Kast and Boric to face-off in Chile (Nov. 22, 2021)

Chileans expressed support for wildly divergent candidates in yesterday's presidential elections: the country's far-right and new left will face off in a runoff vote on Dec. 19 Ultra-conservative José Antonio Kast came in first with 27.91 percent of the vote, closely followed by former student leader Gabril Boric, with 25.83 percent. (CNN, New York Times)

The two leading candidates represent diametrically opposite visions for the country's future, reports El País. Kast's platform is socially conservative and economically liberal -- his promises to focus on order and security resonate among voters disenchanted with the process of social change demanded by massive protests in 2019. Boric is representative of the protest movement's demands for more social security, including education and health policies, and has promised greater state presence in the economy. 

Kast doubled down on his far right rhetoric last night, framing the runoff as a choice between "communism and liberty," reports the Associated Press. Boric, on the other hand, refrained from attacking Kast by name, accepting the results with humility and urging his supporters to listen to and convince doubters who voted for other candidates.

The two must now vie for votes from the political center and undecided, reports El Mostrador. The final result could have significant impact on the evolution and implementation of the country's constitutional rewrite, currently in process, notes El Mostrador. 

Though historically the winner of the first-round has always won the presidency, there is nothing traditional about Sunday's elections, notes El País.

Traditional center-right and center-left parties were the great losers yesterday: ruling party candidate Sebastián Sichel came in fourth with 12.79 percent, followed by Yasna Provoste, who represents the traditional left, who obtained 11.61 percent. Provoste's votes will likely go to Boric in a second-round. Sichel refrained from supporting Kast yesterday, saying there were programmatic differences, but left open avenues for talks.

The surprise third place winner is Franco Parisi, a wildcard candidate who campaigned from the U.S. as he cannot enter Chile due to an alimony debt he owes his ex wife. Parisi obtained 12.8 percent with an anti-political establishment discourse, reports El País. It is less clear which way his voters would swing, but many analysts predict they could transfer their allegiance to Kast. He won support from voters upset with the political establishment but who don’t back the far left, political scientist Patricio Navia told the Wall Street Journal. (See also CNN)

The elections follow a series of turbulent years in Chile that belie its traditionally staid reputation in the region. Massive social unrest in 2019 expressed deep discontent with inequality and demanded improvements to the country's social welfare system. The country's citizens chose to create a Constitutional Convention in response, and elected mostly independent delegates to draft a new magna carta that will likely take a broader rights-based approach than the current constitution. A series of clashes with Indigenous groups in the country's south pushed President Sebastián Piñera to call a state of emergency last month, a move criticized by rights groups. And Piñera narrowly avoided impeachment over allegations of impropriety revealed in the Pandora Papers. (See last Thursday's briefs, Oct. 13's post, and the Chile Constitutional Updates.)

Dissatisfaction was exacerbated by the pandemic: “Covid exposed inequalities, it exacerbated inequalities and made it easy to politicize those inequalities in a way that we expect will be very hard on incumbents,” political scientist Jennifer Pribble told the New York Times. On Twitter, Pribble warned about using the blanket term "polarization" to equalize both Kast and Boric: "If we refer to ‘polarization,’ we must differentiate between t/ radicalized (& anti-democratic) right and a social democratic left that seeks to respond to broad societal demands for a welfare state, rights for historically marginalized groups, & a response to the climate crisis."

Participation was 47.34 percent, lower than the 50.9 percent of voters who cast ballots in a plebiscite that launched a constitutional rewrite last year. (CNN)

Venezuela's PSUV sweeps regional elections

Venezuela's ruling Socialist Party swept regional elections yesterday that were the first to include prominent opposition parties since 2017. Political allies of President Nicolás Maduro won 20 out of 23 gubernatorial offices across the country, according to preliminary results from the National Electoral Council (CNE). (Washington Post, Reuters, Efecto Cocuyo)

The three governorships won by the opposition -- in Zulia, Cojedes and Nueva Esparta -- are negligible, according to El País, who said the opposition's results are worse than in 2017, when they won four governors seats in regional elections marked by boycotts and irregularities.

Human rights advocates raised alarm at reports of “irregularities, threats and attacks” in the electoral process. Observers reported government efforts to intimidate voters, with threats to withdraw social benefits for those who do not support the ruling party. There were also dozens of reports of harassment of media workers, reports Efecto Cocuyo.

“We’ve seen all of this before,” said Human Rights Watch's Tamara Taraciuk. “The big difference is that the European Union is there to raise alarms in a timely manner about what is happening on the ground. It could set the stage for truly free and fair elections in the future.” European Union observers monitored the election around the country, the first time in 15 years the bloc sent observers.

Several opposition leaders and academics who track Venezuela said participating in the election gives the opposition the chance to take note of the irregularities, and use the experience to inform ongoing negotiations with the government aimed at reaching free and fair presidential elections in 2024.

More than 21 million Venezuelans were eligible to vote in over 3,000 contests, including for 23 governors and 335 mayors. More than 70,000 candidates entered the races. Though turnout is generally low in regional elections, this time it was even lower, just 41.8 percent. Efecto Cocuyo reports particularly desolate polling stations.

Opinion polls find that most of the country overwhelmingly wants a political change, but nobody was surprised by the opposition's results, reports El País. The election comes as much of the country is exhausted by political conflict and unfulfilled promises of imminent regime change, leaving most Venezuelans apathetic to politics, reports the Wall Street Journal.

