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Latinnews Daily - 12 February 2018

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US recognises Peru’s leadership over Venezuela crisis

Guatemala: On 8 February, US President Donald Trump met Guatemala’s President Jimmy Morales at the White House. According to a press release by the US Department of State, President Trump thanked President Morales for supporting the US and Israel, and for his announced decision to move the Guatemalan embassy to Jerusalem. The two leaders also “discussed the situation in Venezuela and agreed to work together to restore democracy to the country”. The press release cites President Trump as underscoring “the importance of stopping illegal immigration” to the US from Guatemala and “addressing Guatemala’s underlying challenges to security and prosperity”. The same day US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson also met Morales. A separate press release by the US Department of State notes that the two “exchanged views on progress in countering narcotics trafficking through Guatemalan territories and reiterated US support for anti-corruption efforts”.  Two days earlier, the international NGO Human Rights Watch (HRW) warned that, during his visit to the US, President Morales was carrying out a campaign against the current head of the United Nations-backed International Commission against Impunity in Guatemala (Cicig), Iván Velásquez, as part of efforts to get him expelled from the country. Morales’s previous attempt to expel the Cicig chief back in August 2017, after he had called for the president to be investigated for illegal campaign financing, had prompted a widespread outcry.

Argentina: On 4 February, Argentina’s foreign minister, Jorge Faurie, received his US counterpart, Rex Tillerson, in the Palacio San Martín in Argentina’s capital, Buenos Aires. The meeting took place as part of Tillerson’s seven-day Latin American tour. Talks centred on reinforcing bilateral efforts to combat drug trafficking in Latin America and ways to stop the financing of transnational criminal organisations both regionally and globally. Talks also focused on funding by the insurgent Lebanese group Hezbollah which is active in Latin America. Tillerson and Faurie expressed concerns over the political and humanitarian situation in Venezuela. Although no agreement was reached on the imposition of additional sanctions on the Venezuelan government led by President Nicolás Maduro, Tillerson revealed that the US Government was considering possible sanctions on Venezuelan oil imports. However, he affirmed that the US government’s opposition was towards the Venezuelan government not the Venezuelan people. This distinction was underscored by Faurie who claimed that potential economic sanctions must not worsen the situation of the Venezuelan people. Faurie also raised concerns about tariffs imposed by the US government on Argentine biodiesel imports. Faurie stated that efforts to reach a solution with the US authorities over this are ongoing, but the measure has already cost the Argentina millions of US dollars.

Peru: On 6 February, US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson thanked Peru’s President Pedro Pablo Kuczynski for the leadership that his government has shown in addressing the political, economic, and social crisis in Venezuela. Speaking at the conclusion of his official visit to Peru, part of a wider regional tour, in which he held a private meeting with Kuczynski, Tillerson praised Kuczynski’s initiative in convening the so-called ‘Lima Group’ of countries that are closely monitoring the situation in Venezuela and seeking to promote a negotiated and democratic solution to Venezuela’s political crisis. The Lima Group was created in August last year in response to the decision by the Venezuelan government led by President Nicolás Maduro to convene a national constitutional assembly (ANC) to assume the legislative powers of the opposition-controlled legislative assembly (AN). Since then the Lima Group has publicly urged the Maduro government to dissolve the ANC, which it does not recognise; to accept the authority of the AN; and to provide sufficient guarantees to the political opposition that the presidential election due in Venezuela this year is free, transparent, and fair. After his meeting with Kuczynski, Tillerson recognised the Lima Group for “addressing the terrible destruction of democracy in Venezuela” and said that he and Kuczynski had exchanged some ideas of possible actions to take to help Venezuela “return to the path of democracy”.

Mexico: On 7 February, the Committee for the Protection of Journalists (CPJ) urged the immediate release of Mexican journalist Emilio Gutiérrez and his son Oscar, who have been detained at a US Customs and Immigration (ICE) centre in El Paso, Texas. The Gutiérezes where detained after their request for asylum in the US was rejected. Emilio Gutiérrez fled Mexico with his son in 2008, fearing for his life after he had published some articles on the corruption of the Mexican military and received anonymous death threats. In July 2017 Gutiérrezes’ asylum request was denied by a court in El Paso, a decision that has been appealed. However, ICE placed the Gutiérrezes under preventative detention in December 2017 and opened a formal deportation process. In a letter sent to the director of the ICE detention centre in El Paso, CPJ director Joel Simon highlights the potential dangers faced by the Gutiérrezes if they are returned to Mexico and pointing to the good behaviour that they have exhibited during their ten-year residence in the US. Simon called for their deportation to be halted until their appeal is reviewed.  

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