Gang control of Port-au-Prince is nearly complete — criminal groups operate with impunity, increasingly in wealthy enclaves as well as slums. “The national police, outgunned, outnumbered, underpaid and demoralized, have ceded control of most of the city,” reports the New York Times. (See yesterday’s post.)

In the wake of a U.N. report yesterday that said at least 531 Haitians have been killed and 300 injured since the beginning of the year in clashes between gangs — ”there is one thing that everyone can agree on: Since the U.S. and Canada began targeting Haiti’s political and business elite with travel visas bans and economic sanctions in early November, the armed violence and kidnappings by gangs have only increased,” reports the Miami Herald.

“Haiti appears to be stuck between two bad options. To many foreigners, and to those in power in Haiti, intervention seems necessary to halt the current gang violence—and yet history and the Haitian people themselves tell us it’s a bad idea,” writes Marlene L. Daut in the New Yorker. “Meanwhile, international intervention is already occurring without foreign soldiers, both discretely … and through an ongoing process of economic and political interference.”

More Haiti

• A U.S. jury concluded that Jean Morose Viliena, a former Haitian mayor, should pay $15.5 million over allegations he led a brutal campaign against his political opponents that involved murdering and torturing them — Reuters.
  
  
• The suit was filed by the San Francisco-based Center for Justice & Accountability, along with the multinational Dentons law firm and Morrison & Foerster on behalf of three Haitian men who accused Viliena and his political allies of political persecution that included human rights abuses, reports the Miami Herald.

Regional

• The Inter-American Court of Human Rights will hear a case this week about the legality of denying a woman access to abortion services, the first such trial in the court’s history. The case challenges El Salvador’s total abortion ban. (AFP, see March 8’s post.)

Nicaragua

• The Vatican said Saturday it had closed its embassy in Nicaragua after the country’s government proposed suspending diplomatic relations. It’s the latest a yearslong crackdown on the Catholic Church by the Ortega administration, reports the Associated Press.

Regional Relations

• Argentine President Alberto Fernández announced the country’s return to Unasur, a potential boost for the regional bloc as Brazil’s Lula administration has sought to revive it. (EFE)
  
  
• Argentina and Ecuador have a growing diplomatic spat over a former Ecuadorean minister, Maria de los Angeles Duarte sentenced to eight years in jail in a bribery case, who escaped to Venezuela from Argentina’s Quito embassy, where she had been holed up since 2020. The incident resulted in Ecuador expelling Argentina’s ambassador and recalling its own from Buenos Aires, measures Argentina then reciprocated. (AFP)
  
  
• The U.S. State Department cited credible reports of killings, arrests and torture in Nicaragua, as well as harsh and life-threatening conditions in the country’s prisons, in its annual human rights report. (Reuters, see March 3’s post.)
  
  
• The report also said there were credible reports in Mexico of unlawful or arbitrary killings by police, military, and other officials; forced disappearance by government agents; as well as torture and inhuman treatment by security forces. Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador describing the reports as “lies.” (Reuters)

Mexico

• AMLO’s vision for the country is erasing years of institution-building efforts—and endangering its economic and political stability, writes Mexico Evalúa chairman Luis Rubio in Americas Quarterly.

Honduras

• A state of emergency declared by Honduras’ government in December amounts to a criminalization of poverty, according to rights activists who say the Castro government’s efforts have “not fundamentally changed the structure of violence, extortion and narcotraffic in Honduras … in part because the police and military are themselves a significant part of this structure,” reports Truthout.

Costa Rica

• Long a paragon of democratic stability in Central America, Costa Rica is increasingly afflicted by violence related to domestic illicit drug use, reports the Washington Post. While major international trafficking organizations have little presence in Costa Rica, local criminals provide logistical support for cartels moving cocaine from Colombia to the U.S. and Europe, and have begun selling drugs locally.

Colombia

• Colombia’s government is expected to send a pension reform bill to Congress today. The bill forms part of President Gustavo Petro’s social reform agenda. Though his coalition has a majority in Congress, the proposal has caused friction with some legislative allies, reports Reuters.

Chile

• Chile’s government will make adjustments to a mining royalty bill amid criticism of its impact on the industry’s competitiveness, Finance Minister Mario Marcel told the Senate treasury committee. (Reuters)

Guyana

• Comments by a Guyanese opposition politician at a public meeting, where he said that if there is a mass uprising, the Afro-Guyanese dominated police and defense forces would side with the opposition, sparked concern in the midst of accusations that President Irfaan Ali’s administration is discriminating against Black Guyanese. (News Source Guyana, Caribbean Life, Trinidad Guardian)
  
  
• “The lack of condemnation by “political leaders” of the racist and inciting remarks made” made by a politician at a public meeting last week “is most disturbing,” said Guyana Prime Minister Mark Phillips.

Brazil

• Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva said a proposal for new fiscal rules would only be announced after he visits China next week, reports Reuters. (See yesterday’s briefs.)

Venezuela

• Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro appointed Pedro Tellechea to head the country’s oil ministry, after Tareck El Aissami resigned over an anti-corruption crackdown. (AFP, see yesterday’s briefs.)

Bolivia

• Bolivia’s foreign currency crisis is deepening — the line for U.S. dollars outside the central bank was two blocks long yesterday, as the supply of greenbacks at commercial banks and on the black market dries up, reports Bloomberg.

Barbados

• “Today, after three centuries of British rule, change is afoot in Barbados, and the fresh energy is palpable,” according to a New York Times travel article. It’s no coincidence the country’s move to a republic finally occurred amid the Black Lives Matter movement and under the watch of the country’s first female prime minister, Mia Mottley, who is Black.

Jordana Timerman/Latin America Daily Briefing