Chile legislates marriage equality (Dec. 8, 2021)

Chilean lawmakers legalized gay marriage yesterday, putting same-sex unions on par with others. The move comes two-weeks ahead of a presidential runoff election in which Chileans will choose a new leader in the most polarized race in the country's recent history. 

Analysts say the move is a blow to conservative candidate José Antonio Kast's traditionalist agenda. Kast has said that “society works best with heterosexual couples”; his presidential program offers subsidies to married heterosexual families with children, deliberately excluding same-sex couples. Yesterday he said he opposed the new legislation: “We respect democracy, but that doesn’t mean we change our convictions,” he said. “For us, marriage is between a man and a woman.”

Same-sex civil unions have been legal in Chile since 2015, but did not recognize adoption rights for gay partners. The country’s new law undoes existing legal discrimination against same-sex couples in parentage, joint adoption, and assisted reproductive technology, among others. It also scraps the requirement that married transgender people divorce if they want to have their gender legally recognized. (Human Rights Watch)

The marriage equality legislation was presented four years ago, by former president Michelle Bachelet, but stalled until June, when it received a surprise endorsement from current President Sebastián Piñera, who previously opposed recognizing same-sex marriage. He said “life” and “meeting people” had led him to change his mind. “The time has come for marriage equality in our country,” he said at the time. “Today, I think we need to reflect on the value of freedom, including the freedom to love and build a family with a loved one.”

Chile forms part of a growing wave of marriage equality in the region: Argentina, Brazil, Colombia, Costa Rica, Ecuador, and Uruguay have legalized same-sex marriage, and Mexico’s Supreme Court has declared bans on same-sex marriage unconstitutional.

(Washington Post, Guardian, New York Times)

News Briefs

Cuba

• The Cuban government should immediately stop its abuses against Cuban artists, over 300 prominent figures from the art world said today in a statement co-signed by PEN International, the Artists at Risk Connection of PEN America, and Human Rights Watch. The Cuban government should respect freedom of expression, release arbitrarily detained artists, drop abusive criminal charges, and allow those in exile to return to their country, they said.

Guatemala

• Guatemalan President Alejandro Giammattei told the OAS that corruption is not endangering his country's democracy, and said Guatemala is advancing in graft-fighting measures, reports AFP. The Inter-American Commission on Human Rights urged Guatemala to prioritize the fight against corruption, earlier this year, and pointed to harassment of judges and prosecutors for investigating criminal structures linked to economic and political power.
  
  
• Giammattei is in Washington this week, a trip that overlaps with the U.S. hosted "Summit on Democracy," which Guatemala was not invited to attend, reports AFP. (See yesterday's post.)
  
  
• Giammattei said Guatemala is a "stable democracy" that guarantees human rights, reports Reuters. U.S. State Department official Uzra Zeya last week expressed concern over reporters, corruption fighters and activists in Guatemala who have recently come under fire from the government.
  
  
• As Guatemala's tax chief Juan Francisco Solorzano Foppa prosecuted powerful countrymen for millions in unpaid taxes. While many celebrated him for tackling elites long used to getting away with evading taxes, he was soon fired, arrested and charged with serious crimes -- part of an ongoing backlash against some of the leaders of an anti-corruption movement that for a time pioneered efforts to end graft and impunity for powerful elites in Central America, reports Reuters.

Regional

• "The Biden administration’s Summit for Democracy this week would be the ideal moment for the United States to spearhead a ... “democrat’s playbook.” But to make it effective—and not just an exercise in platitudes and self-congratulation—the heads of state and officials gathered must be prepared to scrutinize their own domestic politics and societies just as much as they do those of autocrats," write Christopher Sabatini and Ryan C. Berg in Foreign Policy. "Doing so will require understanding and responding to the common forces that are giving rise to disillusionment, polarization, and democratic decay around the world today." (See yesterday's post.)
  
  
• "Biden’s Summit for Democracy can also lay the groundwork for the creation of an ambitious new club for liberal democracies," they argue. "Membership in this club must come with both financial and political benefits that outweigh what competing authoritarian regimes are offering. Such perks should include development assistance through the aforementioned global democracy fund."
  
  
• A proposal for the World Trade Organization to waive intellectual-property rights on pandemic-related pharmaceuticals is still languishing, but a public-health bill in Brazil points the way to a promising bottom-up solution, writes Joseph Stiglitz at Project Syndicate. The bill sought to establish a permanent provision for overriding IP monopolies on essential technologies needed to address health emergencies and would provide for the transfer of vaccine know-how to alternative pharmaceutical manufacturers.
  

Venezuela

• It's time for the Venezuelan opposition to switch tack in the struggle against Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro, opposition leader Julio Borges told the Financial Times. The quick-fix, regime-change agenda for Venezuela spearheaded by Juan Guaidó has failed, said Borges who resigned as Guaidó's foreign envoy this week. (See Monday's briefs.)
  
  
• Guaidó's mandate as interim president expires on Jan. 5, and Borges' statements are part of maneuvering within the opposition ahead of that date, Geoff Ramsey, WOLA's Venezuela Director, told FT.
  
