Security & Strategic Review - April 2020

As governments across the Andean region have increasingly demonstrated a willingness to scapegoat Venezuelan migrants for problems of crime and insecurity, the coronavirus (Covid-19) pandemic threatens to add to this rising tide of xenophobia.... Read More

Human rights organisations, both within Colombia and internationally, have voiced concerns about the escalating risks faced by social leaders in the country.... Read More

A long-running ‘mega-operation’, backed by a team of 47 prosecutors and over 1,200 police officers, culminated in February with 18 arrests in Peru’s north-western region of La Libertad.... Read More

Argentina’s President Alberto Fernández has been promising judicial reform since taking office on 10 December 2019.... Read More

The coronavirus (Covid-19) pandemic has raised the question of how the containment of the outbreak should be managed in prisons, ideal incubators for the disease.... Read More

Brazil has seen a sustained drop in homicides for two years running, since violent deaths hit a record high of close to 65,000 in 2017.... Read More

It may be considered the most powerful drug trafficking organisation (DTO) in Mexico, responsible for the high levels of violence there and most of the synthetic drug trafficking into the US.... Read More

Few countries are more deadly for environmental human rights defenders (EHRDs) than Mexico.... Read More

The amount of opium poppy illicitly cultivated for the production of heroin in Mexico is falling.... Read More

The bold action by President Nayib Bukele to address the spread of coronavirus (Covid-19) in the country, declaring a national state of emergency even before the first domestic case had been detected [WR-20-11], may have been welcomed given the urgency of the pandemic.... Read More

The recent decision by the Frente Sandinista de Liberación Nacional (FSLN) government led by President Daniel Ortega to end a blockade which threatened the very survival of Nicaragua’s oldest and largest daily, La Prensa, a prominent Ortega critic, may have been welcomed by influential journalists such as Carlos Chamorro, the founder and editor of media outlet Confidencial.... Read More

At the time of writing, the controversial Asylum Cooperation Agreements (ACAs) signed by US and (separately) El Salvador, Guatemala, and Honduras [SSR-20-01] had been effectively suspended as Central America’s ‘Northern Triangle’ countries closed their borders to prevent the spread of the coronavirus (Covid-19).... Read More

The Caribbean Community (Caricom) reported its first official case of coronavirus (Covid-19) on 10 March in Jamaica, 55 days after the announcement of the first case in the US, according to the Centre for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), a US federal agency.... Read More

In more normal times, the world would be hearing a lot more about the electoral stalemate in Guyana, but even as it is international pressure has been mounting on President David Granger, leader of the incumbent A Partnership for National Unity (Apnu)-Alliance for Change (AFC) coalition government.... Read More