Anna Vogt
The News Roundup is a regular feature of the blog where we select a number of news articles from various sources around the web, with the goal of providing an overview of the weekly conversation about the countries where MCC works in the region. Quotes in italics are drawn directly from sources and do not necessarily reflect the position of MCC.
Mexico tortures migrants – and citizens – in effort to slow Central American surge
A growing number of indigenous Mexicans are being detained and threatened with expulsion by immigration agents looking for undocumented Central American migrants. The trend comes amid a crackdown on migrants driven in part by political pressure and financial aid from the US. Deportations have already risen exponentially since summer 2014 when Barack Obama declared the surge in Central American child migrants a humanitarian crisis. Campaigners say that Mexico migration officials are running a secret quota system to increase the number of expulsions.Activists say that Mexico’s National Immigration Institute is increasingly operating like an unchecked police force – and say that that like the country’s security forces, it appears to be systematically using torture against detainees.
Guatemalan Women’s Claims Put Focus on Canadian Firms’ Conduct Abroad
“There are companies out there doing things that they would never do in their own countries,” he said. In a 2014 report, the Council on Hemispheric Affairs, a policy group in Washington, concluded that Canadian companies, accounting for 50 percent to 70 percent of the mining in Latin America, were often associated with extensive damage to the environment, from erosion and sedimentation to groundwater and river contamination. Of particular note, it said, was that the industry “demonstrated a disregard for registered nature reserves and protected zones.” At the same time, the report said, local people were being injured, arrested or, in some cases, killed for protesting.
Why is Honduras the world’s deadliest country for environmentalists?
“The environment is the new battleground for human rights, and disputes over land form the backdrop to almost all the killings,” says Kyte. The Global North’s “rapacious demand” for natural resources is fueling conflict on indigenous lands throughout the developing world, says Kyte. But in Honduras, corruption, organized crime, political instability and increasingly militarized policing have created a particularly acute crisis. Since the 2009 coup that ousted democratically-elected president Manuel Zelaya, the right wing Honduran government has aggressively promoted investment and development in mining, agri-business and large scale energy infrastructure projects. It has privatized land and water resources and removed barriers to large scale development projects, often at the expense of indigenous and Afro-descendant communities and small scale campesino farmers.
Climate Change Dries Up Nicaragua
Incer told IPS that by late March the country had lost 60 percent of its surface water sources and up to 50 percent of its underground sources, which either dried up or have been polluted. To illustrate, he cited the disappearance of at least 100 rivers and their tributaries in Nicaragua, and the contamination of Tiscapa and Nejapa lakes near Managua, as well as lake Venecia in the western coastal department of Masaya and lake Moyúa in the northern department of Matagalpa. The scientist said the country’s largest bodies of water are also in danger: the 680-km Coco river, the longest in Central America, which forms the northern border with Honduras, is now completely dry for several stretches of up to eight km in length. The water level in the river is at a record low, to the extent that it can be crossed by foot, with the water only ankle-deep. And because of the low water level in the country’s other big river, the San Juan, along the southern border with Costa Rica, large sand banks now block the passage of boats, despite the dredging operations carried out in the last few years. In addition, the 8,624-sq-km Lake Nicaragua or Cocibolca, the biggest freshwater reserve in Central America has suffered from serious water losses since 2012, which means docks and piers have been left high and dry, said Incer. The same thing is happening in the country’s other large lake, Xolotlán, in Managua.
Quebec police officers engaged in sexual misconduct in Haiti
Several Quebec police officers engaged in sexual misconduct while working as UN peacekeepers in Haiti, including at least two who had children with Haitian women during the course of their mission, Radio-Canada has learned. “There’s a code of silence. The cases that are not reported are kept secret. People come back and continue their activities,” said a former police officer with the United Nations Stabilization Mission in Haiti (MINUSTAH). According to CBC’s French-language service Radio-Canada, at least two Montreal police officers fathered children while working with MINUSTAH. One of them had a child with his Haitian housekeeper while on a mission in 2013, contrary to UN rules of engagement, which strictly prohibit having sex with residents while deployed. The man, who was in a relationship in Canada, was denounced by colleagues upon his return. He was suspended by Montreal police for nine days. He has since retired from the force and now helps the mother of his child in Haiti.
The peanuts the USDA is shipping to Haiti will feed 140,000 malnourished school children in that country. While that may sound worthwhile, the use of imported peanuts stands in sharp contrast to the way the World Food Programme—with US government support—procures food for school meals from Haitian farmers. For example, WFP gets cheese and milk for 32,000 school children from Lèt Agogo, an initiative of Haitian dairy cooperatives that Oxfam has also supported. This peanut fiasco sounds way too much like past uses of Haiti as a dumping ground for US agricultural surplus, something that has long concerned Oxfam. In the mid-1990s, the Haitian government acceded to pressure from the United States and others to drop its tariff on imported rice to nearly zero. This led to a flood of foreign rice into the Haitian market, mostly from the US. Haitian rice production plummeted. Bill Clinton, who as President encouraged this trade liberalization in Haiti, has more recently commented: “It may have been good for some of my farmers in Arkansas, but it has not worked. It was a mistake…. I have to live every day with the consequences of the lost capacity to produce a rice crop in Haiti to feed those people, because of what I did.”
Colombia’s road to peace: new militia threatens stability with bloodshed
Led by Darío Antonio Usuga, who goes by the name “Otoniel”, the clan, which is also known as the Gaitanista Self Defence Forces of Colombia (AGC), is considered one of the most ambitious and ruthless of the groups. The Historical Memory Centre says the new groups are present in one third of municipalities in the country, with the Usuga clan dominating in 119. Once the Farc and ELN begin to demobilise, the Usugas and other neo-paramilitary groups are likely to move into areas once held by the guerrillas to take over the illegal economies there, including trafficking routes and extortion networks. “That could lead to significant bloodshed,” Avila said. And while the groups do not appear to be ideologically motivated, regional power players who are opposed to a peace deal with guerrillas could hire them as private armies to oppose attempts to return stolen land to victims and oppose the future participation of demobilized rebels in politics.
Colombia Military Envisions Future Crime Fighting Role
Indeed, one of the most emblematic and outrageous instances of widespread human rights violations in Latin America is the “false positives” scandal, in which members of the Colombian military executed civilians and passed them off as enemy combatants. Nonetheless, not involving the Colombian military in the effort to dismantle criminal structures, or drastically cutting the number of soldiers, presents several equally grim scenarios. One is the risk of creating space for illegal armed groups to flourish in the absence of a strong police force. Another is the question of what happens to soldiers who suddenly find themselves out of a job. Having gained a unique set of skills, such as proficiency with weapons and familiarity with military tactics, soldiers make appealing recruits for criminal organizations — as evidenced by Mexico‘s Zetas, whose initial cadreof members were heavily trained Mexican special forces. Ultimately, the end goal is for police to be able to provide domestic security without military support. Until the Colombian police are up to the challenge, however, the military is likely to be given a role in the country’s anti-crime efforts.
Bolivian women mining for a living and for respect
After the 1952 revolution, the wives of Siglo XX miners in Llallagua organised themselves as the Comité de Amas de Casa – the Housewives Committee, a union for women working around the mines – the initiative was taken over by others in Bolivia. They have been a major factor in the recognition of indigenous women’s rights, which has ultimately led to the strong female presence in the current government of indigenous president Evo Morales. Quillka dreams of becoming a union leader too, because she thinks female miners aren’t united enough. She’s taking evening classes to prepare herself for the work. “I hope others will not have to start from scratch as I did,” Quillka says. “You don’t want anyone to endure the insecurity and the remarks.”