Nicaragua escalates media attacks (June 18, 2021)

News Briefs

Nicaragua

• New York Times journalist Anatoly Kurmanaev was denied entry into Nicaragua yesterday. The move appears to be an escalation of government attacks on independent media, according to the New York Times. October, the government passed a “Cybercrimes Law,” which allows the authorities to jail any journalist for publishing what they consider “fake news.” (See Monday's post.)

• A group of more than 40 political prisoners in Nicaragua have been carrying out rebellious actions to demand their freedom since May 31, which include not signing documents issued by the authorities, not to attending medical consultations, refusing the “chupeta” (food provided by the prison) and not allowing officials to take photographs of them, reports Confidencial.

• Sanctions on their own, particularly harsh ones, are unlikely to change Ortega's behavior, but could cause significant economic hardship for Nicaraguans. Instead, the international community should push for a fluid diplomatic exchange with Ortega to try to yield concessions before, and potentially alongside, any sanctions, the International Crisis Group’s Ivan Briscoe told the Latin America Brief.

Peru

• June 6's presidential election has left divisions between Peru’s wealthier, whiter and more urban coastal areas and its poorer, more indigenous, rural highlands are now an abyss, Cynthia McClintock told the Wilson Center's Weekly Asado. "To many Peruvians in the highlands, Fujimori’s allegations of fraud signify that Lima’s elites will not recognize the victory of a mestizo candidate from what they condescendingly call 'the provinces.'"

• Peru's tendency to impeach presidents will serve as a check on Pedro Castillo's more radical tendencies, McClintock said. "If Castillo were not to continue to moderate, the threat of impeachment would be severe."

Haiti

• The number of children suffering from “severe acute” childhood malnutrition in Haiti has more than doubled, increasing from 41,000 last year to an estimated 86,000 children this year, according to UNICEF. (Miami Herald)
  

Guatemala

• Two transgender women and a gay man were murdered in less than a week in Guatemala -- the violence has made pride month one of mourning, and spurred calls for LGBTQ+ rights laws, reports the Guardian.
  

Mexico

• Two journalists were killed this week in Mexico -- one of the world's most dangerous places for reporters. (Associated Press)

• Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador's most consequential reforms may be behind him, writes Vanesa Rubio in Americas Quarterly. Moving forward his priorities include increasing tariffs for energy producers, changes to the electoral system in the legislature, and the absorption of the Mexican National Guard by the Defense Ministry. 

• AMLO's presented a proposal to militarize the National Guard this week, a move that would undermine the pretence of civilian control that justified the force's creation two years ago. (See Wednesday's briefs.) It is a dangerous and erroneous bet, argues Arturo Angel in the New York Times Español. First because the reform would leave Mexico without a civilian police force, and secondly because the National Guard has been bad at reducing violence.
  

Covid-19

• Paraguay, Suriname, Argentina, Uruguay, Colombia, Brazil and Peru are suffering – in that order – a silent decimation by Covid-19 unlike that anywhere else in the world, reports the Guardian. (See yesterday's briefs.) 

• Although Chile has vaccinated 58 percent of its population, infection rates continue to rise, reaching record levels. -- Aviso LatAm

• Mexico donated 100,000 doses of AstraZeneca vaccine to Belize and 150,000 doses to Bolivia and Paraguay. Mexico received 1.35 million doses of Johnson & Johnson coronavirus vaccines donated by the United States, which will be used to vaccinate anyone over 18 in four cities along the U.S. border: Tijuana, Mexicali, Ciudad Juárez and Reynosa. Mexico has said the goal is to boost vaccination rates there to levels similar to the U.S. cities they adjoin, and lift travel restrictions along the border. (Associated Press)

• Guyana’s government refused to suspend use of the Russian Sputnik-V vaccine this week, despite opposition warnings that doses could be fake and acquired through third party suppliers at higher than normal prices, reports the Associated Press.

• Latin America has been especially hard hit by Covid-19. In addition to the health and economic impacts, is the heavy toll it has had on children and families: Latin America’s schools have stayed shut for longer than those in any other region. The effects will be felt long after the pandemic is over and economies have recovered, reports the Economist.

• Brazil's government has failed to address the huge impact of the Covid-19 pandemic on education, leaving millions of children with little or no access to school, according to a recent report by Human Rights Watch and Todos pela Educação.

• El Salvador hit an important Covid-19 milestone this week, reports El Salvador Perspectives, as more than one million people are now fully vaccinated, mostly with two doses of the Chinese Coronavac vaccine. 
  

Colombia

• La Silla Vacía's Juanita León does an "autopsy" of Colombia's strike movement, which has called of weekly protests after six weeks of massive demonstrations that were met with brutal repression. The National Strike Committee failed to capitalize on protesters' advances, and negotiated poorly with the Colombian government, she writes.

• Colombia's Urabeños criminal group is turning dirty money into adulterated gold, reports InSight Crime.

El Salvador

• At a loss for how Bitcoin implementation would look on the ground in El Salvador, press has been flocking to the coastal town of El Zonte -- where philanthropic efforts have helped establish the cryptocurrency as local tender. El Faro explores some of the ins and outs of what it looks like to pay for pupusas in satochis, and how much gets lost in exchange fees.

Migration

• A new comic book, Ana, tells the story of a girl who flees from Honduras to save her and her family’s life. Together they embark on the painful path of forced migration to the United States, in a story created by Save the Children, with writer, screenwriter, and film director Guillermo Arriaga and comic book artist Humberto Ramos.

Argentina

• The cheap netbooks Argentina's government distributed to public school students in the mid 2010s sparked the rise of a budding generation of rappers, trappers, and freestylers -- a musical renaissance, reports Rest of World.
  

Environment

• The upcoming Summit of the Americas is the perfect time for a hemispheric environmental treaty, argues the Wilson Center's Benjamin Gedan. (Foreign Policy, Latin Trade)  

• Agroforestree coffee beans are cultivated by intercropping native trees with coffee in the Amazon rainforest. The method improves soil fertility and provides shade for coffee bushes, improving productivity and profits. -- Americas Quarterly.

