Latin America and the new Cold War (Feb. 18, 2022)

News Briefs

Regional Relations

• Russian President Vladimir Putin's meeting this week with his Brazilian counterpart Jair Bolsonaro, is the latest example of how Russia's leader is angling to forge stronger relationships in Latin America, far from Russia’s traditional sphere of influence, reports the Washington Post.
  
  
• Bolsonaro, in turn, has sought to portray himself as a relevant geopolitical player, and ascribed Russia's alleged troop withdrawal from the Ukrainian border to his influence. (Folha de S. Paulo)
  
  
• Bolsonaro met with Hungarian President Viktor Orbán yesterday. They emphasized their agreement on conservative approaches to issues like migration, Christianity and family values. Bolsonaro called Orbán his “brother,” and said their shared values are encompassed by “God, Fatherland, Family and Liberty.” (Folha de S. Paulo, Associated Press)
  
  
• China has increasingly trained its sights on Central America, a traditional Washington stronghold, as a strategic counterbalance to U.S. encroachments in Asia, writes Kate Linthicum in the Los Angeles Times. And "unlike the United States, which often conditions its development aid based on a country’s adherence to Western-style democracy, China has a policy of what it calls 'non-interference.'"
  
  
• It is worth noting that Latin American leaders have national agendas they are pursuing within the new geopolitical power struggles. "U.S. pressure on Brazil to cancel the trip was seen in Brasília as an undue interference in Brazil’s affairs, and may have had the inadvertent effect of encouraging Latin American countries to preserve their ties to other major global powers," writes Oliver Stuenkel in an Americas Quarterly piece that urges the U.S. Biden administration to move debates on China and Russia to closed-door meetings in the upcoming Summit of the Americas, rather than pushing for public declarations. 
  
  
• While Bolsonaro's timing was particularly fraught geopolitically, the visit "also demonstrates continuity in Brazil-Russia relations ... In fact, one of the most vocal defenders of Bolsonaro’s decision to take the trip was Lula’s former foreign minister and current foreign-policy advisor, Celso Amorim. Amorim defended the trip as a method of avoiding “submitting to an agenda of Washington,” a motto that sums up Brazil-Russia ties more broadly," writes Catherine Osborn in the Latin America Brief.
  
  
• Nor should the U.S. assume that leftist governments in the region are necessarily more pro-China than U.S., he argues. "On several fronts – such as the fight against climate change – leaders like Chile’s Gabriel Boric or Brazil’s Lula da Silva are likely to be much more constructive partners than Jair Bolsonaro or Chilean right-wing presidential runner-up José Antonio Kast." (Americas Quarterly)
  
  
• Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega appeared in public after a 36-day absence to close a visit with Russian dignitaries, in which he expressed Nicaragua's complete support for Russia in light of U.S. and European "imperialist aggressions." (Confidencial)

Nicaragua

• Nicaragua's government continued its onslaught against organizations of civil society, cancelling seven NGOs. The move pushes the total groups shut-down under a controversial law limiting foreign financing up to 90. (Confidencial)
  
  
• The OAS will meet today to resume discussions on Nicaragua's political illegitimacy, after fraudulent elections in November. (Confidencial)
  
  
• Trials against seven of Nicaragua's political detainees are scheduled to continue today for a fourth consecutive day, a prolongation that relatives say is tantamount to another method of torture. (Confidencial)
  
  
• Twenty-one of Nicaragua's political prisoners are over the age of 60, an issue of increasing concern as their health deteriorates under deplorable detention conditions, say relatives. Last week former General Hugo Torres, aged 73, died in detention. (Confidencial, see Monday's briefs.)
  
  
• Nicaragua's ruling Sandinista Party has turned electoral fraud into a lucrative political business, reports El Confidencial. The FSLN has taken in a little over US $60 million dollars through Nicaragua’s laws for public campaign financing, a murky system characterized by its lack of transparency.
  

Ecuador

• Ecuadorean lawmakers approved regulations to allow women and girls access to abortions in cases of rape, following a constitutional court ruling that decriminalized such abortions. The new measure allows abortions up to 12 weeks of pregnancy for adult women in urban areas and up to 16 weeks for minors and adults in rural areas, reports the Guardian.
  

Brazil

• The death toll from floods and landslides in Rio de Janeiro state's mountain city of Petropolis rose to at least 117 yesterday and local officials said it could still rise sharply, with 116 more still unaccounted for. (Associated Press)
  
  
• Bolsonaro is defunding the National Institute for Space Research (INPE) landmark Cerrado savannah deforestation monitoring program. "What escapes no one is that the defunding of INPE comes amid international outcry over spiking deforestation, which the government has proved helpless to contain, when it hasn’t actively encouraged it," writes Mac Margolis in the Washington Post.
  
  
• Former Brazilian president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva is a frontrunner in this year's presidential election. He has sought to broaden his appeal beyond his traditional left-wing base, and will likely choose a center-right running mate. "Lula’s outreach and emphasis on building a moderate unity government seem intended both to win the election and set a new tone in Brazilian politics – leaving speechless those who accused him of being radical," writes Fábio Kerche at the Aula Blog.

