The News Roundup is a regular section of the blog, featuring 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.
Luis García Meza, Bolivian Dictator Jailed for Genocide, Dies at 88
“He doesn’t think he is primarily the president of Bolivia,” Fernando Bedoya Ballivián, the head of the Banco de Bolivia and a longtime friend, said of the general at the time. “He feels he represents the army, and the army is fighting to the death against communism.” The United States Drug Enforcement Administration said that the general had used millions of dollars he received from cocaine cartels to buy the allegiance of Bolivian army commanders and to forestall an antidrug operation initiated by Washington. He presided for 13 murderous months. In August 1981, in the face of outcries at home and abroad about corruption, cruelty and economic catastrophe, he resigned. The military installed a less odious successor, Celso Torrelio Villa.
Washington’s war on drugs is failing. Does this former guerrilla have the answer?
As Mexican drug cartels have punched into South America and joined forces with local operators, they’re creating powerful mafias that “are killing us, they’re destabilizing us and they’re not allowing us to build democracy in this country because they aren’t allowing us to live in peace,” he said. “Today, the battle lines aren’t being drawn by the Cold War of the 20th century — it’s not revolutionary guerrillas versus an oligarchic state, it’s a mafia war,” he said. “And it could be much more difficult to resolve.” President Juan Manuel Santos, who will step down this year, built his administration on the back of a peace deal with the hemisphere’s oldest and largest guerrilla group, the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC. But since that deal was signed in 2016, other armed groups have stepped in to fill the void and cocaine trafficking remains bloody and unabated.
A handful of scientists are now studying the former fighters in unprecedented detail, in the hope that they will be able to inform and guide the peacemaking process. They have found that years of isolation and exposure to violence might have altered the ex-combatants’ psychology and cognitive processing in subtle ways. In laboratory tests, many have difficulty empathizing with others and make flawed ethical judgements — shortcomings that could affect how they engage in civilian life. Scientists are now setting up long-term studies in towns that were plagued by conflict, to track how cognition and attitudes might change over the course of the reconciliation process, both for ex-combatants and for civilians. The data could eventually inform other war-torn countries’ recovery efforts. But the research is also revealing just how deep the challenge is. And some experts worry that the care available to ex-combatants in the meantime is inadequate.
Metal Mining Would Be Disastrous for Haiti
In Haiti, a coalition of social movement organizations, the Kolektif Jistis Min (Justice in Mining Collective), is calling for just that: a national debate about the effects of mining before any mines are built. The collective, with which I have collaborated for more than five years, has taken a vocal position against metal mining, and is calling for the legislature to reject the draft mining law that it appears poised to pass. Metal mining in Haiti will bring profits to the few and more misery for the masses. Haitian legislators should heed the example of El Salvador and listen to the voices of their own people who are cautioning against mining and demanding less destructive and more inclusive development.
A New Nicaraguan Revolution? Understanding This Week’s Popular Protests
While social security reform may have provided the spark, the sudden uprising reflects long-term shifts in Nicaraguans’ attitudes towards the Ortega regime. The protests took many observers of Nicaraguan politics, including ourselves, by surprise. Nicaragua has remained relatively free of violent protests since 2008-9, when large-scale demonstrations broke out after alleged electoral fraud and court rulings permitting presidential re-election. Anti-regime protests had been small and diminishing, with political resignation reigning among the public. Several recent missteps, however, have undermined popular support for Ortega’s government.
Honduran journalists face increasing threats and intimidation
Honduras is one of the most dangerous countries in the world for journalists, according to Reporters Without Borders. The group ranked Honduras 141 out of 180 countries on the 2018 World Press Freedom Index. Dangers for journalists include physical attacks, threats, and abusive legal proceedings, Reporters Without Borders said.
Supporters of El Salvador’s Abortion Ban Foil Efforts to Soften It
The authorities have been especially harsh in a group of cases involving women who have suffered stillbirths or miscarriages late in their pregnancies before they could reach medical attention. Prosecutors initially charged these women with abortion — sometimes after they were reported by the public hospitals where they were taken — and then changed the accusation to aggravated homicide. More than two dozen women are serving sentences as long as 30 years for convictions of aggravated and attempted homicide. Women’s groups fighting for their release have won freedom for five of them.
A New Guatemala Attorney General Brings New Concerns
To be sure, Porras Argueta’s appointment may be an effort by Morales to shore up his position in the face of several important blows to his political legitimacy and capital. The president been hit by multiple rounds of corruption allegations. He also lost a key ally in Álvaro Arzú, the former president of Guatemala and once powerful mayor of Guatemala City who died recently. Still, Porras Argueta’s appointment is not the end of the story. While it seems Morales is attempting to protect himself from anti-graft investigations, Porras Argueta may prove to be an independent actor, much like the current Attorney General Aldana.
Migrant Caravans: Navigating Humanitarian Protection in a Context of Border Securitization
As US immigration surveillance expands to the Mexico-Guatemala border, abuses against migrants continue to rise. Since 2012, crimes against migrants in the region increased 200%. Complaints to Mexico’s National Human Rights Commission levied by migrants against Mexico’s National Immigration Institute (INM) increased 40% from 2014-2015. Asylum applications in Mexico surged, increasing 326% from 2015 to 2017. Migrants forced to await often lengthy processing are routinely victimized by criminal actors, predators pretending to befriend or assist migrants, and – perhaps most commonly – agents of the state. Unlike the US, where asylum depends on membership in a specific social group, Mexico considers generalized violence as grounds for relief. Yet, as we learned from human rights advocates, “the problem is what happens in practice.”
#Cuéntalo: Latin American women rally around sexual violence hashtag
But across the Atlantic the message was also received loud and clear, with hundreds of thousands of Latin American women seizing on the Twitter campaign to denounce the rampant gender violence blighting their region and their lives. Each day 12 Latin American women are victims of femicide, according to the UN’s Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean. From Buenos Aires to Bogotá, often horrific accounts of abuse rained in as word of the hashtag – which roughly translates as “tell your story” – spread. Argentina’s Clarín newspaper said more than 430,000 tweets featuring #Cuéntalo were posted in one day alone.