Rousseff suspended in Brazil; Colombia to hold peace referendum in Sept. (May 12, 2016)

Brazil's Senate voted 55 to 22 to suspend President Dilma Rousseff in order to put her on trial for impeachment on charges of budgetary manipulation aimed at strengthening her reelection candidacy. The trial can take up to six months, during which time Vice President Michel Temer will assume the helm, reports the New York Times. (See yesterday's post.)

The Senate held a marathon, 20-hour session, in which the level of opposition to Rousseff seems to indicate her eventual impeachment, notes the Wall Street Journal.


Rousseff's supporters say the move is a glorified coup d'etat and threatened protests and strikes, while her opponents say Rousseff's removal is the first step to recovery for a country beset by political and economic crisis, reports the Associated Press.

Speaking to journalists after the vote, Rousseff said she had made mistakes, but had not committed crimes, reports Folha de S. Paulo.

"The president – a former Marxist guerrilla who was imprisoned and tortured in the 1970s – has railed against treachery and misogyny, and vowed to fight to the bitter end. But her battle increasingly resembles that of an injured animal surrounded by predators moving in for the kill," reports the Guardian.

There is a sense that the Senate vote could end months of political gridlock, notes the Guardian. 

But the Temer era begins under a cloud of suspicion from Brazilians, most of whom said they would not vote for him as president, reports El País.


Hours after the vote her entire cabinet was officially dismissed, and Temer could name a new cabinet later today, reports the Associated Press separately. 

Folha has the list of the 21 selected ministers. It is reportedly 100 percent male (for the first time since 1979) and 100 percent white, according to the Guardian.  

Temer will announce measures to rebalance depleted fiscal accounts and generate new jobs, reports Reuters.

Business leaders and investors are cheered by the change in leadership. Temer has announced a reduction in government ministries and will seek to reduce budget deficits, reports the Wall Street Journal separately.

The political crisis, while nominally about budget maneuvers, was years in the making, according to another Wall Street Journal piece. Declining commodity prices made maintaining popular government programs unsustainable, while the Petrobras corruption scandal made legislators unwilling to pass unpopular austerity measures for fear of losing elections.

Temer must overcome three deeply interconnected crises, according to the WSJ, corruption, political dysfunction and Brazil's worst recession in generations. Yet many of the legislators pushing for Rousseff's ouster are themselves implicated in the Petrobras graft scandal at the heart of the corruption crisis in Brazilian politics.

He must prove his ability to create alliances, argues Folha de S. Paulo.
Though Rousseff has not technically been impeached, the process seems nearly irreversible now, reports El País. 

The challenges facing Temer's new government could play in favor of the now-disgraced Workers' Party, according to the Wall Street Journal. Without Rousseff at the helm, if the new government stumbles, the PT could be strengthened ahead of the 2018 elections. (See May 4's post.)

The PT is planning a dual strategy in the upcoming months: steadfast Congressional opposition to Temer's government and rallies around the country and internationally featuring Rousseff and former President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, reports El País.

Only a disaster could somehow save Rousseff from her impeachment fate, along the lines of Temer failing at garnering parliamentary support for an economic agenda in his first few months, argues Igor Gielow in Folha de S. Paulo.

News Briefs

• Recipients of Brazil's Bolsa Familia, the world's largest cash-transfer program, are concerned that they will lose their benefits which save them from extreme poverty, reports the BBC. But it's a good time to be rich in Brazil: equity market gains have propelled a wealth increase among billionaires, reports Bloomberg. 

• Colombia will hold a referendum on a peace deal with FARC rebel group by late September, said Interior Minister Juan Fernando Cristo yesterday. In addition to the signing of an eventual deal with the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), still to be set, the government needs the Constitutional Court to give the referendum a green light, reports AFP. Cristo said he was confident the justices will soon have a decision on the case, reports El Espectador. He also said negotiators in Havana are nearing a conclusion, according to La Vanguardia. Negotiators failed to reach an agreement by a March deadline, and last week President Juan Manuel Santos said he would rather not impose a new target date. (See March 24's post.)

• FARC negotiators accepted the plebiscite proposal for the first time last week, explains La Vanguardia, after years of rejecting the measure and calling for a Constituent Assembly to approve the deal instead. But a referendum could actually give the FARC the assurances they seek to guarantee the deal, argues Laura Gil in El Tiempo.

