Argentina's senate ratifies IMF deal (March 18, 2022)

Argentina's Senate voted late yesterday to approve a $45 billion debt deal with the International Monetary Fund (IMF). The 56-13 vote makes the agreement law -- the first time such a deal has been ratified by the country's Congress. The deal was backed by senators from across the political spectrum, but rejected by those closest to Vice President Cristina Fernández de Kirchner, who left the chamber before the final vote. (Reuters, Infobae)

The agreement must now be approved by the IMF board, which needs to sign off on the refinancing agreement. The board is set to meet in the coming days, and approval would unlock an initial nearly $10 billion disbursement, ahead of a $2.8 billion repayment due early next week, reports Reuters.

Later today, President Alberto Fernández will announce economic measures that will form part of his "war against inflation," which last month reached 4.7 percent. (Infobae)

Higher energy costs related to Russia's invasion of Ukraine could complicate Argentina’s already politically difficult plan to cut back on costly energy subsidies, a key part of the IMF program. But Argentina, an important grain producer, could also benefit from increased wheat prices, reports the Wall Street Journal. (See yesterday's briefs on the impact of fuel and commodity price increases in the region.)

More on the deal

• The IMF agreement includes a provision discouraging the use of cryptocurrencies, a measure aimed at preventing money laundering, informality and disintermediation. (Coindesk)

News Briefs

Peru

• Peru’s constitutional court has approved the release from prison of former president Alberto Fujimori, who is serving a 25-year sentence for murder and corruption charges, reports the Guardian. 
  
  
• The court reinstated the controversial 2017 pardon of Fujimori that a lower court had annulled on the grounds it had been granted illegally. To many, the favorable ruling was a reminder of the Fujimori family’s influence in Peru as it has shaped the country’s politics over the last three decades, reports the New York Times.

Regional Relations

• Beyond the question of access to fuel, the significance of the U.S. partial détente with Venezuela remains hard to gauge, writes Phil Gunsen in an International Crisis Group commentary. "Latin American governments, including those in Cuba and Nicaragua, are wondering, along with their foreign allies, what Washington’s apparent new willingness to engage what it perceives as a hostile government will mean for the region as a whole."
  
  
• The dramatic upheaval of global geopolitics in the last month has undoubtedly opened a window of opportunity for Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro, who is making overtures to Washington and toning down his support for Putin. According to experts, the Russia-Venezuela alliance has been overestimated and it is no longer clear if Moscow is bringing any value to the relationship, reports El País. 
  
  
• Rumors that the U.S. could lift oil sanctions against Venezuela have sparked an emotional debate among Venezuelan exiles — not just about the U.S. Biden administration's overture but about the larger question of whether the sanctions are really having the desired effect of dislodging Venezuela's Maduro government, reports WLRN.
  
  
• The Biden administration's decision to meet with Maduro met criticism from both Democratic and Republican members of Congress, but reactions from other actors in the U.S. and internationally have been less critical and more open to the prospect of negotiations, according to Venezuela Update. Chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee Gregory Meeks issued a statement on March 9 congratulating the Biden administration on the release of the two U.S. citizens detained in Venezuela, and describing the visit as “a real opportunity to advance meaningful negotiations between President Maduro and the opposition.”

Migration

• In February, the Colombian government canceled the legal citizenship status of approximately 43,000 Venezuelans in the country without warning. Those who have had their ID cards canceled now cannot carry out many daily activities or access public services in the country, and face bureaucratic obstacles, as well as potential detention and deportation, reports the Venezuela Update.
  
  
• Chilean President Gabriel Boric proposed that Latin American countries organize a joint quota system to receive Venezuelan migrants, similar to the system European Union countries used to respond to the Syrian refugee crisis in 2015. The issue of Venezuelan migration has been incendiary in northern Chile, where some residents have participated in hostile anti-migration marches. (Latin America Brief)

Chile

• Chile's new Boric administration faces significant challenges. Its first priorities include increasing tax revenue, pension reform, and influencing the country's Constitutional Convention so that the result passes in a citizen referendum later this year, reports the Economist.
  
  
• A proposed first article for Chile's new constitution that sought to modify the country's current status as a "subsidiary state"  -- which provides services where the private sector cannot -- foundered due to disagreement among leftist delegates about wording over how to express that the state would guarantee social rights. (LaBot Constituyente)
  
  
• Proposals permitting abortion and guaranteeing sexual education have been approved by convention delegates and would be reflected in the proposed new constitution. (LaBot Constituyente)

Colombia

• Abortion is now legal in Colombia, but women in rural areas may still find it difficult to get equal access to abortion — because they don’t have equal access to health care more generally, write researchers Sarah Moore and Kiran Stallone in the Washington Post.

Caribbean

• The British Duke and Duchess of Cambridge are embarking on tour of Jamaica, Belize and the Bahamas on Saturday that is widely viewed as an attempt to persuade other Caribbean nations not to follow Barbados's recent decision to become a republic. But experts say the UK should instead be helping Caribbean discuss independence, reports the Guardian.
  

