Guatemalan forces forcibly break up migrant caravan (Jan. 19, 2021)

 

Honduran migrants clash with Guatemalan soldiers in Vado Hondo, Guatemala, on Sunday.

(Sandra Sebastian/AP)

Guatemalan police and soldiers broke up a group of hundreds of migrants who were traveling north from Honduras in a caravan formation. Security forces closed in on the migrants just beyond the village of Vado Hondo, some 55 km from the borders of Honduras and El Salvador. Some migrants threw rocks while authorities launched tear gas and pushed the migrants with their riot shields back down the highway. Migrants with children were more gently prodded back the way they had come, reports the Associated Press. 

The removal of the large group was the latest effort by Guatemalan authorities to break up the year's first migrant caravan, which departed from San Pedro Sula early Friday morning, reports Reuters. In total, some 8,000 to 9,000 Honduran migrants were believed to have entered Guatemala, but their push appears to have been largely deterred by Guatemalan forces. (See yesterday's post.)

Pedro Brolo Vila, Guatemala‘s foreign affairs secretary, criticized Honduras’ government for not doing more to dissuade the caravan, and said Guatemala was “totally surprised” by Honduras’ lack of cooperation, reports the Associated Press. Mexican authorities praised the Guatemalan government's forceful response to the migrants. Mexico beefed up security on its own southern border with Guatemala in anticipation of the caravan, reports NPR.

News Briefs

Regional Relations

• Former Colombian peace negotiators emphasized Cuba's strong role in supporting talks with the FARC that ultimately resulted in the 2016 peace deal. "We say with total certainty: without Cuba’s commitment and contribution there would have been no peace agreement in Colombia." Humberto de la Calle and Sergio Jaramillo wrote in response to the U.S. inclusion of Cuba on its list of countries that sponsor terrorism, and emphasized the care Cuban authorities took to ensure that FARC guerrillas in Havana for negotiations stuck to the peace mission. (See Jan. 12's post.) "...Despite all the differences that we may have with the regime of Cuba, we are obliged to recognize and thank the generous spirit and the professionalism that Cuba deployed in favor of peace in Colombia." (In English.)

• The U.S. Trump administration's push against Cuba has implications for the rest of the Caribbean, warns Sir Ronald Sanders. In a questionnaire the U.S. will use to compile its annual Trafficking in Persons (TIP) report, Caribbean countries were asked about workers from Cuba. "The objective appears to be the classification of Cuban medical personnel as ‘trafficked persons’, thereby implicating both Cuba and Caribbean governments in criminal activity." (Kaieteur News)

• Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador's ornery stance towards the incoming U.S. Biden administration is, at least partially, due to that the Democrats are more likely to intervene to promote labor rights and clean energy, mucking up AMLO's national agenda, reports the New York Times.

Mexico

• Mexico has reserved a tremendous amount of coronavirus vaccine doses -- 300 million for its 128 million inhabitants -- but its vaccination plan is far too slow, and seems to follow political priorities rather than epidemiological ones, writes Lucina Melesio in the Post Opinión.

Vaccines

• As Latin American governments slowly roll out vaccination programs, criminal groups (especially in Mexico) are offering a range of scams from reserved vaccination spots to counterfeit vaccines – practices that may have serious public health implications, reports InSight Crime.

Brazil

• Brazil kicked off its coronavirus vaccination program yesterday. (See yesterday's briefs.) But rollout is expected to be painfully slow and the government is scrambling to buy more vaccines after months of taking a lackadaisical approach, reports the New York Times. The country is simultaneously battling two new variants of the virus. Prosecutors say at least 16 people died because hospitals ran out of oxygen amid a sharp rise in critically ill patients in Amazonas state last week.

Venezuela

• Diplomatic "maximum pressure," has failed at ousting Venezuelan leader Nicolás Maduro, but has contributed to the country's increasingly acute humanitarian crisis. The time has come to switch to a "food-for-oil" program, with the collaboration of Venezuela's battered political opposition, argues Ibsen Martinez in the New York Times Español.

El Salvador

• The U.S. government’s terrorism case against the MS-13 opens a new frontier in fighting international street gangs, reports InSight Crime. (See last Friday's briefs.)

• "The recent decision by the US government to charge MS13’s top leaders in El Salvador with terrorism is either a sign of how little they understand the gang or a sign of how well they understand their own justice system," writes Steven Dudley in an InSight Crime deep-dive analysis of U.S. efforts to fight MS-13, from Los Angeles to El Salvador. 
  

Cuba

• Cuba is implementing a deep financial reform that reduces subsidies, eliminates a dual currency that was key to the old system and raises salaries. A key difference? The new system encourages people to work. The goal is to boost productivity and reconfigure a socialist system that will still grant universal benefits such as free health care and education, reports the Associated Press. But critics are concerned the plan will increase inequality without providing solutions for people without work.
  

British Virgin Islands

• British-appointed British Virgin Islands governor Gus Jaspert established to a commission of inquiry to investigate concerns over governance, including specific allegations that point to possible corruption and infiltration by serious organized criminal gangs. He was pushed to take the extraordinary measure by allegations of widespread political corruption, misuse of taxpayer’s money and a climate of fear following a November discovery of a cocaine stash worth more than £190m., reports the Guardian. The decision to set up a commission is an acknowledgement that BVI’s own criminal justice system is not capable of mounting an effective and impartial investigation. It also throws the constitutional relationship between the UK and overseas territories into the spotlight.
  

Regional

• Latin America's transition to democracy has not brought about less violent societies. "Instead, many of Latin America’s democracies have given rise to a plethora of nonstate armed groups including prison and street gangs, drug-trafficking cartels, smuggling networks, militias, and vigilante groups," write Juan Albarracín and Nicholas Barnes in the Latin America Research Review. According to the Brazil Research Initiative: Key takeaways include the incredible variation in forms of criminal violence in the region; the extent to which state-society relations are remade by criminal groups; the huge proportion of the region’s population who are directly impacted by criminal groups’ symbiotic but often antagonistic relations with the state; and the manner by which criminal groups “shift back and forth across the political/criminal divide.”

• Caribbean artists, politicians and other luminaries from Antigua to Barbados to Jamaica feted Kamala Harris's historical rise as “America’s first Black Caribbean-American” vice president in a virtual celebration ahead of tomorrow's inauguration, reports the Miami Herald.
  

