El Salvador heads to landmark legislative elections (Feb. 26, 2021)

 Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele is poised to capture a large congressional majority in Sunday's legislative and municipal elections. Salvadorans will elect all 84 members of the national Legislative Assembly, local officials in 262 municipalities, and 20 members of the Central American Parliament. Bukele's Nuevas Ideas party is polling at 64.7 percent of the vote. It is the first time it will compete. (AS/COAS) Observers and surveys suggest the election could remake the country’s political landscape, reports the Associated Press.

This Sunday could prove to be the culmination that began with the Bukele’s ascent to the presidency in 2019, and the definitive fracturing of the political system, which was dominated for decades by the two former ruling parties, Arena and the FMLN — both with roots in the Salvadoran civil war of the 1980’s, reports El Faro. Arena and the FMLN, the two political parties that dominated El Salvador’s political scene since the signing of the 1992 Peace Accords, are on life-support, writes Oscar Pocasangre at El Faro also.

Bukele has governed without a significant parliamentary bloc since taking office a year and a half ago, and has posited himself as a political outsider from the country's traditional parties. Securing two-thirds of congressional seats would allow Bukele to name Supreme Court judges and the attorney general, making him the most powerful Salvadoran leader since the return of democracy three decades ago, according to Bloomberg.

Bukele is extremely popular, despite criticisms from civil society and international rights groups that he is eroding the country's democratic institutions. The popular sentiment is that Bukele is the balm to all of El Salvador’s ails, and the greatest stumbling block in his march toward progress is any political opposition, explains El Faro.

Bukele's campaign for his Nuevas Ideas party has largely advocated sweeping out corrupt political elites, in favor of lawmakers who work with the president, whatever his eventual agenda is, writes Carlos Dada in El Faro. But though the vote is democratic, the government is less so, warns Dada. "This is one of the paradoxes of democratic representation: that, through the vote, a legitimate democratic mechanism, citizens open the door to antidemocratic and corrupt regimes."

Jose Miguel Vivanco, the Americas director for Human Rights Watch, fears that Bukele’s power play could be a move to capture institutions and change the constitution to extend his mandate. “Bukele is following the classic populist script, dividing citizens between unconditional supporters and enemies, and intimidating adversaries,” he told Bloomberg's Mac Margolis.

More El Salvador

• Fraud is unlikely in the election, though technological issues could delay results, writes Tim Muth in El Faro.

• Erick Iván Ortiz is the first openly gay man running for political office in El Salvador. The country is so homophobic he fears taking his campaign to the streets during daytime, and feels forced to do it at night in gay clubs, reports Vice News.

• El Salvador sits at the intersection of several of the White House’s foreign policy priorities: migration, security, corruption and democracy, meaning that how the Biden administration reacts to Bukele's authoritarian slide will be critical, write Michael Paarlberg and Ricardo J. Valencia in the Washington Post.

News Briefs

Haiti

• At least seven prisoners and a police officer were killed and another person injured yesterday after several inmates, including one of Haiti’s most powerful gang leaders, escaped from a prison in Port-au-Prince. About 40 prisoners were apprehended after the riot at the Croix-des-Bouquets Civil Prison. It is not known how many prisoners in total had escaped. (New York Times)

Migration

• Lawyers working to reunite immigrant parents and children separated by the U.S. Trump administration reported that they have found the parents of 105 children in the past month. They have yet to find the parents of 506 children, of whom 322 are believed to have been deported. The Biden administration recently formed a task force that will place the responsibility of finding and reuniting the families separated by the Trump administration, reports NBC. (See Feb. 2's post.)

• Venezuelan migrants are making significant economic contributions across the region, reports the Wall Street Journal. In the short term, governments must shoulder the costs of emergency food, shelter and health services for migrants. But the IMF projects that as they find jobs, pay taxes and increase consumption, Venezuelan migrants could raise the gross domestic product of their host countries by between 0.1% and 0.3% between 2017 and 2030.
  

Vaccines

• "Vaccine equity has become Covid-19's defining issue," write Trinidad and Tobago Prime Minister Keith Rowley and WHO head Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus in CNN. "To date, richer countries with bigger budgets have struck bilateral deals with vaccine manufacturers, securing hundreds of millions of doses before other countries have had a chance. This has sent a worrying message that the health of those in developed countries is worth more than those in other parts of the world."

• South Americans are increasingly angry at their governments as inoculation campaigns have spiraled into scandal, cronyism and corruption, rocking national governments and sapping trust in the political establishment. Prosecutors Peru, Argentina, Ecuador Brazil, are examining thousands more accusations of irregularities in inoculation drives, most of them involving local politicians and their families cutting in line, reports the New York Times.

• El Hilo podcast on vaccine scandals in the region.

• Millions of AstraZeneca vaccines produced in Argentina are in Mexican warehouses, and cannot be used due to lack of supplies used to finish the jabs, like filters, sterile bags and excipients, reports El País.

Covid-19

• An article in Nature highlights how Argentine scientists and technologists have contributed by leading basic and translational research initiatives, including developing diagnostic and serological kits, designing new therapeutic approaches, establishing epidemiological platforms, executing clinical trials and implementing social measures to protect the most vulnerable groups of the population. (H/T Tomás Aguerre's Primera Mañana)

Honduras

• Honduras is likely to experience a series of crises in the coming months, ahead of presidential elections in November, as President Juan Orlando Hernández tries to manipulate electoral institutions and dodge domestic and international pressure, writes Boz at the Latin America Risk Report. 