• At 17, Juliane Diller was the sole survivor of a plane crash in the Amazon. Fifty years later the biologist still runs Panguana, a research station founded by her parents in Peru. -- New York Times
  

Critter Corner

• Cuba's new wildlife trafficking law shows the country's illegal animal trade has become enough of an issue to warrant a response, reports InSight Crime.

• Researchers in the misty mountains of the Ecuadorian Andes have discovered a new species of terrestrial frog and named it after the pioneering British rock band Led Zeppelin, reports the Guardian.
  

Happy Juneteenth!

Latin America Daily Briefing

South America's Covid surge (June 17, 2021)

News Briefs

Covid-19

• The World Health Organization is urging the wealthy nations that recently pledged to donate one billion Covid-19 vaccine doses to give priority to Latin American nations with high levels of virus transmission and mortality, reports the New York Times. Health care professionals in the region are reporting a surge of younger patients requiring hospitalization, and in several cities, intensive care units are full or nearly so.

• Countries that have struggled enormously with containing the virus for long periods of the pandemic have made considerable strides with vaccinating their citizens, notes the Latin America Risk Report. However, vaccine supply bottlenecks continue to limit countries’ ability to ramp up distribution.

• China has provided the majority of coronavirus vaccines applied in Latin America -- a diplomatic triumph for Beijing. A year into the pandemic, it's hard to overstate how much China has improved its standing in the region, in terms of its reputation with the general public and leadership, writes Oliver Stuenkel in Foreign Policy.

Migration

• U.S. Attorney General Merrick B. Garland reversed Trump-era immigration rulings that had made it all but impossible for people to seek asylum in the United States over credible fears of domestic abuse or gang violence. It is one of the Justice Department’s most significant breaks with the previous administration, reports the New York Times.

Nicaragua

• Nicaraguan police arrested the executive president of Banco de Produccion SA, Luis Rivas Anduray, a prominent banker. The move is a sign the government’s pursuit of opponents is expanding beyond political leaders and potential challengers to President Daniel Ortega, reports the Associated Press. The charges are similar to those leveled at 13 leaders of the political opposition arrested in recent weeks. (See Monday's post.)

• Many relatives of those being detained told the Washington Post that authorities haven’t told them where their loved ones are held and have refused visits from relatives or attorneys. Two other family members, meanwhile, said they have learned where their relatives are being held but are denied visits.

• "The ferocity of Ortega’s crackdown is puzzling," writes Stephen Kinzer in Responsible Statecraft. The recent arrest of former Sandinista comrades is a sign of deeper descent into autocratic governance, he writes. (See Monday's post.) But "appalling as Nicaragua’s situation has become, the United States cannot do much about it.  Our long history of intervention there leaves us with little moral authority. ... Nicaraguans, with carefully designed outside support—not directed from Washington—will have to shape the next chapters in their history."

• Adam Isacson counters Kinzer's assertion: "I still think the U.S. government and civil society, along with those of like-minded states, can give Nicaragua’s democrats a boost. Not the kind of boost that we’ve provided in the past, like lethal aid to murderous Contra fighters. Many peaceful options are on the menu."

• Argentina is under fire for its decision to abstain from this week's OAS condemnation of Ortega's crackdown (see yesterday's post) -- a decision apparently related to antipathy towards OAS Secretary General Luis Almagro, reports Infobae.

Colombia

• A car bomb explosion at a military base in the Colombian border city of Cúcuta injured 36 people on Tuesday. The defence minister cast blame for the attack on leftist rebels. The initial theory is that members of the National Liberation Army (ELN), the country's last recognized guerrilla group, were behind the attack. (El País, Reuters)

• Although Colombian President Iván Duque still has 14 months left in his term, he's already achieving lame-duck status and policy circles seem ready to turn the page, argues Sergio Guzmán in Global Americans.

Regional Relations

• "In El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras, the judiciary is under assault by a cabal of corrupt national leaders, human rights violators, drug dealers and influential economic sectors," writes Claudia Escobar Mejia in Americas Quarterly. "Unfortunately, renewed U.S. diplomacy alone is insufficient to address the rampant corruption in the Northern Triangle and beyond." The dire situation could best be targeted by supranational mechanisms to defend the rule of law, such as a proposed International Anti-Corruption Court (IACC), she argues.

• Cracking down on corruption is key for Guatemala to attract foreign investment, USAID head Samantha Power said this week on a visit, in which she reinforced the Biden administration's focus on targeting root causes of migration, reports Reuters.

• Power formally launched the Guatemala Entrepreneurship and Development Innovation initiative, an almost $39 million alliance with international and local private sector partners. (USAID)

• A top Bolivian official in Jeanine Áñez's interim-government plotted to deploy hundreds of mercenaries from the United States to overturn the results of the country's October 2020 election, according to documents and audio recordings of telephone calls obtained by The Intercept.
  

Bolivia

• Bolivia’s opposition leader, conservative former President Carlos Mesa, accused the country's current government of seeking to hobble rivals by trumping up charges that they mounted a coup in 2019 against then-leader Evo Morales. (Reuters)
  

Peru

• Thousands of people marched in Lima in support of electoral victor Pedro Castillo. Demonstrators demanded authorities ratify him as the president-elect, reports Nodal.

• Peruvian presidential candidate Keiko Fujimori's refusal to concede, instead she is leveling unsubstantiated accusations of fraud, appear to follow former U.S. President Donald Trump's playbook. It could signal a new trend in the region, reports the Washington Post. “This epidemic of claims of electoral fraud is just the next chapter in the autocrat’s handbook,” said Kenneth Roth, executive director of Human Rights Watch.

Mexico

• Construction errors led to the May collapse of an overpass in Mexico City’s subway system that killed 26 people and injured scores more, according to the preliminary results of an independent investigation carried out by the Norwegian risk management company DNV. The findings suggest that serious problems with the welding and placement of metal studs, linchpins of the entire structure, directly contributed to the collapse, reports the New York Times.

