Nueva Sociedad on Organized Crime and the State in Latin America (June 21, 2016)

The newest issue of Nueva Sociedad focuses on the relationship between "(il)legal businesses and the state." 

While organized crime is traditionally associated with drug trafficking, transnational crime cannot be boiled down to that anymore, argues the introduction to the issue. "The fight against crime demands the abandonment of old perspectives, that involve binary divisions between the legal and the illegal, as well as an increased problematization of relations between nation states and crime."

The relationship between certain parts of the state and organized crime in Latin America is increasingly visible, writes Liliana Bobea. The issue is intimately linked to "perverse institutional architectures that have slowly taken on a systemic nature," she argues in a piece that reviews examples from around the region. Bobea elaborates on her theory of "statetropic" criminal behavior, which is geared towards the state. 

Rafael Grasa analyzes policies to ameliorate the enormous impact of transnational crime globally, that especially affects Latin America and the Caribbean, the world's most unequal region with an extraordinarily high incidence of homicides. He argues that the dominant form of analyzing transnational crime -- which focuses in particular on drug trafficking -- is inefficient. Instead, the phenomenon must be situated in the international system and in the conception and practise of security. 

Grasa analyzes how organized violence of armed conflict has given way to other forms of direct and lethal violence, "without direct political intentionality, linked to citizen insecurity, transnational criminal networks, bands and gangs, etc." Such violence has a direct impact on political and social organization, he argues, and affects migrations and movement of citizens, economic activity, tourism, the legitimacy of social institutions and social cohesion. 

Transnational crime is a key factor in understanding the "persistence and increase in certain areas of forms of direct organized chronic and unconventional violence." This crime fosters chronic reproduction of these conducts, he argues, which "legitimizes violence against pacific solutions to controversies and debilitates social coherence." 

Gang violence in El Salvador represents the greatest challenge to democracy since the 1992 peace accords, and threatens to throw the country back into war, writes Marlon Hernández-Anzora. He points to four directions the gang related violence is taking: wars between rival gangs, gang violence towards communities, state violence towards gangs, and their violent response towards the state. He explores how these last two could be the seed for a regression towards authoritarianism.

Édgar Gutiérrez analyzes the CICIG's fight against impunity in Guatemala. An architect of the commission itself, he looks at its history and its success last year in uncovering a corruption ring involving then President Otto Pérez Molina. Though it's no panacea, the CICIG plays a critical role in investigations that would be impossible for local institutions, not because they lack technical capacity, he emphasizes, but because of their links to corruption and crime.

Mexico's organized crime bands have become criminal franchises, which include in their portfolio the sale of legal products (commodities) obtained via extortion and theft, writes David Santa Cruz. Their activities have fomented to the increase of inflation and permitted the rise of self defense groups in Mexico. He analyzes how, in many ways, these criminal bands seek an economic edge in the same way as any business enterprise does.

José Carlos Campero Núñez del Prado analyzes transnational crime along the Bolivian and Argentine border, and its implications for policies in both countries.

And José de Echave analyzes how illegal and informal mining interests have created bridges with Peruvian politics and established successful areas of influence. Also on the subject of illegal mining, Boris Miranda explains how it has become a staple of transnational crime, along with drug and people trafficking, and yet has far less attention from policymakers. 

The issue concludes on a lighter note, with a great piece on the global rise of television series, the world's most addictive drug and stage for the fantasy of the illegal and morally questionable as cool, writes Omar Rincón. "The paradox is that those who sell themselves as good are destroying us, and are real life criminals, and those of us who identify as critics and counterculturals enjoy the perverse, illegal, criminal and dark on television. Some corrupt in real life, others enjoy the corrupted world of series."

News Briefs

• A former Honduran soldier claims that Berta Cáceres, the murdered environmentalist activist, appeared on a hit list distributed to U.S. trained special forces months ago, reports the Guardian. He said lists featuring the names and photographs of dozens of social and environmental activists were given to two elite units, with orders to eliminate each target. Several members of the unit fled rather than comply, and others are missing and feared dead.

• A record number of environmental activists were killed in 2015, according to the UK based NGO, Global Witness. Brazil had the most death, over 50, mostly of activistsbattling illegal logging. Other regional "highs" include: 26 fatalities in Colombia, and 12 in Peru and Nicaragua, respectively, reports the Guardian.

• Ahead of the OAS vote later this week on whether the Venezuelan government is in violation of the organization's Democratic Charter, another Nueva Sociedad piece, focused on how to assess the democratic crises of Venezuela and Brazil using a similar parameter, is a worthwhile read. Pablo Stefanoni gives lucid analysis both of the backdrop for the Brazilian conspiratorial "coup" and the increasingly anti-democratic actions of Venezuela's democratically elected government. "Today, the Latin American right denounces Venezuela and supports the Brazilian antidemocratic conspiracy and the "anti-imperialist" left operates as an inverted mirror. It is, no doubt, a difficult scenario for the continental lefts, in an increasingly evident end-of-cycle climate." He decries a radicalization of democracy that drowns internal debate and prizes "opportunist loyalties over efficiency and intellectual honesty in a 'Leninist' simulacrum that is not only undesirable, but is basically ineffective against the 'new right-wings' expanding across the region."