• U.S. prosecutors accused Hernández of using Honduran law enforcement and military officials to protect drug traffickers as part of a plan “to use drug trafficking to help assert power and control in Honduras.” Hernández has denied the allegations. A group of U.S. lawmakers introduced a bill that would sanction JOH and start an investigation into the accusations. (See yesterday's briefs and Wednesday's post.)
  

Regional

• "For more than a century, Latin America has experienced a damaging combination of high inequality, poor economic performance and weak political institutions," writes Diego Sánchez-Ancochea in the Conversation. "This has contributed to persistent political volatility and social discontent."

• Andrés Velasco, a former finance minister of Chile now running LSE’s public policy school, said that “not every populist is a future dictator, but the seeds are often there.” He counts Nicaragua and El Salvador as well on the way to autocracy, Bolivia and Ecuador as existing in a grey zone, and Mexico and Brazil as facing the temptation of populism. (Politico Global Translations)
  

Regional Relations

• Argentine President Alberto Fernández's state visit to Mexico augurs well for regional progressive leadership by the two countries, argues Pedro Brieger at Nodal.  Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador and Fernández, declared an alliance against inequality in the region. (El País)

• Citgo is a pawn in a multi-pronged battle involving the U.S. government, Venezuela’s creditors and the Venezuelan opposition leader Juan Guaidó -- Xander Fong for the Wilson Center.

• The U.S. designation of Cuba as a State Sponsor of Terrorism will have few economic impacts, because the U.S. embargo on Cuba already prohibits trade with the island nation. But the legal ramifications will not be so easily remedied, warns Robert L. Muse at Global Americans. (See Jan. 12's post.)

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Latin America Daily Briefing

Vaccine diplomacy in Lat Am (Feb. 25, 2021)

 News Briefs

Regional Relations

• COVAX shipped out it's first batch of vaccine doses -- which went to Ghana. (WHO)

• Latin American countries are turning to China and Russia for coronavirus vaccines, pushed by scarcity of Western-developed jabs. The impact on regional relationships is likely to be significant, say experts. (Wall Street Journal)

• For the first time in 15 years, China’s two biggest policy banks — the China Development Bank (CDB) and the Export-Import Bank of China — made no new loans to the region in 2020, reports the Associated Press, based on  a new report by the Inter-American Dialogue and Boston University’s Global Development Policy Center. On the other hand, Chinese medical diplomacy has been strong in Latin America during the pandemic: China donated more than $215 million in supplies and conducted clinical trials or plans to manufacture vaccines in five countries.

• Israel is doling out batches of vaccines as a reward for allies, a whole new form of vaccine diplomacy. The number of doses donated is unknown, and is billed as "symbolic." Israeli media, citing diplomatic sources, said recipientes included Honduras and Guatemala, which have opened embassies in Jerusalem. (Washington Post)

• Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador and his Argentine counterpart, Alberto Fernández, declared an alliance against inequality in the region. (El País)

Honduras

• Honduran President Juan Orlando Hernández says that antinarcotics cooperation with the United States could “collapse” if U.S. authorities believe “false testimony” accusing him of cooperating with traffickers, reports the Associated Press. He spoke in the country's Congress, a day after a group of U.S. lawmakers proposed sanctions on Hernández and an investigation into allegations that he has collaborated with criminal organizations. (See yesterday's post.)

• U.S. prosecutors accused Hernández used Honduran law enforcement and military officials to protect drug traffickers as part of a plan “to use drug trafficking to help assert power and control in Honduras.” Hernández has denied the allegations. (Reuters)
  

El Salvador

• Legislative elections this Sunday in El Salvador could remake the country's landscape. President Nayib Bukele's New Ideas party could win a legislative majority, enabling the government to name justices to the Supreme Court, magistrates to the Supreme Electoral Tribunal, the Attorney General, the prosecutor for the defense of human rights and others. "Essentially his party could replace his loudest critics," reports the Associated Press.

Venezuela

• A Crisis Group analysis of social media suggests that exile can lead Venezuelan opposition members to use strident rhetoric and advocate aggressive ideas more often than domestic counterparts. It's relevant because success of internationally facilitated negotiations, if they happen, will rest on all parties’ willingness to accept compromise, according to a new report: "Conciliatory attitudes could be undermined not only by crackdowns in Venezuela but also by prominent exiles’ views."

Colombia

• Colombian police officers killed 86 people last year, according to Temblores, an non-governmental organization that monitors state violence, which reported “structural and systematic” abuses in the country's police force. The group also documented 7,992 cases of assault and 30 cases of sexual violence, with migrant communities and Afro-Colombians often the victims, reports the Guardian. “This violence isn’t just because of a few rotten apples, it’s part of the architecture of the Colombian state,” said Alejandro Lanz, the director of the group’s police violence observatory.
  

Nicaragua

• Nicaragua's government will inaugurate a maternity home in the newsroom confiscated from Confidencial. The announcement occurs days after they dismantled the offices and painted everything bright pink, the color used by Vice President Rosario Murillo’s FSLN propaganda. (Confidencial)

Mexico

• A candidate for Mexico's ruling Morena party in Guerrero state, Félix Salgado Macedonio, has been accused of sexual violence and rape by five women dating back as far as 1998. AMLO's defense of Salgado has pitted him against women's rights activists (again), reports the Guardian.

• Mexico's lower house of Congress approved controversial reforms aimed at strengthening the state electricity company. Environmentalists warn the changes promote fossil fuels over renewable energy, reports AFP.
  