Haiti

• Health professionals in Haiti held a three day strike this week over a spike in gang-related kidnappings that have further destabilised the crisis-stricken island. The stoppage included the shutting down of public and private health institutions in the capital Port-au-Prince and beyond, with only emergency rooms accepting patients. (Al Jazeera)

Mexico

• Fentanyl has made broad inroads in Mexico, where the synthetic drug is now being produced and consumed, reports El País.

Brazil

• Brazilian Jair Bolsonaro – who has been accused of spearheading a cataclysmic attack on Indigenous rights – was honored by his own government for his supposedly “altruistic” efforts to protect Indigenous lives, a move that angered Brazilian activists, reports the Guardian.
  

Bolivia

• The men fueling Bolivia's contraband car businesses, "chuteros," have recently received a fresh burst of attention, as a younger generation has taken to posting videos of their adrenaline-fueled border runs on Tiktok, reports the Guardian.
  

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Judge rules in favor of JOH's extradition (March 17, 2022)

Former Honduran President Juan Orlando Hernández should be extradited to the United States, where he faces drug trafficking and weapons charges, an Honduran judge ruled yesterday. Hernández was detained in Tegucigalpa in February, shortly after leaving office, in response to an extradition request by the United States. (See Feb. 16's post.) U.S. federal prosecutors have accused him of participating in a "violent drug-trafficking conspiracy."

Hernández appeared in court yesterday wearing a blue suit, shackled at the wrists and ankles.

Hernández's legal team said it will appeal the decision, which will be reviewed by the full Supreme Court. Hernández has maintained that statements against him have been made by drug traffickers extradited by his government who wanted to seek revenge against him.

(Associated Press, La Prensa)

News Briefs

Regional

• The Ukraine conflict will likely result in larger current account deficits and mounting external financing needs across energy importer countries in Central America and the Caribbean. But given Latin America’s reliance on commodity exports and waning trade dependence on Europe, the positive terms of trade shock may boost exports in many countries, reports Americas Quarterly. (See Tuesday's post.)

El Salvador

• The Inter-American Commission on Human Rights held a hearing yesterday into widespread unlawful surveillance using Pegasus spyware against journalists and activists in El Salvador. Senior human rights officials have repeated calls for a ban on the powerful Israeli spyware until safeguards are in place to protect civilians from illegal hacking by governments, reports the Guardian. (See Jan. 13's post.)
  
  
• An investigation published in January documented the use of NSO Group’s Pegasus spyware against 35 journalists and human rights defenders in El Salvador. (See Jan. 13's post.)
  
  
• El Salvador's military took over two San Salvador bus lines accused by the Bukele administration of illegally increasing tariffs. El Faro reports that transit on Monday was chaotic, with soldiers driving buses and confused officers attempting to indicate routes.

Brazil

• President Jair Bolsonaro’s cash subsidy program for Brazil's poor has pushed up his popularity among the country's most vulnerable ahead of this year's presidential election. According to a new Quaest poll, Bolsonaro would receive 19% of the votes in the first round of the October election, up from the 16% in February. Former President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva remains in the lead with 27% of voting intentions, reports Bloomberg. (See Tuesday's briefs on Bolsonaro's plans to increase handouts this year.)
  
  
• In the poll disapproval of Bolsonaro drops from 45% to 23% among those who started receiving aid and voted for him in 2018. (CNN)
  
  
• A highway that would slice across the Amazon is unfinished, but has already spurred greater deforestation -- and a wave of violent armed criminal groups along its path, reports the Washington Post. Since 2015, deforestation along the highway has grown ninefold, and has been closely accompanied by the threat of violence.

Mexico

• Mexican armed forces captured Juan Gerardo Treviño Chávez, the reported leader of the feared Northeast Cartel. But the arrest may only stoke further violence along the U.S. border by providing an opening for the Jalisco Cartel New Generation to continue its national expansion, warns InSight Crime.
  
  
• The battle to control El Limoncito, a small village in Mexico's Morelia state, shows the intensity of the conflict raging in Mexico’s hinterlands after decades of state abandonment and cartel control. The community has been turned into a ghost town by a two-year turf war between warring criminal groups, reports the Guardian.

Ecuador

• Ecuador’s political situation is rapidly deteriorating, writes Sebastián Hurtado in Americas Quarterly. "To blame is institutional malaise, division and the arrival for the first time in Ecuador of the kind of brutal violence on a mass scale faced by other countries in the region."
  

Venezuela

• Venezuela expert David Smilde's work examines how the powerful can use abstract narratives and misinformation to preserve or advance their position. "Chavismo has weaponized media in the service of power. The domestic and international opposition likewise uses disinformation," he writes in Nacla. "In the face of a fraught conflict with missteps and misinformation on both sides, empirically informed analysis offers one tool to cut through the noise."
  

Colombia

• The arrest of a group of women smuggling cocaine at a Colombian airport highlights how women routinely serve as low-level couriers for drug rings – a highly visible and risky job that has contributed to mass female drug detentions in Colombia and the wider region, reports InSight Crime.
  