• Earlier this week opposition leader and former President Álvaro Uribe called for "civil resistance" to the peace talks. (See Tuesday's briefs.) Basically that means voting against the agreement in an eventual plebiscite, according to Publimetro. But Uribe said yesterday he will begin to collect signatures against the peace accords and the referendum itself as well, reports El Universal. The document he is gathering support for calls for sentencing for war crimes, in rejection of the transitional justice clause of the proposed agreement, reports El Colombiano. Prosecutor General Alejandro Ordóñez backed Uribe's call, saying it's legitimate, reports La Vanguardia. 

• Cristo twisted the call, and asked mayors of his party to lead "civil resistance" to war, reports El Espectador. Cristo also criticized Uribe's call to action: "There are democratic guarantees for all and the appropriate time for this [civil resistance] is the plebiscite," in which Colombians will be able to either reject or accept the peace deal, according to Colombia Reports. 

• "However, an agreement between the guerrillas and the Colombian state does not mean the end of militarization in Colombia. ... Even as the amount of violent combat has dropped precipitously in the last four years, the number of non-violent Colombian activists who have been targeted, primarily by paramilitary groups, has increased markedly," report John Lindsay-Poland and Arlene B. Tickner for Nacla.

• In the Catacumbo region in particular ongoing violence makes talk of peace seem more like propaganda than anything else, reports Silla Vacía.

• In the meantime, peace talks will not delay fiscal reforms needed to help the country cope with plunging oil revenues, Santos promised investors this week. Without reform the country's credit rating could be downgraded, reports Reuters.

• And Colombia’s interim prosecutor general announced Wednesday he would file 16,000 war crime charges against the leaders of the ELN while negotiators are trying to agree to formal peace talks, according to Colombia Reports.

• Thousands of Venezuelans marched yesterday to demand government authorities move forward with the verification of signatures in support of a recall referendum on President Nicolás Maduro's mandate, reports the Wall Street Journal. (See yesterday's briefs.) Soldiers fired tear gas at stone-throwing protesters, reports Reuters. Government supporters held a counter march.

• U.S. Republican Senator Marco Rubio made a deal with the White House that would extend sanctions on Venezuela and confirm the U.S. ambassador to Mexico, reports The Hill.

• The Inter-American Commission on Human Rights recommends against the deportation of a Salvadoran woman and her 12-year-old daughter from the U.S., saying their lives are at risk. The woman claims she fled to the U.S. after she endured multiple gang rapes by gang members, who also killed her brother-in-law and threatened to attack her daughter. She said she was unable to explain her situation to U.S. authorities who rejected her asylum application, reports the Guardian.

• A campesino mobilization in Guatemala paralyzed half the country yesterday, with demonstrators demanding the government nationalize electricity, stop subsidizing big agribusinesses, and set aside 15 percent of cultivable land lots for basic food production, reports TeleSur.

• The Chile Students Confederation said it gathered 80,000 students, in a march yesterday to demand a thorough overhaul of a Chilean educational system still marked by the legacy of the 1973-1990 Augusto Pinochet dictatorship, reports the Latin American Herald Tribune.

• Thousands of Mexicans have been forced to abandon their homes and join the ranks of the country's internally displaced due to organized crime violence, according to the National Human Rights Commission. At least 35,433 people who have fled, reports the Associated Press.

• Nicaragua's political opposition organized a protest yesterday, after the country's electoral council called for elections in November. The opposition, led by the Independent Liberal Party, or PLI, claims that the council has favored the ruling Sandinista National Liberation Front, or FSLN, in every election since 2008, reports the Latin American Herald Tribune.

• Rising poverty in Argentina is leading to a rise in "social fridges," where people leave food for those who need it, following a model that popped up in several European countries, reports AFP.

• Government promises aside, innovation is stagnating in Latin America as measured by patent applications, writes Andrés Oppenheimer in his Miami Herald column.

Senate voting on Rousseff's impeachment trial (May 11, 2016)

The Brazilian Senate will begin voting today on whether to place President Dilma Rousseff on trial for impeachment over allegations of budgetary manipulation. If the vote is positive, as expected, Rousseff will be suspended from office for six months, reports the New York Times. A simple majority is needed to suspend her, and well over half the Senators have said they'd vote to put Rousseff on trial, reports Reuters. She's expected to leave the Planalto presidential palace tomorrow.

(See yesterday's post.)

Nonetheless, the government is fighting what it portrays as a coup attempt until the last minute. Brazil's attorney general asked the Supreme Court to suspend the impeachment process yesterday, reports the Wall Street Journal. The petition is unlikely to be successful.

Protesters against the impeachment blocked roads, set fires and slowed traffic in 15 Brazilian states yesterday, reports the Los Angeles Times.

