PAHO to procure vaccines (Aug. 12, 2021)

 The Pan American Health Organization announced a new program through which vaccines, syringes and related supplies are purchased on behalf of member states. The Revolving Fund is a cooperation mechanism in which the organization will buy “tens of millions” of vaccine doses, to be paid for by countries that participate in the program. More than 20 countries have formally expressed interest. (Reuters)

“It is an initiative that will benefit every country in the region but especially those that lack the resources and the negotiating power to secure the doses that they need to protect their people,” said PAHO director Dr. Carissa Etienne. 

The program amounts to "a tacit recognition that the United Nations-backed Covax program will not come close to providing the immunizations that the developing world needs," reports the New York Times.

Low coronavirus vaccination rates — combined with some of the highest infection rates in the world — threaten to prolong the economic crisis caused by the pandemic in Latin America, reports Al Jazeera.

Deaths related to COVID-19 are rising in nearly every country in Central America, including a 30% increase in El Salvador. COVID-19 cases are falling in Panama and Costa Rica, but are on the rise in Honduras, Belize and El Salvador. (Reuters) Mexico saw a record rise in Covid-19 cases yesterday. (Bloomberg)

News Briefs

Regional Relations

• Talks between Venezuela's government and opposition will restart in Mexico tomorrow, with an organizational meeting. The official start of the talks is set for August 30. Sanctions, political prisoners and elections are on the table, but not the future of President Nicolás Maduro, reports AFP.
  

Venezuela

• Venezuelan opposition leader Henrique Capriles called on opposition parties to participate in elections for governors and mayors in November, following boycotts of two major elections in the last three years, reports Reuters. Opposition parties still haven't agreed on a stance regarding whether they should participate in Congressional elections scheduled for November. (See yesterday's briefs.)
  

Migration

• Panama and Colombia reached an agreement to receive up to 650 migrants each day, amid a mounting crisis on their shared border, where thousands of migrants are stranded in their journeys north. The agreement will be approved with Costa Rica, which also shares a border with Panama and through which migrants will cross as they head through Central America en route to the United States, reports Reuters.

• Senior U.S. officials met with counterparts in Mexico this week for talks on addressing illegal migration to the U.S., reports the Associated Press. They discussed working jointly to slow crossings along the U.S. southern border.

• The U.S. Border Patrol reported nearly 180,000 encounters with migrants along the U.S.-Mexico border in June, the highest monthly total in more than two decades. (Pew Research Center)
  

Haiti

• Haiti will hold presidential elections last scheduled for September on November 7. The provisional electoral council said polling day will include the first round of the presidential election, legislative elections that should have been held in 2019, and a constitutional referendum supported by president Jovenel Moïse, who was assassinated last month. (AFP)
  

Brazil

• Allies of Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro are pushing a series of electoral reforms through Congress, ahead of next year's presidential elections. The proposed changes "would constitute the most sweeping revision to the country’s complicated electoral system since the 1988 Constitution," reports The Intercept. "The proposals include measures that would legalize or reduce punishment for multiple forms of corruption and voter intimidation; weaken measures designed to promote racial and gender diversity in politics; and dismantle regulatory structures."

• Bolsonaro's ongoing attacks against the electoral system may impact the country’s foreign relations, according to the Latin America Risk Report. "A source in Europe said that several governments are beginning to question whether to preemptively warn in a statement or even threaten sanctions against Bolsonaro with the view that he appears to be planning to steal or postpone next year’s election." (See yesterday's post.)

• "Brazilian lawmakers have voted to expel the gospel star turned congresswoman Flordelis over her alleged involvement in the murder of the husband with whom she had raised more than 50 children," reports the Guardian.

Peru

• Just two weeks into Peruvian President Pedro Castillo's government, his controversial cabinet picks have left the country on the brink of yet another political meltdown, reports the Washington Post. (See Monday's post.)

Ecuador

• Ecuadorean unions and Indigenous groups held a protest against the government, the first since President Guillermo Lasso took office in May, reports EFE.

Mexico

• Mexico might use its share of recently-approved International Monetary Fund reserves, $12 billion, to repay the country’s debts, reports Bloomberg.

El Salvador

• El Salvador’s government finished a first draft of constitutional changes that include extending the presidential term from five to six years, reports Bloomberg.
  

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

The Brazilian military's controversial parade (Aug. 11, 2021)

Brazil's armed forces staged a parade of troops and armored vehicles through Brasilia's streets yesterday. The convoy was announced just one day earlier, and coincided with a scheduled vote in Congress on a constitutional reform by President Jair Bolsonaro. Critics called the move a “banana republic-style," and said the decision was reminiscent of Brazil's 1964-1985 military dictatorship, for which Bolsonaro, a former army captain, is openly nostalgic. Soldiers arrested a group of protesters who tried to block the convoy.

