to power by Funes’ status as a moderate who had not fought in the war, unlike many of its members. However, this same independence now seems to be behind him taking steps to remove FMLN officials from power -- whether to follow his own agenda and shake up the security apparatus to bring about a safer El Salvador, or to follow the agenda of Washington.

News Briefs

Opposition politician Leopoldo Lopez has pulled out of the race for Venezuela’s presidency and placed his support behind Henrique Capriles. The opposition coalition MUD will hold a vote on February 12 to select a single candidate to go up against the towering President Hugo Chavez, and Capriles is currently in the lead. The Associated Press notes that Lopez had been lagging in the polls, but that his support will give a significant boost to Capriles' chances. This move will help the opposition, long viewed as divided and incapable of rallying behind a single candidate to beat Chavez, to have a chance of winning power in the October elections. One analyst quoted by the Wall Street Journal said that with Lopez’s pull-out, "It is almost a certainty that Henrique Capriles will face President Chavez in October's watershed elections."

Colombian rebel group the FARC have released the names of three military hostages who they say they will release in the coming days, some of whom have been held for over 12 years. This follows the rebels’ murder of four hostages amid a botched rescue attempt in November, and could be a good sign for peace, as the release of all hostages is the main condition placed by the Santos government before negotiations can begin. There are still several military and police hostages being held, and an unknown number of civilians.

Enrique Peña Nieto, front-runner in the Mexican presidential elections, has seen his reputation take another blow, when he admitted that he had had two children outside of his previous marriage. He said that they had been conceived during a “crisis” in relations with his wife, who died in 2007 leaving him with their three children. This will be a blow to the image of Peña Nieto, whose popularity is based in part on his image as a handsome young widower, who remarried to a soap actress three years after his wife's death. The mother of one of his children born outside of marriage went on Facebook to accuse him of being a bad father who does not know how many children he has

The New York Times Latitude blog has a piece on how Venezuela’s Chavez is using the distribution of social housing to win support. The author reports that: “Every resident I met on a visit last week expressed gratitude and support for Chavez. I didn’t hear the jittery, coerced support of a North Korean; I heard what sounded like deep personal affection for our leader -- coupled, I soon realized, with generalized disdain for the government he leads.”

Chavez suffered an embarrassment when his teenage daughter Rosines apparently posted a picture of herself online with her face partly concealed behind a fan of dollar bills, the trading of which is tightly controlled by her father’s government.

The New York Times reports that Brazil may be falling behind on its record of protecting the Amazon rainforest, granting more concessions to large-scale development projects and now putting forward a bill to reform the Forest Code.

The LA Times has an article on the curious case of Bogota’s disappearing manhole covers. The Colombian capital loses some 10,000, or 4 percent of its stock, each year, according to the report, and now one manufacturer has managed to track many to the city of Neiva, defying the mafias that deal in the stolen parts.

The Miami Herald comments on violence in Honduras, calling on the US government to take action against the wave of crime in that country, given that “elements of the U.S.-backed government are complicit in the violence and criminality.”

In the country’s latest step to bring about justice for the victims and perpetrators of abuses in the 1970s dictatorship, Uruguay’s president has approved a payment of more than half a million dollars for a woman who was taken from her dissident parents and illegally adopted, reports the Associated Press.

Colombia’s government has declared that it will not cancel a propsed expansion of the Fuero Militar, which allows military officials accused of human rights abuse to be tried in special military courts, despite criticisms from Human Rights Watch, reports Colombia Reports.

Mass Favela Eviction Highlights Squatters' Fight in Brazil

2012-01-24T06:04:00.000-08:00

The fallout continues from the mass eviction of thousands of families from Pinheirinho, a favela just outside of Sao Paulo, Brazil. The operation, which police initiated Sunday, saw violence continue Monday, as protesters blocked roads and burned vehicles. Some standoffs reportedly provoked a forceful response from the security forces, with police firing rubber bullets and tear gas, reports the Latin American Herald Tribune. According to the Guardian, 15 people have been arrested, while no deaths have yet been confirmed. Across Brazilian social media, some users called the event a “massacre,” but there is little evidence that this is the case. Al Jazeera has a video report from the region, while both the Guardian and Folha have interesting photo galleries displaying the homemade defense equipment used by Pinheirinho residents.