"Wednesday's vote is part of a tumultuous process that raised serious questions about Brazilian leaders’ capacity to steer the country through a series of crises," writes the Wall Street Journal, somewhat ominously.

El País has a sober editorial criticizing the impeachment efforts, noting that the chaotic nature of the proceedings lends credence to Rousseff's accusations of a political coup. "This institutional crisis raises more than reasonable doubts regarding the legitimacy of a new president who rose through such an unusual process. Brazil cannot permit itself such a spectacle, the damage caused is incalculable."


The Senate proceeding will likely be more tempered than the riotous vote in the lower house, in which legislators seemed to focus on anything but the actual budgetary manipulation allegations, reports the Wall Street Journal. (See April 18's post.)

El País reports on regional repercussions to the Brazil crisis.
Still confused over what's going on in Brazil? The Associated Press explains the impeachment process in a nutshell.

Live updates from the Guardian.

News Briefs

• The Associated Press reports on court documents obtained in the case of the Ayotzinapa investigation: in which 10 suspects describe how they were tortured in order to extract "testimony" in support of the government version of events leading to the disappearance of 43 students in 2014. Five are the same cases reviewed in the last report of the GIEI group of independent experts backed by the IAHRC, which published medical reports that appear to confirm the allegations of torture. (See April 26's post.) The suspects in the documents described similar treatment: first the questions, then the punches, electric shocks and partial asphyxiations with plastic bags; then, finally, threats to kill their loved ones.

• Venezuela's Electoral Board is analyzing signatures gathered in support of a recall referendum on President Nicolás Maduro's mandate. In an attempt to pressure the CNE, the political opposition has called for a march today, which will be met with a counter march by government supporters, reports El País. The CNE has 30 days to validate the signatures gathered as a first step to convoking a recall vote. (See April 27's post.)

• Maduro's popularity ratings remain relatively high, but dropped in March to 26.8 percent, according to Datanálisis. WOLA's David Smilde digs deeper into the data, noting that there's good news for the opposition which is maintaining support of over half the population, and especially for National Assembly President Henry Ramos Allup, now the country's most popular politician. Fifty-seven percent of respondents said they would vote against Maduro in a recall referendum, up five points from the month before.

• At the Caracas Chronicles Juan Cristobal Nagel explains how the multi-pronged opposition strategy to oust Maduro democratically, which included proposals for a constitutional amendment reducing presidential term limits and a constitutional assembly, have been reduced essentially to the referendum efforts. (See March 9's post.)

• Nine people were killed during a crackdown by Venezuelan security forces on crime around Caracas, reports AFP.

• Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos told investors in London that his government hopes to conclude a peace deal with FARC rebels "in the very near future," reports Reuters. (See Monday's briefs.)

• As the country inches closer to peace though, war-related injuries will continue for a while thanks to territory littered with land mines, reports the Miami Herald. International experts are gathered in Bogotá this week after pledge by Colombia, the U.S. and Norway to make the country land mine free by 2021.

• A protest by supporters of murdered Honduran activist Berta Cáceres was broken up by Presidential Palace guards yesterday, reports the Latin American Herald Tribune.

• The U.S. Embassy in Havana softened wording from a previous travel warning to Cuban American travelers to the island, reports the Miami Herald.

• Cuba's telecommunication market it heating up, according to the Miami Herald. 

• Just when Latin America's pink tide really seems to be over, Mark Weisbrot argues in The Nation that the historic changes the leftist-populist governments wrought in the past decade will ensure the movements' ongoing relevance.

Dilma's impeachment to move forward, despite surprise annulment and reversal (May 10, 2016)

Just when observers seemed to have a grip on Brazil's ongoing political drama, the interim House Speaker announced yesterday that he would annul last month's lower chamber vote to impeach President Dilma Rousseff based on procedural irregularities. Then late last night he suddenly reversed his decision, and announced he was revoking his earlier decision, reports the New York Times.

Waldir Maranhão, who is temporarily occupying the post as of last week, gave no reason for his reversal, reports Reuters. He was threatened with expulsion from his Progressive Party, reports El País. Other factors weighing on his surprise reversal included a strong rejection by lawmakers, reports Folha de S. Paulo.

His about face is yet another reversal for Rousseff, who hoped to use the annulment as a foothold to challenge the impeachment before the Supreme Court, according to Folha de S. Paulo.

The annulment decision itself was likely influenced by Flavio Dino, governor of Maranhão's home state and a Rousseff ally, reports El País.