Migration

• The U.S. is preparing for migration surges at the border with Mexico, even as the President Joe Biden struggles to balance the demands of supporters and opponents. Some of the new administration's migration moves, including expelling tens of thousands of migrants and restoring an unlicensed shelter for migrant children have infuriated supporters, reports the Washington Post. At the same time, Biden's attempts to implement a gentler immigration system could quickly provoke political backlash.

• According to immigration advocates who track flights leaving the United States with deportees, since the beginning of February roughly 900 Haitians have been expelled. (Boston Globe)
  

Haiti

• Significant safety measures weren't enough to prevent a brazen kidnapping during a movie shoot in Port-au-Prince, in which two Dominicans and a Haitian translator were abducted. A case "that has taken Haiti’s kidnapping epidemic from being a Haitian affair, to an international one," writes Jacqueline Charles in the Miami Herald.

Colombia

• Luis Fernando Arias became the leading voice in a coalition of Indigenous peoples, the National Indigenous Organization of Colombia, motivated by violence inflicted on his family by paramilitaries. Coronavirus complications contributed to his death, reports the New York Times.
  

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Latin America Daily Briefing

U.S. could sanction JOH (Feb. 24, 2021)

 A bill in U.S. Congress would sanction Honduran President Juan Orlando Hernández and prohibit the export of defense items such as tear gas, pepper spray and rubber bullets that Honduran security forces have deployed in recent years against protesters. Allegations linking Hernández to drug trafficking make his close relationship to the U.S. increasingly problematic, especially as the new Biden administration seeks to emphasize combating root causes of migration in Central America. 

The Honduras Human Rights and Anti-Corruption Act, co-sponsored by an influential group of Democratic senators, makes clear that migration cannot be tackled if the U.S. supports Hernández, reports the Guardian. In the past year alone, at least 34,000 citizens have been detained for violating curfew and lockdown restrictions including nurse Kelya Martinez, who earlier this month was killed in police custody.

The bill would start an investigation of Hernández, who has been identified as a co-conspirator in three major drug trafficking and corruption cases brought by New York prosecutors, under the Kingpin Act to determine whether he is a designated narcotics trafficker. Such a designation would be a tremendous reversal of fortunes for a president who frequently cites Honduras’ active participation in the U.S. war on drugs, notes the Associated Press.

The bill would also ban the export of munitions including teargas, pepper spray, rubber bullets, water cannons, handcuffs, stun guns, Tasers and semi-automatic firearms until the security forces manage 12 months without committing human rights violations. In order for the restrictions to be lifted, Honduran authorities would need to demonstrate that it had pursued all legal avenues to prosecute those who ordered, carried out and covered up high-profile crimes including the assassination of indigenous environmentalist Berta Cáceres, the killing of more than 100 campesinos in the Bajo Aguán, the extrajudicial killings of anti-election fraud protesters, and the forced disappearance of Afro-indigenous Garifuna land defenders.

Honduras will be a test for the Biden administration's corruption combating goals for Central America, writes Edmund Ruge in Americas Quarterly, noting particularly the challenge of presidential elections later this year in Honduras.

News Briefs

Ecuador

• Sixty-two inmates have died in gruesome prison riots in three Ecuadorean cities that started Monday. The violence stems from a battle between rival gangs to control detention centers, and was precipitated by a search for weapons carried out by police officers, reports the Associated Press.

• Videos recorded by inmates and shared on social media showed beheaded corpses and mutilated arms and legs, shocking a nation unused to massacre, reports the New York Times.
  

Colombia

• Colombia suffered 76 massacres resulting in 292 deaths last year, more than doubling the number in 2020 and the highest one-year total since 2014, according to a new report U.N. human rights office report. The report characterizes the violence as "endemic" and related to social and territorial control by criminal and armed groups. (EFE)

Haiti

• "Some coups are obvious, like the recent military takeover in Myanmar. Others are murkier. What constitutes a coup d’état is all too often in the eye of the beholder," writes Farah Stockman in the New York Times, about Haiti's current political crisis. (See Feb. 8's post.)
  

Regional

• Latin America and the Caribbean countries, already hard hit by the coronavirus pandemic, are now victims of slow inoculation campaigns, reports Bloomberg. Much of the Caribbean and Central America are still weeks away from kicking off their campaigns. Delays in deliveries have sent countries that relied heavily on particular vaccines, such as Mexico and Colombia, running to ink last-minute contracts with competitors. Argentina is trying to produce more shots locally. 
  

Migration

• Eight Cuban migrants were rescued off the U.S. coast after their makeshift styrofoam boat capsized following 16 days at sea, reports the Associated Press.

El Salvador

• Ahead of legislative elections in El Salvador next Sunday, Brendan O’Boyle speaks to lawyer and researcher Claudia Umaña about the stakes in the Americas Quarterly podcast., Bukele’s resilient support, and the implications of a new administration in Washington.

Bolivia

• A Bolivian prosecutor charged the country's former police chief of being ultimately responsible for the death of nine citizens murdered during 2019 protests against Jeanine Ánez's interim-government. (Telesur)

Mexico

• Emma Coronel, the wife of criminal leader Joaquín "El Chapo" Guzmán, could have critical information about Sinaloa Cartel operations. She was arrested in the U.S. and could be key in understanding the criminal organization's financial structure, writes Omar Sánchez de Tagle in the Post Opinión. (See yesterday's briefs.)
  