• Adding onto the U.S. media pile onto Venezuela (see yesterday's note), the New York Times has an editorial decrying a regional reluctance to face up to President Nicolás Maduro. "If regional leaders fail to take a strong and united stand against Mr. Maduro, Venezuela’s crisis can only be expected to grow. That would lead to more violent political confrontations and, quite likely, an exodus into neighboring countries. Leaders in those nations should realize that this disaster is now very close to becoming their problem."

• One last academic note for the day, the Financial Times has a review of Eric Hobsbawm's "Viva la Revolución," a newly released collection of the Marxist historian's writings on Latin America. "One of his central concerns is to ask: why, on a continent with so many obvious disparities and thus apparently so ripe for change, does revolution not happen, or fail," writes John Paul Rathbone. And Hobsbawm's writing is relevant for those seeking to understand the region's current swing away from leftist politics, he argues. Glorious Hobsbawm quote on the rise of the Brazilian Workers' Party: it “warms the cockles of all old red hearts."

• Brazil's Finance Ministry granted state governments a six-month grace period on  interest and amortization charges on their debts, in order to alleviate high debt-service costs that are endangering provision of public services, reports the Wall Street Journal. (See yesterday's briefs on the situation in Rio de Janeiro, for example.) El País has more in-depth analysis on the issue.

• Brazil's largest telephone company, Oi, filed for bankruptcy protection yesterday after talks with creditors failed, reports the Wall Street Journal. If accepted by the court it would be the country's largest bankruptcy filing ever.

• Braços Abertos, São Paulo-based program that offers a hotel room, three meals a day and street sweeping work for crack users, has allowed 65 percent of users to reduce their drug consumption or kick the habit, according to an investigation by Open Society Foundations together with the Instituto Brasileiro de Ciências Criminais, the Centro Brasileiro de Análise e Planejamento, and the Laboratório de Estudos Interdisciplinares sobre Psicoativos da Unicamp, reported on by O Globo.

• Mexican authorities and the CNTE teachers union each accuse the other of responsibility for the lethal clash on Sunday that killed eight protesters, reports the Associated Press. (See yesterday's post.)

• Vice News speculates that Mexican President Enrique Peña Nieto's proposal to legalize medical marijuana and raise the threshold of possession was nothing more than a public relations stunt, in light of the proposed legislation's sudden derailing in Congress.

• The head of Mexico's ruling PRI party stepped down yesterday, after the party suffered a humiliating defeat in regional elections, reports Reuters.

• A gunman was killed in Venezuela's central bank, after briefly taking an employee hostage and injuring two security guards, reports the Wall Street Journal.

Six protesters killed Oaxaca clashes

Six protesters were killed yesterday in clashes between a teacher's union and police in Nochixtlán, in Mexico's Oaxaca state. Over a hundred police offices and civilians were injured, as security forces were attempting to clear a highway block set up by the CNTE, a dissident faction of the national teachers union, protesting the arrest of two of the group's leaders last week, reports Animal Político. (See Thursday's briefs.)

Police used firearms in the operative, but "only in the end," and after people outside of the manifestation had fired shots, the Federal Police told Animal Político. The police initially denied using firearms, despite media footage showing an officer firing a gun, explains the Associated Press.

The Associated Press has video footage.

Oaxaca authorities said they had decided to clear the road after a week of blockades obstructed the distribution of fuel, food and medicine, reports the Wall Street Journal. Last week Pemex warned it could be forced to shut operations at the refinery in "a few days" if the highway blockade persisted.

The head of the Mexican Federal Police said masked individuals who were unaffiliated with the union were behind much of the violence, which included Molotov cocktails and shooting, reports Reuters.

The CNTE has been protesting changes to the education system, which introduced aptitude and performance tests for teachers. Oaxaca a stronghold of teachers opposed to the reform. They were also angered by the arrest of two group leaders last week, on charges of money laundering and other charges, reports the Associated Press.

Proceso has a piece criticizing the state's administration by governor Gabino Cué and saying that his mandate is ending in a "blood bath, sprayed with tear gas and ungovernability."

News Briefs

• Note: Last Friday's post was titled "Venezuela-caused OAS rift marks Almagro's first year in office." The title was misleading, "Venezuela polarization marks Almagro's first year at the OAS," would have been more appropriate. I intended to express, and more in tone with the post itself, that the issue of Venezuela has defined Almagro's stint as Secretary General of the OAS and has caused divisions among member states.

• A reader has complained of an anti-Venezuela bias in this blog. That is certainly not my intention, and perhaps speaks more to a combination of the blog's mission, which is to review international (mainly U.S.) coverage of Latin America, and an increasingly polarized situation in Venezuela, in which the narrative itself and basic facts are contested and portrayed as tools of either the government or its opponents. The crisis is overplayed by one side, downplayed by the other, and its very causes are central issues in a debate between government supporters and opposition. The international media is hardly an objective player. I do try to note that the coverage has tended towards the sensational, and have attempted to include criticisms of certain portrayals, see for example April 28's post, which includes a lengthy excerpt of a piece by David Smilde on the more quotidian -- but less sensational -- problems of obtaining groceries and moving around in Caracas. Comments or suggestions from readers are very welcome.

• On that note, the New York Times reports that the country is "convulsing from hunger," noting that 50 food riots, protests and mass looting have erupted around the country over the past couple of weeks. The moment harkens back to the 1989 "Caracazo," when riots over cuts in subsidies led to hundreds of deaths. An assessment by the Simón Bolívar University found that 87 percent of Venezuelans say they do not have money to buy enough food. The Caracas Chronicles has a critical analysis of a new initiative to get subsidized food directly to households, saying it could lead use of starvation -- or lack of access to cheap food anyway -- as a political pressure tool.