Haiti

• Thousands of Haitian garment workers protested in Port-au-Prince yesterday to demand higher wages following weeks of similar demonstrations over pay and working conditions at firms that export to U.S. clothing retailers, reports Reuters.

Costa Rica

• Both of the finalists in Costa Rica's presidential runoff are largely aligned economically and ideologically. The main difference between José María Figueres and Rodrigo Chaves are personalistic, and mark a growing disenchantment in Costa Rica with establishment parties, according to Nueva Sociedad.

Colombia

• Chances for a viable centrist unity candidate in Colombia's presidential elections this year seem increasingly distant, and a run-off between populist candidates on the left and right– in the vein of similarly divisive elections in 2018 -- seems the most likely outcome of May's vote, write Theodore Kahn and Silvana Amaya in Americas Quarterly.
  
  
• An "invisible" Colombian drug lord whose criminal history dates to the country's former paramilitary army has been revealed to have set up drug routes with dissident guerrilla fighters, an example of how the erstwhile enemies are finding new opportunities to advance mutual trafficking interests, reports InSight Crime.
  

Peru

• Peruvian President Pedro Castillo's approval rating is at its lowest point since he took office last July, according to a new Ipsos poll. Only 25 percent of respondents in the February poll approve of Castillo, while 69 percent disapprove. (Latin America Risk Report)
  

Regional

• For a year, Latin America has been on the receiving end of COVID-19 “vaccine diplomacy,” but in recent months, several Latin American countries have swapped roles, and are now donating vaccines abroad. In all, 11 Latin American countries have cumulatively donated at least 7.7 million vaccine doses, according to calculations by the Wilson Center’s Latin American Program. (Wilson Center Weekly Asado)
  
  
• Latin American countries scored poorly on Transparency International’s latest corruption index: of the 19 Latin American countries ranked, three-quarters scored below 50 in the Corruption Perceptions Index (CPI) for 2021. The worst was Venezuela, which scored below North Korea and Afghanistan, reports InSight Crime.
  
  
• For those concerned about leftist economic plans in the region, it's worth noting that Latin America's centrist and right-wing governments in recent years were neither good for economies nor capable of reining in deficit spending, writes James Bosworth in the Latin America Risk Report this week.

Languages

• The last living speaker of Yamana, the language of the Indigenous Yagan community in Chile, died at age 93. (Reuters)

Mexico

• Mexican marathon champion Germán Silva's is running across the length of his country, a journey that shows a relatively unknown Mexico, writes Kevin Sieff in the Washington Post.

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

Guatemala detains more anti-corruption prosecutors (Feb. 17, 2022)

Guatemalan authorities arrested two assistant prosecutors from the Special Prosecutor’s Office against Impunity (FECI), yesterday, the latest in a string of detentions of anti-corruption officials. Both assistant prosecutors were involved in uncovering a corruption plot between lawyers, politicians and businessmen to elect judges, reports Reuters. Guatemalan authorities say arrest warrants are pending against two other assistant prosecutors involved in that case.

The case against yesterday's detainees will be presided over by Judge Geisler Smaille Pérez Domínguez, who has been implicated in the "Parallel Commissions 2020" case that the assistant prosecutors were investigating, reports the Associated Press.

The crackdown follows an explosive report this week by investigative media outlet El Faro: A former confidant of President Alejandro Giammattei accused him in sworn testimony of negotiating the delivery of $2.6 million in bribes from construction companies to finance his campaign in 2019. In exchange, according to the witness, Giammattei promised to keep then-Minister of Communications, Infrastructure, and Housing José Luis Benito in his post for a year in order to allow him to continue operating a multimillion-dollar corruption scheme of infrastructure projects.

The testimony is part of a case presided over by Judge Erika Aifán, one of the most widely-recognized anti-corruption and anti-drug trafficking judges in Guatemala. Last month Attorney General Consuelo Porras asked the Supreme Court of Justice to remove the immunity from prosecution of Aifán. 

Yesterday's arrests mark the second time in a week that people working on high-level anti-corruption cases have been arrested in Guatemala. The U.S. State Department voiced concern over the "Guatemalan Public Ministry’s unacceptable mistreatment and persistent abuse of current and former independent prosecutors.  Under the leadership of Attorney General Consuelo Porras, the Public Ministry used searches and arrests based on sealed indictments and selectively leaked case information with the apparent intent to single out and punish Guatemalans who are combating impunity and promoting transparency and accountability."

U.S. State Department previously included Porras on the Engel List for “a pattern of obstruction of investigations into corruption,” reports El Faro.

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Saab cooperated with DEA

Alex Saab, a businessman linked to high-level corruption in Venezuela's government, was secretly signed up by the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration as a source in 2018. As part of his multi-year cooperation with U.S. authorities, he shared information about bribes he paid to top officials in President Nicolás Maduro’s government. Saab also forfeited millions of dollars in illegal proceeds he admitted to earning from corrupt state contracts, according to revelations made public yesterday, following a heated closed door hearing in a U.S. federal court, reports the Associated Press.