Migration

• A small boat with 159 migrants ran aground near Turks and Caicos, according to the U.S. Coast Guard. (Miami Herald)
  

Borders

• A collection of bright pink seesaws that allowed people to interact over the US-Mexico border has won the prestigious Design of the Year award, reports the Guardian. The creators said they hope the "Teeter Totter Wall" encourages people to build bridges between communities.
  

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Guatemalan security forces repress migrant caravan (Jan. 18, 2021)

Guatemalan military and police have blocked thousands of mostly Honduran migrants traveling towards the U.S. with truncheons and tear gas. Hundreds of migrants managed to push through military and police lines on Saturday, but others were stopped by force on Sunday morning. Some migrants were visibly injured by baton strikes, reports the Associated Press. (See the Guardian also.) The caravan, which left Honduras last week, has an estimated 7,000 people loosely travelling together. (See last Friday's post.)

An initial group of several thousand migrants and asylum seekers made it 43 km on foot into Guatemalan territory before soldiers and police blocking the highway stopped them. About 3,000 people who entered Guatemala on Saturday caught up on foot by Sunday morning, reports Al Jazeera.

Central American countries have been under considerable pressure from the U.S. to stop migrants traveling north. This is the first major caravan since last January, when about 4,000 people were stopped by Mexican authorities at the border with Guatemala. Caravans have become a fixture in recent years, and a predictable political flashpoint. (New York Times)

Government's in the region are determined not to let the current group pass. The Guatemalan government enacted emergency measures last week in seven departments, restricting freedom of assembly and movement in response to the planned migrant caravan – the first of 2021. The country also deployed about 2,000 soldiers and police officers, while Mexico has sent hundreds of troops to its southern border, 432 km away. Guatemalan authorities have already sent back approximately 1,000 people to Honduras.

Many migrants are hoping for a more humane response from the U.S. under the incoming administration. U.S. president-elect Joe Biden has promised to ask Congress for a broad overhaul of immigration laws, but has also sought to caution migrants against banking on immediate change. A Biden transition official, speaking on background, advised people not to make for the United States. “Overcoming the challenges created by the chaotic and cruel policies of the last four years, and those presented by COVID-19, will take time,” said the official, according to Reuters. “In the meantime, the journey to the United States remains extraordinarily dangerous, and those in the region should not believe anyone peddling the lie that our border will be open to everyone next month,” the official added.

The Trump administration's controversial approach to migration has been widely questioned by experts, and evidence is mounting that the policies enacted by the U.S. government have been adverse for asylum seekers forced to wait in Mexico or sent to third countries. A year after the Trump administration started sending asylum seekers (mostly from Honduras and El Salvador) to Guatemala, not a single one has been granted asylum there. Since November 2019, the Trump administration has sent at least 945 asylum seekers to Guatemala -- of these, only 34 began applications, of those, 16 abandoned their cases. The remaining 18 have still not received an asylum decision, according to a soon-to-be-released U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee report obtained by the Washington Post. U.S. president-elect Joe Biden has promised to unravel the so-called asylum cooperation agreements with Guatemala, El Salvador, and Honduras.

A recent Human Rights Watch report found that the Trump administration's “Migration Protection Protocols” have exposed asylum seekers to considerable risk of serious harm. Known as "Remain in Mexico," authorities used the policy to send more than 69,000 people back over the border, sometimes into ramshackle refugee camps. Biden has also promised to scrap this policy, but warned that implementing an alternative system could take up to six months. (See Jan. 6's post.)

Radio Progreso writes about the factors pushing people to migrate from Honduras, the economic effects of the pandemic, along with the destruction of hurricanes Eta and Iota, have added to the long-standing issues of state corruption that stymie development. (H/T Daniel Langmeier's Honduras Daily) The only option is moving forward, said one desperate father, carrying his paralyzed son north in hopes of obtaining adequate health care, after years of failing in Honduras.

U.S. lawmaker Norma Torres explores the long-term roots of Honduran migration in this interview with the Los Angeles Times.

News Briefs

Venezuela

• Venezuelan National Assembly head -- and a close ally of President Nicolás Maduro -- said he is hopeful the incoming U.S. Biden administration will roll back crippling economic sanctions against Venezuela, reports the Associated Press. Rodriguez, extending an olive branch to the incoming U.S. president, said the ruling socialist party is eager for a new start after four years of conflict with current President Donald Trump.

Mexico

• Mexico's government decided not to pursue drug-trafficking charges against former defense minister Salvador Cienfuegos. Cienfuegos was detained in Los Angeles three months ago, and subsequently released to Mexico which said it would pursue the case with evidence sent by U.S. authorities. But Mexico's attorney general concluded that Cienfuegos had no meetings or communications with any criminal group, a quick investigation analysts said would do little to assuage doubts about the case, reports the Washington Post. (See Friday's briefs.)

• Mexico's move is a bombshell for frayed security cooperation between the U.S. and Mexico -- angry U.S. officials saw the exoneration of Cienfuegos as a stunning breach of trust by Mexican officials, reports the New York Times. And Mexican government critics say President Andrés Manuel López Obrador bowed down to military power.

• Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador is moving to disarm the Instituto Nacional de Acceso a la Información Pública y Datos Personales (INAI), part of a broader series of attacks on autonomous agencies aimed at serving as a counterweight to presidential power, writes Arturo Angel in the New York Times Español.

Twitter

• AMLO's hope to create an international coalition to push back against social media company regulation of content, notably the deplatforming of U.S. President Donald Trump earlier this month, will likely founder in international forums, according to the Washington Post. (See Friday's briefs.)

• Twitter has suspended accounts linked to FARC dissidents, shortly after Colombian police requested they be taken down for inciting violence, reports Reuters.
  

Regional Relations

• Years of lower-than-expected growth and now the economic contraction brought by the COVID-19 pandemic will force governments in the region to focus on their own domestic economies and political futures, writes Christopher Sabatini in a Chatham House round-up of LatAm expert opinions for 2021. For Arturo Sarukhan "seeing how nations across the region respond to the economic, social and political pressure points that will be uncorked this year will be essential. Watching which governments understand that the key to addressing this issue and other challenges will be cooperating globally and regionally to solve those problems locally will be telling."
  

Haiti

• Kidnappings for ransom have surged in Haiti, from a total of 39 in 2019 to nearly 200 in 2020 -- and experts believe there are political motivations in addition to financial ones, reports Vice News. An unexplained shift to kidnappings in opposition strongholds has led many to believe the government is working with gang members , neglecting official police departments and allowing gangs to serve as de-facto security forces.
  