Venezuela

• The expulsion of the European Union’s delegation chief in Caracas will not change the bloc’s efforts to mediate a way towards new presidential elections, EU sources told Reuters.
  

Brazil

• Bolsonaro presented a measure in congress related to his government’s plans to privatize state-run electricity provider Eletrobras, an effort to calm markets after announcing a shakeup at Petrobras that sent the oil company’s stock tumbling, reports Reuters. (See yesterday's briefs.)

• Petrobras' financial future is at stake, according to the Wall Street Journal. Yesterday, the board moved forward with plans to approve Bolsonaro’s controversial appointment of an army general to the company’s helm in an apparent bid to force the firm to subsidize fuel prices.

• Bolsonaro’s approval rating slumped to 32.9% in February, from 41.2% in October, according to a poll published on Monday by transport association CNT. (Reuters)
  

Feminismos

• The care crisis precedes the pandemic, but lockdowns over the past year have forced all of us to confront the magnitude of unpaid care work and the gender inequalities it generates, particularly for poor women, I write in a New York Times Español op-ed.

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Latin America Daily Briefing

Arauz to face-off against Lasso (Feb. 23, 2021)

 Leftist presidential front-runner Andrés Arauz will face off against business-friendly candidate Guillermo Lasso in Ecuador's runoff presidential vote on April 11. Third place candidate Yaku Pérez will dispute the results, after the national electoral commission (CNE) refused to recount votes in part of the country. Lasso obtained 19.74 percent of the votes in the official count, while Pérez had 19.36 percent, a difference of 32,600 votes.

“We’re preparing a report that shows that the results from the certificates that came from the polling stations simply don’t match those that they [the CNE] have given,” one official from Pérez’s leftist indigenous party Pachakutik told the Financial Times. “There was fraud.”

Pérez been marching with hundreds of indigenous Ecuadoreans through the country’s central highlands toward the capital Quito to demand a recount, since last week, reports Reuters. Other civil society groups have announced plans to demonstrate in favor of Pérez.

News Briefs

Vaccines

• Pfizer has been accused of “bullying” Latin American governments in Covid vaccine negotiations and has asked some countries to put up sovereign assets, such as embassy buildings and military bases, as a guarantee against the cost of any future legal cases, according to a report by the Bureau of Investigative Journalism. In the case of one country, demands made by the pharmaceutical giant led to a three-month delay in a vaccine deal being agreed. For Argentina and Brazil, no national deals were agreed at all. Pfizer has been in talks with more than 100 countries and supranational organisations, and has supply agreements with nine countries in Latin America and the Caribbean: Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, Mexico, Panama, Peru, and Uruguay. The terms of those deals are unknown.

• A group of developing countries, led by India and South Africa, have proposed a temporary Covid-19 patent waiver at the World Trade Organization, a move that could boost production and allow developing countries to vaccinate their populations more quickly. (Guardian, Washington Post)

Central America

• Hunger in El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras and Nicaragua has increased almost fourfold over the past two years - from 2.2 million people in 2018 to close to 8 million people in 2021 – a result of the economic crisis caused by COVID-19 and years of extreme climate events.
  

Regional Relations

• Colombian President Iván Duque's decision to grant temporary protection status to almost 2 million Venezuelan refugees and migrants "could turn the tide on one of the biggest crises of its kind in recent history," writes UN High Commissioner for Refugees Filippo Grandi in the Financial Times. "A move that is both compassionate and pragmatic, it deserves immediate international support."

• The European Union imposed sanctions on 19 senior Venezuelan officials, lawmakers and members of the security forces in response to December’s legislative election. The bloc said the vote last year was rigged in favour of President Nicolás Maduro, reports Reuters.

• Argentine President Alberto Fernández is positioning himself as a natural leader for Latin America, according to the Financial Times. While he is building bridges with leaders from both the left and the right, he is hindered by the region's lack of effective forums for regional coordination, writes Michael Stott. Michael Shifter, president of the Inter-American Dialogue, a Washington think-tank, believes Buenos Aires could play a role in helping the U.S. broker a diplomatic solution to the Venezuela crisis.

• A 20-year-old case linking private executives to paramilitary groups in Colombia illustrates the growing push for accountability and suggests that corporate wrongdoing will come under more aggressive scrutiny in Colombia and in the rest of the region in years to come, writes Raúl Gallegos in Americas Quarterly.

Mexico

• Emma Coronel, the wife of infamous drug lord Joaquín "El Chapo" Guzmán, was arrested in the U.S. on charges of conspiracy to distribute cocaine, methamphetamine, heroin and marijuana for importation into the United States with the Sinaloa Cartel. She is a dual Mexican-U.S. citizen and former beauty queen. Coronel has also been charged with allegedly conspiring to help arrange Guzmán’s spectacular escape through a mile-long tunnel from the high-security Altiplano prison in Mexico in July 2015. (Washington Post, Guardian, New York Times)

Colombia

• The Colombian city of Buenaventura is in the midst of a wave of violence as armed gangs compete for territory in neighborhoods and incite fear among the mainly Afro-Colombian population, reports the Guardian. Many residents say the violence is the worst they have experienced since the 2016 peace deal.

Venezuela

• Recent shootouts between Venezuelan security forces and the El Coqui gang included a clash in which at least two dozen people were gunned down, and experts warn of continued violence as the gang tries to advance on new territory, reports InSight Crime.

