Inflation afflicting LatAm (Aug. 31, 2021)

News Briefs

Regional

• Inflation increasing in Latin American countries, pushed by a combination of global factors, including climate change, and local conditions, including political uncertainty, reports El País.

Brazil

• Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro could seek to bolster his sinking popularity with a new round of Covid cash transfers, reports Bloomberg. The temporary assistance would be a stopgap in response to delays in government plans to rebrand and bolster the longstanding Bolsa Familia program, originally launched by former president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, Bolsonaro's likely opponent in next year's presidential elections.

• Brazilian Indigenous communities organized the largest-ever native protests to block what they described as “a declaration of extermination” from lawmakers representing agribusiness, mining, and logging interests aligned with far-right President Jair Bolsonaro -- The Intercept.

Venezuela

• Venezuela's mail opposition parties are expected to announce candidacies for the November elections for governors and mayors this week. Opposition leaders in Venezuela's provinces have been pushing to abandon the abstentionist strategy -- the parties boycotted elections in 2018 and 2020 due to lack of guarantees -- and have sought a unified platform against Maduro allies, reports Reuters. (See yesterday's post.)
  

Regional Relations

• A broad coalition of 344 organizations called on the U.S. Biden administration to expand relief for Haitian migrants, including halting all deportations to the country, reports The Hill. At least 130 people deported from the U.S. to Haiti since President Jovenel Moïse's assassination in July.

Mexico

• Mexico’s National Migration Institute (INM) condemned the actions of agents caught on video over the weekend throwing a migrant to the ground and kicking him in the face with the help of National Guard troops, reports Reuters.

• Families' desperate searches for disappeared people in Mexico often run up against bureaucratic inefficiency and even the scorn of prosecutors and uncontrolled impunity, reports EFE. (See Friday's briefs.)

• Hurricane Nora caused floods and landslides along Mexico’s Pacific coast Sunday, while making landfall and passing just inland of the Mazatlan resort area before veering into the Gulf of California and weakening into a tropical storm. (Associated Press)

• The Zetas' criminal organization operating model -- based on brutal tactics to instill fear and extortion of businesses in areas under their physical control -- is destroying Mexico, writes Steven Dudley at InSight Crime.

Guatemala

• A Guatemalan judge ordered two high-ranking ex-generals to stand trial on charges of genocide, crimes against humanity and forced kidnapping from 1978 to 1982 in a case where more than 1,700 people were killed over 31 separate massacres, reports Reuters.

Argentina

• Argentine President Alberto Fernández is battling a political scandal with potential legal repercussions -- ahead of midterm election primaries next month. A prosecutor opened a criminal investigation into a gathering held by Fernández in July 2020, when the country was under strict lockdown. Fernández has offered to donate half his salary for four months as a penalty. (El País)

Indigenous

• An Indigenous guard for tribes living on the Colombia - Ecuador border intervened to save the lives of Covid-19 patients at risk of being killed to contain contagion in the area, reports El País.

Environment

• "Alas, Cantos y Colores," a Colombian field study, will compare tropical birds across the country with a survey taken a hundred years ago, and promises insight into how species have responded to changes in land use and climate, reports the New York Times.

• "If we want global change to take place, we need to build a new language on the level of the planetary emergency. A language that is supported by texts with judicial power, that is, laws," writes Jorge Carrión who writes about the push To typify a new crime against humanity: "ecocide." (New York Times Español)

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

Latin America Daily Briefing

Venezuela talks to start (Aug. 30, 2021)

Venezuela’s opposition is set to announce it will break a three-year boycott of elections and register candidates for November’s municipal and state elections, reports Bloomberg. The move would be a sign of progress in a topic that is a key issue in upcoming talks between Venezuela's Maduro government and opposition parties. The negotiations are set to resume next week in Mexico City, and participation in November's elections are a central issue. The Maduro government is reportedly allowing exiled opposition representatives to return to the country to participate in upcoming elections in November. (Venezuela Weekly)

Human Rights Watch called for President Nicolás Maduro’s representatives to commit to taking basic steps to restore respect for human rights and to holding free and fair elections when negotiations kick off next week. "“For this type of negotiation to be a success, it needs to include tangible results that will restore the rule of law and the exercise of fundamental rights in Venezuela," said José Miguel Vivanco, HRW's Americas director.

On a broader level, while "there is good reason to be sceptical about the prospects of success for this round" of negotiations between Venezuela's government and opposition parties, "negotiations remain the only reasonable route to ending the political showdown and then overcoming [Venezuela's] economic and humanitarian crisis" according to a new Crisis Group report. A key reason for guarded optimism, is that the opposition "appears willing to at least contemplate reaching partial agreements during the talks ... potentially allowing the process to gain more adherents if negotiators can demonstrate concrete progress in the early stages."