The Senate is expected to carry out a scheduled vote tomorrow that would suspend Rousseff from office and put her on impeachment trial. She is widely expected to be ousted over the accusations of budgetary manipulation.
Senate president Renan Calheiros yesterday said he would not respect Maranhão's surprise move to annul the impeachment decision, reports the Wall Street Journal. Yet, the effect of the strange announcement and reversal is likely to be a doubling down on the impeachment efforts, reports the New York Times, with politicians angered by the apparent absurdity of the process.

Yet, "such reversals are a staple of Brazilian politics, and the impeachment drama has been filled with such dramatic turns," notes the Associated Press.
Experts are pointing to the increasing chaos of the process. Yesterday's annulment decision would have likely led to a constitutional standoff case before the Supreme Court, and threw the markets into disarray, reports Reuters.

Maranhão stepped into the post last week, after the Supreme Court suspended the former Speaker of the House, Eduardo Cunha, who is accused of corruption. Yet Maranhão, who would be second in line to the presidency if Rousseff is ousted, is also facing allegations linking him to the giant Petrobras graft scandal, notes the New York Times.

Vice President Michel Temer is widely expected to take office by the end of the week, and has indicated he will start a cabinet focused on shoring up the country's economic recession, reports the Wall Street Journal.

Maranhão is not expected to last long in his post after yesterday's surprises, but will have to be wooed by Temer to be onboard for the beginning of the interim government's plans, reports El País. The new government will need to pass unpopular austerity measures through Congress.

A Washington Post piece looks at how the ghosts of Brazil's undemocratic past have influenced the narrative of Rousseff's impeachment -- from her accusations that opponents are carrying out a coup, to opposition glorification of military dictatorship and human rights abuses.

News Briefs

• São Paulo police have been forcibly removing students occupying public schools and buildings in protest over a scheme in which school administrators allegedly overpaid food providers in exchange for bribes. It is believe the "Lunch Money Mafia" cost the school's nutritional system millions, reports the Los Angeles Times. Students report missing or inadequate food, and surveys of nutritionists by local media found overwhelming evidence that students did not always have healthy portions.

• A Mexican judge ruled that notorious drug lord Joaquín "El Chapo" Guzmán can be extradited to the U.S., where he would face federal charges of drug trafficking. The supposition is also that he would be less likely to be able to slip out of jail, as he has already done twice from maximum security prisons in Mexico, reports the New York Times. (See yesterday's briefs.)

• Today is adolescent mothers' day in Mexico. The country has over 30 daily births in which the mother is under fifteen, and has the highest teen pregnancy rate of OECD countries, reports El País.

• As Colombia's population increasingly doubts the peace process with the FARC, former President Álvaro Uribe is calling for a massive protest against the negotiations with the country's largest guerrilla group, reports El Espectador. (See yesterday's briefs.)

• An armed attack at a political gathering in northern Colombia did not harm Imelda Daza, one of the few survivors of the leftist Patriotic Union, or UP, party, which was the target of an extermination campaign by paramilitaries in the 1980s and 1990s, reports the Latin American Herald Tribune. He returned to the country after 20 years in exile. (Last year's elections marked the return of the party to Colombian politics, see briefs for Oct. 26, 2015.)

• Salvadoran authorities announced the arrest of five police officers, 16 gunmen and a police administrative employee allegedly involved in several homicides, reports the Associated Press. The arrests come amid a crackdown on gangs, and increasing scrutiny of reported extrajudicial killings by security forces. (See Friday's post and yesterday's.)

• Five men were charged with the murder of Honduran environmental activist Berta Cáceres last week. One of the suspects is linked to the company DESA, which owns and operates the Agua Zarca hydropower project Cáceres opposed, reports CNN. (See yesterday's briefs.) 

• Peruvian presidential candidate Keiko Fujimori has a slight lead over rival Pedro Pablo Kuczynski ahead of the June 5 run-off election, reports Reuters. The latest Ipsos poll published this weekend showed Fujimori with 42 percent support compared with Kuczynski's 39 percent. According to the poll 14 percent of respondents are either undecided or intend to cast blank ballots. She is shoring up support with conservative stances on LGBT marriage, abortion and informal mining, reports El País.

• More corruption accusations for former Guatemalan President Otto Pérez Molina and his VP Roxana Baldetti: They were charged last week by a Guatemalan court for fraud, receiving bribes, and money laundering in a case related to a massive government infrastructure contract, reports VICE News.

• Bolivian President Evo Morales said neighboring Chile is acting in a threatening fashion by establishing a military base close to the countries' shared border. Chile admits to stepping up military patrols but denies a base, reports the BBC.