• Venezuela's humanitarian crisis is having catastrophic environmental impact: "The dismantling of Venezuela’s environmental institutions and the collapse of its oil sector have generated a chain reaction of unsustainable natural resource extraction," warn Francisco Dallmeier and Cristina V. Burelli in the Washington Post.

Brazil

• Brazilian markets plunged yesterday, after President Jair Bolsonaro removed the head of state-controlled oil company, Petrobras on Friday. Experts say it is the latest in a trend of rolling back market-friendly policy initiatives to shore up Bolsonaro's sinking popularity. (Bloomberg) Bolsonaro fired Petrobras' head on Friday, in a feud over fuel prices, and the move surprised even his inner political circle. He justified his decision by saying the oil company’s current management has shown “zero commitment to Brazil.” (Reuters)

• One of the last remaining Juma indigenous tribe members died of Covid-19 complications in Brazil. Aruká Juma's case illustrates how the coronavirus pandemic has affected the indigenous peoples who live in the villages of Brazil, which is the second-worst country in terms of the global impact of the pandemic, reports El País.

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Costa Rica's climate leadership (Feb. 22, 2021)

News Briefs

Climate

• Costa Rica is a global climate leader, and the country has now set its sights on securing an ambitious international agreement on halting biodiversity loss. “Our approach is to lead by example," Costa Rican president Carlos Alvarado Quesada told the Guardian. “Conservation is one of the key factors that scientists point out as relevant for protecting biodiversity and also for addressing the climate crisis. But working alone, it’s not as effective.”

• Brazil’s government has passed 57 major legislative acts that weaken environmental protections in the country, and 49 per cent of these were enacted in the seven months since the Covid-19 pandemic was declared in March, reports the New Scientist.

• The murder of Brazilian land rights defender Fernando dos Santos Araújo, a key witness and survivor of the 2017 massacre of rural workers in Brazil’s Amazonia region, should be duly investigated to bring the perpetrators to justice, said Mary Lawlor, UN Special Rapporteur on Human Rights Defenders. (UOL)
  

Colombia

• At least 6,402 people were murdered by the Colombia's army and falsely declared combat kills in order to boost statistics in the civil war against leftist guerrillas, according to an investigation by Colombia's special peace tribunal (JEP). The JEP made public the preliminary results of its investigation into the killings, known as the “false positives” scandal, last week, following the exhumation of mass graves across the country over the past two years. (Guardian)
  

Migration

• An eight-year-old Honduran boy drowned last week attempting to cross the Rio Grande from Mexico to the U.S. -- he is the latest of a long string of victims along the border, made more treacherous by freezing winter conditions. The boy’s parents and sister apparently made it to the US, but were returned to Mexico by Customs and Border Protection, reports the Guardian.

• An angry mob attacked Venezuela's embassy in Peru, throwing rocks and breaking windows in the midst of a demonstration against immigrants and Venezuelan migrants, reports Tal Cual.

Venezuela

• Affordable birth control has disappeared in Venezuela, pushing many women into unplanned pregnancies at a time when they can barely feed the children they already have, reports the New York Times. Women are increasingly resorting to abortions, which are illegal and, in the worst cases, can cost them their lives.

Regional Relations

• Honduras, a longtime-partner of the U.S. governed by a president with grave accusations of colluding with criminal organizations, will be a challenge for the U.S. Biden administration's commitment to combat corruption in Central America, writes Edmund Ruge in Americas Quarterly.

Mexico

• Illegal guns flowing across the Mexican border from the U.S. fuel the country's horrific homicide rates, writes Ioan Grillo in the New York Times, calling for the U.S. Biden administration to support reforms that would choke off the so-called iron river of guns.

• Mexican rural teachers have Covid-19 vaccine priority in some parts of the country. Critics of President Andrés Manuel López Obrador say he's playing politics with the vaccine, reports the Wall Street Journal.

• Six members of Mexico’s military died in an accident yesterday morning involving a Mexican air force plane in Veracruz state, reports Reuters.
  

Cuba

• Economic crisis is pushing Cubans back to barter systems, and some artists are leading a foodie revolution powered by necessity rather than fashion, reports the Guardian.

Chile

• Chile has emerged as not just a regional, but as a global leader, in Covid-19 vaccinations. Americas Quarterly interviews Dr. Izkia Siches Pastén, the national president of Chile’s Colegio Médico on the country's successful inoculation push.
  

Argentina

• Argentina's health minister resigned Friday, after reports surfaced that he had aided people to jump the queue to receive Covid-19 vaccines. (Al Jazeera)

• The unofficial campaign season for Argentina's legislative elections, to be held in October this year, has already started, and highlights the country's perennial political myopia, argues Hugo Alconada Mon in the New York Times Español.

Regional

• The coronavirus pandemic is deepening inequality, heightening calls for a Robin Hood tax in many places. Argentina passed a one-time special levy on the rich in December, while Bolivia passed a longer-term wealth tax hitting anyone with more than $4.3 million, reports the Washington Post. Politicians in several nations, including Chile and Peru, have been floating wealth taxes.

Brazil

• Petroleo Brasileiro SA’s executive management is considering resigning en masse after the Brazilian government decided to replace Chief Executive Roberto Castello Branco, reports Reuters.
  

Guatemala

• An anti-narcotics operation targeting an alleged trafficking ring in Guatemala has shed light on the increasing importance of small, often discrete transport networks in the country’s cocaine trade, reports InSight Crime.
  

