Latinnews Daily - 13 February 2018

Development: On 12 February, El Salvador’s Justice & Public Security Minister Mauricio Ramírez Landaverde said that, so far, no particular criminal group had been identified as being responsible for a car bomb that went off the previous day in Santa Tecla municipality, La Libertad department. However, he added that, with less than a month until the 4 March elections for the 84-member national unicameral legislature and all 262 mayoral seats in 14 departments, electoral motives could not be ruled out.

Significance: The incident is likely to reignite existing concerns about links between organised crime and politicians ahead of the elections, which pre-electoral polls suggest are likely to produce a defeat for the left-wing ruling Frente Farabundo Martí para la Liberación Nacional (FMLN) government led by President Salvador Sánchez Cerén. The government has been damaged by its perceived failure to address long-running issues like security and the economy.

• According to the local press, the abandoned car contained two “artisanal” explosives, one of which was activated by metropolitan police (CAM) officers as they opened the doors, injuring two. Ramírez alluded to the possibility that gangs could be behind the bomb, drawing a parallel with cases dating back to 2014 and 2015 when vehicles with explosives were found in front of ministries. Those incidents were blamed on street gangs.  
• Concerns regarding possible links between organised crime and politicians have intensified since last August when Carlos Eduardo ‘Nalo’ Burgos Nuila, a former gang leader, said that the FMLN had paid US$250,000 to three gang members in exchange for votes during the 2014 presidential election campaign while the right-wing opposition Alianza Republicana Nacionalista (Arena) party had paid out US$100,000 with the same aim.
• The possibility of electoral violence is likely to fuel voter concerns about the more general security situation which, another poll released last month by the public opinion institute at the Universidad Centroamericana (IUDOP), showed remained the primary concern - cited as such by 54.8% of respondents. This is hardly a surprise given El Salvador’s continued parlous security record, with 60 homicides per 100,000 inhabitants registered in 2017. While down from 81 per 100,000 in 2016, the murder rate is still the highest in Central America and one of the highest in the world.
• The other chief concern is the economy (cited by 9.8%) – again hardly a surprise given the latest (December 2017) figures from the United Nations Economic Commission for Latin America & the Caribbean (Eclac) which forecast just 2.4% GDP growth for El Salvador in 2017 – the lowest in Central America where the average is 3.3%.
• The latest pre-electoral surveys suggest that the FMLN government’s failure to address these concerns is likely to translate into defeat in the upcoming election. The latest poll, released on 8 February by the San Salvador-based private university Universidad Francisco Gavidia (UFG), showed that 17.4% of respondents would vote for Arena in the legislative election and 11.9% for the FMLN. In the last (March 2015) national legislative elections, Arena took 35 seats (up from 33 in 2012), to 31 for the FMLN (unchanging).
• The FMLN has also been badly damaged by its decision to expel San Salvador mayor Nayib Bukele, the country’s most popular politician, from its ranks last year for infringing party rules. With Bukele now positioning himself as a presidential candidate ahead of next year’s vote for his new political outfit, Nuevas Ideas, the IUDOP poll tellingly showed the impact of his departure on the FMLN, with 74.4% of respondents considering that the ruling party will lose votes in the upcoming election.
• As regards Bukele’s successor for the San Salvador seat – the country’s second most important political post - the IUDOP survey revealed lack of knowledge regarding the two main parties’ candidates: national deputies Ernesto Muyshondt (Arena) and Jackeline Rivera (FMLN). The IUDOP poll showed that 83.8% of respondents did not know who the FMLN San Salvador mayoral candidate was, a figure which drops to 82.6% for Arena. Meanwhile the UFG poll showed 16% would vote for Muyshondt while 15.5% said that they would vote for Rivera.

Looking Ahead: The pre-electoral surveys reveal a disillusioned electorate, prompting concerns about abstention. The UFG poll showed that 33.2% of respondents said that they would not vote in the legislative election. Meanwhile the IUDOP poll showed that 59.9% of respondents had little or no interest in voting in the next elections while the political parties were the least trusted of the country’s institutions, registering just 3% trust.

Development: On 12 February, Colombia's judiciary issued 21 arrest warrants for guerrillas in the Ejército de Liberación Nacional (ELN), including five members of its central command (Coce).

Significance: The arrest warrants underpin the assertion by President Juan Manuel Santos that resuming his government’s peace negotiations with the ELN will be “very difficult”. With only six months left in office, Santos no longer has the political capital he enjoyed at the outset of his government’s peace negotiations with the Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia (Farc) guerrillas in Cuba, and the majority of presidential aspirants ahead of May’s presidential election are now opposed to pursuing talks with the ELN in view of the violence unleashed by the guerrilla group since the expiry of the bilateral ceasefire on 10 January.