• Looking for somewhere "cool" to stay while at the Rio de Janeiro Olympics? Favela tourism is reaching a new high, reports El País. But beware the c¡ty's "endemic" violence, warns Brazilian World Cup winner Rivaldo, according to the Associated Press. (See yesterday's briefs.) 

Allegations Salvadoran governing party cooperated with gangs to win elections (May 9, 2016)

A member of the current Salvadoran cabinet negotiated with the country's main gang leaders in 2014 to gain support for the election won by President Salvador Sánchez Cerén, reports El Faro, based on video footage.

In the meeting current Minister of Governance Arístides Valencia meets with gang leaders of Mara Salvatrucha and a faction of Barrio 18. Valencia appears to thank them for their work in the lead up to the first round of elections, and says they will advance to concrete proposals in upcoming meetings. The gang leaders say it's the first time the organizations have gotten involved in electoral processes this way, and ask for, and are promised, help in transporting gang members to the polls and in renewing identification documents so as to be able to vote.

Valencia said the conversation has been misinterpreted but the allegations echo those already made by gang leaders and Raúl Mijango, the former FMLN congressman who led negotiations for a 2012 gang truce in El Salvador.
El Faro's report comes in the midst of a government crackdown on the negotiators of the 2012 gang truce, based on allegations of inappropriate actions including smuggling cell phones into jails for detained gang members and throwing parties within penitentiaries. (See Friday's post.)

Mijango received a six month preventative prison term this weekend, while investigations into abuses committed to facilitate the agreement continue.  He said all of the actions carried out within the truce framework had the approval of then president Mauricio Funes, reports La Prensa Gráfica. 

Reports last week on the arrest of gang truce negotiators in El Salvador noted the exclusion of then Minister of Justice and Security and current Minister of Defense, David Munguía Payés. La Prensa Gráfica reports that the Attorney General's report on illicit actions facilitating the truce does actually mention Munguía Payés on reiterated occasions in relation to the abuses the arrested negotiators were arrested for. Questioned as to whether Munguía Payés was left out at the last minute, the AG's office said the reference could be a "misspelling."

Munguía Payés said Attorney General Douglas Meléndez's allegations that the 2012 truce led to a reduction in homicides but led to an increase in disappearances was an "urban legend," reports el Diario de Hoy.
A Salvadoran court opened up a case against former President Mauricio Funes, his wife Vanda Pignato, and son  Diego Funes Cañas for alleged illicit enrichment, reports el Diario de Hoy.

On a more general Salvadoran note: El Salvador is a good place to commit a murder: the odds of any one of the thousands of homicide cases getting resolved is low, writes Oscar Martínez in a report for El Faro. The odds of somebody getting accused in a court for a homicide case are one in ten, and prosecutors can have up to 500 open cases at a given time, he writes in a piece that focuses on the difficulties prosecutors face in a rotten system.

News Briefs

• Public trust in Rio de Janeiro's signature favela "police pacification units" (UPPs) is flagging ahead of the upcoming Olympics games, reports the Wall Street Journal. In the UPP areas, the number of violent deaths, including murders and police killings, rose 55 percent in the first half of 2015 from the previous year. Last month, at least 11 people were killed in police shootings, many in UPP areas, according to Amnesty International. (See April 28's briefs.) Though "extensively improved security" in the city was promised by local organizers, street theft in Rio state rose 29 percent compared with the previous year, according to the state. And rival drug traffickers have recently waged gun battles and even lobbed grenades in one of the city's most exclusive neighborhoods.

• The Senate impeachment commission in Brazil recommended on Friday that President Dilma Rousseff be put on trial. The decision, which was expected, sets the stage for her potential suspension this week, reports the Wall Street Journal.

• Last minute development this morning:  The acting speaker of the lower house of Brazil's Congress has annulled last month's vote on impeachment, delaying the impeachment process, reports the Associated Press. He said there were procedural flaws in the April 17 vote in the chamber that accepted impeachment charges against Rousseff, reports Reuters. Waldir Maranhao called on the Senate to return the process to the lower house for a new vote.

• Brazil is veering towards the right, and the political swing is accompanied by growing vitriol and disillusionment with established politicians, reports the New York Times. (See last Wednesday's post as well.) The moment has catapulted Jair Bolsonaro, a polemic figure who has lauded the country's last military dictatorship and human rights abuses committed by members, into unexpected glory, particularly among the country's elite.

• Though Rousseff's opponents are giddy at their apparent victory over the president, "rather than a solution to Brazil's woes, Rousseff's impeachment looks more and more like a symptom of them, and maybe the beginning of a long detour into political dysfunction. Her exit, for many, would mark a new low point for a country viewed as an ascendant global power just a few years ago," reports the Washington Post.