Human Rights

• Dianna Ortiz, a Roman Catholic nun whose rape and torture in Guatemala in 1989 helped lead to the release of documents showing U.S. involvement in human rights abuses in that country, died last week. Sister Ortiz became "a global champion for people subjected to torture, and her case would help compel the release of classified documents showing decades of U.S. complicity in human rights abuses in Guatemala during its 36-year civil war, in which 200,000 civilians were killed." -- New York Times. (See also Washington Post.)
  

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Nicaragua's ongoing clampdown (Feb. 19, 2021)

 Since the current human rights crisis erupted in Nicaragua in 2018, the government has clamped down on all forms of dissent or criticism. The authorities have pursued a policy of eradicating, at any cost, activism and the defence of human rights, said Amnesty International in a new report. Human rights defenders fear the worst is yet to come. They maintain that, in the run-up to the November 2021 presidential elections, human rights violations, which have not stopped, will intensify as the government seeks to silence any form of opposition or criticism.

More Nicaragua

• Nicaraguan lawmakers approved a new National Ministry for Extraterrestrial Space Affairs, The Moon and Other Celestial Bodies -- a proposal by President Daniel Ortega that has prompted scorn from critics. (See Feb. 2's briefs.) "In a country that has a hard time supplying its people with food, fuel and coronavirus vaccines, it is not clear exactly what the ministry is supposed to do," notes the Guardian.

News Briefs

Regional Relations

• Colombia's ruling Centro Democrático party has sought to interject themselves into the domestic politics of other countries including Peru, Argentina, and now Ecuador's elections -- a side operation allegedly unbeknownst to President Iván Duque, writes Sergio Guzmán in Global Americans. (See Tuesday's post.) "What is clear is that—as long as they are permitted to continue their foreign interference efforts unabated—the Centro Democrático and its operatives will seek to interfere in other elections around Latin America where it sees ideological battle lines drawn, and rally to defend their side."

• In Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Mexico, and Peru, managing polarization will be key to preserving democracy, according to a series of essays published by the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. "The risks for democracy are serious, ranging from the rupture of basic democratic structures to the potential emergence of new illiberal political figures and forces. Remedial steps are possible, but they will be challenging to carry out."

• November presidential elections in Honduras and Nicaragua will pose critical tests for the U.S. Biden administration's foreign policy, according to Orlando J. Pérez at Agenda Pública. (In English at Global Americans.)

Honduras

• The case of Keyla Martínez, a 26-year-old nursing student who died in police custody has spurred a wave of indignation in Honduras, amid a wave of suspected femicides, reports Vice News. (See Monday's briefs.) Last year, a new penal code was approved that reduces the sentence for rape. Furthermore, despite hundreds of femicides per year, it has only been applied as an aggravating circumstance in a handful of cases since its inclusion in the code in 2013.

Brazil

• Timing for Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro's new pro-gun policies could hardly be worse, argues Thiago Amparo in Americas Quarterly. (See Tuesday's briefs.) While the moves play to the president's political base, "by making more guns available and blurring the distinction between legal and illegal markets, Bolsonaro’s actions will primarily benefit organized crime and the paramilitary groups known as milicias – and thus make Brazil less safe for everyone, including law enforcement."

• Joyce Fernandes, a television host who used to be a maid, is now among the highest-profile Black Brazilians. She is driving candid conversations about racism and inequality, particularly with a book compiling first-person accounts of domestic service employees, reports the New York Times.

El Salvador

• Several dozen journalists officially accredited to cover El Salvador's elections on Feb. 28 are government employees, including the presidential press secretary, reports El Faro.

• El Faro profiles the legislative candidates for President Nayib Bukele's Nuevas Ideas party, which is widely expected to win a majority in the vote.

Vaccines

• India has become a major player in the global vaccine diplomacy game. Since starting vaccine exports last month, India has shipped 23 million doses, with 6.5 million of them donated by the government, mostly to neighbors, but also to remote recipients such as Dominica and Barbados, reports the Wall Street Journal.

• Brazilian governors are seeking to obtain their own vaccine supplies, concerned that the national government's immunization efforts are faltering, reports the Associated Press.

Venezuela

• Venezuela's government and opposition forces agreed, last week, to cooperate on obtaining coronavirus vaccines using cash frozen in the United States by economic sanctions. (Reuters) The announcement represents a significant expansion of the accord reached under the auspices of PAHO in June 2020, explains WOLA, which emphasizes the importance of the initiative, but also the necessity for strong multilateral oversight.

• Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro said his government had “heaps of contacts” with the Donald Trump administration, reports EFE.

• Spain hopes the U.S: Biden administration will permit a fresh approach to international efforts to alleviate Venezuela's ongoing crisis, reports Voice of America.

• Venezuela's emergency services have been gutted by crisis -- Angels of the Road, a group of volunteer paramedics in Caracas that relies on donated medical supplies and funding from international organizations is desperately trying to help fill the void, reports the Associated Press.

Migration

• Latin America’s migrants — from the Caribbean, South America and Central America — are on the move again, after a year of pandemic-induced paralysis, reports the Associated Press.
  

Mexico

• Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador doesn't have many results to tout, but remains broadly popular, reports the Economist.

• Mexico has protested Texas' decision to restrict natural gas exports as both sides of the border struggle to resolve power outages resulting from frigid weather, reports the New York Times. The Mexican government has blamed the U.S. state, in the midst of controversy over President Andrés Manuel López Obrador's plans for "energy sovereignty," which privileges state-owned plants. (See Wednesday's briefs.)

