International Women's Day (March 8, 2019)

Happy International Women's Day -- around the world women are marching for their rights, including holding the third annual Women's Strike!

Among the top issues facing women in the region is the femicide epidemic -- more women are killed for their gender in Latin America and the Caribbean than anywhere else in the world. Most of these deaths go unpunished. Official data from 23 countries in the region indicates that at 2,795 women killed by femicide in 2017, according to ECLAC.  Data for 2016 and 2017 show that El Salvador (10.2 per 100,000), Honduras (5.8), Belize (4.8), Trinidad and Tobago (3.0), Guatemala (2.6) and the Dominican Republic (2.2) are the countries with the highest prevalence of femicides in the region.  Brazil concentrates the highest number of total femicides in the region, with 40 percent of the total. So far this year, 4 women have been killed each day, reports EFE.

Overall the trend is bad, reports Foreign Policy, noting poor indicators for reproductive rights and the rise around the region of socially conservative political movements. They are countered, however, by vibrant and extremely active women's rights movements.

Ni Una Menos: Activists have taken on the issue head on -- and have succeeded in changing laws in 20 countries to recognize femicide as a specific crime, reports AFP.

Feminist Briefs

• Last week more than 30 female world leaders including current and former heads of state launched a campaign against the erosion of women's rights. Former Argentine foreign minister Susana Malcorra said pushback against women’s rights was "crystal clear" in several countries around the world, particularly those where populist "macho-type" strongmen have risen to power, such as Brazil. (Guardian)

• Three Salvadoran women imprisoned for alleged abortions were freed by the Supreme Court. The court found that the women, who had each served about a decade of prison time for obstetric complications, were victims of social and economic circumstances and ruled that the original sentences were unreasonable, reports the Guardian.

• Mexico's government presented a plan to combat gender violence and admitted the country has failed to do enough to protect women and girls. (Associated Press, and see Open Democracy for more on the issue)

• In Brazil's Carnival, women campaigned for their rights amid fancy dress festivities parodying right-wing criticisms, reports the Guardian. Marielle Franco -- a Rio de Janeiro councillor assassinated last year -- featured prominently. (See Wednesday's briefs.)

• Many people don't get it: a Chilean union leader hazarded that female activists would probably be happier if their loved ones gave them flowers and chocolates today. "I'm sorry you're not given chocolate" he responded to women who objected. (El Dinamo)

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Nicaraguan negotiators agree on roadmap

Nicaragua's government and the opposition Alianza Civil agreed on a roadmap for negotiations. The two sides have been locked in conflict since anti-government protests were brutally repressed starting in April, 2018. After five days of negotiation representatives for President Daniel Ortega and the civic alliance uniting opposition to the government agreed to end talks by March 28. They invited papal representative Archbishop Waldemar Stanislaw Sommertag, Cardinal Leopoldo Brenes, president of the Episcopal Conference of Nicaragua (CEN) and the pastor Ulises Rivera, coordinator of Evangelical priests, to act as “witnesses and national escorts.” Brenes said he will respond today. (AFP)

International guarantors will be defined moving forward, an issue that raised eyebrows among commentators. Confidencial reports that negotiators hope to reach partial agreements on issues like early elections, and define guarantors to oversee those accords. The International Crisis Group reports that the government is opposed to naming international organizations, such as the OAS, to serve as guarantor. Mexico, Uruguay or the Sistema de Integración Centroamericana (SICA) could be acceptable for Ortega, according to  EFE.

Nicaragua has been in crisis since last year, when at least 325 people were killed by police and parapolice groups in response to anti-government protests. The talks were announced last month, and are a response by the Ortega administration to falling approval ratings, a sinking economy, international opprobrium, and Venezuela's crisis -- according to a new International Crisis Group report.

The Ortega administration said yesterday it will allow the International Red Cross to visit jails, where an estimated 650 political prisoners are being held, reports Confidencial. Last week, 112 political detainees were released to house arrest, ahead of negotiations with the Alianza Civil. (See Feb. 27's post.)

More from Nicaragua

• Arms used by paramilitary forces against protesters and opposition activists came from police arsenals, reports Confidencial.