• Major Brazilian construction company Andrade Gutierrez has greed to a plea deal with federal prosecutors for its alleged role in the massive Petrobras corruption scandal, reports the Wall Street Journal. The company is one of dozens of construction companies under investigation for their alleged roles in the "Car Wash" graft investigation.

• Two European development banks, FMO, and FinnFund, announced they will seek to exit the Agua Zarca dam project in Honduras, if a credible link is made between employees of DESA, the developer of the project and the killing of activist Berta Cáceres. (See March 4's post.)

• The International Consortium of Investigative Journalists will publish the data on 200,000 entities known as the "Panama Papers" on its website today, reports the Associated Press.

• Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos' approval ratings are at a personal low of 21 percent in the country's cities, according to Colombia Reports. A new poll shows a drop from up to 42 percent as recently as December. The results also show widespread pessimism regarding the country's peace talks: 66 percent of respondents believe the negotiations with the FARC are taking a bad path. The Guardian has interviews with two peace activists in Colombia, who discuss the unresolved underlying issues of the country's armed conflict.

• Panama will transfer 3,800 Cubans who have been stranded in the country for months, to a town in northern Mexico so they can continue their journey towards the U.S., reports the BBC. The migrants will pay for the journey. Panama has become the latest Central American country to close its borders to Cuban migrants passing through en route to the U.S., which is forcing Cubans to face dangerous choices in their journey from Colombia, reports the Miami Herald. The options for those who don't have documents include going through the Darien jungle -- one of the world's most dangerous -- or via the ocean. That stretch of water, between the two countries is a hot-spot for undocumented travelers, notes the Miami Herald in a separate piece.

• The infamously wily Mexican Sinaloa cartel boss Joaquín "El Chapo Guzmán" was transferred to a to prison in northern Mexico near the Texas border early Saturday, reports the Associated Press. He has twice escaped from maximum security prisons and is battling to avoid extradition to the United States. (See Jan. 12's post.) The move fueled speculation in Mexican media that Guzmán was being moved either due to security concerns or as a precursor to a possible extradition to the U.S., reports the Los Angeles Times.

• The legacy of the Confederacy lives on in a Brazilian outpost, where the descendants of American settlers who moved in the aftermath of the U.S. Civil War celebrate Dixie tradition, reports the New York Times.

El Salvador's government cracks down against an old gang truce

A series of high profile raids this week in El Salvador led to over 18 arrests of people involved in a 2012 gang truce negotiation. Arrest warrants issued for 21 people this week, include psychologists, teachers, senior police officers and prison wardens, who are accused of carrying out illegal actions to facilitate the truce, which lasted for roughly two years starting in March 2012. (See Wednesday's briefs.)

The most high profile arrest is that of former FMLN congressman Raul Mijango, who brokered the landmark truce between warring rival gangs and is credited with a significant dip in the country's incredibly high rates of violence. Homicides were reduced from 14 a day to 5.6, reports El Faro.

The truce itself wasn't the crime, but many crimes were committed within its context, said Attorney General Douglas Meléndez this week. Abuses include using some $2 million in prison funds to give incarcerated gang leaders illegal favors -- including copious quantities of fried chicken and stripper lap dances, reports the Washington Post.

The truce apparently included government commitments for more lax prison conditions for gang leaders and promises of future improvements in jails. But the public reacted critically to apparent coddling of gang members, reports the Washington Post.

The results remain an issue of significant contention in El Salvador: some say up to 5,500 lives were saved, while critics say the period strengthened the gangs that continue to hold the nation hostage, reports InSight Crime.

Public support for the truce was weak as the negotiations and eventual deal were clouded in secrecy, according to the Guardian.

The revelations of inappropriate perks for incarcerated gang members are not new, however, reports El Faro. And Meléndez's presentation rehashes already disproved myths that the truce-related reduction in murders was faked, including the idea that disappearances significantly increased (itself a difficult assertion to prove.)

The arrests show how the government is recasting the controversial cease-fire as a criminal conspiracy, reports the Guardian.

Half of those arrested hold low-level administrative positions, but senior negotiators such as bishop Fabio Colindres and the current defense minister, General David Munguía Payés, were not detained, notes the Guardian.

El Faro takes a skeptical tone regarding these omissions, also noting the absence of any member of the Security cabinet, such as the Vice Minister of Security, Douglas Moreno, and the former PNC director, Francisco Salinas, among the arrests.

The arrests come in the midst of a mano dura crackdown on organized crime on the part of the government, which is receiving international criticism for potentially increasing human rights abuses perpetrated by security forces. (See March 31's post.)