Venezuela

• A vast network involving dozens of individuals and companies that illicitly sold crude and transferred the money through tax havens in a shady multi-million-dollar business permitted Venezuela to evade U.S. oil sanctions, according to a joint investigation by El País and Armando.info. The scheme first exchanged oil for food and water tankers, but then expanded to earn money from exports via financial networks beyond the reach of the United States. All those involved in the scheme are linked to one person: Alex Saab.

• U.S. sanctions against Venezuela, which started under the Obama administration, have not succeeded in weakening Nicolás Maduro and his allies, as much as it has asphyxiated Venezuela's people, according to El País' editorial board.

• Advocates for a more humane U.S. foreign policy are urging President Joe Biden to embrace Rep. Jim McGovern's call for an end to "all secondary and sectoral sanctions imposed on Venezuela by the Trump administration." (Common Dreams)

Cuba

• The Paris Club of wealthy creditor nations agreed last week to grant Cuba more time to make payments under a 2015 debt agreement. The postponement was based, according to Cuban officials, on the ‘unprecedented penuries’ caused by Covid-19 and its impact on tourism, former U.S. President Donald Trump’s strengthening of the U.S. embargo and 54 hurricanes since 2000. (Miami Herald)

• But experts say Cuba's economy desperately needs the U.S. to relax its current sanctions regime in order to recover from the worst crisis it has suffered in decades. (Latin America Advisor)

El Salvador

• The World Bank rejected a request from El Salvador to help with the implementation of Bitcoin as legal tender, reports the BBC.
  

Brazil

• Gabriel Funari’s recent article in the Bulletin of Latin American Research dives deep into the implications of Bolsonaro’s ties to organized crime, reviewing a wide swath of the recent literature on criminal governance and drawing connections to Bolsonaro’s political agenda. -- Brazil Research Initiative
  

Conservation

• A multimillion-pound project aims to describe and identify the web of life in major freshwater ecosystems around the world with “gamechanging” DNA technology, reports the Guardian. In the Peruvian Amazon, eDNA profiling of water samples has been used to survey the habitat of pink river dolphins and manatees as well as the web of life around them, including jaguars, monkeys, catfish and bats.
  

Bridges

• Peruvians from the Huinchiri community in Cusco region are rebuilding a 500-year-old Incan hanging bridge, made using traditional weaving techniques to string a crossing together spanning the Apurimac river. (Guardian)

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

OAS condemns Ortega crackdown (June 16, 2021)

The Organization of American States’ Permanent Council approved a resolution yesterday condemning the arrest in Nicaragua of presidential pre-candidates, restrictions imposed on political parties and calling for the immediate release of political prisoners. Over the past two weeks 13 opposition leaders have been detained, including four presidential precandidates.

The resolution was supported by 27 countries. Two countries - Nicaragua and Saint Vincent and the Grenadines - voted against the measure, while Mexico, Argentina, Belize, Honduras, and Dominica abstained.

The vote means that there would likely be the requisite two-thirds support in the international organization to suspend Nicaragua.

(Associated Press, Reuters, Confidencial)

More Nicaragua

• Confidencial looks at the FSLN’s ambiguous, historical relationship with the OAS.

News Briefs

Venezuela

• The International Criminal Court (ICC) prosecutor Fatou Bensouda postponed an anticipated decision on whether or not to open an investigation in Venezuela for crimes against humanity, due to a last minute request from the Venezuelan government. (EFE)
  

Haiti

• Escalating gang violence has pushed nearly 8,500 women and children from their homes in Haiti’s capital in the past two weeks, according to Unicef. Nearly 14,000 people in Port-au-Prince have been displaced by violence in the past nine months. Bruno Maes, Haiti’s representative for the UN’s children agency that issued the report late on Monday, compared the effect to guerrilla warfare, “with thousands of children and women caught in the crossfire," reports the Associated Press. (See last Thursday's briefs.)
  

Regional

• Latin America's anti-corruption momentum has declined since the mid-2010s, according to this year's Capacity to Combat Corruption Index, by Americas Society/Council of the Americas and Control Risks. The CCC Index detected a concerning decline in the efficiency and independence of anti-corruption agencies in almost all the countries surveyed.

• Cleaner government would allow for more agile and effective responses to the numerous socioeconomic and health maladies stemming from the pandemic, and greater transparency would also help facilitate the boom in investment Latin America so badly needs. But change can't be imposed from the outside, write Brian Winter and Geert Aalbers in Americas Quarterly.
  

War on Drugs

• A Washington Post opinion series looks back on fifty years of war on drugs in Latin America: "Lost Cause."

• "The war narrative prevailed, and the biggest winners were the systems built to wage a fight that they soon realized would have no end," writes Gustavo Gorriti on the subject. "This “war” of 50 years has been toxic and destructive, a strategic fallacy and deeply harmful."

• Black Brazilians are disproportionately killed by police and incarcerated, a situation linked to the 2006 Anti-Drug Act, which is the reason for the arrest of a third of Brazilian inmates, writes Fausto Salvadori.  

• Colombian President Iván Duque's insistence on resurrecting aerial eradication of coca crops "will crash into the same failures of the past. Only this time, it will have an aggravating circumstance: the country’s new social and political reality," argue María Teresa Ronderos and Andrés Bermúdez Liévano. 

• "It’s challenging to find a politician, military chief, police officer or prominent businessman who isn’t linked to drug trafficking or corruption in Honduras," notes Carlos Dada. And in Honduras, the drug trade has moved in step with the United States’ interests.

• The militarization of the fictitious war on drugs in Mexico has caused hundreds of thousands of deaths and disappearances over the past fifteen years. "Drug trafficking is not the beginning or end of Mexico’s misfortunes: It’s a catalyst that arrived in a country with a deep history of violence and impunity," writes José Luis Pardo Veiras.

Mexico

• Mexican authorities said yesterday they have fully confirmed the match between a bone fragment and a student missing since 2014, reports the Associated Press.