Experts said the parade had no precedent in the years since the restoration of democracy in 1985. Many lawmakers said the march appeared like  an attempt to intimidate the president's opponents, though government allies said the timing was just an unfortunate coincidence. (Associated Press, AFP, Globo, Guardian, Al Jazeera)

Later yesterday, lawmakers rejected Bolsonaro's proposal to require printed receipts from some electronic ballot boxes in the country's elections -- a major defeat for the president, who has insisted on unsubstantiated claims that the country's 25-year-old electronic voting system is vulnerable to fraud. (Associated Press)

Experts emphasize that the system is robust, and that there have been no credible allegations of irregularities. Nonetheless Bolsonaro has threatened to suspend elections unless paper records of votes are created in parallel, a change experts say could, in fact, weaken the system. Critics believe Bolsonaro is setting the stage to delegitimize next year's presidential elections in the event of a loss, similar to former U.S. President Donald Trump's claims of fraud. (New York Times)

Brazil's electoral tribunal president, Supreme Court Justice Luís Barroso, said the printout idea is “a risky solution to a problem that does not exist.” The electoral court is investigating Bolsonaro for his allegations against the electronic voting system, after the president failed to back his claims with evidence. (See Aug. 3's post.)

"Even if his demands to overhaul the voting system fail, as it seems they will, they are already accomplishing their goal," writes Frida Ghitis in the Washington Post. "By making the accusations, and doing it repeatedly, dozens of times, Bolsonaro is eroding trust in Brazilian democracy."

The military parade is the latest in a series of events in which the government is involving the Armed Forces, Pedro Abramovay, director for Latin America and the Caribbean at the Open Society Foundations, told Globo. "There is only one reason why the Armed Forces can be interested in the issue of the printed vote: it is to carry out a coup and threaten democracy."

More Brazil

• "The parade, beyond the smoke screen, forces us to think about the role of the Armed Forces in times of peace," writes Abramovay in El País. "The militarized Bolsonaro Government is a consequence of the ill-fated experience of the military with democracy. Unable to look in the mirror except to admire their uniforms, tanks or fighter jets and submarines bought from civilian-led governments. Unable to learn from mistakes , as recognizing them goes against military honor, this group of soldiers enters the Government occupying civilian spaces in the middle of a pandemic. And, once again, they act with the expected incompetent arrogance with which they have acted when called upon to matters that, of course, should not compete with the military."

• Brazil has become a paradigmatic example of poor governance, write Breno Bringel and Jerónimo Giorgi in the New York Times Español. They argue that "opposition to Bolsonaro is now broader and more heterogeneous," as is rejection of the idea of "another period of government whose discourse exalts authoritarianism, genocide and the negation of science, while it destroys life, the environment and even the country's self-esteem."

News Briefs

Migration

• Hundreds of Central American migrants expelled from the U.S. to Mexico have been forced by Mexican authorities into a remote part of Guatemala. Last week the Biden administration began expulsion flights to Mexico, aimed at deterring repeat border crossers, Mexico agreed to accept those flights and said it would allow people to apply for asylum, but migrants say they were instead bused to El Ceibo in Guatemala, a remote region where they now have no place to stay and no way to return to their countries of origin, reports the Washington Post.

• "U.S. refugee and asylum laws remain woefully inadequate to protect those displaced by climate-related events," writes Marcela García in the Boston Globe. (See yesterday's briefs on climate migrants.)
  

• The Darién Gap, a 500,000-hectare section of jungle dividing Panama and Colombia, is a graveyard for migrants (many of them Haitian) attempting to travel to the United States, reports El País. "Here, migration is a WhatsApp message with a single tick, which may or may not ever be answered."

• UK deportations to Jamaica, including many people who have lived in the UK for most of their lives, have been questioned by human rights campaigners and Jamaican authorities concerned about Covid-19 spread, reports the Guardian.

Climate

• Climate change is widespread, rapid, and intensifying, and some trends are now irreversible, at least during the present time frame, according to the latest much-anticipated Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change report. The UN Secretary-General António Guterres said the Working Group's report was nothing less than "a code red for humanity. The alarm bells are deafening, and the evidence is irrefutable."
  

Nicaragua

• Nicaraguan diplomat Mauricio Diaz was arrested Monday, the latest of 32 people detained in a crackdown against government opponents, reports AFP.