  
• "Despite U.S. sanctions, the country's worst economic crisis in history and dismal job-approval ratings, Maduro, who has been president since 2013, has actually tightened his grip on power," according to NPR.

Colombia

• Colombian media has reported that top ex-FARC commanders El Paisa and Romaña have been shot dead in Venezuela. If confirmed, the killings would be a crippling blow to the Second Marquetalia, whose commanders announced the formation of the dissident group more than two years ago with a new call to arms, reports InSight Crime.

Mexico

• The brewer of Corona beer for U.S. consumers, has agreed to build a brewery in southeastern Mexico, almost two years after the López Obrador administration ordered the closure of a nearly completed $1.4 billion plant near the U.S.-Mexico border. The brewery’s relocation culminates protracted negotiations between top executives of the third-largest U.S. beer producer, senior Mexican officials and local authorities in Mexico’s impoverished southeast region, reports the Wall Street Journal.

Journalism

• Salvadoran journalist Óscar Martínez's new book, "Los muertos y el periodista," grapples with his journalistic career covering intense violence in Central America -- El País.

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Latin America Daily Briefing

The "Summit for Democracy" (Dec. 7, 2021)

 A U.S. convened, two-day “Summit for Democracy” starts Thursday, with the goal of rallying the nations of the world against the forces of authoritarianism. The White House is also inviting activist and business groups, and officials have been engaging nongovernmental organizations for roughly six months, reports the Washington Post.

Though there have been questions regarding the invite list, as well as the U.S.'s suitability for hosting such an event. The Economist argues that the Biden administration prioritized geopolitics over objective measures of democracy.

While the White House has been emphatic that invitations to the summit don't mean the government's in question are "good," there is a significant risk that backsliding democracies that have been invited -- like Brazil -- could use inclusion as a stamp of geopolitical approval, warn James Goldgeier and Bruce Jentleson in Politico. " Given the United States' disturbing record of supporting anti-democratic forces in Brazil during the Cold War, it is especially crucial that the Biden administration be clear that its commitment to a “long-term” strategic partnership” with Brazil doesn’t mean the U.S. will ignore the state of Brazilian democracy."

The summit could be more relevant than skeptics believe, argues Oliver Stuenkel in Americas Quarterly. He argues the "gatherings should focus, above all, on the domestic sources of the global crisis of democracy. In the Americas, five stand out: worsening inequality, bad public services, polarization, the spread of fake news, and, in part as a consequence of the first two, the militarization of politics."

News Briefs

Regional

• Twitter announced it removed accounts connected to state-linked information operations from six countries, including Venezuela and Mexico. "These operations from Venezuela and Mexico illustrate different techniques for propagating inauthentic information online for antidemocratic purposes," according to the Latin America Risk Report. " These operations are particularly concerning due to their clear connection with the governments in each country."

Migration

• The U.S. Department of Homeland Security’s civil rights office raised an internal warning to immigration and border officials that deporting Haitians to their volatile home country risked violating U.S. civil and human rights obligations and advised them against the practice in late August, according to an internal document obtained by BuzzFeed News.
  
  
• The Dominican Republic deported more than 31,000 people to Haiti this year, more than 12,000 of them in just the past three months, reports the Associated Press. The huge spike is part of a crackdown on migrants -- many who have lived in the Dominican Republic for most of their lives -- that human rights activists say hasn’t been seen in decades. They link the Dominican Republic's increasing mistreatment of Haitians to Luis Abinader's government, starting in August 2020.
  

Haiti

• Three more hostages from a group of 17 missionaries and their children kidnapped in Haiti have been released. The group was abducted by an armed gang near Port-au-Prince in October, and two hostages were freed due to medical concerns last month, reports the New York Times. Haiti has been overwhelmed in recent months by a terrifying wave of mass kidnappings by armed gangs that control large sections of the capital, reports the Washington Post.
  

Honduras

• The incoming government of Xiomara Castro in Honduras "won’t have it easy: Corrupt networks have been entrenched for decades and permeate every branch of government," reports The Nation.

Guatemala

• Guatemalan President Alejandro Giammattei called his country a U.S. ally that backs Taiwan over China, emphasizing his government’s alignment with U.S. policy, reports Reuters.
  

Brazil

• Forty years after Brazil returned to democracy, an Army elite troop training exercise involved a simulation against a fictitious armed dissident faction of the Workers' Party, reports The Intercept. The documents describing the exercise, which took place last year, demonstrate that "the largest of the three Armed Forces not only continues to see left-wing social and political movements as enemies – it also is being trained to fight them."
  
  
• Former Brazilian president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva's strategy to unseat President Jair Bolsonaro is based on the appeal of his personality and his ability to negotiate with Brazilian politics’ kingmakers, according to France 24.

Colombia

• Colombia’s national police has deployed 100 criminal intelligence and investigation officers in a strategy to tackle environmental crimes, the government said , citing illegal mining and animal trafficking among the gravest threats. (Reuters)
  

Venezuela

• Venezuela's government estimates income from crude exports will finance 61% of its national budget next year, reports Reuters.
  