• Mexican President Andrés Manue López Obrador announced plans to make the national guard part of the army, erasing the thin pretense of a civilian-controlled force that was used to gain approval for its creation two years ago, reports the Associated Press.
  

Colombia

• Colombia's National Strike Committee said they plan to suspend their weekly demonstrations but promised to continue to fight for widespread social and economic reforms. Protest leaders accused President Iván Duque’s government of undermining an effort to start negotiations after talks were called off earlier this month. (Al Jazeera)

• Nonetheless, protesters have won significant victories over the past six weeks, according to Jacobin: five members of Duque's cabinet have stepped down, the protested tax bill was withdrawn, and a broad social movement has consolidated with a focus on inequality and violence.
  

Brazil

• Brazil's government authorized the employment of the National Security Force (FNS) to protect the Yanomami indigenous people and their reservation lands for 90 days in the northern state of Roraima bordering Venezuela. The move comes amid increasing attacks with firearms by illegal wildcat gold miners who have invaded Yanomami lands on Brazil's largest reservation, reports Reuters.

• Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro promised to raise the welfare program monthly payments to 300 reais from the current 190 reais starting in December. (Reuters)

• Brazil's Senate is planning to vote on a bill about privatization of state-owned energy giant Eletrobras. (Reuters)

Peru

• Pedro Castillo has claimed victory in Peru's presidential election after clinging on to a narrow lead as the lengthy vote count ended, reports Reuters. Rival Keiko Fujimori has alleged irregularities and refuses to concede. The electoral body has yet to confirm the result. (See Monday's briefs.)

• Castillo sought to assuage fears of radical change: "We are not Chavistas, we are not communists, no one has come to destabilize this country," he said, a reference to a common refrain from Fujimori's party. "We are workers, we are entrepreneurs and we will guarantee a stable economy, respecting private property, respecting private investment and above all respecting fundamental rights, such as the right to education and health." (Reuters)

• Castillo is about to win Peru's presidential election, but that doesn't mean he'll be able to implement his challenges to the country's market economic model, writes Andrea Moncada in  Americas Quarterly.

Arts

• A new show in Madrid's Reina Sofía, Enemies of Poetry: Resistance in Latin America, focuses on the artistic boom in the region between 1964 and 1987 and examines how the political upheavals of the era and the emergence of new artistic practices “favoured a series of transcendental exchanges in the development of contemporary art” -- Guardian.

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

Latin America Daily Briefing

Ortega crackdown corners opposition (June 15, 2021)

News Briefs

Migration

• The United States will grant $115 million in cooperation aid to El Salvador to slow migration from the Central American country, Samantha Power, administrator of the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), said yesterday. The money will include $50 million for security, $35 million for programs to counter violence against women and $30 million in job training. USAID says it will also contribute $12 million for small and medium-sized businesses in Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador that were affected by coronavirus-related lockdowns. (Reuters)
  

Nicaragua

• The Ortega government's crackdown forces Nicaraguan opposition leaders to make a tough decision ahead of November's presidential election, reports El Faro: They could refuse to participate, face the uneven election with a new — and maybe weaker — candidate, or try to force an internationally supported negotiation with the government. Massive anti-government protests, like in 2018, seem unlikely given the government's willingness to attack opponents. (See yesterday's post.)

• The conditions for participating in the election are extremely complicated: Six of the recently detained opposition leaders are among the most experienced and respected leftists in Nicaragua, notes El Faro. Four leading presidential candidates are among the 13 political opponents arrested in the past two weeks.

• The arrested opposition figures have been detained under a controversial law passed in December, which grants the government the power to unilaterally classify citizens as “traitors to the homeland” and ban them from running as political candidates, explains the Guardian.

El Salvador

• Homicide rates have decreased drastically since Nayib Bukele took office in El Salvador. But disappearances are way up: more than three people have gone missing each day in El Salvador during the first four months of this year, a marked increase over 2020, reports The Intercept. The phenomenon dates to the 2012 government negotiations with gangs to decrease homicides, according to a recent report by the Salvadoran organization Foundation for Studies for the Application of Law (FESPAD). Gangs started hiding the bodies instead. Now experts believe that other criminal groups, security forces, and abusive partners all use disappearances to evade authorities.

• Earlier this month, Bukele took steps to terminate the agreement between his government and OAS regarding the Commission Against Corruption and Impunity in El Salvador  (CICIES). The OAS and others assert that Bukele is kicking CICIES out of the country because the commission spent too much time investigating potential corruption in Bukele's own government, and not enough time pursuing Bukele's political opponents. (El Salvador Perspectives, See June 8's briefs)

• Bukele's removal of the CICIES is the latest in an alarming set of attacks on the country’s rule of law and judicial independence, warn WOLA, LAWG and the Due Process of Law Foundation. (See June 8's briefs.)

• The benefits of making Bitcoin legal tender in El Salvador are far from clear. Fluctuations in value make Bitcoin a weak currency alternative, it is unlikely to create investment, and the digital divide is likely to hinder use in El Salvador, according to this very didactic article in the Conversation. (See last Thursday's post.)

• The case of the Salvadoran beach town of El Zonte, known as "Bitcoin Beach" to investors, shows how the digital divide has slowed adoption of the cryptocurrency, reports Reuters.

• The Bitcoin move raises concerns that the approval of the unregulated cryptocurrency could make the country’s financial system open to manipulation and fraud, warn WOLA, LAWG and the Due Process of Law Foundation.

• Because bitcoin is unregulated, the move has also raised concerns about the potential for money laundering, tax evasion and other shady dealings. Miguel Kattán, El Salvador's secretary of commerce and investment, said the government would introduce protections against money laundering, but it's not yet clear what those would look like, reports Reuters.

Peru

• Peruvians are still waiting for electoral authorities to call the June 6 presidential runoff. Frontrunner Pedro Castillo has called for the count to be wrapped up quickly to end the uncertainty. His opponent Keiko Fujimori has alleged irregularities, but has not provided evidence to support her claim. (AFP, see yesterday's briefs)

• United Nations human rights chief Michelle Bachelet urged Peruvians to "remain calm." Bachelet said she was “concerned that what should be a celebration of democracy is becoming a source of division, which is in turn widening the fracture in Peruvian society with negative human rights implications." (Al Jazeera)

• Meanwhile, the urban elite is panicking, reports Reuters.

