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 at Forefront of Emerging Trend in Global Displacement
Under this conception, “deserving” forced migrants are those fleeing political conflicts or confrontations. This helped to complicate initial efforts to address the new wave of forced migration linked to organized crime. Yet despite the formalistic approach of most Latin American refugee offices, the recognition rate for refugee claims based on a fear of organized criminal violence has increased in line with the escalation in asylum-seekers fleeing gangs in Central America. Latin America is thus leading the world in acknowledging that criminal violence can, in some circumstances, qualify the victims as refugees under the 1951 Refugee Convention or the Latin American expanded refugee definition in the 1984 Cartagena Declaration. The eligibility guidelines by the U.N. refugee agency (UNHCR) on El Salvador, Honduras and Colombia have facilitated this shift.
Lessons from Latin America on Organized Crime and Refugees
Latin America’s steps towards addressing forced migration caused by organized crime provide important insights for institutions and agencies working on this issue around the world. Here are some the conceptual, legal and operational lessons from Latin America.
TOP TRUMP OFFICIAL JOHN KELLY ORDERED ICE TO PORTRAY IMMIGRANTS AS CRIMINALS TO JUSTIFY RAIDS
But while dozens of undocumented immigrants were detained, the administration sought to shape the narrative that “by removing from the streets criminal aliens and other threats to the public, ICE helps improve public safety,” according to statements by the agency. On February 10, as the raids kicked off, an ICE executive in Washington sent a directive to the agency’s chiefs of staff around the country. “Please put together a white paper covering the three most egregious cases,” for each location, the acting chief of staff of ICE’s Enforcement and Removal Operations wrote in the email. “If a location has only one egregious case — then include an extra egregious case from another city.”
Perhaps more consequential was the strong language that negotiators have begun to use with reference to each other, essentially questioning the good faith of their counterparts. Difficult and complex issues can be negotiated within a spirit of goodwill; a prevailing mood of suspicion and zero-sum positions will make conclusion of the agreement much more difficult if not impossible. The new demands that the U.S. has just brought to the negotiations, including dispute resolution procedures, sunset provisions, and local content requirements, among others, are not designed to forge consensus but rather to upend the entire agreement.
Mexico Braces for the Possible Collapse of Nafta
But the fallout in Mexico could have ripple effects that extend well beyond trade. A United States exit from Nafta could provoke nationalist sentiments affecting Mexico’s presidential election next year. Negotiators for Mexico, the United States and Canada last week began a fourth round of talks originally intended to modernize the deal, which underpins trade and investment among the three countries and has reshaped Mexico’s economy. But Washington has floated protectionist proposals that both Mexico and Canada have said they will not accept, handing Mr. Trump a reason to make good on his repeated promises to withdraw.
Criminalizing Resistance: Militarization, Murder, and Extractivism in Chiapas
Since mining companies began extracting titanium and other minerals in 2005, the Acacoyagua municipality in the Soconusco region of Chiapas has seen a substantial increase in the number of new cases of lung, pancreatic, skin, colon, and liver cancer among residents. According to documents obtained from the Mexican Civil Registry, by 2015, cancer accounted for more than 22 percent of the total deaths in Acacoyagua, many of them children and young adults. Just as the health effects of mineral extraction projects have proven deadly for local populations, so, too, has expressing political opposition to them.
Genocide trial against ex-Guatemalan dictator Rios Montt to restart
The new trial will revisit the earlier accusations that Rios Montt ordered massacres leading to deaths of at least 1,771 Ixil Mayan Indians during his 17-month rule. Rios Montt maintains his innocence, saying junior officers acted without his knowledge. Guatemala’s 1960-1996 civil war led to the deaths of more than 200,000 people and was the bloodiest among the Cold War conflicts that tore through Latin America when U.S.-backed military government battled leftist governments and rebels.
Honduras Is Pioneering a New Approach to Refugees from Gang Violence
A first step in dismantling barriers to accessing protection is to secure increased global recognition of violence and persecution as the primary drivers of forced displacement in the Northern Triangle of Central America (NTCA). The next step is for states to improve their ability to reach displaced communities and to identify those with specific protection needs.An encouraging development in the push for increased recognition of the situation came in early 2017 when Honduras announced that it would be one of the case-study countries for the Comprehensive Refugee Response Framework (CRRF), a process led by UNHCR to provide inputs into the Global Compact on Refugees.