• This week the OAS member states will gather to analyze whether Venezuela's government has violated the organization's Democratic Charter. A group of 30 former Latin American presidents said on Friday that they support Almagro's call pressuring the Venezuelan government to set a date for a recall referendum that could end President Nicolás Maduro's term in office, reports the Miami Herald. Though Almagro's push against Venezuela has the support of the United States, most other OAS member states are averse to taking disciplinary actions against a sovereign state.

• The New York Times has a piece on the curious protagonism of Venezuela in Spain's upcoming elections, as a far-left party Podemos -- whose leaders once served as advisors to Hugo Chávez -- gains strength and opponents try to argue that the Venezuelan crisis could happen in Spain.

• Mexican business leaders have complained about anti-graft measures that have been extended to government contractors as part of a set of anti-corruption bills passed on Friday, reports the Wall Street Journal. The approved legislation included stiffer penalties for graft, but was defanged by the removal of a provision that would have required public officials to make asset declarations public, reports Reuters.

• An ongoing debate over marriage equality and LGBT rights in Mexico has been affected by the massacre in an Florida nightclub, reports the Christian Science Monitor. In May, President Enrique Peña Nieto proposed a constitutional amendment permitting gay marriage, which the Church and swathes of society have opposed. Since the killings, headlines have focused on the negative effects of homophobia and the federal government has called out the church for using language about the LGBT community that incites hate.

• The Nicaraguan government expelled three U.S. officials who were in the country on temporary assignment, reports the Wall Street Journal. The Nicaraguan government said two officials were in the country without permission, and made no mention of the third. The U.S. government said the actions could affect bilateral relations between the two countries, including trade.

• Brazil's economic recovery could come sooner than expected, but will be led by slow growth, Finance Minister Henrique Meirelles told the Wall Street Journal.

• Bad news run out of Rio de Janeiro ahead of the upcoming Olympics games: The governor has declared a "state of calamity" due to a fiscal crisis that could endanger basic public services for the state's 17 million residents, reports the Wall Street Journal. The fiscal crisis is, in part, due to soaring payroll costs and costly Olympics infrastructure investments. The governor has begged the federal government for support to avoid a “total collapse in public security, health, education, transport and environmental management," reports the Guardian.

• Armed men attacked a Rio de Janeiro hospital yesterday to free a suspected drug trafficker. The shootout at the facility, one of those recommended for tourists seeking emergency treatment during the Olympics, killed a patient and wounded a nurse and an off-duty police officer, reports the Associated Press.

• On Friday Rio police said they had asked for charged to be filed against seven people in the case of a gang-rape of a 16-year-old girl, reports the Associated Press. Police were aided in identifying suspects by videos and messages on social media, in a case which attracted international attention. The crime of raping a vulnerable victim carries a maximum sentence of 15 years in prison, in Brazil.

• Perhaps the solution to the Brazil crisis is a return of the monarchy, at least that's what one group of protesters argue, reports the Wall Street Journal.

• The Cuban and Colombian governments agreed to eliminate tariffs on more than 2,000 Colombian products, part of the Communist government's push to engage with the world, reports the Wall Street Journal.

-- 

Latin America Daily Briefing

Venezuela-caused OAS rift marks Almagro's first year in office (June 17, 2016)

Venezuela's political problems are affecting the Organization of American States, reports the Washington Post. The Washington-based multilateral organization held a general assembly meeting in Santo Domingo this week, and member states are deeply divided regarding a rift between Secretary General Luis Almagro and the Venezuelan government. (See Tuesday's post.)

Almagro has accused Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro of acting like a "petty dictator" and seeks to accuse the government of violating the OAS Democratic Charter which requires member states to uphold democracy. (See May 19's and June 3's posts.)

On Wednesday Venezuelan Foreign Minister Darcy Rodriguez received a round of applause when she urged the OAS General Assembly to limit Almagro's actions, which she characterized as a "lynching," notes the Washington Post.

In the meantime, Venezuela has urged member states to meet with international mediators who are seeking to resolve the country's political crisis, reports AFP. The OAS permanent council has scheduled a session with the three former leaders who are working with the government and the political opposition: former Spanish prime minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero, and former presidents Leonel Fernandez of the Dominican Republic and Martin Torrijos of Panama.

The meeting convoked to discuss suspending Venezuela from the OAS will take place later next week, on June 23.

Almagro's combative stance represents a departure from his predecessor's low-key, conciliatory approach to regional politics, notes María Carasquillo in an AULA Blog post. It's part of a move to "rejuvenate" the organization and bring it into the 21 century, as he promised when he assumed office last year.

"Being an “activist” Secretary General in the case of Venezuela entails great risks; his predecessors were criticized both for getting too directly involved in the country’s internal affairs and for remaining passive in the face of growing authoritarianism in Caracas.  It seems, moreover, as though Almagro has often acted alone, and the tone of his letter to Maduro was uniquely strident.  A great deal is on the line for the OAS.  If Almagro’s activism works, it will enhance the organization’s leadership on a range of issues confronting the hemisphere, but it may also put the OAS in the middle of future conflicts in which failure would bring a loss of institutional credibility," she writes.

