Murals in a community centre in Managua, Nicaragua. Anna Vogt
U.S. Withholds $5 Million in Antidrug Aid to Mexico as Human Rights Rebuke
In a rebuke to Mexico, the United States has decided to withhold $5 million in drug war aid because of continued human rights violations, the State Department confirmed Monday. The amount is just a small fraction of the overall aid that the United States supplies Mexico each year under a broad plan to train and equip its security forces and strengthen its criminal justice system. But the decision to withhold it offers a sharp message. “This is unprecedented,” José Miguel Vivanco, executive director of theAmericas division of Human Rights Watch, said of the decision. The State Department, he added, “has been systematically reluctant to use the leverage provided by law. What they have tended to emphasize is keeping the bilateral relationship as the principal objective, and human rights normally takes a back seat.”
Allegations of Major Human Rights Abuses Keep Piling up for the Mexican Government
There is evidence suggesting that Mexican federal police shot and killed unarmed civilians in two incidents this year in which 50 people died, the US-based group Human Rights Watch said in a statement on Wednesday. The group also accused the government of failing to properly investigate either incident, both of which took place in the western state of Michoacán — the first in the city of Apatzingán in January and the second outside the small town of Tanhuato in May. “Faced with evidence of atrocities, the government’s response has been to deny or downplay the magnitude of the problem,” Daniel Wilkinson, the group’s Americas director said in a statement. The two bloody events, the statement claimed, feed into a wider “human rights crisis” in Mexico already illustrated by the better known cases of the alleged massacre by the military of disarmed gunmen in Tlatlaya in June 2014, as well as the disappearance of 43 students from the Ayotzinapa college three months later.
Ex-comedian Morales claims victory in Guatemala polls
“We are tired of the same faces. Jimmy Morales doesn’t really convince me, I was not even going to vote. But he is the only option,” Ana Fuentes, 36, a street seller, told Reuters. Morales and Torres jockeyed to position themselves as the anti-corruption candidate. Both promised to keep Attorney General Thelma Aldana, a key figure in the investigation, and the UN commission in place. Morales vowed to strengthen controls and transparency while Torres said she would ask the UN body for help conducting a government-wide audit.
International prosecutors decide against full Honduras probe
The International Criminal Court’s prosecutor says she has decided against opening a full investigation into allegations of crimes following a 2009 coup in Honduras. Prosecutors opened a preliminary probe in 2010 that concluded three years later that human rights violations did happen in the aftermath of the coup but did not amount to crimes against humanity that fall within the court’s jurisdiction. Prosecutor Fatou Bensouda said Wednesday that she subsequently looked at fresh allegations of crimes committed early in 2010 in the Bajo Aguan region of Honduras but again concluded “that there is no reasonable basis for my Office to proceed with an investigation.”
A controversial $50 billion coast-to-coast canal project connecting the Pacific Ocean to the Atlantic, sanctioned by Nicaragua’s Sandinista government and funded by a Chinese investment company called HKND, threatens to displace the people of Playa Gigante, plus anywhere between 27,000 and 100,000 other Nicaraguans. The residents will lose their homes, and their modest fishing boats will make way for 200-foot-wide shipping leviathans. A contract signed by the Nicaraguan government gives HKND, a mysterious private infrastructure development firm based in Hong Kong but registered in the Cayman Islands, the power to expropriate landowners within a vaguely designated Canal Zone stretching three to five miles wide on either side of the proposed route. A retrospective rewriting of the Nicaraguan Constitution ensures that local people—who just a few decades ago fought side by side with the socialist Sandinistas in a series of civil wars to obtain more equal distribution of land—have no legal right to challenge their fate.
Landmark Haiti Elections Go Ahead Without Violence
After violence and fraud marred legislative elections in August, voting was significantly smoother throughout the country as Haitians went to the polls to elect a new president on Sunday. A total of 142 mayoral positions were also up for grabs, and second round elections were held for deputy and senate seats where the vote had not been cancelled in August. “Decisions were taken to increase the security,” which led to a decrease in violent incidents, said the head of the Organization of American States observation mission, Celso Amorim, expressing his satisfaction with the process thus far. Heavily armed, masked police officers were visible throughout the day in Haiti’s capital city, Port-au-Prince and surrounding communities. Of 119 races for deputy, 25 had to be re-run after voting centers were ransacked or votes were thrown out due to fraud in the chaotic August vote. In three of Haiti’s ten departments, final senate results were postponed pending the outcome of the electoral reruns. But on Sunday, only 8 centers were closed, according to the government.
Santos wants bilateral ceasefire with FARC to take force on January 1
Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos said on Wednesday that he agreed to work towards a bilateral ceasefire with FARC rebels that should take force on January 1. According to the president, the bilateral ceasefire would be “like a Christmas and New Year’s gift to Colombians.” The FARC and the Santos administration have been negotiating and end to more than 50 years of conflict since November 2012, but have so far failed to agree to a formal bilateral ceasefire.
Ending Colombia’s 100-Year War
Following considerable tension this summer, the talks have gained important momentum. The parties have agreed to produce a final peace accord that will end the longest-running civil war in the hemisphere by March 23, 2016. Most recently, on October 17, the parties announced an agreement focused on settling cases of the disappeared, including immediate humanitarian measures “for the search, location and dignified release of the remains” of the disappeared, and a special investigative unit to be established after the final accord is signed. To date, negotiators have announced agreements on five of the six major agenda items, including the controversial transitional justice provisions. On September 24, they announced the “Special Jurisdiction for Peace,” which includes alternative sentencing and amnesties for political crimes, but no pardons for war crimes, crimes against humanity, or genocide. The only remaining agenda item is the agreement on demobilization and disarmament.
Bolivia wants to become the energy heart of South America
Bolivia’s ambition, reliant on gas much more than its small oil reserves, is to develop its role as the “energy heart of South America”, a position its geography and resources should allow it to fulfil. Pipelines carry gas to Brazil and Argentina, with plans to extend sales to neighbours. Alvaro García Linera, the influential vice-president, even raised the prospect of exports to Chile. But after years in which critics say Bolivia has neglected exploration — and “milked the cow” in the words of one sector executive — YPFB is having to lead an accelerated campaign to find reserves to underpin contract renewals. It also has to maintain and expand gas production. Contrary to government confidence, some analysts and industry insiders expect production to start falling soon from its current level of about 60m cubic metres a day.