Saab started communicating with DEA and FBI agents in Colombia about his planned cooperation in 2016. With his lawyers he continued those discussions with federal agents and prosecutors through June 2018, when he signed a “cooperating source agreement” with the DEA, the court document filed by prosecutors says. (Miami Herald)

For nearly a year, Saab reported paying bribes to Venezuelan officials to secure illicit food, housing and other contracts totaling hundreds of millions of dollars with the government. Saab communicated with DEA special agents “via telephone, text and voice messaging,” the document says, and he “engaged in proactive cooperation,” meaning he recorded conversations with co-conspirators targeted in the U.S. investigation.

Saab also made four wire transfers totaling more than $12 million of his Venezuelan contract profits to a U.S. bank account controlled by the DEA as part of his cooperation with the agency, the document says.

Saab was deactivated as a source after he missed a May 2019 deadline to surrender to or face criminal charges, as had been previously agreed during meetings in which he was represented by U.S. and Colombian attorneys. Two months later, he was sanctioned by the Trump administration and indicted in Miami federal court on charges of siphoning millions from Venezuelan state contracts.

U.S. prosecutors accuse Saab, a Colombia-born businessman and dealmaker for Maduro’s government, of siphoning around $350 million out of Venezuela via the United States as part of a bribery scheme linked to the state-controlled exchange rate, reports Reuters.

Saab's lawyer in the Miami court argued the businessman's family in Venezuela could be jailed or physically harmed by Maduro’s government if his interactions with U.S. law enforcement became known. U.S. prosecutors had sought to keep meetings with U.S. law enforcement a secret, out of concern for Saab’s safety and that of his family, some of whom are still in Venezuela. But they downplayed such dangers yesterday, saying Saab’s legal team hadn’t taken them up on an offer to assist his family in leaving Venezuela.

A New York based lawyer for Saab said the businessman only met with U.S. law enforcement officials to explain that his companies had done nothing wrong, and that Venezuela was fully aware of his engagement with those officials. But the news could be an embarrassment to Maduro’s government, which has championed Saab as a special envoy who helped Venezuela’s government conduct business deals under the radar of U.S. sanctions, reports the Guardian. Maduro’s allies have characterized Washington’s pursuit of Saab as part of an “economic war” on Venezuela being waged by the U.S. government.

News Briefs

Regional Relations

• Venezuela's political crisis has become a source of geopolitical discord. "The Venezuelan parties’ recent readiness to negotiate could allow for a more constructive role from foreign powers, according to a new Crisis Group report. "The Venezuelan parties’ recent readiness to negotiate could allow for a more constructive role from foreign powers," but "bringing the various foreign powers on board with compromise will require adapting to their key interests and red lines."
  
  
• Russian President Vladimir Putin on Wednesday hosted his Brazilian counterpart Jair Bolsonaro for talks in Moscow and hailed ties between the two countries, which he described as consisting of "friendship and mutual understanding." Photos of their meeting in the Kremlin showed the presidents sitting close to each other, with a small end table between them, in contrast to recent meetings with European leaders that featured a table several meters long, reports the Associated Press.
  
  
• Bolsonaro said during the visit that his country is interested in small nuclear reactors that are made by Russia's state nuclear energy corporation Rosatom, reports Reuters.
  
  
• Bolsonaro’s trip to Moscow had been on the books since December, well before the Ukraine crisis unfolded, but in recent days U.S. and Brazilian officials sought to dissuade Brazil's president from carrying out the visit. (See yesterday's briefs.)

Brazil

• At least 104 people have died after heavy rains sent devastating mudslides and floods through Petrópolis, in Brazil's Rio de Janeiro state. The downpours, which on Tuesday alone exceeded the average for the entire month of February, caused mudslides that buried homes, flooded streets, washed away cars and buses and left gashes hundreds of yards wide on the region’s mountainsides.The number of dead will likely rise as rescue efforts continue. (Reuters, Associated Press)
  

Haiti

• The United States, the European Union and others pledged $600 million in additional funds to help Haiti reconstruct its southern peninsula following a devastating earthquake six months ago. The pledges made during a conference held by the United Nations and Haiti's government fell short of an international push to raise $2 billion, reports the Associated Press. (See yesterday's briefs.)

Jamaica

• Jamaica's Supreme Court is trying 33 alleged gang members on charges including arson, murder and being part of a criminal organization. The case is testing recent judicial reforms designed to fight the island's powerful criminal groups, reports Reuters. Prime Minister Andrew Holness' government is hoping for convictions that could help slow gang violence in Jamaica, which authorities say is responsible for 70 percent of the country's homicides. (See last week's Just Caribbean Updates.)

Mexico

• Tentative signs of progress are emerging in talks between the private sector and Mexico's government towards forging a compromise on President Andrés Manuel López Obrador's controversial energy reform plans. Mexico's desire to avoid conflict with the United States over a regional trade pact has increased pressure for an accord, reports Reuters.
  

Peru

• A month after a massive oil spill off Peru's shore, dozens of beaches near Lima remain deserted and thousands of fishermen remain without work as clean up proceeds slowly. Less than a quarter of the 11,900 barrels spilled in January have been recovered, reports the Associated Press.