Brazil

• Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro has increasingly taken to the courts to stifle dissent among prominent adversaries. It is part of a broader campaign to crackdown on opponents ahead of next year's presidential election, reports The Intercept. "Bolsonaro could attempt to use partisan allies in the executive branch, media, judiciary, and law enforcement to manipulate the election in his favor."

• Brazil’s health ministry has documented 41 cases of Covid-19 related to the Copa América, including 31 players or staffers and 10 workers who were hired for the event. (Associated Press)
  

Colombia

• Former Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos asked for forgiveness for the extrajudicial killings of thousands of people committed by the country’s armed forces partly during his time as defense minister. He testified to Colombia’s truth commission about the so-called “false positives” scandal, when soldiers murdered civilians and registered them as fighters killed in combat to receive rewards. (Al Jazeera)

• Colombian President Iván Duque named a new ambassador to Washington yesterday, part of an attempt to improve the country's image abroad and maintain bilateral programs with the U.S. that have been jeopardized by recent abuses against protesters, reports the Associated Press.
  

Guatemala

• A Guatemalan judge ordered six ex-military officers to face trial for their roles in the allegations contained in the Death Squad Diary – a move that was celebrated by relatives of the victims, reports Al Jazeera.

Regional Relations

• An Ecuadorean lawmaker filed a complaint against former President Lenín Moreno for the crime of delivery and tear gas and projectiles for the use of Bolivian security forces against the civilian population during Jeanine Áñez's interim government. (Telesur)
  

Covid-19

• The G-7 promise to distribute 1 billion coronavirus vaccine doses to poorer countries around the world is a tiny fraction of what is needed to end the pandemic, experts say. (Washington Post)

• Mexico shipped more than a million AstraZeneca vaccines to Argentina, Belize, Bolivia and Paraguay over the weekend in the first batch of locally-produced shots, reports Bloomberg.

• The first batch of Argentina-produced Sputnik vaccines has been sent to Russia's Gamelaya Institute for quality control. (Página 12)

• Paraguay's health ministry created a public database with information about each person vaccinated against Covid-19 in the country. Paraguay’s degree of disclosure would be banned in many countries. But with only 400,000 vaccines and a culture of deeply entrenched corruption there are widespread concerns about line skipping, reports Al Jazeera.

Mexico

• Mexican police have uncovered thousands of bone fragments, in the home of a former butcher who is suspected of killing and dismembering at least 17 women. The number of bone fragments found underneath concrete floors at the suspect’s home would imply the corpses may have been hacked into tiny pieces. (Washington Post, Guardian)

Peru

• Peruvian activist Liz Chicaje, who spearheaded the creation of a 809,370-hectare national park in Peru's Amazon rainforest, has been awarded the Goldman Environmental Prize - known as the "Green Nobel." The Yaguas National Park, created in 2018 in response to an indigenous coalition-led campaign, is home to some 3,000 species of plants, more than 500 species of birds and 550 species of fish. (Reuters, BBC)

Chile

• Lithium batteries, key in the transition from fossil fuels to renewable energy pose an emerging dilemma in Chile, where extracting lithium from the Atacama comes at a grave environmental and social cost, writes Thea Riofrancos the Guardian. One of Chile's new constitutional delegates is Cristina Dorador, a microbiologist and a forceful advocate for protecting the salt flat from rampant extraction. Activists are working with members of Congress to draft a law that would preserve the salt flats and wetlands currently threatened by lithium and copper mining, and hydroelectric plants.

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

Latin America Daily Briefing

Ortega arrests more opponents (June 14, 2021)

Nicaraguan authorities arrested five more prominent opponents of President Daniel Ortega. There have now been 12 opponents detained since June 2. This weekend's round up suggests Ortega has moved beyond arresting potential rival candidates in the Nov. 7 elections, and has begun arresting any prominent member of the opposition, reports the Associated Press. 

This is not a transition to dictatorship, it is a dictatorship in every way," said former general and Sandinista dissident Hugo Torres before his detention Sunday.  Police also arrested prominent ex-Sandinista dissident Dora María Téllez, another opposition leader, Ana Margarita Vijil, Suyen Barahona, leader of the political movement Unamos, and Tamara Dávila, who was active in Unamos. Unamos is made up of many former Ortega allies, who fought alongside him in the late 1970s as they drove right-wing dictator Anastasio Somoza from power. (Confidencial, Confidencial)

Nicaragua’s National Police arrested the four opposition pre-candidates earlier this month. (See last Wednesday's post.) Most of the opponents have been detained under the so-called "Guillotine Law," ostensibly aimed at defending the country's sovereignty. Other measures passed in the past year target foreign financing, and can be used to silence critical voices.

Critical journalists have also been questioned by authorities in recent weeks, notes Reuters. The attorney general's office has threatened to deploy the same controversial laws against media outlets, reports Confidencial.

The rapid pace of Ortega's crackdown against opposition figures has surprised even close observers and critics who flagged his government's erosion of democratic rule in the country over the past 15 years, reports Univisión. A lot will depend on the response of Catholic Church and local business leaders, the traditional power brokers in Nicaragua, according to journalist Carlos Fernando Chamorro. (See Friday's briefs.)

"It is not just a strategy of strength, of internal control, but also a defiant outward message: Ortega acts with arrogant impunity, as if the international community's reaction does not overly concern him," writes Alberto Barrera Tyszka in New York Times Español.

The OAS will vote tomorrow on whether to invoke the organization’s Democratic Charter, effectively expelling Nicaragua for violating its terms of membership.

News Briefs

Migration

• Corruption drives people to flee Central America's Northern Triangle, but combatting corruption alone is not enough to revitalize a democracy, argue Iván Velásquez and Pedro Abramovay in an Univisión opinion piece that cites landmark Brazilian and Guatemalan examples of anti-corruption battles. "The U.S. strategy must include robust efforts to strengthen democratic institutions, including civil society organizations and the press." To take full advantage of what civil society has to offer, the U.S. government will have to rethink its funding models, and make them more accessible to local actors, organizations, and movements, note Abramovay and Velásquez.

