Latin America Daily Briefing

October 1, 2024
Jordana Timerman

Claudia Sheinbaum became Mexico’s first female president today, inheriting the mantle from her political mentor, former President Andrés Manuel López Obrador, who bequeaths her his “Fourth Transformation.”

Sheinbaum shared her government’s logo yesterday an image that seeks to recognize generations of “women who have been rendered invisible by history, but who have continued to fight for their rights, dreams and desires,” the future president’s team explained in a fact sheet. (Animal Político)

The 62-year-old former Mexico City mayor and lifelong leftist campaigned on a promise of continuity, but is expected to bring her own technocratic governance style to the presidency, reports the Associated Press.

“Two seemingly antagonistic words, continuity and change, will be the keys to his mandate, although it is not yet clear which of them will prevail,” reports El País.

“Analysts say Ms. Sheinbaum’s administration will try to blend her technocratic and pragmatic approach to governing with Mr. López Obrador’s populist rhetoric,” reports the New York Times.

Half of the incoming presidential cabinet is composed of AMLO officials, reports Animal Político.

Sheinbaum must implement a number of complicated constitutional reforms passed in the past month, her political mentor’s final legacy: judicial reform that will involve electing more than a thousand judges next year, and the formalization of militarized internal security, now with the legal ability to investigate crime and arrest people, reports Animal Político.

Sheinbaum inherits AMLO’s Fourth Transformation — El País reviews the state of Mexico, looking at labor, access to health, education and public security.

Immediate crises include the Sinaloa Cartel War in Culiacán and hurricane ravaged Acapulco (see below briefs.)

More Mexico

• AMLOs efforts to investigate the case of the 43 Ayotzinapa students caved to political pressure, argues Omar Gómez Trejo, former Special Prosecutor for the Ayotzinapa case, in El Faro. “…The investigation uncovered so much evidence of the collusion between authorities —including soldiers— and organized crime that there was internal pressure to stop it.”
  
  
• Municipal police Mexico’s Sinaloa state have been pulled off the streets after the army seized their guns. “Historically, the Mexican army has seized the weapons of local police forces they distrust, either because they suspect some local cops are working for drug gangs or because they suspect they are carrying unregistered, private sidearms that would make abuses harder to trace,” reports the Associated Press.
  
  
• Seventeen people were killed along Mexico’s southern Pacific coast after “John” struck the coast once as a hurricane and again as tropical storm last week, reports the Associated Press.
  
  

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Hunger in Haiti

Nearly 6,000 people in Haiti are starving, with nearly half the country’s population of more than 11 million people experiencing crisis levels of hunger or worse, according to a new by Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC).

The 5,636 people who are facing starvation, the worst level, live in makeshift shelters across the Port-au-Prince metropolitan area, which is hostage to gangs who have prevented vital supplies from reaching the capital. The report noted that another 2 million Haitians face severe hunger. (Associated Press)

The IPC also cited a high inflation rate as an aggravating factor, at a time when spending on food accounts for up to 70% of household budgets, reports Reuters.

More Haiti

• The Committee to Protect Journalists expressed concern regardingthreats made against AyiboPost’s editor-in-chief Widlore Mérancourt by Haitian gang leader Jimmy “Barbecue” Cherizier over his article about a Reuters journalist giving Cherizier gifts of balaclavas, alcohol, and cigarettes.
  

Brazil

• A Brazilian judge convicted Edilson Barbosa dos Santos of obstructing the investigation into the 2018 assassination of Rio de Janeiro councilwoman Marielle Franco and sentenced him to five years in prison. It’s the first conviction in the case, though former policeman Ronnie Lessa has confessed to killing Franco as part of a plea bargain. (Associated Press)
  

Nicaragua

• Humberto Ortega Saavedra, the former chief of Nicaragua’s armed forces, died yesterday. The younger brother of President Daniel Ortega was under house arrest, after publicly questioning his sibling’s “dictatorial” rule, reports the New York Times.
  
• Local media had reported in May that police had surrounded Humberto Ortega’s home, the same day Infobae published lengthy interview, in which Humberto Ortega discussed his at times tense relationship with his brother, reports the Associated Press.
  

Colombia

• Colombian President Gustavo Petro’s “Total Peace” policy has suffered a string of setbacks, pushing the administration towards partial agreements instead, aimed at reducing violence and returning state governance to areas under the control of armed groups. “To some veteran Latin America observers, this shift will be a disappointment. But hard realities forced Petro’s hand, and incrementalism may in fact have a better chance of successfully curbing Colombia’s violence,” writes Elizabeth Dickinson in Foreign Affairs.
  
• “Colombian police intelligence likely purchased Israeli software Pegasus during the country’s national strike in 2021, during which police killed over 60 protesters.The sale was never declared in Colombia,” according to Pirate Wire Services.
  

Regional Relations

• Renewed migration from Venezuela “will supercharge the issue in domestic politics throughout the hemisphere. The region’s leaders can still contain the damage,” argues Theodore Kahn in Americas Quarterly.
  
• Brazilian and Mexican authorities said yesterday they see the need to revise and expand their current trade agreements, in a push to strengthen the ties between the two largest economies in Latin America, reports Reuters.
• Argentine President Javier Milei received his Salvadoran counterpart, Nayib Bukele, in the Pink House yesterday. They met behind closed doors and there was no press conference, reports El País.
  