Guatemala

• Guatemalan government data show acute malnutrition among the under-fives rose by 80% in the country last year compared to 2019. Data gathered by Oxfam last year also showed large increases in families facing food shortages, including a four-fold jump in severe shortages in the province around La Palmilla, reports Reuters. Successive droughts in Central America's "Dry Corridor" have created food shortages and push migration.
  

El Salvador

• Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele has ridiculed the landmark 1992 Peace Accords that ended El Salvador's protracted civil war. He has also been an obstacle in attempts to bring justice to the victims of the emblematic El Mozote massacre. Yet "his decision to denigrate the accords probably had the impact of increasing the number of events [commemorating the Peace Accords] and people talking about their importance," writes Tim Muth at El Salvador Perspectives.

Argentina

• Argentina is the first major country outside Russia to begin inoculating against Covid-19 with the Sputnik V vaccine on a large scale. But the rollout has highlighted questions concerning the lack of transparency about the efficacy of the Russian state-sponsored jab, viewed as a cheaper alternative for developing countries desperate to obtain vaccines, reports the Wall Street Journal.

Brazil

• Brazil started Covid-19 vaccinations yesterday, with the Chinese CoronaVac. The São Paulo ceremony was a victory for governor João Doria, whose state spearheaded the partnership with Sinovac. (Guardian)

• Brazil’s government will not seek to bar Chinese telecom equipment maker Huawei from 5G network auctions slated for June this year, reports Reuters.

Dominican Republic

• Women in the Dominican Republic go to extreme lengths to self-induce abortions, often in secrecy and without clear medical guidance. The DR is one of four countries in Latin America – along with Honduras, Nicaragua and El Salvador – where abortion is illegal in all circumstances, reports the Guardian.

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First migrant caravan of 2021 heads out from Honduras (Jan. 15, 2021)

 The vanguard of 2021's first migrant caravan set out from San Pedro Sula in Honduras, yesterday, most wearing masks to help protect against the coronavirus. Thousands more were expected to join the initial 300 today. The charity Movimiento Migrante Mesoamericano tweeted that some 3,500 migrants had gathered in the city on Thursday evening. Local media put the number at around 1,500. (Deutsche Welle) They are headed towards the Guatemalan border, and plan to make their way to the U.S.

The migrants -- many pushed by recent hurricanes that devastated Central America, in addition to Covid-19 economic repercussions -- leave with little certainty about how far they will make it. Regional governments appeared more united than ever in stopping their progress, reports the Associated Press. Guatemala, Honduras, El Salvador and Mexico issued a joint declaration earlier this week imposing coordinated health measures to deter migration, including requirements to produce negative coronavirus tests at border checkpoints, reports Reuters.

Guatemalan military spokesman Ruben Tellez said that up to 4,000 soldiers would be deployed to stop the migrants from entering en masse. (Reuters)

Guatemala, Mexico and Honduras have an agreement with the United States to stop north-bound migratory flows from the south of the continent. And periodic caravans of migrants -- who band together for safety and to avoid costly human traffickers -- have been deterred by soldiers at Mexico's border with Guatemala in recent years, reports AFP.

The caravan has set off just ahead of a new administration in the U.S. President-elect Joe Biden has promised a more human approach to migration. Vice president-elect Kamala Harris said a reform bill the incoming administration will present would eliminate controversial family separation policies enacted by the Trump administration. (Univisión)

News Briefs

El Salvador

• U.S. prosecutors announced terrorism charges against top MS-13 leaders imprisoned in El Salvador, accusing them of ordering killings and other crimes by the notorious street gang from jail, reports the Associated Press. U.S. authorities said they were exploring ways to have the defendants brought to New York to face prosecution. Prosecutors said directives by the 14 defendants — members of an illicit commission known as “Ranfla Nacional” — have resulted in a wave of violence in El Salvador, the United States and elsewhere.

Venezuela

• A group of international rights organizations -- including WOLA, Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International -- denounced that "recent campaigns of stigmatization, harassment, and repression against the media in Venezuela constitute a clear attack against the freedoms of expression and of access to information and infringe upon the important contributions by these organizations to expose human rights violations committed by the Venezuelan authorities. The media outlet Efecto Cocuyo, community radio channel Fe y Alegría, as well as the National Press Workers Union, VPI TV, and news journal Panorama, among other media outlets, have become the target of stigmatization campaigns and legal scrutiny by the authorities that respond to Nicolás Maduro.

• Lawyers for Venezuela’s central bank -- which responds to Maduro -- said opposition leader Juan Guaidó rejected a proposed deal to buy coronavirus vaccines in Britain, an assertion the opposition dismissed as false. The bank said it requested the support of an ad-hoc central bank board appointed by Guaidó to transfer $120 million in funds frozen in Britain to Gavi, an alliance seeking to improve poor countries’ vaccine access. (Reuters)
  

Regional Relations

• Long standing tensions between Guyana and Venezuela, which claims an area that comprises two-thirds of the smaller English-speaking South American country, flared up again this month. While the area's riches include gold, diamonds and timber, the focus of Venezuela's claim is the massive offshore Liza oil field, reports Global Voices. The border dispute is before the ICJ, but Venezuela rejects the court's authority and demands a negotiated bilateral solution, reports Reuters.

• "The current U.S. approach to China’s interest in the Caribbean has relied too heavily on a Cold War mentality in which Caribbean nations are viewed either as part of the United States’ backyard or proxies of China. This has led to the unfortunate habit of U.S. officials lecturing and threatening Caribbean leaders and their governments about the consequences of engaging with China," argues Wazim Mowla in Global Americans.

• The presidents of the Dominican Republic, Luis Abinader, and of Haiti, Jovenel Moïse, signed nine agreements in which they commit to confronting the irregular migratory flow and the issues of trade, maritime borders, sovereignty, health, and others common to both nations that share the island of Hispaniola. (Dominican Today)
• U.S. president-elect Joe Biden is expected to implement a sea-change in policies towards Latin America, reports the Economist. "Bidenworld thinks it wrongheaded to confine democracy promotion to three countries. It shares the pre-Trump consensus that the neighbourhood’s stability depends on the rule of law, a strong civil society and fairer capitalism. It will seek more humane ways to control migration than bullying governments to block migrants as they pass through their countries."