News Briefs

Venezuela

• A massive blackout has affected 19 Venezuelan states, including Caracas. Though power outages have become common in recent years, this one -- starting last night -- was more severe, and government officials blamed it on sabotage. The problems apparently stemmed from the Guri dam plant. Schools were shut down today and workers were given the day off in response to the blackout. Activists say the outages would be deadly for patients in hospitals and vulnerable populations. (New York Times, Guardian, Reuters, BBC, Washington Post, Wall Street Journal)

• The massive outage is creating an information blackout, warns NetBlocks, which said much of the country's internet is down. (Miami Herald)

• Russia has positioned itself as legitimacy-challenged President Nicolás Maduro's strongest international ally. In part because of economic interests, but largely due to geopolitical strategy. Increasingly, however, some among Russia's political and economic elites feel the Kremlin should exert its influence to help negotiate a transition and ensure its interests are represented in post-Maduro scenarios, reports the New York Times.

• The U.S. revoked visas of 77 individuals allied with Maduro, including government officials and relatives. It's a total of 250 visas revoked, the latest in a series of sanctions aimed at choking off the administration's economic resources, reports the New York Times. (See yesterday's briefs.)

• Experts warn that the Maduro administration's expulsion of Germany's ambassador is only likely to further polarize the international community, reports Efecto Cocuyo. (See yesterday's briefs.)

Haiti

• Haiti is running out of fuel again, in what has become a constant issue in the year since Venezuela stopped providing cheap oil to the country, reports the Miami Herald.

Mexico

• The creation of a new, functional National Prosecutor’s Office is central to Mexico’s fight against impunity, argue WOLA and DPLF in a new report.

Populism

• An academic group dubbed "Team Populism" discovered a striking correlation between populist leaders and a decline in economic inequality -- true for a series of Latin American leaders, but particularly Bolivian President Evo Morales, reports the Guardian. Poverty in Bolivia fell from 59.9 percent in 2006, when Morales first came to power, to 34.6 percent in 2017, with extreme poverty more than halving over the same period, according to government figures.

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

Latin America Daily Briefing

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

Guaidó woos public sector employees (March 6, 2019)

News Briefs

Venezuela

• Opposition leader Juan Guaidó is trying to convince Venezuela's public sector unions to go on strike, in his latest push to oust legitimacy-challenged President Nicolás Maduro, reports Reuters. After failing to inspire the armed forces to defect from the government, Guaidó is attempting to sway public employees to switch sides, reports AFP. Both Guaidó and Maduro have called for demonstrations on Saturday.

• International sanctions against Venezuela have worsened its severe humanitarian crisis, said U.N. human rights chief Michelle Bachelet. (AFP)

• Guaidó breezed right back into Venezuela on Monday, despite rumors that he would be detained for flouting a court-ordered travel ban. El Pitazo reports that customs authorities had originally been ordered to detain him, but that the command was rescinded on Monday. (See yesterday's post.)

• Colombian authorities thwarted an attempt to enter aid to Venezuela by force last month, reports Bloomberg.

• The U.S. might want a military coup in Venezuela -- but the armed forces and citizens aren't going for it, writes Ken Silverstein in a New Republic. The piece piece goes against the dominant media narrative on Venezuela: "while American politicians favoring intervention often point to U.S. media reports of widespread shortages and even starvation, what I saw when walking through the city was a different story.

• A different view in Americas Quarterly, where Patricio Navia argues that the regional failure to promote a democratic transition in Venezuela is related to long-term tolerance of dictatorship in Cuba.

• There are reports that a U.S. freelance journalist, along with his Venezuelan partner, have been detained today. (Miami Herald)

Haiti

• Haitian national police repressed anti-government protests in Port-au-Prince yesterday. Demonstrators were accompanying the burial of four protesters killed in February, and further protests have been called for March 7. (EFE)

• Protests in February brought much of the country to a standstill -- and the political and economic crisis particularly affected children, according to UNICEF.

Migration

• The number of migrants detained at the U.S. southern border -- a proxy for undocumented people entering the country -- doubled in the first five months of this fiscal year, over the last. This despite an increasingly hardline stance from the U.S. Trump administration. And the profile of who is making the crossing has changed: Central American families are the new face of undocumented immigration, reports the New York Times.