News Briefs

• U.S. asylum requests from Venezuelans have soared this year, reports the Associated Press. Venezuelans climbed to second place among nationalities submitting asylum requests in March of this year, second only to China. Applications accelerated after December of last year, as more and more seek relief from an economic crisis and food and medicine shortages. However, a vast majority of these people are middle-class Venezuelans, who do not qualify as refugees from political persecution, according to one NGO source quoted in the piece.

• Venezuelan schoolchildren have missed as much as 40 percent of class time so far this year, according to parent group estimates. Teachers are cutting class to stand in food lines and kids are frequently robbed on the premises, sometimes by other teens, reports the Associated Press.

• The U.S. has recognized Haiti's interim president Jocelerme Privert as the country's leader, but the State Department's special coordinator for Haiti also stressed that the National Assembly must act soon to clarify the situation, after Privert's 120-mandate expired earlier this week, reports the Associated Press. (See yesterday's post.) The U.S. official's statement is relevant, according to the AP, as the political opposition insists that Privert is unlawfully retaining his office.

• A Senate investigation into the American Red Cross management of funds donated for Haiti after a devastating 2010 earthquake found that about 25 percent of the $488 million raised for Haiti relief on administrative costs and fund-raising, notes a New York Times editorial. The charity's top officials also attempted to skirt congressional investigators and released incomplete information to the public, reports NPR. The report released this week also criticizes the downsizing of the organization's ethics board, down to three employees from 65 a decade ago. "The most important thing [from the report] is an unwillingness to level with the people exactly where the money went," said Iowa Senator Chuck Grassley who led the investigation. "There's too many questions in regard to how the money was spent in Haiti ... it gives me cause to wonder about other money being donated for other national disasters."The Senate investigation was based on a scathing report published last year by ProPublica and NPR that denounced a lack of action on the ground with the funds raised. Among other failures, the organization relied on foreign staff that had little on-the-ground knowledge, and didn't even speak French or Creole. Projects focusing on housing were endlessly delayed due to lack of know-how, according to the piece, which used on internal documents and e-mails as sources.

• A group of U.S. lawmakers is calling for the U.S. to suspend all military aid to Honduras until the country addresses its human rights violations, reports Democracy Now. In a scathing letter to the Miami Herald, Senator Patrick Leahy challenges Senator Marco Rubio's characterization that the Honduran government is on the right path. He criticizes the country's "endemic corruption" and human rights violations of government critics like Berta Cáceres.

• Brazil's month-old interim government is increasingly embroiled in corruption allegations. (See yesterday's briefs.) Yesterday Tourism Minister Henrique Alves resigned after plea bargain testimony accused him of soliciting about $450,000 in campaign funds from the Petrobras corruption scheme under investigation. Alves is the acting government's third cabinet member to step down due to corruption allegations, notes the Associated Press. Alves denies the charges, as does acting President Michel Temer who was also implicated, reports Reuters. Temer yesterday dismissed allegations that he solicited about $432,000 in campaign donations in exchange for Petrobras related contracts, reports the Wall Street Journal.

• Temer's government is likely to relegate cooperation with BRICS countries to second place, a test of the five nation bloc, according to Chinese state media cited in by PTI.

• A Greenpeace report says the projected construction of 40 major dams in the Brazilian Amazon would destroy the core of the world's largest rainforest, severely affect indigenous groups and is economically unjustified, reports the Guardian.

• The Miami Herald has a piece on how Colombia's FARC plans to turn its boots in for ballots, and turn its 7,000 fighters into a political force after reaching a final peace accord with the government.

• A former top supplier to Venezuelan state-run oil company, Pdvsa, pleaded guilty yesterday in a U.S. court to charges involving bribes paid to win contracts from the firm, reports the Wall Street Journal.

• U.S. airlines have started selling tickets for commercial flights to Cuba, reports the Wall Street Journal. The flights are expected to start in September.

• VICE has a haunting piece on the children of Ciudad Juárez and the scars they bear from the drug war.

• About a 150 armed men raided the village where Sinaloa cartel drug kingpin Joaquín "El Chapo" Guzmán's mother lives, and pillaged her house. Three people were reported dead in the events by local media. The retaliation against Guzmán in the village considered his stronghold could point to a loss of influence by the jailed strongman, according to the Guardian.

• Argentine supporters of President Mauricio Macri are growing tired of Pope Francis' "constant meddling" in the country's internal politics, argues Andrés Oppenheimer in the Miami Herald. His piece comes after the pontiff rejected a donation of about $1.2 million from the Argentine government for his Scholas Occurrentes charity, reports Deustche Welle.

• In the meantime, Argentine citizens are captivated by a corruption case straight out a B movie: a former public official who was caught trying to hide seven bags of cash and jewelry in a monastery housing nuns outside of Buenos Aires this week. Unsurprisingly, former Public Works Secretary Jose Lopez, who was carrying  a .22 caliber rifle, attempted to bribe the police officers who caught him tossing the goods over a fence, reports El País. Authorities found more than $7 million at the cite, reports Reuters.

• Corruption charges lobbed between outgoing and incoming governments and politicians is a long-standing Argentine tradition, explains Uki Goñi in a New York Times op-ed. "...When corruption and lurid accusations become so pervasive, a point is reached where they barely raise eyebrows. In Argentina, that juncture was passed long ago. Today, the glacially slow federal courts are honeycombed with judges often as corrupt as the politicians they investigate, says a leading anti-corruption crusader, Luis Moreno Ocampo. 'It’s a system of judges,” he says, “who cover up corruption instead of investigating it.' And the corruption thus enabled creates deep cynicism throughout the society."