Histories

• Greater equality than that experienced in other Mesoamerican cities might have been a key ingredient for the success enjoyed by the ancient city of Monte Albán, a Zapotec community in Mexico. (Guardian)

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Amazon nears tipping point (March 16, 2022)

News Briefs

Regional Relations

• A U.S. naval engineer and his wife tried to sell secret nuclear technology to Brazil. The case sheds light on Brazil's struggles with its submarine nuclear reactor program. In fact, the Brazilian government's hope that Russia could be a partner for that technology could be one reason behind President Jair Bolsonaro's efforts to maintain a positive relationship with his Russian counterpart, Vladimir Putin, even in the current conflict context, reports the New York Times.

Brazil

• Brazil's Ituna-Itatá reserve has become among the most invaded Indigenous territories in all of Brazil since Bolsonaro's election. The area is a grim illustration of the intractable forces destroying the Amazon, reports the New York Times Magazine in a deep-dive into the war for the rainforest.

Amazon

• The Amazon is on the brink of a tipping point, when it can no longer maintain its own ecology and swaths are converted into degraded open savanna. Environmentalists say the nine countries that share the rainforest must drastically expand their enforcement capacity, and that improving the region's economy could decrease incentives for illegal activities in protected areas, reports the Washington Post.
  
  
• Indigenous leaders from nine countries in the Amazon basin met in Ecuador yesterday and demanded the region's governments to halt extractive industries which damage the rainforest, urging them to respect agreements and legal rulings recognizing communities' rights over territories. (Reuters)
  
  
• The governments are failing to live up to their promises to protect indigenous groups, the leaders representing 500 communities said, adding they feel disrespect when they are not consulted over the exploitation of oil and mining projects in their territories. (Reuters)
  

Chile

• Chile’s interior minister Izkia Siches was met by gunfire when travelling in Chile's south, where the former government declared a state of emergency due to violent land disputes with Indigenous groups. The new Boric administration said no one was injured and no vehicles were damaged, and that the government will press ahead with plans to end the state of emergency, reports Bloomberg.
  

Mexico

• Mexican journalist Armando Linares was killed yesterday, the eighth press worker murdered in Mexico so far this year. Reporters and photographers have been murdered this year in Mexico at the rate of almost one a week, despite claims from the government that the situation is under control, reports the Associated Press.
  

Venezuela

• Venezuela's Maduro government is seeking to broaden participation in negotiations with opposition politicians, and is seeking meetings with political and business groups, and unions, among others, reports Reuters.
  
  
• The families of eight U.S. citizens who remain imprisoned in Venezuela have asked U.S. President Joe Biden to maintain dialogue with the Maduro government, despite domestic political backlash, reports the Miami Herald. (See Monday's briefs.)
  

Guatemala

• Guatemala’s congress shelved a bill that would have imposed up to 10 years of jail time for women who obtained abortions, yesterday. It was a startling reversal, just a week after lawmakers passed the bill which also banned same-sex marriage and sex education. President Alejandro Giammattei, who had initially celebrated the bill's passage, later said he would veto the legislation if it reached his desk for ratification. Experts say the reversal was probably prompted by the immediate domestic and international backlash to the bill's passage, reports the New York Times. (See last Thursday's post, and Friday's briefs.)

Ecuador

• Ecuador’s president, Guillermo Lasso, said he would propose tightening time limits for abortion in cases of rape after lawmakers voted to permit abortion for pregnancies arising from rape until 12 weeks’ gestation, or up to 18 weeks for adult women belonging to indigenous groups or who live in rural areas, reports Reuters.
  

Colombia

• Colombian activists pushed for abortion rights in court, but also supported their legal strategy with a detailed effort to document how the negative impacts of abortion restrictions in the country disproportionately affected rural and poor women, and a broad effort to destigmatize abortion socially, writes Catalina Martínez Coral in a New York Times op-ed.
  
  
• Colombia's presidential candidates must now choose running mates ahead of May's election. Observers are closely watching front-runner Gustavo Petro. He had initially promised to go with his Pacto Histórico coalition's second-place winner, Francia Márquez who had a remarkably strong showing in Sunday's primaries, but appears likely to instead select a candidate who will broaden his voter base, reports Bloomberg. (See Monday's post and yesterday's briefs.)
  
  
• Current trends indicate Petro is likely to pass to a second round against right-wing Federico Guttiérrez, known as "Fico." Neither would govern with a Congressional majority, and would face uphill battles to pass legislation. (La Silla Vacía, La Silla Vacía)

Haiti

• Haiti asked Jamaica to return John Joël Joseph, a former Haitian senator accused in the brazen assassination of President Jovenel Moïse last July.  In Jamaica, Joseph is charged with illegal entry after he, his wife and two sons were arrested in January, reports the Miami Herald.

Argentina

• Argentina’s inflation accelerated in February at its fastest pace in nearly a year, surpassing forecasts and challenging the government’s targets for this year in its preliminary agreement with the International Monetary Fund, reports Bloomberg.
  

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Latin America Daily Briefing

Russia conflict fallout (March 15, 2022)

The Russia-Ukraine conflict has kicked over the geopolitical game board (to poorly translate the expression from Spanish) -- and threatens to thrust Latin America back into a Cold War diplomatic world, reports the Miami Herald. Many countries in the region have responded by walking a delicate line, declining to support Russia’s invasion abroad without forcefully condemning it at home. The U.S. has sought to increase its engagement with governments in the region — including longtime adversaries of the United States and allies of Russia, like Cuba and Venezuela.

