Security & Strategic Review - January 2022

Honduras’ president-elect Xiomara Castro, of the left-wing opposition Partido Libertad y Refundación (Libre), has promised sweeping reforms to demilitarise citizen security and redouble efforts in the fight against corruption after more than a decade of Partido Nacional (PN) rule.... Read More

In belated recognition of Colombia’s historic 2016 peace agreement and the subsequent disbanding of the Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia (Farc), on 30 November the US State Department removed the country’s most infamous guerrilla group from its list of terrorist organisations.... Read More

The 16 October extradition from Cape Verde to the US of the Colombian financier Alex Saab, an alleged fixer and money launderer for President Nicolás Maduro’s government in Venezuela, is still sending political shockwaves through Latin America.... Read More

In a landmark decision celebrated by environmental campaigners but that has generated widespread uncertainty in the mining sector, on 1 December Ecuador’s constitutional court (CC) ruled in favour of the rights of nature in a case against the state-owned mining company Enami and its mineral exploration projects in the north-eastern Los Cedros national park.... Read More

Parts of central and southern Chile saw out 2021 with forest fires tearing through the countryside.... Read More

Two recent cases of police killings have shone a spotlight on police violence in Argentina, particularly the phenomenon known as ‘gátillo facil’, or ‘easy trigger’.... Read More

As part of the US government’s latest efforts to combat the transnational drug trade, the US Department of Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) has designated the Primeiro Comando da Capital (PCC), one of Brazil’s oldest and most powerful drug trafficking organisations (DTO).... Read More

Paraguay’s land border with Brazil, a traditionally lawless area rife with organised crime, is suffering from an ongoing spate of bloody violence.... Read More

The government led by President Andrés Manuel López Obrador claims to be making some progress in tackling gender violence.... Read More

A tried and trusted indicator of possible corruption in Mexico has been the way some politicians appear able to buy luxurious properties in the US and elsewhere.... Read More

The Committee on Enforced Disappearances (CED), a United Nations (UN) body, ended its recent trip to Mexico with a damning verdict.... Read More

At the beginning of December Panamanian authorities arrested 57 people and seized US$10m in cash – the largest cash amount ever impounded in the country.... Read More

A survey released late last year by the centre for research and policy studies (CIEP) of the Universidad de Costa Rica (UCR) shows that corruption has become the chief voter concern ahead of the 6 February 2022 general elections.... Read More

Late last year Costa Rica and Panama joined Colombia and Ecuador in signing an agreement to discuss extending the Eastern Tropical Pacific Marine Corridor (CMAR) to make an interconnected protected area.... Read More

On 27 December, Prime Minister Mia Mottley surprised the nation by calling an election for 19 January, 18 months ahead of schedule.... Read More

*** JAMAICA TO TARGET ILLEGAL GUNS.... Read More