The News Roundup is a regular feature of the blog where we select 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.
IACHR Condemns Murders of Human Rights Defenders in the Region (press release)
The Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) expresses its utmost concern regarding the large number of killings of human rights defenders at the outset of 2017, and reiterates its concern for defenders of land rights and natural resources, as well as indigenous and Afro-descendant human rights defenders, who continue to face high risks of violence. So far in 2017, the IACHR has learned of 14 murders of human rights defenders: seven in Colombia, two in Guatemala, two in Mexico, and three in Nicaragua. The IACHR expresses its consternation over the devastating increase in violence against those who oppose extractive or development projects or who defend the right to land and natural resources of indigenous peoples in the region; they now account for 41 percent of all murdered human rights defenders in the region, according to information from civil society organizations.
Migrating North, but to Mexico, Not the U.S.
The number of migrants deciding to stay in Mexico is still thought to be a small fraction of the hundreds of thousands using the country as a transit corridor to enter the United States. But the growing attractiveness of Mexico is plainly reflected in the country’s asylum program. Last year, more than 8,100 foreigners applied for asylum, nearly three times as many as in 2015, and more than 15 times as many as five years ago, according to statistics from the Mexican government. At the same time, Mexico, under pressure from immigrants’ advocates, has been granting asylum at increasingly higher rates, in part because of improvements to its intake and processing system. In 2016, 63 percent of applicants, not including those who dropped their cases during the review process, received asylum or some other form of protection, up from 46 percent in 2015.
Report Finds Major Flaws in Proposals to Further Militarize Mexico’s Drug War
In the case of Mexico, the public perception that police forces at all levels — municipal, state and federal — are corrupt, co-opted and unprepared to deal with the problem of organized crime are backed up by data and fed by extreme, high-profile examples of police collusion with organized crime and widespread incompetence. Whether the police are any more capable of combating organized crime now than they were before, or cause just as many problems as the armed forces in that role, is a question worth investigating. Police reform has been attempted, unsuccessfully, by every Mexican president since José López Portillo (1976-1982), according to the Washington Office on Latin America (WOLA). However, those same Mexican presidents also significantly expanded the military’s role in public security. Until authorities make greater progress on police reform, it is unlikely that Mexico‘s decision makers will back away from the militarized strategy against organized crime. And as long as there is no official measure taken of improvements in the police forces, authorities will forever be able to justify sending the military to do their job.
Brazil, Argentina push for closer trade with Mexico in Trump era
Both Macri and Temer are seeking to open their countries – for decades considered among the most closed economies in the Western Hemisphere – in an effort to revive activity after years of recession. Some local trade experts say a potential rift between the United States and Mexico could open up space for Latin American nations. “Mexico represents a great opportunity for Brazil and the region,” said Welber Barral, the former international trade secretary for Brazil from 2007 to 2011. “Mexico is a huge importer of agricultural products and its car industry could complement that of Brazil.” Since 2015, Brazil, a major exporter of corn and soy, has been in bilateral negotiations with Mexico to increase commercial ties under a regional trade agreement.
Guatemala’s Indigenous Seek Recognition for Justice System
For generations, outsiders have looked down on indigenous law courts, as they have on the native cultures themselves. Some 40 percent of Guatemala’s 17 million people identify themselves as indigenous and they are pushing for wider respect for the traditional ways in which their cultures deal with their differences, though opposition remains strong within the country’s non-indigenous communities. Guatemala’s Constitutional Court already has accepted some rulings by indigenous courts and there’s a move to formally amend the country’s constitution to recognize them. An earlier measure to do that came two votes short in congress, with opposition coming from conservatives and from business interests that said they feared legal confusion if different systems co-exist.