• A plan to funnel millions of Mexican cell phone users’ data in a biometric registry, billed as a tool to fight kidnapping and extortion, has sparked a backlash from telecoms companies and rights groups who warn it could lead to stolen data and higher costs, reports Reuters.

• Mexico City's ban on single-use plastics sounded like a good idea. But it's unintended consequences have enraged many women who discovered, last week, that they could no longer buy tampons with plastic applicators, reports the Economist.
  

Regional

• Hopes that Covid-19 downplaying leaders -- notably Donald Trump, Jair Bolsonaro and Andrés Manuel López Obrador -- might be humbled by their brushes with the coronavirus have been dashed by reality, reports the Atlantic: "Instead of learning from their illness, understanding the role of science and public health, and making proactive policy decisions, these leaders chose denial and deflection."

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Femicide spurs Buenos Aires protests -- Ni Una Menos (Feb. 18, 2021)

Thousands of protesters gathered in Buenos Aires yesterday to reject gender violence and demand government action. Part of Argentina's Ni Una Menos movement against femicides, the demonstration was spurred by the killing of Úrsula Bahillo last week. The 18-year-old was stabbed to death by her police officer ex-boyfriend -- the attack occurred after she had made several reports to authorities about his ongoing harassment. (See last Wednesday's briefs.)

298 women were killed last year in Argentina, 54 had previously reported violence, 19 had court orders against their attackers, and 15 of the murderers were police officers, according to activists. So far this year, 49 women have been killed, and activists are frustrated by unrelenting violence despite the high-profile fight against femicides in recent years. (Infobae, CNN)

Inadequate response to women's reports of threats, as occurred in Úrsula's case, is the latest focal point of women's rights activists in Argentina, who say women often face further violence after reporting abuse to the police. There is also a focus on incidents of gender violence carried out by members of the security forces. Femicides by police officers are recurrent -- over the past decade there have been 48 women killed by members of the police force in Argentina, reports CELS. (Página 12, Infobae)

Nearly six years after the first Ni Una Menos march in Argentina, one of the movement's leaders, Mariana Carbajal, asks if the government cannot prevent femicides, or doesn't want to -- pointing to the faulty implementation of a 2006 comprehensive sex education law, an example of a long-term strategy for reducing gender violence. (Página 12)

An activist open letter demanded national and local governments make combating gender violence a priority, with particular focus on forcing the judicial sector to take women's reports of violence seriously. (Página 12) President Alberto Fernández met with Úrsula's parents before yesterday's protest, and promised to create a federal council to address femicides and extreme violence against women and LGBTQI. (Página 12)

News Briefs

Vaccines

• Mexico asked wealthier countries to stop hoarding coronavirus vaccines. Three-quarters of the first doses have been administered to citizens in only 10 countries that account for 60% of global gross domestic product (GDP), Mexican foreign minister Marcelo Ebrard said at the U.N. Security Council yesterday. He also noted that so far no vaccines have been distributed under the global Covax initiative. (Reuters)

• Countries participating in the Covax coronavirus vaccine distribution mechanism will soon receive confirmation of their first shipments but should expect them to be small due to limited global supplies, the director of the Pan American Health Organization (PAHO) said yesterday. (Reuters)

• A coronavirus vaccine developed by Cuba is about to enter final testing stages, if it is successful the country could be on the path to mass inoculation and vaccine exports by the end of the year, reports the New York Times. The vaccine, dubbed Sovereign 2, could also become a tourist pull, as officials have said the island could offer vaccinations to all foreigners who travel there. 

• Cuban scientists say the government will probably give away some doses to poor countries, in keeping with its longstanding practice of strengthening international relations by donating medicine and sending doctors to address public health crises abroad, reports the New York Times. (See yesterday's Just Caribbean Updates on vaccine solidarity in the Caribbean.)

• Brazilian researchers an experiment -- the first of its kind globally -- to vaccinate the entire adult population of Serrana, population 45,000, in São Paulo state in order to test whether inoculated people can still transmit Covid-19. They also hope to counter Brazil’s growing antivaccination movement and demonstrate the wider benefits of mass immunization, such as a quick economic recovery, reports the Wall Street Journal.

• Covid conspiracy theories -- like rumors that the vaccine turns recipients into animals, or that it includes a chip ‘to control the Indigenous people’ -- are hampering efforts to inoculate Brazil's Indigenous population, reports Al Jazeera.

• Police in Brazil are investigating allegations that healthcare workers are giving fake Covid-19 inoculations, amid reports of nurses injecting people with empty syringes, reports the Guardian.

• Peruvians are furious about "Vaccinegate" the revelation that former president Martín Vizcarra and 467 public officials secretly received coronavirus vaccine jabs in October. (Washington Post) The issue isn't that Vizcarra was vaccinated, notes the Latin America Risk Report, but that he lied.

Jamaica

• Jamaica's government is responsible for violating the rights of two gay people and the country’s homophobic laws should be repealed immediately, according to the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights. The report, which is from 2019 but could not be reported on before, sets a precedent for LGBT rights across the Caribbean, reports the Guardian. It is the commission’s first finding that laws that criminalize LGBT people violate international law.

Venezuela

• A woman accused by Colombian prosecutors of participating in a plot to overthrow Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro said Colombian authorities and Venezuelan opposition leader Juan Guaidó were part of the plan. Her claims raise new questions about the role of staunch U.S. ally Colombia in the so-called Operation Gideon, reports the Associated Press.