Mexico

• Mexico published new rules regulating the activity of foreign agents, three months after a diplomatic spat with Washington over the arrest in the United States of Mexico’s former army chief, Salvador Cienfuegos. (EFE)

• Mexican authorities say they will bring no charges against Cienfuegos, who was sent home by U.S. authorities at the request of Mexico's government. His complete exoneration in Mexico came as a shocking about-face after the authorities had promised to bring the full weight of the Mexican justice system to bear in the case, reports the New York Times.

Haiti

• Haiti is bracing for widespread protests today as opposition leaders demand that President Jovenel Moïse step down next month as an increasingly tired and angry population worries he is amassing too much power as he enters his second year of rule by decree. (See last Friday's post.)

Colombia

• Colombia's government is advancing with the reintegration into society of demobilized FARC guerrillas, and said that they should not be dissuaded from continuing in the process by attacks on former rebels. Over 250 have been killed since the landmark 2016 peace deal with the FARC. The Colombian government blames dissidents and illegal armed groups for the deaths, while former guerrillas say the government has dragged its feet on key parts of the peace deal. (Reuters)
  

Covid-19

• Brazil's Amazonas state health system is collapsing under a second wave of Covid-19 infections that appears even more devastating than the first wave that struck last year, reports the Associated Press. There are reports of many patients dying after public hospitals and emergency care units ran out of oxygen, according to the Guardian. The state government said it would transport 235 patients to five other states and the federal capital, Brasilia.

• Venezuela promised to send oxygen to Brazil, reports Reuters.

• Paraguay is the eighth country outside Russia to approve the Sputnik V coronavirus vaccine. It joins Argentina, Bolivia, Venezuela, Algeria and Serbia. (Reuters)
  

Ecuador

• Ecuador is headed for presidential and legislative elections on Feb. 7, and the spirit is apathetic, writes Iván Ulchur-Rota in a New York Times Español op-ed. Though there are sixteen candidates, only three have a chance and some polls found that 37 percent of voters will cast blank or annulled ballots. 

• The three main candidates are Andrés Arauz (backed by former president Rafael Correa, who is his running mate), Guillermo Lasso (business friendly), and Yaku Pérez (an indigenous environmental activist popular among anti-Correa leftists) -- Americas Quarterly

Chile

• Chile’s Congress began discussing the decriminalization of abortion within the first 14 weeks since conception, this week. The bill was presented in 2018 and is opposed by President Sebastian Piñera. Unlike the law approved in Argentina in December, the Chilean project is limited only to decriminalizing abortion and does not guarantee access to the procedure. (EFE)
  

Argentina

• Argentina's abortion legalization has spurred interest across the region, reports the Guardian.

• Argentine President Alberto Fernández reimposed limits on the country's military, which can only focus on external threats. It is a shift from his predecessor's policy that expanded military purview to internal threats, but is in keeping with Argentina's history of strict limitations on the military since the country's return to democracy in 1983. (Wilson Center Weekly Asado)

Caribbean News Updates

• As some countries in the world launch coronavirus vaccination campaigns, and most others struggle to obtain jabs, Caricom expressed deep concern regarding inequitable access to vaccines.

• This week's Caribbean News Updates looks at Cuba's vaccine development efforts, how litigation can be used to fight climate change, as well as other news from around the Caribbean.
  

Social Media

• Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador hopes to lead an international campaign against what he considers censorship by social media companies that deplatformed U.S. President Donald Trump. López Obrador says private companies should not have the right to decide who can speak. But the issue also displays his closeness to Trump, and his off-again, on-again love of social media, reports the Associated Press.

• The issue of U.S. based companies' ability to moderate content takes on extra significance in sovereignty sensitive Latin America, noted James Bosworth at the Latin America Risk Report this week. 

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

Human Rights Watch annual report (Jan. 14, 2021)

Outgoing President Donald Trump undermined global support for human rights well before last week's riot in Washington shred the United States' claim to exceptionalism. But the vacuum also galvanized other countries and regional coalitions around the world united to defend rights in recent years, notes Kenneth Roth in new Human Rights Watch annual report. He cites the example of the Lima Group in Latin America that has pushed for democratization in Venezuela: "Maduro is still continuing his repressive rule, but he is far more isolated than he would have been had the US government continued its traditional, largely unilateral leadership on human rights in Venezuela."

Roth's essay focuses on the opportunity for the incoming U.S. Biden administration to strengthen commitment to human rights, and to do so in a way that makes it difficult for the next government to reverse course: through framing and legislation that heighten respect for rights.

The HRW annual report has country-specific entries on national human rights contexts. Below very brief excerpts from a selection of Latin American countries. The full report delves into specific issues in each country.

• Argentina -- Longstanding human rights problems in Argentina include police abuse, poor prison conditions, and endemic violence against women.

• Bolivia -- The Morales administration had created a hostile environment for human rights defenders and promoted changes to the judiciary that posed a serious threat to the rule of law. Instead of breaking with the past, interim President Áñez adopted measures that undermined fundamental human rights standards. 

• Brazil -- President Jair Bolsonaro has tried to sabotage efforts to slow the spread of Covid-19 in Brazil and pursued other policies that undermine human rights. (Brazil-specific report) The Bolsonaro administration has promoted anti-rights policies on women’s rights and disability rights, has lashed out at reporters and civil society groups, and has weakened environmental law enforcement, effectively giving a green light to criminal networks that engage in illegal deforestation in the Amazon and threaten and attack forest defenders. In 2019, Brazilian police killed 6,357 people, one of the highest rates of police killings in the world. Almost 80 percent of victims were Black. Police killings rose 6 percent in the first half of 2020.

• Chile -- Chile’s national police—the Carabineros—used excessive force in responding to massive demonstrations, some of them violent, in 2019. ... While initial steps have been taken to reform the police, structural changes to prevent police misconduct and strengthen oversight and accountability are still pending.

• Colombia -- In 2020, civilians in various parts of the country suffered serious abuses at the hands of National Liberation Army (ELN) guerrillas, FARC dissidents, and paramilitary successor groups. Human rights defenders, journalists, indigenous and Afro-Colombian leaders, and other community activists face pervasive death threats and violence. The government has taken insufficient steps to protect them. (More on this below.)

• Cuba -- The Cuban government represses and punishes dissent and public criticism. Tactics against critics include beatings, public shaming, travel restrictions, short term detention, fines, online harassment, surveillance, and termination of employment.