• An Honduran mother-daughter duo who applied for asylum in the U.S. -- one was allowed to pursue her case and the other deported immediately -- illustrate the fraught system migrants face, reports the New York Times.

Honduras

• Honduran prosecutors working with the MACCIH say that 16 former government officials and ex-representatives of developer Desarrollos Energeticos, DESA, conspired to get a controversial hydroelectric project approved. Investigators said they worked from legal complaints filed by environmental and indigenous rights activist Berta Cáceres, reports the Associated Press.

Colombia

• The Colombian Special Jurisdiction for Peace (JEP) opened a case examining the systematic extermination of Unión Patriótica political party supporters. More than 6,000 people were killed between 1984 and 2002 in relation to the UP, many victims of security forces, reports Contagio.

• Organized crime groups are smuggling significant quantities of arms into Colombia, from Peru and moving through Ecuador, reports InSight Crime.

• Two jail directors and 120 workers within Colombia’s national prison system are accused of charging inmates for perks, reports InSight Crime.

Brazil

• Carnival revelers in parts of Brazil used the occasion to lash out against President Jair Bolsonaro -- hashtag #EiBolsonaroVaiTomarNoCu gives a gist. But Bolsonaro's curious response -- tweeting a sexually explicit clip supposedly taken during a São Paulo carnival event -- only gave critics more fodder, reports the Guardian.

• In Rio de Janiero calls for justice for slain councillor Marielle Franco were also strongly featured in carnival celebrations, reports the Guardian separately. (See yesterday's briefs.)

• The case of a young black man killed by a supermarket security guard in Rio de Janeiro has inspired a Brazilian "Black Lives Matter" campaign, reports AFP.

Argentina

• Argentines head to the polls in October -- where they will likely pick between current President Mauricio Macri and his predecessor, Cristina Fernández de Kirchner. For Martín Caparrós both represent failed policies, and are essentially trying to convince voters that they are the "lesser evil." Their rivalry has defined Argentina's political scene for over a decade, and each is locked into the rivalry in order to maintain relevance, he writes in a New York Times Español op-ed.

El Salvador

• U.N. human rights chief Michelle Bachelet warned that an Amnesty Law under discussion in El Salvador's Legislative Assembly would effectively reinstate an “absolute and unconditional amnesty” for some of the most serious human rights violations committed in El Salvador during the 1980-1992 armed conflict. (See Feb. 22's briefs.)

• Salvadoran lawmakers voted to temporarily remove a Supreme Court judge accused of sexually abusing a 10-year-old. They also stripped him of immunity from prosecution. (Reuters)

Ecuador

• Addicts in Guayaquil are hooked on a new cheap drug -- "H" (hache) is a heroin based powder that often also includes brick dust and rat poison, but packs a good punch, reports InSight Crime.

Peru

• Peru is militarizing its approach to defending the rainforest, reports the Associated Press.

Mexico

• Archeologists discovered ceramic artifacts that appear to be over 1,000 years old under Mayan ruins in Mexico. (New York Times)

Chile

• Chile created new regulations for the Carabineros police, incorporating, among other changes, the principle of non-discrimination, reports El Dinamo.

Culture Corner

• Netflix acquired the rights to adapt One Hundred Years of Solitude for the screen. (New York Times)

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

Latin America Daily Briefing

Guaidó back in Caracas, unscathed (March 5, 2019)

Venezuelan opposition leader Juan Guaidó flew back to Caracas yesterday. He was met at the airport by a contingent of diplomats from the region and France, Germany and the U.S., aimed at shielding him from arrest. Guaidó has been recognized as interim leader by a portion of the international community, including the United States. He was greeted by cheering supporters at the airport and spoke at a rally in Caracas afterwards. (New York Times)

Venezuela's embattled Maduro administration threatened to detain him for flouting a travel ban, but held off -- at least for yesterday. Venezuelan Vice President Delcy Rodríguez said the administration wants to avoid martyrizing Guaidó. But analysts say the government may also recognize the potential for violent escalation of tensions if Guaidó is arrested. 

Guaidó's entrance through the "front door" weakens Maduro's position, and could indicate dwindling support for the government in the military, reports the Guardian. Though the armed forces have remained largely loyal to Maduro, 700 troops have defected according to Colombian authorities. And it is believed that soldiers would be reluctant to use lethal force against protests.