• The psychologies of Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega -- revolutionary leader turned dictator -- and that of his wife -- a ruthless and obsessive operator -- are not enough to explain what has happened in the country. "In order for a dictatorship to grow, there has to be a level of instability and some people besides the dictator who benefit," writes Linda Mannheim in The Nation.

Venezuela

• Talks between Venezuela's Maduro government and the political opposition, slated to start in Mexico on Friday, are a “narrow” opportunity to agree on an agenda and election timetable for dealing with Venezuela’s humanitarian emergency, opposition leader Leopoldo López told the Financial Times. Opposition parties still haven't agreed on a stance regarding whether they should participate in Congressional elections scheduled for November.

• A former army lieutenant allegedly recruited Venezuelan soldiers to provide firepower for a gang's bid to take over illegal gold mining operations in southern Venezuela, "revealing the ever more complex web of collaboration between the military and criminal gangs," reports InSight Crime.
  

Regional Relations

• Nicaragua has recalled its ambassadors to Mexico, Argentina, Colombia and Costa Rica for "consultations," in retaliation for those countries' withdrawal of their own ambassadors to Nicaragua in response to the crackdown against opponents. (Reuters)
  

Mexico

• Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador came out in support of a journalist threatened by a drug cartel. AMLO is known for his conflictive relationship with the press, but he said death threats that circulated on social media against a television host were unacceptable. Nonetheless, in reality, the government has done little to protect journalists in a country that is one of the most dangerous in the world for the profession, reports the New York Times.

• In a video that circulated Monday, masked and heavily armed men surround a man seated at a small desk who delivered a message he said was from Rubén Oseguera Cervantes, aka “El Mencho,” leader of the Jalisco New Generation cartel. The message complained that Milenio Television, a national cable news channel associated with a major newspaper chain, was favoring so-called self-defense groups that are battling the Jalisco cartel in Michoacán state, reports the Associated Press.
  

Colombia

• 280 former FARC fighters have been killed since the 2016 peace accords were signed, most assassinated by hitmen in territories disputed by illegal armed groups, reports Gatopardo.

Guadeloupe and Martinique

• The coronavirus situation is worsening in the French overseas territories of Martinique and Guadeloupe, where hospitals are over capacity with Covid-19 patients, reports the New York Times. (See yesterday's Just Caribbean Updates.)

Latin America Daily Briefing

U.S. stance on Lat Am (Aug. 10, 2021)

 The U.S. Biden administration has taken a tough stance on Cuba, continuing the Trump administration's hardline policies and disappointing those who hoped for a return to detente. Cuba experts and American government officials say that Biden’s policy shift reflects the ascendant influence of Sen. Robert Menendez, chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee, reports the New York Times.

But, in other areas, U.S. officials have, verbally, supported multilateral approaches to regional diplomacy. "We must break with the left and right mentality when it comes to promoting democratic values and we should really center on a conversation about democracies in countries that aren't democracies," said National Security Council official Juan González in a press conference following a visit to Argentina and Brazil, yesterday. (Clarín)

The environment could become a positive issue of engagement between the U.S. and other countries in the region: Argentina plans to host a climate change summit as soon as September, in an effort to build a united regional strategy, reports Bloomberg. Chile, Costa Rica and Colombia have signed on as co-organizers of the climate event; Barbados and the Dominican Republic are additional co-organizers, while Mexico plans to participate.

News Briefs

Regional

• Young Latin American leftists are more focused on gender and the rights of minorities than the region's iconic battles of the last century, writes Oliver Stuenkel in Americas Quarterly.

Migration

• Guatemalans are migrating to the U.S. in higher numbers than before, U.S. authorities say they have stopped more than 150,000 Guatemalans at the border this year, four times the number in 2020. Many are pushed by increasingly difficult rural conditions related to climate change, particularly extreme weather, reports the Associated Press.

• Indeed "U.S. and Guatemalan officials, regional experts and civil society leaders say climate-fueled displacement is a likely factor for thousands who’ve decided to strike out from home and head to the U.S.," reports Politico.
  

Guatemala

• Guatemalan Indigenous and rural unions -- led by CODECA -- blocked roads around the country yesterday, protesting the recent ouster of one of the country's top anti-corruption prosecutors. Demonstrators called on President Alejandro Giammattei and his attorney general, Consuelo Porras, to resign over the case, reports Reuters.
  

Regional Relations

• The Guatemala situation has put the U.S. in a difficult position, reports Politico: the Biden administration had been putting Guatemala at the center of its policies to tackle the "root causes" of migration. "Now, they need to show their commitment to fighting corruption abroad is more than just talk."