• Ecuador -- Ecuador continues to face significant human rights challenges, including with respect to judicial independence, excessive use of force by security forces, and protections for the right to privacy and the rights of indigenous people; women and children; lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) people; and refugees.

• El Salvador -- Since taking office, President Nayib Bukele has undermined basic democratic checks and balances. In February 2020, he entered the Legislative Assembly with armed soldiers in an apparent effort to intimidate legislators into approving a loan for security forces. He has publicly defied three rulings by the Constitutional Chamber of the Supreme Court prohibiting arrests for violations of a Covid19-related lockdown Bukele had decreed. 

• Guatemala -- There are significant delays in the appointment of judges and high court justices. The congressional appointment process has been marred by allegations of corruption. Congress has flouted Constitutional Court rulings to ensure suitable candidates are appointed, instead ordering prosecutors to pursue criminal charges against Constitutional Court magistrates for ruling on the matter.

• Haiti -- Protracted political instability and gang violence in 2020—often with state ties— contributed to the Haitian government’s inability to meet the basic needs of its people, resolve long-standing human rights problems, and address humanitarian crises. 

• Honduras -- Violent organized crime continues to disrupt Honduran society and push many people to leave the country. Journalists, environmental activists, lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) individuals, and people with disabilities are among the groups targeted for violence. The government relies heavily on the military for public security.

• Mexico -- Human rights violations—including torture, enforced disappearances, abuses against migrants, extrajudicial killings, and attacks on independent journalists and human rights defenders—have continued under President Andrés Manuel López Obrador, who took office in December 2018. Impunity remains the norm. Reforms enacted in 2017 and 2018 have been slow and until now ineffective in addressing torture and impunity.

• Nicaragua -- Since taking office in 2007, the government of President Daniel Ortega has dismantled nearly all institutional checks on presidential power. The Electoral Council, stacked with his supporters, has barred opposition political parties and removed opposition lawmakers. The Supreme Court of Justice has upheld Electoral Council decisions undermining political rights and allowing Ortega to circumvent a constitutional prohibition on re-election and run for a second term. 

• Peru -- Violence against women, abuses by security forces, and threats to freedom of expression are major concerns.

• Venezuela -- Venezuela is facing a severe humanitarian emergency, with millions unable to access basic healthcare and adequate nutrition. Limited access to safe water in homes and healthcare centers has contributed to the spread of Covid-19. The exodus of Venezuelans fleeing repression and shortages of food, medicine, and medical supplies represents the largest migration crisis in recent Latin American history. Persistent concerns include brutal policing practices, poor prison conditions, impunity for human rights violations, lack of judicial independence, and harassment of human rights defenders and independent media.

News Briefs

Migration

• Immigration will be among critical issues requiring rapid action by U.S. president-elect Joe Biden, who last week said he would introduce an immigration bill “immediately” upon taking office. Even if comprehensive reform has little chance of passing Congress, the incoming president should still send a proposal within his first months in office, as a matter of principal, argues León Krauze in the Washington Post. But he can also rapidly undo the Trump administration's more draconian policies: "Biden could halt deportations and establish priorities solely on public safety considerations, freeze the construction of the border wall and reduce incarceration of immigrants with an emphasis on reuniting hundreds of children who have been separated from their parents." He could also end the controversial "Migrant Protection Protocols" that force asylum seekers to wait for resolution in dangerous conditions in Mexico.

• Eleven years after Haiti's crushing 7.0 earthquake in 2010, thousands of Haitians who fled the country remain in precarious conditions across the region, with many stuck at the Mexico-U.S. border, reports the Miami Herald.

Regional Relations

• Disappointing results from a Brazilian clinical trial on the Chinese produced Sinovac coronavirus vaccine could undermine a tool that is crucial to China’s global health diplomacy, reports the New York Times. At least 10 countries have ordered more than 380 million doses of CoronaVac and could question their commitment in light of the efficacy rate of just over 50 percent.

• The incoming U.S. Biden administration has no plan to reverse harsh sanctions against Venezuela's Maduro government, but it is expected to dial back the Trump administration's almost-daily vitriol aimed at Maduro and threats of a “military option," reports the Associated Press. And Gregory Meeks, chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, could be uniquely poised to open room for diplomacy with Venezuela's legitimacy-challenged leader. He met Nicolás Maduro 20 years ago in the U.S. and is open to involving Maduro stalwarts Cuba and Russia in any negotiations that emerge.

• Cuba's government strenuously rejected the U.S. designation of the country as a "state sponsor of terrorism." But beyond the indignation, Cuba has high hopes for a shift in U.S. policy under Biden, reports the New York Times. In addition to campaign promises to restore the normalization process between the U.S. and Cuba, Biden's senior foreign policy transition team were involved in Cuba negotiations in the Obama administration and are well positioned to roll back harsh Trump administration measures that have deepened Cuba's economic crisis.

Cuba

• Cuba started using nationally developed nasal drops -- Nasalferón -- to block replication of SARS-CoV-2 in patients. They are currently being administered to Cubans returning from abroad and their cohabitants, but the government plans to ramp up use for Havana's population. (Página 12)

Colombia

• There have been sixteen femicides in the first two weeks of 2021 in Colombia -- a trend of gender violence that authorities view with alarm, reports El Espectador.

• Colombia is one of the most dangerous places in the world for community leaders, and the government has largely failed to stem deathly violence against social activists, reports the Associated Press. Activists are often targeted for denouncing or being seen to interfere with drug trafficking or illegal logging or mining, or for trying to protect communities confronting armed gangs.

Mexico

• Mexico’s health ministry published rules to regulate the use of medicinal cannabis this week, a major step in a broader reform to create the world’s largest legal cannabis market, reports Al Jazeera.
  

Lessons?

• Banning a populist leader from holding political office is an approach that has been known to backfire in Latin America, reports the Washington Post, citing Juan Perón and Alberto Fujimori as key examples.
  

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Salvadoran gang-leader's fake medical emergency (Jan. 13, 2021)

 El Salvador's Penitentiary Directorate got an MS-13 gang leader out of jail for a "medical emergency," though the maximum security prison's medical chief said Chino Milo was healthy, reports El Faro in a new investigation. The transfer occurred in October of last year, a month after El Faro revealed negotiations between the Bukele administration and jailed MS-13 gang leaders.