As the Guardian points out, land evictions are not unusual in Brazil, but the Pinheirinho case was striking for the number of people reportedly evicted -- some 6,000. The incident also calls attention to the issue of property redistribution and squatters’ rights in Brazil, where some 11.5 million people are thought to live in illegal or sub-standard housing,

Brazil has a significant housing deficit of between six to eight million houses, according to Habitat for Humanity. The housing shortage issue is a key cause for the Landless Workers’ Movement (MST), one of the largest social movements in Brazil and frequently described as one of the most successful land occupation movements in Latin America. Officially founded in 1984, the MST has reportedly taken over some 35 million acres in Brazil, settling over 370,000 families. The group plays a major role in defending squatters’ rights, and now claims to represent nearly 2 million landless people.

The organization condemned the Pinheirinho evacuation, but unlike other squatters’ communities which were organized by the MST, it is unclear whether the Pinheirinho settlement originally began as an informal MST encampment. According to reports, the area was first populated in 2002. The land is technically owned by a “bankrupt property company,” reports the BBC.

The Pinheirinho evictions may possibly become a key cause for the land reform movement in 2012. There have been questions over how influential the MST remains as a political force, especially given the success of government poverty reduction programs, like Bolsa Familia, initiated under President Lula da Silva. The MST has been highly involved in rural land reform issues in recent years, particularly the defense of small farmers as soybean and sugarcane agribusinesses continue to expand. Over the past decade, many of the most high-impact land occupations engineered by the MST were intended to protest the activities of agribusinesses like Monsanto. Still, there is a good chance the MST will become more prominently involved in the Pinheirinho cause, despite the fact the group is less associated with urban squatters’ movements at this point.

President Dilma Rousseff has not issued any formal statements on the Pinheirinho evictions. The outrage may not last long enough to put land reform back on the top of the presidential agenda. While the MST supported Rousseff’s presidential campaign, there is little sign so far that she will take a proactive approach towards housing or land issues. But the attention paid to the Pinheirinho riots could pressure her to do so. As detailed in a Mercopress report, six out of ten Brazilians are now thought to belong to the middle class. As the Pinheirinho violence indicates, such estimates may be a simplification, and for many Brazilians there is still a long way to go.

News Briefs

From the New York Times, indications of a small rift between Brazil and Iran. The former “top media advisor” to Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad told Folha that Rousseff “has been striking against everything that Lula accomplished.” Blogger Greg Weeks has some useful insight on the issue, noting: “As sanctions tighten, Iran really wants to showcase how it has ties to major countries like Brazil, but I wonder whether Rousseff wants to stick her neck out that far.”

The Associated Press on how authorities in Mexico unraveled a child trafficking ring that tried to supply Irish couples with babies.

Election intrigue from Mexico as an influential teachers’ union party has split from the PRI party, meaning rivals the PAN may quickly begin courting the party as a new coalition partner, the LA Times reports.

Through the Inter-American Dialogue, Current History has a long piece titled “The Shifting Landscape of Latin American Regionalism.” Bloggings by Boz has a four point summary of the article, which examines the role of regional organizations like the OAS and UNASUR, in light of greater Chinese economic influence in Latin America, as well as Brazil’s rise to power.

On a similar topic, China just lent Ecuador $1 billion, reports Bloomberg.

Foreign Policy has a brief note on the fall of Venezuela’s last military dictatorship 54 years ago.

Peruvian American writer Daniel Alarcon profiles life in a Lima prison for Harper’s.

For those with a subscription, the New Yorker reports on Tijuana’s efforts to refashion its image through its emerging restaurant scene.

For more long form journalism, Gatopardo has an extensive profile of former Tijuana mayor and alleged Tijuana Cartel associate Jorge Hank Rhon. The colorful mayor was arrested in 2011 on murder charges but managed to walk free.