It's not just geopolitics -- the economic impacts will be varied and are all still playing out, but yesterday a number of governments announced responses to economic impacts, such as rising fuel costs, though, in some cases the moves also respond to national political concerns, like Brazil's elections.

Brazil

• Brazil's federal government plans to announce a new program, this week, providing about $32 billion of economic stimulus ahead of October's presidential elections, reports Reuters. The so-called 'Income and Opportunity Program' includes an early payment of some public pension checks, a measure letting workers withdraw some cash from a severance fund, a new microcredit program, and an expansion of payroll-deductible loans.
  
  
• Brazil's Bolsonaro administration is also considering a temporary increase of the government’s Auxilio Brasil welfare program in response to the economic impacts of the Russia-Ukraine conflict, reports Reuters. The social program, which pays monthly installments of around $78 to approximately 18 million families, would be temporarily adjusted if the conflict's impact on inflation persists.

Paraguay

• Paraguay's government said yesterday that it plans to create a fund to subsidize rising fuel prices following recent transport worker protests against spiking energy costs being driven up by supply concerns due to Russia's invasion of Ukraine, reports Reuters. 
  

Venezuela

• Chevron is preparing to take operating control of its joint ventures in Venezuela if Washington relaxes oil sanctions on Caracas, reports Reuters.
  
  
• But yesterday, the White House said it is not currently discussing importing oil from Venezuela. "It's not an active conversation at this time," press secretary Jen Psaki told reporters. Speculation grew last week over a potential thaw between the United States and Venezuela, after a high-level U.S. delegation met with President Nicolás Maduro and Venezuela released two U.S. citizen detainees. (AFP)

News Briefs

Regional

• Chile's Boric aspires to be one of the world's greenest heads of state, but he's part of a broader wave of leftist, climate-conscious leaders (or presidential hopefuls) who could put Latin America on the cusp of a green revolution, according to Bloomberg. 
  
  
• In addition to Boric, Bloomberg cites Colombian frontrunner Gustavo Petro's environmental campaign promises, Honduran President Xiomara Castro's moves to limit mining, and Brazilian frontrunner Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva's focus on reducing Amazon deforestation. And where leaders are not discussing climate action, public pressure is increasingly pushing them to do so as the region faces increasing impacts from climate change.
  
  
• Latin America's new leftist governments face profound challenges to their political projects that make the current wave markedly different from the "Pink Tide" of the early 2000's, write Thea Riofrancos and David Adler in the New Statesman. Four transformations set the original pink tide apart from the present one, they argue: structural (economic), governance (lack of legislative majorities), legal (right-wing use of judicial systems), and geopolitical.
  

Brazil

• A Lula comeback in Brazil could mean the country's return to an independent foreign policy, argues Forrest Hylton in the London Review of Books.

Regional Relations

• Analysts often focus on China's economic and trade influence in Latin America, but that approach belies China's trend elsewhere in the world to leverage commercial interests for military purposes, argue Leland Lazarus and Ryan C. Berg in Foreign Policy.
  
  
• The President of Mexico, Andrés Manuel López Obrador, highlighted on Monday the need for the integration of Latin American and Caribbean countries, after receiving a letter from his Argentine counterpart Alberto Fernández, in which he proposes to form an axis of Mexico, Brazil, and Argentina, reports Telesur.
  
  
• Former Honduran President Juan Orlando Hernández -- detained in response to a U.S. extradition request -- "is a window into the contradictions of the drug war itself, and his fall from grace speaks to deeper dysfunction within U.S.-led efforts to combat drug cartels—not just in Honduras but throughout Latin America," writes Jared Olsen in Foreign Policy.
  

Chile

• Chilean President Gabriel Boric said his new government would balance plans to expand the country's social programs, while being fiscally responsible. Boric said he plans to achieve his economic goals through a tax reform bill. The message was likely intended to calm investors, reports Reuters.

Colombia

• Colombian environmental activist Francia Márquez did not win the Pacto Histórico coalition presidential primary on Sunday, but she came in third overall with 757,000 votes. A political novice who has never held electoral office, she handily beat political veterans like Sergio Fajardo, Alejandro Gaviria and Carlos Amay, reports El País. (See yesterday's post.)
  
  
• Colombian officials said that the son of a notorious paramilitary leader has won an election to be a special member of Congress representing victims of the conflict. For the first time, victims of the conflict between the government and the ex-guerilla FARC group -- who signed a peace deal in 2016 -- will have their own representatives in Congress. (AFP)
  

Migration

• For the second time in two weeks, a large group of Haitian migrants -- between 100 and 150 -- came to shore in the Florida Keys. It is unclear whether the boat came directly from Haiti or elsewhere in the Caribbean. The Miami Herald reports that several more boats were scheduled to leave Haiti last weekend, bound for Florida.

Peru

• Peru’s opposition-led Congress approved the start of impeachment proceedings againstPresident Pedro Castillo over allegations of corruption, reports Al Jazeera. Legislators will need 87 votes to remove Castillo from office following the impeachment trial.
  
  

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Petro sweeps Colombian primaries (March 14, 2022)

Leftist politician Gustavo Petro won the presidential nomination for the Pacto Histórico coalition Colombia's primary elections yesterday. He won by a landslide within Pacto Histórico, which itself won the most votes yesterday, cementing Petro's status as frontrunner ahead of the May presidential elections.