• A proposed tax evasion amnesty bill in Argentina is being criticized by journalists, who say that it could lead to the arrest of reporters who disclose names and information of people who could be involved in crimes of money laundering and tax evasion, reports the Knight Center's Journalism in the America's blog.

• The Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean said this week that foreign direct investment in Latin America and the Caribbean fell 9.1 percent compared to the previous year, reports the Latin American Herald Tribune.

• And a UNDP report released earlier this week said up to 30 million Latin Americans are at risk to backslide back into poverty due to economic slowdown and lack of consistent public policies, reports the Latin American Herald Tribune.

Haiti rudderless again (June 16, 2016)

The Haitian interim president's 120-day mandate ended on Tuesday evening, and lawmakers failed to reach an agreement over who is in charge now. The country is now in a state of constitutional disarray that indicates a deeply divided political class, reports the Miami Herald. 

Interim-president Jocelerme Privert is now a de facto leader and nobody is really sure who is in charge, reports the Washington Post. There is a standoff between Privert's supporters, who say he must remain in office until lawmakers vote him out, and his opponents who say his term is clearly over. The Haiti Sentinel describes a "war of press communications and interpretations has since ensued on whether Haiti is headless or not."

The United Nations and and the other members of the international community in Haiti represented in the "Core Group" (the Ambassadors of Brazil, Canada, France, Spain, the United States and the European Union, and the Special Representative of the Organization of American States) have expressed concern over an "institutional vacuum" in the country. They called on the National Assembly to take action and reach a solution to return to the constitutional order.

Foreign donors are impatient, but wary of further destabilizing the country, according to the Washington Post piece.

The debacle is complicated -- Haiti held elections for the first time in four years last year, but the results have been contested and a special verification commission recommended a rerun of the presidential election held last October. Last week the Provisional Electoral Council said that would occur in October of this year with results by early 2017, explains the Miami Herald piece. The commission said various irregularities meant last October's ballot could not be considered legitimate, reports the BBC.

But some lawmakers are angered about the proposed timetable, as well as the commission's recommendation that the races of 39 deputies and three senators be revisited.

Yesterday Privert and his cabinet spoke at the National Assembly, reviewing his 120 days in power and highlighting achievements such as a renewed Provisional Electoral Council and the formation of a consensus government, reports Haiti Libre.

News Briefs

• A new Amnesty International report on migration and statelessness in Haiti and the Dominican Republic was released yesterday, a year after the Dominican Republic ended a moratorium on deportations of undocumented migrants. (See post for June 17, 2015.) “Where are We Going to Live?” Migration and Statelessness in Haiti and the Dominican Republic reveals the reckless way in which the two governments are handling the deportation, expulsion and “spontaneous” return of tens of thousands of people from the Dominican Republic to Haiti following an 18-month long regularization plan for undocumented foreigners living in the Dominican Republic, says Amnesty.

• Nicaragua's opposition has announced that it will not participate in November's presidential race, leaving incumbent Daniel Ortega as the sole candidate, reports El País. The decision comes on the heels of a controversial Supreme Court decision that annulled the candidacy of opposition leader Luis Callejas. (See last Thursday's post.) 

• Brazil's acting President Michel Temer has been implicated in the sprawling Petrobras corruption investigation by plea bargain testimony released yesterday, reports the Wall Street Journal. He allegedly asked a Petrobras official to arrange illegal campaign contributions to his PMDB party in 2012, according to information released yesterday by Brazil's Supreme Court. It's the first time Temer has been directly implicated in Operation Car Wash, as the investigation is called.

• Plea bargain testimony has also implicated former President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, and supporters fear he could soon be put on trial for allegedly playing  a central role in the corruption scheme at Petrobras, reports The Guardian.

• Challenges to Temer's legitimacy, in the midst of the country's political chaos, mean "a distracted political class focused less on governance than survival," argues a Council on Foreign Relations blog post.

• Several studies over the past year have focused on the a surge in the police use of excessive force in Rio de Janeiro state in recent years, and the majority of victims are young black men from favelas and marginalized areas. The police committed more than 1 in every 6 of Rio de Janeiro's homicides between 2010 and 2013. And 4 out of 5 of those who are slain overall were under 29 years old — and of African descent. (See post for Nov. 4, 2015.) In April, Amnesty International denounced that Rio de Janeiro favela residents are "living in terror" after 11 people were killed in police shootings in the past month. (See April 28's briefs.) Now residents of the city's infamous Cidade de Deus community say they consider themselves safer than black residents of the United States, reports the Global Post.

• An indigenous activist was killed and six more were wounded in an attack on their camp in the country's southwest by armed farmers, reports Reuters. The group was pushing to have the government recognize their rights to ancestral land claims, and were attacked by about 70 farmers riding motorcycles, trucks and a tractor.

• Mexico's Senate approved an anticorruption bill yesterday that would force public servants to disclose tax returns, assets and economic interests, a measure based on a proposal signed by over 600,000 citizens, reports the Wall Street Journal. Though the bill did not go as far as citizen groups had hoped, government accountability organizations heralded its passage as a step in the right direction.

• Mexico City smog levels were famously high in the late 80s, and were pushed down by a series of measures including incentives to buy cleaner cars, elimination of lead in gasoline and pushing industry out of the city. But pollution fell off the public radar, and has crept back up to record levels this year: the city has only registered 20 days this year in which particulates and ozone levels have been below the government upper limit for acceptability, reports the New York Times.