• Peru became the latest country to leave the Lima Group, a sign the region "is moving towards a stage of integration based on respect and solidarity among its peoples," said Bolivian President Luis Arce. (Telesur)

• U.S. national security adviser Jake Sullivan raised concerns about Huawei equipment in Brazil's 5G telecoms network during his visit to the country last week, reports Reuters.

Brazil

• The Brazilian Articulation of Indigenous Peoples of Brazil has asked the International Criminal Court to investigate Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro for “genocide” and “ecocide”, accusing him of persecuting native peoples and destroying their homelands, reports Al Jazeera.

Haiti

• A controversial Haitian investigative judge -- he was accused of refusing to investigate a corruption complaint against Haiti’s first lady and several government officials -- has been put in charge of the investigation into the murder of President Jovenel Moïse. Judge Mathieu Chanlatte's appointment yesterday caused murmurs in Haitian legal circles, where he is considered a judge of the power in place, reports the Miami Herald.

Cuba

• Cuba's government approved legislation permitting the creation of small and medium enterprises. The major shift in policy comes a month after massive anti-government protests on the island, reports AFP. Cuba's government has accelerated economic reform in recent months, spurred by an economic crisis that stems, in part, from U.S. economic sanctions and the Covid-19 pandemic.

Peru

• Peruvian finance minister Pedro Francke told Reuters that the government can increase mining taxes to fund public spending without affecting private-sector competitiveness, all while reducing the fiscal deficit. (See yesterday's post.)
  

Mexico

• Mexican prosecutors still can't say who ordered the mass surveillance of innocent civilians and government critics using Pegasus software, and there have been no arrests or announcements of sackings, despite forensic evidence showing the software had been widely used to target government critics, reports Reuters.

Argentina

• Argentina is now assigning a pension contribution value to the time people have spent raising children. The policy recognizes unpaid care work, and will help women -- who disproportionately provide care for children and work informally -- to retire, reports Al Jazeera.

• Argentina's government mixed geo-political leanings with health policy when it came to purchasing Covid-19 vaccines, with negative results, argues Sylvia Colombo in the New York Times Español.

Vaccines

• Where a selection of countries from the region are with vaccinations, from Our World in Data.

​

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Latin America Daily Briefi

Castillo's rocky start (Aug. 9, 2021)

Peruvian Prime Minister Guido Bellido told Reuters that the state plans to participate in key industries, including natural gas and new hydroelectric projects, under the new Castillo administration. "Our feeling is that strategic sectors need to be in the hands of the government," he said. He specified, however, that the country's mining sector would ultimately be left in the control of private enterprise.

Peruvian President Pedro Castillo's cabinet picks, particularly Bellido, have caused early political tension for his administration, and threaten to maintain the country's political volatility, reports Al Jazeera. A significant minority of Peruvians are already demanding Congress impeach Castillo.

“Castillo’s silence on policy matters and the general orientation of his government is disconcerting. Peruvians want to know where the country is heading,” Jo-Marie Burt told the Christian Science Monitor.

News Briefs

Nicaragua

• Nicaragua’s electoral council disqualified the country’s main opposition party, the Citizens Alliance for Liberty (CXL), on Friday. It is the latest in a crackdown against opponents, in which authorities have jailed most of President Daniel Ortega's potential challengers in November's presidential election. (AFP, Confidencial)

• Human rights groups and international organizations say the move confirms the breakdown of rule of law in Nicaragua, reports Confidencial.

• The move demonstrates that Ortega and his wife, Vice President Rosario Murillo, have a “desire to remain in power at all costs," said U.S. Secretary of State Anthony Blinken. “The United States views the regime’s latest undemocratic, authoritarian actions – driven by Ortega’s fear of an electoral loss – as the final blow against Nicaragua’s prospects for a free and fair election later this year.” (Al Jazeera)

Cuba

• Hundreds of Cubans arrested for protesting against the government in mid July remain in detention, reports the Miami Herald. Cubalex, an organization tracking the arrests, estimates that at least 555 people are still in detention, including prominent dissidents. “Forty-five are disappeared. Their families still have no information of their whereabouts,” said Human Rights Watch executive director Jose Miguel Vivanco.

• Cuba's government says protesters are spurred by U.S. embargo-caused hardships on the island -- a claim echoed by some progressives outside the country. "While the embargo has proved to be a failed policy, we do not agree that it is the country’s only problem, or that its unconditional elimination would guarantee the changes that Cubans are demanding," write Armando Chaguaceda and Coco Fusco in a New York Times opinion piece. "Lifting the embargo will not stop the Cuban government’s repression of its people. Its violation of fundamental human rights to assembly, free expression and due process has nothing to do with the U.S. trade embargo."