• The two governments have pledged to collaborate on security issues. In June their security ministers signed an agreement to cooperate “in the exchange of information and legal instruments and joint training of Security Forces,” reports the Buenos Aires Times.
  
• Argentine Vice President Victoria Villarruel broke ranks and lambasted a UK-Argentina Falkland Islands agreement announced last week. The pact, announced on the sidelines of the UNGA, includes resuming flights to the islands, restarting negotiations on a humanitarian project plan, and organizing a trip for relatives of fallen soldiers of the Falklands war to visit their graves. “Do they take us for fools? They are getting material, concrete and immediate benefits, while they are offering us crumbs as emotional consolation and weakening our ability to negotiate,” said Villarruel. (Guardian)
  

Argentina

• A massive mobilization tomorrow in Argentina aims to support a recent law guaranteeing financing for universities, which Milei has promised to veto. It will be the second public demonstration against attempts to cut public university funding, reports Página 12.

Cuba

• Cuba’s government said its economic policies to help growth in the midst of crisis are advancing, but too slowly as millions of Cubans remain without water, electricity, or both, reports Reuters.

Regional

• The Center for Strategic and International Studies analyzes the nexus between Chinese-owned or operated ports in the region and organized crime groups.

Venezuela

• “Tren de Guayana, one of Venezuela’s oldest illegal mining groups, allegedly has used ties to President Nicolás Maduro’s administration to push out other criminal groups and solidify its power in the state of Bolívar,” reports InSight Crime.
  

Ecuador

• Ecuador’s President Daniel Noboa’s approval rating is hovering around 50% in the polls, he is more popular than the candidates challenging his reelection bid. But he faces significant challenges, including drought, fires, power outages, debt, and security threats, which will chip away at his electoral chances in February, according to Latin America Risk Report.
  
• Noboa has vowed to build more high-security facilities in remote areas. But local communities fear for their ancestral lands – and their own safety, reports the Guardian.
  

Histories

• A ceremony in Buenos Aires’ legislature, yesterday, commemorated the 50th anniversary of the assassination of Chilean General Carlos Prats and his wife Sofía Cuthbert, who had received political asylum in Argentina following the Pinochet coup in 1973. The killing is considered one of the first of the Plan Condor. (Página 12)

UN extends Haiti security mission

September 30, 2024
Jordana Timerman

The United Nations Security Council voted unanimously today to extend for another year the mandate of the international security mission helping Haiti fight armed gangs. The U.S. and Ecuador drafted resolution dropped earlier language proposing the mission transition into a formal U.N. peacekeeping mission, due to opposition from both China and Russia. (Miami Herald, Security Council Report)

The transition would have solved financing for the Kenya-led mission, which is underfunded, ill-equipped and understaffed, reports the Miami Herald. U.S. government officials said they will work with Haiti to seek a peacekeeping operation, in line with Haitian Transitional Presidential Council leader Edgard Leblanc Fil’s “strong call” last week at the UN General Assembly for a peacekeeping mission.

Haiti’s U.N. Ambassador Antonio Rodrigue told the council that transforming the security mission into a U.N. peacekeeping operation “appears not just to be necessary, but a matter of urgency,” arguing that it would guarantee stable funding and allow capacities to be expanded “to a level that is reflective of the magnitude of the present challenges in Haiti.” (Reuters)

At least 3,661 people have been killed in Haiti in the first half of this year, according to a report from UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights released last week. It said the death toll between January and June – which included 100 children – showed that last year’s “high levels of violence” had been maintained. (Al Jazeera)

More Haiti

• Prime Minister Garry Conille’s government “recently finalized a “roadmap” that incorporates many of the key recommendations Human Rights Watch and Haitian civil society groups have identified as being essential to effectively address the crisis.”
  

Mexico

• It is Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador’s last day in office, and critics and supporters tend to agree, it has been a watershed administration, reports the New York Times.
  
  
• “By putting inequality at the centre of his discourse – and acting on it – Amlo restored large parts of the population to confidence in democracy. By 2023, 61% of Mexicans said they had faith in their national government, compared with 29% when López Obrador took office,” reports the Guardian.
  
  
• The morning presidential press conference, dubbed la mañanera, has been a staple of López Obrador’s presidency. Analysts are watching to see how incoming President Claudia Sheinbaum adapts the format to her own style, reports Reuters.
  
  
• A first key test for the new president’s technocratic reputation will be her management of the secondary regulations of the recently approved, and highly controversial, judicial reform passed earlier this month. “Justified enormous concern may ebb somewhat if Morena manages to implement the reform gradually and carefully, particularly in relation to features such as independence, career and selection of judges,” writes Vanessa Rubio in Americas Quarterly.
  
  
• Residents of Mexico’s Sinaloa state capital, Culiacán, say cartel warfare is like a “narco pandemic” that has residents under lockdown. “They check daily reports of metal spikes set up on roads to puncture tyres, masked civilians grabbing young men off the street and bodies being dumped around the metropolitan area. Shops are shutting early, workers are scared to turn up and public concerts and celebrations are cancelled,” reports the Financial Times.
  
  
• The Sinaloa Cartel War blew up after the July detention of leaders Joaquín Guzmán López and Ismael “El Mayo” Zambada. Allegedly the first kidnapped the second and handed him over to U.S. authorities. I spoke to veteran narco reporter Ioan Grillo about the roots of the cartel’s infighting. (Cenital)
  

Brazil

• Brazilian Supreme Court Justice Alexandre de Moraes on Friday added conditions for social media platform X to have its service reestablished in the country, one day after the company said it had complied with all the judge’s demands, including naming a legal representative, reports the Associated Press.
  