More Venezuela

• A new report by the Centro para los Defensores y la Justicia found that a total of 140 individuals and organizations working in the defense of human rights in Venezuela were subject to threats, attacks, and social control by the Maduro government in July. The number represents a significant increase from previous months, and compares to 35 such attacks in the month of June. (Venezuela Weekly)
  

News Briefs

El Salvador

• El Salvador's Bukele administration has forcefully denied new evidence of its negotiations with gangs. "While gang negotiations have become common practice for politicians in El Salvador, broad public hostility toward such talks incentivizes secrecy," explains El Faro English. (See last Tuesday's briefs.)

• Governments from across the political spectrum have negotiated with gangs -- and sought to hide their talks. But President Nayib Bukele is uniquely poised to formalize negotiations and turn them into a valid public policy, writes Carlos Martínez in the Post Opinión.

• El Salvador will become the first to adopt cryptocurrency as legal tender next month – but economists are sounding warnings over risks. And a host of challenges – technological, financial and criminal – threaten to sink the plan, reports the Guardian. There is concern about cryptocurrency volatility, and the potential for criminal actors to launder gains. Some economists also say the hypothetical cheaper costs of sending remittances are overhyped.

Honduras

• The first cryptocurrency ATM in Honduras opened last week, the machine allows users to acquire bitcoin and ethereum using the local lempira currency. The entrepreneur behind the effort echoed Salvadoran arguments that the cryptocurrency could permit people to send remittances to Honduras at a lower cost. Some analysts think there could be a spillover effect from El Salvador's Bitcoin adoption: there haven't been official announcements, but cryptocurrency billionaire Brock Pierce recently met with Honduran President Juan Orlando Hernández. (Reuters, Bitcoin.com, Reuters)

• Honduran authorities detained nine former government officials and entrepreneurs for their involvement in fraudulent contracts used to steal $6.6 million from the country's Social Security Institute (IHSS) between 2020 and 2013. (Telesur)

Brazil

• A group of about 150 indigenous people protested in front of Brazil's presidential palace on Friday, setting fire to a giant coffin that had been carried in a demonstration ahead of a landmark Supreme Court ruling over their ancestral lands. (Reuters) The top court in Brasilia is set to decide whether to recognise Indigenous rights to land occupied prior to 1988, a legal cut-off date sought by Brazilian state governments and agricultural sectors that are seeking to limit Indigenous claims. (Al Jazeera)

• A heavily armed group of bank robbers wreaked havoc across the Brazilian city of Araçatuba today, striking several banks, setting fire to vehicles and tying hostages to their getaway cars. At least three people were killed, in the latest in a series of increasingly violent bank heists in Brazil. Video shared on social media showed a booming shootout and men dressed in black marching hostages down a street. (Washington Post, Guardian)

• Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro has said he sees only three possibilities for his future: death, prison or winning the 2022 presidential elections. (CNN)
  

Peru

• Peru's Congress greenlighted President Pedro Castillo's cabinet, 73 to 50, on Friday, reports Reuters. (See Friday's briefs.)

Colombia

• Colombia will have presidential elections next year, and popular discontent against current President Iván Duque could push the country leftward, reports the New York Times. 

Haiti

• The United States announced, last week, that it’s providing an additional $32 million in humanitarian assistance to Haiti, part of a broader response to the 7.2 magnitude earthquake that devastated the country's south earlier this month. (Miami Herald) 

Mexico

• A crowded criminal landscape is contributing to more frequent, high-profile violence in Mexico’s Tamaulipas state, explains the Latin America Risk Report.
  

Paraguay

• Paraguay's fast growing economy has permitted the government to reduce pandemic stimulus, including the temporary pandemic cash transfers to informal sector workers, reports Bloomberg.

Chile

• The Chilean Constitutional Convention's Human Rights commission approved a reform to substitute the country's Carabineros with a new security force, commanded by civilians and with a policing mission guided by human rights doctrine. (CNN Chile)
• This year could be one of the driest on record in Chile, part of an ongoing megadrought that has affected the country for a decade. While shortages are likely related to climate change, Chile's current constitution, in which access to water is privatized, also plays a role. Al Jazeera explores the water crisis and how the new constitution could affect access.
  

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Latin America Daily Briefing

Migrants in Mexico (Aug. 27, 2021)

 Mexico received 124 Afghan refugees this week, including a group of New York Times journalists and members of an all-female robotics team. While the U.S. immigration system has struggled to react quickly to the current crisis, Mexican officials led by foreign minister Marcelo Ebrard were able to cut through red tape in order to provide immediate protection for evacuees, reports the New York Times (and also here).

But many observers have contrasted Mexico's welcome of Afghan refugees with the dangers faced by Central American asylum seekers in the country. Mexico has bussed thousands of migrants deported from the U.S. to El Ceibo, a remote Guatemalan outpost, where up to 600 people arrive each day to the settlement that has no migrant infrastructure nor health protocols to protect against the spread of Covid-19. (See Tuesday's briefs.)