Political analyst Luís Vicente Leon told the Wall Street Journal that the return could be part of a behind-the-scenes deal between the opposition and the government, possibly with the support of European nations working towards a negotiated solution to the crisis. Opposition sources denied such deal.

The International Contact Group, established by the European Union, aims at bringing about a negotiated solution. But a recent mission to Caracas found that neither the government nor the opposition is prepared to talk, effectively stalling the approach which aimed to bring about elections within three months, write David Smilde and Geoff Ramsey in a report for Fundación Carolina. "However, given the likely failure of the Venezuelan opposition’s current strategy, the lack of international support for military action, and the fact that dialogue without preconditions is simply a non-starter for the opposition, it seems likely that the ICG could become an attractive option for Venezuela’s political actors and international stakeholders."

In the meantime, both sides are betting on waiting, a stalemate that is harmful for everybody involved, warns the Crisis Group in a new report arguing for a negotiation mediated by a third-party, aimed at moving towards new elections with a mixed transitional government cabinet in the meantime.

Democratization will require uncoupling the military from Maduro, but that will be tricky because disparate groups within the armed forces, each of which will need a specific policy to sway them from government loyalty, writes Javier Corrales in a New York Times op-ed.

More from Venezuela

• Digital media outlets servers for Efecto Cocuyo, El Pitazo y El Cooperante were attacked yesterday and kept offline for two hours -- exactly when Guaidó returned to Venezuela. It's only the latest of a series of attacks on social media and independent media: Twitter and Soundcloud (used by Guaidó to send messages to the public) were at least partially blocked in relation to protests yesterday. YouTube, Google y Facebook have been intermittently blocked since Feb. 23, and Armando.info has been blocked since Sunday. (Efecto Cocuyo, Hat tip Arepita.)

• Russia is helping Venezuela's embattled petroleum industry circumvent the impact of U.S. sanctions, reports Bloomberg.

• The Trump administration estimates that sanctions will cost the Venezuelan economy $11 billion -- but it needs to come up with a backup that will avoid starvation in the country, argues Dorothy Kronick in the New York Times.

• Venezuela's opposition asked a U.S. federal appeals court to stop a $1.4 billion debt-collection lawsuit, saying that carving up the country's foreign assets will hinder regime change, reports the Wall Street Journal.

• Why is the U.S. Trump administration concerned over dictatorship in Venezuela and not so much elsewhere in the world? The Monroe Doctrine. (Washington Post)

• Proceso analyzes some of Guaidó's strategic errors so far, including a close rapport with the U.S. that feeds into critics' arguments that he's an imperialist stooge.

News Briefs

Honduras

• Four human rights defenders were killed in Honduras in February -- two of whom should have benefitted from special protection measures ordered by the IACHR, reports the Honduras Forum Switzerland in it's monthly human rights report.

Argentina

• The case of an 11-year-old girl denied an abortion in Argentina made headlines around the world. (See last Thursday's briefs.) But it's just one example of how anti-choice doctors, medical institutions, and government officials routinely block cases in which girls and women are denied legally sanctioned abortions, reports the Guardian. Pro-choice activists say instances of preventing rape victims from terminating pregnancies have been emboldened by last year's failure to pass a widely debated abortion law.

Ecuador

• Rape is not a legal justification for terminating pregnancy in Ecuador, but the national assembly is debating a bill that would on decriminalize abortion in cases of rape, incest and forced artificial insemination. (Reuters)

Migration

• Migrant women trying to cross into the U.S. along the country's southern border are frequently victims of unreported sexual abuse. A New York Times investigation said interviews "suggest that sexual violence has become an inescapable part of the collective migrant journey." And much of it happens on the U.S. side of the border.

Mexico

• Mexico's government plans to shift funding from women's shelters to direct payments to victims of domestic violence. Activists are up in arms over the proposal, which they say will unravel significant civil society work and could imperil women in abusive situations. (Guardian)

• An indigenous group of Tecoltemi villagers, in the Mexican state of Puebla, have legally challenged the country’s mining law - which gives priority to mining activities over other land use. A landmark decision is expected this week on the law's constitutionality, reports Reuters.

