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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

More Cuba

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

News Briefs

Regional

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

Honduras

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

Venezuela

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

Diplomacy

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

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

Brazil

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

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

Bolivia

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

Migration

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

Latin America Daily Briefing

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

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

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

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

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

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

News Briefs

Venezuela

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

Argentina

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

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

Brazil

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

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

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

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

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

Regional

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

Costa Rica

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

El Salvador

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

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

Mexico

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

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

Suriname

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

Uruguay

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

Prisons

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

Populismos

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

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Latin America Daily Briefing

Haitians to vote constitutional reform in April (Jan. 8, 2021)

 Haiti's electoral commission -- unilaterally appointed by President Jovenel Moïse -- set an electoral calendar for this year that includes long overdue parliamentary elections in September, as well as a controversial constitutional referendum in April. Presidential elections will be held in September, and the second round will be in November, with local elections. Definitive results for the presidential election are not expected until January of next year based on this schedule, reports the Miami Herald.

Moïse has been ruling by decree for a year, after announcing parliament’s partial closure due to delayed elections. He does not intend to step down next month, when some legal scholars and opponents say his legal mandate ends.

The full proposal of the constitutional reform is not public yet, but is likely to include the elimination of the post of prime minister and the Haitian Senate, and the introduction of governors for each region, according to the Miami Herald. The reform itself, by referendum, lacks consensus and legal basis. A referendum would violate the constitution currently in force, which stipulates that “any popular consultation to modify the constitution by referendum is strictly forbidden," reports AFP.

Anti-government demonstrations are called for Sunday.

News Briefs

Regional Relations

• The angry mob that invaded the U.S. Congress on Wednesday does represent the U.S. that Latin Americans have dealt with since manifest destiny became a thing in the 19th century, argues Ernesto Semán in the Post Opinión. Many rushed to compare the scenes of chaos in Washington with Latin America, but missed the core lesson the region gleaned in the wake of dictatorships in the 80s: "the defeat of the radicalized right is only possible with truth and justice programs for crimes committed in the immediate past, the expansion of political rights, and the redistribution of economic resources in key areas such as health and education."

• The events should serve to humble U.S. observers of Latin America, writes James Bosworth at the Latin America Risk Report. "... Authoritarianism, populism, democratic decline, disinformation and strategic corruption are not Latin American problems that the US can fix. Instead, we share a common problem."

Migration

• Under the incoming Biden administration the "United States has a historic opportunity to regain its image as a country of immigrants," writes Jorge Ramos in a New York Times op-ed.

Brazil

• Many Brazil's race-switching politicians -- who changed their self-identified race between the 2016 and 2020 elections -- were likely angling to gain access to new campaign financing earmarked for Black candidates. It is an unintended effect of efforts to improve racial equality, writes Andrew Janusz in The Conversation.

Mexico

• At least nine people were killed as gunmen opened fire at a wake in Mexico's Guanajuato State yesterday. The region is at the center of a turf war between rival criminal groups, reports the New York Times.

• Mexicans sent record amounts of remittances from the U.S. last year, a surprising surge that provided a lifeline for many poorer Mexicans in the midst of the country’s biggest economic slump in decades, reports the Wall Street Journal.

• At least 185 people were victims of rights violations committed by the Mexican Navy between 2012 and 2020 -- but despite official recognition, less than half of them have been compensated accordingly, reports Animal Politico.

Guatemala

• The former head of security at Fenix, Central America’s largest nickel mine, pleaded guilty to fatally shooting an Indigenous leader in 2009. A Guatemalan judge found Mynor Padilla guilty of homicide for killing Adolfo Ich, a Maya Q’eqchi’ teacher and community leader who opposed the mine. It is a rare conviction over human rights violations allegedly linked to Canadian-owned mining companies in the region, reports the Guardian.

Covid-19

• China’s Sinovac vaccine has shown to be 78% effective against Covid-19 in Brazilian late-stage trials. Though that is less than other vaccines, it offers total protection against severe cases of the disease. Because it can be kept in a standard refrigerator, the CoronaVac could be a viable option for the developing world, reports the Wall Street Journal.