From the Washington Post, a profile of Haiti’s efforts to recreate itself as a tourist destination.

Tim’s El Salvador Blog and Salon discuss allegations that Mick Romney’s private equity firm benefitted from wealthy Salvadoran families, some with links to death squads. “I'm not sure that taking money from the corrupt Salvadoran wealthy class to help them make money outside of the region makes someone a friend of Latin America,” Tim’s El Salvador Blog notes.

An editorial in the New York Times criticizes Ecuadorean President Rafael Correa and his combative approach to media criticism.

The United Nations is set to investigate allegations that UN personnel committed sexual abuse in Haiti. From Americas Quarterly.

Finally, the LA Times has a feature on the life of parking lot attendants in Mexico City.

Former Guatemalan Dictator to Address Genocide Allegations in Court

2012-01-23T06:44:00.000-08:00

On Saturday, a Guatemalan judge ordered General Efrain Rios Montt to appear in court this Thursday in relation to allegations that the former military dictator ordered the massacres of thousands of indigenous Guatemalans during his 1982-83 term. As the New York Times reports, during the 17 months of his rule, the Guatemalan military conducted a “scorched earth campaign” in its civil war against small groups of left-wing guerrillas, which resulted in entire villages in the Guatemalan highlands being slaughtered.

Although human rights groups have been accusing Rios Montt of ordering this brutal strategy for the past 29 years, this is the first time that he will have to appear in court because of it. He has been a member of Congress since 2000, which has given him immunity from prosecution. However, this immunity ended when his term expired this month.

While his appearance in court alone is a victory for those who have sought to hold high-ranking military officials responsible for their abuses in the country’s civil war, there is still no guarantee that the former de facto leader of Guatemala will be brought to trial. After he appears in court on Thursday, the judge will have to decide whether or not there is sufficient evidence to try Rios Montt on genocide charges. While prosecutors have told the Associated Press that they are confident the case will move forward, Rios Montt’s lawyer told the Prensa Libre that he is “sure there is no responsibility, since he was never on the battlefield.”

However, the Times notes that “military documents have shown that the military was operating under a rigid chain of command,” in which field intelligence was transmitted up the chain of command to top military commanders. For instance, a 1982 intelligence report leaked in 2009 supports this claim, suggesting that rural massacres were in fact a deliberate, well-documented element of counterinsurgency strategy at the time.

News Briefs

· Both this Sunday’s Miami Herald and McClatchy feature insightful articles on the state of organized crime in Honduras, which is heavily linked to police corruption. The Herald uses the recent killing of ex-deputy drug czar Gustavo Alfredo Landaverde, who made waves by accusing the police in the country of widespread collusion with criminals, as proof that it is dangerous to say that “elements of the Honduran National Police are closely tied to drug cartels which, in turn, are protected by politicians, judges and prosecutors.” McClatchy meanwhile focuses more specifically on the connections between police and organized crime groups, reporting that “in Honduras entire units of the national police appear to work for drug and crime groups, preying on the public and gunning down foes.”

· The Associated Press reports that the family of a 20 year-old Honduran man who was denied asylum in the United States and later killed by gangs is petitioning the U.S. government to provide posthumous asylum. According to the family’s lawyer, the petition is an attempt to get the government to recognize that the “entire system let him down”

· An unidentified gunman in Mexico’s southern Guerrero state killed thirteen people on Saturday, among them were eight people attending a funeral for a shooting victim.

· The Wall Street Journal reports on the center-left candidate in Mexico’s upcoming July presidential elections, Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador. While he has long been known as a populist firebrand in the country, Lopez Obrador appears to be moderating his tone, courting business interests by promising to break up powerful monopolies in the country.

· After a year in which he seemed both politically and physically weakened, Venezuela’s Hugo Chavez appears to have beaten cancer and is back to his controversial self. The New York Times reports on Chavez’s ongoing self-reassertion into Venezuelan politics, which is taking place in an election year. But while the Times reports that “popular discontent with his government has grown,” a series of polls in late December suggest that Chavez remains more popular than his opposition.