The opposition hoped to rally disillusioned supporters by participating in the elections, after years of boycotting irregular processes. But the decision further fractured an already fragmented opposition movement, opponents include Juan Guaidó, who has claimed interim leadership of Venezuela for years, though he has lost support recently.

In addition to irregularities, divisions in the opposition helped deliver wins for Maduro, reports the Washington Post. The late decision to participate, announced in September, also prevented opposition candidates from designing better strategies, reports El País.

Regardless of turnout, Sunday’s elections could mark the emergence of new opposition leaders, consolidate alliances and draw the lines to be followed by Maduro’s adversaries, according to the Associated Press.

Maduro said yesterday that negotiations with the opposition in Mexico will remain suspended until "the kidnap" of a prominent government envoy Alex Saab - who was extradited to the United States - is answered for, reports Reuters.

More Venezuela

• A new WOLA report finds that the scale of Venezuela’s complex humanitarian emergency remains dire, and that it has been exacerbated by the government’s inadequate and politicized response to the Covid-19 pandemic. But authors  Geoff Ramsey and Kristen Martinez-Gugerli, also note that since 2020, a series of humanitarian agreements between the Maduro government and Venezuelan opposition have benefited the population—and have offered important lessons for future accords. 
  
  
• The report offers a series of concrete policy recommendations for U.S. policymakers, including appointing a high-level State Department official to deal with Venezuela; make clear that the U.S. government is willing to include Venezuela in its COVID-19 vaccine donation program; and emphasize the role of the UN and non-governmental organizations in the successful implementation of any humanitarian agreement.
  

El Salvador announced Bitcoin City

El Salvador will build the world's first "Bitcoin City", powered by a volcano and financed partly by an issue of $1 billion in sovereign bonds backed by the cryptocurrency. announced President Nayib Bukele in a rock-star style presentation complete with fireworks, artificial smoke and depiction of the leader descending from a spaceship. (Financial Times)

"Invest here and make all the money you want," Bukele said in English, at an event closing a week-long promotion of bitcoin in El Salvador. He said the city planned in the eastern region of La Union would get geothermal power from a volcano and not levy any taxes except for a value added tax, half of which would be used to fund the bonds issued to build the city, and the other half would pay for services such as garbage collection. (Reuters)

The private city plan was touted earlier in the "Bitcoin Week" event. El Faro reported (before Bukele's announcement) that they would effectively function as tax havens with little government oversight -- similar to Honduras' ZEDES.

More El Salvador

• A reinterpretation of El Salvador's constitution that would permit Bukele to seek reelection is a throwback to the country's undemocratic past, argues Nelson Rauda in El Faro.

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

Latin America Daily Briefing

Elections in Venezuela and Chile (Nov. 19, 2021)

Venezuela’s opposition will contest regional elections -- governorships and mayoralities are on the table -- on Sunday for the first time since 2017. Voting is by electronic ballot with some 38 parties taking part. Turnout is expected to be low among the 21 million registered voters in the country.

Opposition parties have refused to participate in elections for years, arguing that to do so would legitimize the increasingly autocratic Maduro government. The about-face in this case is meant to rally a disillusioned electorate ahead of a future presidential vote, which should legally take place in 2024, reports the New York Times.

Opposition parties have little faith in the fairness of the election, and have failed to create a united front, notes Al Jazeera. The main opposition Democratic Unity Roundtable (MUD) still insisted the elections “won’t be fair or conventional” due to “serious obstacles” placed by the government. Opposition leader Juan Guaido, meanwhile, has not spoken openly in support or against participation in the vote.

Though the playing field is far from level, there are several key differences between Sunday's election and previous ones boycotted by the opposition. The most important, according to Efecto Cocuyo, is a new national electoral council (CNE) that includes two non-chavistas with opposition roots. Sunday’s vote will be a test of the new CNE's impartiality, reports Reuters.

Another improvement is the inclusion of international observers, including a European Union mission who will be present at 1,000 of the 14,400 voting centers. The 100-strong team deployed across the country yesterday. Also, a group of 10 electoral experts audited the country's electronic voting system in the lead up to the election, certifying vote secrecy in particular. 

Among the advantages the government has baked into the competition, Efecto Cocuyo lists state media and government institutions as campaign tools.

More Venezuela

• Opposition parties hoping to energize their supporters and revive the floundering pro-democracy movement -- but critics note that they have largely overlooked women as potential candidates, reports the Washington Post. Of the 182 candidates running in gubernatorial or mayoral races in capital cities, only 30 are women, according to an analysis by Efecto Cocuyo.
  
  
• An InSight Crime investigation exposes how the Maduro government's attempts to control Venezuela’s mining heartland in the state of Bolívar have led to criminal chaos, as guerrilla groups, heavily armed gangs and corrupt state elements battle over the country’s gold.

---------------------

Chilean Elections

Chileans vote for president on Sunday. Polls predict a runoff between ultra-conservative José Antonio Kast and leftist former student leader Gabriel Boric. It's the "the most polarized election since the country's return to democracy in 1990," according to Reuters.

(Americas Quarterly has a full rundown of candidates and their platforms.)

The likely runoff would contrast a candidate representing the demands of 2019 protesters, and a candidate representing Chilean backlash to those protests, who has focused on order and security, reports the Economist. A Boric win would align the presidency with the Constitutional Convention drafting a new magna carta for Chile, and dominated by leftist independents. Kast, on the other hand, opposes a radical transformation project for Chile.