• Mexico, Chile, Costa Rica, and Argentina are the first countries in Latin America and the Caribbean to begin COVID-19 vaccinations -- Aviso LatAm.
  

Argentina

• Argentina is edging out of the classic middle-income trap towards a new, self-reinforcing, equilibrium: one that is entirely Argentine, writes Eduardo Levy-Yeyati in Americas Quarterly. Politics is a major stumbling block to the pension, fiscal and labor reforms the country desperately needs, he argues.

Feminismos

• Rights activists are hoping that Argentina's abortion legalization has a domino effect in the region, a so-called marea verde. But the landmark move could also provide opponents with a cautionary tale that could help Catholic and Evangelical leaders elsewhere beat back similar strategies, warns the Wilson Center's Weekly Asado. In the podcast "Two the Point" Benjamin Gedan discusses with Daniel Politi how pro-choice campaigners pulled it off the win just two years after lawmakers rejected similar legislation and whether activists can replicate their success elsewhere in the region.

Film corner

• The Mexico City house featured in Alfonso Cuarón's "Roma" is on sale -- Guardian.

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Latin America Daily Briefing

Latin Americanists focus on U.S. (Jan. 7, 2021)

Yesterday's scenes of an incensed mob invading a parliamentary building in anger at an electoral loss were evocative of Latin America for many experts. Analysts compared the violence to Alberto Fujimori's 1992 self-coup in Peru or, more recently, Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele's brief military occupation of the country's legislature last year. In Honduras, members of civil society bitterly recalled the Trump administration's support for President Juan Orlando Hernández's 2017 reelection marred by fraud. (Los Angeles Times, Wall Street Journal) A coup doesn't need military support to overthrow a democratic government writes Diego Fonseca at New York Times Español, where he reviews the long history of Latin American institutional coups from Daniel Ortega to Alfredo Stroessner, passing through Dilma Rousseff's impeachment.

Schadenfreude is possibly the dominant emotion for many Latin American countries, accustomed to receiving blanket U.S. statements of concern over national political upheaval. "This coup really makes the U.S. feel like home,” Venezuelan comedian Joanna Hausmann said on Twitter. Haitians circulated doctored warnings emulating the U.S. statements about travel to Haiti. One jokester said "the Ambassador of the Republic of Haiti to the United States has been asked to start a dialogue between Trump and Biden.” And Brazilian commentator Felipe Neto riffed that “I’m waiting for the USA to invade the USA so they can ‘re-establish democracy." And we all know the one about how the lack of the U.S. embassy in Washington is the only thing saving it from a coup. Personally, I'm just waiting for a foreign correspondent to interview a cab driver for insight on the mob.

Joking aside, yesterday's events will have grave consequences for the U.S. role as a democratic moral authority, reports the Miami Herald. It will further complicate any efforts to democratize Venezuela and will provide fodder to arguments that U.S. diplomacy is more about interests than goodwill.

Venezuelan Foreign Minister Jorge Arreaza tweeted: “Venezuela expresses its concern for the violent events that are taking place in the city of Washington, USA; condemns the political polarization and hopes that the American people will open a new path toward stability and social justice.” (Reuters)

Antigua’s Ambassador to the United States and the Organization of American States, Sir Ronald Sanders emphasized the hypocrisy of the U.S. stance towards other countries in the region. For example, last year the Trump administration issued visa sanctions against members of the Guyana government when the country’s then-president refused to accept his electoral loss. “The circumstances are almost identical,” said Sanders. “The United States government applied sanctions, applied threats and claimed democracy was at risk and demanded all sorts of concessions by parties in Guyana, all of which were right. I think all of those things were necessary, but you cannot apply it to other countries and not apply it to yourself. If you apply a double standard, you lose the authority to tell anybody anything when they do wrong.”

Many leaders in the region -- including Chile and Argentina -- voiced support for U.S. democracy, and rejected yesterday's show of force. But Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro supported Trump's allegations of fraud, reports Reuters. And the head of Brazil’s lower house of congress, Rodrigo Maia, said he feared “the terrible episode” playing out in the U.S. might offer a glimpse of what could happen in Brazil were Bolsonaro to fail in his bid for re-election in 2022, reports the Guardian.