‘We fear soldiers more than gangsters’: El Salvador’s ‘iron fist’ policy turns deadly
Police records obtained by the investigative news website El Faroshow that 693 alleged gang members were killed and 255 were injured in 1,074 armed confrontations between January 2015 and August 2016. In the same period, 24 police and soldiers were killed. That imbalance points to the excessive use of lethal force and summary execution, said Ignacio Cano, a police violence expert at the State University of Rio de Janeiro. In contrast, police officers arrested just 88 suspected gang members in the whole of 2013 and 2014. Rikkers said: “The public discourse is warlike. It focuses on eliminating gang members – not crime. [But] the mano dura approach hasn’t worked and won’t suddenly start to work in the future. In the meantime, we are turning a blind eye to grave human rights abuses.” Those who speak out are often targeted themselves.
Report Reveals Intersection of Development Projects, Organized Crime in Honduras
While corruption and impunity are a given in Honduras, it seems that economic development projects are increasingly being used, at times illegally, to enrich political elites. And Honduran accountability systems have shown difficulties in holding allegedly corrupt officials accountable. As Global Witness outlines, accountability systems that have been put in place, such as the law preventing concessions to members of Congress and their spouses, have been ineffective. Elites have either ignored these laws all together or found ways around them through corruption. Finding ways to battle corruption and impunity is no new challenge in Honduras. And while efforts are already underway to reform state institutions, their long-term effectiveness in combatting corruption and violence surrounding economic development projects remains to be seen.
A Haiti without U.N. peacekeepers? After almost 13 years, it may happen.
During the discussions, Ladsous said that no one objected to the proposed departure of the blue-helmet peacekeepers. Though the international forces helped restore order for more than a decade, the soldiers also have been tied to sexual abuse allegations and a cholera epidemic that has killed more than 9,400 and sickened more than 802,000. He did, however, hear from the presidents of both chambers of parliament about how Haiti plans to replace the U.N. Stabilization Mission’s 2,370-strong military force once it has withdrawn. This is the U.N.’s seventh mission in Haiti since 1994, and critics say the effort has resulted in little progress. “We are demanding three things from the end of this mission,” Haitian Senate President Youri Latortue told the Herald.“The first aspect is to reinforce the democratic institutions … reinforce justice in this country. The second is to help professionalize the police, and third, we, Haiti, have to put in place our own army.”
US detains 172 Cuban migrants following end of ‘wet foot, dry foot’ policy
An executive order signed by President Donald Trump established “the detention of aliens apprehended for violations of immigration law pending the outcome of their removal proceedings or their removal from the country.” What happens in these hearings will be critical for the future of many Cubans who are still stranded in Mexico or other countries and are pondering their limited options, including the request for political asylum in the U.S. In the meantime, the possibility that Trump restores the wet foot, dry foot policy seems ever more remote, despite the circulation of false news reports making the rounds on social networks. On Thursday in Miami, Rep. Carlos Curbelo R-FL said that the end of the special treatment for Cubans was inevitable. “We knew that the policy had many shortcomings,” he said. “We didn’t think that the Obama White House would act so unexpectedly, at the last minute, but I think that everyone recognized that the policy was causing a difficult situation here in the United States and in Cuba.
Colombia’s Mirror: War and Drug Trafficking in the Prison System
As the new Colombian underworld takes shape both inside and outside the prisons, the system itself stumbles from crisis to crisis, the latest coming in May 2015, when over half of the country’s prisons were declared to be in a state of emergency over healthcare. “As long as we have overcrowding, and we don’t have adequate operational administration, then the prisons will be an incredible breeding ground for all forms of violence as well as for actors that generate all types of criminal industries,” said Oliverio Caldas. As Colombia’s conflict decreases in intensity and its armed groups and criminal networks become ever more fractured, it is these simple but deep-rooted structural issues that remain the biggest obstacles to breaking the ties between organized crime and the prison system.
Extreme storms leave two dead in Bolivia
After coming out of one of the worst droughts this country has seen in over 25 years, strong thunderstorms proved deadly this past weekend. Heavy rain caused major flooding in the area around Santa Cruz. Accumulations of over 75 millimetres were recorded in the city of Viru-Viru in just a few hours. Along with the heavy rain the storms also produced massive amounts of hail that looked more like snow in some places. At least two people have died due to the severe weather that hit the country late Friday night into Saturday morning.