The two front-runners offer voters antithetical agendas, reports the Guardian. While Boric espouses an egalitarian, feminist and ecological future for Chile, Kast has centred his campaign on conservative social values, security and migration.

While Chile's centrist candidates are unlikely to make the runoff, center-left Christian Democratic party candidate Yasna Provoste and center-right ruling coalition Sebastián Sechel could play roles as kingmakers in an expected second-round, reports Reuters. But it’s unclear how moderate voters would lean in a run-off.

More Chile

• Nearly 1.5 million of Chile's 19 million inhabitants are migrants, an exponential growth over the past decade that has prompted xenofobia and restrictive policies that make life hard for Venezuelans and Haitians, reports the Economist.

News Briefs

Regional

• Ultraconservative groups have campaigned against minority rights in Latin America for over a decade -- but during the pandemic several tightened their alliances with extreme right wing political organizations, like Vox, and increased their online presence. A new investigation coordinated by Ojo Público explores the lobby and fundamentalist strategies of the anti-rights agenda in the region.
  
  
• Global South countries face the climate crisis from a disadvantaged position, but they could be decisive in bringing about a paradigm shift that combines ecology and social justice, argue Rodrigo Echecopar and Pedro Cisterna Gaete in Nueva Sociedad.
  
  
• T"he deeply rooted dynamics of violence and corruption in the countries of the Northern Triangle of Central America continue to represent one of the greatest challenges to ensuring the implementation of effective policies focused on human rights, the rule of law, and citizen security, and enabling an adequate and comprehensive approach to the structural causes that continue to generate unprecedented levels of migration of persons fleeing Guatemala, Honduras, and El Salvador," according to WOLA's Central America Monitor.
  
  
• Carbon credits for fighting deforestation were left in flux at COP26 — but including credits for land-use and land-cover could be key for the climate and Brazil’s economy, writes Joachim Levy in Americas Quarterly.
  

Regional Relations

• U.S., Canada and Mexico leaders met yesterday in a Washington summit in which they sought to present a united front, and avoided thornier questions like trade disputes or the surging numbers of migrants, reports the New York Times. (See yesterday's post.)
  
  
• Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador urged his U.S. counterpart, Joe Biden to reduce imports and to loosen immigration restrictions in order to ease labor shortages, reports Bloomberg. (See yesterday's post.)
  
  
• Biden's options in response to Nicaragua's sham election are limited by his wariness to further destabilize the country and increase outward migration, reports the Economist.

Brazil

• Satellite data revealed that deforestation in Brazil's Amazon rose by nearly 22 percent from last year to reach its highest level in 15 years. With the rate of destruction not slowing, critics questioned whether Brazil can meet its COP26 target, reports the Washington Post. Some accused Bolsonaro’s administration of delaying the release of the latest deforestation benchmark until after the U.N. summit.
  
  
• Brazil’s government launched Auxílio Brasil, a new welfare program designed by the Bolsonaro administration to replace the prestigious, 20-year-old cash transfer Bolsa Familia program. The new program increases the monthly stipend for each beneficiary and also will raise the number of recipients, but has worried experts because funding and other details have yet to be determined, reports the Associated Press. Analysts say Bolsonaro is essentially rebranding an existing program for electoral purposes, but in the process has raised investor hackles about government spending.
  

Jamaica

• Jamaica's government declared a state of emergency in seven police districts on the island on Sunday, in response to increases in violent crimes, ranging from 16 to 57 per cent. Jamaica's homicide rate is among the highest in the world -- in a country with a population of nearly 3 million, more than 1,240 Jamaicans were murdered in the first ten months of the year despite no-movement days and nightly curfews brought on by the COVID-19 pandemic, notes the Jamaica Gleaner. (See more at today's Just Caribbean Updates.)
  

Haiti

• Haitian gangs' decision to finally ease fuel supply blockade only underscores the levels of criminal governance these groups have amassed, reports InSight Crime. (See Tuesday's briefs.) The easing of the blockade follows the announcement of a truce made between the gang alliance, G9 an fanmi (G9 and family), and the local government in Cité Soleil, a district of the capital Port-au-Prince.
  
  
• A suspect in the assassination of Haitian President Jovenel Moïse died while being transferred to a hospital from pretrial detention after suffering coronavirus symptoms, reports Reuters.
  

Cuba

• "Patria y Vida," a rap song that become a Cuban protest anthem this year, is nominated for two Latin Grammys, including song of the year, and will be performed on the show. The song is a rare instance of Cuban artists directly taking on the regime, reports the New York Times.

El Salvador

• El Salvador President Nayib Bukele proposed a "foreign agents" law last week that would require people and organizations who receive foreign funding to register as “foreign agents,” following the lead of countries like the United States, reports the Associated Press. (See Nov. 11's briefs.) The rules would apply to a broad range of organizations and individuals, including media outlets and individual journalists, according to that report and a copy of the proposed legislation obtained by El Faro.
  
  
• The bill would hamper civil society’s work by imposing high taxes on foreign donations and requiring NGOs and media receiving funding from abroad to submit to a special government registry. 
  
  
• El Salvador’s congress should reject the proposed law that would require media outlets and journalists receiving funding or payments from abroad to register as “foreign agents,” the Committee to Protect Journalists said this week.
  