· Human Rights Watch released its World Report 2012 on Sunday, in which the organization accuses the U.S. of not enforcing human rights conditions on aid to Colombia. The report notes that “Thirty percent of US military aid is subject to human rights conditions, which the US Department of State has not enforced.”

· The Ladies in White, a prominent Cuban opposition group, has blamed the state for the Thursday death of Wilman Villar Mendoza, a political prisoner who died of health complications related to a hunger strike. The Cuban government has denied any responsibility for the death, and claimed that it took all the appropriate measures to try to save him. It also claimed that Villar was not imprisoned because of his political activities, but rather because he physically assaulted his wife.

· The Wall Street Journal takes a look at the growing crack epidemic in Brazil, which is partially fueled by regional drug traffickers’ desire to expand the market for their product elsewhere. President Dilma Rousseff has said her government will spend around $2.5 billion by 2014 to fight crack use around the country, but it is unclear whether that will be enough to curb the growing demand for the drug.

· Police in Sao Paulo have broken up a community held by landless workers on the outskirts of the city, displacing some 6,000 residents according to the BBC. The site had been established following a 2002 land invasion, and had since developed into a bustling neighborhood, complete with shops and churches.

Haiti Police Convicted of Prison Massacre in Rare Victory for Justice

2012-01-20T02:01:00.000-08:00

In a development which highlighted the impact of a 2010 investigation published by the New York Times, a Haitian judge found eight policemen guilty of using excessive force to quell a prison riot.

The verdict was described as a historical step forward for rule of law in Haiti, where the criminal justice system has little capacity to prosecute and convict offenders, especially if they are members of the security forces. The decision should rightfully be treated as a small victory for Haiti's dysfunctional justice system. But the real test is whether the courts will uphold the verdict or whether the convictions will later be overturned, as typically happens with cases involving high-profile defendants.>

The guilty police officers only came under public scrutiny after the New York Times published an in-depth report on a prison massacre that took place in Les Cayes city. Just days after the January 2010 earthquake, inmates rioted in an overcrowded penitentiary, after wardens refused them the right to sleep in the more spacious prison courtyard. A group of inmates then tried to escape and during the ensuing chaos, police shot at least 12 detainees and wounded dozens more.

The Times investigative piece later prompted the creation of a joint United Nations commission, which found the police had indiscriminately fired upon the inmates. After a court in Les Cayes began processing charges against 13 police officers involved in the massacre, the case became a symbol for the many problems riddling Haiti’s criminal justice system.

Thursday’s verdict was unusual just for being issued at all. During the three-month trial, the judge trying the case received threats, while at least 21 police officers implicated in the massacre fled the country, reports the AP. Even after the ruling was issued, the lead prosecutor in the case described the decision as “not satisfying,” a view echoed by other human rights activists. Haiti’s ombudsman told the Times that had the eight defendants been civilians instead of police officers, “they would have gotten life.”

For the Les Cayes case to significantly bolster public confidence in the judicial system, the eight guilty police officers may actually have to complete their sentences. As the AP points out, during the last case involving high-profile defendants, in which paramilitaries were tried for massacring civilians in 2001, the verdicts were issued and later overturned.

The other case which would really test Haiti’s capacity for rule of law is the investigation and prosecution of former dictator Jean Claude Duvalier. Compared to the Les Cayes case, a Duvalier trial would be a particularly drawn-out and polarizing affair. But it would provide the landmark case needed to truly prove that no public official, not even “Baby Doc,” may avoid the rule of law. Still, such advances in the justice system looks years and years away, and the Les Cayes ruling is but a hiccup in the right direction.

News Briefs

Andrew Selee at the Woodrow Wilson Center’s Mexico Institute lays out the top five questions for Mexico and US-Mexico relations in 2012, from the outcome of the presidential elections (both north and south of the border) to Mexico’s slow recovery from the global recession. Elsewhere, the Economist critiques the few accomplishments of Mexico’s Congress during President Felipe Calderon’s term.