• The attorney general’s office has opened 27 investigations in relation to the four-day ‘armed strike’ being carried out by the ELN in eight departments in Colombia, which is due to end this evening.
• A soldier was killed in the municipality of Valdivia in the north-western department of Antioquia in a clash with ELN guerrillas on the third day of the armed strike yesterday. An ELN guerrilla was killed in a separate incident in the east-central department of Boyacá.
• The arrest warrants issued by the judiciary include not only ‘Gabino’ (Nicolás Rodríguez Bautista), the maximum leader of the ELN, but also ‘Pablo Beltrán’ (Israel Ramírez Pineda), the guerrilla group’s chief peace negotiator in Ecuador, although in the latter’s case it has been suspended because he remains in Quito.
• One of the cases being investigated by the attorney general’s office is the abduction and murder of three demobilised Farc guerrillas, whose remains were found on 5 February in a rural area in the southern border department of Nariño. The attorney general’s office is holding the ELN’s Coce responsible for this incident. It is also probing the forced recruitment of 45 indigenous minors.

Looking Ahead: Unless the ELN makes a significant gesture in the near future the prospects for a resumption of the peace process with the Colombian government in Ecuador look bleak.

Colombia: Figures from the Colombian association of flower exporters (Asocolflores) show that Colombia’s floriculture sector exported a total of 246,000 tonnes of flowers in 2017, up 5% on 2016. Meanwhile Colombia's agriculture ministry released statistics which show that the US is Colombia’s main market for flowers, receiving 78% of exports, followed by United Kingdom (4%), Japan (4%), Canada (3%), and Russia (2%) with the remaining 9% distributed across 90 other countries worldwide, including new markets in Saint Lucia, Ethiopia, and the Maldives. Over US$297m has been invested in the sector since 2010, which has generated an estimated 130,000 jobs, with an average of 14 needed per hectare.

Development: On 12 February, Brazil’s President Michel Temer travelled to Roraima with a team of ministers and agreed to send federal resources and a task force to the northern state which is grappling with an influx of immigrants from Venezuela.

Significance: Until recently, the humanitarian crisis in Roraima had been seen as a local state problem. But as Venezuelan immigrants begin to spread to other parts of the country, it is fast becoming a national issue, forcing the Temer government to take action. The idea is not to set up a hard border with Venezuela but to streamline the flow of immigrants into Brazil, Temer explained.

• During a meeting in Roraima’s capital, Boa Vista, Temer confirmed he would transfer additional federal funds to control immigration. He described the situation at the Brazilian border as “worrying,” but underscored Brazil’s diplomatic obligation to help Venezuelan immigrants. His comments come after Colombia recently strengthened its border controls and agreed to give humanitarian aid to Venezuela.
• Currently, there are around 40,000 Venezuelans living in Boa Vista - or 10% of the total population. Local authorities are struggling to cope and have called on the federal government to set up more clinics and refugee camps to accommodate them, and then to set up a programme to transfer the immigrants to other states.
• These measures were discussed during a visit to Roraima on 8 February by social Development Minister Osmar Terra, Justice Minister Torquato Jardim, Defence Minister Raul Jungmann, and the secretary of institutional security, Sérgio Etchegoyen. Afterwards, Jungmann also agreed to double the amount of troops sent to Brazil’s border.
• As immigration increases, more xenophobic attacks against Venezuelans have been reported in Roraima. Last week, two houses where Venezuelans were living were torched. Five people were injured including a three-year old girl.

Looking Ahead: Temer will publish an emergency decree outlining the government’s immigration strategy later this week.

* Roraima state governor Suely Campos called on President Michel Temer to improve local electricity provisions during his recent visit to the state capital, Boa Vista. Currently, Roraima is the only state that is not connected with Brazil’s national electricity grid (SIN). Since 2001, most of Roraima’s electricity has come from a hydroelectric dam in Venezuela. But this power source is fast becoming unsustainable as demand for energy increases. This led to a series of power shortages last month.

Central America

El Salvador/Guatemala/Honduras: El Salvador has entered a third round of talks to negotiate its inclusion in the already-established customs union between Guatemala and Honduras which was launched last year. According to a press release by El Salvador’s economy ministry, deputy economy minister Luz Estrella Rodríguez will discuss plans for the easier movement of people and a new customs model at the border crossing points El Salvador shares with Guatemala and Honduras. Rodríguez stated that she “expects to make important advances in these talks, which will contribute to the objective of formally joining the union by June of this year”. The talks are due to last from 12-16 February.

Development: On 12 February, the Sindicato Nacional de Trabajadores de la Educación (SNTE), Mexico’s main teachers’ union, approved changes to its internal structure and re-elected Juan Díaz de la Torre as its main leader.