  
• German Minister of State Niels Annen voiced concern over El Salvador's proposed foreign agent law, saying it would interfere in cooperation between organizations of civil society in both countries. (Deutsche Welle)
  
  
• The International Monetary Fund said current virtual meetings with a delegation from El Salvador are not about a support program with the Fund, reports Reuters.
  

Colombia

• Colombia is the world’s deadliest place for environmentalists and others defending land rights, a reality that clashes with President Iván Duque's environmentally committed stance at COP26, argue Blanca Lucía Echeverry and Andrew Miller in a New York Times guest essay.
  
  
• A year after Hurricane Iota devastated the Caribbean islands of Providencia, San Andres and Catalina, the archipelago's reconstruction is far behind the 100 days promised by Colombian President Iván Duque. While the Colombian government has rebuilt nearly 900 homes on Providencia, residents still rely on a field-campaign tent hospital, and about 800 more homes are still unfinished, reports El País.
  
  
• But organizations of civil society say lack of information by official entities in charge of reconstruction on the islands doesn't permit a real balance on the advances over the past year, reports El Espectador.
  
  
• The World Bank approved a US$500 million loan today aimed at supporting the Colombian government’s strategy for the social and economic integration of Venezuelan migrants in that country.
  

Ecuador

• Mexican gangs have been blamed for recent violent prison massacres in Ecuador, but the actual scale of the involvement of Mexico’s leading cartels in Ecuador is difficult to prove as it has been in much of the region, warns InSight Crime.
  

Mexico

• Mexico will deploy a battalion of National Guard troops to its Mayan Riviera in the wake of a spate of shootings that threaten the area's tourism industry. (Associated Press)
  

Argentina

• The case of a 17-year-old youth killed by police this week in Buenos Aires has put a spotlight on the national debate over punitivist policies. Futbol player Lucas González was apparently killed in a chase by plainclothes police in an unmarked vehicle, an episode that follows a midterm election campaign in which several conservative candidates called for shoot-first policing policies. (Infobae)
  
  
• Argentina plans to agree a new long-term economic plan with International Monetary Fund staff before submitting it to Congress, Reuters reports, as talks continued to secure a deal to roll over $45 billion owed to the IMF.
  
  
• "The IMF is likely to accept a less-than-rigorous program, but it will have to include some reduction of the deficit," according to the Economist.
  
  
• An Argentine federal court is due to determine whether it will take the case of human rights atrocities committed against Rohingyas in Myanmar, an effort to obtain justice for victims under universal jurisdiction, reports Infobae. It is not an isolated attempt to bring the case to an arbitrary court, but part of a U.N. integral strategy to investigate the genocide of the Rohingya, explained lawyer Tomás Ojea Quintana.
  
  
• "Universal jurisdiction gives any country the ability to try those who have committed a very small number of heinous and hard to prosecute crimes, even if they were committed abroad or by nationals of another country," explains Naomi Roht-Arriaza in a blog post for Due Process of Law Foundation. "There are some powerful reasons to go forward with an independent investigation, at least for now.  The case can provide a measure of redress and legal recognition of the atrocities committed against the Rohingya.  Argentina has been a pioneer in international justice and has contributed much to the field from its own reckoning with its past. Allowing this case to proceed honors that tradition."

Happy Friday!

Latin America Daily Briefing

U.S., Canada and Mexico to discuss migrants (Nov. 18, 2021)

U.S., Canada and Mexico leadership will meet in a summit in Washington today. The agenda includes creating more humane pathways to asylum or job creation for migrants displaced by climate change or human trafficking. 

It will be the first time U.S. President Joe Biden meets his Mexican counterpart, Andrés Manuel López Obrador, in person. The U.S. leader hopes AMLO will cooperate in reducing migration to the United States, which has become a recurring challenge for his administration, reports the Los Angeles Times.

But officials said controversial issues, like the U.S. Migrant Protection Protocols, will not be discussed, reports the New York Times. The U.S. and Mexico are in the final stages of negotiating the reinstatement of the so-called Remain in Mexico program. It hinges on approval from Mexican officials, who have told U.S. authorities they need more shelter beds and worry about violence in the state of Tamaulipas, reports the Associated Press.

The number of migrants taken into U.S. custody along the border with Mexico decreased for a third consecutive month in October after skyrocketing in the northern hemisphere summer, reports CBS. Roughly 57% of the migrants encountered by U.S. border agents in October were expelled to Mexico or their homelands under a Trump-era emergency policy known as Title 42 that the Biden administration has retained.

U.S. policies that force migrants to wait in Mexico for hearings in U.S. immigration court or prohibit them from seeking asylum under pandemic-related public health powers, have pushed many migrants into squalid camps along the border between the two countries, reports the Associated Press.

News Briefs

Regional Relations

• Tactical and lethal training for Mexican military units — especially the Mexican marines — by the U.S. military has increased substantially over the past decade while human rights instruction has sharply decreased, reports The Intercept, based on a new database launched by the Mexico Violence Resource Project.
  
  
• President Emmanuel Macron hosted former Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva for a meeting at the Elysee palace, a rare honor that signals support for Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro's likely challenger next year, reports Reuters. Macron’s office said Lula had “shared his vision of Brazil’s role in the world, noting how, over the past three years, Brazil has set itself aside from the multilateral system and major international agreements.”
  

Brazil

• Brazilian military police clashed with an indigenous group in Roraima state during an operation to remove a roadblock, as tensions mounted on the reserve over illegal gold mining and land invasions, reports Reuters.
  