• Many Central American women attempt to flee gender-based violence by going to the U.S., but a number of restrictive measures and rulings that directly affect domestic violence survivors remain in place and prevent them from obtaining refuge, reports the Washington Post.

• The U.S. decision to make Guatemala its principal partner in the troubled Northern Triangle region – the largest source of irregular migration to the US – is a recognition of the country’s strategic geographic location as well as its president’s status as arguably the lesser of evils, reports the Guardian. (See last Tuesday's post.)

Peru

• Pedro Castillo is on track to be Peru's next president, but right-wing opponent Keiko Fujimori has refused to concede. On Saturday she led a protest in Lima, calling again for the annulment of votes that did not favor her, reports Reuters.  International observers have said there is no evidence of fraud and that the election was clean. (See Friday's post.) Even if Fujimori were to succeed in annulling some votes, the number of votes still in play make it unlikely she would flip the result.

• The polarized contest, a crossroads moment for the country, seems set to tilt Peru sharply to the left, reports Reuters separately.

• Castillo ran as an anti-establishment leftist, but he is unlikely to govern as one, argues Michael Albertus in Foreign Policy.
  

• The electoral drama in Peru was a generational reckoning, comparable to the recent upheavals in Chile and Colombia. But it was also the product of the specific political crises, writes Tony Wood in the Guardian.
  

Mexico

• A New York Times investigation — based on years of government records, interviews with people who worked on the construction, and expert analysis of evidence from the crash site — has found serious flaws in the basic construction of the Mexico City metro that appear to have led directly to the collapse last month that killed 26 people. The disaster has already spiraled into a political crisis, threatening to ensnare two of the nation’s most powerful figures: the president’s foreign secretary, Marcelo Ebrard, and one of the world’s wealthiest businessmen, Carlos Slim.

• Mexico's recent midterm elections show that political parties that hope to challenge President Andrés Manuel López Obrador still haven’t learned the lessons from the 2018 election, argues David Agren in Global Americans.

• The Prodh Center has documented more than 30 cases in which Mexican public security agents have used sexual torture to carry out arrests against women and coerce them into participating in criminal investigations. (Voices)

Brazil

• Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro, speaking to a rally of bikers on Saturday, said he could count on police officers "whatever happens." It is the latest example of how he has sought to court security officers ahead of politically polarized presidential elections next year. Bolsonaro said the country's state military police forces serve as a support to what he dubbed "my army." (Reuters)

• The Copa América soccer tournament is set to start this week in Brazil, despite widespread opposition and concern it could spur coronavirus contagion. In a country where politics and soccer have long mingled, analysts see political desperation in Bolsonaro’s sudden decision to host the games, reports the Washington Post.
  

Venezuela

• Venezuelan officials said last week the country's government has been unable to complete a payment required to receive coronavirus vaccines because transfers to the global COVAX vaccine program had been blocked.

Chile

• Chile’s center-left became the great winner of second round regional elections held Sunday after winning most of the governorships, including that of the capital, with 99.9 percent of votes counted. (EFE)
  

Argentina

• Argentina has arrested Walther Klug Rivera, a Chilean fugitive wanted for dozens of murders committed during the dictatorship of Augusto Pinochet. (AFP)

• Argentine President Alberto Fernández's ill-chosen words on his country's supposed European provenance demonstrate that Argentina still needs a frank conversation on race, writes Sylvia Colombo in a New York Times Español opinion piece. His racist phrase "reveals the negation of mestizo and Black roots of his society, which underlies the formation of Argentine cultural identity: resistance to recognize that the country was forged through a complicated, and sometimes brutal, mixing, like the rest of the region, is strongly rooted." (See last Thursday's briefs.)

• A new investigation, "La Reacción Consevadora," looks at the coalescing "alt-right" movement in Argentina. (Página 12)

• The pandemic crisis of desolation affecting Buenos Aires' downtown could become an opportunity to rethink the city's urban dynamics, argues local lawmaker Manuel Socias in Infobae.

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

Castillo poised to win (June 11, 2021)

 Pedro Castillo is poised to win Peru's presidential election, by an exceedingly slim margin of less than 70,000 votes. Castillo has won about 50.2 percent of the votes counted, his opponent Keiko Fujimori 49.8 percent. Tension over the results is pushing democracy to the limit, reports the New York Times, exacerbating the fissures running through a deeply divided society and building on years of political upheaval in Peru.

The sudden rise of a relatively unknown rural school teacher speaks to how the pandemic has thrown politics into upheaval, reports the Wall Street Journal. Castillo has capitalized on anger over a market model that left behind the country's poorest, a gap that has been particularly evident during the pandemic as hospitals collapsed and oxygen tanks ran out.

Adding to the high stakes, yesterday a prosecutor asked a judge to jail Fujimori, who is facing corruption charges related to her 2011 presidential run. She had been released on bail last year as prosecutors sought a 30-year sentence on charges that she denies. Winning the presidency would put the case on hold.

Fujimori has yet to concede her third presidential bid and is asking election officials to throw out about 200,000 votes, most of which come from the poor highlands that overwhelmingly backed Castillo. If her challenge succeeds, it will likely provoke significant social unrest.

Castillo's Peru Libre party says there is no evidence of suspicious activity. Independent electoral observers say the vote was carried out cleanly. (Reuters) Rubén Ramírez, head of a delegation from the Organization of American States, praised the authority for its handling of the “transparent” process and said his team had been made aware of only “isolated” irregularities. (Washington Post)

If the count holds, Castillo, the son of poor Andean farmers, will take office on July 28. Peruvians will now discover which of the contrasting versions of Castillo will govern, explains Foreign Policy's Latin America Brief. Castillo's Perú Libre party describes itself as Marxist-Leninist. And during the campaign, he called for nationalizing mining and gas companies. But economic advisors have sought to assuage market fears this week. One praised the central bank, promised to respect its autonomy, rejected price and import controls and said mines would face a tax renegotiation rather than nationalisation. Another said Castillo would never enact policies that would confiscate assets. (Economist) "Our idea is not to have massive interventionism in the economy," Pedro Francke, a leftwing economist and adviser, told Reuters.