Venezuela

• Venezuela's government will sit down with the political opposition to renew negotiations in Mexico this week, mediated by the Norwegian government. But most Venezuelans don't view this development with hope. "It's been too many years of wear," writes Alberto Barrera Tyszka in the New York Times Español. While it's clear what each side wants -- the government wants to be rid of sanctions while the opposition seeks political space -- it is not clear who really represents citizens, he writes.

Haiti

• Haiti's investigation into President Jovenel Moïse's assassination is murky and riddled with irregularities. Now many Haitians believe authorities are also using the investigation as cover to crack down on political foes, reports the Washington Post.

• One of a "growing cast of shadowy characters swept up in the investigation," the head of a Miami-based security company, spoke out "to deny any intentional involvement in the killing," reports the Miami Herald. Antonio Intriago, who hired Colombian mercenaries accused of killing Moïse, said he was working with a former Haitian Supreme Court judge to help arrest the Haitian president and not to assassinate him, reports the Wall Street Journal.

Colombia

• Meanwhile, in Colombia, the arrest of 18 army veterans in Port-au-Prince "has torn open a debate over the way the nation treats its ex-soldiers, who are the products of a civil conflict that has lasted 73 years and created the second largest military in Latin America," reports the New York Times.

Migration

• Loosening of Covid travel restrictions and growing unrest, poverty and violence across the region have combined to create a migration bottleneck in the Colombian city of Necoclí, which is struggling to accommodate around 10,000 new arrivals who are trying to cross to Panama in order to continue their journeys north. (Guardian)

• Panama and Colombia agreed Friday to facilitate the controlled transit of undocumented migrants seeking to reach the United States, in an attempt to slow the surge of people and protect them from organized crime, reports AFP.

Mexico

• Mexico's lawsuit against U.S. gunmakers is not just a legal battle, it's also about highlighting the issue of arms trafficking in conversations with the United States, reports NPR. (See last Wednesday's post.)

Brazil

• Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro called Supreme Court Justice Luis Barroso a "son of a whore," ratcheting up an already high-stakes faceoff between the country's executive and judicial branches. Last week the Supreme Court approved an investigation into the president's unfounded accusations about voter fraud. (Reuters, see last Tuesday's post)

• If that finds that the president abused his position to spread misinformation, Bolsonaro could be barred from running for office for eight years, affecting his plans to run for reelection next year, reports CNN.

• U.S. National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan reportedly warned Bolsonaro, in a meeting last week, not to undermine confidence in Brazil's electoral process, especially given no evidence of fraud in previous elections has been presented. (Reuters)

Regional Relations

• Global Americans published the first in a series of working papers on the U.S.-Ecuador trade relationship, focusing on Indigenous rights. The authors argue that "Indigenous territorial and cultural interests must be a principal consideration in trade negotiations."

• Cannabis sold legally in California is heading south illegally, dominating a booming boutique market across Mexico, reports the Washington Post

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

Latin America Daily Briefing (Aug 6, 2021)

 News Briefs

Haiti

• Amnesty International is calling on the government of Haiti to protect the families of a murdered journalist and an opposition activist who were gunned down in Port-au-Prince in June. Since the killing, family members and close confidants of the victims have told Amnesty International that both had received threats prior to their murder, and that they themselves are now facing intimidation for speaking to the authorities, reports the Miami Herald.

Peru

• A week after Peruvian President Pedro Castillo took office, his approval rating is at 39 percent. A new Datum poll found that nearly half the country believes that Vladimir Cerrón is the power behind the throne and only 5 percent of respondents prioritize calling a constituent assembly, one of Castillo's campaign proposals.

• Castillo has prioritized the country's relations with China in his first week. Administration officials have met with the Chinese ambassador and Chinese mining executives to discuss industry policies, but also to strengthen a previous free trade agreement first signed in 2009, according to Reuters.

Covid-19

• A new Guardian series on Covid’s global political impact kicked off with a piece on how the pandemic has fuelled social and political turbulence in Latin America and the Caribbean. Covid-19 initially dampened the 2019 wave of protests in the region, but now pandemic hardships have worsened social inequalities and are pushing people back onto the streets, from Cuba to Brazil.

• Covax isn't working for Latin America, leaving policymakers "scrambling to redefine their vaccine strategies and boost local production," reports the Latin America Brief.

• Seventeen months into the Covid-19 global health emergency, Venezuela appears affected but relatively unscathed. In part, that might be an optical illusion due to bad statistics, but it is also "a combination of economic dysfunction on top of “mano dura” policing," writes Mac Margolis in the Washington Post.