Colombian think-tank Nuevo Arco Iris has an insightful report on an area described as the second most-conflicted war zone in Colombia: Catatumbo, Northern Santander. Only the southwest department of Cauca, where FARC commander alias “Alfonso Cano” was killed last November, registered more violent attacks than Catatumbo in 2011, according to Nuevo Arco Iris’ count. As detailed by Verdad Abierta, Catatumbo saw eight violent incidents in the past two weeks alone, most consisting of attacks against the police. Nuevo Arco Iris argues that because Cano’s heir, alias “Timochenko,” has traditionally been based in departments like Northern Santander which border Venezuela, this means the FARC are more likely to replicate in Catatumbo the same war strategies so successfully deployed in Cauca. These include constant hit-and-run attacks and usage of IEDs against government forces, in order to protect the FARC security rings charged with sheltering the top command, in this case, Timochenko. Verdad Abierta notes that because large plots of coca are still found in Catatumbo, this could entice criminal bands like the Urabeños to try to enter this region, traditionally controlled by the guerrillas, and thus incite more violence.

From San Antonio News, an article gives a rare detailed description of the training grounds used by Mexican cartel the Zetas, based on court testimony by a former hitman. In these training camps, Zeta recruits were forced to prove their dedication by killing people, those who could not do so were assigned to work as lookouts, know colloquially as “halcones.”

The Nation has a long piece worth reading, vividly arguing that the influx of US investment and trade in Mexico spurred the displacement of thousands; these undocumented migrants then allowed US companies to reap even greater profits by working for low wages and no union rights on US soil. The article focuses on meat-packing company Smithfield, whose North Carolina factories relied heavily on migrant labor until the migrants tried to mobilize with the local union. South of the border, Smithfield’s subsidiary Granjas Carrol also employed thousands of farmers left out of work because of NAFTA policies. The two meat-packing firms are classic examples for how companies took advantage of US economic and immigration policy, spurring up migration rates and only cracking down on unlicensed workers once they were faced with popular resistance, according to the Nation.

Chile has withdrawn a law which would have allowed police to use media images as potential evidence to lead to convictions. Critics said such legislation would basically turn photographers and video journalists into walking targets, if their work could be forcefully turned over to police without a court order. The AP reports that Chilean legislators backed off from pushing through the reform even as other countries, like Ecuador and Argentina, have recently pursued policies described as threatening to press freedoms. The proposed measure is part of a wider package of reforms currently floating in Chilean Congress, all intended to make it harder for protesters to occupy public spaces and easier for authorities to prosecute those who promote “public disorder.”

Caracas Chronicles has an entertaining opinion piece endorsing Venezuela presidential contender Henrique Capriles. The post lays out five reasons why Capriles is Venezuela’s strongest opposition candidate, and also provides some helpful background on Capriles’ political experience and his campaign strategy so far.

The Guardian’s Comment is Free section debates whether Ecuador is “the most radical and exciting place on earth.”

The US Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control blacklisted a major lottery company in Guatemala, the AP reports. According to El Periodico, the lottery company’s Facebook page boasts of creating more than 2,700 jobs, and distributing $2 million in lottery winnings in the past three years.

The AP reports on the findings by a Venezuelan prison watchdog group, which counted 560 killings in penitentiaries last year. Another 1,457 inmates were injured in riots, the group reported. This may be the most only available count of prison deaths in Venezuela, as the government does not release its own statistics.

The Independent has an interesting post looking at a proposal in Honduras which would dictate the creation of new charter cities, but would prevent them from democratically electing city councils up to a certain point. The blog post calls this an “undemocratic approach to development” and compares the approach with other tactics seen in Greece and Italy.

Development blog Triple Crisis has a detailed report on the controversial Goldcorp mining project in Guatemala, deeply unpopular with the resident indigenous communities. The Canadian mining giant has sparked indigenous movement protests for years, even though the company argues that it has brought benefits like jobs, schools and a clinic to the area. Triple Crisis examines the data and concludes “there is little evidence of any lasting development benefits.” Another case of mining and development is discussed in NACLA, concerning the Conga mine project in Cajamarca, Peru. Anti-mining protests in this region prompted President Ollanta Humala to declare a state of emergency last year and reshuffle many posts in his cabinet.