Why It’s So Hard to Leave El Salvador’s Gangs: An Interview With José Miguel Cruz
There are no easy responses to the overall problem of gangs in El Salvador. The point is to create the conditions for those gang members who want to desist and rehabilitate so they can do it in a safe and sustainable way. That means first stopping the war and reducing the violence. Second, it’s important to create justice mechanisms to deal with the conundrum of past criminal behavior. In other words, we need to face the fact that many gang members have committed crimes and the society needs to come to terms with how to deal with them in a way that will not ignore the victims, as hard as this may be. And third, it’s important to provide life opportunities such as school, jobs and rehabilitation services for those who want to leave the gangs.
If Obando’s motivations were unclear, there is little ambiguity about the advantage his support gave the Ortegas. As the demand for religious policies, such as bans on abortion, grew in Central America, the blessing of the Nicaraguan church’s former leader gave Ortega the credibility to lead that movement in his country. “In the past, [the Ortegas] were against the church, but then they understood that made them unpopular,” Cristiana Chamorro, a daughter of former President Violeta Chamorro, who defeated Ortega in the 1990 elections, said in May. “Now, [Obando] is the family priest.”
Sent to Haiti to keep the peace, departing UN troops leave a damaged nation in their wake
Despite these challenges, reports from the island suggest that most Haitians are ready to see the mission depart. That’s because, beyond stabilizing the country during a period of political tumult, the U.N.‘s troops have also done harm in Haiti. The international organization has admitted that its peacekeepers introduced cholera to the island after the devastating 2010 earthquake and sexually abused women who lived near U.N. camps. What it has not yet acknowledged is that during early efforts to take out gangs in crime-riddled neighborhoods, U.N. troops also unintentionally killed more than 25 of the same citizens they were deployed to protect.
A New Chapter for the Disastrous United Nations Mission in Haiti
MINUSTAH has now been replaced by MINUJUSTH, a smaller mission which began on Monday. MINUJUSTH , the United Nations Mission for Justice Support in Haiti, has a mandate to “help the Government of Haiti strengthen rule-of-law institutions, further develop and support the Haitian National Police and engage in human rights monitoring, reporting and analysis.” MINUJUSTH, which will will consist of twelve hundred and seventy-five officers and support personnel, seems like a rebranding effort, an attempt by the U.N. to give itself a clean slate and erase MINUSTAH’s past. But if the U.N. were serious about justice and human rights in Haiti, it would wind down its presence in the country by having MINUJUSTH also investigate the damage done to both individuals and entire communities by MINUSTAH. Or, better yet, assign an independent body to do so, then offer the warranted compensation for the extrajudicial and civilian killings, the sexual assaults, and the introduction of cholera.
Peace makes strides in Colombia, but the battle is far from won
On Oct. 10, the country’s constitutional court shielded that accord from any changes for a period of 12 years, removing fears that future governments could water down or undo the controversial deal. With this much-anticipated decision, nine judges made it possible for the country to institutionalize peace after 50 years of internal conflict. But for all the speculation among scholars about the FARC’s transition from armed rebellion to political party – my own included – the end of the conflict remains uncertain. Colombia’s violence was never just about the FARC, and peace won’t be, either.
Things came to a head on Oct. 5 when rural farmers gathered in Tumaco, Nariño, to protest the forced eradication being implemented by the security forces. Up to a thousand local farmers were protesting the government’s refusal to address the local conflicts that clearly affect how to best to implement the PNIS substitution program. Eyewitnesses reported that highly armed special forces police fired indiscriminately on the protesters, resulting in at least eight reported deaths and over 50 wounded. The government initially claimed that the demonstrators had been forced to protest by so-called FARC dissidents that are filling the vacuum left by the guerrilla demobilization process, and that they were responding to an attack initiated by these dissidents. But eyewitness testimony overwhelmingly rejected that claim, a charge that was reminiscent of the discourse used by the government whenever unarmed social movements protested during the years of the insurgency.
Why is Evo Morales Reviving Bolivia’s Controversial TIPNIS Road?
The TIPNIS road fits squarely within these parameters. By championing it again now—and demonstrating his continuing ability to prevail over controversy—Morales is likely betting that he can shore up key elements of the MAS political-social base to support his 2019 candidacy against possible internal rivals, and deliver their tacit acceptance for whatever legal maneuvers may be necessary to accomplish this (such as an arrangement for his temporary resignation). Especially as the looming economic downturn raises anxieties—and the potential for political volatility—among these newly-properous constituencies, Morales is demonstrating that he intends to protect their interests and needs. Of course, this strategy could be derailed by any number of variables. While Morales’s approval ratings continue to hold at close to 50%, even after passage of the “de-protection” law, last year’s bitterly contested referendum revealed a level of unpredictability in the Bolivian electorate that few imagined.