JOH allegedly took $25,000 from a drug trafficker (March 4, 2020)

U.S prosecutors said Honduran President Juan Orlando Hernández met a drug trafficker around 2013 and took $25,000 in exchange for protecting the trafficker from law enforcement. Prosecutors have not charged Hernández, nor named him directly, instead referring to him elliptically, reports the Associated Press. The Honduran president’s office rejected the claim in Twitter statement. Hernández has repeatedly denied earlier allegations of connections to traffickers. (See also Washington Post.)

The trafficker in question is Geovanny Daniel Fuentes Ramires, who was arrested at Miami International Airport on Sunday as he attempted to leave the United States, on charges of conspiring to import cocaine into the U.S. and related weapons charges.

Fuentes allegedly reported directly to former Honduran congressman Tony Hernandez Alvarado -- President Hernández's brother -- who was found guilty in New York last year of drug trafficking and faces sentencing next month, reports Univisión. Court documents say JOH and Fuentes agreed “to facilitate the use of Honduran armed forces personnel as security” for Fuentes’ drug-trafficking activities. It also said that Hernández instructed Fuentes that his brother, Hernández Alvarado, “was managing drug-trafficking activities in Honduras and that Fuentes should report directly to Hernández Alvarado for purposes of drug trafficking.”

JOH enjoys effective immunity as a foreign head of state, but could face prosecution at the end of his current mandate in 2022. The arrest could strengthen the case for a possible future indictment, according to Univisión.

News Briefs

Guyana

• Preliminary results are trickling in for Guyana's Monday election -- updates at Stabroek News.

• Guyana's electoral authority still hasn't delivered a final result after Monday's general election -- an expected delay that is nonetheless causing anxiety in the midst of a tight race and disparate rumors of results, reports Stabroek News. 

• The Guyana Elections Commission (GECOM) blamed a number of factors, including inclement weather in one of the regions, for a further delay in announcing the complete preliminary results, yesterday, reports the Caribbean Media Corporation.

• But the underlying problem is "the archaic system set up to serve its 600,000 plus voters," according to some observers. (News Americas News)

Venezuela

• "Venezuela is not an idea. It is a real place, full of real people who are undergoing an unprecedented and in some ways very eerie crisis. If it symbolizes anything at all, it is the distorting power of symbols. In reality, the country offers no comfort for youthful Marxists or self-styled anti-imperialists—or for fans of Donald Trump," writes Anne Applebaum in the Atlantic.

• A new Wilson Center report looks at Russia's ongoing engagement with Venezuela. Russian scholar Vladimir Rouvinski argues that Russian involvement in Venezuela has “laid bare the many limitations of Russian policy,” not only a shortage of financial resources but also the weak governance capacity of the chavista government. According to the report, Russian political and security elites view the Venezuelan situation through the lens of a “global process in which Russia struggles to ensure its just place in the international arena,” thwarting attempts by Western powers to reduce its political and economic autonomy.

• The Spanish government approved the extradition of Venezuela's former military intelligence chief Hugo Carvajal to the United States, yesterday, where he faces charges of drug and weapon trafficking -- Reuters.

• Venezuela’s judiciary has moved to seize the assets of six private shipping agencies over debts to state oil company Petroleos de Venezuela, reports Reuters.

Guatemala

• The United States deported former Guatemalan special forces soldier Gilberto Jordán back to Guatemala yesterday, where he was immediately arrested on domestic charges related to the 1982 massacre at Las Dos Erres. International Justice Monitor.

Brazil

• A Brazilian journalistic investigation tied  the world’s biggest meat company JBS, and its rival Marfrig, to a farm whose owner is implicated in the 2017 “Colniza massacre” in which nine men were brutally murdered. The report sheds light on the broader practice of "cattle laundering," when cattle from a farm that has environmental issues sells cattle to a “clean” farm. This gets around monitoring systems because meat companies including JBS do not monitor these “indirect suppliers," explains the Guardian.

• The number of young people with HIV in Brazil is on the rise -- and black people are particularly affected. People in São Paulo's favelas have little support, but the Guardian profiles the efforts of one determined team in Boi Malhado.

Nicaragua

• Nicaragua's Ortega government still has 61 political prisoners in detention, according to rights groups -- Confidencial.

Women's Rights

• Mexicans are outraged at "the pervasiveness of gender-based violence in their country and the failure of the government to take the issue seriously enough to work to end it," writes José Miguel Vivanco in the Los Angeles Times. "... Likeminded governments need to pay close attention to the disconnect between Mexico's rhetoric on the international stage and its inaction domestically to meaningfully act to prevent and respond to gender-based violence ..."

• Justice for gender violence doesn't just mean sentences, it means ensuring access to a quick and effective judicial process -- Letras Libres.

Chile

• If the perception that Chile's model has failed takes hold, Latin America will lose a reference point that served as an example of its development possibilities, writes Aquiles Esté in the New York Times Español. "And the risk is great: Chile could join the Latin American drift which has allowed itself to be seduced by messianic populism, with its remainder of political, economic and institutional fragility."

Did I miss something, get something wrong, or do you have a different take? Let me know ... 

Latin America Daily Briefing