And a new report by Human Rights First documented 6,356 kidnappings and other attacks, including rape, human trafficking, and violent armed assaults, against asylum seekers and migrants expelled to or blocked at the U.S.-Mexico border since President Biden took office in January 2021. (CBS News)

The U.S. has urged Mexico to clear ad-hoc camps housing thousands of migrants in border cities, reports Reuters. U.S. officials are concerned that camps in Reynosa and Tijuana -- each housing 2,500 people -- could jeopardize security if migrants make a rush for the border. The camps attract criminal gangs, say U.S. officials. 

The request comes the same week the U.S. Supreme Court ordered the Biden administration to resume a criticized program that forces asylum seekers to await their cases' adjudication in Mexico. (See Wednesday's post.)

Yesterday Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador said Mexico will continue helping the United States on immigration. But he noted “it can’t go on forever,” reports the Associated Press.

News Briefs

Regional

• Democracy is quickly eroding in many Central American countries -- El Salvador, Guatemala, Nicaragua and Honduras -- warns the Economist. "Poor governance has led to insecurity, economic stagnation and shoddy public services. Institutions that ought to uphold the rule of law, such as the courts and UN-backed bodies, have been co-opted or dismantled, allowing corruption to increase. The pandemic has added to these problems."

Nicaragua

• Nicaragua's government is advancing towards an agreement with Russia to cooperate on information security -- a move that digital security experts say could be used as another tool to persecute political opponents, reports El Confidencial.

• The Ortega government's war against NGO's has affected dozens of organizations of civil society, including many that carried out health programs for vulnerable populations, reports Connectas.

Mexico

• There are more than 52,000 unidentified cadavers in Mexico, where states on average identify just 20 percent of the bodies they receive according to a new report. (El País)

• The search for missing members of Mexico’s Yaqui Indigenous community has become a rallying cry for activists pointing to the shocking number of disappearances in Mexico's Sonora state, reports InSight Crime.
  

Haiti

• Two week's after the magnitude-7.2 earthquake that devastated southern Haiti, affected communities are fending for themselves amid the wreckage, as rain, gangs and political crises complicate aid delivery, reports the Guardian. "Despite the hellish outlook, Haitians’ famous resilience is plain to see."

• Haiti is a prime example of how U.S. efforts at reconstruction in other nations fail, argues Pedro Brieger in Nodal.

Peru

• Peru's Congress is currently debating President Pedro Castillo's cabinet, and is expected to vote on whether to accept it today. If the Cabinet is rejected by the center-right coalition that runs Peru's Congress, Castillo will have to present a new Cabinet led by a new prime minister. (La Mula, Reuters)

Ecuador

• Ecuadorean President Guillermo Lasso has one of the region's highest approval ratings, in part due to ramped up vaccinations, but also because he "has also been careful to reach out to different ideological camps—both inside Ecuador and through diplomacy with other world leaders—and has taken conciliatory positions on several key issues," explains Catherine Osborn in the Latin America Brief.

Chile

• Chile's Constitutional Convention is finalizing the procedures that will guide the actual drafting of a new magna charter. Several key points delegates have agreed on include several instances of popular consultation for the creation of the new constitution -- ranging from plebiscite for popular feedback on clauses that do not obtain a two-thirds majority but do garner more than three-fifths in two votes. But the consultation process could be legally challenged by right-wing opponents before Chile's Supreme Court. (La Bot Constituyente)

Argentina

• Argentine President Alberto Fernández is battling the fallout of pictures portraying an illicit birthday gathering for the First Lady during last year's coronavirus lockdown -- the scandal has put the government on the defensive ahead of midterm election primaries next month, reports the Financial Times.

• Argentine environmental activists rejected a pork production agreement with China they say will lead to destructive megafactories -- Nodal.

Paraguay

• Paraguay's level of deforestation is outpacing some of its much larger neighbors – especially in the destruction of protected land, reports InSight Crime.

Brazil

• Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro suggested that  everyone should buy a rifle, in response to critics of his efforts to expand gun ownership in the country. (Reuters)

• Recife's very young mayor, João Campos, is  betting on innovation to build a name for himself in Brazil's most unequal capital, reports Americas Quarterly.

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

WHO to make Covid-19 vaccines in LAC (Aug. 26, 2021)

News Briefs

Covid-19

• The World Health Organization is starting a program to manufacture vaccines in Latin America and the Caribbean. The move aims to address global inequalities in vaccine access, an issue that “remains the Achilles’ heel” of the pandemic fight, said PAHO director Dr. Carissa Etienne. Vaccines produced by the program are to be distributed to countries in Latin America and the Caribbean, a region where an average of only 23 percent of the population has been fully vaccinated so far, reports the New York Times.