Mexico

• Mexico’s energy reform has been delayed until next year amid a lack of support for its passage by members of the opposition parties, reports Bloomberg.
  

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Latin America Daily Briefing

Support for Guaidó crumbling (Dec. 6, 2021)

 News Briefs

Venezuela

• The opposition to Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro faces a major schism: Julio Borges, a leading figure in the coalition, called for an end to the leadership of Juan Guaidó, whom the U.S. and dozens of allies have backed as Venezuela’s legitimate president since January 2019, reports the Wall Street Journal. “The notion of the interim government has to disappear,” said Mr. Borges in a virtual news conference from his exile in Bogotá, Colombia, adding that he is resigning as Mr. Guaidó’s chief foreign diplomat. “We can’t continue with this bureaucracy.”
  
  
• Maduro named former foreign minister Jorge Arreaza as his party’s candidate for a special gubernatorial election in Barinas, which was scheduled after the opposition contender in November’s regular contest was retroactively disqualified, reports the Associated Press. (See last Wednesday's briefs.)
  
  
• Venezuela’s government – subject to sanctions by the United States and others – is increasingly paying providers in U.S. dollars as it seeks to reduce spending in its bolivar currency to control inflation, reports Reuters.
  

Regional Relations

• A dissident former leader of Colombia's Farc rebels has been killed in an ambush in Venezuela. Hernán Darío Velásquez, nicknamed El Paisa, was reportedly shot dead in Venezuela's Apure state, reports the BBC. Local media have speculated that mercenaries may have killed Velásquez, seeking rewards for his capture.
  
  
• The U.S. must act to isolate Iran and Venezuela from each other to avoid Venezuela becoming "a forward operating base in the Western Hemisphere for Iranian forces to undermine U.S. national security," argues Jeb Bush in a Miami Herald opinion piece.

Regional

• Barbados' passage to a republic this week could be a tipping point in the Caribbean argues the Guardian in an editorial. "For much of the world, decolonisation is not an argument but simply a fact – a work begun several decades ago, and now re-embraced with greater vigour in the wake of the Black Lives Matter movement." (See last Thursday's Just Caribbean Updates.)
  
  
• Barbadian Prime Minister Mia Mottley ushered the country into a new phase, and has broad ambitions for the Caribbean region, reports the Guardian separately. One of Mottley’s early acts was to reinstate free tertiary education at the country’s premier University of the West Indies campus, an indicator of "the kind of mental transformation Mottley is eager to accelerate across the Caribbean."

Honduras

• Honduran president-elect Xiomara Castro plans to ask the U.N. for help in fighting corruption, and will urge Congress to repeal so-called "impunity" laws, she told AFP. An OAS backed anti-corruption mission to Honduras left in 2020 after a disagreement with the current Hernández administration over renewing its mandate.
  
  
• While campaigning Castro promised the Mission to Support the Fight against Corruption and Impunity in Honduras (Misión de Apoyo Contra la Corrupción y la Impunidad en Honduras - MACCIH), reports InSight Crime.
  
  
• Honduras' last presidential elections were marred by fraud, last month's were helped by citizen observers who forced vote counters to hold up every ballot for inspection by the crowd, which protested any miscounted vote, reports the Christian Science Monitor.

Migration

• The U.S. government is fighting in court to preserve a public health rule that uses the coronavirus pandemic to justify quickly turning back migrant families at the border with Mexico. But immigration and human rights advocates say "Title 42" is being used improperly as an enforcement tool, forcing migrants to return to dangerous situations, reports the New York Times. (See last Friday's post.)
  

Brazil

• The Brazilian Supreme Court has ordered a probe into President Jair Bolsonaro for claiming that COVID-19 vaccines may increase the chances of contracting AIDS, reports Al Jazeera.
  
  
• Much of Brazil’s vast northeast is, in effect, turning into a desert. The slow-motion natural disaster process of desertification is pushed by climate change, but also short-term decisions residents made in order to survive — like clearing trees for livestock and extracting clay for the region’s tile industry — that have carried long-term consequences, reports the New York Times.
  
  
• InSight Crime examines four recent environmental crises in Brazil, each showcasing a different side of the disaster in the Amazon that further prove that Brazil's environmental promises, and its actions, are far apart.
  
  
• Rio de Janeiro's "dirty feet" bars are back: "a cross between a dive bar and a greasy spoon, where the grit and grime are part of the charm," reports the New York Times.

El Salvador

•  El Salvador President Nayib Bukele said the country had acquired an additional 150 bitcoins after the digital currency’s value slumped again, enlarging his bet on the cryptocurrency despite criticism, reports Reuters.
  

Guatemala

• An InSight Crime investigation looks into a contentious deal between a major pharmaceutical firm and the Guatemalan Social Security Institute. Prosecutors said the IGSS greenlit the agreement despite the firm’s lack of experience and infrastructure. Afterwards dozens of patients with kidney disease died and scores of others were infected. The case eventually reached the country’s highest courts where the elites implicated in the IGSS case had bought what some said was an insurance policy to make sure they would never be prosecuted.