• Ratings agency Standard & Poor’s slashed Mexican ratings on Monday -- a move President Andrés Manuel López Obrador characterized as punishment for his predecessors' neo-liberal policies. (Reuters)
• Three months into AMLO's mandate, the president's approval rating is at 78 percent. (Reuters)

Haiti

• Haiti's political crisis has corruption at its center, but the Petrocaribe scandal-spurred movement demands change and could become a turning point for the country, argue Athena Kolbe and Robert Muggah at NPR.

Guatemala

• A CICIG investigator resigned after photos linked him romantically to Byron Lima Oliva's widow. (Soy 502)

Brazil

• Brazilian mining giant Vale SA fired an auditor last year who refused to certify the safety of the Brumadinho tailings dam that broke in January, killing over 300 people. Vale replaced the auditor with TÜV SÜD, which signed off on the dam's stability in September, reports the Wall Street Journal.

• President Jair Bolsonaro's rise to power has been accompanied by a surge of threats and illegal incursions on indigenous lands in Brazil, reports Reuters. (See yesterday's briefs.)

Carnival!

• One of Rio de Janeiro’s top samba schools and other groups payed tribute to Marielle Franco, a councillor who was assassinated last year, in the carnival parade. (Associated Press)

• Rio's carnival parades in pictures at the Guardian.

• Tired of the Sambadrome? Atlas Obscura paints a seductive portrait of Rio's alternative: the elaborate and scary Bate-Bola troupes with pre-Celtic origins.

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

-- 

Latin America Daily Briefing

Guaidó announces return, calls for protests (March 4, 2019)

Venezuelan opposition leader Juan Guaidó called for nationwide demonstrations starting at 11 am today, to accompany his attempt to return to the country. The presidential challenger -- considered the country's legitimate leader by a relevant chunk of the international community -- left Venezuela in the midst of a push to bring in aid last weekend, defying a travel ban that could push President Nicolás Maduro to arrest him. Unable to return, Guaidó has been on an improvised tour of the region for the past week. In a social media message to followers he said maintaining street protests is critical to achieving a transition process, reports Efecto Cocuyo.

Guaidó's absence is imperiling the opposition push to oust Maduro. But, his return pushes up the stakes even more -- an arrest could be devastating for the movement. Guaidó's movement has already taken strong hits after it failed to spur mass defections from Venezuela's Maduro loyal military, and regional leaders rejected his call for military intervention in Venezuela. International supporters, including Chilean President Sebastián Piñera were reportedly bothered by these recent failures. (Efecto Cocuyo, New York Times, and Wall Street Journal)

In part, some analysts say Guaidó's diplomatic blitz through in Brazil, Paraguay, Argentina and Ecuador was aimed at shoring up international support ahead of a possible arrest. But, despite strong warnings from the U.S., it's not clear that Maduro will be deterred from promises to detain Guaidó, reports the Washington Post.

On Friday the U.S. Trump administration announced a new round of sanctions against top Venezuelan officials. Authorities continue to speak of a military option, but downplay immediate likelihood. (New York Times)

Nonetheless, Colombian President Iván Duque said Maduro's days are numbered, and pointed to international sanctions and a limited number of military defections in support of his assurance. (Washington Post)

More from Venezuela

• A week after the failed opposition attempt to bring in aid (see last Monday's post), organizers say one of the pitfalls was of the plan was the Venezuela Aid Live concert held the day before -- which drained volunteer energies, reports the Miami Herald. (New York Times correspondent Anatoly Kurmanaev's analysis of why the operation failed takes a broader look.)

• The Trump administration is considering granting Temporary Protected Status to Venezuelans -- the special immigration program would grant undocumented Venezuelan immigrants in the U.S. the ability to stay and work for a time. Advocates say it is a measure aimed at helping people affected by the country's crisis, but the Trump administration has been working separately to terminate the TPS program, reports the Miami Herald. (See Migration section below.)

• Recent reports point to armed groups in Venezuela -- colectivos -- perpetrating violence against anti-Maduro protesters, including firing on demonstrators. InSight Crime analyzes.