Petro obtained more than 4.5 million votes, within the 5.8 million cast for Pacto Histórico. While it is a record for the country's primary votes, its far short of the estimated 10 million he would need to win outright in May. Most likely he will go to a runoff vote against the second-place candidate. (La Silla Vacía)

Centrist Sergio Fajardo won the nomination for the centrist Coalición de la Esperanza -- but the coalition's poor showing of 2.3 million votes adds to pessimism about a viable middle-ground option for Colombia's presidency, notes the Latin America Risk Report.

Right-winger Federico Gutiérrez will run for Equipo de Colombia, which obtained nearly 2 million votes, stronger than expected, reports El Páis.

Yesterday's primaries and legislative votes show a country that has swung to the left, reports Silla Vacía. Pacto Histórico was the most voted party in the country, for both the Senate and the Lower Chamber, though it fell short of obtaining majority. It will be the first time a leftist coalition is among the strongest groups in Congress, in Colombia, reports El País. 

Nonetheless, the next president will face a fractured Congress, a challenge for the winner's legislative agenda, according to the Latin America Risk Report. Centrist Coalición de la Esperanza obtained about 14 Senate seats, making it the fourth largest grouping in Congress, reports La Silla Vacía.

Also, for the first time, regions most affected by the country's armed conflict selected victims to occupy special seats reserved in the Chamber of Representatives.

Nicaragua convicts Chamorro siblings

Nicaraguan activist Cristiana Chamorro, a prominent opponent of President Daniel Ortega, has been found guilty of money-laundering and other charges, along with her brother, former lawmaker Pedro Joaquín Chamorro and three former employees of the Fundación Violeta Barrios Chamorro, which focuses on freedom of speech. 

The convictions are part of a broad crackdown against political opponents and critics that put Ortega's challengers behind bars last year. Cristiana Chamorro faces up to 13 years in jail.  Pedro Joaquín Chamorro, faces nine years in jail. In recent weeks Nicaragua's judicial system has convicted more than 30 opposition activists, many charged with treason, doubling down on the crackdown following Ortega's sham reelection in November. (Washington Post, Confidencial)

Human rights groups, as well as U.S. and Costa Rican officials emphasized the sham nature of the judicial proceedings, which they say are aimed at quashing dissent against the Ortega-Murillo government. (Confidencial)

The judge ignored 1,000 pages of evidence presented by the defense of the Chamorro's and former employees of Violeta Barrios Chamorro Foundation, writes their brother and prominent exiled journalist Carlos F. Chamorro in Confidencial.

News Briefs

Regional Relations

• An Argentine judge ordered the detention of Venezuelan PSUV stalwart, Diosdado Cabello. The order would apply if Cabello enters Argentina, and responds to a United States detention order in relation to drug trafficking charges. (EFE) The judicial order responds to rumors that Cabello could enter Argentina through the country's northern Jujuy province, on the border with Bolivia. (Infobae)
  
  
• The U.S. Biden administration has faced a significant domestic political backlash in response to its efforts to ease oil sanctions against Venezuela, reports the Wall Street Journal. In addition to replacing Russian crude now affected by U.S. sanctions, the White House also sees an opportunity to reduce Russian influence in Venezuela and aid negotiations between President Nicolás Maduro and the political opposition, reports the Wall Street Journal. (See last Wednesday's post.)

Venezuela

• Venezuela's oil output could rise by at least 400,000 barrels per day if the United States authorizes requests by state-run PDVSA's partners to trade Venezuelan crude, the country's petroleum chamber said on Friday. (Reuters)

Brazil

• Brazilian corn exports are expected to increase in response to Russia's war on Ukraine, but it is unclear whether the benefit will outweigh the hit to Brazil's crucial fertilizer imports, reports AFP. The fertilizer issue got swept up in a politically loaded debate last week when President Jair Bolsonaro called the Russia-Ukraine war an "opportunity" to pass a controversial bill to legalize mining on indigenous reservations. (See last Thursday's briefs, and last Wednesday's.)
  

El Salvador

• A court in El Salvador ordered the capture of former President Alfredo Cristiani in relation to the 1989 massacre of six Jesuit priests and two others by soldiers. Prosecutors allege that Cristiani knew of the military’s plan to eliminate the priests and did nothing to stop them, reports the Associated Press.

Mexico

• Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador lashed out at EU lawmakers who urged his government to protect journalists and accused him of intimidating the press, branding their statement slanderous, reports AFP. (See Friday's briefs.)
  
  
• Rising sea levels and fierce storms threaten Mexico's Quintana Roo state's coastline, and with it the ribbon of beach resorts and timeshares between Cancún and Tulum, reports the Guardian.
  
  
• A book by Cristina Rivera Garza tells the story of her sister’s unsolved femicide, 30 years after it happened. She said the memoir, which reconstructs the events and relationships that preceded her sister’s murder, was “written from a wound that I share with so many other families in Mexico, Latin America, and around the world.” -- New York Times

Bermuda

• British judges have ruled that Bermuda’s ban on same-sex marriage is permitted under its constitution, in a setback for gay rights in the British overseas territory, reports the Guardian. 
  