Haiti

• The case of a soldier found driving a stolen car in Port-au-Prince, and his rapid release while a police investigation into a possible stolen car ring was ongoing, stands in sharp contrast to how most Haitians are treated and has raised suspicions of influence peddling given the soldier's stature, reports the Miami Herald. Police are also accusing the justice system of undermining their efforts to tackle Haiti’s raging insecurity.

Argentina

• Argentina is edging closer to a deal with the IMF, despite gaps between the two sides over how to fund fiscal consolidation. But the Fernández administration faces an uphill battle to convince Argentines who fear the impact of a deal on public spending and the government could take a political hit from any austerity ahead of presidential elections in 2023, reports Reuters. The government instead wants to improve tax collection and find funds from other lenders. The government is aiming to push a multi-year economic plan to Congress this month with the IMF’s blessing.
  
  
• Tuft warfare between drug gangs in Argentina's Rosario has pushed criminal violence out of control, reports InSight Crime.
  

Mexico

• Cartel violence is expanding on Mexico's Mayan Riviera, and has put the country’s tourism industry on edge, reports the Guardian.
  
  
• Mexico City Mayor Claudia Sheinbaum is an early favorite to succeed President Andres Manuel López Obrador. Analysts contrast the environmental scientist's reputation for innovative problem solving with her ardent support for some of AMLO's more controversial policies.  "Despite her ideological alignment with López Obrador’s political project, some observers believe a Sheinbaum presidency would look more like her technocratic, data-driven city administration," writes Benjamin Russell in Americas Quarterly.
  
  
• AMLO is pushing a mid-mandate referendum, asking citizens to vote on whether he should leave the presidency early. With high approval ratings, there is little chance he would be ousted if the vote occurs, reports the Los Angeles Times.

Peru

• Peruvian President Pedro Castillo faces an impeachment vote in Congress this week: opponents seek to oust him on the grounds of ‘moral incapacity’ and cronyism, allegations he has strongly rejected. He accuses right-wing parties and “economic interest groups” of looking to push him out of office, reports Reuters.

Ecuador

• Ecuador's women’s rights organizations are fighting for a “fair and restorative law” that guarantees safe and legal access to abortions for victims of rape, in hopes that it will be approved by the National Assembly before the end of the year, reports EFE.
  

Colombia

• Colombian authorities seized more than 230 tarantula spiders, dozens of cockroaches and a scorpion that were going to be illegally taken out of the country by two foreigners traveling to Germany, reports the Washington Post.

Culinary Corner

• A Colombian mother and daughter’s celebration of envueltos, leaf-wrapped dishes that form part of a Latin American culinary heritage, has been named best cookbook in the world at the Gourmand awards in Paris. (Guardian)

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Latin America Daily Briefing

U.S. to restart Remain in Mexico (Dec. 3, 2021)

Mexico and the U.S. reached an agreement that will allow the U.S. to restart the controversial "Remain in Mexico" program, that requires most asylum seekers to wait in Mexico while their cases are pending. Starting Monday, asylum seekers will once again have to wait outside the U.S. while their claims are processed.

The U.S. government has promised improvements to allow asylum seekers legal representation and to conclude their claims “within six months of an individual’s initial return to Mexico." Mexico said U.S. officials met its concerns over funding for migrant shelters, protection for vulnerable groups and access to medical checkups and Covid-19 vaccines. 

But advocates say the move will subject thousands of people to “enormous suffering” and leave them vulnerable to kidnap and rape as they languish in dangerous Mexican border cities. “The violence faced by migrants in Mexico is going to outweigh any sort of promise made by the Mexican government to try to make this better,” said Linda Rivas, executive director of Las Americas Immigrant Advocacy Center in El Paso, Texas.

Human Rights First recorded more than 1,500 cases of violence, including murder, rape, torture and kidnapping, against migrants forced to return to Mexico under the policy as of February. In March, a Human Rights Watch report found that asylum seekers sent to Mexico under the Trump administration suffered violence and extortion by Mexican police, immigration agents, and criminal groups. Those interviewed said they were afraid to report crimes and abuse to Mexican authorities and were frequently unable to get the documents they needed to work, get health care, or send their children to school. Nearly half of asylum seekers under the Remain in Mexico program lost their cases after missing court dates, some because they were kidnapped or bused thousands of miles from their hearing locations by the Mexican government. (See March 5's post.)

The U.S. Biden administration had stopped the Migrant Protection Protocols in January, but was ordered to reinstate it by a federal court. The administration fought the order but lost in federal appeals court and the Supreme Court before agreeing to comply with the court’s order. 

The Remain in Mexico program will apply to migrants whom the United States is unable to expel under a public health rule it put in place at the beginning of the pandemic.