• Pfizer and BioNTech announced a deal with a Brazilian manufacturer to produce 100 million doses of their Covid-19 vaccine annually for Latin America, reports Bloomberg.
  

Nicaragua

• Enforced disappearances are a strategy of political repression in Nicaragua, according to a new report by Amnesty International that documents how the Ortega government forcibly disappeared 10 people (including journalists, activists and political opponents) since May of this year.

Regional Relations

• Bolivia accused OAS head Luis Almagro of "interference in internal affairs" for his actions following the 2019 election and president Evo Morales' subsequent ouster. (Deutsche Welle)

Brazil

• Thousands of Indigenous people marched toward Brazil’s Supreme Court ahead of an expected ruling with far-reaching implications for land rights, reports the Associated Press. Justices will be evaluating a lower court’s ruling that invalidated a claim by some Indigenous people in Santa Catarina state to what they say is their ancestral territory.

• Many opponents of President Jair Bolsonaro are increasingly concerned he will use security forces to challenge next year's presidential elections in the event of a loss -- it is urgent to consider a broad military reform, including military justice tribunals charged with overseeing the armed forces, argues Natalia Viana in the New York Times Español.

Venezuela

• Venezuela's Maduro government hopes to use a dept-for-equity swap it made last week of shares in a Dominican oil refinery for defaulted bonds as a possible model for future deals, according to Reuters.
  

Colombia

• Murders of human rights and community activists in Colombia dropped compared to last year, but, with 78 victims in the first half of 2021, remain high, the country’s human rights ombudsman said. He most are victims of criminal actions by illegal armed groups, reports Reuters. (See Tuesday's post.) 
  

El Salvador

• El Salvador’s government will present a constitutional reform proposal on Saturday, which will include, among other changes, extending the presidential term, the possibility of revoking the president’s mandate and replacing the electoral tribunal. (Reuters)
  

Regional

• Central American countries are watching to see if El Salvador’s adoption of Bitcoin as a parallel legal tender cuts the cost of remittances, reports Al Jazeera.

Haiti

• Haiti’s most recent earthquake has compounded years of corruption and political crisis -- the country cannot afford another catastrophe writes Jonathan Katz in the Guardian.
  

Peru

• Ultra-conservative protests against President Pedro Castillo are adding to polarized political tension in Peru, reports EFE.

Mexico

• Mexican prosecutors said Ricardo Anaya, an opposition politician who fled the country over the weekend, allegedly took a $525,000 bribe. (Associated Press)
  

Bolivia

• Bolivia has thousands of dinosaur footprints, but few bones -- the Economist explores the paleontological paradox.
  

Chile

• Chile's sprawling mining sector believes a royalty bill under discussion in Congress could shut down the country's private miners, according to Reuters.

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

U.S. Supreme Court reinstates MPP (Aug. 25, 2021)

The U.S. Supreme Court ordered the Biden administration to comply with a lower court’s ruling to reinstate President Donald Trump’s policy that required many asylum seekers to await outside the country for their cases to be decided. The court's conservative majority agreed with a lower court that the Biden administration had not done enough to justify changing the Migrant Protection Protocols, better known as the “Remain in Mexico" policy. (Washington Post)

The policy was broadly criticized by human rights groups for undermining asylum rights and putting asylum seekers at risk of significant harm by forcing them to await adjudication in dangerous Mexican border cities, without proper infrastructure for shelter or for following their cases.

It is unclear exactly what effect the ruling will have, notes the Washington Post. The program was suspended when President Joe Biden took office in January, and formally repealed in June. The Trump administration had already largely stopped using the “Remain in Mexico” policy since the start of the coronavirus pandemic. Under the lower court ruling, the administration must make a “good faith effort” to restart the program, reports the Associated Press, which leaves the government some discretion in how to move forward, according to Reuters. The legal case in the Supreme Court focused on whether the government followed the correct legal process in unwinding a previous administration’s policy.

Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas filed a seven-page memorandum on June 1 detailing what he saw as the MPP’s shortcomings. The American Civil Liberties Union called on the administration to present a fuller rationale for ending Remain in Mexico that could withstand court scrutiny.

Previous to the rulings senior U.S. officials discussed adopting a gentler version of “Remain in Mexico,” a premise immigration advocates decry as ludicrous, according to Vice.

But even without MPP in place — for now — most migrants and asylum seekers are still being turned back at the border, reports El Faro.

News Briefs

Colombia

• Colombian General Mario Montoya will be formally charged with murder today for allegedly overseeing and incentivizing the killings of 104 civilians, including five children. The general, who commanded the army between 2006 and 2008, is the highest-ranking military officer to face accountability in the "false positives" scandal, in which thousands of civilians were killed by security forces and passed off as guerrilla combatants to inflate enemy casualty rates. (Washington Post, Infobae)

Peru

• Peruvian President Pedro Castillo is contemplating a cabinet reshuffle, ahead of a key Congressional confirmation vote later this week. Reuters reports that the controversial prime minister, Guido Bellido, was initially on the chopping block, but reached an agreement with Castillo to remain. The ministers on the line belong to Castillo's radical Peru Libre party and include the heads of the Labor, Transportation and Defense ministries, according to Reuters.
  

