Honduras’ government will hand control of most of the country’s penal system to the military policy for the next year, after 48 people died in a savage prison riot on Tuesday. (See yesterday’s post.) President Xiomara Castro had removed the military police from overseeing prisons when she took office in early 2022, handing power over to national police.

Gang members at a women’s prison slaughtered 46 inmates on Tuesday by spraying them with gunfire, hacking them with machetes and then locking survivors in their cells and dousing them with flammable liquid, reports the Associated Press.

The government said the attack was part of inter-gang rivalry within the penitentiary, but also suggested it was a response to official efforts to crackdown on illicit activity within prisons.

The murders in Honduras’ only all-female prison took place in a context of growing gang tensions that had been underestimated by authorities, according to InSight Crime. The massacre “has shown that underestimating the role of women in perpetrating violence can have lethal results.”

The Castro administration framed the decision to hand prisons over to the military as part of a broader crackdown on crime — and expanded a state of exception that suspends some constitutional rights to cover additional areas of the country, reports Reuters.

Honduras will turn islands hundreds of kilometers off the coast into a penal colony for “highly dangerous” gang leaders, the government said yesterday.

Mexico

• Mexican prosecutors have obtained a warrant for the arrests of an Army general and 15 other soldiers in connection with the disappearance of 43 students in 2014, one of the most emblematic human rights violations in Mexico’s recent history. The general, Rafael Hernández Nieto, was accused of being involved in organized crime and the soldiers were accused of organized crime and forced disappearance, according to the judge’s order issuing the warrants, which was reviewed by the New York Times.
  
  
• Mexico’s president said on Tuesday that he had asked Israel for a second time to extradite Tomás Zerón, who led the official investigation into the disappearances of the 43 students, and is accused of torturing witnesses and tampering with evidence, reports Reuters.
  
  
• Mexico’s Supreme Court will soon rule on President Andrés Manuel López Obrador’s electoral reform, which limited the funding and autonomy of the country’s electoral authority — it will likely strike down part of the controversial changes championed by the government, reports El País.

Brazil

• Brazil’s Superior Electoral Tribunal is trying former President Jair Bolsonaro on charges he abused his office and misused state media to discredit the country’s electoral system. If convicted, he could be barred from running for public office for eight years. (AFP and Washington Post)
  
  
• Brazil’s central bank kept its key interest rate unchanged at a six-year high, frustrating the country’s Lula administration, which has strongly criticized the monetary policy as hindering economic growth, reports Bloomberg.

Regional Relations

• Brazilian diplomats raised hackles in the OAS yesterday watering down language in a statement critical of the Ortega government, prepared by the United States, Canada, Costa Rica and Antigua and Barbuda on “the escalation of repression, the closure of civic space and human rights violations” in Nicaragua, reports El País. The observations made by Brazil in an official document circulating in the OAS system refrain from urging the Ortega regime to cease its arbitrary detentions.
  
  
• Pope Francis met Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva yesterday and discussed a range of common concerns including peace, poverty, inequality and the environment, the Vatican said. (Reuters)
  
  
• Lula said he would personally lobby Nicaragua’s Daniel Ortega to release Bishop Rolando Alvarez, a vocal government critic who was sentenced to more than 26 years in prison in Nicaragua in February, after refusing to be exiled with other political prisoners. (Reuters)
  
  
• Cuba said it is reaffirming its alliance with Russia through a series of agreements considered key for the island, including on the supply of oil, the sale of wheat and the resumption of flights between both countries, reports the Associated Press.

Guatemala

• Candidates kept off Guatemala’s presidential ballot are encouraging supporters to spoil their votes on Sunday, in what is seen by many as a “simulation of democracy” in an increasingly authoritarian country, reports the Guardian. (See Monday’s post.)

Venezuela

• The U.S. Special Presidential Envoy for Hostage Affairs Roger Carstens quietly traveled to Venezuela this week, reports CNN.
  
  
• A group of U.S. Democrat lawmakers called on the Biden administration to ease sanctions on Venezuela, make more aid available and assess the conditions necessary for a possible re-establishment of diplomatic relations in an effort to alleviate the economic crisis there, reports NBC.
  
  
• The Venezuelan National Assembly’s decision to appoint new members to the National Electoral Council — with a commission headed by President Nicolás Maduro’s wife — threatens an already unfair political system, and increases concerns for the presidential elections scheduled for 2024 and the legislative and regional elections in 2025, according to Human Rights Watch. (See Tuesday’s post.)
  
  
• Maduro’s sudden attack on the country’s electoral authority, in the midst of international negotiations that hinge on free and fair elections, is absolutely a calculated move, argues James Bosworth at Latin America Risk report. (See Tuesday’s post.)
  
  
• “He’s not just manipulating the CNE so he has the ability to rig the election next year, though that is a nice benefit. His main goal in publicly manipulating the CNE selection process is to create loud and noisy controversy today. He wants the public to distrust the process and he wants to trick a part of the opposition into debating boycotting the election, the same mistake they have made multiple times in the past.”
  
  
• Informal mortuaries — vultures — offer inexpensive services in Venezuela, where the death of a relative can mean financial ruin for a family, reports El País.

Migration

• The Venezuelan government has made much of returning migrants — but while some of the country’s diaspora have returned, the numbers are small, and many people return temporarily for documentation purposes before emigrating to a third country, writes Jordi Amaral at the Americas Migration Brief.

Ecuador

• Ecuador will lose $1.2 billion in oil income per year if a proposal to bar production in one of its major oil blocks is successful at the ballot box in August, according to the country’s energy minister. (Reuters)

Uruguay

• Uruguay declared a state of emergency in the capital Montevideo because of a water shortage, enacting measures such as tax exemptions for bottled water and the construction of a reservoir. (Reuters)

Martinique

• “Cabrage,” which roughly translates from French as a rodeo on wheels, is banned in Martinique, “but that hasn’t stopped locals from developing a vibrant culture around the motorcycles, scooters and other vehicles they use to navigate the island, which has limited public transportation,” reports the New York Times.

More Mexico

• Mexican Supreme Court Judge Arturo Zaldívar is a die-hard — and unapologetic — Taylor Swift fan. In an article in Milenio he defends his allegiance: “TS is a cry of rebellion, an example of intellectual honesty, and a cascade of dreams of all colors and sounds. Her lyrics remind us that it’s OK to be vulnerable, to be different, to make mistakes, and to love oneself fully.” (El País)

Jordana Timerman / Latin America Daily Briefing
http://latinamericadailybriefing.blogspot