And this week Castillo promised to be “respectful of democracy, the current constitution, and govern with financial and economic stability.”

Moderates won the internal battle within Castillo's campaign, but “moderate” is a relative term noted James Bosworth in an analysis last month. Constitutional reform was firmly on Castillo's agenda, and constitutional and one goal of that reform is to change the government’s role in the economy. (Latin America Risk Report)

Castillo will inherit a country split down the middle, both geographically and socially, and he has a weak mandate, notes the Economist. He is highly likely to face governance challenges from Congress, which has a broadly conservative majority. Castillo has the support of only 42 of its 130 members, most of whom are loyal to Perú Libre's leader, Vladimir Cerrón. Congress will also be an obstacle to his reform ambitions.

“It is easy to imagine his presidency not lasting a full year,” Steven Levitsky told the WSJ.

More Peru

• InSight Crime looks at some of the core security challenges facing Castillo, including corruption, VRAEM coca cultivation, and environmental crimes in Madre de Dios.
  

News Briefs

Covid-19

• Despite high-profile “medical diplomacy” from countries such as the United States and China, Latin America's COVID-19 response has suffered from chronic shortages of critical medical equipment and vaccines. But there are some notable exceptions, notes a recent Wilson Center's Weekly Asado. Argentina, Brazil and Mexico, though ineffective at controlling the coronavirus’s spread, have retooled their local medical manufacturing resources to supplement international supplies and contribute to the regional pandemic response. And Cuba is administering its locally developed Soberana and Abdala vaccines.

Nicaragua

• Nicaraguan police have detained seven high-profile opposition leaders over the past week, including four presidential hopefuls just months before the election. Jose Bernard Pallais Arana -- the leader of Coalición Nacional party -- the latest arrest, yesterday. He was detained for acting "against the independence, sovereignty and auto-determination" of the country. (CNN, see Wednesday's post.)

• President Daniel Ortega's moves against opposition figures, five months ahead of November's presidential elections, signal a new radicalization of his authoritarian government, writes journalist Carlos Chamorro.  The question faced by Ortega's opponents is whether to pressure for democratic limits now or "wait for the system to collapse under its own wait, at the cost of greater sacrifices from everybody." (Confidencial)

• The United States is prepared to review "trade-related activities" with Nicaragua, including Managua's participation in a Central America free trade agreement, if the country's coming elections are not free and fair, U.S. State Department senior official Julie Chung said yesterday. (Reuters)

• The US issued new sanctions against President Daniel Ortega’s daughter and a few other regime insiders this week. "While a necessary step to demonstrate resolve and make the Ortega regime pay some price for its abuses, there is little reason to believe these sanctions will have any real impact on the situation," according to the Latin America Risk Report. Sanctions against dozens of other top Nicaraguan officials in recent years have failed to ease the repression, notes the New York Times.

Amazon

• Any hope of reaching global climate goals depends on reining in deforestation in Brazil. But any hope of reining in deforestation depends on Bolsonaro, reports Rolling Stone, which looks at options to sidestep Brazil's national government and work with governors and civil society instead.
  

El Salvador

• El Salvador's sudden "Bitcoinization," took two and a half days, and just five hours from the time the bill reached the legislature, reports El Faro. El Salvador is the first country in the world to make bitcoin legal tender, effective in September. By any account, the Bukele administration rushed the bitcoin law through the legislature. (See yesterday's post.)

• Bukele announced on Wednesday that that the country's state-run geothermal energy utility would begin using power derived from volcanoes for Bitcoin mining. (NPR)

• After El Salvador made Bitcoin legal tender this week, analysts have turned to the rural fishing village of El Zonte, where the cryptocurrency is already used by 500 fishing and farming families to buy groceries and pay utilities. The "Bitcoin Beach" experiment is the result of an anonymous donor who started working through a local nonprofit group in 2019, reports the Associated Press.

Regional Relations

• "The fight against corruption is not always what it seems," warn Aaron and Mark Schneider in a Miami Herald opinion piece. "Across the region, populist, proto-fascist, and anti-democratic actors have ridden to power by claiming the anti-corruption mantle. Leaders descending into authoritarianism use trumped up corruption charges to sideline political opponents."

• Luis Almagro, secretary general of the Organization of American States, has created a commissioner within the multilateral organization focused on combating anti-Semitism across Latin America. (Miami Herald)

• The U.S. Biden administration is invoking provisions in a new trade agreement to ask Mexico to look into accusations of labor violations at an auto-parts plant near the U.S. border. (New York Times)
  

Mexico

• The wife of the Mexican drug kingpin Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán has pleaded guilty to charges in the U.S. and admitted that she helped her husband run his multibillion-dollar criminal empire. (Guardian, Washington Post, see Wednesday's briefs.)
  

Panama

• Panama’s northern province of Colón, sitting at the Atlantic entrance to the Panama Canal, is seeing a staggering increase in drug seizures, raising questions about its role in the Central American cocaine pipeline, reports InSight Crime.
  

Argentina

• Argentine President Alberto Fernández's racially insensitive remarks this week have sparked a broad conversation about the country's founding myths. (Cosecha Roja, see yesterday's briefs.)

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

El Salvador adopts Bitcoin (June 10, 2021)

El Salvador is the first country in the world to make Bitcoin legal tender. Lawmakers approved the move Tuesday night with 62 out of 84 of the legislature’s votes, just days after President Nayib Bukele made the proposal at a Bitcoin conference. (See Monday's briefs.)