News Briefs

Peru

• Peru's entrenched corruption puts the country in a Catch-22: how to carry out credible reforms when the politicians responsible for legislating are themselves part of the systemic graft swamp, asks Sonia Goldenberg in a New York Times Español op-ed.

Bolivia

• Bolivia's Tuni glacier is melting faster than predicted, which will likely worsen water shortages already plaguing La Paz, reports Reuters.

Mexico

• Mexico's government estimates that 10 million people tune into President Andrés Manuel López Obrador's daily press conference. "La Mañanera" can run for up to three hours, and has a lot of people hooked, reports the Associated Press. But critics say AMLO often fails to substantiate his views with actual facts.

• Mexico's coronavirus czar Hugo López-Gatell is under fire for taking a maskless, beach vacation after urging people to stay home. (Los Angeles Times)

Chile

• Chilean lawmakers are considering a bill that would make coronavirus vaccination mandatory. (Reuters)

Pandemic

• José Natanson calls out Argentina's adult-centric pandemic response policies in a Le Monde Diplomatique article that could be extrapolated to other countries in the region, where children lost more days of school on average last year than in the rest of the world.

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

"Remain in Mexico" exposes asylum seekers to harm (Jan. 6, 2021)

 The U.S. "Remain in Mexico" policy, formally known as the “Migration Protection Protocols” (MPP), "is anything but protective: it has sent people to some of Mexico’s most dangerous cities and needlessly and foreseeably exposed them to considerable risk of serious harm," according to a new Human Rights Watch report. 

The U.S. program, created by the Trump administration in January 2019, forces asylum-seekers to wait in Mexico and return periodically to the United States for immigration court hearings, part of an effort to deter people from entering along the country's southern border. U.S. president-elect Joe Biden promised to scrap the program, which has sent more than 69,000 people back over the border, sometimes into ramshackle refugee camps, reports the Guardian. But last month he warned that implementing an alternative system could take up to six months. The Supreme Court will also take up challenges to Remain in Mexico this year. (Washington Post)

In the meantime, Mexico's government said it is working on a plan for how to deal with the migrants stuck in the country awaiting asylum proceedings in the U.S., but gave no further details, reports Reuters.

More than 1,300 people have been raped, kidnapped, or otherwise assaulted since the program was implemented nearly two years ago, according to a December report by Human Rights First. (Business Insider)

People interviewed for the Human Rights Watch report, including children, "described rape or attempted rape and other sexual assault, abduction for ransom, extortion, armed robbery, and other crimes committed against them. In many cases, their attackers targeted them as they arrived in Mexico after their initial placement in the MPP or on their way back from court hearings, or as they left the migrant shelters where they stayed. In some cases, Mexican immigration officers or police committed these crimes."

Migrants in Mexico are facing increased difficulties due to the coronavirus, as restrictions aimed at limiting contagion have forced dozens of shelters to close or scale back operations, reports Reuters.

News Briefs

Venezuela

• Venezuela's Maduro government reclaimed control of the National Assembly yesterday, symbolically restoring portraits of Simón Bolivar and Hugo Chávez, and promising to "exorcise" the parliamentary chamber that has been controlled by the political opposition for the past five years. (See yesterday's post.) Lawmakers sworn in yesterday won their seats in highly irregular elections, which nonetheless have undermined opposition claims to democratic legitimacy, reports the Associated Press.

• Lima Group, a regional bloc comprised mostly of Latin American nations, said yesterday it does not "recognize the legitimacy or legality of the National Assembly installed on January 5" in Venezuela, describing the Dec. 6 elections as "fraudulent." (Reuters)

• The European Union committed to work with Guaidó towards credible elections, but did not refer to him as interim president yesterday -- his legal mandate as National Assembly head ended, though opposition lawmakers voted to extend their term for a year. (EFE)

• A Cape Verde court ruled that Alex Saab, a Colombian businessman who had been Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro’s deal maker, can be extradited to the U.S., where he was indicted on charges of laundering money for the authoritarian regime, reports the Wall Street Journal.
  