According to Salvadoran attorney general Raúl Melara, Danilo Antonio Colocho Hernández alias Chino Milo, is part of the MS-13's top leadership, the right-hand of one of the street gang's main heads, Diablo de Hollywood.

More El Salvador

• The head of El Salvador’s financial regulatory agency has instructed banks not to close the accounts of suspected or formally accused money launderers -- it "is the latest in a long line of incidents that expose El Salvador’s hollow fight against graft," reports InSight Crime.

News Briefs

Diplomacy

• Outgoing U.S. President Donald Trump has been toxic and divisive for Venezuela, Federico Vegas hopes his successor can help stanch the country's human misery. (New York Times Español)

• Moving forward, the best way for the U.S. to help Venezuela overcome its crisis is for president-elect Joe Biden to focus on multilateral diplomacy. In addition to supporting the Lima Group, "Biden should take advantage of certain leaders’ closer proximity to Maduro," argues Geoff Ramsey in the Responsible Statecraft. "Rather than demonizing Mexico, Argentina, or other countries for maintaining ties with the government in Caracas, the Biden administration should appreciate that other countries may be better positioned than the U.S. to engage with Maduro and his inner circle in ways that open opportunities for diplomacy."

• Venezuela criticized joint naval exercises by the United States and Guyana. Vice President Delcy Rodriguez told a news conference that the maneuvers were an attempt by the outgoing Trump administration to “create provocations, threats," reports Reuters.

• The outgoing U.S. Trump administration's designation of Cuba as a state sponsor of terrorism is "diplomatic vandalism," part of a series of moves aimed at hampering the incoming administration's foreign policy, experts told the Washington Post. (See yesterday's post.)

• Former U.S. president George W. Bush's reference "banana republics" in his condemnation of last week's riot in Washington "is particularly ironic because it alludes to the debilitating impacts of U.S. foreign policy itself—something anyone who has read even the Sparknotes of any Gabriel García Márquez novel would know," writes Laura Weiss in The New Republic. More broadly, she calls out commentators who "have relied on fallacious allusions to the developing world to explain a problem unique to the United States."

• What is evident is that the events will undermine the United States' democratic moral high ground. "U.S. democracy promotion, long seen as hypocritical by some in the Global South, now seems risible and will require time and recasting to have credibility," writes Charles Call in the Brookings Institution blog.

• The Washington Post agrees: the riots, egged on by Trump, have "provided a propaganda coup for Washington’s enemies, undermined pro-democracy movements worldwide and offered a model for would-be autocrats."

Regional

• Covid-19 vaccines may be Latin America's best hope at containing the coronavirus pandemic -- but access to jabs is extremely varied for now. Countries that have started vaccination campaigns -- Mexico, Chile, Costa Rica and Argentina -- have obtained supplies via bilateral deals with producers rather than the Covax initiative aimed at ensuring equitable access to the vaccine for developing countries. (El País)

• The bets are on: "Who will be the first Latin American president kicked off Twitter?" asks James Bosworth at the Latin America Risk Report. Joking aside, the issue of U.S. based companies' ability to moderate content takes on extra significance in sovereignty sensitive Latin America, he notes. 

Peru

• Peruvian police used "unnecessary and excessive force" against political protests in November, according to a new UN Human Rights Office report. The report said police officers did not distinguish between the peacefully-protesting majority, and a minority alleged to have acted violently. The report said that police fired pellets from shotguns and tear gas canisters directly at people's heads and upper bodies, indiscriminately and from close range. Two protesters were killed by shotgun pellets fired at their torso, according to the report. (AFP)

• Peruvian leftists face a lasting stigma, and are often accused (mostly without grounds) of being connected to once powerful communist terrorist organizations. But, the careless and defamatory use of a political and racial slur -- terruqueo -- reflects the fragility of Peru’s democracy, write Luisa Feline Freier and Soledad Castillo Jara in Americas Quarterly.

Colombia

• Colombia's ProAves Foundation informed the murder of forest guard Gonzalo Cardona in Valle del Cauca Department on Monday, the first assassination of an environmental leader in the country this year. (Telesur)

Brazil

• Brazil's Congress has shown unusual policy leadership over the past year, particularly regarding Covid-19, in part filling the void left by President Jair Bolsonaro, writes Beatriz Rey at the AULA Blog.

• The Sinovac CoronaVac demonstrated a 50 percent efficacy rate in Brazilian vaccine trials, far lower than earlier results indicated. While it still meets the WHO threshold for widespread use, lack of transparency over the data has raised concerns over credibility, reports the Wall Street Journal.

Mexico

• Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador is an unlikely fiscal conservative. His refusal to boost public spending in order to mitigate the pandemic's economic effects means Mexico will have the lowest budget deficit among Latin America’s major economies this year — but that also means its recovery is lagging behind, reports the Financial Times.

• Support for abortion rose sharply in Mexico in 2020, according to a new poll. At the end of November, support for abortion was 48 percent up from 29 percent in March. (Reuters)
  

Argentina

• Most women detained in relation to illicit abortions or obstetric complications in Argentina -- including 30 with life sentences -- have actually been charged with other crimes, like homicide, which will complicate efforts to exonerate them under the new law legalizing abortion, reports Folha de S. Paulo.

• Feminist struggles often involve a paradigm shift in perspective, questioning situations that once seemed natural (like that women are inherently maternal, or better at cleaning). A fight to reduce the price of tampons in Argentina might not immediately seem like the natural follow up to the struggle to legalize abortion, but activists within the government and outside are increasingly calling for menstrual justice. The cost of menstrual hygiene products disproportionately affects poorer households, and pushes some women to use dangerous substitutes or miss school and work. More than a dozen bills in Congress seek to remove tax from menstrual hygiene products, and activist efforts in the past pushed the government to include them in a price control program. (Bae Negocios)

• Argentina successfully passed clinical trials for a hyperimmune serum to combat COVID-19 developed with antibodies from horses, and its distribution will begin over the next few days, reports Reuters.
  

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Latin America Daily Briefing

U.S. puts Cuba on terrorism list (Jan. 12, 2021)

 The U.S. State Department designated Cuba as a "State Sponsor of Terrorism for repeatedly providing support for acts of international terrorism in granting safe harbor to terrorists," yesterday. The move, coming just a week before U.S. president-elect Joe Biden takes office, caps four years of escalating measures against Cuba by President Donald Trump, reports the Miami Herald. The designation will hamper the incoming administration's plan to re-thaw relations with Cuba. Biden had promised on the campaign trail to return to the normalization carried out by the Obama administration.