Guatemala

• Guatemalan Attorney General Consuelo Porras pressured Juan Francisco Sandoval, Guatemala’s top anti-corruption prosecutor, to curtail investigations, before she fired him last month. (See June 26's post.) New documents obtained by El Periódico appear to corroborate accusations made by Sandoval after his firing: that his former boss repeatedly meddled in major investigations and that information about sensitive cases was leaked from the Attorney General's Office -- InSight Crime.
  

Colombia

• Colombia's government said police confiscated 67 kg of explosives from former FARC rebels who planned to carry out an attack in the capital Bogota, reports Reuters.
  

Bolivia

• Bolivia remains torn between competing narratives over what happened in October 2019: was it electoral fraud or a coup? Some critics think the ruling MAS party is trying to leverage the coup narrative into a comeback for former president Evo Morales, but it's complicated, reports Sarah Maslin in the Economist.

Regional Relations

• Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador is quietly vying to position the country as a regional leader, partially filling the vacuum left by Brazil under Bolsonaro's administration, argues Genaro Lozano in Americas Quarterly. (See yesterday's post on Venezuelan negotiations to be hosted in Mexico.)

• Mexico's sky-high violence, fuelled by U.S. guns, is inextricably linked to migration to the U.S. -- unfortunately Mexico's lawsuit against U.S. gun manufacturers is likely to face a tough battle in the United States, writes former U.S. secretary of labor Robert Reich in the Guardian.

Mexico

• After a spate of attacks on oil platforms in the Gulf of Mexico this year, the shipping industry is demanding protection, including a stronger presence from the Mexican Navy, reports InSight Crime.

• School shutdowns in Mexico, combined with limited access to technology, are exacerbating the country's education gap, leaving Indigenous communities behind, reports Foreign Policy.

Brazil

• Brazil's Senate President Rodrigo Pacheco criticized President Jair Bolsonaro for his attacks on the Supreme Court and defended the country's electronic voting system that Bolsonaro has sought to discredit, reports Reuters. (See Tuesday's post.)

El Salvador

• El Salvador's president, Nayib Bukele, announced he will double the size of the army, in an attempt to combat the country's notorious street gangs, despite the past failures of militarized responses, reports Vice News.

St. Vincent and the Grenadines

• Ralph Gonsalves, the prime minister of St Vincent and the Grenadines, has been taken to hospital after a protester threw a rock at his head during an anti-vaccine demonstration led by nurses and other workers. He is expected to recover reports the Associated Press.

Climate

• The Andes mountain range is facing historically low snowfall this year during a decade-long drought that scientists link to global warming, reports the Guardian. Declining precipitation and glacier retreat will affect communities who depend on the mountains for water supplies.

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

Latin America Daily Briefing

Venezuela negotiations to start (Aug. 5, 2021)

 A new round of talks between Venezuela's government and the country's political opposition is scheduled to start next week in Mexico, mediated by Norway. The negotiations will be aimed at ending a political standoff in order for all political forces to take part in nationwide gubernatorial and mayoral elections on Nov. 21, according to Bloomberg.

According to Bloomberg National Assembly leader Jorge Rodríguez and Miranda state Governor Héctor Rodríguez will negotiate on behalf of President Nicolás Maduro while the opposition will send former legislator and mayor of Baruta Gerardo Blyde along with a representative from each of the main parties.

Two sources with knowledge of the situation told Reuters that the talks would likely begin on August 13. It was not clear where in Mexico the talks would be held

"What we're looking for is that there's dialogue and agreements between the parties," said Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador in the first confirmation of negotiations by a Mexican official. The country was selected because it is seen as a neutral venue, according to Bloomberg. Delegations from Russia and France will help negotiate for Maduro and the opposition led by Juan Guaido, respectively, three of the people said. Argentina and the Netherlands have also been invited, according to its sources.

Previous attempts at dialogue in 2019 in Oslo and Barbados failed to bring the sides to agreement, notes the Associated Press.

Ortega's ongoing electoral crackdown

The detention of Nicaraguan vice presidential candidate Berenice Quezada was broadly criticized nationally and internationally yesterday. She is the eighth candidate detained in a crackdown against opponents of President Daniel Ortega, who has jailed 32 critics since June. (See yesterday's post.) Analysts say the move demonstrates that Ortega has not only sought to control the November presidential election, but also the discourse and topics under debate. Quezada was accused of inciting terrorism in relation statements about 2018 anti-government protests, reports Confidencial.

Electoral authorities previously barred two opposition parties from running any candidate at all, reports Deutsche Welle.