  
• Intense drought in Brazil has brought misery to those who live along Amazon waterways, reports the Guardian.
  

Venezuela

• Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro deserves to be arrested for human rights violations, but international efforts to detain him could backfire on the ultimate goal of regime change, writes James Bosworth in World Politics Report.
  
  Arrest warrants remind Venezuelan officials “that they must hang on to power at all costs, because the alternative could lead to years in prison. Any diplomatic pressure brought to bear on Maduro is unlikely to convince him to acknowledge he lost the election in July if he cannot be guaranteed a safe exit. Without incentives to leave and reason to trust that promises of amnesty will be kept, it becomes harder to promote a democratic transition.”

Guatemala

• “Guatemala’s Congress should ensure a transparent, merit-based selection process for Supreme Court and appellate court judges, Human Rights Watch said today.”
  

Regional Relations

• U.S. sanctions against businesses are framed in moral terms, but often wind up causing collateral damage, reports the Washington Post, looking at how sanctions imposed on Guatemala’s nickel mines in 2022 plunged thousands of workers across an entire region into hardship and “fueling an out-migration that ultimately cost some of them their lives.”
  
  
• “As anti-Haitianism surges in the lead-up to the U.S. presidential election, confronting the rise in xenophobia and hate requires a hemispheric approach to U.S. imperialism,” write Darlène Dubuisson and Mark Schuller in Nacla.
• The old Plan Colombia formula no longer works. Policymakers should embrace a more holistic approach, argues former U.S. diplomat Steven Hendrix in Americas Quarterly.
  
  
• U.S. Peace Corps volunteers returned to El Salvador for the first time since it left in 2016 because of violence in the country. It was the latest sign of a thaw in U.S. relations with El Salvador’s President Nayib Bukele, reports the Associated Press.
  
  
• Bukele is scheduled to meet with Argentine President Javier Milei today in Buenos Aires. (Buenos Aires Herald)
  
  
• Milei campaigned promising not to do business with China for ideological reasons, but has flipped his stance, saying in an interview last week that it’s an interesting partner and promising to travel soon. (Página 12)
  

Argentina

• On Saturday Milei officially launched his political party La Libertad Avanza (he won the presidency as head of a coalition with the same name), with an eye to winning seats in Congress in next year’s mid-term elections. Presidency Secretary Karina Milei — the president’s sister, whom he refers to as “The Boss” in the masculine Spanish form, El Jefe — was appointed as the head of the new party. (Reuters, Buenos Aires Herald)
  

Migration

• A new coalition, the Mayors of the Americas Task Force on Migration, “unites mayors from major cities across the Americas—from Bogotá, Colombia, to San Antonio, U.S.—to implement innovative, city-led migration responses and break through the political gridlock that has slowed national-level responses.” (Via Americas Migration Brief)

Critter Corner

• An Argentine town is battling a damaging invasion of parrots, spurred by deforestation. (Reuters)

Argentina’s poverty rate is over 50%

September 27, 2024
Jordana Timerman

Argentina’s poverty rate rose to 53 percent in the first six months of President Javier Milei’s shock-therapy austerity government. That is a jump from 42% in December, 5.5 million new poor, according to official statistics released yesterday. Sixty-six percent of children under the age of 14 are poor. The numbers are the worst since 2003, when Argentina was exiting an economic meltdown. (El País)

Argentina’s annual inflation is at more than 230 percent. Milei’s massive spending cuts have been applauded by markets, but have pushed the country into a deep recession, notes Reuters.

The government blamed the situation on its predecessor’s policies, reports the Associated Press.

The new data comes as, for the first time, the number of Argentines with a negative view of Milei’s government outnumber those who see the administration positively. And nobody expects a rapid economic recovery, further complicating Milei’s panorama.

A closely watched index of confidence in the government compiled by Torcuato Di Tella university fell 14.7 per cent in September, by far the biggest fluctuation this year, reports the Financial Times.

“Heat, humidity and energy collapse can be an explosive cocktail, even more so when electricity bills are four, seven or more times more expensive than a few months ago,” writes Hugo Alconada Mon in El País. “And the Casa Rosada can explain that investments in infrastructure take time and that the legacy received is overwhelming – which is true – but society is beginning to demand solutions from Milei, not from those who left almost ten months ago.”

Regional

• Colombia ratified the Escazú Agreement, a landmark treaty for Latin American and Caribbean nations that advances the right to a healthy environment, this week. Now Human Rights Watch calls on Brazil to advance.

Migration

• Colombia and Panama will seek to build a single, organized route through the Darién Gap jungle that hundreds of thousands of migrants cross as they attempt to reach the US, according to Colombian President Gustavo Petro. (Bloomberg)
  
  
• Venezuelans now trekking across the Darien Gap say they’re making the perilous journey because they lost hope for change after their country’s contested presidential election two months ago, reports the Associated Press.

Colombia

• “Colombia is set to announce a $40 billion investment plan aimed at replacing fossil-fuel export revenues that are expected to decline after the country ended new oil and gas exploration two years ago,” reports Bloomberg.
• Colombia’s government will take the unprecedented step of issuing its 2025 budget by decree, after the Petro administration it failed to reach an agreement with lawmakers on spending cuts and tax hikes, reports Bloomberg.