(Axios, Guardian, NBC, CNN, New York Times)

News Briefs

Regional

• Latin American democracies are in crisis "autocracies are consolidating and kleptocracies seem like the order of the day," write Paul Angelo and Nick Zimmerman in a Miami Herald opinion piece. The Biden administration should help revert the trend by helping democratic systems "adapt to meet citizens’ most basic needs," they argue. "Furnishing quality services to the region’s inhabitants should be the focus of President Biden’s agenda with the 27 participants from the Western Hemisphere during the upcoming Summit for Democracy."

Honduras

• Honduran president-elect Xiomara Castro does not plan to establish diplomatic ties with China when she takes office, reports Reuters, a reversal of her pre-election stance. 
  
  
• Castro's election is "a chance for the U.S. to reform its broken policy toward Central America," according to The New Republic.
  

Barbados

• Barbados' decision to become a republic is intimately tied to last year's Black Lives Matter protests, and also reflects a debate in the Caribbean over the ongoing legacies of colonial era slavery, and a simmering demand for reparations from those who profited from the work of enslaved people. (See yesterday's Just Caribbean Updates, and Tuesday's briefs.)
  
  
• Some voices in the Caribbean hope "that Barbados’ decision will be a catalyst for more changes in the region, or at the very least renew conversations about colonialism, reparations, and the legacy of the British monarchy, which built its wealth on the backs of enslaved Africans," writes Jacqueline Charles in National Geographic.
  
  
• Barbadian Prime Minister Mia Mottley has bigger ambitions still: she dreams of a Caribbean version of the European Union. "While that degree of integration remains far off within the Caribbean Community, the Caribbean has certainly been more organized and cooperative than South America during the coronavirus pandemic," according to the Latin America Brief.

Chile

• Chilean environmental activist Javiera Rojas was found dead with her hands and feet bound. She was well known in northern Chile for her participation in protests against the Prime Thermoelectric project, reports the Guardian.
  
  
• Chilean leftist presidential candidate Gabriel Boric is in the lead, with 54 percent, over conservative José Antonio Kast, with 46 percent, ahead of the Dec. 19 runoff election, according to a new Criteria poll released yesterday. (Reuters)
  
  
• Other recent polls give Boric a stronger lead, AS/COA compares them, and delves into who voters will support based on their first round choice.
  
  
• Franco Parisi became Chile's unlikely kingmaker in November's presidential election -- with an all-digital campaign run from the U.S. Experts say the example is a gamechanger for Chilean politics. (Rest of World)
   
  
• "Chile today presents one of the most challenging and promising scenarios for the global left that all socialists should pay attention to," argues René Rojas in Jacobin. "The country’s road to democratic refoundation sheds light on what insurgent movements and parties fighting to deepen democracy and guarantee social and economic rights should emulate — and what must be avoided." He argues that lessons from Chile include: "that mass mobilization must direct its disruptive force and demands at the state."

Ecuador

• Ecuador’s constitutional court ruled that plans to mine for copper and gold in a protected cloud forest are unconstitutional and violate the rights of nature. The landmark decision determined that mining permits issued in Los Cedros, a protected area in the north-west of the country, would harm the biodiversity of the forest, reports the Guardian.
  
  
• The oil extracted from under Ecuador's Amazon rainforest goes mostly to the U.S., reports NBC.
  
  
• Two U.N. committees on Thursday called on Ecuador to guarantee security in the country's prisons, where more than 300 inmates have died since in gang violence over the past year and a half, reports AFP.
  

Colombia

• The Eperãra Siapidaarã Indigenous community in southwest Colombia established a protected reserve in the face of illegal logging, mining and coca cultivation being carried out by criminal groups. They are especially interested in protecting the extremely poisonous golden dart frog, which they historically used in their darts while hunting, reports Mongabay.
  

Brazil

• Brazil's Senate passed a constitutional amendment yesterday that will ease the government's spending cap and stagger some obligations, allowing far-right President Jair Bolsonaro to ramp up welfare spending ahead of next year's elections, reports Reuters.
  
  
• Superfood açaí is known as "black gold" in the Amapá state forests where it's harvested, mostly by children without any sort of safety protocols, reports the Washington Post. A fair-trade certification process, industry critics say, has fallen short of its promise to eradicate child labor from the business.

Guyana and Martinique

• Police reinforcements arrived in Martinique this week in the midst of ongoing unrest that erupted over Covid-19 measures, in particular the mandatory vaccination of healthcare workers. Protesters in Guadeloupe and Martinique have erected barricades and blocked roads this month as anger mounted over an order also in place in mainland France requiring health workers to be vaccinated against Covid-19. (Just Caribbean Updates)

Peru

• Peruvian prosecutors have called President Pedro Castillo in for questioning as part of an investigation into the promotion of certain military officers. The move adds to legislative pressure against Castillo, who faces an impeachment push from some lawmakers, reports Al Jazeera.

Argentina

• Former Argentine President Mauricio Macri was charged with ordering illegal surveillance on relatives of sailors who died in a 2017 submarine accident. An Argentine judge indicted Macri yesterday and barred him from leaving the country. If convicted, Macri could face up to 10 years in prison, reports the New York Times.
  