Significance: The changes, and Díaz de la Torre’s re-election, are considered a positive outcome for the successful implementation of the 2012-2013 education reform approved by the incumbent government led by President Enrique Peña Nieto. Díaz de la Torre is a supporter of the reform, which is still strongly resisted by the Coordinadora Nacional de Trabajadores de la Educación (CNTE) rival teachers’ union. For the past five years the CNTE has been staging disruptive protests to try to stop the implementation of the reform and there was speculation that the sector’s discontent could lead to the election of an SNTE leader less supportive of the reform and with closer links to the CNTE. 

• Unlike his long-serving predecessor, Elba Esther Gordillo, who staunchly opposed the education reform until she was arrested in 2013 over corruption charges, Díaz de la Torre has always expressed support for the reform and a willingness to work with the government to help implement it. So much so, that it is widely speculated in Mexico that Díaz de la Torre was ‘planted’ in the SNTE by the Peña Nieto government following Gordillo’s arrest to shore up support for the reform.
• Due to the continued resistance to the reform by some teachers, there were lingering concerns in government circles that this could lead to SNTE factions opposed to the reform capturing the union’s leadership. However, during the SNTE’s VII extraordinary national congress held yesterday, its thousands of delegates voted in favour of electing Díaz de la Torre as their new president after approving changes to its administrative structure introducing the figure of president as the top administrative post in replacement of the previous figure of secretary general.
• The SNTE delegates also approved other changes including the suppression of its general public-education strengthening council. This was an influential body tasked with coming up with public-education policy proposals. This has been interpreted as a further sign that, under Díaz de la Torre, the SNTE will not seek to challenge the policy line set by the federal government but limit itself to following it.

Looking Ahead: While the outcome of the SNTE congress looks positive for the education reform, that this remains controversial was made clear by the CNTE yesterday. It staged protest marches in various southern states calling for the repeal of the reform and in repudiation of Díaz de la Torre, who it accuses of being subservient to the government. The new government that is to be elected in the 1 July general election will have to find a way to appease the CNTE.       

* Mexico’s finance minister, José Antonio González Anaya, has said that based on preliminary figures Mexico’s GDP increased by 1.8% in the fourth quarter of 2017, the 32^nd consecutive quarter of positive economic growth. González hailed the result, noting that this is the longest positive quarterly growth streak in Mexico’s history, making it one of the “most prosperous emerging economies in the world”. González also highlighted that this growth has come despite the fact that Mexico’s economy has faced some significant external economic challenges in the past five years such as weak economic growth in the US, the fall in international oil prices, and the uncertainty surrounding the future of the North American Free Trade Agreement (Nafta). 

Development: On 12 February, Luis Barrionuevo became the latest of Argentina’s most powerful trade union leaders to distance himself from the general strike being organised by Hugo and Pablo Moyano for 21 February.

Significance: Barrionuevo’s decision to come out against the general strike is a coup for President Mauricio Macri. It was Barrionuevo, the leader of the union of tourism, hotel, and restaurant workers (UTHGRA), who had issued a stark warning to Macri last month not to “twist the lion’s tail”, pointing out that previous presidents who had attacked the country’s trade unions had failed to finish their terms. Barrionuevo was referring to the unprecedented surge in arrests of union leaders accused of corruption. That he has not seen fit to rally to the side of the Moyanos, who stand accused of money laundering, is telling.

• Barrionuevo is the latest in a steady stream of union bosses to abandon the Moyanos, who lead the Sindicato de Camioneros truck drivers’ union. It follows the decision by Carlos Acuña and Héctor Daer, two members of the ruling triumvirate of the country’s largest trade union movement, Confederación General del Trabajo (CGT), to desert the Moyanos.
• Juan Carlos Schmid, the third member of the CGT’s triumvirate, still supports the Moyanos, but, crucially, other transport union leaders have opted out of the general strike: Roberto Fernández, the leader of the bus, tram, and trolleybus union Unión Tranviarios Automotor (UTA), and Omar Maturano, the leader of the national railroad union, La Fraternidad.
• The labour, interior, and transport ministers, Jorge Triaca, Rogelio Frigerio, and Guillermo Dietrich respectively, have redoubled their efforts in recent days to try and isolate Moyano. The aim is to give the impression that he is part of an intolerant minority within the trade union movement spurning the government’s offer of dialogue.

Looking Ahead: The Macri administration looks like reaping the reward of its divide and rule tactics. In a clear indication that he is feeling cornered, Hugo Moyano lashed out yesterday at what he described as “a CGT subordinated” to the government. 

Paraguay: Paraguay’s total exports in January were worth US$860.7m, up 1.5% on January 2017’s US$848.3m, according to figures released by the central bank (BCP). January’s imports were worth US$1.07bn, a 23.4% increase compared with the same month in 2017, representing an all-time high. The BCP has therefore reported that the trade balance is in deficit at US$215m.