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.
Global Americans has been following the Latin Americanists lining up to work in the Trump Administration. With 30 years of experience, Foreign Service Officer Joseph E. Macmanus is rumored to be nominated by the Trump administration’s to become the next U.S. Ambassador to Colombia. Below you can read more about Joseph Macmanus, as well as the other Latin Americanists who are in the Trump administration or are reputed to be in the queue—all listed in alphabetical order.
Prisons, Punishment, and Policing
Up and down the hemisphere the rising toll of violence threatens to consume some nations whole, with spillover effects that portend more escalation. Moreover, as the region’s political landscape shifts dramatically rightward, new and pressing questions arise: How do we assess the left’s approaches to Latin America’s epidemic of violence? Will a return to right wing rule mean renewed mano dura (iron fist) policies towards crime, or will it bring something altogether new, potentially even worse? In this context, three key points emerge. First, with rare exceptions, the landscape of punishment in the region is dire and getting worse. Criminalization especially has taken troubling turns, as states marshal the law to exert control over and legitimize assassinations of groups deemed threatening to their economic projects.
Criminalizing Environmental Activism
The most obvious form of criminalization is enforcement of criminal penalties for actions that at most warrant administrative sanction. It can also include limits and restrictions on social protest and individual and collective peaceful resistance; arbitrary detention; specious prosecutions on criminal, civil, or administrative charges; unduly elevated charges; preemptive measures like pretrial detention; lack of due process guarantees; and defamation and stigmatization by public officials. While non-state actors may be responsible for much of the intimidation and physical attacks that EHRDs face, the use of intelligence and judicial systems to criminalize EHRDs requires direct state participation. Although impunity for crimes by state officials and their non-state accomplices remains high in the region, judicial systems manage to work efficiently against EHRDs, often successfully halting their work, in some cases permanently. And as the Cáceres case demonstrates, when criminalization has not succeeded in silencing EHRDs, antagonists may resort to lethal methods.
Twin earthquakes expose Mexico’s deep inequality
Still, the damages are daunting. Scores of buildings in Mexico City have suffered catastrophic damage. But it was Oaxaca and Chiapas – Mexico’s two poorest states – that took the harshest blow. More than 2,500 schools have been severely harmed and 85,000 houses have been affected – more than 17,000 of them beyond repair. Poverty makes these disaster impacts worse in the south. On average, 46 percent of Mexican households live in poverty. But 70 percent of Oaxaca’s population earns less than what’s needed to satisfy basic family needs, according to the government’s CONEVAL agency, and 77 percent of Chiapas households do.
In Mexico, Weavers Embrace Natural Alternatives to Toxic Dyes
In this small village near Oaxaca, known for its hand-woven rugs, he and his family are among a small group of textile artisans working to preserve the use of plant and insect dyes, techniques that stretch back more than 1,000 years in the indigenous Zapotec tradition. Textile artists in many countries are increasingly turning to natural dyes, both as an attempt to revive ancient traditions and out of concerns about the environmental and health risks of synthetic dyes. Natural dyes, though more expensive and harder to use than the chemical dyes that have largely supplanted them, produce more vivid colors and are safer and more environmentally friendly than their synthetic counterparts.
Guatemala Corruption Crisis Deepens With Cabinet Resignations, National Strike
The current domestic outrage has already forced the country’s political class to backpedal on efforts to shield themselves from corruption charges, whereas strong international condemnation failed to prevent those measures from advancing. And congress recently announced that it plans to revisit a vote from earlier this month that protected Morales’ immunity from prosecution and prevented the investigation into his campaign finances from moving forward. This suggests that, even if Morales remains in office, public pressure will continue to have a crucial impact on how the ongoing crisis unfolds.
HOW PENTAGON OFFICIALS MAY HAVE ENCOURAGED A 2009 COUP IN HONDURAS
New details of how the coup and its aftermath unfolded— based on unpublished government records and dozens of interviews with high-ranking U.S. and Honduran military officials, policymakers, and other key sources as part of an in-depth investigation by The Intercept and the Center for Economic and Policy Research — offer a glimpse into how the U.S. foreign policy apparatus dealt with the crisis. The new information paints a picture of an American government with no single policy, but rather, of bloated bureaucracies acting on competing interests. Hidden actors during the crisis tilted Honduras toward chaos, undermined official U.S. policy after the coup, and ushered in a new era of militarization that has left a trail of violence and repression in its wake.