  
• Argentine's midterm elections show voter dissatisfaction with both of the country's main political coalitions -- the governing Frente de Todos and the opposition Juntos por el Cambio -- and could be an opening for alternatives on both ends of the political spectrum, writes Juan Cruz Ferre in Nacla, pointing to the electoral gains of far-right candidate Javier Milei and the strong showing by the left, which will influence the country's legislative agenda.

Panama

• Former Panamanian president Ricardo Martinelli's son has pleaded guilty to money laundering as part of a massive corruption scheme involving Brazilian construction conglomerate Odebrecht. (Al Jazeera)
  

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Latin America Daily Briefing

Latin America Daily Briefing (Dec. 2, 2021)

News Briefs

Regional Relations

• The Biden administration paused its review of U.S. policy towards Cuba in July, after Cuban authorities responded to massive social protests with an ongoing crackdown on dissent, Juan González, the National Security Council’s senior director for the Western Hemisphere, told NBC News. González wouldn’t say if and when restrictions on travel and remittances would be lifted and stated the administration is not looking at these isolated restrictions. “We’re looking at the whole policy," he said.
  
  
• Xiomara Castro’s victory in the Honduras presidential elections last Sunday puts the country at the heart of an intensifying diplomatic tug-of-war between Taiwan and China, reports the Guardian. Castro has said she will foster ties with Beijing in what experts see as a move to counter U.S. influence, and that the potential financial benefits might be too enticing to pass up.
  
  
• A major question is how the U.S. will respond to Castro, argues Dana Frank in a Washington Post opinion piece. "Castro, a democratic socialist, unseated a right-wing machinery that has been backed by Washington since the 2009 coup that deposed her husband, Manuel Zelaya ... Is the United States going to continue providing strategic support and cover for corrupt and illegitimate actors?"
  
  
• U.S. foreign policy in the region replicates past errors, argues Lívia Peres Milani in Nacla. "The U.S. government recognizes and condemns authoritarian trends in countries that resist U.S. hegemony, like Nicaragua, Venezuela, and Cuba ... in allied countries, like Brazil and Colombia, the administration is hesitant to recognize human rights violations and the deterioration of democracy."
  
  
• U.S. Senator Marco Rubio met with Chilean presidential candidate José Antonio Kast this week, reports The Intercept.  “I’m not a pinochetista, but I value everything he did,” Kast has said, adding that the dictatorship “laid the foundations of modernity.”
  

Guatemala

• Guatemalan prosecutors filed more charges against Juan Francisco Sandoval, anti-corruption prosecutor who fled to the United States in July. The charges of abuse of authority, fraud and conspiracy appear to be the government's latest attempt to interfere with anti-corruption efforts, reports the Associated Press.
  
  
• A U.S. State Department official visiting Guatemala expressed concern over reporters, corruption fighters and activists who have recently come under fire from the government. The U.S. Biden administration has repeatedly emphasized the need to tackle corruption in Guatemala and other Central American countries as part of an effort to stem record levels of migration, reports Reuters.

Migration

• The new short film, The Facility, documents abuses waged by the U.S. government against migrants through video-conference recordings with two people detained in Irwin County Detention Center, a notorious private facility used by Immigration and Customs Enforcement. (El Faro English)
  
  
• Filippo Grandi, U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), urged U.S. President Joe Biden's administration to do more, work faster and more strategically with Mexico and Central America to offer alternatives to illegal migration by improving security and job opportunities. (Reuters)
  
  
• Mexico’s foreign ministry has said the Mexican and US foreign development agencies will work together on a project to address the root causes of migration from Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador -- Plantando Oportunidades. (Al Jazeera)
  

El Salvador

• The Inter-American Court of Human Rights that El Salvador violated the rights of a woman who died in prison while serving a 30-year sentence on an abortion conviction, reports the Washington Post.
  

Brazil

• Brazil’s senate approved André Mendonça, an evangelical former justice minister nominated by President Jair Bolsonaro, to fill a vacant position on the supreme court. Bolsonaro's move is seen as a nod to the conservative religious movement that helped bring him to power, reports the Associated Press. "One step for a man, one leap for evangelicals," said Mendonça yesterday, riffing on Neil Armtrong, reports O Globo.
  
  
• Bolsonaro formally joined the center-right Liberal Party this week, ahead of presidential elections in ten months. (See yesterday's briefs.) But the move should not be interpreted as an ideological shift towards the center, experts told the Dialogue's Latin America Advisor. 
  
  
• "It is a pragmatic marriage for political survival," said Anya Prusa of the Albright Stonebridge Group. "Despite his anti-establishment campaign in 2018, Bolsonaro has come to rely on the Centrão for the passage of his agenda and protection from impeachment. For its part, the PL will use Bolsonaro’s presence to boost down-ballot candidates ... and secure a stronger negotiating position in Congress post-election, even if Bolsonaro loses." (Dialogue's Latin America Advisor)
  
  
• "Brazilian society needs a pact to guarantee the republican impersonality of institutions," writes Pedro Abramovay in Piauí, in an article that dissects how politicized actors were able to undermine genuine efforts "to create strong republican institutions that would make it possible to break with centuries of patrimonialism," under former president Luis Inácio Lula da Silva.
  