Cayman Islands

• The UK’s judicial committee of the privy council (JCPC) – the ultimate court of appeal for Bermuda and dozens of other British overseas territories, dependencies and Commonwealth states, also ruled separately that there was no right to same-sex marriage under the constitution of the Cayman Islands, reports the Guardian. 

Haiti

• Conventional seismometers were not functioning in Haiti last August when a magnitude-7.2 earthquake struck the country's south. But several small, inexpensive instruments run by citizen scientists managed to capture the seismic waves, giving researchers information fast, reports the New York Times.

Chile

• On his first day in office, Chilean President Gabriel Boric broke new ground by participating in a ceremony with Indigenous peoples at the presidential palace before attending mass in Santiago's cathedral, reports AFP. (See Friday's post.)
  

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Entre Libertad y Esperanza -- Boric in Chile (March 11, 2022)

 Thirty-six-year-old Gabriel Boric was sworn in as Chile's youngest president today, ushering in a new generation of leadership in a country that is undergoing a massive process of redefinition. He will be accompanied by a cabinet that includes several fellow former student protest leaders, and in which more than a majority of posts are held by women.

"Know that we are going to do our best to rise to the challenges we face as a country," he said upon receiving the presidential sash. (El Mostrador)

It's the sharpest shift in Chile's politics since the country's return to democracy three decades ago, reports Reuters.

Boric was accompanied by foreign leaders, including Argentine President Alberto Fernández, Peruvian President Pedro Castillo, and former Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff. (El Mostrador)

Boric has vowed to send Chile's once-lauded neoliberal economic model -- which dates back to General Augusto Pinochet's dictatorship -- to the "grave" and promises to symbolically eschew the traditional political elite trappings, reports AFP. He shuns ties and makes no attempt to hide his tattoos. He will live in the edgy downtown Barrio Yungay, where eclectic rows of low-rise homes and graffitied facades line cobbled streets. Symbolically, his home on Orphans Street sits between streets named Freedom and Hope, notes the Guardian.

The challenges he faces are significant. Chile faces a migration crisis in the north, and tensions with Indigenous Mapuche groups in the south. The social and political upheaval of the October 2019 protests still has not been resolved, and a Constitutional Convention is drastically reimagining how the country's government could work. (See this week's Constitutional Updates.)

Boric's legacy will be determined in large measure by how he handles the constitution, but the situation could prove difficult, warns Robert Funk in Global Americans. Among other scenarios, voters could reject the proposal, the new constitution could lead to new elections, or the new magna carta could create significant governance headaches.

News Briefs

Regional

• Boric is the latest in the millennial generation of Latin American leaders, which must escape the pull of the established left and right – and resist the urge to dominate, argues Casey Cagley in Americas Quarterly.

Argentina

• Argentina's Chamber of Deputies approved an agreement with the International Monetary Fund to refinance a $45 billion debt this morning, after a marathon debate that divided the country's governing Frente de Todos coalition. The overwhelming vote of 202 to 37, came in the midst of angry protests outside Congress, in which some demonstrators started fires and threw rocks at security forces. (Associated Press)
  
  
• Most of the votes against the agreement, which must be ratified by Congress to go into effect, came from members of the governing front. Lawmaker Máximo Kirchner, son of Vice President Cristina Fernández de Kirchner and former head of the Frente de Todos block in the Chamber, voted against the deal, as did members of the political movement he is affiliated with La Campora. They did not, however, speak out in the Chamber agains the project, reportedly in order to avoid fanning political disputes. (Infobae)

Regional Relations

• The geopolitical destabilization provoked by Russia's military intervention in Ukraine has specific challenges for Latin America, For Latin America, this paradigm shift "does not promote economic development, let alone the prospect of implementing an international agenda based on pragmatism and diversification," write Ariel González Levaggi and Nicolás Albertoni in Global Americans.
  
  
• Nonetheless, economically Latin America could be hit less severely than other emerging-market regions, writes Catherine Osborn in the Latin America Brief. "World commodity prices are continuing a rise that began with coronavirus-related supply chain disruptions, and many countries in the region are major commodities exporters. They are also less reliant on Russian and Ukrainian wheat than are Africa and the Middle East."
  
  
• Latin American opposition to Russia's military moves in the United Nations came from across the political spectrum and is broader than opposition to Russia's 2014 annexation of Crimea. This reflects the region's traditional democratic principals, and a long-standing diplomatic "emphasis on non-intervention, sovereign equality, and the rejection of territorial conquest. Even abstaining countries like Cuba have been compelled to justify their positions, invoking respect for international law," write Tom Long and Carsten-Andreas Schulz in Global Americans.
  
  
• Cuba is far less dependent on Russia than it was historically on the Soviet Union, but it still cannot afford to spurn the only major power that has stood by it over decades of U.S. hostility, writes William LeoGrande in Responsible Statecraft. U.S. sanctions against Russia will also further complicate Cuba's finances. The situation put Cuba in the uncomfortable diplomatic balancing act of expressing sympathy and understanding for the indefensible actions of Russia, the country's principal ally, without actually endorsing them, and simultaneously trying to uphold the international principles of state sovereignty and non-intervention that their ally has violated.
  