The elections scheduled for Nov. 7  "will take place while the country is in the midst of a serious human rights crisis, which began in April 2018 and has intensified in recent months," notes Amnesty International in a statement this week. In addition to the detentions of political opponents "state agents continue to harass human rights defenders, journalists and the media. As a result, local organisations report that more human rights defenders and media workers have been forced to leave the country to protect their freedom and safety, adding to the more than 100,000 people who have already had to leave the country to protect their lives."

News Briefs

Covid-19

• Latin America and the Caribbean "Indigenous communities are more vulnerable to Covid infections,” warned  Dr. Carissa Etienne, the director of the Pan American Health Organization, yesterday. She pointed to prevalent patterns among Indigenous people who work in urban centers and travel home to visit their communities, as well as "invisible barriers" to care, such as language and poverty. Yet reliable data on Covid’s impact on Indigenous people is itself in short supply, said Etienne, calling on countries to collect better information. (New York Times)

Regional Relations

• The U.S. embargo on Cuba is "a big distraction," that impedes the multilateral action that the Cuban people so desperately need, Human Rights Watch's Juan Pappier told NPR.

• "Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele is taking advantage of superpower competition between the United States and China to get vaccines for his country and boost his domestic image as a strong, independent national leader," write  Jeffrey Hallock and Christopher Kambhu at the AULA blog.
  

Colombia

• Meager pensions and a rough economy push Colombia's to risky, often illegal jobs, with potentially disastrous consequences, as occurred in the recent assassination of Haitian President Jovenel Moïse, writes Adam Isacson in a New York Times opinion piece that calls for Colombian leaders to "address the lack of opportunity that has tempted some veterans to take illegal work or leave the country to be mercenaries."

• Two former leaders of armed groups on opposite sides of Colombia's internal conflict -- paramilitary leader Salvatore Mancuso and FARC commander Rodrigo Londoño, appeared together before the country’s truth commission to ask victims for forgiveness and recognize mistakes they made during the war, reports Reuters.

Brazil

• Brazilian Supreme Court Justice Alexandre de Moraes approved an investigation into President Jair Bolsonaro's unfounded accusations that Brazil's electronic voting system is vulnerable to fraud, reports Reuters. Bolsonaro has raged against the investigation into his conduct and threatened to respond outside the limits of the constitution. (See Tuesday's post.)

• Hundreds of Brazilian business leaders, representing large banks and companies, published a letter titled “Elections will be respected," today. The move is an apparent rebuke of President Jair Bolsonaro’s recent threats against the 2022 elections, though it does not cite the president by name, reports Reuters. (See Tuesday's post.)

• Brazil's polarized politics has created "a bitter split within Brazil’s Catholic and Protestant communities, pitting many millions of worshipers who remain loyal to the country’s ultra-conservative leader against progressive Christians who are appalled at Bolsonaro’s claim to be a defender of their faith," reports the Guardian.

El Salvador

• Salvadoran attorney general Rodolfo Delgado,who was put in place when the current Bukele-controlled congress deposed his predecessor in May, was an employee of Alba Petróleos in 2019, according to a report by Infobae. Alba, a company which is part of Venezuelan state oil conglomerate PDVSA being investigated for money laundering by the US and by El Salvador. (El Salvador Perspectives)

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Latin America Daily Briefing

Mexico sues U.S. gunmakers (Aug. 4, 2021)

Mexico's government sued several major gun manufacturers in a U.S. federal court today, alleging that their negligent controls contribute to the illegal flow of weapons over the border and fuel significant violence in Mexico.

“For decades, the government and its citizens have been victimized by a deadly flood of military-style and other particularly lethal guns that flows from the U.S. across the border,” the lawsuit reads. The flood of weaponry is “the foreseeable result of the defendants’ deliberate actions and business practices.” 

Among those being sued are some of the biggest names in guns, including: Smith & Wesson Brands, Inc.; Barrett Firearms Manufacturing, Inc.; Beretta U.S.A. Corp.; Colt’s Manufacturing Company LLC, and Glock Inc. Another defendant is Interstate Arms, a Boston-area wholesaler that sells guns from all but one of the named manufacturers to dealers around the U.S.

The lawsuit maintains that the U.S. arms manufacturers “are conscious of the fact that their products are trafficked and used in illicit activities against the civilian population and authorities of Mexico." Mexico wants compensation for the havoc the guns have wrought in its country, reports the Associated Press. The lawsuit also seeks tighter controls on sales and better security features on weapons. It calls on the companies to undertake studies and media campaigns to prevent arms trafficking, reports the Washington Post.