Regional Relations

• The Venezuelan government submitted a dossier of evidence of damage wrought by U.S. sanctions to the International Criminal Court, reports EFE. President Nicolás Maduro’s government went to the ICC in February 2020 with the claim that the sanctions constitute a crime against humanity.

• An Argentine prosecutor charged former high level officials -- including the Macri administration's cabinet chief Macros Peña and foreign minister Jorge Faurie -- in an investigation into alleged smuggling of weapons to Bolivia in the wake of the 2019 ouster of President Evo Morales. (Telam)

Haiti

• The drinking of untreated water in Haiti's earthquake-affected zone has raised concerns of waterborne disease, including a return of cholera, which the country has been battling since it was introduced by Nepalese peacekeepers 10 months after the 2010 earthquake, reports the Miami Herald.

Brazil

• Many of Brazil's governors are concerned about their state police officers appearing in an upcoming march in support of President Jair Bolsonaro -- a fact that came to light in minutes of a Monday meeting of governors in Brasilia, in which they discussed a worsening political crisis in Brazil, reports Reuters. Active-duty military police are prohibited from making political demonstrations, but many are expected to show up at Sept 7 marches in support of Bolsonaro. (See yesterday's briefs.)

• A year ahead of presidential elections in Brazil, the polarized battle between Bolsonaro and former president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva has prompted a push by moderates to establish a “third way” candidate, reports the Financial Times. But they still haven't found a politician with the necessary star power -- "a centrist who can appeal to voters disillusioned with the radicalism of the far right and the history of corruption under Lula’s Workers’ party."
  

Cuba

• A new decree and accompanying legislation announced by the Cuban government severely restricts freedom of expression online and threatens users’ privacy, according to Human Rights Watch. Under the new Decree-Law 35, telecommunications users have a duty to prevent the spreading of “fake news or reports” and are forbidden from using the services in ways that affect the “collective security,” “general well-being,” “public morality,” or “respect of public order.”

• Economic reforms passed by Cuba's government earlier this month allow the creation of small and medium-sized private businesses for the first time in decades, nonetheless most sectors will still be state-run and Cubans abroad cannot be owners, reports the Miami Herald. (See Aug. 10's briefs.) Some experts believe the reforms are the first steps towards a veiled privatization effort by reconverting state companies into small and medium-sized enterprises that will remain state-owned but are expected to act independently.
  

El Salvador

• The revelation of the former Attorney General’s investigation into gang negotiations by the Bukele administration (see yesterday's briefs) has three major implications for El Salvador’s president, according to InSight Crime. It shows government officials directed negotiations with criminal groups; unveils a major cover-up that culminated with the May ousting of attorney general Raúl Melara; and is likely to further strain US-El Salvador relations when it comes to combating the country’s powerful street gangs and curbing migration.
  

Paraguay

• Paraguayan emergency services are battling fierce wildfires for a third consecutive year. This year the flames are compounded by a severe drought and a winter heatwave. Fires have been seen in at least five protected forested areas with 70 percent of the Cerro Cora National Park consumed by flames, reports Al Jazeera.
  

Mexico

• Medical oxygen supply firms have threatened some Mexican hospitals that installed their own onsite oxygen generator plants to meet Covid-19 demand, reports the Guardian. Demand for oxygen has soared in the country, alongside case rates. Last year the national guard was deployed to protect oxygen delivery trucks.

• Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador said that he is open to releasing incarcerated kingpin and alleged godfather of Mexico’s contemporary drug trafficking industry, Miguel Ángel Félix Gallardo, because of his age and poor health. (Vice)

• Mexico could benefit from a broad and transparent debate on electoral reform, but not if the conversation is a Trojan Horse for the government to consolidate power and create a new "mafia of power," writes Alberto Barrera Tyszka in the New York Times Español.

Regional

• Gang warfare in Brazil's southern state of Rio Grande do Sul has sparked a major security crisis across its border with Uruguay, reports InSight Crime.
  

Ecuador

• A delegation of roughly 150 members of an Indigenous community in Ecuador’s Amazon region demanded the National Court of Justice uphold a lower-court ruling ordering the eviction of loggers from their ancestral lands, reports EFE.
  

Chile

• Chile’s presidential race kicked off yesterday, with nine candidates from across the political spectrum officially registered. The Eurasia Group risk consultancy said in a report that it foresaw a second round in which “the Left is well-placed to capitalize on the demand for change.” (Reuters)

Media

• Governments around the world are increasingly using highly sophisticated spyware technology to monitor journalists, dramatically undermining the news media’s ability to report free from interference, according to a new report by the Center for Independent Media Assistance.

