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Weekly Report - 30 April 2015 (WR-15-17)
EL SALVADOR: Eerie echoes of civil war
The government led by President Salvador Sánchez Cerén is rolling out an aggressive public security strategy to combat El Salvador’s mara gangs. Just three years after the previous government was behind a gang truce that led to a fall in homicides, Sánchez Cerén, a former left-wing guerrilla, has reverted to the mano dura (firm hand) initiative first introduced by the right-wing Alianza Republicana Nacionalista (Arena) administrations 12 years ago, leading to spiralling homicides. Sánchez Cerén has opted for a super mano dura. He has announced the creation of elite army battalions for the first time since the civil war (1980-1992) to be deployed to the country’s violent ‘hot spots’ to take the fight to the gangs; imprisoned mara leaders have been transferred en masse from common jails back to a maximum-security prison; and the threat of extradition to the US now hangs in the air.
- Honduran supreme court lifts constitutional ban on re-election
- EL SALVADOR: Eerie echoes of civil war
- TRACKING TRENDS
- VENEZUELA: Squeeze on firms engaging in ‘economic war’
- BOLIVIA: Boosting energy ties with Brazil
- TRACKING TRENDS
- BRAZIL: Senate committee approves electoral changes
- BRAZIL: Corruption cost and losses at Petrobras hit Brazil’s development bank
- ARGENTINA: Strange bedfellows: Fernández travels to Moscow
- ARGENTINA: Primary successes mark start of Macri’s presidential campaign
- TRACKING TRENDS
- MEXICO: Unrest in the north threatens electoral preparations
- MEXICO: Government ‘must disclose’ data on missing persons
- Pérez Molina bows to pressure over CICIG
- Quotes of the week