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.
Borders are powerful symbols, and to live on the edge of anything—culturally, geographically—is to know and understand yourself in relation to the other side. If the pictures and language of cultural integration were what fascinated the world about Brownsville in the forties and fifties, these days, what seems louder and more powerful is the Washington discourse around border insecurity. “What Charro Days allowed us to do this year,” said Martinez, “is show the world that these two communities are actually secure. There may be cartel activity in Matamoros, yes, but we are walking hand in hand, which is why Hands Across the Bridge has been so successful. Because true friends don’t leave when times are tough. That’s what we’re trying to tell people: these are our friends, these are our families. We’re with them and behind them, trying to resolve the situation brought about by the rhetoric in Washington. We have to respectfully deal with the country of Mexico and its citizens. You’re not going to take away their dignity—we share that sentiment here.”
“Disappeared” on the U.S.-Mexico Border
Using a heavily charged term like “disappearance” is ultimately an accurate description that encompasses the devolved state of U.S. immigration and border enforcement strategies over the last two decades. Given the gravity of the term and its accompanying grief and suffering that haunts both the living and the dead, the missing and their loved ones, state-induced “disappearances” in the U.S.-Mexico borderlands stem from strategies that promise a fate worse than death. Trump’s threats to build a wall on the U.S.-Mexico border would certainly increase the dangers of deterrence-based policies. But another less-discussed part of President Obama’s border enforcement legacies likely earmarked for expansion in the Trump era could be the continued militarization of Mexico’s southern border with Guatemala, which then-senior DHS staffer Alan Bersin called “now our southern border,” in 2012.
Machine learning is being used to uncover the mass graves of Mexico’s missing
“Prediction is different than inference. It’s different from explanation.” Which is to say that the while the model can predict which counties are most likely to have similar graves in them in the future, it can’t explain why that is, and it isn’t particularly concerned with which variables make that difference. But the teams at Data Cívica and the University of Ibero are. “The problem with this type of violence is that it’s a very contextual violence,” Mónica Meltis, the Coordinator of Projects at Data Cívica explained in a phone interview. What she means is that it’s impossible to separate the counties that have hidden graves from the socioeconomic forces that define them.
Canada moves to strip citizenship from man accused in Guatemala massacre
The bloody, decades-long conflict between Guatemalan government forces and guerrillas intensified in the early 1980s. The military junta began a ruthless campaign of destruction that wiped out 440 villages, killing over 75,000 people and displacing more than 250,000, the Canadian government says in documents filed in Federal Court. The army would typically circle a village, seal it off, gather the people and separate men and women before killing villagers. “Destruction of property, torture, sexual violence towards women and minors was widespread and systematic during these operations,” the court submission says. Sosa Orantes was a senior member of a military special forces group that led a mission to the Guatemalan village of Las Dos Erres in December 1982 to interrogate inhabitants after some military rifles were allegedly stolen during a guerrilla ambush of troops.
Eight years after a coup, a heated election in Honduras
He is a paradox. Credited with strengthening what had threatened to become a failed state, he is also reviled for stunting its development. He governs a country that serves as a conduit for much of the cocaine that enters the United States, and where police and politicians are enmeshed with drug-trafficking gangs. The son of Porfirio Lobo, Mr Hernández’s predecessor, has pleaded guilty to cocaine trafficking. More than 60% of Hondurans are poor. In 2013, the year before Mr Hernández took office, Honduras was still the most murderous country on earth. Its public finances were a mess: the budget deficit was 7.9% of GDP (see chart). Some 600,000 Hondurans, about 7% of the population, have moved to the United States.
7 Things the Trump Administration Gets Wrong about MS13
Both Trump and Sessions resorted to repeating misinformation that other officials — including Central American presidents, ministers and police chiefs — have used to justify heavy-handed anti-gang policies, which have only helped the MS13 and Barrio 18 to become more sophisticated as their members have been stuffed into prisons. At the end of the day, the words of both officials are intended to link the recent homicides attributed to the MS13 in New Jersey, Maryland and Virginia to Trump’s narrative, which he has used to criminalize migration and the Latino community in the United States.
