Moïse's security chief arrested (July 27, 2021)

Haitian authorities arrested the presidential security coordinator, National Police Divisional Commissioner Jean Laguel Civil, yesterday. He is among the individuals President Jovenel Moïse contacted on the night he was assassinated in his bedroom, reports the Miami Herald. 

He is one of 26 suspects arrested by Haiti National Police so far, reports the Associated Press.

Haitian authorities also issued an arrest warrant for Supreme Court Justice Windelle Coq Thélot but have not detailed why she is wanted in connection with Moïse's killing. She is one of three justices forced into retirement earlier this year by Moïse, a move of dubious legality.

The probe into the murder itself has been hampered by death threats against officials and judicial investigators, as well as series of unusual roadblocks, including difficulty in accessing crime scenes, witnesses and evidence, reports CNN. "The result is an investigation that has repeatedly veered from established protocol, according to both insiders and independent legal experts."

More Haiti

• More than 1,000 white-clad demonstrators gathered around Jimmy Chrizier, one of Haiti's most notorious gang leaders, to commemorate Moïse, yesterday. Cherizier is a former police officer who now leads “G9,” a federation of nine gangs that officials have blamed for a spike in violence and kidnappings in recent months, reports the Associated Press.

News Briefs

Mercenaries

• The apparent involvement of Colombian mercenaries in Moïse's murder "has opened a rare window into a murky private security world that extends from the U.S. into Latin America and the Caribbean, highlighting the outsize role that veterans of Colombia’s security forces play in the global mercenary sphere," reports The Intercept. "Through three of the most consequential conflicts of the past century — the Cold War, the drug war, and the war on terror — the interlocking relationship between U.S. and Colombian security forces has produced a generation of hired guns, some of whom, for the right price, can turn an entire country upside down."

Migration

• Four years after the U.S. Trump administration's brutal migrant family separation policy, the Biden administration is trying to track down 275 parents deported alone from the U.S. border. Much of the work of tracking them down has been delegated to small civil society organizations, reports the Washington Post. 

Cuba

• Dozens of Cubans have received sentences of up to one year in prison or house arrest in summary trials without due process in retaliation for participating in mass anti-government protests, reports the Wall Street Journal. “This is a complete farce of any type of due process,” Human Rights Watch's Juan Pappier told WSJ. “They accuse people of crimes that aren’t crimes, they don’t have any defense lawyers and the judges have no independence.”
  

Regional Relations

• Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador called on U.S. President Joe Biden to make a decision about the embargo against Cuba. Cuban families should also face fewer restrictions on receiving remittances from those who live in the United States or any other country, López Obrador said. (Reuters)

• Meanwhile, back at home, Biden gets no credit from Republicans for his hardline stance against Cuba, argues Max Boot in the Washington Post.

• Biden should "give the island’s internal opposition more high-profile recognition and turn it into a key player in any dealings with the regime," argues Andrés Oppenheimer in the Miami Herald.

Vaccines

• The Biden administration has pledged to donate 580 million doses of COVID-19 vaccines worldwide over the next two years in its efforts to advance international vaccination campaigns -- AS/COA tracks how many have been delivered to Latin America already.

• Separately AS/COA tracks how Latin American inoculation efforts are advancing (or not).

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• Workers in Mexican maquiladoras are getting vaccinated in the U.S., a cross-border effort aimed at protecting the two countries' closely intertwined economies, reports the New York Times.

• Mexico has flung open its doors to tourism, despite its heavy pandemic death toll, in a dangerous bid to salvage wounded economies, writes Diego Fonseca in the New York Times Español.

• El Salvador was scheduled to receive a batch of 1 million Chinese Covid-19 vaccines yesterday, allowing the country to cover the remainder of the 4.5 million population it aimed to inoculate, reports Reuters.

El Salvador

• The International Monetary Fund is warning that some of the consequences of a country adopting Bitcoin as a national currency “could be dire.” (CoinTelegraph)

Peru

• Pedro Castillo will become Peru's president tomorrow, after months of post-election uncertainty. He has called for unity, but will have to lead a fractured country in which far-right opponents refuse to recognize his legitimacy, reports the Guardian. He will have to finesse between supporters' high expectations and market fears that he will implement radical reforms.

Brazil

• A third cold wave is set to hit Brazil's agricultural areas this week, threatening further damage to coffee and sugar cane crops. Brazil has already been suffering through one of its worst droughts in 90 years, reports Reuters.
  

Argentina

• Argentina's government declared a water emergency in the Parana river valley, due to historically low water levels that constitute an environmental disaster. The lack of water could imply shortages for cities, forest fires, impact shipping, and affect hydroelectric production. (Página 12, EFE)

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

Latin America Daily Briefing