  
• A New York Times investigation into Brazil’s rapidly expanding slaughterhouse industry has identified loopholes in its monitoring systems that allow hides from cattle kept on illegally deforested Amazon land to flow undetected through Brazil’s tanneries and on to buyers worldwide.
  
  
• Bolsonaro responded to allegations that his government censored questions on Brazil's high school exit exam, saying he was proud the test was now starting to "resemble this administration." (AFP)
  

Chile

• Chilean presidential frontrunners Gabriel Boric and José Antonio Kast offer voters antithetical agendas, reports the Guardian. While Boric espouses an egalitarian, feminist and ecological future for Chile,  Kast has centred his campaign on conservative social values, security and migration.
  

Guatemala

• The Guatemalan government's crackdown on Indigenous communities demanding to be consulted about a foreign-owned nickel mine in their territories is the latest manifestation of a backslide in democracy in the country and builds on a violent legacy of dispossession of Indigenous peoples, writes Vaclav Masek in Nacla.
  

Venezuela

• "Venezuela’s interim government should be replaced with a Political Transition Board that represents the plurality of the country’s political forces and civil society, including chavismo," argues Francisco Rodríguez. "Its function should not be to pretend to establish itself as an alternate presidency, but to attend to the defense of assets and the diplomatic representation of Venezuela in countries that do not have relations with the Maduro government."
  

Cuba

• Cuban protest leader Yunior Garcia and his wife landed at Madrid's Barajas airport on yesterday afternoon, reports Reuters. (See Tuesday's post.)
  
  
• Cuban foreign minister Bruno Rodríguez said thwarted dissident protests this week were a failure in political communication by organizers, who he again accused of being supported by U.S. interests. (Associated Press)
  

El Salvador

• A group of Bitcoin entrepreneurs and investors proposed creating private cities in El Salvador that would effectively function as tax havens with little government oversight -- similar to Honduras' ZEDES, reports El Faro.

Regional

• High inflation and a renewed rise in Covid cases are likely to impact Latin America's political debate in the coming months, according to the Latin America Risk Report. "The anti-incumbent and anti-establishment sentiment that we’ve seen over the past two years is far more likely to continue in a situation where high inflation is hitting consumers," writes James Bosworth, pointing to the Argentine government's loss in last weekend's midterm elections. (See Monday's post.)
  

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

Latin America Daily Briefing

Piñera averts ouster (Nov. 17, 2021)

News Briefs

Chile

• Chile's Senate voted against removing President Sebastián Piñera over allegations he favored the sale of a family property while in office. The Senate fell 29 votes short of the two-thirds majority needed to oust the president, after the lower chamber voted to impeach Piñera last week. Piñera's mandate ends next March, and Chile's presidential elections are on Sunday. (Al Jazeera, see yesterday's Constitutional Convention Updates)
  
  
• Chile's presidential candidates held their last debate yesterday. Both frontrunners -- leftist Gabriel Boric and far-right candidate José Antonio Kast -- sought to project moderation ahead of Sunday's vote. Kast stumbled with regard to his own campaign platform on energy issues. (Reuters, El Mostrador)

Regional

• Island nations under threat from climate change were incensed by the final wording of the Glasgow Climate Pact this weekend, in which India and China watered down a pledge to “phase out” fossil fuels, replacing the phrase with "phase down." "The very language they are using shows us that they are trying to game the system. For us in the Caribbean, in the Pacific Ocean, this is imperiling our very existence," Antigua and Barbuda Prime Minister Gaston Browne told the Washington Post.
  
  
• Instead some small island developing nations are taking the case to court. Antigua and Barbuda signed a new agreement with Tuvalu, recently joined by Palau, aimed at finding legal levers to compel large emitters to pay a price for the destruction in island states, reports the Washington Post.

Brazil

• Brazil’s beef industry hopes to tempt buyers back to the Amazon region with a new deforestation-free pledge --  the so-called Amacro sustainable development zone. But critics are concerned that the plan to implement more intensive cattle ranching on cleared land could effectively legalise deforestation in the region, reports the Guardian.
  
  
• Brazil is looking to partner with SpaceX to expand internet connection to rural schools and protect the Amazon, according to tweets by the country's Communications Minister Fabio Faria that include a video and photo of himself with SpaceX founder and CEO Elon Musk. (CNN)
  

Cuba

• Leaders of Cuba's dissident Archipiélago movement called on supporters to continue demonstrating for 10 more days, after efforts to protest in favor of greater civil liberties were quashed by Cuba's government on Monday. The group said more than 100 activists were detained during "the extreme militarisation of the streets," reports AFP. (See yesterday's post and Monday's.)
  

Haiti

• It has been 30 days since 17 foreign missionaries were kidnapped at gunpoint in the Haitian rural community of Ganthier, the group includes five children, the youngest of which is 8 months old. According to the Center for Analysis and Research in Human Rights in Port-au-Prince, at least 803 people have been abducted between January and October of this year, reports the Miami Herald.

Migration

• Mexico says it has granted documents to allow more than 1,500 migrants and asylum seekers who began marching in a north-bound caravan last month to stay and work in the country. Witnesses say about 1,500 people remain in the caravan, which is now pushing towards the U.S.-Mexico border, reports Al Jazeera.
  