Chile

• Chile's Constituent Convention started formally debating motions for a new magna carta this week. The issues are varied and foundational, including: debates over plans to nationalise mining, the creation of a one-chamber Congress, water rights, and protections for Indigenous territories, among others. (Al Jazeera)

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

Latin America Daily Briefing

JOH detained in shackles (Feb. 16, 2022)

Former Honduran president Juan Orlando Hernández was detained by police in Tegucigalpa yesterday, after an extradition request by the United States, where federal prosecutors have accused him of participating in a "violent drug-trafficking conspiracy." He presented himself voluntarily to security officers in front of his home, and was escorted away wearing a bulletproof vest and shackles that bound him hand and foot. (Washington Post, See yesterday's post.)

Hernández is expected to be presented in court today, but the legal battle over his extradition could last months. 

The DEA has spent almost a decade building the case that led them to Juan Orlando Hernández, reports Univisión. Between approximately 2005 and 2017, the former president of Honduras allegedly received millions of dollars in illicit campaign financing – “bribes” according to U.S. prosecutors – from a who’s who of Mexican and Honduran drug traffickers. If Hernández is extradited, the accusations of bribes - which Hernández denies - could finally be put to the test in front of a jury.

But, though U.S. prosecutors moved swiftly once Hernández left office, the former president's fate is not sealed, reports InSight Crime. Hernández has spent years weathering allegations of drug trafficking. Nonetheless, his claims to immunity from prosecution are unlikely to hold water, according to legal experts.

Hernández is widely disliked in Honduras. Fireworks exploded around Tegucigalpa almost immediately after Hernández was detained, and about a hundred protesters gathered around his residence to celebrate, reports the New York Times.

The detention is a spectacular fall from grace for a man who was once considered one of Washington’s top allies in Central America, reports the Guardian. And indeed, while the U.S. is now pursuing Hernández, it supported his government for years, despite human rights violations and a 2017 marked by irregularities.

U.S. Senator Patrick Leahy criticized the U.S.'s historic support for the former president: "Throughout the past eight years of decay, depravity, and impunity, successive U.S. administrations sullied our reputation by treating Hernández as a friend and partner."

More Honduras

• Criterio reports on the fortune amassed by the Hernández family in its years of political power.
  
  
• The six detained Guapinol environmental defenders still have not been released from pretrial detention, following a Supreme Court order to liberate them on Friday. Reports indicate they could be released today. (Radio Progreso, see Friday's briefs and yesterday's.)

News Briefs

Cuba

• Cuban courts sentenced 20 defendants on charges of sedition in relation to anti-government protests last July. Some protesters have been sentenced for up to 20 years in prison and hundreds of other people await verdicts following trials elsewhere in the country, reports the Associated Press.
  

Nicaragua

• Nicaragua's government started trials against seven opposition leaders yesterday, the latest in a series of judicial actions against political detainees that could keep critics locked up for years. So far, all 21 of those tried have been found guilty and have been sentenced to up to 13 years in prison. Juan Sebastián Chamorro and two other former presidential candidates were among the group put on trial yesterday. The trials -- characterized as farcical by observers -- are expected to continue in the El Chipote prison today, behind closed doors, reports Confidencial. The trials are “an attack on all types of dissidence,” WOLA president Carolina Jiménez told the Washington Post.

Regional Relations

• The U.S. Biden administration urged Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro to defend "democratic principles" in Moscow, after he disregarded a U.S. request to call off an upcoming meeting with Russian leader Vladimir Putin, reports the Miami Herald. (See yesterday's briefs.)

Argentina

• A preliminary agreement announced between Argentina’s government and the International Monetary Fund does little to address the country's long term economic problems, but is likely the least negative course of action the IMF could have taken for Argentine society, writes Alejandro Werner, the IMF's former director for the Western Hemisphere in Americas Quarterly.

Haiti

• A Jamaican judge again postponed the hearing of former Haitian Senator John Joël Joseph, accused of involvement in the murder of Haitian President Jovenel Moïse, who has requested asylum in Jamaica. U.S. authorities have their eyes on Joseph and FBI agents have already started interviewing him, reports the Miami Herald.
  
  
• Haiti's government will lead an international donors’ conference today in hopes of raising billions of dollars toward the recovery and reconstruction of the country's southern peninsula, devastated by a deadly earthquake six months ago. (Miami Herald)

Guatemala

• Lawyers for the Agua Caliente Maya Q'eqchi' Indigenous community in Guatemala made arguments before the Inter-American Court of Human Rights last week. The community is demanding that the Guatemalan government give them title to their land and the right to determine how its natural resources are exploited, a case that could have far-reaching implications for Indigenous communities throughout the Americas, reports the Associated Press.
  
  
• This is the first time the Guatemalan state has faced judgement in an international court for violating the ancestral land rights of Indigenous communities. A ruling in favor of Agua Caliente would be a victory for all 16 Q’eqchi’ communities in the municipality of El Estor, whose demands to be consulted on the Fénix mine and other megaprojects have been repeatedly ignored. Their resistance has historically led to deadly repression, reports Nacla.