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

Student activist killed in Colombia's Cauca (Aug. 24, 2021)

Colombian student leader Esteban Mosquera was killed in the country's Cauca department yesterday. Mosquera became an icon of the country's protesters, and their struggles with police repression, after losing an eye in clashes with the police anti-riot squad (ESMAD) in 2018. Mosquera, a music student in the Universidad de Cauca, was also a reporter for Contra Portada, and cast a spotlight on this year's massive anti-government protests with his coverage. 

Authorities have not identified suspects, and Colombian President Iván Duque offered a reward for information.

(La Silla Vacía, El Tiempo, Deutsche Welle, Ámbito)

News Briefs

El Salvador

• An investigation led by El Salvador's former Attorney General Raúl Melara found that the government of Nayib Bukele held negotiations in maximum-security prisons in 2020 with the country's three main gangs: the Mara Salvatrucha 13, Barrio 18 Revolucionarios, and Barrio 18 Sureños, criminal organizations classified in Salvadoran law as terrorists. In exchange for their commitment to holding the national homicide rate at a historic low, the gangs demanded, among other conditions, improved prison conditions and increased employment opportunities for their members outside of prison, reports El Faro, which reviewed the case file and corroborated findings after Melara was illegally removed from office before pressing charges.
  

Regional Relations

• The U.S. Biden administration's promises to tackle corruption in Central America have been sidelined by efforts to control migration, reports the New York Times. Though the Biden administration considers that corruption is a root cause of migration, its efforts on that front have clashed with the immediate need to collaborate with Central American governments to stop migrant flows. "Current and former officials say that the administration’s relative passivity in the face of corruption has cost the United States leverage in the region."

Migration

• The U.S. and Mexico are deporting Central American migrants to a deserted border area in Guatemala, El Ceibo. Up to 600 people arrive each day to the settlement that has no migrant infrastructure nor health protocols to protect against the spread of Covid-19, reports AFP.

• "Exodus" a photo essay on mass migration and its ripple effects in Latin America, by Nicoló Filippo Rosso in the Washington Post.

Brazil

• São Paulo governor João Doria fired a senior military police commander who publicly supported a march in favor of Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro and attacked rival politicians. (Reuters) Bolsonaro has widespread support among the country's military police, and some experts say he could use security forces in a bid to delegitimize the results of next year's presidential elections.

Haiti

• Gang violence that has complicated aid distribution to victims of Haiti's Aug. 14 earthquake is only the latest example of how criminal organizations have aggravated the country's growing humanitarian crisis this year, reports the Miami Herald. In fact, the affected Great South region has been practically cut off from Port-au-Prince for months and violent gangs refused to allow for a humanitarian corridor for ambulances. A surge in violence that started in early June has forced the displacement of more than 16,000 Haitians. Hospitals and doctors have been targeted by gangsters -- the French medical charity Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontière closed a health facility after doctors and patients were the target of an armed gang attack. (See yesterday's post.)

• Haitians are wary of international aid in the wake of the earthquake -- while they desperately need help, international priorities often don't align with local ones, reports the Guardian. (See yesterday's post.)
• Haitian Judge Garry Orélien will head the investigation into the killing of President Jovenel Moïse, after the previous judge in charge of the case resigned following the suspicious death of one of his assistants. (Associated Press)

Bolivia

• Genocide charges against Bolivia's former interim president, Jeanine Áñez will put the country's judicial system to the test -- and evince Bolivia's lasting political polarization, reports the Washington Post. The current Arce administration seeks to pursue justice for rights abuses following the ouster of president Evo Morales in 2019, which include shootings by police that left at least 20 people dead and 98 injured, though opponents claim political persecution and some experts question whether the violations amount to "genocide." (See yesterday's briefs, and last Wednesday's post on the CIDH report of human rights abuses committed under Áñez.) 

Chile

• Chile's Progressive Party leader Marco Enríquez Ominami announced he will run for president this year, a move that could split the country's leftist voters after Senator Yasna Provoste won the center-left Unidad Constituyente coalition primary last weekend. (Reuters)
  

Mexico

• Former Mexican presidential candidate Ricardo Anaya has fled the country, claiming that charges against him are politically motivated, reports the Associated Press. President Andrés Manuel López Obrador said the charges stem from accusations by a former official that legislators like Anaya were paid off to vote for the country's energy overhaul in 2013 and 2014.

• Hurricane Grace left at least eight people dead in its passage across Mexico’s Veracruz state, reports the Wall Street Journal.
  