• U.S. authorities handed over drug lord Hector "El Guero" Palma, one of the founders of the Sinaloa Cartel, to Mexico, where he was transported to a maximum security prison to face trial in two murder cases, reports the Associated Press. He was a former partner of Joaquín "El Chapo" Guzmán, and served prison time in the U.S. for over a decade on cocaine distribution charges, reports Reuters. He received early release for good behavior, notes The Guardian. The prompt detention averted fears that Palma would go free upon return to Mexico, reports the Los Angeles Times.

• The Mexican government says at least 24 more members of the combative CNTE teachers union have outstanding arrest warrants. The group accuses the Mexican government of deliberately targeting its leaders in order to silence critics of a controversial education reform, reports TeleSur.

• Argentina's government has started releasing inflation figures again -- the polemic statistics have been suspended since President Mauricio Macri assumed at the end of last year, amid accusations that his predecessor had tampered with the numbers to improve her economic track record, reports the Wall Street Journal. According to the national statistics institute, prices increased by about 4 percent in May over the last month.

• New studies on Zika and pregnancy in Colombia could indicate that women who contract the disease in the third trimester of pregnancy do not face a major risk of their babies developing fetal malformations associated with the disease, reports the Wall Street Journal.

• Angry protests and lootings have left five dead, at least 30  injured and 200 arrested in Venezuela, reports the Los Angeles Times. Mass looting this week in Cumaná has the the coastal city under de facto curfew reports The Guardian. 

• Grave robbery is one of the latest issues in increasingly lawless Venezuela, according to the Associated Press. Vandals have desecrated the tomb of Romulo Gallegos, a former president and beloved novelist.

• American bank Stonegate began offering Mastercards yesterday that can be used in Cuba, opening up a new era of spending for American tourists, reports the Miami Herald.

• U.S. hardware will be used to create a conservation facility for Hemingway artifacts in Cuba, reports the Associated Press.

Updates on OAS, Venezuela and Brazil (June 15, 2016)

News Briefs

• The Organization of American States has prohibited civil society groups from being present in the 46th General Assembly, reports CEJIL in a press release denouncing the decision. In an email on Monday, the OAS announced that because of "space limitations," civil society organizations would be invited instead to watch the meetings on television screens in a nearby hotel. 

• Meanwhile, the United States and Venezuela have agreed to begin a direct, bi-lateral dialogue, El Pais reports. Secretary of State John Kerry initiated the dialogue with Venezuelan foreign minister Delcy Rodriguez; the two will seek to ease mounting tensions between the two countries and, ultimately, re-establish ambassadors. Though Washington has expressed support for the Venezuelan opposition's recall referendum, along with the decision of OAS secretary-general Luis Almagro to evoke the Democratic Charter (see June 3 briefing), the move to establish dialogue with Venezuela has been interpreted by some as backing down. "At this moment, I think it's more constructive to have dialogue than to isolate" Venezuela, Kerry said. 

• RealClearWorld has an helpful op-ed explaining other countries' actions toward Venezuela and asking when the international community will intercede. "Venezuela's decline into crisis has been years in the making, but up until recently, only a few former heads of state were willing to speak up...the key focus should not merely be the ousting of the regime, but rather what must be done in order to extricate the Venezuelan people from this horrific situation," writes Jason Marczak, the director of Atlantic Council's Latin America Center. 

• Reuters reports that a man was shot during looting and food riots in Cumana, Venezuela, Tuesday, bringing to at least four the total fatalities during this month's wave of unrest. 

• Igarapé Institute's latest Homicide Dispatch examines the relationship between organized crime and lethal violence, noting that while criminal and gang violence may be responsible for as much as a third of all homicides in the Western Hemisphere, organized crime groups can also reduce homicides by imposing order where state institutions are weak and ineffective. 

• Igarapé's recent report on safe cities has sparked a regional debate, with media outlets weighing in from Nicaragua, Argentina, Ecuador (where the president cited the report!) and elsewhere. The authors published a piece in the Guardian explaining the study and some lessons learned. 

• A Brazilian high court dealt a major legal setback to ex-president Luiz Inacio Lula de Silva by referring a corruption investigation involving him back to a crusading lower-court judge who has jailed many powerful Brazilians on corruption charges, the Wall Street Journal reports. The Supreme Court took over the case in March after judge Sergio Moro released a wire-tap conversation between Lula and Dilma Rousseff, alleged evidence that his appointment to her cabinet was a move to guard him from prosecution, TeleSur reports. Moro was removed from the case while the leak's legality was investigated. The Supreme Court determined the wiretap is inadmissible as evidence and returned the case to Moro. 

• Meanwhile, Brazil's Congressional Ethics Committee voted to strip suspended Speaker Eduardo Cunha of his seat Tuesday for allegedly lying about undeclared swiss bank accounts, Reuters reports. Cunha insisted on his innocence and said he would appeal to another congressional committee. To remove him, a majority of the lower house of Congress would need to affirm the decision. 

• El Salvador confirmed its first case of Zika-related microcephaly Tuesday, Reuters reports. Forty-eight babies have been born this year with the condition, but this is the first in which the virus was detected, reports Diario de Hoy. The Ministry of Health said it was monitoring 274 pregnant women who had presented Zika symptoms. More microcephaly cases should be expected.