El Salvador Police Running ‘Clandestine Jails’: Report
The reports of “clandestine jails” run by police as well as torture of suspected gang members serve as a reminder that clashes between security forces and gangs in El Salvador have begun to resemble a low-intensity conflict, which has brought with it the types of human rights abuses often seen in warzones. The allegations of torture and police black sites come on the heels of an investigation by Salvadoran news outlet Factum that exposed the inner workings of a police death squad linked to several extrajudicial killings.
It’s Not Just Venezuela. Central American Democracies Are Under Threat, Too.
While the state of democracy in Nicaragua is far worse – after all, despite Hernández’s tactics, an opposition victory in Honduras is still possible in theory – the crisis of democracy in both countries bodes ill for a region that saw tremendous progress in the 1990s, but that now sees the principle of checks and balances severely threatened. After all, similar dynamics are visible in Guatemala, where President Jimmy Morales recently attempted to expel Iván Velásquez, the highly respected head of the UN-backed International Commission Against Impunity in Guatemala (CICIG). Indeed, while the battle between left and right dominates the public debate in Latin America and elsewhere, most visibly in the debate about Venezuela, it is generally overlooked that the greatest threat to democracy these days – unrestrained executive power – transcends normal ideological boundaries.
What Nicaragua Teaches Us about Climate Disasters
As Hurricane Irma looms and the losses from Hurricane Harvey are still being counted, the U.S. is debating how to better understand, prevent, and respond to disasters. From evacuation and resettlement of low-income flood victims to emergency simulation to low-cost insurance, Nicaragua has many lessons to impart. In particular, Nicaragua offers an example for how to help the most marginalized people survive disasters and rebuild their lives afterwards. Between 2009 and 2014, the Nicaraguan government evacuated and built homes in safer locations for almost 30,000 flood, landslide, and earthquake victims and people living in vulnerable places. This has helped keep the number of flood fatalities relatively low in Managua especially, given that parts of this city of almost two million are regularly inundated. Nationwide emergency simulation exercises are another effort to lessen the human costs of disasters. A 2016 simulation exercise aided by the World Food Programme involved more than one-twelfth of the country’s population and all but one of its municipalities. And to help recover from climate catastrophes, Nicaragua has joined an innovative program supported by The World Bank that allows countries to access low-cost insurance against natural disasters. In 2015, Nicaragua was the first Central American nation to join.
After Irma, Cubans Are Ready to Get Back to Business
The misconception that the island was left completely destroyed comes at a tough moment for Cubans. Confusion about Trump’s travel policy has led to the false belief that Americans can’t visit the island, resulting in a decline in visitors. This has hit Cuban entrepreneurs and folks working in the tourism sector particularly hard, and many small businesses won’t survive a Trump-Irma combo that results in a tourism slump.
Strike over new transport taxes brings Haiti to a halt
Much of Haiti has come to a halt because of a transportation strike over new taxes proposed by the government. Most Haitians do not have private cars, and they get around on motorcycle taxis or the often elaborately painted vans and trucks known as “tap taps”. But none were available on Monday as drivers took part in a strike over driver’s licenses, fuel and property, among other things.
Colombia struggles to deliver justice in army ‘cash-for-kills’ scandal
Colombia’s next presidential election is due in 2018, and post-conflict criminal trials are highly politicised. It must be remembered that in the 2016 plebiscite, the majority of Colombian citizens voted against the peace deal. And if the ICC were to prosecute individuals from the army but leave the FARC high command alone, the resulting resentment could easily be exploited by those willing to return to war. The post-conflict system ought to be given a chance, and as long as the JEP is still “under construction”, the ordinary justice system should carry out its legal duty and prosecute those suspected of extrajudicial killings. But if things don’t change course very soon, the ICC may feel that it has no choice but to intervene – whatever the consequences.
Bolivia governing party challenges Morales’ term limit
Lawmakers from Bolivia’s governing Movement Towards Socialism party (MAS) have asked the Constitutional Court to allow President Evo Morales to run for a fourth term, despite the constitution preventing him from doing so. The move comes a year and a half after Bolivians voted against changing the constitution to remove term limits. At the time, Mr Morales said he would respect the referendum results. Mr Morales has been in power since January 2006.