Haiti

• Edgard Leblanc Fils addressed the UN General Assembly as head of Haiti’s Transitioal Presidential Council, and argued that his country’s crushing crisis is related to colonial injustices. He called for restitution and reparations, endorsing efforts already being led by the Caribbean Community and the U.N. (Miami Herald)
  
  
• The U.N. Security council will meet Monday to decide on a proposal by both the U.S. and Ecuador to extend the multinational security support mission for another year and to work on a transition to a formal U.N. peacekeeping mission. (Miami Herald)
  

Regional Relations

• Cuban Foreign Minister Bruno Rodríguez Parrilla told Newsweek that his country’s pursuit of robust relations with China, Russia and other nations has been accelerated by the United States’ policy of severely restricting bilateral cooperation.
  
  
• Venezuela is not on a list of prospective invitees to the BRICS bloc of emerging market countries that has circulated among the group’s members at the United Nations this week, reports Bloomberg. President Nicolás Maduro had previously expressed interest in joining, “but Brazil has grown increasingly uncomfortable with a potential invite in the wake of Venezuela’s disputed July election, which has frayed relations between Maduro and President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, a longtime ally.”
  
  
• Lula said he is ready to sign a trade agreement between the European Union and South America’s Mercosur bloc, but that it is now up to the EU to conclude negotiations. (Reuters)
  
  
• Illegal firearms from the U.S. have created a regional security problem in the Caribbean, which directly affects “France, through its Caribbean island territories, Martinique and Guadeloupe,” argues Aude Darnal in World Politics Review.
  
  “As a result, Caribbean countries can and should seek to use France’s—and by extension the European Union’s—geographical presence in the region as leverage to get the U.S. to seriously address the issue.”
  
• The Wilson Center’s Weekly Asado looks at what Latin American leaders got up to in NY on UNGA week.

El Salvador

• President Nayib Bukele’s security success came at the cost of tens of thousands of arbitrary detentions. “What’s to be done when an elected leader attacks human rights, yet remains wildly popular,” asks Human Rights Watch’s Rights & Wrongs podcast. “That question is personal to Augustín, a Salvadorian teenager who spent his whole life trying to avoid gangs but was wrongly detained in Bukele’s crackdown.”

Brazil

• São Paulo’s mayoral campaign has been unexpectedly violent: two televised debates have ended in blows between political actors. “Those attacks led the campaign’s leading female candidate, Tabata Amaral, to deplore what she called “a horror show of out of control and violent men,”” reports the Guardian.

Mexico

• Thousands of people marched in Mexico City’s Zócalo, yesterday, to mark the 10 year anniversary of the disappearance of 43 students from Ayotzinapa, reports El País. (See yesterday’s post.)
  
  
• Datacentres are clustering in Mexico’s Querétaro state — Amazon, Microsoft and Google are among those lining up multibillion-dollar investments. “The government heralds the industry as a new driver of economic growth – but in a drought-prone state where the electrical grid suffered blackouts this summer, critics want to know how strained infrastructure will find the extra water and energy it needs.” (Guardian)
  

Peru

• Peruvian transportation companies went on strike yesterday against a wave of violent extortions, that have claimed three lives in the past month, reports El País.
  

Histories

• “Gerardo Sánchez Nateras’s book uses a variety of Central American archives to present alternatives to the dominant narratives about the Nicaraguan revolution.” – Nacla
  
  
• “Archaeologists using artificial intelligence (AI) have discovered hundreds of new geoglyphs depicting parrots, cats, monkeys, killer whales and even decapitated heads near the Nazca Lines in Peru, in a find that nearly doubles the number of known figures at the enigmatic 2,000-year-old archaeological site.” – Guardian
  

Critter Corner

• “Our relationship with animals has been defined by centuries of human exceptionalism. This has contributed to the extinction of many species and is driving climate change. At the same time, scientific knowledge allows us to know that there are sentient animal species, that possess culture and form complex societies. We can avoid the suffering we cause them by changing the paradigm we have for understanding and treating them,” argues Macarena Montes Franceschini in Boom.

Ayotzinapa – Ten Years

September 26, 2024
Jordana Timerman

Today is the ten year anniversary of the disappearance of the 43 students from Ayotzinapa. Their families continue to struggle for answers and to fight for justice, reports Animal Político.

The Ayotzinapa case illustrates the phenomenon of macro-criminality, where security forces, organized crime and economic elites “collaborate and generate criminal networks together that rely on extortion, trafficking, illicit weapons trade, and other forms of corruption in order to profit and thrive,” according to National Security Archive senior analyst Kate Doyle. Related to this is a system of macro-impunity, where these same actors “cooperate to ensure that a justice system cannot function.”

Lucía Cholakian Herrera spoke with anthropologist Claudio Lomnitz: “Ayotzinapa has brought the issue of disappearances in Mexico to the international forefront. Yet, it does not seem to have changed the course of things regarding the search for the disappeared. It has been very interesting—and sad—that the social movement that emerged from this did not manage to create transitional justice. It could have happened, but it did not. The obsession with the 43 has tended to become a propaganda tool that the government uses to show that it is doing something.” (Nacla)

“Moving the case forward requires sharing information and listening to the proposals of the families and their representatives in a respectful and fact-based dialogue,” according to WOLA, which calls on the incoming “Sheinbaum administration to renew this dialogue, overcoming the government’s current, strained relationship with the families.”

