The U.N. Security Council is set to hold a meeting on Haiti today. The meeting was moved up due to the increasingly dire situation in Haiti, where criminal blockades of seaports have blocked access to fuel and water, added to growing hunger and disease, and disrupted basic social services. (Miami Herald) More than 4 million people, about half the country’s population, face acute food insecurity. (Reuters) The violence has also compounded a growing cholera outbreak.

The United States has drafted a United Nations Security Council resolution that will encourage the “immediate deployment of a multinational rapid action force” to Haiti to address the nation’s worst security and health crisis in decades, reported the Miami Herald on Friday. The resolution does not specify what role various nations would play. It is the first sign the Biden administration may be willing to participate in a Haiti mission that has a military component, reports the Washington Post.

The Montana Accord group, a coalition of civil society organizations advocating for a transition plan towards a democratic government, issued a statement last week rejecting the possibility of an intervention. (Foreign Policy Brief)

A separate draft UN Security Council resolution circulated by the U.S. last week proposes an arms embargo for Haiti, as well as financial and travel sanctions for those creating violence in the country. The resolution specifically singles out influential Haitian gang leader Jimmy Cherizier, nicknamed “Barbeque,” but would also would target other Haitian individuals and groups who engage in actions that threaten the peace, security or stability, reports the Associated Press.

The moves follow a recent request for foreign intervention by Haitian interim-president Ariel Henry. U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres sent a letter to the Security Council last week calling for the deployment of a rapid action force by one or several U.N. member states to help Haiti’s National Police.

The U.S. and Canada sent armored vehicles and other supplies to Haiti on Saturday on military aircraft. A U.S. State Department statement said the equipment was bought by Haiti’s government and is intended to help police battling criminal gangs, reports the Associated Press.

The vehicles are among 18 Haiti’s government purchased commercially from a Canadian-based firm over the summer but for inexplicable reasons were delayed, reports the Miami Herald.

The U.S. Agency for International Development deployed a elite disaster response team to Haiti “as insecurity, gang violence, and the humanitarian situation worsen” throughout the Caribbean nation. According to USAID, such teams are dispatched in response to natural disasters and complex emergencies, and typically include infectious disease specialists, nutritionists, and logistics experts. (Miami Herald, Reuters)

More Haiti

• Haiti’s gangs are using rape as a tool of intimidation and control. Their systematic violence is going largely undocumented and unpunished, according to a United Nations report released last week. (CNN)
  
  
• Amidst the growing crisis, cholera cases have been increasing again in Haiti. The Pan American Health Organization said there are more than 560 suspected cases of cholera, some 300 hospitalizations and at least 35 deaths, with experts warning the numbers are likely much higher than what i’s being reported. (Associated Press)
  
  
• Haiti’s education system discriminates against native Kreyòl in favor of French, which “is spoken by at most a tenth of the population,” writes Michel DeGraff in a New York Times guest essay.

Brazil

• Brazilian presidential frontrunner Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva called incumbent Jair Bolsonaro “a tiny little dictator” and “the king of fake news and stupidity” during a television debate ahead of a second-round election between the two. Lula attacked also Bolsonaro’s management of the coronavirus pandemic and poor environmental record. (Guardian)
  
  
• It was the first head-to-head debate between the two. Bolsonaro accused Lula of lying, corruption and a “disgraceful” record. (AFP)

Migration

• A record number of migrants, more than 150,000 people, have traversed the dangerous Darién Gap between Colombia and Panama so far this year. The crossing is one of the world’s most difficult journeys, and medical NGOs are overwhelmed by victims, reports the Guardian.
  
  
• A new U.S. plan to grant up to 24,000 Venezuelans humanitarian access to the United States, while enabling U.S. officials to expel to Mexico those caught trying to cross illegally by land, poses a potentially enormous challenge to already overstretched Mexican shelters, reports the Associated Press.
  
  
• Mexico has insisted that the U.S. admit one Venezuelan on humanitarian parole for each Venezuelan it expels to Mexico, according to the Associated Press. This theoretically means Mexico would take no more than 24,000 Venezuelans expelled from the U.S.
  
  
• Mexico’s government moved to discourage the formation of caravans by Venezuelan migrants this weekend, reports Reuters. Mexican officials reacted to a caravan of several hundred migrants, most from Venezuela, that formed in southern Mexico on Friday, though it later dispersed.

Mexico

• Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador’s government has failed to tackle the country’s criminal impunity rate, despite campaign promises to fight corruption, crime and impunity. Mexican prosecutors investigated and took legal action on 4.4% of reported federal crimes in 2020, compared with 5.4% in 2018, according to an analysis of federal government data conducted by México Evalúa. (Wall Street Journal)
  
  
• Twelve people were killed in a shooting at a bar on Saturday, the second mass shooting Mexico’s Guanajuato state this month. (Al Jazeera)
  
  
• Lax U.S. gun laws play a significant role in worsening Mexican cartel violence, reports the Guardian.

Chile

• Chile’s new interior minister, veteran politician Carolina Tohá, is tasked turning around the flailing Boric administration, reports Americas Quarterly.

Bermuda

• The British government blocked Bermuda’s plan to liberalize the country’s drug code, which disproportionately affects Black islanders. The move has sparked worries about a constitutional crisis and charges of undue interference in Britain’s oldest overseas territory, reports the Washington Post.

Colombia

• Fighting between Colombia’s ELN and dissident FARC groups close to Colombia’s border with Venezuela, have confined hundreds of people to their homes this month. Continued ELN involvement in clashes in Colombia’s Arauca department casts a shadow on its pledge to cease violent actions ahead of peace talks with the government, reports InSight Crime.
  
  
• At least 20 people were killed and at least 14 injured after a bus crashed on a road in Colombia, reports Reuters.

Cuba

• Sixty years after the Cuban Missile Crisis, Cubans remember how it played out on the ground. (Guardian)

Culture Corner

• Mexico City’s Museo Kaluz is a public showplace for billionaire Antonio del Valle Ruiz’s 1,800-piece art collection and show cases a broad swathe of Mexico’s faces and geographies by many of the country’s best known artists. (New York Times)

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