  
• Brazil’s economy fell into a shallow recession this year dragged down by drought, a high interest rate and inflation. The development is another blow for Bolsonaro ahead of next year's presidential election, reports Bloomberg.
  
  
• Brazilian Economy Minister Paulo Guedes said that state-run oil company Petrobras should be privatized, reports Reuters.
  
  
• Favela Brasil Xpress is a startup delivery firm aimed at delivering e-commerce packages in Brazil's poorest neighborhoods, where residents have often been unable to make purchases because companies consider their areas risky. (Reuters)
  

Colombia

• The Luis Carlos Pérez Lawyers Collective Corporation is an all-female group of lawyers that provides legal representation to small-scale farmers and indigenous communities affected by the armed conflict in Colombia, reports the Guardian. "In a country named the deadliest in the world for human rights defenders, the team faces enormous risks, including threats, false accusations of criminal activity and links to illicit armed groups."
  

Argentina

• Argentina's former President Mauricio Macri has been charged with ordering the secret services to spy on relatives of 44 sailors who died when the Ara San Juan submarine sank in 2017, reports the BBC.
  

Mexico

• Mexican President Andés Manuel López Obrador held a massive rally in Mexico City yesterday to mark the midway point in his six-year term. Polls show that about two-thirds of Mexicans approve of the job he is doing, reports the Associated Press.
  
  
• Mexico's government and business groups have agreed to increase the daily minimum wage next year by 22 percent, AMLO announced yesterday. (Reuters)
  

Chile

• "Exceptional atmospheric conditions in northern Chile, an image of political stability, favorable tax policies, and diplomatic credentials for researchers have made the country a leader in international astronomy," but "Chilean scientists and civil society actors continue to question the relative balance of benefits they get for the globally unique natural attributes in their northern deserts, which make cutting-edge astronomy research possible." (Aula Blog)
  

Critter Corner

• Chilean researchers announced the discovery of a new species of ankylosaur, a family of dinosaurs known for their heavy armor. The Stegouros elengassen features a bizarre, bony tail shaped like a club that was wielded by Aztec warriors, reports the New York Times.

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

Latin America Daily Briefing

Hunger grows in LatAm and the Caribbean (Dec. 1, 2021)

In 2020, 59.7 million people in the region suffered from hunger, according to a new U.N. report. The prevalence of hunger in Latin America and the Caribbean increased by two percentage points last year, which means  13.8 million more people suffered from hunger in 2020 than the year before.  Over the same period, moderate or severe food insecurity increased by nine percentage points and 41 percent of the population of the region is moderately or severely food insecure.

While part of the increase is directly related to the Covid-19 pandemic and its economic impact, the region's hunger figures have been growing for six consecutive years.  "The statistics indicate that we are going backwards in the fight against hunger. We have returned to the levels of 15 years ago, and we are losing the battle against all forms of malnutrition," according to the report authored by five United Nations agencies, which recommends transforming "our agri-food systems to make them efficient, resilient, inclusive and sustainable enough to provide a healthy diet for everyone."

Women were more affected by rising hunger in Latin America and the Caribbean than men, the UN agencies also said.

The numbers in Central America are particularly stark: In Guatemala, around half of the population is experiencing food insecurity. And in El Salvador and Honduras around 47% and 46% of their populations are going hungry, respectively.

(CNN, Al Jazeera, Bloomberg, EFE)

More Food

• "Over the past 80 years, attempts to use individual or institutional wealth to end world hunger have yielded uneven results," writes Gabriela Laveaga in the Washington Post. "It is critical to look at hunger as more than a technical problem to be addressed through scientific advancement alone."
  

Asfura concedes in Honduras

Honduras’s ruling National Party conceded defeat in Sunday's presidential elections, giving victory to Xiomara Castro and easing fears of irregularities, social upheaval and repression following the 2017 election, reports the Associated Press. 

The election still hasn't been officially called: 52 percent of ballots have been tallied. But Castro holds a 19 point lead over National Party candidate Nasry Asfura, who yesterday congratulated Castro for her win. U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken congratulated Castro minutes later. (More data analysis at El Heraldo.)

Luis Guillermo Solís, the former president of Costa Rica and head of the Organization of American States observation mission, emphasized the election's high turnout rate yesterday, presenting the regional body’s preliminary report. He said the mission had not received reports of irregularities or fraud, excepting technical issues. (Contracorriente)

"Unfortunately, Castro’s victory will not automatically put the country on the track to democratic consolidation. and there are five good reasons to fear that the political situation might worsen before getting better," reports Americas Quarterly, pointing to issues like what will happen with current president Juan Orlando Hernández, obstacles presented by the National Party, and the fragile nature of Castro's winning coalition.

More Honduras

• Castro started meeting with key Honduran private sectors, reports El Heraldo.
  
  
• Castro will seek to negotiate a new debt deal with the International Monetary Fund, but opposes raising taxes or creating new ones, reports Reuters.
  