Venezuela

• Colombian businessman Alex Saab, an ally of Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro, has pleaded not guilty to a U.S. charge of conspiring to launder money. U.S. prosecutors accused Saab of stealing $350 million from Venezuela public funds via the United States as part of a bribery scheme linked to Venezuela’s state-controlled exchange rate. (Reuters)
  
  
• Former University of Miami professor Bruce Bagley, an academic expert in drug trafficking, was sentenced to six months in U.S. federal prison yesterday for his role in secretly laundering millions of dollars in a case linked to Saab. (Associated Press)

Ecuador

• Ecuadorean President Guillermo Lasso  appointed a new head of the joint command of the armed forces, after the former chief resigned following a prison riot that left dozens of inmates dead, reports Reuters. (See Monday's briefs.)
  

Mexico

• Mexico’s military have arrested the wife of the Mexican drug lord “El Mencho”, leader of the Jalisco New Generation cartel (CJNG). (Guardian)
  

Argentina

• Argentina's main political coalitions both lost ground in this month's midterm elections, compared to the previous midterm vote in 2017, writes María Victoria Murillo in an analysis for Telam. Basic parity between the two main coalitions -- the ruling Frente de Todos and the opposition Juntos por el Cambio -- could complicate governance over the next two years, she warns. (See Monday's post.)

Jamaica

• The ongoing landmark trial of dozens of members of the Klansman gang in Jamaica -- who of face charges of criminal organization, murder, arson, extortion and illegal possession of firearms -- is shedding light on how criminal groups function on the island, reports InSight Crime. The outcome is also likely to be seen as a bellwether for government efforts to curb escalating violence through Plan Secure Jamaica.
  

Art

• A self-portrait of Frida Kahlo was purchased for $34.9 million at a Sotheby's auction yesterday, an all-time high for a piece of artwork created by a Latin American artist. (Washington Post)
  

Sports

• Two Indigenous female softball teams in the Yucatán are challenging machista mores. The women play barefoot and wearing traditional Mayan dresses known as huipiles -- and have become a national sensation in Mexico, reports the New York Times.
  
  
• That El Salvador's national soccer team is mostly composed of foreign-born players "is the heritage of an unending diaspora and yet another episode in its complex relationship with the United States,” writes El Faro’s Nelson Rauda in a long-form feature portraying the team. The group of twenty-somethings “spent the first half of 2021 memorizing the anthem. Unlike their fellow countrymen, they didn’t learn it as kids because they weren’t born in El Salvador. Some of them hadn’t even set foot in the country. Some don’t even speak Spanish.”
  

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

Latin America Daily Briefing

Cuban gov't thwarts protests (Nov. 16, 2021)

 Cuban authorities preemptively quashed protests calling for civil liberties, and thwarted mass rallies scheduled for yesterday from occurring. Instead the streets where protesters planned to march in Havana were largely empty, except for police and military vehicles.The government prevented an estimated 50 protest leaders from leaving their homes and detained activists who tried to rally despite official prohibition. At least 40 people were arrested. (See yesterday's post.)

Uniformed police officers, plainclothes state security agents and government supporters holding picket signs surrounded the homes of dissidents for days before the planned march -- a habitual strategy Cuba's government uses to thwart activists. Government officials also delegitimized protest movement organizers, accusing them of acting at the behest of the United States. Activists say family members have been harassed by security agents, another common intimidation strategy. Government supporters also heckled activists who sought to dissent from home, by hanging white sheets in their windows.

Friends and family members said those detained included opposition figure Manuel Cuesta Morua, 58, the leader of the Ladies in White rights movement Berta Soler, and her husband Angel Moya -- a former political prisoner.

(Guardian, New York Times, CNN, AFP, Associated Press, Washington Post)

“I think there’s a strategy of total suppression — not even repression,” Human Rights Watch's Juan Pappier told the New York Times. Anyone caught participating would have faced a year in prison, while anyone accused of throwing a rock — even without evidence — could be sentenced to 10 years, he said. (See yesterday's post.)

More Cuba

• El Estornudo talks with Archipiélago movement leaders on their goals to democratize Cuba.

News Briefs

Haiti

• Turkish authorities have arrested Samir Handal, considered a suspect of “great interest” in the assassination in July of the Haitian president, Jovenel Moïse. More than 40 suspects have been arrested so far in relation to Moïse’s murder, including 18 former Colombian soldiers and several Haitian police officers. (Guardian, Miami Herald)
  
  
• The Haitian G9 gang coalition eased a blockade on fuel deliveries that has caused crippling shortages in the country for nearly a month, reports Reuters. 
  
  
• But the relief is temporary, reports the Associated Press. Gang federation leader Jimmy “Barbecue” Cherizier held a news conference Friday to announce a seven-day reprieve for hospitals, schools and gas stations to send trucks to the Port-au-Prince port refueling station. He warned the blockade would resume if Prime Minister Ariel Henry did not resign.
  

Regional Relations

• The U.S., Britain and Canada slapped sanctions on nine Nicaraguan officials and the Public Ministry of Nicaragua, citing “sham national elections orchestrated by President Daniel Ortega” and his Vice President Rosario Murillo. (Reuters, Al Jazeera)
  
  
• Positioning on the recent Nicaraguan elections has become something of an ideological litmus test for political groups across Latin America, notes Americas Quarterly.

Brazil

• Former Brazilian President Luis Inácio Lula da Silva is in Europe, where he has secured several high-profile meetings that contrast with current Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro's isolation on a trip earlier this month, reports Bloomberg.

