CUBA & HAITI Cont. (July 14, 2021)

CUBA & HAITI CONTINUED

The Miami Herald says that the crises in Cuba and Haiti cannot remain on the "Biden backburner any longer," at a time when the White House agenda is determined to focus on its top priorities: the national budget and voting rights. The US State Department press briefing yesterday, however, led with a statement on Cuba and fielded several questions about Cuba and Haiti (as well as Venezuela and Brazil). Cuban-born Dept. of Homeland Security Secretary Mayorkas spoke directly to Haitians and Cubans: “The time is never right to attempt migration by sea... this risk is not worth taking. Let me be clear: If you take to the sea, you will not come to the United States.”, according to Reuters.

Cuba

Protests continued in the Havana suburb of La Guinera where one man died and others, including members of the security forces, were hospitalized with injuries, according to state-run media, reports CNN. Those protesting in Cuba appear to represent a broader group of people than previous events, according to the New York Times, "The Movimiento San Isidro, a Cuban dissident group led by artists and academics, tallied 171 reports of people who were detained or who vanished in the wake of the protests."

• CubaLex and CubaNet are running a campaign to identify and follow up on detainees. As befits the media age, a Cuban YouTuber was arrested by Cuban police on live TV as she gave an interview to a program in Spain, according to National Public Radio who included links to the video. "She added: "I have to go. They told me to accompany them."

Political Analysis:  NPR updates the political analysis: Benjamin Gedan, who led Latin America policy in the Obama White House, says, "the administration has really been walking on eggshells when it comes to Cuba policy." Separately, NY Congressman Gregory Meeks gets little airplay in USA media for his demand to lift the blockade, though it does get international coverage, including from Cuba. (He is Chair of the House Committee on Foreign Affairs.) 

• The Miami Herald's Leonard Pitts compares American conservatives at CPAC and Cuba protesters in Havana. "Democracy is frustrating, sometimes, vexing, sometimes, disappointing, sometimes. But it is worth the trouble every time. Obviously the people in Dallas have forgotten this. That’s a luxury the ones in Havana wish they had. 

• "As a Miami Cuban, I’ve gotta say — I really wish more of the talk in DC about the situation in Cuba was about the Cuban people in Cuba and not Miami." Tweet from Politico's Immigration reporter Sabrina Rodríguez.

Internet Connectivity to the internet remains a crucial issue and several media are citing data from Netblocks which measures internet access around the world, including Wired.

"In a way, we are living in the splinternet today. Don't underestimate how centralized and controllable internet access has already become worldwide." (Netblocks latest report is a few days old but shows how Cuba can discriminate one app over another.) Florida Governor Destantis was exploring ways to share internet access to Cuba from Miami - including through wifi, according to the Miami Herald.

• Internet connections seem to be returning overnight to Cuba, according to Amnesty International's Americas Director Erika Guevara-Rosas, which allows access to some harrowing videos on the crackdown. "Cubans reported seeing a strong presence of security forces on the streets on Monday and Tuesday, and many families were desperately trying to track down loved ones who were detained or who vanished after the demonstrations," according to the NYTimes.

Other issues:

• The BBC analyzes the pressures from within the Cuban government. Open Democracy does a round-up "guide" to how the world is responding to this crisis. Meanwhile, the Wall Street Journal emphasizes the crisis that COVID has created on the island.

• Demonstrations blocked traffic in Miami on Tuesday, according to Reuters. Why didn't Gov. DeSantis’ anti-riot laws apply to the Cuba protesters?, wondered a Miami Herald editorial.

• The Miami Herald's lead editorial this morning leads with Raúl Castro and noted that "But if Cubans on the island fell silent, Cubans Americans in Miami made up for it." The Wall Street Journal's headline: Cuba’s Communists Strike Back ... as the world’s attention moves away from Cuba and its Sunday protests."

• July 13 (1994) is an important date in Cuban protests, writes Anthony Depalma in the Washington Post. In addition the Post editorialized and published a column in support of the protestors: "Cubans should know that the outside world is watching with admiration as they attempt to shape their own destiny." 

• ACN, the official Cuban news agency tries to explain the crisis, and to respond to its critics with five bullet points.

• There are so many sources and stories on Cuba right now, including a lot of #FakeNews (the death of a 12-year old made the rounds in the last news cycle). Abraham Jiménez Enoa is a Cuban journalist in Cuba who offers regular updates. (He also publishes on WashPost Opinion page.)

HAITI

Investigations continue into the background of the investigation as well as the next steps for Haiti. 