News Briefs

Colombia

• A prosecutor for Colombia's special peace tribunal was arrested while accepting a $500,000 bribe. Carlos Bermeo, along with a former senator and two other suspects, were detained accepting cash in exchange for blocking former FARC leader Seuxis Hernández's possible extradition to the U.S. The arrest will likely feed criticisms in Colombia that the tribunal is too lenient on former fighters. (New York Times, Associated Press)

Brazil

• Former Brazilian president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva was permitted to -- briefly -- attend his grandsons funereal this Saturday. He left the Curitiba jail where he's serving a corruption sentence, and was permitted to attend the service honoring his seven-year-old grandson for just two hours before returning. In January he was not granted permission to attend his older brother's funereal. President Jair Bolsonaro's son criticized the temporary permission to leave, tweeting that it allowed the popular leader to position himself as a martyr. (Associated Press, El País)

• Indigenous members of Brazil's Raposa Serra do Sol reserve in Roraima state are concerned Bolsonaro will permit mining interests to encroach on their territory, reports the Guardian.

• Brazilian mining giant Vale SA's top executives asked for temporary leave from their posts in the wake of a dam collapse last month that killed over 300 people. (Guardian and BBC)

• The Brazilian government's attempt to clamp down on prison gangs is unlikely to lead to longterm security gains, reports InSight Crime.

El Salvador

• El Salvador's MS-13 is so dangerous that police officers tasked with eliminating the street gang are fleeing the country instead, reports the Washington Post.

Haiti

• Haiti's political crisis is in something of a stalemate, after violent protests last month. A national dialogue commission appears to be DOA, reports the Miami Herald.

Migration

• Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador has proven a surprising ally for the U.S. Trump administration's hardline stance towards migrants, reports the New York Times.

• Twenty-nine parents separated from their children last year under the Trump administration's zero tolerance policy crossed the U.S. border on Saturday, demanding asylum hearings, in an attempt to reunite their families, reports the Washington Post.

• The U.S. announced a six-month extension of Temporary Protected Status for Haitians, Nicaraguans, Salvadorans and Sudanese living in the U.S. under a special immigration program. About 300,000 nationals of those countries  who have been allowed to temporarily live and work in the U.S. after war or major natural disasters in their own countries can now stay through Jan. 2020. The Trump administration was legally obligated to extend TPS in these cases after a preliminary court injunction last October stopped officials from terminating protections for people from those countries, reports the Miami Herald. (See post for Oct. 5, 2018.)

Ecuador

• Ecuadorean President Lenín Moreno is struggling to maintain popular support, in part because he has not done enough to root out corruption, and also because of a difficult economic context, writes Oliver Stuenkel in Americas Quarterly.

Culture Corner

• New York Times interviews Silvana Paternostro on her new oral history of Gabriel García Márquez.

• Easter Islanders are taking steps to conserve their emblematic giant Moai statues, reports the Guardian.

Pink!

• So-called "pink cocaine" is apparently making its way from Argentina to Uruguay, a sign that local drug markets are following regional synthetic drug market shifts, reports InSight Crime.

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

Latin America Daily Briefing

Mexican congress approves National Guard plan (March 1, 2019)

Mexico's Chamber of Deputies overwhelmingly approved a plan to create a National Guard -- a proposal that incorporates changes suggested by civil society organizations, including civil command of the militarized internal security force.  The constitutional changes must now be approved by at least 17 state legislatures in order to go into effect.

The new law was proposed by President Andrés Manuel López Obrador and was strongly criticized by rights groups for ratifying the role of the armed forces in the county's policing. It is also considered an about face from his campaign promises to pull the military out of the public security sphere. The military has been involved in internal security for over a decade, with a strong human rights cost. AMLO countered that the national police force is a failed project, and local police forces are an integral part of the country's significant problem with organized crime.

The new National Guard will be a 60,000 member civilian-military hybrid, combining federal police officers with members of the army and navy’s policing units. Military members of the National Guard accused of abuses will be tried in civilian courts. And the forces' top commander will report to a civilian boss.

Experts say the force -- which authorities hope to expand to 150,000 by the end of the year -- will still be too small to take on the country's significant violence problem.

Even critics in Congress mostly wound up supporting the controversial measure, reflecting the country's grave security crisis and lack of proposals. Last year homicides increased by 15 percent. This January was the bloodiest month on record. (See Feb. 21's briefs.)