Venezuela crisis looms large at 46th annual OAS assembly (June 14, 2016)

Representatives from 26 nations convened in the Dominican Republic yesterday for the Organization of American States' 46th General Assembly, the Associated Press reports. Attendees of the annual regional congress, titled "Institutional Strengthening for Sustainable Development in the Americas," include United States Secretary of State John Kerry and Venezuelan Foreign Minister Delcy Rodriguez. Though it is not officially on the agenda, the political and economic crisis in Venezuela has loomed large so far during the three-day meeting, provoking statements from several of the attendees (see below). 

Other topics on the table include:

• The disputed sovereignty of the Falkland Islands, which comes up every year. A resolution is likely to call for dialogue and negotiation between Argentina and the United Kingdom, TeleSur reports.

• Indigenous rights. After 17 years of negotiation, the OAS is expected to approve the "American Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples" and acknowledge the rise in regional conflict targeting Latin America's indigenous populations, including loss of land and natural resources, according to TeleSur. Bolivia and Mexico's delegations are leading the charge.

• The financial crisis facing the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, which will be forced to dismiss 40% of its staff if it doesn't meet budget needs by July, The Guardian reports. The regional human rights body has only received $2.9 million in voluntary contributions from 34 members states in 2016. OAS head Luis Almagro has proposed switching to a quota system.

OAS secretary-general Luis Almagro insisted that it was "impossible and unnecessary" to debate the Venezuelan crisis during this week's assembly, given that he has called for a special session of the Permanent Council to begin June 23 in Washington, AP reports. However, Venezuela was discussed during meetings between country representatives and civil society, including one meeting in which a 25-year-old Venezuelan participant petitioned for medicine to be allowed into the country, according to AFP. Venezuelan ambassador Bernardo Alvarez responded by reiterating the government's rejection of humanitarian aid, calling it a threat to the country's sovereignty. 

Secretary of State John Kerry said in a session Tuesday that Venezuela's situation was "deeply troubling" and called on the government to release political prisoners, alleviate shortages, and demonstrate respect for freedom of expression and assembly, Reuters reports. Meanwhile, Peru's president-elect Pedro Pablo Kuczynski stated that Maduro's government should accept economic aid from the Inter-American Development Bank, the International Monetary Fund, and the World Bank, where Kucynski once worked, Clarin reports. Dominican president Danilo Medina expressed support for a Unasur initiative to seek dialogue between the opposition and the Venezuelan government, to be led by the ex-presidents of Spain, Panama, and the Dominican Republic. Manila also called on the OAS to issue a resolution apologizing for supporting the 1965 U.S. military invasion of the island, which was intended to stop an armed movement to reinstate ex-president Juan Bosch, who the U.S. feared would spark a communist resolution, AP reports.

On Monday, LGBT activists demonstrated in Santo Domingo to urge OAS member states to take "clear" and "decisive" actions to stop homophobic attacks in their home countries after Sunday's massacre at a gay nightclub in Orlando, the Latin American Herald Tribune reports. 

News Briefs

• Pollution has returned to Mexico City as the urban hub has relaxed environmental measures and accommodated itself to cars, the New York Times reports. After a hustle to clean up the city in the 1990s, anti-pollution efforts stalled. Now 20 million people and more than five million cars are facing an environmental emergency, and authorities are clamping down with limits on driving and new emissions inspection rules, which seek to detect "dirty" vehicles. 

• Two months after the April 16 earthquake in Ecuador that killed more than 650 people and left entire towns in ruins, thousands are still struggling put their lives back together, El Pais reports. More than 7,000 houses remain to be built and more than 20,000 jobs have yet to be reinstated. Meanwhile, international aid is dwindling.

• As the Organization of American States meets in Santo Domingo, Venezuelan opposition leader Henrique Capriles is making the rounds in South America to rally support from leaders and urge them not to be "indifferent," reports El Pais. He met with presidents Horacio Cartes in Paraguay and Mauricio Macri in Argentina, and will now travel to Brazil. The Venezuelan opposition criticized Macri for initially supporting Almagro's invocation of the Democratic Charter, and then backing away and proposing a less aggressive solution (see June 3 briefing). However, Capriles' comments following his recent meeting with Macri were cordial, according to the article. 

• Six hundred Mexican police officers were sent to suppress an uprising in the overcrowded Barrientos prison, El Pais reports. Reports of the uprising, which does not appear to have resulted in any deaths, recalled images of February's gruesome riot in the Topo Chico prison, in which 49 prisoners died. That riot, which was apparently sparked by a fight for control between the Zetas the the Gulf cartel, highlighted the Mexican government's tenuous hold on prisons; it's likely the full-fledged response to the Barrientos riot was an attempt to prove otherwise. 

• Sunday's shooting in a gay nightclub in Orlando seems to have hit the LGBT community of Ponce (Puerto Rico's second largest city) particularly hard, the Associated Press reports. At least five of the victims were from there; 200 mourners clutched candles and posters at a vigil Monday night. Puerto Rico's governor, Alejandro Garcia Padilla, declared Friday a day of mourning. The 49 lives lost at Pulse were mostly young, gay, and Latino, the New York Times reports in an article about the victims. 

• Haiti's parliament will vote today on the fate of interim President Jocelerme Privert, the Miami Herald reports.  June 14 is the deadline set in a Feb. 5 political accord created by Privert and then President Michel Martelly after Haiti failed to elect a successor amid allegations of voter fraud. Last week the Provisional Electoral Council announced a re-run presidential election scheduled for October, while a coalition of Privert's opponents and Martelly's supporters called for nationwide protests today to remove Privert from office. 