Brazil

• Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro said the country is broke, yesterday and blamed the crisis on "the press-fueled" coronavirus. Emergency aid payments aimed at helping people survive coronavirus economic impact end this month, and Marcelo Neri, director of the Center for Social Policies of the Getulio Vargas Foundation (FGV), warned Brazil may be "on the edge of a social abyss." (AFP)

• Many Brazilian cattle farms keep workers in slavery-like conditions -- and supply animals to major slaughterhouses, like JBS. A new report by Repórter Brasil adds to evidence against JBS, the world's largest meat producer, which has also come under fire for sourcing cattle from farms involved in illegal deforestation of the Amazon. (Guardian) 

Mexico

• Mexico is the most dangerous country in the world for journalists -- nine were killed last year, making Mexico more lethal than a warzone for the press. Coronavirus is only adding to the danger, as media companies send reporters out without basic protective equipment, writes Témoris Grecko in the Post Opinión.

Colombia

• Colombian President Iván Duque said the country plans to match last year's coca eradication levels, and plans to destroy 130,000 hectares in 2021. (Reuters)

• Colombia's new year has opened with bloodshed for demobilized guerrillas and social leaders -- following last year's trend of massacres and assassinations, reports Telesur. Yolanda Zabala Mazo was killed early on Jan. 1, the first former FARC fighter killed this year. And Gerardo Leon is the first leader and human rights defender assassinated in 2021.

• Colombian illegal armed groups lost roughly 5,120 members in 2020 due to armed forces operations aimed at weakening them, announced General Luis Fernando Navarro. (Reuters)

Regional Relations

• The U.S. is slashing foreign military aid to El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras -- part of an initiative by U.S. House Democrats to strengthen anti-corruption efforts in Central America. It's a symbolic blow to the countries as they try to show progress in strengthening the rule of law, Adam Isacson at the Washington Office on Latin America told the Associated Press.
  

El Salvador

• A Salvadoran court found ex-president Tony Saca and his wife guilty of illicit enrichment and ordered them to repay the government $4.4 million, reports the Associated Press.

• El Salvador's lawmakers cut $450 million in opaque budget items from this year's government spending plan, reports El Faro.

Chile

• Legislation allowing Chileans to withdraw money from their pension savings was a reckless decision that has done irreparable damage to the country's retirement future, argues Paula Schmidt in Americas Quarterly.

• Political outsiders are challenging the discredited traditional party elites in Chile -- the leading candidates in opinion polls ahead of Chile’s November presidential elections are mayors who have set themselves apart from the established political class, reports the Financial Times.

Regional

• More generally, coronavirus devastation could build on previous dissatisfaction with political elites and fuel a rise of political outsiders in elections in Peru and Ecuador as well as Chile this year, reports the Financial Times separately. (Check out Americas Quarterly's profiles of presidential candidates for Ecuador and for Peru.)

• Latin America's economic activity could grow by 3.7 percent in 2021 as countries in the region relax coronavirus restrictions, but "the rebound will be very weak," the World Bank said yesterday. (Associated Press)

• The LGBT community in Latin America and the Caribbean has been disproportionately impacted by 2020 pandemic, lockdowns and unemployment -- Global Americans.
  

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Latin America Daily Briefing

Venezuela's National Assembly, turning point (Jan. 5, 2021)

 A new cohort of lawmakers will take their seats in Venezuela's National Assembly today -- marking a turning-point in the country's prolonged political crisis. The legislators who swear-in today were elected last month in a vote widely condemned as lacking basic guarantees of freedom and fairness, and represent a consolidation of power for President Nicolás Maduro whose allies will now control congress. The National Assembly had been led by opposition parties since 2016, the only branch of government not controlled by Maduro.

The change will not meaningfully impact Maduro's governance capacity, but undermines opposition efforts to present an alternate space of democratic legitimacy. Opposition leader Juan Guaidó has been recognized as Venezuela's interim leader by a chunk of the international community based on his position as the National Assembly president. Experts fear the move could be used to crack down on government detractors. (Reuters, Miami Herald)

Opposition lawmakers voted to extend their mandate by a year, as they rejected the legitimacy of election to replace them. The extension proved controversial even within opposition ranks -- a major party within the coalition abstained from the vote and several individual lawmakers said they consider their mandates terminated today. The extension move puts the international community at a crossroads. So far the U.S. has recognized the opposition move, but the European Union has not. The Financial Times reports that the E.U. will likely move to a middle ground: recognizing Guaidó as the leader of a united opposition but not as the interim president. 