Mexico

• Irma Galindo Barrios an Indigenous Mexican environmental campaigner, has been declared missing, a week after a savage attack on indigenous villagers displaced from the lands she was defending against illegal logging. Galindo’s disappearance is part of a broader trend of attacks on Mexican enviromental campaigners, who are frequently targeted for murder, reports the Guardian.
  
  
• Recent assassinations of journalists in Mexico -- one of the deadliest places in the world for the profession -- have a pattern, reports Vice. "At least four posted on Facebook in the immediate hours before their murders with personal updates or live news feeds showing their location. All but one worked on their own or for small news outlets that relied almost entirely on Facebook to disseminate their stories."
  

Regional

• Pharmaceutical giant Pfizer has agreed to a license-sharing deal that would allow its experimental Covid-19 drug to be manufactured more widely around the globe, a move the company said could give more than half of the world’s population access to the treatment. Pfizer continues to reject calls to grant poorer countries access to its coronavirus vaccine formula, notes the Washington Post.
  
  
• Hundreds of Venezuelans have been traveling to Colombia recently for coronavirus vaccines, as Venezuela struggles to get enough doses, reports the Associated Press.

Venezuela

• The International Criminal Court announced an investigation into crimes against humanity committed during Venezuelan opposition protests in 2017. But it remains unclear how the enquiry will proceed, according to Crisis Group expert Mariano de Alba. (See Nov. 4's post.)
  
  
• A handful of gangs dominate Caracas' micro trafficking, often because they can stay ahead of or make deals with security forces, reports InSight Crime.

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

Latin America Daily Briefing

Cuban dissidents to rally (Nov. 15, 2021)

 A group of Cuban dissidents hope to reignite anti-government protests with marches today calling for civil liberties and human rights. But the Cuban government has clamped down on activists ahead of the demonstration, which officials say is backed by the U.S. and aims for regime change. (See last Thursday's post.)

Archipiélago, a Facebook group of about 35,000 members that promotes discussion and debate, is the main promoter of rallies scheduled to take place in cities around the country today. Yunior García, a playwright who has become one of the movement's most visible leaders, had announced he would march alone through Havana yesterday, to represent those who wouldn’t be able to today. But plainclothes police swarmed his block and besieged his building before he could set out -- a common tactic the Cuban government uses to prevent activists from demonstrating, reports the Washington Post. 

Several government critics, including Abraham Jiménez Enoa, said that security forces were preventing them from leaving their homes. Archipiélago moderator Daniela Rojo reportedly vanished. Security forces detained another leader of the site, Carlos Ernesto Diaz Gonzalez. The government suspended the credentials of several Havana-based reporters working for EF Independent journalists throughout the island have also reported being under house arrest today. Cuban dissident, journalist and human rights campaigner Guillermo Farinas was detained Friday. (NBC, Al Jazeera, Associated Press)

The Committee to Protect Journalists said it is following the situation involving independent media and demanded respect for journalists that “resists censorship and harassment.” U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken on Sunday condemned Cuba’s “intimidation tactics.”

The question remains whether ordinary Cubans will attend Monday’s protest, considering the government declared it illegal. Organizers urged supporters to hang white sheets outside their homes, applaud at 3 p.m. and find other creative ways to demonstrate today if they do not feel comfortable taking to the streets, given the likelihood of repression, reports the New York Times. 

But even a smaller turnout could indicate that Cuba’s communist system is facing a new and unpredictable challenge to its legitimacy. Experts agree that Cuba is on the cusp of something important, even if the movement behind the protests is unlikely to bring down the Communist Party.

Supercharged US sanctions, the coronavirus pandemic, a surge in social media use and a younger generation hungry for change have left the Communist party reeling, reports the Guardian. The U.S. maximum pressure policy against Cuba -- developed by the Trump administration and continued by the current Biden government -- has pushed the country into an economic crisis that rivals the so-called Special Period, after the collapse of the Soviet Union.

Largely peaceful protests in July demanding freedom for political prisoners, as well as food, medicine and electricity which have been particularly scarce this year in Cuba, were brutally repressed. A Human Rights Watch report found that Cuba's government "systematically engaged in arbitrary detention, ill-treatment of detainees, and abuse-ridden criminal prosecutions." Some 1,000 people were arrested and 659 remain jailed, according to a count by the civil rights group Cubalex.

Cuban officials, including President Miguel Díaz-Canel have insisted that protesters are spurred by a U.S. plot. State-run television has dedicated programming to García in recent weeks, accusing him of being financed by the U.S. But Archipiélago members interviewed by the New York Times denied receiving any money from the U.S. government and emphasized that Cuban problems are for Cubans alone to solve.

----------------------------------

Argentine gov't loses midterms

The Argentine governing Frente de Todos coalition lost its ability to command Senate quorum (a first for a Peronist government) in yesterday's midterm elections, a loss that forms part of a broad expression of anger at President Alberto Fernández's government, besieged by an economic crisis compounded by pandemic and international debt. The government maintained its position as first minority in Congress' lower Chamber of Deputies. (Infobae, El País, Primera Mañana)

The results will force Fernández to make concessions to the opposition during the last two years of his mandate in order to pass laws or make key appointments, including to the judiciary, reports AFP. In his post election speech last night, Fernández called for dialogue with the opposition. "We need to prioritise national agreements if we want to resolve the challenges we face," he said. Argentina's government faces an acute social crisis -- both high poverty and inflation -- and is in the midst of debt refinancing negotiations with the IMF. (Associated Press)

Over 70 percent of eligible voters participated, an increase of five points over the open primaries in September that first indicated a probable government loss. The Frente de Todos obtained 33 percent of the vote while the main opposition coalition, the right-wing Juntos por el Cambio, obtained nearly 42 percent. It remains to be seen whether the government will pursue further cabinet changes in response to the results, as occurred in September, when the ballot box loss unleashed a political crisis within the governing coalition.