The 43 are just the tip of the disappearance iceberg in Mexico: “More than 100,000 people have disappeared in Mexico, a staggering human rights catastrophe. A combination of soaring cartel violence and government impunity has left tens of thousands of people unaccounted for, many of them dead and buried in unmarked graves, others kidnapped and forced to work for organized crime,” reports the Guardian.

Indeed, the town of Iguala was sunk in a crisis of insecurity and kidnapping long before the day the 43 students disappeared, reports Animal Político.

Ecuador

• A new InSight Crime investigation breaks down the dynamics of organized crime in Durán, an Ecuadorean city just across a river from Guayaquil, that provides important context for understanding the country’s security downturn.
• “Durán, a municipality of over 300,000 inhabitants in Ecuador’s coastal Guayas province, has undergone a dramatic transformation from a thriving commercial center to a violent hub of criminal activity,” writes Anastasia Austin. “This shift reflects broader challenges facing Ecuador and offers critical insights into the complex interplay of social, economic, and criminal factors shaping security in the country.” (InSight Crime)
  
  
• As part of the investigation, Stephen Dudley details how Latin Kings’ pacification process in Ecuador initially succeeded in reducing violence and reintegrating members into society, political shifts and internal divisions, coupled with rising pressures from criminal organizations, led to the breakdown of the initiative. (InSight Crime)
  
  
• Ecuadorean President Daniel Noboa abruptly canceled his United Nations engagements, yesterday, and returned home after a suspect was arrested in connecting with arson maneuvers in Quito. (Mercopress)
  

Chile

• “Chilean lawmakers gave their final approval to legislation that clamps down on tax evasion and boosts government revenues, handing President Gabriel Boric a win days before he unveils the 2025 budget,” reports Bloomberg.
  

Venezuela

• Venezuelan opposition leader Enrique Márquez backed by more than a dozen former Chavista officials asked the country’s top court to annul its validation of President Nicolás Maduro’s widely-questioned reelection, reports AFP.
  
  
• Brazil and Colombia have agreed that they will not recognize Maduro’s purported reelection until authorities present detailed results of the July 28 vote, Colombian President Gustavo Petro said in a media interview. (El País)
  
  
• Venezuelan foreign minister Yvan Gil spoke at the UN General Assembly yesterday — to a nearly empty auditorium as most delegations left. He maintained that Venezuelan voters overwhelmingly reelected Maduro, despite evidence to the contrary. (El País)
  

Haiti

• Haitian Prime Minister Garry Conille said his country is a long way from winning its war against armed gangs that control most of the capital — he spoke at an UNGA side event a week ahead of a UN deadline for long-delayed international support, reports Reuters.
  
  
• Guatemalan President Bernardo Arévalo said that his country would send 150 military police officers to help Haiti fight violent gangs. (Associated Press)
  
  
• Dominican Republic President Luis Abinader warned yesterday at the UNGA that his administration would take “drastic measures” to protect the country if a U.N.-backed mission in Haiti targeting gang violence fails. (Associated Press)
  
  
• The U.S. Biden administration sanctioned Prophane Victor, a former Haitian lawmaker and political party leader whose tight grip on the Artibonite region has helped fueled a climate of gang terror, along with the head of a powerful gang he reportedly helped form in the region, reports the Miami Herald.
  

Migration

• Former US President Donald Trump said that he would kick out hundreds of thousands of immigrants who have entered the country under two key Biden administration programs if he wins the November presidential election. (Associated Press)
  

El Salvador

• A ruling is expected soon Inter-American Court of Human Rights landmark abortion case Beatriz v. El Salvador. “The sides and their respective allies have taken drastically different public approaches as they await the ruling,” reports El Faro. Allies of the victim “ask for justice, legalization of abortion access, and the recognition of the state crime of torture,” while “organizations, academics, and spokespeople who have sided with the Salvadoran state’s representatives are attacking the Court and the magistrates’ independence and credibility.”
  

Regional

• A new Amnesty International podcast on abortion access features human rights defenders such as Venezuelan teacher Vannesa Rosales, whohelped her 13-year-old student who had been raped to get access to a safe abortion, and activist Verónica Cruz Sánchez, founder of Las Libres – a feminist Mexican organization that coordinates a network of daring activists sending free abortion pills to women in the U.S.
  

Argentina

• Drought and mismanagement have turned Argentina’s Lake Colhué Huapí into a virtual dustbowl. Now the race is on to save its sister lake from the same fate, reports the Guardian.
  

Peru

• Pope Francis took the unusual decision to expel 10 people – a bishop, priests and laypeople — from a troubled Catholic movement in Peru after a Vatican investigation uncovered “sadistic” abuses of power, authority and spirituality. (Associated Press)
  
  
• Poderosa, one of Peru’s largest gold miners, said a criminal attack related to illegal mining on one of its facilities left a security agent dead. (Reuters)
  
  
• Botanists are partnering with flying paramotorists to survey rare vegetation in Peru’s coastal fog oasis deserts, one of the most fragile and inaccessible landscapes in the world, reports the Guardian.
  