Guaidó denounced this morning that visibly armed counter-intelligence officers have surrounded his home. The threat of incarceration looms for him and lawmakers who consider their mandates extended, which the government considers illegal usurpation of office, reports Efecto Cocuyo. Opposition politicians are also no longer protected by legislative immunity. And Maduro has floated the idea of holding a “public trial” to try Guaidó for alleged but unspecified acts of corruption, reports the Miami Herald.

Venezuelan opposition leaders indicate they are shifting from attempts to oust Maduro through revolt to alleviating the country's crushing humanitarian crisis. People have little faith in a political solution, according to a recent Datanálisis poll that found only 25% of respondents said they had hopes for a democratic transition in the country. The Organization of American States estimates that the number of Venezuelan migrants could swell to seven million by the end of 2021, reports the Wall Street Journal.

Venezuela's crisis -- diplomats are increasingly concerned about a failed state -- and Maduro's consolidation of power will represent a major diplomatic challenge for the incoming Biden administration in the U.S. Maduro has publicly said his government is willing to engage with the U.S. An official on U.S. president-elect Joe Biden’s transition team said that it has no plans to negotiate with Maduro, reports the Wall Street Journal. 

Experts have increasingly called for the U.S. to revise its broad sanctions against Venezuela, which have in many ways backfired. A recent WOLA report found that the U.S. "Trump administration’s approach to Venezuela has been marked by three key mistakes: abandoning multilateralism and seeking U.S. primacy in confronting Maduro, a miscalculated and over-broad pressure strategy, and a failure to engage with relevant international and national stakeholders. In combination with each other and with external factors, these missteps have held back the search for a peaceful, democratic solution to the crisis."

But U.S. domestic politics will be a major constraint for the incoming Biden administration, warns the Financial Times.

News Briefs

Regional

• The green handkerchief that abortion activists across Latin America have adopted as their symbol is the descendent of the white handkerchief the Madres de Plaza de Mayo used on their heads while marching against Argentina's bloody dictatorship in the late 70s. "If the scarf has long been the symbol of women’s fight against abusive political power in Argentina, now it is also a symbol of hope and feminist transformation," writes Giselle Carino, director of the International Planned Parenthood Federation, in the Guardian. (See yesterday's post.)

Mexico

• Mexico's legislative elections in July will be the first time lawmakers will be permitted reelection, an instance that will subject them to welcome accountability with voters, argues Viri Ríos in New York Times Español.

• Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador said Mexico was ready to offer political asylum to WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange, after a British judge blocked his extradition to the United States to face espionage charges. (AFP)

• A Guardian documentary tells the story of Lupita, a courageous young Tzotzil-Maya woman​ ​at the forefront of a Mexican indigenous movement. Over twenty years after Lupita lost her family in the Acteal massacre in southern Mexico, she has become a spokesperson for her people​ and for a new generation of Mayan activists.
  

Cuba

• Cuba's government is using its significant power to quash civil society protests, writes Abraham Jiménez Enoa in the Post Opinión.

Brazil

• Brazil’s militarized effort to end the escalating environmental destruction of the Amazon forest is characterized by "disorganization, inexperience and allegations of political bias, ending in a failure to get the job done," reports the Washington Post.

• A 33-meter reinforced concrete vagina on a hillside has sparked politically polarized controversy in Brazil. (Guardian)
  

Peru

• Squatters at an ancient ruins site in Perú have threatened the archeologist who discovered the remains of the oldest city in the Americas, reports the Guardian.

Gems

• Many Colombian emerald miners work independently, hoping to find a stone that will change their lives. Some "described mining as a gamble and an addiction. The mines, they said, are like casinos in the middle of the Andes: One stone could change it all." -- New York Times

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

Latin America Daily Briefing

U.S. could designate Cuba state sponsor of terrorism (Jan. 4, 2021)

The outgoing U.S. Trump administration could designate Cuba as a state sponsor of terrorism. The New York Times reported last week that U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo is evaluating the move, which would hog-tie the incoming administration's goal of rapidly rolling back President Donald Trump's harsh policies towards Havana.