U.S. sanctions against Cuba are already so high that the current move will not have a significant immediate impact for U.S. entities, but removing Cuba from the list, which includes only three other nations: Iran, North Korea and Syria, is a bureaucratic process that will take months. (See post for Jan. 4.) Trump administration sanctions against Cuba, the harshest in decades, have contributed to a profound economic crisis in Cuba. The new terrorism label could hinder commercial deals with third countries that Cuba relies on to import essential goods and deter foreign investment in the country's private sector, reports the Washington Post.

U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo cited Cuba’s hosting of 10 Colombian rebel leaders, along with a few American fugitives wanted for crimes committed in the 1970s, and Cuba’s support for Venezuelan leader Nicolás Maduro. The decision was made by the State Department’s Bureau of Western Hemisphere Affairs and not its Counterterrorism Bureau, which would typically play a central role in such a decision, reports the New York Times. 

American University professor Philip Brenner, who specializes in U.S. foreign policy toward Cuba and other Latin American countries, told The Hill that a Biden reversal of a Cuba terrorist sponsor designation would signal an internal review, in which intelligence experts would likely not find enough evidence of Cuba directly supporting terrorist actions. 

Few U.S, allies believe Cuba remains a sponsor of international terrorism, notes the Associated Press. Many reject the definition based on support for Maduro, or reject claims that Cuban authorities are bankrolling or masterminding international terrorist attacks. 

The decision is controversial within the U.S. as well. Senator Patrick Leahy blasted Pompeo’s “blatantly politicized designation” that “makes a mockery of what had been a credible, objective measure of a foreign government’s active support for terrorism.” Experts say the Trump administration's move has more to do with national politics than diplomacy, it is a reward for Florida's Cuban and Latino voters. Biden will face pushback from Republicans if he attempts to rollback sanctions against Cuba.

“These are trumped up charges,” Christopher Sabatini, a senior fellow for Latin America at Chatham House told the Guardian. “Terrorism as an international definition is committing acts of violence against unarmed civilians intended to frighten the population. Cuba doesn’t do that. Yes, it represses its own people – but so does Saudi Arabia.”

The U.S. stance also ignores Cuba's key role in ending Colombia's civil war, work applauded by the Obama administration, notes CNN. Indeed, Cuba's refusal to hand over 10 leaders of the Cuban ELN is due to its role as a guarantor in peace talks between the guerrilla group and the Colombian government, which fell apart in the wake of a January 2019 attack on a police training school in Bogotá, reports the Washington Post.

The public designation could further “poison” the atmosphere of bilateral relations, “but it would not significantly delay President Biden from re-engaging with Cuba,” William LeoGrande, a professor of government at American University, told the Miami Herald.

More Cuba

• Cuba is partnering with Iran to produce a Covid-19 vaccine developed by scientists on the island, the latest example of how the two U.S.-sanctioned nations are building closer ties, reports the Miami Herald. Cuba announced Friday that it transfer the technology for its most advanced coronavirus vaccine candidate and carry out last-stage clinical trials of the shot in Iran, reports Reuters.

News Briefs

Regional

• Latin America should prepare for even more coronavirus spread -- new variants mean some countries could see yet another doubling of new cases, warns the Latin America Risk Report.
  

Honduras

• Honduran President Juan Orlando Hernández has emerged as a lynchpin in the country's descent into a narco-state, according to InSight Crime. New filings by U.S. federal prosecutors add to a growing body of evidence linking JOH to drug traffickers over the course of his political career. (See yesterday's post.) The incoming U.S. Biden administration could leverage the accusations to strengthen its ambitious anti-corruption agenda in Central America, argues InSight Crime.
  

Venezuela

• The end of the opposition-led National Assembly's mandate in Venezuela marks the culmination of five years in which significant state violence has accompanied the exhaustion of potential avenues of exit for the country's crisis, writes Alberto Barrera Tyszka in the New York Times Español. "For most Venezuelans, hit hard by the crisis, the future is now more uncertain and more poor: there are no more alternatives." (See Jan. 5's post.)

Diplomacy

• Latin America is a key region for the incoming U.S. Biden administration's climate agenda, argues Lisa Viscidi in a New York Times op-ed. Potential policies to focus on are clean energy exports and lending to support clean energy in Latin America, she writes. Also support for climate resilience in the Caribbean and Central America, and fighting deforestation in the Amazon.

• Environmental issues will likely be a major point of conflict between the Biden administration and Brazil. More broadly, Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro is sticking to his political idol, outgoing U.S. President Donald Trump -- despite the likely significant diplomatic costs. "Bolsonaro seems ready — even eager — to accept isolation," though it is unclear his political base will embrace the costs, writes Brian Winter in Americas Quarterly.

Brazil

• The Bolsonaro administration's rollback of environmental protections are a huge concern for conservationists. Brazil’s main environmental enforcement agency, Ibama, handed out 20% fewer fines in 2020, according to the Climate Observatory campaign group. (Reuters)

• Some Brazilians are concerned that U.S. conspiracy-fueled riots are a harbinger of Brazil's future in relation to the 2022 presidential elections, reports the Huffington Post.

Bolivia

• Bolivian authorities said they identified seven alleged perpetrators of the 2019 Sacaba massacre that took place in Cochabamba. They must testify before the Public Prosecutor's Office of La Paz, reports Telesur.

Migration

• Guatemalan and Honduran soldiers will be deployed to prevent new U.S.-bound migrant caravans from advancing, reports Reuters.
  

Latin America Daily Briefing

JOH accused of aiding drug traffickers, again (Jan. 11, 2021)

 New filings by U.S. federal prosecutors accuse Honduran President Juan Orlando Hernández of aiding a drug trafficker to deliver tons of cocaine to the U.S. in exchange for hefty bribes. It is not the first time JOH has been implicated in a U.S. drug trafficking case, but the allegations are particularly explosive: The documents quote Hernández as saying he wanted to “shove the drugs right up the noses of the gringos by flooding the United States with cocaine." (Associated Press)

The filing alleges Hernández boasted of looting the country’s social security fund as well as U.S.-donated relief funds through fraudulent nongovernmental organizations, reports the Wall Street Journal. The filing alleges that Hernández accepted bribes while running for the presidency in 2013, and in exchange offered military support and the use of the country's armed forces "as security" for drug running operations, reports CNN.