Critter Corner

• Scientists say a Mexican dinosaur fossil bolsters their case for a distinct southern population of Tyrannosaur: “Unlike its heavily built cousin, this animal was long-legged and lightly built, with big eyes that may have helped it hunt in low light and a heavy snout for dispatching helpless prey.” (New York Times)
  
  
• Scientists are studying a previously unknown pod of orcas feeding off the coast of northern Chile: “In 2018, a group of anchovy fishermen in the Chilean bay of Mejillones saw a pod of orcas up close for the first time. Hundreds of sea lions were entering and exiting their nets, attracted by the fish typical of the area. It was then that the fishermen witnessed these great ocean predators arrive — led by a female, later named Dakota by scientists — who took advantage to approach the boats and corner the sea lions to feed on them.” (El País)

Lat Am at UNGA

September 25, 2024
Jordana Timerman

• Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva reiterated his plea for reform at the UN saying the makeup of the UN Security Council is a legacy of colonialism. He also warned that the conflict in Gaza is expanding “dangerously” to Lebanon, adding to calls for a ceasefire. (Associated Press, AFP, Reuters)
  
  
• Argentine President Javier Milei used his time at the UN podium yesterday to blast the international organization that has mutated from noble origins into a “multi-tentacled leviathan” that imposes a socialist agenda on its members. “His attitude encapsulated the way that the Argentine government is burning its bridges with the world community,” reports El País.
  
  
• “I’m here to warn you that we are at the end of a cycle,” Milei said at the UN yesterday. “The collectivism and moral posturing of the woke agenda have collided with reality.” (Financial Times)
  
  
• Colombian President Gustavo Petro spoke about the climate crisis and the ongoing conflict in Gaza, labeling Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu a “war criminal.” (The City Paper)
  
  
• Chilean President Gabriel Boric called for a ceasefire in Gaza and the immediate, unconditional release of Israeli hostages captured by Hamas. He also criticized Venezuela’s marred electoral process and said Chile is not in conditions to receive more migration. (La Tercera)
  
  
• Neither Lula nor Petro, both of whom have led diplomatic efforts to achieve negotiations between Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro and the opposition, mentioned Venezuela in their speeches, notes AS/COA.
  
  
• Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele focused on what he saw as a global decline in freedom, saying, “The free world is no longer free,” he defended his administration’s controversial ‘state of exception’ that has seen 80,000 citizens arrested over a period of two years. “Some people say that we are the country that has imprisoned thousands, but actually we’ve freed millions,” he said. (AS/COA)
  

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Mexican senate passes National Guard militarization reform

Mexico’s Senate, dominated by ruling Morena party lawmakers and allies, approved a bill passing the civilian National Guard to the Armed Forces, another reform championed by outgoing President Andrés Manuel López Obrador, reports El País.

The move was strenuously rejected by human rights organizations and the United Nations, but supporters said the military would help the National Guard become a more effective security force, reports the Associated Press.

AMLO created the National Guard in 2019 as a civilian institution with policing duties, but now argued it will operate more efficiently under the command of the Defense Ministry rather than the Public Security Ministry, reports Bloomberg.

“Throughout his administration, Lopez Obrador has turned over duties which were long held by civilians to the military, including customs duties and airport operation,” reports Reuters.

More Mexico

• The Senate also passed, unanimously, another portion of AMLO’s reform, recognizing the rights of afro-descendant and Indigenous Mexicans. (Animal Político)
  
  
• The U.S. Treasury Department “sanctioned two Mexican businesses — an ice cream chain and a local pharmacy — for allegedly using proceeds of fentanyl trafficking to finance their operations tied to the Sinaloa cartel,” reports the Associated Press.
  
  
• A newly declassified U.S. government memorandum, released in response to a Freedom of Information Act request, states that U.S. agents were already suspicious in 1986 of the politician Manuel Bartlett Díaz of working with the traffickers who kidnapped and murdered DEA Agent Enrique “Kiki” Camarena in 1985. Bartlett was Mexico’s Interior Secretary when Camarena was killed, an office sometimes compared to vice president. He is currently director of Mexico’s state electricity company, the CFE, reports CrashOut.
  
  
• Mexican president-elect Claudia Sheinbaum said the King of Spain was not invited to her swearing in next week because Felipe VI never responded to outgoing President Andrés Manuel López Obrador’s 2019 call for a formal apology for the Conquest and colonial period. (El País)
  

Regional Relations

• “The United States sanctioned several Venezuelan government officials for extorting money from political detainees, highlighting how President Nicolás Maduro administration relies on criminal rents to stay in power,” reports InSight Crime.
  
  
• The BRICS bloc is alluring for developing nations keen for alternatives to U.S. dominated clubs. But the growing group of member nations faces an internal fissure between countries like Russia and China that want to position the bloc as anti-west, and other nations, notably Brazil and India, who “want to use BRICS to democratize and encourage the reform of the existing order, helping guide the world from the fading unipolarity of the post–Cold War era to a more genuine multipolarity in which countries can steer between U.S.-led and Chinese-led blocs. This battle between anti-Western states and nonaligned ones will shape the future of BRICS—with important consequences for the global order itself,” argue Alexander Gabuev and Oliver Stuenkel in Foreign Affairs.

Haiti

• A Haitian rights organization is seeking the arrest of former U.S. President Donald J. Trump, the Republican presidential nominee, and running mate JD Vance for false statements about Haitians in Springfield, Ohio, which has led to a wave of bomb threats and other disruptions in public service in the small Midwestern town, reports the Miami Herald.
  