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

U.S. requests JOH extradition (Feb. 15, 2022)

The United States has asked Honduras to arrest former president Juan Orlando Hernández for his eventual extradition to the U.S., yesterday. National Police and soldiers surrounded the neighborhood around Hernández’s home last night. The Supreme Court is scheduled to meet this morning to choose a judge to consider the extradition request, reports the Associated Press.

There has been widespread speculation over whether Hernández would be charged after finishing his term last month, as U.S. prosecutors repeatedly implicated him in his brother’s 2019 drug trafficking trial, alleging that his political rise was fueled by drug profits. His younger brother, former congressman Juan Antonio ‘Tony’ Hernández was convicted of drug trafficking and related weapons charges and is now serving a life sentence in prison. Hernández was also named as a co-conspirator in two other cases in New York. Honduras changed its constitution in 2012 — while Hernández was president of the congress — to allow the extradition of Hondurans facing drug trafficking charges. (Univisión, Proceso, Criterio)

Hernández's lawyers argue that the former president has a certain level of immunity from prosecution as a representative to the Central American Parliament (Parlacen). But that point is disputed by other experts, Luis Javier Santos, Honduras' best known anti-corruption prosecutor, said on Twitter that "there is no impediment to his extradition." (Reuters)

In an early morning message on social media Hernández said he was willing to collaborate with the judge the Supreme Court assigns to the case. Criterio reports that Honduras' foreign ministry has sought preventive detention for Hernández due to fear that he could escape.

Until he left office on January 27 after two-terms as president, Hernández had been protected from prosecution by a Department of Justice policy to not indict sitting heads of state, notes Univisión. The existence of an extradition request means that an indictment has been filed in a U.S. court against that person. In a diplomatic note to the Honduran foreign ministry the United States says Hernández “is wanted to stand trial in the United States for drug trafficking and firearms offenses.”

The extradition request so quickly on the heels of a president leaving office is unusual, and will most likely send a pointed message to other governments in the region that the U.S. is willing to pursue high-level corruption cases, according to the New York Times. It is a significant move in support of the Biden administration's stated goals of strengthening anti-corruption efforts in Central America, a policy aimed at tackling the "root causes" of migration.

While many citizens celebrated the potential extradition yesterday, it is likely to become an explosive issue in Honduras, where Hernández’s National Party still exercises significant political power, notes the Washington Post. Many of the Supreme Court judges were named by Hernández.

More Honduras

• Several Guapinol environmental activists remain in jail after a Supreme Court decision last week ordered their release from pretrial detention. Radio Progreso and Honduras Now delve into the legal complications. (See last Friday's briefs.)

News Briefs

Regional Relations

• Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro is traveling to Russia, despite messages from the U.S. that the timing of the trip is inopportune given the potential Ukraine invasion. At least two of Bolsonaro’s Cabinet ministers said privately they have been trying since last week to convince him to call off the trip, reports the Washington Post.
  
  
• In the midst of rising tensions over Ukraine, Russian President Vladimir Putin is stepping up engagement and building ties to an expanding swath of the Western Hemisphere — including to countries, like Brazil and Argentina, that have traditionally been close to Washington, reports the New York Times. At the same time, Latin American leaders have their own political agendas, and may be using Russia to gain leverage with the United States. (See last Wednesday's briefs, among others.)
  
  
• The U.S. suspended avocado imports from Mexico, disrupting a $2.4 billion industry after threats to a U.S. agricultural inspector in Michoacán. (Guardian)

Guatemala

• An El Faro investigation revealed that a former confidant of President Alejandro Giammattei testified under oath that the Guatemalan leader negotiated a bribe of $2.6 million USD from construction firms to fund his 2019 campaign. In return, Giammattei promised multimillion-dollar infrastructure contracts to a ring of construction firms run by former Minister of Communications José Luis Benito, according to the witness.
  

Migration

• Mexico must seek alternatives to detention and asylum for migrants, especially ahead of an anticipated increase in arrivals this year, the U.N. refugee agency's representative for the country said Friday. (Reuters)
  

Brazil

• Bolsonaro issued two decrees that will drive gold prospecting with a focus on the Amazon rainforest, yesterday. One creates a program supporting small-scale mining, while the other simplifies regulations for prospecting requests. Environmentalists say they will exacerbate pollution and Amazon deforestation. (Associated Press)
  
  
• Brazilian lawmaker Kim Kataguiri said he will legally pursue high-profile public intellectuals who accused him on social media of "apology for Nazism." He said the accusations, which come after his appearance on a controversial podcast in which Kataguiri said he was against the criminalization of Nazism in Germany, were false. (Folha de S. Paulo, see yesterday's briefs on the podcast and debate it has provoked in Brazil.)

Venezuela

• Venezuelan opposition parties staged one of their largest rallies in years on Saturday. Opposition leader Juan Guaidó urged hundreds of supporters gathered in Caracas to unify and push for an early presidential election ahead of the currently scheduled vote in 2024, reports the Associated Press. He urged opposition activists to embrace a "key pillar ... that has given us the victory in the past: unity."
  