The Honduran government denied the accusations yesterday, on the executive's official Twitter account. The government said the accusations are a revenge-motivated "smear campaign" by drug traffickers. (AFP)

Hernández is referred to in the filing as CC-4, or co-conspirator four, but is identified by his post and his relationship to his brother, Juan Antonio Hernández, who was convicted in the U.S. in 2019. During that trial JOH was accused of accepting more than one million dollars from the Mexican drug trafficker Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzmán – an accusation repeated in the new motions. JOH has not been charged and denies the accusations.

The claims underscore the difficult challenge posed by Honduras to the incoming U.S. Biden administration, according to the Wall Street Journal. Prosecutors wrote in the filing that the allegations of corruption illustrate a "broader criminal plan of the defendant, CC-4, CC-10, and others, to use drug trafficking to help assert power and control in Honduras."

News Briefs

Venezuela

• Venezuela is savagely (albeit quietly) transitioning to a deregulated market, after year's of a state-run economy. Nonetheless, analysts say the "neoliberal" turn remains subject to government whim, and that the economy is deeply dysfunctional, reports the Financial Times.

Argentina

• Current criminal charges against women alleged abortions will be dropped in Argentina, after the country passed a landmark abortion legalization bill last month. While it's not clear how many women could be affected, arecent report – by Argentine human rights group CELS, abortion rights campaigners and San Martín University Centre – identified 1,532 abortion cases in the past eight years that could potentially be covered, reports the Guardian. Activists are now pushing for investigation into the cases of women who may have been prosecuted homicide in relation to abortions or obstetric complications.

• Legalization could spur women from the region to seek abortions in Argentina, a trend that had already started among some Brazilian women before the Dec. 30 landmark law, reports the Associated Press.

Brazil

• Police operations in Rio de Janeiro have reportedly seized assets worth $150 million from militia groups in recent months, part of a push to seize control of legal businesses used by the criminal organizations to launder money, according to Insight Crime. Militia groups' control in Rio is such that they have developed complex criminal economies throughout the city, and residents in certain neighborhoods are often forced to rely on the militias to access essential services.

• International pressure has not succeeded in deterring Brazilian deforestation -- which hit a 12-year high in 2020 -- but there is hope that the incoming U.S. Biden administration could help coax Brazil to implement better environmental policies, argues Oliver Stuenkel in Americas Quarterly.

• Brazil passed 200,000 coronavirus deaths last week, the world’s second highest death toll, behind the United States, according to Johns Hopkins University’s database. The number contrasts with the holiday season's explosion of celebrations, reports the Associated Press.

• Several Brazilian activists have begun online shaming Brazilians who party on as the country's Covid-19  epidemic again spirals out of control -- #Covidfest. (Guardian)

• Brazil's government agreed to buy up to 100 million doses of China’s Sinovac coronavirus vaccine, despite President Jair Bolsonaro's earlier criticism of the Chinese initiative. The vaccine has been tested by a Brazilian state research center and has emerged as one of Brazil’s best bets to fight a pandemic, reports the Wall Street Journal.
  

Regional

• End-of-year celebrations have added to the Covid-19 toll in the region, and intensive care units at major hospitals in Peru and Bolivia are at capacity or near collapse, reports Reuters. In Mexico City, 89% of general hospital beds and 84% of hospital beds with ventilators are now filled, while the same is true for 82% of general hospital beds and 79% of beds with ventilators in the State of Mexico, reports Reuters separately.

Costa Rica

• Costa Rica is reeling from the financially crushing side effects of the coronavirus, one of many heavily leveraged nations around the world in an economic danger zone due to the pandemic, reports the Washington Post. The country's social crisis is pushing officials to consider desperate solutions — including open-pit gold mining, even oceanic fracking.
  

El Salvador

• El Salvador's government ignored public agency warnings against buying Chinese face masks -- ultimately half of the1.5 million masks purchased last year in midst of the pandemic were not medical grade, and the other half were never delivered, reports El Faro.

• It is just one of several Covid-19 spending corruption scandals that threaten President Nayib Bukele's popularity ahead of next month's key legislative elections, according to World Politics Review. In recent months, journalists, prosecutors and opposition lawmakers have uncovered evidence of misallocated funds, bloated procurement contracts and other financial impropriety. The scandals have even implicated senior government officials.

Mexico

• Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador's offer to grant asylum to Wikileaks founder Julian Assange in the name of protecting a journalist puts the leader on a collision course with the U.S. It's also frustrating for Mexican press advocates, given that Mexico is one of the most dangerous places in the world for reporters, and the government has done little to improve conditions, argues Guillermo Osorno in a New York Time Español op-ed. (See last Tuesday's briefs.)

• Covid-19 has taken an outsize toll on Mexico's poorly paid health-care workers, pushed by economic necessity to take on extra shifts, with concomitant risk to their health, reports the Wall Street Journal.

Suriname

• Suriname's vice president Ronnie Brunswijk has a turbulent past: he's been an elite paratrooper, a soccer player, a wanted bank robber, a guerrilla leader, a gold baron and a father to at least 50 children. Now he wants to be known as the man who will spread the country’s newfound oil wealth equitably -- New York Times Saturday Profile.

Uruguay

• Uruguay is one of the most progressive Latin American countries when it comes to trans rights issues, a two-year-old law allows minors to petition to change their gender with a parent's or guardian's support -- AFP.
  

Prisons

• Labor initiatives aimed at reducing recidivism in Latin American women's prisons help with conditions within detention centers, but former inmates face significant challenges finding employment upon release, reports InSight Crime. According to the Washington Office on Latin American Affairs (WOLA), “once [the women] have served their sentences and are released, their criminal records make it harder to find a decent and legal job, which can perpetuate the vicious cycle of social exclusion and incarceration.”

Populismos

• In ¡Populista! Will Grant traces the rise (and fall) of several “pink wave” leftwing populist leaders in Latin America from 1999 to 2016: Luiz Inácio “Lula” da Silva, Evo Morales, Rafael Correa, Daniel Ortega, Hugo Chávez and Fidel Castro. "English-language media often resorted to lazy generalizations about these leaders, and Grant goes to great lengths, drawing from more than a decade reporting on Latin America, to make clear the differences in political ecologies and how each was the product of his own society," according to the Guardian's review.
  

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Latin America Daily Briefing