U.S. president-elect Joe Biden reportedly plans to reverse many of the Trump administration's Cuba policies, pushing for more normalized relations with the island. That strategy includes reducing restrictions on travel, investment and remittances for the island nation that are perceived to disproportionately hurt Americans and ordinary Cubans, reported Bloomberg in December. The approach would leave measures that target Cuba for human rights abuses.

But adding Cuba to the U.S. list of state sponsors of terrorism -- joining Iran, North Korea and Syria -- automatically triggers U.S. sanctions against its government. And removal under the incoming administration would require a formal State Department review, a process that might take several months.

The designation would impose restrictions on US foreign assistance, a ban on defense exports and sales, certain controls over exports and various financial restrictions. It would also result in penalization against any persons and countries engaging in certain trade activities with Cuba, reports CNN.

On Friday, the U.S. added the Cuban Banco Financiero International SA (BFI) to its restricted entities list, alleging that the financial institution has ties to the Cuban military and its profits help fund the country’s “interference” in Venezuela. Anyone subject to the U.S. jurisdiction is prohibited from engaging in financial transactions with institutions on the list. (Al Jazeera)

More Cuba

• The Cuban government formally ended its dual currency system on Friday. The government has set the exchange rate at 24 Cuban pesos to $1, and the convertible Cuban peso, known as the CUC, will be phased out completely by June. (Al Jazeera)
  

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#EsLey

Argentina closed off 2020 with a green glitter-painted victory for human rights: legalization of abortion through week 14 after conception. It is now the largest Latin American country to allow elective abortion -- following the footsteps of Cuba, Uruguay and Guyana. It's a triumph for Argentina's strong grassroots feminists, who have pushed for the measure for years. It is also an achievement for President Alberto Fernández who put his political weight into convincing senators to vote for the measure on Dec. 30. (New York Times, Guardian)

Advocates framed the issue as one of public health and social justice, an approach that helped convince reluctant senators. While legal abortion has long been a demand among feminists, the push gained significant traction with the movement against femicides, Ni Una Menos. Women's rights activists are broadly challenging machista paradigms that exact a lethal toll in the region, I argue in a New York Times Español op-ed.

A breakdown of the vote in Argentina's Congress shows that female lawmakers -- from most of the political spectrum -- overwhelmingly supported legalizing abortion, while men were more evenly split. The numbers demonstrate the relevance of measures like gender quotas for political parties and Congressional seats. The breakdown also demonstrates the generational shift on abortion -- younger senators overwhelmingly supported the measure, while a greater percentage of older senators opposed it. (Parlamentario)

Rights activists are hoping for an inspirational effect in the rest of the region -- similar to the spread of Ni Una Menos, which has had a strong effect in Latin America since starting in Argentina in 2015. In recent years Chile rolled back one of the world's strictest abortion bans, but efforts to broaden reproductive rights have failed in El Salvador's congress, and before Brazil's and Colombia's highest courts. (Washington Post, New York Times)

News Briefs

Venezuela

• Venezuela's opposition-led National Assembly voted to extend its term -- which ends tomorrow -- after a disputed December legislative election to replace current lawmakers. Most opposition parties boycotted the Dec. 6 vote, which failed to meet minimum free and fair standards. Lawmakers' move establishes that a small group of lawmakers will continue to carry out the National Assembly's functions, and will further confuse the legitimacy standoff in Venezuela, which starting tomorrow will have two bodies claiming legislative powers, reports Bloomberg. But the move by opposition parties also paves the way for opposition leader Juan Guaidó to argue he retains his role as the parliament’s speaker, reports Reuters.

• Venezuela's Maduro government is planning a shift to a fully digital economy. Already hyperinflation has made Bolivar banknotes worthless and dollars are used for nearly 20 percent of commercial transactions, reports Bloomberg.