Chile

• Truckers angry over the the alleged slaying of a driver at the hands of undocumented migrants blocked major highways in northern Chile on Friday, reports the Associated Press. They lifted the blockade on Saturday after Chile's interior minister announced a state of emergency in the north of the country and stepped up police patrols, reports Deutsche Welle.
  

Culture

• A Mexican law meant to protect and safeguard the cultural heritage of Indigenous and Afro-Mexican peoples and communities is off to a messy start, and could fail to have meaningful applications, reports the Verge.
  

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

Latin America Daily Briefing

Haitian PM meets opposition coalition (Feb. 14, 2022)

 News Briefs

Haiti

• Haitian interim-prime minister Ariel Henry invited members of an opposition coalition to join his election push, rather than continue their efforts to replace him with a two-year transitional government aimed at creating better conditions for free and fair elections, reports the Miami Herald. Supporters of the Commission to Search for a Haitian Solution to the Crisis, which drafted the Montana Accord, have vacillated between having Henry join their proposed power-sharing agreement and calling for his removal from office. 
  
  
• Henry met Montana Accord representatives on Friday and the two sides said they are working on a negotiation process aimed at finding a consensual path out of the country's prolonged political crisis. (Press Lakay)
  
  
• Henry told the Miami Herald he would support sending suspects in the assassination of Haiti’s president to Miami to face murder conspiracy charges if U.S. authorities ask. In the interview, he denied reports as “fake news” that he was involved in the assassination of the president and was protecting a key suspect, Joseph Félix Badio, who has been on the lam.
  

Nicaragua

• Nicaraguan opposition leader Hugo Torres died Friday, eight months after his arrest by Daniel Ortega's government in a bid to prevent his presidential run. The 73-year-old former general was part of a group of dozens of opponents arrested in the lead up to November's presidential elections and held in deplorable conditions. Torres, was considered a hero in the Sandinista's guerrilla struggle against dictator Anastasio Somoza, and once led a raid to free Ortega, who was then a political prisoner himself. Torres later broke with Ortega to found a dissident Sandinista party. (Confidencial, Associated Press, Reuters, Wall Street Journal) 

Guatemala

• Leidy Indira Santizo Rodas, a Guatemalan lawyer who previously represented a United Nations-backed anti-corruption mission in court proceedings, was arrested last week in what some observers said was retribution against those who helped the highly effective anti-corruption effort. The European Union and the United States expressed concern Friday about the Guatemalan government’s legal actions against independent judges, lawyers and prosecutors, many of whom participated in past anti-corruption cases, reports the Associated Press. (See Friday's briefs.)

Regional Relations

• U.S. national spending on infrastructure could indirectly fuel a Central American economic boom -- as building projects in the U.S. could create work for migrants, who then send remittances home, where those dollars go a long way, reports Foreign Policy.
  
  
• Russia and China's recent statement heralding a "new era" is a challenge to a U.S.-led world order that "crystallizes a process of immense geopolitical significance," writes former Brazilian foreign minister Celso Amorim in Carta Capital. It remains to be seen whether the new international diplomatic map "will fully meet the desires for justice and balance held by many." For Latin America, the challenge will be finding a place in a changing geopolitical reality, he writes.

Brazil

• A major Brazilian podcaster sparked outrage when he suggested on air that Brazil should have a Nazi party and that people have a “right” to be anti-Jewish. Bruno Aiub was fired, and prosecutors say he may face charges for "the alleged offense of apologizing for Nazism." The firestorm is part of a national debate over free speech that mirrors that ocurring in the U.S. and elsewhere, reports the New York Times. 
  
  
• Eight people were killed in a police raid in a Rio de Janeiro favela. Police authorities claimed the dead are drug traffickers believed to have fled there from nearby Jacarezinho, where authorities have mounted a major anti-drug trafficking operation, reports AFP. (See Jan. 25's post.)
  
  
• The key to making Rio de Janeiro safer are police forces that respect the law and protocols, argues Pedro Abramovay in an interview with O Globo.  He praised new Supreme Court restrictions on operations in favelas, which could limit incursions that kill inhabitants. Brazil's Supreme Court last week ordered the Rio state government to present a plan within 90 days to reduce the violence of often deadly police raids in the favelas. (AFP)
  
  
• Brazil recorded the most deforestation ever in the Amazon rainforest for the month of January, according to new government data, as the destruction continues to worsen despite the government’s recent pledges to bring it under control, reports Al Jazeera.
  
  
• A new generation of Black authors have jolted Brazil’s literary establishment in recent years with imaginative and searing works that have found commercial success and critical acclaim, reports the New York Times. Many of the literary boom writers are members of a generation of Black Brazilians who became the first in their families to get a college degree, taking advantage of programs enacted by President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva.
  