Migration

• In northern Chile, “almost half of Antofagasta’s migrant population lives in 60 or so informal settlements, or campamentos, that Colombian, Bolivian, Peruvian, and Ecuadorian migrants built on the arid hillsides surrounding the city beginning in 2014… From a demographic standpoint, Antofagasta’s predominantly migrant settlements are among the most multinational, multiethnic, and multiracial spaces in Latin America. Despite internal ethnic and racial divisions, migrant leaders, most of them women, have represented them in public as spaces of pan-Latin American unity,” according to NACLA. (Via Americas Migration Brief.)
  
  
• Bloomberg explores the US’ “broken asylum system, in which applications can take years to resolve and outcomes are often determined less by a case’s merits than by pure chance.” (Via Americas Migration Brief.)

Brazil

• An attempt to arrest Brazilian music star Gusttavo Lima “cast a spotlight on how a sudden boom in unregulated online gambling has become a growing criminal headache and public health crisis for Brazil,” reports the Guardian. “Online gambling companies have grown exponentially since the Covid-19 pandemic, many of them with links to international companies and local criminal groups.”
  

Argentina

• Milei has managed to retain popularity despite painful austerity measures, but a closely watch poll shows his support fell almost 15% this month, the steepest drop yet during his nine-month administration. (Reuters)
  

Uruguay

• “The former chief of presidential security in Uruguay was released from prison after serving time on organized crime charges. But as he starts a new chapter, Uruguay continues to struggle with questions about criminal infiltration within the government,” reports InSight Crime.
  
  

Culture Corner

• The increasing popularity of women’s soccer in Mexico “is challenging traditional notions of gender in a country captured by machismo with a new kind of female role model: the athlete influencer, the strong, skilled woman who posts more about her feats on the field than her fashion choices off it,” reports the Washington Post.

Latin America Daily Briefing

September 24, 2024
Jordana Timerman

Regional Relations

• Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva opened the U.N. General Assembly today with a call for the world to do more to combat climate change — but his message contrasts with fires ravaging Brazil, which have added fuel to criticism about his administration’s own environmental stewardship, according to the Associated Press.
  
  
• The U.N. General Assembly approved the Pact for the Future on Sunday, an agreement that challenges “member nations to turn promises into real actions that make a difference to the lives of the world’s more than 8 billion people,” reports the Associated Press.
  
  
• Passage is a diplomatic victory for Brazil, as the agreement set 2030 as a deadline for Security Council reform, the country’s goal heading into the weekend summit discussing the pact, according to the Brazilian Report.
  
  
• On Sunday Lula issued a call “to never go backwards” on the progress that has been already achieved on multilateral issues, and said the Pact for the Future “shows us the direction we should follow.” (United Nations)
  
  
• Argentina declined to endorse United Nations Pact for the Future, which aims for member countries to commit to action on issues including peace, poverty, climate change, and gender equality. (Buenos Aires Herald)
  
  
• Venezuela’s Supreme Court ordered the arrest of Argentine President Javier Milei, along with other members of his government for alleged crimes related to the 2022 seizure of a Venezuelan cargo plane in Buenos Aires, under the previous administration, with Venezuelan and Iranian crew members suspected of being involved in espionage. (Miami Herald)
  
  
• An Argentine federal court ordered the arrest of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro and dozens of allies, including Diosdado Cabello, for crimes against humanity. Significantly, the court also asked international police organization Interpol to issue a red notice for their capture, reports AFP.
  
  
• While there’s been a lot of fake news about the Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua taking over a U.S. city suburb, it is true that the criminal group has an increasing presence in the U.S., reports the Associated Press. “The size of the gang and the extent to which its actions are coordinated across state lines and with leaders believed to be outside the U.S. are unclear.”
  

Mexico

• Mexican media reported at least 10 new deaths in Sinaloa state — including corpses found wearing sombreros or with pizza slices pegged onto them with knives, signaling between warring factions of the Sinaloa Cartel, reports CBS News.
  
  
• The war between factions of the Sinaloa Cartel is spreading to other states in Mexico, and “has stirred up the country’s drug trafficking hornet’s nest and spread panic among the population, who fear new confrontations in the states of Sonora, Baja California, Chihuahua, and Durango,” reports El País.
  
  
• Outgoing Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador is leaving office with some of the highest presidential approval ratings in the world. More than 5 million people have escaped poverty on his watch. He transformed Mexicans’ relationship with government with his strong policies in support of the country’s working poor. He did not, however, carry out promised transformations on issues of corruption and impunity, reports the Washington Post.
  

Colombia

• Colombian President Gustavo Petro’s “Total Peace” initiative is foundering — major talks have broken down and popular support is low. “Petro’s peace efforts are not destined for total failure, but now is likely the last chance to avoid that outcome,” argue Will Freeman and Steven Holmes at the Council on Foreign Relations.
  

Uruguay

• Uruguayan presidential elections are in a month. Polling currently favors leftist coalition Frente Amplio candidate Yamandú Orsi, but the outcome of a likely second round remains a tossup, according to Latin America Risk Report. A referendum question on undoing the current government’s pension reform is likely to dominate the first round, and will impact the outcome of the presidential vote, argues James Bosworth.