Mexico has recorded record-high homicide rates in recent years, driven in part by weapons from the United States in violation of Mexico's stricter gun ownership laws, reports Reuters. The U.S. Justice Department found that 70 percent of the firearms submitted for tracing in Mexico between 2014 and 2018 originated in the United States, reports the New York Times.

The Mexican government said that U.S. gun laws have a direct effect on violence in Mexico. When the U.S. assault weapons ban ended in 2004, gun makers “exploited the opening to vastly increase production, particularly of the military-style assault weapons favored by the drug cartels," said the government in its lawsuit. At the same time, killings in Mexico began to rise, reaching record levels in 2018, when more than 36,000 people were killed across the country.

Nicaraguan VP candidate arrested

Nicaraguan authorities placed opposition politician Berenice Quezada under house arrest last night, the day after she registered as a vice presidential candidate on the Citizens Alliance for Liberty ticket. She is the latest to be arrested in a crackdown against government opponents that has jailed most of President Daniel Ortega's potential challengers in November's elections. (Reuters)

She was detained in relation to declarations in which she said Nicaragua's lacks civil liberties, and called on people to participate in the November 7 election, despite the guarantees for a free and fair vote, reports Confidencial. She said the Ortega government has 130 political detainees.

The Citizens Alliance decided to maintain its list for lawmakers and departmental officials a secret, in order to protect candidates in the midst of the government crackdown that has already detained 32 people since May, reports Confidencial.

News Briefs

Regional Relations

• Former Brazilian president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva called on Nicaraguan leader Daniel Ortega not to "abandon" democracy, and said "alternation" in government would be good. The international leftist icon spoke in an interview with Mexican journalist Sabrina Berman. He said that leaders who consider themselves imprescindible drive their countries to dictatorship. "I think that there has to be a change in the governance of a country so that society can improve its democratic participation," he said. (Confidencial)

• U.S. President Joe Biden appointed an emissary to meet with Brazilian governors of Amazon states, circumventing Brazil's national government, reports Folha de S. Paulo. National Security advisor Jake Sullivan is scheduled to meet with nine governors of the Interstate Consortium of the Legal Amazon tomorrow to discuss deforestation in the rainforest and international financing mechanisms for protection projects. It will be the second meeting in a week between a senior U.S. official and governors, after U.S. special climate envoy John Kerry met with another group of governors. Brazilian environmental activists and opposition politicians have pushed the U.S. to avoid dealing only with Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro, whose commitment to combating deforestation they question. (See April 13's post, for example.)

Brazil

• Bolsonaro condemned a judicial investigation into his unsubstantiated claims that the country’s electronic voting system is vulnerable to irregularities, saying he refuses to be "intimidated," reports Al Jazeera. (See yesterday's post.)

• A cold spike in Brazil has affected dozens of cities in the country's south, threatening agriculture and driving a temporary spike in global coffee prices, reports the Washington Post.

• The Nation interviews Erica Malunguinho, Brazil's first trans state legislator and creator of Aparelha Luzia, a cultural refuge for Black queer and trans people.

Haiti

• Haitian olice have detained more than 40 suspects in the killing of President Jovenel Moïse, but many people fear Haiti’s crumbling judicial system could result in the assassination going unpunished, reports the Associated Press.

• Haitian Prime Minister Ariel Henry doesn't believe any of the dozens of detainees had the capacity to organize the complex assassination plot. “I think there were a lot of people involved; there were people with access to a lot of money,” he told the New York Times. (See last Friday's briefs.)

• Nearly a month after the murder, "the circumstances remain just as murky, with no shortage of suspects and speculation—and more new questions than answers," reports the Wall Street Journal. Key investigators are in hiding after receiving death threats.

• First lady Martine Moïse, who survived the attack, said gunmen searched through papers when they killed the president, and seemed to be looking for something specific. None of his usual security detail were on scene, she told CNN.

Jamaica

• Jamaican police authorities ordered an internal investigation after a 19-year-old woman claimed an officer forcibly cut off her dreadlocks that she had grown since birth as part of her Rastafarian beliefs, reports the Washington Post.
  

Colombia

• Colombian General Mario Montoya is facing murder charges, alleged to have overseen the abduction and execution of up to 104 civilians who were falsely described as rebels to boost statistics, in a scandal known as the "false positives." It is a major turnaround for a figure formerly celebrated as the face of a modern military for Colombia, reports the Guardian.

Cuba

• If the US really cared about freedom in Cuba, it would end its punishing sanctions, argues Helen Yaffe in the Guardian.

• Cuban poet Néstor Díaz de Villegas explores the dilemmas of helping family on the island, and, in the process, financing the Cuban government, in the New York Times Español.

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

Latin America Daily Briefing