Guyana

• British shadow foreign secretary David Lammy asked the government to pardon 70 abolitionists convicted for their role in the historic 1823 Demerara rebellion by enslaved people against British colonialists in the Caribbean. The revolt in part of present-day Guyana involved 10,000 enslaved people and was brutally crushed by the colonial militia. Granting a pardon would be “a significant step in Britain’s acknowledgment of its role in the history of slavery," wrote Lammy. (Guardian)

Honduras

• Honduran school-children have not had in-person teaching for two years due to Covid-19. This year's planned return to classrooms has been postponed again, and teachers insist the government advance in pediatric vaccination before returning to in-person teaching, reports Proceso. 

Regional

• Despite regional Covid-19 vaccination rates reaching almost two thirds of the population, fourteen countries have yet to reach the 40 percent coverage threshold, reports the Atlantic Center's Aviso LatAm.
  

Colombia

• Colombia's army fired General Jorge Herrera after reports linking him to drug trafficking. (El Tiempo)

Mexico

• Aggressive price-fixing by criminal groups has sent lime prices soaring in Mexico, reports the Guardian. Though weather conditions and exports have also contributed to the price hikes, cartels have played a key role. In places, cartels have reportedly limited picking to just a few days a week to more easily manipulate prices.
  
  
• Restorations on Michoacán’s centuries-old chapels raise questions about how architectural conservation should work — and whom such projects are really for -- New York Times.
  

Chile

• Chile’s next cabinet will not only be notable for the number of women, but also the positions they will hold -- including generally male dominated posts such as foreign minister and defense minister. (Wilson Center Weekly Asado)
  

Music

• The Gladys Palmera collection is the largest private archive of Latin American music in the world. Though it currently lives near Madrid, owner and broadcaster Alejandra Fierro Eleta is considering moving across the Atlantic, reports the Guardian.
  

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

Latin America Daily Briefing

LatAm democracy in decline (Feb. 11, 2022)

Global democracy is in trouble, but Latin America's indicators recorded the steepest decline last year, as measured by the Economist Intelligence Unit's Democracy Index. "The region’s weak commitment to democracy has allowed illiberal populists to thrive and a busy election calendar didn’t always advance the cause of democracy."

About 80 percent of the region's population live in democracies, but only Costa Rica and Uruguay are considered complete democracies by the index. Chile, for example, was downgraded to a "flawed" democracy due, partially, to low turnout in deeply polarized presidential elections. (El País)

News Briefs

Honduras

• Honduras' Supreme Court annulled the conviction of six environmental activists, who were sentenced by a lower court this week in a move widely criticized by rights groups and legal experts. The ruling immediately freed the "Guapinol 8" who have been in pre-trial detention for two and a half years, after opposing an open pit mine owned by one of the country’s most powerful couples. (Criterio, Tiempo, Radio Progreso, see yesterday's Latin America Daily Briefing post.)

Mexico

• Journalist Heber López was killed in Mexico's Oaxaca state yesterday, the fifth media worker killed in the country so far in 2022. (Associated Press)
  
  
• Though Mexico has long been known as the most dangerous place in the world for reporters, this year's assassinations have been particularly shocking and evince problem's with the national program to protect journalists, and reflect the general violence rate in the country, reports the Economist.

Guatemala

• Guatemala's Supreme Court declared admissible the request to strip Judge Pablo Xitumul de Paz of his judicial immunity, leaving him vulnerable to impeachment, this week. Repeated attacks and criminalization against justice operators in Guatemala are part of a systemic pattern that has been worsening, and that uses the criminal justice and disciplinary systems to undermine the independence of judges and prosecutors who oversee cases that involve serious human rights violations or large scale corruption, denounces the International Observatory on Guatemala. (WOLA)

Cuba

• "More than 60 years after the revolution that brought Fidel Castro to power, the regime is reverting to the most primitive forms of control as it struggles again — still — to find a way to keep the economy afloat and the Communist Party in power," writes Frida Ghitis in the Washington Post.

Regional Relations

• One of the key questions facing Costa Rica’s next president will be how to proceed with a nascent diplomatic alliance among Costa Rica, the Dominican Republic, and Panama—known as the Alliance for Development in Democracy—that could help advance not only the countries’ economies but also international efforts to address the situation in Nicaragua, writes Catherine Osborn in the Latin America Brief.
  
  
• Declining Chinese interest in Brazil is a sign of a wider regional trend, reports the Economist. "Although the presidents of Argentina and Ecuador recently went to Beijing in order to boost economic ties with China, economic agreements between China and Latin America have waned in recent years."
  
  
• ¿On a break? Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador said his country's diplomatic relations with Spain should be paused, as he faces pressure over plans to increase state presence in Mexico's energy market. (Reuters)

Brazil

• Brazil has consistently undermined its own environmental regulations under the Bolsonaro administration, pushing deforestation up to record rates. Lawmakers are now considering two additional pieces of legislation. One would legitimize land grabs up to 6,180 acres in all undesignated public forests. The second would legitimize large holdings on about 80,000 square miles of land once meant for the poor. (Conversation)

Jamaica

• The Jamaican government's efforts to stem rising violence by cracking down on illegal weapons is unlikely to produce meaningful results, given the constant flow of firearms smuggled into the country, reports InSight Crime. The U.S., followed by Haiti, are major sources of illicit guns in Jamaica. (See Tuesday's Just Caribbean Updates on Jamaica's homicide rates.)
  