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

Aid insufficient in Haiti (Aug. 23, 2021)

The death toll from the 7.2 magnitude earthquake that hit Haiti on Aug. 14 has risen past 2,200. Government officials said yesterday that more than 12,000 people were injured, more than 100,000 homes were destroyed or damaged and about 30,000 families were left homeless.

Aid efforts are increasingly impacted by violence, gangs have blocked roads, hijacked aid trucks and stolen supplies, forcing relief workers to transport supplies by helicopter. Desperate survivors are sometimes fighting over scarce handouts. 

Yesterday a prominent gang leader Jimmy Cherizier, alias “Barbecue,” offered the assistance of his group, the G9 Revolutionary Forces. Experts say, however, that it's unclear what impact his truce might have on the ground.

An initial gang truce aimed at permitting aid to reach earthquake victims broke down last week, when two surgeons working with survivors were kidnapped in Port-au-Prince.

 (New York Times, Al Jazeera, Associated Press)

The earthquake has robbed Haiti’s south of the infrastructure it so desperately needs: schools, hospitals and churches. The quake damaged power plants, bridges and roads, compromising electric grids and transit. The water supplies for countless communities are contaminated, in some because of corpses upstream, reports the Washington Post.

Haiti's political crisis, together with previous misuse of aid funds, will likely affect international philanthropic aid directed toward the country in the wake of the recent earthquake, reports the New York Times.

Efforts to assist Haiti should be channelled through the country's grass-roots networks that are in direct contact with the victims and have a record of coordinating relief efforts, argues Michèle Montas in a New York Times opinion piece.

"A vicious cycle is about to reignite, the features of which are already predictable: Plans for reconstruction without consultation with those most affected, camps for displaced people, disaster capitalism," writes Myriam Chancy at NPR.

Too often, natural calamities in Haiti are accompanied by political crises. "In the aftermath of natural disasters, funds pour into the country for recovery efforts, leading to greater political avarice and instability. And the merciless political aftershocks make it impossible to restore a nation on its knees or build resistance to further disasters," writes Francesca Momplaisir in the Washington Post.

The earthquake caught Haiti in a leadership vacuum, and there has not been a concerted state relief effort. Prominent Haitian politicians have tried to fill the gap, reports the New York Times, flying out the injured on their private planes, delivering medical supplies and food and even handing out cash. Their efforts have effectively become the start of campaigns for some of Haiti’s presidential and congressional hopefuls.

More Haiti

• Haitian officials are examining whether President Jovenel Moïse’s killing in July was tied to the drug trade. The commander in charge of guarding Moïse's home, Dimitri Hérard, was a suspect in a major trafficking case, reports the New York Times.
• In the days before Moïse was shot dead in a murky international plot last month, he was telling friends that enemies were out to get him, reports Reuters. Conversations with more than a dozen officials, politicians, diplomats and relatives of Moïse "painted the 53-year-old president as a man increasingly isolated and in peril toward the end of his life."
  

News Briefs

Bolivia

• Jailed former Bolivian President Jeanine Áñez is in “stable” condition after she tried to take her own life, a day after prosecutors charged her with “genocide” over the deaths of protesters in 2019. (Al Jazeera)

Cuba

• A lack of medical supplies is crippling Cuba's medical response to Covid-19, as the country grapples with a one of the western hemisphere’s highest coronavirus rates, reports the Guardian. In the face of extreme scarcity, doctors are increasingly prescribing herbal remedies. Rollout of Cuba's nationally developed coronavirus vaccines has been slowed down by U.S. sanctions – supercharged by Trump, left in place by Biden.
  

Migration

• Seven months into U.S. President Joe Biden’s term, the administration is considering reinstating Remain in Mexico and is ramping up Title 42 border expulsions, reports El Faro English in a review of the Biden administration's migrant policies.
  

Brazil

• Deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon has hit the highest annual level in a decade, according to data released by Imazon, a Brazilian research institute. Between August 2020 and July 2021, the rainforest lost 10,476 square kilometers, reports the Guardian.

• Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro reportedly said he regretted granting the country's central bank autonomy earlier this year, as surging inflation impacts his reelection prospects, according to the Associated Press.

Peru

• Peruvian President Pedro Castillo tapped career diplomat Oscar Maurtua to head his foreign ministry, after a scandal forced his first pick to resign last week. Maurtua already served as foreign minister in the early 2000s under centrist President Alejandro Toledo, and will likely strengthen Castillo's cabinet ahead of a confirmation vote from the opposition-led Congress. (Reuters)

• The move has spurred discontent within Castillo’s socialist Peru Libre party, according to Bloomberg.

El Salvador

• Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele's continual assault on the judicial system and the independence of other branches of the government which could act as a check on a president’s powers undermine the credibility of positive proposals included in Bukele's draft constitutional reform, writes Tim Muth at El Salvador Perspectives. "Despite the fact that some of the changes might be ones which could be individually supported, civil society groups are condemning the Ad Hoc Group and the process surrounding this draft of the Constitution."
  