X stands down in Brazil

Social media platform X backed down from a legal standoff with Brazil’s Supreme Court on Friday, announcing that had complied with judicial orders to take down accounts that threatened the country’s democracy, payed relevant fines, and named a legal representative in Brazil. (Guardian)

Judge Alexandre de Moraes responded on Saturday with a a request for additional documents and gave the company five days to complete the paperwork to legalize its presence in Brazil and asked several agencies to inquire into X’s legal standing in Brazil, reports the Washington Post.

The abrupt about-face, weeks after X has been banned in Brazil by court order, appeared to be a defeat for X owner Elon Musk. “The moment showed how, in the yearslong power struggle between tech giants and nation-states, governments have been able to keep the upper hand,” reports the New York Times.

Venezuela

• It seems clear that Venezuela’s Maduro government will be able to cling to power, though it is not the scenario it hoped for, writes David Smilde in La Silla Vacía. “They went into the elections seeking legitimacy that could lead to normalization, but they achieved exactly the opposite: they are an outlaw state in a permanent state of exception. However, with Western democracies exhausted by the Venezuelan case and convinced that neither sanctions nor interim governments work, and with strong alliances with global autocracies, the odds are clearly in their favor for Maduro to survive this crisis.”
  
  

Regional Relations

• Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva told the United Nations that the global entity lacked “ambition and boldness” to fulfill its role, he also insisted that structural changes were needed to address the armed conflicts in the world today, reports Mercopress.

Haiti

• Kenyan President William Ruto visited Haiti this weekend, on his way to the UNGA meeting in New York, and promised to send an additional 600 police officers to Haiti over the next two months and to plea for additional money to fund the international security mission headed by his country. He acknowledged that the mission has been undermined by lack of equipment and funding. (Miami Herald)
  
  
• He claimed that the Kenyan led mission has “boosted security infrastructure and allowed displaced Haitians to return home after fleeing violence, though many Haitians say violence is just as bad, if not worse, than it was when the police were deployed in June,” reports the Associated Press.
  
  
• “Ruto’s visit to Haiti came against a bleak backdrop,” reports the New York Times. “The recent kidnapping of two Filipino sailors put a halt to cargo shipments to Haiti by sea, the capital’s downtown streets are still deserted, and even Haiti’s prime minister cannot use his own office, because it is in a gang-controlled area.”
  

Mexico

• Outgoing Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador’s security reform will hamper incoming President Claudia Sheinbaum’s promises to change security strategies, writes James Bosworth in World Politics Review.
  
  
• Mexico’s ruling party, Morena, changed its internal bylaws yesterday, “banning the party’s top brass from holding office in any of the three branches of government,” reports the Mexico Political Economist.
  
  
• AMLO’s son was selected for a senior role in Morena leadership yesterday, “a sign the leftist leader will continue to influence public life after he steps down,” reports the Financial Times. (See also Reuters.)
  
  
• “Citizens in the capital of the southern state of Guerrero are fed up with inaction by their local government on security and public works. Their answer has been to file a petition to secede from the municipality and create their own,” reports Mexico Political Economist.
  

Colombia

• “Colombia’s peace efforts will not bear fruit while the Andean country is divided by social and economic strata comparable to India’s caste system, a United Nations envoy said.” – Reuters
  
  
• Phenomenal World interviewed César Loza, president of the Colombian union representing oil and gas workers: “the financing required for the energy transition must come from the oil and gas industry itself. Unfortunately, the government has not understood this.”
  

Ecuador

• “The murder of the head of Ecuador’s largest men’s prison appears to be the latest act of violence by prison gangs in their ongoing attempt to reestablish control over the penitentiary system,” reports InSight Crime.
  

Bolivia

• Former Bolivian President Evo Morales’ march to La Paz, due to arrive today, “reflects an existential split in the heart of one of Latin America’s most successful leftwing parties,” MAS, as Morales fights with his former protege, President Luis Arce, to be presidential candidate next year, reports the Guardian.
  
  
• Morales’ marchers clashed again with Arce supporters and security forces, yesterday, reports the BBC. “The protesters and counterprotesters hurled firecrackers, homemade explosives and stones at each other across a dusty sprawl in the city of El Alto, while riot police unleashed tear gas into the crowds,” reports the Associated Press.
  

Argentina

• Argentine President Javier “Milei has managed to sustain popular support, even amid harsh economic adjustment policies and a domestic recession, primarily thanks to his success in reducing inflation. But the honeymoon will not last forever. Unless he can improve as a manager and become more adroit at political negotiation, Milei will lose political capital—and Argentina’s perpetual crisis will continue,” writes María Victoria Murillo in Foreign Affairs.

Paraguay

• “Paraguayans are notoriously creative — some would say light-fingered — when it comes to intellectual property,” reports the New York Times, in an article on a beloved national food brand whose mascot is identical to “Mickey Mouse.”
  

Martinique

• France has sent a group of special anti-riot police to Martinique, where protesters have gathered despite the government barring demonstrations in parts of the island. (Associated Press)
  

Peru

• Groups of Peruvian women are reviving an ancient Indigenous weaving tradition that was abandoned in the wake of forced sterilizations carried out under Fujimori. “Using the loom, which is attached to the weaver’s waist, causes regular jolts to the abdomen as the ja’ulla, a wooden rod, is forcefully pulled towards them. After being forcibly sterilised, many women found it too painful,” reports the Guardian.

Jordana Timerman / Latin America Daily Briefing
latinamericadailybriefing.blogspot

EnergiesNet.com 10 01 2024