  
• U.S. President Joe Biden told his Colombian counterpart, Iván Duque, that he plans to designate Colombia as a major non-NATO ally, a strategic move as the U.S. seeks to align the region on it's side in the conflict with Russia, reports Reuters.
  
  
• Venezuelan Vice President Delcy Rodríguez and Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov met yesterday to review their countries' strategic alliance and discuss the "complex" international situation, she said in a message on Twitter. The meeting took place five days after U.S. officials met with President Nicolás Maduro, reports Reuters. (See Monday's post and Wednesday's.)
  

Venezuela

• Venezuela’s government is prepared to restart talks with opposition politicians, after a high-level meeting with U.S. officials last weekend. Francisco Torrealba, a member of President Nicolás Maduro’s negotiating team, said the government is willing to resume talks in Mexico with a “wider” group that includes other members of the opposition and U.S. Ambassador to Venezuela James Story, reports Bloomberg. Russia will continue to help represent the Maduro government when the talks resume, Torrealba said.
  
  
• The U.S. meeting with Maduro was a massive shift in policy towards Venezuela, that strengthens him at a time when opposition leader Juan Guaidó and his allies, who are still recognized by the United States as Venezuela’s interim government, struggle to remain relevant, reports the Washington Post.
  

Mexico

• Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador said that criticism he has faced over a string of journalist killings is part of a campaign to undermine his administration and tantamount to a “soft coup” orchestrated by media firms, reports Reuters. Mexico has consistently been one of the most lethal places in the world for journalists in recent years, and seven reporters have been killed so far this year.
  

Guatemala

• Guatemalan President Alejandro Giammattei initially applauded a law passed by Congress this week increasing penalties for abortion and outlawing sexual education in schools. (See yesterday's post.) But yesterday he announced he would veto it, alleging it violates the constitution. (AFP)
  
  
• His announcement came after the Human Rights Ombudsman said he would challenge the law on human rights grounds, but it’s unclear if that's why Giammattei stepped back, reports El Faro.
  
  
• Former Guatemalan presidential candidate Thelma Cabrera, a Maya Mam woman, is seeking to organize the country’s indigenous people into a mass political force, reports Americas Quarterly.
  

Colombia

• Colombian's head to the polls on Sunday in presidential primaries combined with legislative elections to select the 296 members of its Congress. (AFP)

Honduras

• The arrest and possible extradition of former Honduras police chief Juan Carlos Bonilla Valladares ("El Tigre") suspected of drug trafficking could provide explosive evidence in the case against recently-detained former president Juan Orlando Hernández – accused of drug crimes by the U.S. government, reports InSight Crime. (See yesterday's briefs.)
  

Nicaragua

• The U.S. government barred nine Nicaraguan lawmakers, officials and judges from entry into the United States this week, reports Reuters. The Biden administration banned all of Nicaragua's elected officials, including President Daniel Ortega and his wife, Vice President Rosario Murillo, from entering the U.S. following sham elections last November.
  
  
• Daniel Ortega and Rosario Murillo have crushed civil society and thrown their former comrades in jail. For many the death, in prison, of former guerrilla leader Hugo Torres, represents the final blow to the original Sandinista ideal, writes Alma Guillermoprieto in the New Yorker.
  

El Salvador

• El Salvador's President Nayib Bukele touts a reduction in gang homicides as a great success of his administration, but experts point to more complicated dynamics, including negotiations with gangs, gang efforts to enforce control, and increases in disappearances that account for some of lower body counts, reports Vice News.

Migration

• Dominican Republic President Luis Abinader is emulating former U.S. president Donald Trump's proposal of a border wall as a one-stop solution to counter irregular migration, human smuggling and drug trafficking. But, as U.S. experience has shown, it's complicated, reports InSight Crime.
  

Dominican Republic

• The Dominican government has always aligned itself with white supremacism, following the United States’ lead on immigration policies towards Haitians, according to Nacla.
  
  
• Filmmaker José María Cabral's new movie tells the story of the 1937 Parsley Massacre on Hispaniola, the island shared by Haiti and the Dominican Republic. The ethnic cleansing by Dominican dictator Rafael Leonidas Trujillo Molina has long been shrouded in silence despite being a catalyst for the anti-Haitian and anti-Black sentiment that permeates Dominican society today, reports the Miami Herald.
  
  
• The Dominican Republic has dismantled a transnational cybercrime network believed to have defrauded hundreds of U.S. citizens to the tune of more than $200 million, in just the latest example of the growing threat posed by financial crime operations in the Caribbean, reports InSight Crime.

St. Lucia

• St. Lucia's government commemorated International Women's Day on March 8 by presenting a novel domestic violence bill in Parliament. The proposal, which is gender neutral, broadens the definition of domestic violence to include psychological abuse, coercion, molestation, and arbitrary deprivation of liberty or forced confinement. (See this week's Just Caribbean Updates.)
  

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

Latin America Daily Briefing

Guatemala increases abortion sentencing (March 10, 2022)

Guatemala's Congress marked International Women's Day on Tuesday by passing a law that punishes abortion with up to 25 years in prison. The sentence is among the most draconian in the region. It also imposes a sentence of up to 12 years for doctors who perform the procedure, among the most severe penalties in the region. Already Guatemala allows abortion only to save the life of the mother, but the new bill adds restrictions in those cases that will particularly affect rural women's ability to interrupt pregnancies.

