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.
Latin America’s Murder Epidemic
Part of the reason for the region’s soaring homicide rate is that murders are rarely solved or lead to convictions. In North America and Western Europe, roughly 80 percent of all intentional homicides are resolved. In Japan, the proportion is closer to 98 percent. Yet in many Latin American countries, the percentage is closer to 20 percent. In Brazil, Colombia, Honduras, and Venezuela, at least 90 percent of capital crimes go unpunished. Since most victims are poor black men from low-income neighborhoods, their deaths are considered a low priority. Investigations are sloppy, if they are conducted at all. As a result, people’s faith in the police and criminal justice systems has collapsed. If there is any silver lining to this grim state of affairs it is that increasing levels of homicidal violence are not inevitable.
Mexico warns firms it’s not in their interests to build border wall
Mexico’s government on Tuesday warned Mexican companies that it would not be in their best “interests” to participate in the construction of U.S. President Donald Trump’s border wall, though there will be no legal restrictions or sanctions to stop them if they tried. While some Mexican companies stand to potentially benefit from the controversial infrastructure project, residents south of the border view the wall and Trump’s repeated calls to have Mexico pay for it as offensive. That is putting public pressure on firms to abstain from participating. “We’re not going to have laws to restrict (companies), but I believe considering your reputation it would undoubtedly be in your interest to not participate in the construction of the wall,” said Mexican Economy Minister Ildefonso Guajardo.
US Again Warns Central America over Attacks on Prosecutors, CICIG
The new warnings from the US legislators come at a difficult time for the Northern Triangle leaders, particularly due to the discomfort local political elites feel when international commissions with investigative and prosecutorial authority are closely observing their behavior. The warning to President Morales, the explicit subject of of Senator Leahy’s letter, comes after the Guatemalan Attorney General’s Office and the CICIG said they were investigating Morales’ son for suspected corruption. Afterwards, the president even publicly asserted that the CICIG could be behind an attempted coup, something that Velásquez and officials from the United Nations — CICIG’s main funder — vehemently denied.
How an innocent man wound up dead in El Salvador’s justice system
Martínez’s death exposes deep flaws in El Salvador’s justice system, with implications that go well beyond this tiny nation of 6 million. At a time when thousands of Central Americans are fleeing toward the United States, and border control is at the top of President Trump’s agenda, the weaknesses of this region’s courts and cops have assumed outsize importance. The same institutions that allowed an innocent man to die have failed to prevent street gangs from turning the country into one of the most violent in the hemisphere.
The COPINH after Berta Cáceres: Indigenous Resistance in Honduras
The voice and example of Berta Cáceres, and the voices of Marlene and Tomás who continue her work at the COPINH, are essential to the struggle against these “projects of death.” Berta Cáceres represents the defense and preservation of community, the dignity of the indigenous people, resistance to the forces of displacement and expulsion, and the liberation of women from patriarchal oppression.
Haunted by the mystery deaths in Nicaragua’s brutal sugarcane fields
At least 20,000 people – most of them young agricultural workers – have died from chronic kidney disease in Nicaragua since it first came to the notice of doctors in the late 1990s. Other countries in central America – such as Costa Rica – are also badly affected. “In the west, chronic kidney disease affects between 5% and 10% of people, most of them elderly or affected by diabetes,” said kidney expert Ben Caplin of University College London. “Less than 1% of people aged around 30 have chronic kidney disease in the UK. By contrast, in parts of Nicaragua that figure is 20% to 30% for people in the same age group.”
U.N. Accepts Blame but Dodges the Bill in Haiti
Today’s lesson in evading moral responsibility comes to us from the United Nations. The organization says it is terribly concerned about the cholera epidemic in Haiti and wishes to eliminate it. But it has not figured out when and how this is going to happen, and with what money. The “who” and “why” are well known. The United Nations has the duty to end the cholera crisis because the United Nations caused it. The disease was unknown in modern Haiti until peacekeepers, from Nepal, introduced it. They let their raw sewage flow into a river that people use for drinking water. That was in 2010. Cholera has since killed more than 9,000 Haitians and sickened 800,000 others. The United Nations has spent nearly all that time trying to avoid blame. Only last December did it apologize and promise to make things right. The secretary-general at the time, Ban Ki-moon, promised strenuous efforts, called the “New Approach,” to eradicate cholera from the country.
Colombia’s New Transitional Justice Law Violates the Spirit of the Peace Accords
The peace accord intended transitional justice to apply not just to former guerrillas and security-force members, but also to civilians who may have aided or abetted war crimes. Colombia’s Congress has changed that, too, in a way that may make powerful civilians untouchable. The bill now makes civilians’ participation in the transitional justice system voluntary. The JEP tribunals can only compel them to appear if they have other evidence: they cannot base their cases “exclusively on reports received by the JEP, but must corroborate them through other means of proof.”
Bolivia Minister Sticks to Party Line on Foreign Cartel Presence
Romero’s comments hew to the long-held official narrative that foreign emissaries, but not cartels, are active in Bolivia. Security officials have been careful to make this distinction since at least as far back as 2012. In 2014, Bolivia‘s top anti-drug official at the time told InSight Crime that foreign “emissaries have ties with criminal clans” in the country, but stopped short of saying transnational organized crime had taken root. There are, however, indications that foreign drug trafficking groups have a more permanent presence in Bolivia than the party line would suggest. In July 2014, police in Santa Cruz arrested a Colombian accused of establishing an “oficina de cobro,” a criminal structure that has its roots in Pablo Escobar’s Medellín Cartel. The large number of suspects from Colombia — and of other nationalities as well — captured during drug raids also points to a sustained foreign presence in Bolivia.