(Animal Político, Washington Post, Associated Press, New York Times)

News Briefs

Migration

• More than 2,800 Mexicans died trying to cross the border with the U.S. in the past decade, according to a new study by the Mexican National Commission of Human Rights and the University of California. (Animal Político)

• At least nine infants under one are being held in a U.S. immigrant detention facility -- rights groups have asked to release the babies and their mothers, after reports that their health has been impacted. (Guardian)

Argentina

• An Argentine court sentenced eight people accused of obstructing the investigation into the 1994 AMIA Jewish center bomb attack, among them a former federal judge and a former head of the intelligence services. The court acquitted five others, including former president Carlos Menem. Families of the victims lamented that the trial shed no new light on the still unanswered questions of who carried out the attack that killed 85 people and why. Instead the trial showcased Argentina's dysfunctional and politicized judicial system, reports the New York Times. Though victims' families lamented the relatively short sentences and the acquittals, they emphasized the importance of the court ruling that considered the cover-up a "grave human rights violation." Former judge Juan José Galeano, who presided over the original, botched trial on the bombing, received a six-year jail sentence, and former intelligence chief Hugo Anzorreguy was sentenced to four-and-a-half years in jail for his role in the cover-up. (Buenos Aires Times and Página 12)

Venezuela

• Russia vetoed an U.S. resolution in the United Nations Security Council calling for new elections and unhindered distribution of humanitarian aid in Venezuela, reports the New York Times. (See yesterday's post.)

• Univisión journalist Jorge Ramos started an interview with legitimacy-challenged President Nicolás Maduro this week with a tough question: "whether I should call him “Presidente” or “Dictador,” as many Venezuelans do." Footage of the interview was confiscated by Maduro, after which Ramos and his crew were detained and deported, but Ramos shares details in a New York Times op-ed. "What is Mr. Maduro so afraid of? He should release the interview for the world to see. If he does not, all he has proved is that he is behaving exactly like a dictator."

• National Assembly leader Juan Guaidó -- considered the country's interim-leader by a significant chunk of countries -- can't get back into Venezuela, and is on a regional diplomacy tour in the meantime. The longer he stays out of the country, the higher the likely cost of the opposition push to oust Maduro. (Washington Post and Washington Post)

• Using force to oust Maduro would be horribly risky according to the Economist, part of a growing chorus against the military intervention some of Venezuela's opposition is pushing for. (See yesterday's post.)

Brazil

• Brazilian justice minister Sergio Moro presented a package of judicial reforms last week -- aimed at reducing crime and corruption. They run the real risk of increasing violence by reducing penalties for police who kill suspects and by adding to the country's overpopulated jails. But the corruption part of the reform is doomed to failure for what it doesn't include, measures targeting the roots of corruption like campaign finance regulations, argue Gaspard Estrada and William Bourdon in a New York Times Español op-ed.

• Unfortunately, though evidence shows hardline policing does not improve violence, increase in crimes often leads people to support mano dura policing policies, reports the Huffington Post.

• Brazilian activists fear the new government is ushering a period of rollback for LGBT rights. But last year's election also saw a record breaking number of trans candidates, reports the Huffington Post. (See this recent Reuters piece too on how activists plan to counter the administration's anti-gay bent.)

Regional Relations

• Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro is known for lauding the country's military dictatorship past -- but he is also a fan of neighboring autocrats: this week he praised former Paraguayan strongman Gen. Alfredo Stroessner, calling him "a man of vision." (Associated Press)

• On an international relations level, Bolsonaro's government intends to reverse the Workers' Party legacy -- foreign minister Ernesto Araújo "is combining rabid nationalist rhetoric with submissiveness to the United States," reports NACLA. 

Cuba

• Cuba's constitutional referendum became an unexpected opportunity for debate on the island, a glimmer of a potential democratic future, argues Carlos Manuel Álvarez in a New York Times Español op-ed. (See Tuesday's briefs.)

• Indeed, the intense debate and campaigns over the new constitution are a significant novelty in Cuba, and demonstrate the growing power of new forces that could reshape the island's politics, argues Haroldo Dilla in Nueva Sociedad. (See Tuesday's briefs.)

El Salvador

• El Salvador's diplomatic ranks are a fertile ground for nepotism for high level government officials, reports Gato Encerrado.

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

Latin America Daily Briefing