The Miami Herald reports on the closure of an oil refinery in the Virgin Islands, a top customer of Venezuela’s state oil company. This blocks Venezuela from refining hundreds of thousands of barrels of crude oil, and could prompt a shortage of the fuel supply inside the country, according to the Herald.

Mexico City No Longer Spared Ravages of Drug Violence

2012-01-19T06:36:00.001-08:00

The New York Times has a report on the expansion of Mexico’s drug war to parts of the country previously considered safe, including areas to the interior and south, far from the US border.

Despite the headline-grabbing ferocity of drug violence in Mexico, the country as a whole has in recent years seen murder rates considerably lower than many others in Latin America. Many media reports use the narrative that the worst battles of the drug war have now shifted from Colombia to Mexico, Colombia having cleaned up its act in the 2000s. However, the murder rate in Colombia remains significantly higher, at around 30 per 100,000 in 2011, compared to under 20 in Mexico.

Part of the reason for this is that Mexico has isolated pockets where violence is extremely high -- border city Juarez has famously been one of the world’s most dangerous cities for several years, with murder rates topping 200 per 100,000. Meanwhile other areas have lower murder rates, famously, than many US cities.

The murder rate in Mexico City, for example, has hovered for the last few years around 8 per 100,000, and the capital has long been considered to be relatively exempt from cartel wars. The NYT notes that this may be changing, with the recent discovery of two severed heads near an upscale shopping mall, and reports on a 30 percent rise in homicide rates in Mexico State, which borders the capital. The NYT compares this to outbreaks of violence in Guadalajara and Veracruz, “two other cities considered safe just six months ago,” and in the Pacific beach resort city of Acapulco.

CNN also has a report which asks if Mexico City could be the “next target” of the cartel war. It quotes Ana Maria Salazar, a former Pentagon counternarcotics official, who says "Mexico City, for whatever reason, has not been a battleground … It could very easily become that." Another analyst who spoke to the network mentioned one factor that contributes to the lower violence rates:

the capital has a strong police force that is easier to control and harder to corrupt than local forces in Mexico's 31 states, where notoriously low salaries and unclear command structures have allowed drug cartels to make significant inroads.

CNN notes that the federal forces would simply not tolerate high rates of violence in the nation’s capital, while, as InSight Crime has reported “There is a great deal of anecdotal evidence to suggest the existence of a tacit understanding among the most powerful drug lords to treat the capital as a neutral territory, free to all.”

This could be coming to an end, with the encroachment into Mexico City and State of a group known as the Mano con Ojos (Hand with Eyes), which is thought to be responsible for the severed heads recently found in the city. The growing insecurity could have a negative impact on the presidential chances of Enrique Peña Nieto, frontrunner for the July elections, who has made the relative safety of Mexico State, where he was governor until September, a feature of his campaign.

Meanwhile, as formerly safe zones become more turbulent, murder rates have fallen in some parts of the border region, where the violence has in the last few years been most intense. Juarez finally saw something of a turnaround in 2011, dropping to the position of second most dangerous city in the world, with homicides below 150 per 100,000. However, as the NYT points out;

Mexican officials say the decrease is proof that they are making headway, but analysts say it may have more to do with one rival group’s defeat of another, reducing competition and the bloodshed that comes with it.

According to the NYT’s analysis, the broadening of violence into previously calm areas reflects “a widening turf war between two of the biggest criminal organizations in the country” -- the Zetas and the Sinaloa Cartel. The Zetas, according to recent reports, are expanding their presence to more than 70 percent of the country, bringing them into conflict with the criminal groups that previously held those areas.

However, it can be difficult to ascribe meaning or explanations to the shifts in killings. As the NYT puts it:

Discerning patterns of violence in the drug war can be perilous; it is often like a tornado skipping across terrain, devastating one area while leaving another untouched.

A new report by Southern Pulse, "Beyond 2012," fits with this analysis, predicting that the conflict will grow ever more fragmented, with street gangs taking a larger rolerelative to old, monolithic players like the Zetas and the Sinaloa Cartel.