Migration

• U.S. federal grand juries indicted three men this month in separate migrant smuggling cases that come as the Florida Keys and South Florida are experiencing a surge in maritime migration from Cuba and Haiti. The people are either coming by makeshift vessel or by hiring smugglers to ferry them to the United States, reports the Miami Herald.
  

Venezuela

• A move by the ELN to expand its control along the banks of the Orinoco River in Venezuela appears to be part of a broader strategy to control criminal economies in Colombia and Venezuela, reports InSight Crime.
  
  
• Venezuelan prosecutors are investigating an alleged party held on a table-top mountain in a protected Amazonian national park, reports AFP.

--

Latin America Daily Briefing

Guapinol activists found guilty in Honduras (Feb. 10, 2022)

Six Honduran environmentalists have been found guilty of crimes against an iron oxide mining company whose operations polluted rivers relied upon by thousands of people. The activists, from the small community of Guapinol, have been held in pre-trial detention for two and a half years, after opposing an open pit mine owned by one of the country’s most powerful couples. The case has been widely condemned by legal and human rights experts, reports the Guardian.

Amnesty International called the verdict “outrageous" and the UN special rapporteur on human rights defenders, said she was "appalled." In November 2020, the United Nations Working Group on Arbitrary Detention stated that the eight defenders’ detention was arbitrary and called for their immediate release.

Honduras became one of the most dangerous countries in the world for environmental activists following a 2009 coup, since then, hundreds of defenders have been killed, harassed and jailed on trumped-up criminal charges. Already in January of this year three environmental defenders were assassinated, notes El País.

News Briefs

El Salvador

• El Salvador has released another woman imprisoned for aggravated homicide who detained under the country's draconian abortion laws after suffering an obstetric emergency. "Elsy" had served more than a decade of a 30-year sentence. She was the fifth woman released before completion of her sentence since late December of last year, reports the Guardian.
  

Migration

• Many thousands of Black migrants from Africa and the Caribbean attempt to trek across the Americas towards the U.S. --though they have received little attention, they face racist policies and practices everywhere they go, writes Kovie Biakolo in The Nation.
  

Brazil

• Brazil's Senate will soon vote on a divisive bill -- backed by President Jair Bolsonaro -- that would loosen the country’s gun control measures, and thus effectively increase civilian firearm ownership. Approval would be a watershed moment for Brazil, as it would legally formalize years of presidential decrees making guns more accessible, reports Foreign Policy.
  

• A landmark agreement banning Amazon deforestation for growing soya worked to stop farmers for clearing land for that specific crop. But a new investigation shows that farmers in Mato Grosso state were clearing land to grow commodities other than soya, with 450 sq miles of rainforest felled between 2009 and 2019. (Guardian)

Costa Rica

• Outgoing Costa Rican President Carlos Alvarado’s party got less than one percent of the votes cast Sunday, according to the latest preliminary results from the Supreme Elections Tribunal. The party didn’t even earn one of the 57 seats in the Legislative Assembly, the latest victim of anti-incumbent sentiment in Latin America, reports the Associated Press. (See yesterday's briefs.)
  

Haiti

• Multiple law enforcement sources allege that Haitian interim Prime Minister Ariel Henry was involved in President Jovenel Moïse's assassination last July and that he has been central to the subsequent cover-up, reports CNN.
  

Regional Relations

• Nicaragua and El Salvador are accusing each other of violating their maritime territory in the Gulf of Fonseca, reports the Associated Press.
  

Regional 

• Lithium fever has pushed many politicians in Latin America to discuss nationalizing "white gold" resources, and there is talk of creating a OPEC-style organization for regional producers, reports El País.

Mexico

• Mexico City officials face a backlash over a program last year that distributed the anti-parasitic ivermectin to coronavirus patients. The drug has not been approved for use against coronavirus in Mexico (or anywhere else), but Mexico City officials later reported the intervention was successful at reducing hospitalization rates, prompting critics to compare the program to the infamous Tuskegee study, reports the Washington Post.

Venezuela

• A new report by Amnesty International found that politically motivated arrests in Venezuela were often preceded by stigmatization and smear campaigns launched by pro-government media. Hundreds of people remain detained without trial in Venezuela, as the Maduro government has clamped down on enemies perceived and real in the midst of growing discontent, reports the Guardian.
  
  
• A powerful Caracas gang has imposed a curfew after police raids left a dozen people dead – another example of how attempts to root out the gang have led to escalating violence and put residents in danger, reports InSight Crime.
  

Colombia

• Fifteen people have died and four are missing following a landslide in Colombia yesterday. (CNN)
  
  
• Liquid cocaine has bounced back as an increasingly popular drug smuggling method in Colombia, reports InSight Crime.
  

Floor is Lava

• Wolf Volcano erupted last month in Ecuador, creating a lava trail that extended for miles in an orange line so bright that it was visible from space -- photography in the New York Times.

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

Latin America Daily Briefing