Last week the office of the Prosecutor for the Defense of Human Rights opened up cases against police officials accused of extrajudicial killings of 13 people in two separate incidents last year. (See April 26's and April 27's briefs.)

Tired of turf-wars and gang extortion, the government crackdown is popular in El Salvador, reports Reuters. But experts some experts fear it will only intensify violence in the country, reports the Washington Post.

El Salvador is one of the world's deadliest nations. Last year the homicide rate jumped by nearly 70 percent, to about 6,600 murders -- a rate of more than 100, per 100,000, reports Reuters.  Then homicides spiked even higher in the first three months of 2016. 

Interestingly, there was a significant drop in homicides last month. But El Salvador's government and gangs are disputing credit for the 47 percent reduction over the Jan-March monthly average for this year, reports  El Faro. (See Wednesday's briefs.) While the government argues that the drastic improvement is due to a crackdown on gangs, gang leaders say it's due to a decision to "suspend offensive actions." (See April 4's briefs, on a Washington Post interview with gang leaders on the issue of the temporary cease-fire.)

Just days before his arrest, Mijango told VICE News that the government's insistence on seeking to win the battle against the criminal gangs with repression alone was pushing El Salvador towards a new civil war, 24 years after it ended the last one with peace accords.

"Repression doesn't solve the problem, it only escalates it. Attacking violence with violence only generates more violence. Before it was just one war between the gangs, now it's also a war between the gangs and police," Reuters quotes Mijango saying.

New legislation passed last month attempts to eliminate any possibility of government-gang negotiations. The law classifies the criminal gangs as terrorist organizations and penalizes would-be negotiators with 15-year sentences, reports  VICE. (See April 22's briefs.)

Sánchez Cerén's government is hitting back against all manner of criticisms, not just those that are gang-related. Last weekend they denounced the presence of coup-mongering groups in the country, and said they are behind the support for the creation of an independent CICIG-style international corruption commission -- CICIES -- reports El Faro.

The idea has been floating around since the Guatemalan commission forced the resignation of then-President Otto Pérez Molina last year in the midst of a customs fraud investigation. (See post for Oct. 16, 2015.)

News Briefs

• On related subjects: Salvadoran gang members are fleeing to neighboring countries to escape the government's crackdown, according to officials. But its not clear whether this is a serious threat or a convenient way to boast about the policy's "successes," reports InSight Crime.

• The Honduran attorney general's office says the country's branch of the Mara Salvatrucha gang has evolved in the past six years to include a range of money laundering business fronts, that include small commerces and hospitals, reports El Faro.

• Organized crime plays an important role in fomenting Honduran violence, but InSight Crime compares it to the fuel in an already corrupt system, rather than the engine itself. Check out the multi-part series on Honduran Elites and Organized Crime. The pieces show how the country's elites have colluded with organized crime for decades and the deep connections they share in business, politics and even security matters.

• Colombian and U.S. authorities cooperated in dismantling a top worldwide money-laundering organization for drug traffickers. Yesterday, the U.S. Treasury Department froze U.S. assets owned by 68 companies in Panama, while on Wednesday, Colombian police arrested Nidal Waked, a prominent Panama businessman sought by the United States, reports the Associated Press.

• Venezuela's government surprised observers with a request for an OAS meeting this week. Foreign Minister Delcy Rodríguez used the platform to accuse the U.S. of plotting to topple President Nicolás Maduro. The move comes as the multinational organization is debating whether to suspend Venezuela by invoking its Democratic Charter, reports the Miami Herald.

• Diosdado Cabello, a Venezuelan National Assembly member, widely considered to be the country's second most powerful politician after Maduro is suing Wall Street Journal reporters for libel. Cabello's complaint accused the Journal of making false and defamatory statements in an article published in May 2015, which said Cabello was under investigation by U.S. prosecutors on suspicion of trafficking cocaine and laundering money through Venezuela. (See post for May 19, 2015.)

• Fitch Ratings cut Brazil´s sovereign-credit rating yesterday, moving it deeper into junk territory, reports the Wall Street Journal.

• Cuba Glamor II (the second time is comedy): Kim, Kourtney and Khloé Kardashian visit Havana, reports the Miami Herald. U.S. Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen's take: 'haven't the #Cuban people suffered enough?' (See Tuesday's post.)

• Cuba cruise tourists visited the famed Tropicana nightclub and found the dances vibrant, but table service slow, reports the Miami Herald.

• On a more serious note, the Miami Herald has a piece on the difficulties of buying food on a state salary in Cuba.