A deeper look into how Colombian military veterans were recruited into a "noble nation-building effort" that ended with fatal consequences.  (New York Times) They were told, "We are going to help in the recovery of the country, in terms of its security and democracy. We are going to be pioneers.” And then there is this: "The mystery is confounded by the frequent stopovers that the head of Mr. Moïse’s presidential palace guard, Dimitri Hérard, made in Bogotá in the months before the assassination."

Who bankrolled the operation?, is the focus of a Miami Herald report. "Haitian investigators allege that the would-be president is Christian Emmanuel Sanon ... contracted with a Miami-area firm, CTU Security, owned by a Venezuelan emigre known in Doral, to provide the group of Colombian security men and Haitian translators." A former Haitian Senator is now under suspicion for the assassination, according to The Guardian while the AP says five critical suspects are being sought.

"There are good reasons to worry about sending U.N. troops to Haiti. But does anyone have a better idea?", asks the Washington Post in an editorial. The Posts' Max Boots writes that "America is now going through one of its non-interventionist phases, as it did in the 1930s and 1970s," and so no one is likely to respond to Haiti’s interim government calling for help." Still, calls for foreign troops is certainly not a unanimous feeling in Haiti, according to Reuters.

The US Secretary of State says he reached out to the OAS to talk about Haiti

News Digest

Abortion in Honduras & Ecuador

• The Superior Court of Justice admitted an appeal of unconstitutionality, signed by almost 20 organizations, that points toward legal decriminalization for the first time, according to El Heraldo and Somos Muchas.

• The criminalization of abortion in Ecuador impacts indigenous and Afro-Ecuadorian women inordinately and exacerbates inequality, according to a new report by Human Rights Watch and reported on by The Guardian.

Jamaica

• Jamaica is set to ask Britain for billions of pounds in compensation for the Atlantic slave trade, according to Reuters and the Washington Post. In 2013, the UK government unequivocally said, "no," according to a report from The Jamaica Gleaner at the time. 

Brazil

• Brazil's President Bolsonaro was hospitalized this morning (Wed) because of "hiccups", according to Reuters, although Folha do São Paulo and Globo are suggesting it may be more serious and "intestinal." (Those hiccups have been going on for 10 days, reports The Guardian.)

COVID

• El Salvador’s congress voted overwhelmingly to impose a 90-day ban on most public events because of a surge in coronavirus cases, according to the Associated Press.

• In Argentina the death toll reaches 100,000, according to Reuters. "We're drowning," quotes the headline.

• Mexican young people are resisting caution and trying to return to a pre-COVID lifestyle, according to the Associated Press.

• US Secretary of State Antony Blinken announced the delivery of 500,000 doses of Pfizer vaccine to Costa Rica.

Peru

• The expectation and lingering hope of elected but still-not-announced Pedro Castillo as President of Peru is featured in a photo-feature in the Washington Post. (Pulitzer Prize-winning Michael Robinson Chávez accompanied Anthony Faiola's article on hunger in Peru, earlier in the week.)

It's Eduardo Romero here filling in for Jordana: let me know if I missed or misinterpreted something or perhaps you have a different take. 

Latin America Daily Briefing 

 

Cuba and Haiti in Turmoil (July 13, 2021)

CUBA UPDATE 

President Biden issued a statement from the White House yesterday: "We stand with the Cuban people and their clarion call for freedom." The Washington Post and the New York Times publish political assessments and say that Biden "sid[ed] so starkly with the dissidents, Biden seized on what some Democrats see as an unexpected opening for their party to chart a course correction on Cuba and rebrand its strategy after years of being seen by some voters — particularly in Florida — as too accommodating of the authoritarian regime and perhaps too soft on communism in general." 

There are plenty of explainers on why this is happening now in Cuba and most include hunger (or the economy), COVID-19 and/or cell phones. Examples in the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal and the BBC.  The AP suggests it's all about the internet. The Washington Post suggests that the protests were provoked by the pandemic and "fueled by social media." The island’s social media explosion [happened in 2019] with the arrival of 3G mobile phone service. ... 'Telephones are now the guns of the Cuban people,” said Abraham Jiménez Enoa, a Cuban dissident journalist.' "  There has been a noticeable uptick in police patrols, reports the Associated Press.

• Mexico's AMLO says it's all about the embargo, according to Reuters; they hope to send renewed humanitarian aid, says a separate Reuters piece.  

• Miami Herald columnist Fabiola Santiago calls for BLM support for the island. 

• The hip-hop song Patria y Vida, by Maykel Osorbo and El Funky, is a twist on the communist slogan "patria o muerte", says National Public Radio.

• Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL) sent President Biden a 6-point plan as well as tried to make edits on Biden's speech. He also warned of a ‘Mariel style crisis’, according to the Miami Herald.

HAITI UPDATE

The New York Times profiles Christian Emmanuel Sanon, the doctor and pastor who is emerging as a central figure in the assassination and who was arrested yesterday morning. "how Dr. Sanon might have managed to set such an ambitious plot in motion was not easily explainable on Monday." The Wall Street Journal highlights the two others vying for the presidential position. 

• A column in the New York Times tries to assess the geopolitical situation:"Refusing Haiti’s request would make Washington partially responsible for the calamity that American forces likely could otherwise hold off. But agreeing would leave it responsible for managing another open-ended crisis of a sort that has long proven resistant to outside resolution." Conversely, the NYTimes' Bret Stephens jumps in as well and writes, "The best the United States can do is to do as little as possible — and, if possible, a bit less."

• Malick Ghachem, a history professor at MIT writes "Haiti needs something closer to a complete political and constitutional reboot combined with a new social contract in which international institutions support rather than ignore the country’s least well-off citizens, according to an America's Quarterly essay. Ghachem's book, The Old Regime and the Haitian Revolution, was published in 2012.

• You also have to understand the role Miami plays, says The Guardian.

• Reports that some of the assassins may have been DEA informants may complicate things, according to Reuters.

NEWS UPDATE

Venezuela

• The Biden administration eases a Trump-era Venezuela sanction on liquefied petroleum gas, according to the Associated Press.

• Freddy Guevara, an ally of Juan Guaidó, was arrested on charges of terrorism and treason, according to Reuters.

Nicaragua

• The U.S. is administering pressure on the Ortega government in Nicaragua by "revoking the travel visas of 100 legislators, judges and prosecutors," according to the Associated Press. American airlines are unlikely to return flying into Managua anytime soon, according to Havana Times.

Mexico 

• The Mexican government said that 68 human rights and environmental activists and 43 journalists have been murdered, have been killed during the current administration, primarily by the drug cartels, according to the Associated Press. Almost 1,500 activists and journalists are under government protection.

Pandemic

• The Washington Post's Anthony Faiola uses Peru as a case study pegged on FAO's report released today, "The State of Food Security and Nutrition in the World 2021". Latin America and the Caribbean, "the region hit hardest by the coronavirus saw the biggest one-year spike in food insecurity. Few countries witnessed a bigger surge than Peru."

• Protestors decrying Guatemala's mismanagement of the coronavirus pandemic and delays in shipments of Russia’s Sputnik vaccine, may have cause the country's president to crack down on dissidents, according to the Associated Press. Guatemala has counted over 300,000 cases and almost 10,000 deaths.

• Colombia has one of the longest school lockdowns and a teachers’ union is trying to keep it that way, according to The Economist.

Brazil

• Brazil's federal police are set to open up an investigation on Bolsonaro and corruption around vaccine purchases, based on congressional hearings, according to Reuters.

Indigenous Issues

• How many children’s books published in the U.S. feature Indigenous characters? Bookriot has the answer.

• The BBC explores the challenges of connecting the latest technology into indigenous hands to save the Amazon rainforest.

It's Eduardo Romero here filling in for Jordana: let me know if I missed or misinterpreted something or perhaps you have a different take. 

Latin America Daily Briefing 

Cuba Protests; Haiti Conundrums (July 12, 2021)

CUBA

On Sunday thousands of Cubans went out into the streets "to protest food shortages and high prices amid the coronavirus crisis, in one of biggest anti-government demonstrations in memory," according to an Associated Press article accompanied by a dozen remarkable photos. Reuters reports that they started "around midday in San Antonio de los Baños municipality in Artemisa Province, bordering Havana." In Havana they seemed to have"started around 3 p.m. and fizzled out around 8 p.m., with some protesters giving up after security forces thwarted their attempt to reach Revolution Square," according to a separate Reuters story. Cuba's president Miguel Díaz Canell made a personal, public showing in San Antonio yesterday afternoon calling for "the countries' revolutionaries" to come out to the streets, according to Radio Rebelde.

• Among the competing hashtags: #EliminaElBloqueo and #SOSCuba. Also: "Although many people tried to take out their cellphones and broadcast the protest live, Cuban authorities shut down internet service throughout the afternoon," according to the Associated Press. 

• The Washington Post and the New York Times are only able to report from Miami; NYT's Frances Robles writes says that "I have been covering Cuba since the 1994 rafter crisis. I have never ever seen anything like the protests today." (check out her Twitter feed).