In the Peronist bastion of Buenos Aires province the governing coalition narrowed the loss to the opposition, 38.53 percent to 39.81. In Buenos Aires city, alternative forces increased their support: libertarian candidate Javier Milei obtained 17 percent of the vote -- which means his ultra-right wing Avanza Libertad party will have two seats in the Chamber of Deputies. The force's position as the third strongest in the district feeds Milei's hopes for a presidential run in 2023. (El País, Infobae, TN) Leftist Myriam Bregman obtained a seat in the lower house as well. (La Izquierda Diario)

Moving forward, economic concerns will dominate Argentine politics. Looking to cool public anger ahead of the ballot, the government increased social spending and froze the prices of more than 1,400 household items. Fernández's speech last night reiterated support for a rescheduling of a $44 billion debt IMF, but emphasized that any agreement must be sustainable, and will not include austerity policies. (Financial Times, Tiempo Argentino)

For the opposition, the strong showing puts renewed focus on internal battles for the presidential candidacy in 2023. 

News Briefs

Regional

• The Organization of American States "is no longer a credible observer of democracy in the Americas – particularly under present leadership of Luis Almagro," write David Adlerand Guillaume Long in a Guardian op-ed that echos increasingly persistent criticism of the OAS, which critics view as subservient to U.S. interests. Instead there are calls for an international electoral observatory, that former Brazilian foreign minister Celso Amorim said could "fill an important gap in defense of democracy and human rights."
  
  
• The General Assembly of the Organization of American States voted to condemn Nicaragua’s Nov. 7 presidential vote, saying the elections “were not free, fair or transparent, and lack democratic legitimacy.” Twenty-five countries voted in favor of the resolution, while seven — including Mexico and Bolivia — abstained. In a switch, Argentina supported the resolution. Only Nicaragua voted against it. (Associated Press, see last Tuesday's post)
  

Amazon

• The world’s approach to the Amazon rainforest must be transformed to avoid an irreversible, catastrophic tipping point, according to a comprehensive study of the region carried out by a new Science Panel for the Amazon. More than 200 scientists collaborated on the report, which finds that more than a third of the world’s biggest tropical forest is degraded or deforested, rainfall is declining and dry seasons are growing longer, reports the Guardian.
  
  
• Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro's "apparent about-face on climate could be indicative of a broader trend: As more and more far-right nationalists recognize the futility of denying climate change outright, many have opted for a different approach, positioning themselves as skeptics not of human-induced climate change, but rather of the elite’s proposed solutions to address it," writes Yasmeen Serhan in the Atlantic. But "without proper enforcement mechanisms, nationalist leaders will continue to drive climate change with impunity," she warns.
  

Honduras

• Honduran politician Francisco Gaitan, mayor of the municipality of Cantarranas and member of the opposition Liberal Party, was shot to death on Saturday night after a political rally. Honduran police said they had arrested a suspect in the killing, reports Reuters.
  
  
• Outgoing Honduran President Juan Orlando Hernández  reaffirmed his support for Taiwan ahead of this month's presidential elections in which his successor may switch diplomatic recognition to Beijing. (AFP)
  

Venezuela

• Six U.S. oil executives detained in Venezuela for four years on corruption charges have been granted a hearing before an appeals court, a rare decision by the country's judicial system, reports the Associated Press. They had been placed under house arrest earlier this year, and were subsequently returned to jail after the U.S. obtained the extradition of Maduro ally businessman Alex Saab. (See Oct. 18's post.)
  

Peru

• Peruvian Defense Minister Walter Ayala resigned amid a scandal over allegations of government interference in the military, reports Bloomberg.

Brazil

• Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro said e was postponing an event to launch his re-election bid in affiliation with the Liberal Party after talks with the party's leader, reports Reuters. (See last Thursday's post.)
  

Ecuador

• At least 68 prisoners have been killed and 25 injured in an Ecuadorean jail massacre. Fighting broke out Friday night between rival gangs in Guayaquil's Litoral penitentiary, where at last 119 inmates were killed in a prison violence just over a month ago. This weekend's outbreak was reportedly triggered by a power vacuum after a gang leader’s release. (Guardian) Videos on social media showed burned and wounded bodies, and inmates pleading with police for protection, reports the Washington Post. 
  
  
• Ecuador's Attorney General's Office said Friday that through a local court it had frozen the bank accounts of many business leaders and former government officials, including former president Rafael Correa. (Reuters)
  

Bolivia

• Bolivian President Luis Arce announced the repeal of a law aimed at combating money laundering that sparked a six-day general strike, marches and blockades across the country by unions and civic committees. (EFE)
  

History

• A painstaking new translation of letters penned in 1645 by leaders of the Potiguara Indigenous nation, trapped in a war between Dutch settlers and the Portuguese empire over the sugar plantations of north-east Brazil, casts new light on these unique sources written by a native people. (Guardian)
  

Uruguay

• The past decade has been somewhat of a golden period for Uruguayan futbol -- but some think it might be ending, reports the New York Times.

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

Latin America Daily Briefing