The law effectively means the cryptocurrency can be used as payment for goods or services unless a business cannot provide the tech required to facilitate the transaction. The U.S. dollar will continue to be El Salvador’s main currency and no one will be forced to pay in Bitcoin, according to the legislation. The law would create mechanisms to help Salvadorans, especially small businesses, quickly convert payments they receive in Bitcoins into dollars — helping them avoid the risk of the value plummeting, reports the New York Times. 

Bitcoin is known for wild price swings that have prompted critics to suggest it is not suitable to be an effective currency, reports CNBC. It’s still unclear how El Salvador will ultimately roll out bitcoin as legal tender.

Bukele has previously said this will make financial services accessible to the 70% of Salvadorans who do not have bank accounts and ease the transfer of remittances from abroad that make up around 20% of the country’s GDP.  Because people can transmit bitcoin to relatives and businesses on their smartphones, without the need for a bank account, he argues the move to make Bitcoin legal tender could help achieve the “moral imperative” of financial inclusion.

Salvadoran emigrants send $6 billion home in remittances each year, mostly through middlemen who take cuts as large as 20 percent. “By using bitcoin,” tweeted Bukele, “the amount received by more than a million low income families will increase in the equivalent of billions of dollars every year.”

Bitcoin entrepreneurs have been working on implementation to make bitcoin a feasible means of exchange for everyday purchases, reports Forbes. (Coindesk delves more into definitions of "legal tender.")

But experts have said the move to Bitcoin could complicate talks with the IMF, where El Salvador is seeking a more than $1bn program. They also voiced concern about potential tax evasion concerns, reports Reuters.

Is it the beginning of a trend? An increasing number of Latin American lawmakers are donning Laser eyes on their Twitter avatars to express their support for Bitcoin and digital assets, notes Coin Telegraph. (The Street too.)

News Briefs

Haiti

• Haiti is grappling with its first serious outbreak of coronavirus -- and has not administered a single Covid-19 vaccine. Last month, infections and fatalities rose more than fivefold following the arrival of new variants, in what the Pan American Health Organization (PAHO) called a "cautionary tale in just how quickly things can change with this virus," reports Reuters.

• Deadly clashes between rival gangs in the Port-au-Prince metropolitan area seeking to exert control over populous areas have surged in recent weeks, with a significant upsurge since the beginning of the month. Preliminary estimates suggest that thousands of people have fled their homes and sought shelter with host families or settled in informal shelters, according to the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs. (See Tuesday's briefs.)
  

Nicaragua

• The Nicaraguan government's crackdown against political opponents continued yesterday, with police arresting another prominent opposition activist, José Pallais. (See yesterday's post.) Overall, in the past week, the police jailed or put under house arrest four opposition presidential candidates, along with the spouse of one of the candidates, a prominent social activist and a business leader, reports the New York Times.

• Most of the latest political detainees have been held under Nicaragua’s so-called “Guillotine Law,” which since late last year has allowed the government to accuse any citizen of working for foreign powers and fomenting unrest without having to produce evidence. (See Monday's post.) In another sign of a broadening crackdown, prosecutors have questioned nearly 30 journalists in alleged money-laundering cases in recent weeks, threatening to stifle the last independent media in the country, reports the New York Times.

Brazil

• The death on Tuesday of yet another young Black favela resident during a raid by heavily armed police has prompted an outburst of fury in Brazil – and fresh calls for a rethink of the so-called war on drug gangs. Kathlen Romeu, a 24-year-old pregnant woman was struck by a single stray bullet during a confrontation between officers and criminals. (Guardian)

• The gang-rape and torture of a 22-year-old gay man in Florianópolis has prompted fierce reaction in Brazil and is evidence of a growing tide of hate crime in the country, according to human rights campaigners. Three armed men used sharp objects during the assault last week and forced him to carve homophobic slurs into his legs, said activists. Brazil has one of the most alarming rates of violence and discrimination against LGBT people in the world, reports the Guardian.

• JBS, the world’s biggest meat processor, has paid an $11m ransom after a cyber attack shut down operations, including abattoirs in the US, Australia and Canada. (Guardian)

• The lurid story of an evangelical superstar from a favela who made it to Brazil's congress and is now accused of murdering her husband -- Guardian Long Read.

Regional Relations

• Chinese pharmaceutical executives reportedly told Brazil's government to refrain from criticizing China in order to avoid delays in vaccine ingredient shipments. While SinoVac executives did not say China's government was directly interfering, they indicated a fluid relationship between the two countries' leadership would be more conducive for the commercial agreement, according to cables from the Brazilian embassy in China presented at Senate investigation commission into the Bolsonaro administration's handling of the pandemic. (Infobae, Reuters)

• Iran rejected as interference a reported U.S. monitoring of Iranian navy vessels that may be headed to Venezuela, reports Reuters.
  

Migration

• The issue of migration is dividing U.S. Democrats after U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris warned Central Americans not to embark on dangerous journeys north -- a stance lawmaker Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez branded as disappointing, arguing that seeking asylum at the U.S. border is “a 100% legal method of arrival.” (The Hill, see Tuesday's briefs.)

Colombia

• The U.S. war on drugs bears significant responsibility for Colombia's ongoing cycle of conflict, by providing the military equipment now being used by security forces to forcibly quell dissent, writes Kyle Longley in the Washington Post.

Argentina

• Strengthening the care economy is a condition for development in Argentina, writes Mercedes D'Alessandro, Director of Economy, Equality and Gender in the country's economy ministry. During the pandemic Argentina has carried out a series of stop-gap measures aimed at alleviating poverty, which take into account the disproportionate effect on female-led households. But other policies aim at investing in care infrastructure and stregthening female participation in productive sectors, she details in a Cronista column.

• Argentine President Alberto Fernández set off a Twitter storm and regional race debate after commenting to the Spanish prime minister that: "The Mexicans came from the Indians, the Brazilians came from the jungle, but we Argentines came from the ships. And they were ships that came from Europe." He thought he was citing Nobel laureate Octavio Paz, but the reference actually comes from an Argentine rock song. Regardless, the comments sparked a viral response on social media, with many criticizing the center-left leader for racial insensitivity, reports the Guardian. (Bolsonaro's response.)

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