• A committee of National Assembly lawmakers raised questions about “administrative irregularities” regarding a plan for the Guaidó government to seize Venezuelan government assets in the Caribbean, reports the Washington Post. 

Honduras

• Indigenous environmentalist Félix Vásquez was killed on Dec. 26, the latest activist victim in Honduras, the deadliest place in the world to defend land and natural resources from exploitation, reports the Guardian.

Migration

• The U.S. Trump administration was a strong advocate of deporting immigrants, but ultimately removed fewer people than that of the preceding Obama administration, reports the Washington Post. The current government removed about 935,000 people over the past four years, compared with nearly 1.6 million during former President Barack Obama’s first term, according to figures from the Migration Policy Institute. In fiscal year 2020, federal immigration officials deported about 14,500 migrant family members, returning more parents and children in a single year than they did during the first three years of President Donald Trump’s term combined.

Lockdowns

• A U.S. college student was sentenced to four months in jail for violating coronavirus quarantine rules in the Cayman Islands. The sentence was later reduced to two months. (New York Times, Washington Post)

• Brazil is best known for flouting lockdown recommendations -- due to economic necessity in many cases. But the country's "deliver-anything culture has enabled a minority of people to achieve an extraordinary degree of isolation," reports the Washington Post.

• U.S. citizens looking to flee lockdowns at home are flocking to Mexico City, where some locals consider the move irresponsible as many Mexican hospitals are at capacity. (New York Times) With Covid fatalities soaring, President Andrés Manuel López Obrador has been criticized for inaction, reports the Guardian.

• Mexico is marketing itself as a desirable tourism destination in the Covid world, but a surge of parties in Quintana Roo has led to more coronavirus cases, reports the Washington Post.

Drugs

• Seizures of the synthetic opioid fentanyl by Mexican security forces increased by at least 486% in 2020, reports the Guardian.
  

• Major drug cartels in Latin America deployed creative tactics to rebound quickly after the initial coronavirus lockdowns last March brought operations to a sudden standstill, reports the New York Times. Some traffickers have increasingly relied on newer tools like drones and cryptocurrency, and there has been a growing recruitment of impoverished or drug-addicted Americans to smuggle drugs in their body cavities.

• Mexico is set to become the world’s largest legal cannabis market in February, reports the Wall Street Journal.

• A dozen municipalities in Argentina's Buenos Aires province are moving forward with public cannabis projects after a national law permitting medicinal use passed a month and a half ago. (Tiempo)

Regional Relations

• The High Representative of the European Union for Foreign Affairs, Josep Borrell, has warned that the EU risks being displaced from its role in Latin America by China if it does not establish better and more extensive ties in the region, reports EFE.
  

Caribbean

• Volcanoes that have been quiet for decades are rumbling to life in the eastern Caribbean -- officials have issued alerts in Martinique and St Vincent and the Grenadines. (Guardian)
  

Barbados

• British Conservative MP Richard Drax added a plantation he inherited in Barbados to the parliamentary register of members’ interests after the media revealed omissions and errors in his declaration in December. (See Dec. 16's Caribbean News Updates.) Leading figures from the Caribbean Community (Caricom) Reparations Commission insist that Drax must acknowledge the wealth brought to his family from slavery and make reparations, reports the Guardian.
  

Brazil

• Brazilians are worried their government is fumbling the coronavirus vaccine -- critics say the Bolsonaro administration's political machinations and reliance on military officials in the health ministry has left the country behind in the vaccine race. (Guardian)

• Brazil’s health regulator Anvisa said Saturday it had approved the import of 2 million doses of the AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccine, though the vaccine has not been approved for use in the country, reports Reuters.

• A government plan to bulldoze a 94-mile highway through a corner of the Amazon rainforest threatens at least three indigenous communities. The project, which is backed by President Jair Bolsonaro, has raised environmentalist hackles. An 80-mile stretch of pristine forest would need to be felled to build the road, which would cut through the center of the protected Serra do Divisor national park, reports the Guardian.

Welcome to Latin America Daily Briefing 2021 -- as always, comments and critiques are welcome. I'll be playing catch up for a few days, but let me know if I've missed something.

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Latin America Daily Briefing