• Peru's third-place presidential candidate Veronika Mendoza rejected any possibility of a coalition between her left-wing party and Pedro Pablo Kuczynski's new government, TeleSur reports. Though most analysts agree that the support of Frente Amplio for Kuczynski in the run-off gave him the edge he needed to beat Keiko Fujimori, Mendoza said her party would remain the opposition in Congress, because "our visions for the country are completely different." 

Mexican Congress kicks off special session on medical marijuana, police and penal reform (June 13, 2016)

Mexico's Congress enters a special legislative session this week to consider pending proposals on medical marijuana, changes to the police force, and penal reform, El Universal reports. The session comes in the middle of a national debate over the Open Society Justice Initiative's recent report alleging systemic human rights abuses by government forces in the war against drugs (see June 6 briefing). 

Mexico's sub-secretary of Human Rights, Roberto Campa, attempted to deflect criticism of the government last week by claiming that only eight of the 50 cases documented by the report occurred during the current administration, Milenio.com reports. Meanwhile, James Goldstone, executive director of the Justice Initiative, said in an in-depth interview with Carmen Aristegui that "there's an impunity crisis in Mexico." 

Just in time for the legislative debate on medical marijuana, The Atlantic has an interview with Mexican activist Lisa Sanchez, who makes a human rights-based case for drug legalization. In the past decade, tens of thousands of Mexicans have lost their lives in connection with the war on drugs. Just this weekend, Mexican news outlets reported a massacre of 11 family members in Puebla state, though it's not yet clear whether the murders had to do with organized crime. 

The long-awaited police reform, "Mando Unico," is intended to replace Mexico's 1,800 municipal police units with 32 centralized state departments, Insight Crime reports. It was developed six years ago, launched by President Enrique Peña Nieto in 2014, and is still being implemented, with hopes that it will reduce corruption within local police forces, many of whom are in league with drug cartels. 

The legislature will also debate an anti-corruption initiative called "3 out of 3," which would require government officials to reveal their assets and potential conflicts of interest, as well as prove that they are paying taxes. The initiative was devised and pushed by community groups, following a 2014 change in Mexican law that allowed citizens to propose legislation with the support of at least 120,000 signatures. The two largest political parties, the PRI and the PAN, have expressed support for the legislation, though the ruling PRI came under fire last month amid claims they were trying to water down the anti-corruption proposals. 

News Briefs

• CICIG and Guatemalan authorities arrested three former cabinet ministers Saturday and are seeking to detain two more in the latest ripple of a mass corruption scandal tied to the Partido Patriota, the Associated Press reports (see June 5 briefing). About 2,000 people gathered for a demonstration the same day in Guatemala City. The New York Times Editorial Board applauded the crackdown on corruption in Guatemala, but pointed out that Honduran president Juan Orlando Hernandez "has shown less enthusiasm for meaningful reforms."

• Keiko Fujimori conceded the Peruvian presidency to competitor Pedro Pablo Kuczynski on Friday after a tense week of ballot counting, the New York Times reports. Analysts are predicting that Kucynski may seek to ease hostility by releasing Fujimori's father, imprisoned ex-President Alberto Fujimori, the Associated Press reports, though Keiko herself signed a pledge during the campaign never to issue a pardon.  

• Brazilians took to the streets in various cities on Friday to protest the interim government of acting President Michel Temer and demand the return of suspended President Dilma Rousseff, the Wall Street Journal reports. Meanwhile, hundreds of academics protested Rousseff's ouster at the Latin American Studies Association's fiftieth anniversary congress in New York, NACLA reports. 

• The Colombian government and FARC rebels will join hands in a crop-substitution program aimed at weaning tens of thousands of farmers off coca, the raw ingredient of cocaine, the Miami Herald reports. Over the past two decades Colombia has spent hundreds of millions of dollars on alternative development, but remains the world's top cocaine producer. According to the Herald, this is the first time the FARC will be partners in the process.

• Paraguay's most recent census in 2011 showed that nearly 47,000 children work as domestic help in a colonial-era system of child labor, the Washington Post reports. The system, known as "criadazgo," finally became a topic of national debate in January after a 14-year-old girl was allegedly beaten to death by the couple for whom she worked. However, efforts to end the practice have met resistance from conservative lawmakers in Congress, ABC reports. 

• A Chilean army officer accused of murdering popular folk singer and activist Victor Jara faces trial today in a Florida courtroom, the Guardian reports. Pedro Pablo Barrientos Nuñez is accused of torturing and shooting Jara to death at a stadium in Santiago where thousands of people were rounded in the first days of Augusto Pinochet's 1973 CIA-backed coup, which toppled elected socialist president Salvador Allende and installed a 17-year military dictatorship.

• The Cuban government has authorized six U.S. airlines to begin flight service to the island, the Miami Herald reports. Flights from five American cities, including Miami and Fort Lauderdale, will take off as early as this fall. Havana, however, is not among the nine Cuban cities approved for U.S.-Cuba travel. Meanwhile, Politico has a cover story on the Castro brothers and their response to Obama's recent visit. "Fidel may have rescued Cuba from the clutches of the U.S., but it is Raul who is rescuing Cuba from Fidel," writes Ann Louise Bardach.