• Cuba's Foreign Ministry's Twitter account was busy this morning placing the blame its take for the protests on the blockade and announcing that the President plus cabinet 9am televised Monday morning meeting.  The US Embassy in Havana's tweets called for calm.

• "While hundreds protested in Cuba, thousands protested in southern Florida, according to the Miami Herald. Nicaragua's social activists expressed their solidarity with Cuba's government, according to Cuba's Prensa Latina. 

• The violent harassment of Associated Press' photographer, Ramón Espinosa, went viral (at least on my screen).

• Yesterday 's daily COVID-19 update from Cuba's Ministry of Health: 6,923 new cases for a total of 238,491 cases nationwide.

AFTERMATH IN HAITI

Reporters are still trying to piece together how the assasination of Haitian President Jovenel Moïse. Sunday's New York Times tried to tap into the Colombian connection in Haiti's "Murder Mystery: At least 20 Colombians have been implicated by Haitian officials in the plot to assassinate the president. But their role in the killing, if any, is murky." The Guardian and the Washington Post focus on Christian Emmanuel Sanon who police said, "planned to assume the presidency and hire some of the men involved in the attack on Moïse as his security team." There were reports that Sanon was arrested Monday morning.

• The Associated Press' Joshua Goodman tweeted, "All this intrigue leaves lots of questions unanswered. Why did the alleged assassins post on Facebook photos of themselves at tourist spots in the Dominican Republic if they were on such a sensitive mission?And not a single member of the president's security detail injured?"

• Roaming gangs are all the more prevalent in today's Port au Prince, according to the Associated Press. They are "financed by powerful politicians" and have "driven thousands of people from their homes as they battle over territory, kill civilians and raid warehouses of food." Reuters interviews one gang leader about his plans to join street protests.

• Martine Moïse, Moïse's widow, made a political pronouncement over the weekend, according to The Times. She is in Miami recovering from the attack.

• The Post and The Times publish columns trying to make sense of the challenges ahead.

NEWS BRIEFS

Brasil

• The conservative-leaning O Estado de São Paolo's lead editorial yesterday called for President Bolsonaro's resignation declaring "Chega de Chantagem" ("Enough of this")   The Guardian has a summary not behind a pay-wall. “Jair Bolsonaro is no longer in a position to remain in the presidency.” Meanwhile, a new DataFolha survey shows that, "for the first time, a majority of Brazilians support impeaching President Jair Bolsonaro,", according to Reuters. "54% of Brazilians support a proposed move by the country's lower house to open impeachment proceedings against Bolsonaro, while 42% oppose it."

Nicaragua

• Podcast:  The Los Angeles Times just posted their podcast with their reporter Julia Barajas about a recent crackdown on opponents of Ortega in Nicaragua as well as political cartoonist Pedro X. Molina who is now "living in exile after having drawn one too many unflattering portraits of the president."

Democracy (in Chile, Peru and Nicaragua)

• The BBC profiles Elisa Loncón, Chile's Constituent Assembly's new president: "Her mother was a housemaid who loved poetry. Her father, a carpenter, had taught himself how to read at the age of 17. ... She eventually left the village called Lefweluan ... went on to earn a PhD in from the University of Leiden, and another PhD from the Pontifical Catholic University of Chile, before becoming a professor at the University of Santiago."
  
  
• The Economist's Bello column previews the pending announcement of Pedro Castillo as president of Peru. "For a democracy to survive, it needs democrats," it declares, before showing that Keiko Fujimori and her supporters are not showing their democratic stripes.

• For democracy, it’s a time of swimming against the tide, writes the AP's Tim Sullivan whose first challenging example is Nicaragua. "2020 was “another year of decline for liberal democracy,” said a recent report from the V-Dem Institute, a Sweden-based research center."

Venezuela 

• Clashes between gangs and police have resulted in the deaths of at least "22 suspected gang members and four police," according to the BBC. "Four people were killed by stray bullets," according to Reuters.

COVID-19

• The Financial Times reports on how COVID-19 in Brazil impacts "pregnant women especially hard: inadequate access and a more contagious variant blamed for jump in maternal deaths."
• US Secretary of State Antony Blinken announced "the donation of more than one million Johnson & Johnson vaccine doses to Bolivia."

Copa América Into Overtime

• Buenos Aires' Clarín published a series of photos of yesterday's Copa America championship match between Argentina vs. Brazil where Messi finally was able to add this victory to his many wins. Copa America's Twitter featured Maradona looking on from above as well as Messi and Neymar being best buds.

It's Eduardo here filling in for Jordana: let me know if I missed or misinterpreted something or perhaps you have a different take. 

Latin America Daily Briefing