• Brazilians are forced to fill out an inordinate amount of forms in their day-to-day lives, reports the Guardian's Brazil correspondent Jonathan Watts in column on his travails with "what must surely rank among the most Kafkaesque bureaucracies in the world."

• Fun feature in the Los Angeles Times on Managua's "Mercado Oriental" an ever-growing 130-block marketplace where "thousands of merchants operate out of metal sheds, stands covered with tarps or umbrellas, or in former houses, though some homes have been bulldozed to make way for more sellers."

Brazil's House speaker suspended by Supreme Court on corruption allegations (May 5, 2016)

Brazilian Supreme Court Justice  Teori Zavascki suspended Congress' House Speaker, Eduardo Cunha, early this morning.

The judge accepted an injunction requested by the prosecutor general seeking Cunha's removal for allegedly intimidating congressmen and obstructing investigations into charges that he held secret bank accounts in Switzerland, reports Reuters. (See yesterday's post.)

Prosecutor General Rodrigo Janot, argued that Cunha has used his post blackmail and pressure his way into kickbacks from private companies in a December presentation to the court, reports the Wall Street Journal. El País has the full list of 11 specific accusations.

President Dilma Rousseff's political nemisis, Cunha has spearheaded efforts to impeach her, but is himself dogged by serious corruption allegations, reports the Associated Press.

He remains a deputy for the duration of his suspension, but cannot exercise parliamentary activities, and will have to leave the House leadership, reports Folha de S. Paulo.

His suspension will not directly affect the impeachment process, as the lower chamber already voted to impeach Rousseff last month (see April 18's post). But it does remove Cunha from the line of succession just as it seems likely the Senate will suspend the president in order for her to face trial in the upper chamber, reports Reuters. Cunha is currently third in line, and would become second if Vice President Michel Temer assumes the presidency next week. (See Monday's post.)

Reuters argues that the suspension could have helped Rousseff's case if it had come earlier, but could now harm it, by weakening her argument that the impeachment process is spearheaded by corrupt politicians.
Nonetheless, the government will now mount a request to have the impeachment annulled, based on the argument that it was a maneuver by Cunha to distract from investigation into his own wrongdoing, reports Folha de S. Paulo.

It's worth noting that Cunha will be temporarily replaced by Waldir Maranhão, who himself has accusations of corruption and money laundering, reports El País.

A request yesterday by the country's Prosecutor General for the Supreme Court to investigate former President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva could mean at least a short term knockout for the Worker's Party, reports Reuters in a separate piece. Though leaders are resigned to the probable removal of Rousseff, da Silva's legal problems diminish his ability to rally the party's political base and to mount a credible campaign for the 2018 elections. He left office in 2010 with high approval ratings and has expressed willingness to run again, but the legal offensive against him could make such a move impossible.

The question that remains now is not whether the Workers' Party will fall, but rather how far to the right the pendulum will swing, reports the Guardian.

News Briefs

• A year after Colombia's great glyphosate debate, which ended with a long-standing aerial coca eradication program (see, for example, posts for Oct. 1 and May 15, 2015), the country will again adopt the potentially carcinogenic herbicide in the fight against coca, this time applied by land. It will be used by the Anti-narcotics police, which will have to guarantee the safety of people working the land and surrounding communities, reports El País. 

• Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos announced the country would receive intelligence assistance from the U.S. in the fight against criminal gangs, considered the country's greatest threat, reports Reuters.

• Peruvian journalist Fernando Valencia, who was sentenced to prison for defamation, will present his case before the Special Rapporteur for Freedom of Expression of the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR). He will be represented by the Legal Defense Institute (IDL), reports the University of Texas' Knight Center.

• Cuba's U.N. office awarded Mariela Castro, daughter of President Raúl Castro, a prize in recognition of her defense of LGBT rights on the island, reports El País.

• A new Datanálisis poll shows a drop in Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro's approval rating in March, down to 26.8 percent, reports Reuters. Nonetheless, that remains high for the region, notes the piece. Worth revisiting a Miami Herald piece in Monday's briefing that emphasizes the die-hard loyalty of the Chavista base.

• #PanamaIsMoreThanPapers: The release of millions of documents detailing how a law firm helped the rich and famous hide money in shell corporations, dubbed the "Panama Papers," has struck a patriotic call to arms in the country. People have rallied on social media, making the point that the country is far more than a money laundering haven, reports the New York Times.

• Ongoing high levels of air contamination in Mexico City are calling into question a long-standing program that aims to reduce pollution by keeping cars off the road on certain days of the week, reports El País.