Waiting Half a Lifetime for Justice in El Salvador (photo essay)
Survivors of 1981’s El Mozote massacre are closer than ever to justice after the reopening of an investigation begun more than a quarter-century ago into the army-led killing of about 1,000 people, casting light on a horrific symbol of the unaccountability for atrocities in El Salvador’s civil war. The killings went unpunished because of an amnesty law that from 1993 prohibited prosecution of crimes from the war, which between 1980 and 1992 claimed 75,000 lives and led to over 8,000 disappearances.
How Can Nicaragua Be So Happy When It Has A Stack Of Sad Statistics?
Yet Balladares lives in a country hailed as making the greatest gains in overall happiness in the World Happiness Report 2017. The report surveyed 1,000 people in 155 countries. Questions touched on quality of life, income and health as well as perceptions of freedom, honesty and generosity and their trust in business, government and fellow citizens. Balladares is not the only Nicaraguan with cause to be unhappy. The Nicaraguan Central Bank puts unemployment at 9.5 percent, but the Nicaraguan Foundation for Social and Economic Development (FUNIDES) estimates the rate to be 20 percent for people under 30. A survey conducted by FUNIDES in 2016 revealed unemployment to be Nicaraguans’ greatest worry: 44 percent of respondents listed it as their primary concern.
Haiti By Force (video)
The UN mission in Haiti, known as MINUSTAH, has been plagued by reports of sexual abuse since its establishment in 2004. The number of abuse cases cited by the UN in Haiti are a mere fraction of what independent estimates reflect, with long withstanding allegations of cover-ups by the organisation and unreported rape both playing a part. Legal battles against the UN mission, from within Haiti and globally, face a legal catch – peacekeepers are given immunity to any criminal liability in the countries they serve. Financial compensation is so rare, that there are fewer than a dozen children worldwide receiving child support from peacekeeper-civilian rape incidents. Femi Oke traveled to Haiti to meet some of the victims – giving them a platform to address themes of power and powerlessness – and confront those who failed to protect them.
More than a decade later, Haiti’s U.N. peacekeeping mission to end amid abuse controversy
The United Nations Security Council unanimously agreed Thursday to shut down its nearly 13-year peacekeeping operation in Haiti by mid-October and replace it with a new, leaner mission focused on justice, human rights and police development. In adopting a draft resolution, member countries voted to extend the current stabilization mission’s mandate for a final six months. The meeting, however, wasn’t without controversy as Russia argued that the role of the new mission remains unclear, and Brazil objected to the addition of new requirements that will set accountability standards for troop- and police-contributing nations charged with carrying out the U.N. mandate in difficult environments such as Haiti.
Álvaro Uribe’s Questionable ‘Message to U.S. Authorities’ About Colombia’s Peace Effort
Colombia’s peace accord implementation is going slowly, and faces daunting problems. There is a responsible, fact-based critique that a conservative analyst could make. Uribe’s document is not that critique. It suffers from numerous factual inaccuracies and statements that are easily rebutted. Its fixation on the FARC, a waning force, deliberately lacks important facts regarding other parties to the conflict and it does little to explain how the United States can help Colombia address post-conflict challenges. Here is WOLA’s evaluation of several of the points made by Álvaro Uribe in this document, and evaluations of their accuracy. The vast majority of his claims are either inaccurate, or debatable.
As Colombia Emerges from Decades of War, Migration Challenges Mount
As the country enters a post-conflict phase and turns its focus to peace and stability, addressing the main causes of internal displacement and developing effective strategies to improve immigration services will be key. Colombia is also grappling with a number of international migration issues, including transiting flows of irregular migrants from beyond the continent and a humanitarian crisis in Venezuela. This country profile outlines the historical trends that have defined Colombia’s migration history and policy, and examines the current and future migration challenges facing a country unsteadily emerging from war.