  
• It remains unclear whether current President Juan Orlando Hernández will be extradited to the United States, where he has been implicated in federal drug trafficking cases. Honduras maintains an extradition treaty with the United States that Hernández himself helped negotiate when he was in congress, reports the Washington Post.
  

News Briefs

Regional

• Activists from the Global South have called on public and private global health donors – including governments, the United Nations, private philanthropists and international organizations – to prioritise funding for programs driven community needs. The Aspen Institute’s New Voices Fellowship want donors to offer flexible, long-term funding for sexual and reproductive health and rights and ensure leaders, those allocating grants and program teams reflect the communities and groups they seek to support, reports the Guardian.

Haiti

• Haiti's "best hope is a political transition in which inclusion provides legitimacy, leading to free elections," writes Monique Clesca, a member of the civil-society led Commission to Search for a Haitian Solution to the Crisis, in a New York Times guest essay. The group has proposed "an interim government whose members, in the absence of elections, will be nominated by various sectors to legitimately represent Haitians," and calls on the U.S. to support the commission's plan for democratization in Haiti.
  
  
• Haiti's increasingly powerful criminal gangs are carrying out a wave of extremely accute sexual violence, say health workers who are overwhelmed by the numbers of women affected and the sheer horror of the victims' ordeals, reports AFP.

Colombia

• Five years after the FARC laid down its arms, rural reforms have stalled, the ex-guerrillas’ political party has struggled to find its footing, and dissident fighters are taking control of criminal rackets and rural locales throughout Colombia, according to a new Crisis Group report. Colombia's government should respond by bolstering rural development and economic opportunities for ex-guerrillas, ensuring they can safely participate in politics, and focus security efforts on protecting civilians rather than merely confronting dissident groups.
  

Venezuela

• Venezuela's highest court retroactively disqualified an opposition candidate for Barinas state governorship. The move is likely to raise further doubts about the fairness of Venezuela's recent regional elections, reports the Associated Press. Opposition candidate Freddy Superlano has been leading the vote count in the race to lead the home state of the late President Hugo Chávez. The court then ordered an electoral redo in January, reports El País.
  
  
• The current Barinas governor, Argenis Chávez, resigned yesterday, and did not specify whether he will participate in January's new election, reports AFP.
  
  
• Opposition leader Juan Guaidó called for unity yesterday, in light of the disputed race. (Reuters)

Paraguay

• An average of two girls between 10 and 14 give birth every day in Paraguay. Paraguay has one of the highest rates of child and teen pregnancy in Latin America, due to widespread child abuse and draconian abortion laws, according to a new Amnesty International report. (Guardian)
  

Brazil

• Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro has sought to reinvent himself as a champion of the poor. He has sought to reform the country's much vaunted cash assistance program, an approach critics say could be catastrophic to poverty reduction and the country's finances, reports the Washington Post.
  
  
• Bolsonaro's anti-Covid-19 vaccine stance hasn't affected Brazilians' eagerness to get inoculated -- more than 60 percent of the country is already vaccinated. "That’s a credit to the country’s public health system and cultural faith in vaccines. The question is whether Bolsonaro’s rhetoric will have a corrosive long-term effect," according to the Huffington Post. 
  
  
• Bolsonaro has officially joined the Liberal Party (PL) in advance of next year’s presidential elections. (Al Jazeera)
  

Migration

• Increasing numbers of Brazilians have joined the ranks of people attempting to migrate to the U.S., part of a broader jump in U.S.-bound migration from Latin America, reports Reuters.
  
  
• Turks and Caicos police say they have recovered the bodies of seven undocumented Haitians who authorities say were attempting to illegally migrate from their country. (Miami Herald)
  
  
• Hundreds of Cuban migrants have sought refuge in Greece, reports Al Jazeera.

Peru

• Peruvian President Pedro Castillo said some political parties and economic interests are working to impeach him against the will of the public, the latest escalation of tensions with congress just four months into his term, reports Bloomberg.
  

Ecuador

• Ecuador's President Guillermo Lasso ordered the implementation of a controversial tax reform proposed by his government, after lawmakers failed to block or approve the bill last week, reports Reuters.
  

Bolivia

• A large-scale march headed by Bolivian President Luis Arce and ex-head of state Evo Morales arrived in La Paz on Monday in a show of support for the government, reports EFE.
  

Mexico

• Emma Coronel Aispuro, the wife of the imprisoned drug kingpin Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán has been sentenced to three years in a U.S. prison, after she pleaded guilty to helping the Sinaloa drug cartel, reports Reuters. (See also New York Times.)

Argentina

• Argentina’s government said an economic team will travel to Washington this weekend to meet with International Monetary Fund staff and push forward talks over a new deal. (Reuters)
  
  
• Uranium One, a subsidiary of Russia's state nuclear company Rosatom, has signed an agreement to form a joint venture to develop a Tolillar lithium deposit in Argentina, reports Reuters.

Critter Corner

• A mythic white sperm whale was captured on film near Jamaica. The type of whale immortalised in Moby-Dick has only been spotted a handful of times this century, reports the Guardian.
  

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