News Briefs

The Wall Street Journal has a piece on the case of Alan Gross, a US contractor who has been in prison in Cuba for more than two years accused of aiding dissidents. It notes that his case “is helping to ensure Washington's relationship with Havana stays frozen in Cold War ice,” with Republican politicians using the case to argue against President Obama’s steps towards rolling back sanctions against the regime. The Associated Press reports on the emergence of new details of the case against Gross, with the leak of a document purporting to be a court filing, which says the authorities had been tracking him since 2004. The accused’s lawyer responded that “The trial evidence cited in the document confirms that Alan’s actions were intended to improve the Internet and Intranet connectivity of Cuba’s small, peaceful, non-dissident, Jewish community,” not to undermine the Cuban government. As one analyst told the WSJ: “"Ironically, if [Gross] had worked for the CIA, the levers to get him out would almost certainly have been pulled by now."

The Miami Herald has an opinion piece on the economic boom in Panama, arguing that dissatisfaction with President Ricardo Martinelli and his moves to concentrate power are putting a dampener on outlooks on the country’s growing prosperity. Andres Oppenheimer reports that, despite the fact that the country is predicted to be the biggest growing economy in Latin America in 2011, with a 6.8 percent expansion, there is “growing political turmoil over Martinelli’s strong-armed ruling style, which many fear will lead to an autocratic state with no checks and balances, more corruption, capital flight and economic decline.”

The New York Times has an engaging feature on the homes of Mexican drug traffickers, with Damien Cave visiting many houses vacated by (alleged) capos. One interesting point he makes is that some of these residences are not as flashy as the stereotype narco-home; “as conflicts have increased among the cartels, and as the Mexican and American governments have tried harder to crack down on trafficking, drug lords have been keeping a lower profile, buying existing houses rather than building obvious, ostentatious houses from scratch.”

With more on the country’s conflict, InSight Crime has a piece on decoding the murder rituals of the Mexican drug trafficker, which looks at the case of a policeman burnt alive in Juarez in December. It says that while the killing is due in part to the new equilibrium being struck between battling drug gangs in the city, the hideous nature of its execution tells us something; “this violence always has a point, and generates pleasure. Narco-horror is becoming a type of narco-snuff, because the criminals enjoy killing and putting the results on display in public places where the other war is fought -- the media war.”

The Latin American Herald Tribune reports that the US is planning to impose tougher penalties on people attempting to cross the Mexican border, including transferring them hundreds of miles to other parts of the border, in an effort to break their links with guides who helped them cross. This policy could put attempted migrants in far greater danger, if they are deposited in an area where they have no connections and are at the mercy of Mexican drug gangs.

The LA Times reports on the plight of Mexico’s Tarahumara indigenous community, who are facing a food crisis, as noted in yesterday’s post. The newspaper says that it took false reports that 50 members of the group had committed mass suicide over the famine, before the crisis got publicity and aid began to flow.

Puerto Ricans are set to vote in a referendum on getting rid of dozens of lawmakers who have been accused of corruption and drug use. The Associated Press says the US territory is likely to approve the measures, that would reduce the size of Congress by almost 30 percent.

UK Prime Minister David Cameron has accused Argentina’s government of “colonialism” for its attempts to claim sovereignty over the Falklands Islands, or the Malvinas. The Kirchner government has shot back, pointing out that the UK itself is "synonymous with colonialism".

Teachers in northern Colombia are being targeted by criminal groups, who have killed 20 in Cordoba province in less than three years. A report in the UK’s Times Educational Supplement says that some 4,000 children in the province may be unable to finish the school year, due to the lack of teachers. Many have been forced to flee by the violence, which is linked to extortion and to the teachers’ ties to unions.

Colombian football authorities are under investigation after apparently paying a shaman $2,000 to perform magic rituals to stop rain blighting the closing ceremony of last year’s Fifa U-20 World Cup. “A dark joke doing the rounds in the capital, Bogota, asks why the shaman was not also hired to minimise the impact of the last rainy season, which killed 477 people and affected some 2.6 million Colombians,” reports the BBC.