Mexican states approve National Guard reforms (March 7, 2019)

Mexico's lower chamber of Congress will validate constitutional amendments creating a National Guard today, after 19 state legislatures approved reforms passed last month. At least 17 state's lawmakers had to approve the National Guard law that creates a militarized police force with civilian command. The proposal is one of President Andrés Manuel López Obrador's signature policies. It originally created a heavily militarized force under the command of the ministry of defense, but was significantly modified in response to civil society concerns over potential human rights violations. 

The initial goal for this year is to recruit 50,000 members, which will include members of the current security forces, and create 87 new bases around the country.

(Jornada, El Universal, Animal Político, AFP, see last Friday's post)

More from Mexico

• AMLO's Morena party presented a bill in Congress that would regulate ratings agencies, reports Animal Político. The move comes after Standard & Poor’s slashed Mexican ratings on Monday -- a move AMLO characterized as punishment for his predecessors' neo-liberal policies. (See Tuesday's briefs.)

• Organizations of civil society say AMLO's government lacks a clear human rights strategy so far. (Animal Político)

• With El Chapo behind bars for the foreseeable future, Mexico's current drug trafficking kings are the Sinaloa Cartel’s Ismael Zambada García, alias “El Mayo,” and the leader of the Jalisco Cartel New Generation, Nemesio Oseguera Cervantes, alias “El Mencho," according to Sin Embargo. (InSight Crime in English)

News Briefs

Venezuela

• U.S. special envoy for Venezuela, Elliot Abrams dismissed the possibility of U.S. military intervention in Venezuela, but said the administration has sought to keep the option on the table in order to pressure the Venezuelan government. He admitted as much in a prank call with Russian comedians posing as Swiss officials, reports the Associated Press. Abrams says in the recording that the U.S. doesn't plan to use force in Venezuela unless the government does something "completely crazy" like attack the American Embassy.

• Venezuela's opposition-led National Assembly might consider a bill that would authorize "military peace interventions," reports Efecto Cocuyo. While the opposition has been open to foreign intervention to oust Maduro, the international community has been largely against it. (See Feb. 26's post)

• The Trump administration is upping pressure on legitimacy-challenged President Nicolás Maduro's government. Yesterday it announced it would revoke the visas of 77 more people associated with Maduro, including government officials and their relatives. Last week the U.S. revoked 49 visas, in addition to several rounds of economic sanctions against the Venezuelan government. (BBC and Associated Press) The Trump administration also warned foreign financial institutions that they will face U.S. sanctions if they engage in transactions benefiting the Venezuelan government of Nicolás Maduro, reports the Washington Post.

• Pressure on the Maduro administration in Venezuela grows daily, but part of the problem is that it is largely coming from international actors. These in turn "are torn between their desire to defend democracy in Venezuela while easing the crisis there, and their intense opposition to the saber rattling by the administration of U.S. President Donald Trump," argues Joseph Tulchin in a GIS piece analyzing the Venezuela crisis.

• The Venezuelan government gave German ambassador Daniel Kriener 48 hours to leave the country, accusing him of meddling in internal affairs, reports the BBC. Kriener was part of a group of diplomats that accompanied opposition leader Juan Guaidó on his reentry to the country on Monday. (See Tuesday's post.)

• A U.S. freelance journalist living in Venezuela was detained yesterday and will reportedly be deported. His Venezuelan assistant was also detained and then released, according to the New York Times. It's the latest of a series of brief detentions of foreign correspondents, notably Univisión's Jorge Ramos last week. (See Feb. 26's post.)

• Officially Brazil rejects a military conflict with Venezuela. But recent clashes over humanitarian aid on the border between the two countries raises the real potential for conflict, argue Robert Muggah and Adriana Abdenur in the Conversation.

• Guaidó named Harvard University economist Ricardo Hausmann as the country’s representative to the Inter-American Development Bank (IADB) earlier this week. (Reuters)

Haiti

• Haiti's current wave of anti-government protests represents "a larger crisis of faith, not just with the current government, but also with the neoliberal state and perhaps even democracy itself," argues Greg Beckett in NACLA.

• Despite weeks of violent protests in February, U.N. Secretary General António Guterres is recommending a U.N. police force end its mission as planned in October. (AFP)

Amnesty

• Amnesty bills under discussion in El Salvador and Guatemala would grant impunity to war criminals charged with human rights violations committed during each of the Central American countries' long civil conflicts -- but opposition is growing against both initiatives. (Al Jazeera, see yesterday's briefs on El Salvador, and  Feb. 25's on Guatemala)

• The proposal under consideration in El Salvador would grant absolute amnesty for grave crimes committed during the country’s armed conflict in the 1980s and early 1990s, reports the Associated Press. It would effectively replace a law overturned by the Supreme Court in 2016.

Brazil

• Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro tweeted a crude video in which one man urinates on another's head, allegedly at a Carnival party. The president intended to show debauchery he said has become commonplace during celebrations, but reactions were mostly in rejection of his tweet and allegations, reports the New York Times. (See yesterday's briefs.)

• Brazil's indigenous affairs agency is organizing a rare, high-risk expedition to mediate between two isolated tribes. (Associated Press)

Peru

• A drop in coffee prices has created a coca boom in Peru. (InSight Crime)

Argentina

• Most of Argentina's public schools did not start the year off on time yesterday, in the midst of a three day strike by teachers demanding wage increases to keep up with 47 percent inflation. (Reuters)

Archeology

• It appears a 15th century ritual massacre of 140 children (and 200 llamas) may have been a response to extreme weather. (New York Times)

Correction: A Reuters piece cited in yesterday's briefing incorrectly said Salvadoran lawmakers suspended a Supreme Court judge accused of sexually abusing a 10-year-old girl. In fact the judge in question, Eduardo Jaime Escalante Díaz, served in a lower court. (El Diario de Hoy)

Latin America Daily Briefing