Migration

• A group of 350 migrants attempted to force their way into Peru from Brazil, but were largely deflected by Peruvian authorities. (EFE)

Regional

• Indigenous communities in some of the world’s most forested tropical countries have faced a wave of human rights abuses during the Covid-19 pandemic as governments prioritise extractive industries in economic recovery plans, according to a new report produced by the NGO, Yale Law School researchers and the School of Law at Middlesex University London.

Carnival

• Rio de Janeiro's Carnival celebrations are officially cancelled, but the parties have just gone underground, reports the Washington Post.

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Latin America Daily Briefing

Ecuador suspends vote recount (Feb. 17, 2021)

 News Briefs

Ecuador

• Ecuador's electoral council (CNE) suspended a vote recount in 17 provinces requested by presidential candidate Yaku Pérez, after Feb. 7's election. The CNE could not reach a majority on the request for a recount, Pérez alleges fraud was committed to keep him out of the April runoff against first-place winner Andrés Arauz. Guillermo Lasso narrowly displaced Pérez to third in the middle of last week's count. Without a recount, the CNE said Pérez can challenge the results once the winners are proclaimed, later this week. (El Comercio, Al Jazeera, see Monday's post.)

• Residents of Ecuador's city of Cuenca overwhelmingly voted to ban future large-scale mining activities in five nearby watershed zones in a Feb. 7 referendum. There are over 4,000 large and small bodies of water in the sensitive Páramo ecosystem, which acts as a reservoir in the Andes. The land, which is directly adjacent to a national park, has been declared a biosphere reserve by UNESCO, writes Miriam Lang in Open Democracy.

• The result of the referendum is legally binding under the constitution, which means whoever wins the presidential election will have to implement it. But how exactly the vote results will be applied remains in dispute, as pro-mining unions and the city are deadlocked over what to do about mining projects that have already received the go-ahead, reports Al Jazeera.

Migration

• Colombian President Iván Duque's decision to grant legal status to the Venezuelan refugee population in Colombia, justified by humanitarian concerns, is a brave move, according to the Financial Times editorial board. "In a world where nationalist sentiments have all too often been stoked against refugees and migrants, Colombia’s gesture stands out as an example." (See last Thursday's briefs.)

• "An often overlooked aspect of climate change is the way it exacerbates the suffering of existing migrant and refugee communities," reports the New Yorker. "One danger is that migrants and refugees often settle in locations that are highly exposed to the elements, often because they are pushed there by their host governments." Another danger is that migrants are increasingly afraid to seek help from authorities, in the midst of growing nationalist rhetoric around the world. The piece focuses on how Haitian migrants in the Bahamas were affected by 2019's Hurricane Doria. After the storm, though it had promised that migrants would be safe, the government pursued a program of mass deportation.
  

Haiti

• One of Haitian President Jovenel Moïse's strategies for repression is what can be termed the "gangsterization" of Haiti, Nixon Boumba told Open Democracy: The government supports criminal gangs to terrorize people and limit participation in protests. (See Monday's briefs.)

• The United Nations voiced concern over aggressions towards journalists covering anti-government protests in Haiti. (See Monday's briefs.)

• A former mayor of Port-au-Prince and three political opponents of President Jovenel Moïse have sought refuge in the Dominican Republic and say they are targets of political persecution in Haiti. (Dominican Today)

Covid-19

• Chinese Covid-19 vaccines are the best hope for many Latin American countries hoping to inoculate their populations. It's a possible double win for Beijing, according to the Washington Post, new markets for pharmaceutical products and good will in the region. But many feel that countries in the region have been forced to turn to less effective vaccines after wealthier nations locked up supplies of Western developed jabs, yet another disparity in global vaccination efforts. 

• Brazil is only a month into its vaccination campaign against Covid-19, but there are already thousands of reports of people who circumvented the rules to get immunized ahead of their turn, reports the Wall Street Journal.

• Experts say Venezuela’s deteriorated health system and collapsed economy will make the country one of the toughest places in the region to conduct a coronavirus vaccination campaign, reports Reuters.

Venezuela

• Venezuela's opposition is locked into a failed strategy, insisting on an "all or nothing" strategy of negotiating free and fair elections with Nicolás Maduro's government, writes Phil Gunson in World Politics Review. (See Leopoldo López's Americas Quarterly piece, yesterday's briefs, for example.) But "an important segment of Venezuelan civil society believes that it is possible and indeed essential to negotiate partial agreements with the government, with the aim of alleviating Venezuela’s still-nosediving economy ... and with it the humanitarian emergency, while improving conditions for elections," according to Gunson.

Mexico

• Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador's nationalistic energy policy — a push to re-establish state control over energy markets — will not produce the self-sufficiency he seeks,writes Vanessa Rubio in Americas Quarterly. "It will instead deepen the country’s dependence on international inputs and pollutive energy sources, further hindering the efficiency of an already strained domestic energy market operation." (See Monday's briefs on the negative climate impact of the "energy sovereignty" policies.)

Carnival

• In good times and bad, Rio de Janeiro’s famously boisterous Carnival has endured, often thriving when the going got particularly tough -- which is why this year's Covid-19 cancellation hits particularly hard, reports the New York Times.

• How a Rio de Janeiro community leader protected Afro-Brazilian music and traditions from persecution a century ago, creating the traditions that now form the city's samba in the Guardian.

Feminismos

• The Argentine government’s first ever national director of gender, equality and economy, Mercedes D'Alessandro, says all economic policy in Argentina needs to account for gender. "Thanks to her, it likely will," according to Time Magazine, which selected her for its 100 Next list.
  

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