The new measure -- dubbed the law for the protection of life and the family -- also prohibits same-sex marriage and teaching about sexual diversity in schools. It was unexpectedly approved by a large majority of lawmakers, and is expected to be signed into law by Guatemalan President Alejandro Giammattei within weeks.

Giammattei celebrated the measure yesterday, which Guatemala’s congress declared “Life and Family Day”: “This event is an invitation to unite as Guatemalans to protect life from conception until natural death.”

The new law bucks the regional trend which has been shifting towards greater recognition of reproductive rights in recent years. It is, in fact, somewhat of a reaction to abortion legalizations elsewhere. “I voted for it because of what has happened in other countries,” said Armando Castillo, a Guatemalan congressman who backed the measure. “The point of this is to set a trend, so that can never happen here.”

Guatemala’s human rights ombudsman, Jordan Rodas, said he would challenge it on human rights grounds. The law prohibits teaching children and young adults about sexual diversity and "gender ideology" and stipulates that no orientations other than heterosexuality are "normal."

Giammattei's shift even further to the right could be an attempt to shore up political support at a moment when he is facing an array of enormous political challenges at home, and rising tensions in his relationship with the United States as the government cracks down on corruption prosecutors.

(Reuters, New York Times, Associated Press)

News Briefs

Brazil

• Thousands of Brazilians -- led by Caetano Veloso -- gathered outside Congress yesterday to protest a set of bills they say threaten the Amazon rainforest by encouraging deforestation and industrial activity on protected Indigenous lands, reports the Associated Press. (See yesterday's briefs.)
  
  
• Lawmakers in Brazil's lower chamber of Congress agreed that one of the bills, that would permit mining in Indigenous lands should first be analyzed by a task force. It will not be voted on before mid-April, reports the Associated Press. The response is a setback for President Jair Bolsonaro, who has pushed for the bill to pass quickly in response to potential fertilizer shortages related to Russia's invasion of Ukraine. This week his chief whip in the lower chamber had gathered enough signatures to speed up the bill, meaning it can be put to a full vote without committee hearings, reports Reuters. (See yesterday's briefs.)
  
  
• Access to land and housing in Brazil remains starkly determined by class and by race -- and socially induced environmental change makes marginalized communities ever more vulnerable to climatic disasters, reports Nacla.

Regional Relations

• The U.S. Biden administration should leverage the country's unique relationship with Latin America and develop a foreign policy that focuses on its realities, opportunities, and challenges, without reducing the region to a Great Power competition arena, argues Dan Restrepo in Americas Quarterly. "To generate needed impact, President Biden will need to bring all elements of U.S. power and influence to bear," and the U.S. Treasury could play a key role in such a vision, he writes.
  
  
• Pressure is building on the U.S. Biden administration to begin unwinding sanctions on Venezuela afterPresident Nicolas Maduro freed two American prisoners on Tuesday and promised to resume negotiations with his opponents, reports the Associated Press. (See yesterday's post and Monday's.)
  
  
• Quiet negotiations that began last year between the Venezuelan government and the U.S. Office of the Special Presidential Envoy for Hostage Affairs laid groundwork for this weekend's high-level meeting between the two nations, reports the Miami Herald. (See yesterday's post and Monday's.)
  
  
• U.S. President Joe Biden and Colombian President Iván Duque are expected to discuss Venezuela when they meet at the White House today, days after Duque expressed some public concerns about secret negotiations between the United States and Venezuela, reports Reuters.
  

Migration

• The U.S. Biden administration has maintained use of a public health provision -- Title 42 -- that has led to more than 1.4 million expulsions at the border, and thousands of people being denied their legal right to seek asylum since the start of the Covid-19 pandemic. (Guardian)

Honduras

• The former head of Honduras’ national police, Juan Carlos Bonilla Valladares (aka "El Tigre) who was sought by U.S. prosecutors on drug and weapons charges was arrested yesterday. Bonilla, who faced allegations of human rights abuses during his time in command, was detained in response to a U.S. extradition request, reports the Associated Press.

Cuba

• The Internet profoundly changed political dissidence in Cuba, writes William LeoGrande in World Politics Review. In recent years, Cubans with specific issues have found each other on social media, and followed up in person. "These new groups are distinct from more traditional dissident groups that contest the central ideology and legitimacy of Cuba’s political regime." The Cuban government's general strategy "has been to accommodate demands that do not challenge the system, while cracking down even harder on those that do."

Peru

• Peru's Congress granted President Pedro Castillo’s cabinet a vote of confidence yesterday, just hours after opposition parties launched their second bid to impeach the leftist head of state since he took office last July. In a session that lasted more than nine hours, Prime Minister Anibal Torres and his team were approved by a vote of 64-58, reports EFE.
  

Argentina

• After long pushing failed belt-tightening policies, the International Monetary Fund has agreed to a deal that will allow Argentina's government to pursue a pro-growth strategy -- it's a potential game changer, argue Joseph Stiglitz and Mark Weisbrot in Project Syndicate. 
  

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