Chile

• Chilean senate president Yasna Provoste will be the center-left Unidad Constituyente coalition presidential candidate in the November election, after winning a citizen consultation on Saturday. (Telesur)

Argentina

• Argentina's major political coalitions -- the ruling Frente de Todos and the opposition Juntos por el Cambio -- are remarkably stable, despite the country's history of instability, writes María Esperanza Casullo in Americas Quarterly.

• Carpinchos (capybaras) have invaded an affluent gated community in Buenos Aires' suburbs, sparking a surge of support for the rodents among progressive peronists who say the animals are at the vanguard of class struggle. But beyond the internet memes, the case has sparked a broader debate over the situation of the Paraná river wetlands, and how environmental degradation builds on inequality, reports the Guardian. 

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Latin America Daily Briefing

Afghanistan seen from LatAm (Aug. 20, 2021)

Regional Relations

• "To many in Latin America’s diplomatic and foreign-policy communities, the dark events in Afghanistan confirmed the importance of the principle of non-interference in other countries’ internal affairs," writes Catherine Osbourne in today's Latin America Brief. "Many Latin Americans stressed that methods other than military interventions should be used to work toward human rights, even as they acknowledged how challenging it can be to make progress."

• Several countries in the region signed a joint declaration with the European Union and the United States, calling on “those who occupy positions of power and authority throughout Afghanistan to guarantee” the protection of women and girls.

• Chile, Costa Rica and Mexico volunteered to accept some Afghan refugees, with priority for women, girls and human rights activists, reports Deutsche Welle.

• And James Bosworth analyzes the U.S. role in Afghanistan and asks "whether the tolerance for corrupt oligarchs in Latin America and the Caribbean simply allows them to profit off a mirage of governance that could tumble if given the right push," and analyzes whether Honduran President Juan Orlando Hernández is the equivalent of Afghanistan's deposed President Ghani. (Latin America Risk Report) 

• For Jonathan Katz, Afghanistan and Haiti share a root cause of crisis: decades of direct U.S. control. "The longest continuous U.S. military occupation, until the record was surpassed in Afghanistan last year, had been in Haiti, which unlike other places the U.S. invaded and held for longer, was never formally colonized," he writes in The New Republic.

Haiti

• Many small Haitian communities affected by last weekend's earthquake have given up hope that the government will come to their assistance, reports the Miami Herald. "Many people in the isolated villages say it’s as if they’ve been forgotten." (See yesterday's post.)

• The crisis in Haiti has invited a lot of reflexion on how international aid fails to achieve its goals. (See yesterday's post.) Vox reports on how Haiti's current political crisis will make recovery from last weekend's earthquake more difficult. "Successful rebuilding requires a strong rule of law. Without it, there is nothing to hold both Haitian officials and nongovernmental organizations accountable."

Mexico

• Radio journalist Jacinto Romero Flores was shot and killed in Mexico's Veracruz state yesterday. (Associated Press)
  

Migration

• Hundreds of migrants, including children and babies, from Central America have been expelled further south by U.S. and Mexican officials, first by plane and then onward in buses towards El Ceibo. Many are not told where they are going, reports Reuters.
  

Cuba

• Aviva Chomsky pushes back against a slew of denunciations against "Leftist" tolerance in response to Cuba's repressed protests. "While we oppose the Cuban government’s crackdown on the protesters, we also believe that the Cuban government’s paranoia that sees the malevolent hand of the United States in every challenge to its policies is not really that far-fetched." (The Nation)

• Delta is ravaging Cuba, overwhelming its lauded health system, as well as the country's mortuaries and crematories, reports the New York Times.

Venezuela

• Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro named Felix Pasencia to head the country's foreign ministry, while the outgoing minister, Jorge Arreaza, will take over the industry and production ministry, in a cabinet shake-up that comes amid negotiations with the opposition meant to ease the country’s political deadlock, reports Al Jazeera.

Argentina

• Argentine President Alberto Fernández expanded his complaint about the illegal shipment of war material to Bolivia's interim government in 2019, after the ouster of then president Evo Morales, by former president Mauricio Macri. (Telesur)

• Argentina’s economy expanded more than expected in June as the government relaxed lockdown measures and ended an export dispute with beef producers, reports Bloomberg.
  

Caribbean

• A lack of coordinated policy and over-reliance on a one-size-fits-all trade structure have long hindered the development of the maritime transport infrastructure that Caribbean small island developing states need. The region’s current infrastructure, which carries more than 90 percent of its goods, is vulnerable to disruptions and inefficiencies, writes Ryan Sullivan at the Aula Blog.
  

Transnational Crime

• "Seizures of coltan in Colombia have shown the complex networks used by armed groups to smuggle the valuable mineral from illegal mines across the border in Venezuela," reports InSight Crime.

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