Security & Strategic Review - October 2022

An attempt against the life of Argentina’s Vice President Cristina Fernández has shaken the country, shocked its political class, and caused waves beyond its borders by highlighting how aggressive and radicalised politics has become in Latin America.... Read More

Sendero Luminoso (SL), the Maoist guerrilla group which in the late 1980s terrorised much of the Peruvian countryside, has proved a tough nut to crack.... Read More

Colombia’s President Gustavo Petro has made significant early efforts to achieve peace with the country’s guerrilla groups since he took office on 7 August.... Read More

A long-running dispute over control of one of Bolivia’s two major coca unions, the La Paz-based Asociación Departamental de Productores de Coca de los Yungas de La Paz (Adepcoa), erupted in dramatic style on 8 September.... Read More

A new study in Brazil lays bare the growing influence in Rio de Janeiro of ‘milícias’ – mafia-like paramilitary groups which initially emerged as a counterforce to the drug trafficking organisations (DTOs) that control the city and wider metropolitan region’s favelas, but which are now a criminal force in their own right.... Read More

The murder of a journalist in the Paraguayan city of Pedro Juan Caballero has been repudiated by press associations and has driven home concerns about the grip of organised crime in the country, particularly in border areas.... Read More

For four days in August, a wave of violence perpetrated by drug trafficking organisations (DTOs) swept across western and north-western Mexico.... Read More

The Ayotzinapa massacre marked its eighth anniversary on 26 September.... Read More

On 8 September, Mexico’s supreme court (SCJN) withdrew two proposals that had sought to eliminate mandatory pretrial detention.... Read More

In August, Honduran authorities reported the discovery of over 1.6m coca leaf bushes in the most important seizure of its kind in the country.... Read More

On 30 August, the International Day of the Victims of Enforced Disappearances, various human rights groups including Instituto Universitario de Derechos Humanos (IDHUCA) of the Universidad Centroamericana (UCA) issued a statement highlighting concerns about disappearances in El Salvador.... Read More

In late August, representatives of the Central American integration system (SICA) discussed a proposal put forward by El Salvador’s vice president, Félix Ulloa, which would establish a ‘Central American union’ (UNCA) to replace SICA.... Read More

At the end of July, the Dominican Republic (DR)’s legislature approved a forfeiture of assets bill, part of the declared pledge by the government led by President Luis Abinader at cracking down on corruption - a promise widely considered crucial to his electoral victory.... Read More

In August Anthony Salisbury, a special agent of the Miami branch of Homeland Security Investigations (HSI), the US Department of Homeland Security (DHS)’s main investigative arm, announced new efforts to curb the increased flow of weapons, weapon parts and ammunition to Haiti and the Caribbean.... Read More

The damage that financial ‘de-risking’, most particularly through the reduction of correspondent banking arrangements, has done to the small nations of the Caribbean, and what may be done to reverse this damage, was the focus of a hearing of US House of Representatives Committee on Financial Services on 14 September.... Read More

*** LOOKING TO AFRICA.... Read More