Security & Strategic Review - April 2023

A New York courtroom sealed the fall from grace of Mexico’s former drug czar, Genaro García Luna, on 21 February.... Read More

A bilateral ceasefire between the Colombian government and the Clan del Golfo drug trafficking organisation (DTO) was suspended by President Gustavo Petro on 19 March, following two weeks of highly disruptive protests that the government claims were orchestrated by the DTO.... Read More

For the eighth time since Russia invaded Ukraine in March 2022, Bolivia abstained in a 24 February resolution in the United Nations General Assembly condemning the invasion.... Read More

Almost €810m (US$858.55m) was pledged at the 2023 International Conference in Solidarity with Venezuelan Refugees and Migrants and their Host Countries and Communities, according to the European Union (EU)’s commissioner for crisis management, Janez Lenarčič.... Read More

Ecuador’s booming cocaine trade is leading to ever-rising seizures of the drug by the authorities, to the extent that the country is becoming something of a pioneer in what to do with impounded cocaine.... Read More

The inhabitants of the northeastern state of Rio Grande do Norte had their daily life disrupted from 13-14 March as a local crime cartel coordinated a wave of violence in at least 19 cities, attacking public transport, local government buildings, shops, and private vehicles.... Read More

The biggest blow of President Gabriel Boric’s first year in office in Chile was the rejection by voters last September of a constitutional draft, the unsuccessful outcome of a nearly three-year process in attempting to reform the country’s dictatorship-era constitution.... Read More

The port city of Rosario in the north-eastern province of Santa Fe has for years been Argentina’s most violent city.... Read More

On 11 February, Mexico’s President Andrés Manuel López Obrador received Cuba’s President Miguel Díaz-Canel in Mexico’s Campeche state.... Read More

On 20 February, Mexican civil society organisation Consejo Ciudadano para la Seguridad Pública y Justicia Penal (CCSPJP), published its 2022 list of the world’s deadliest cities.... Read More

“Unprecedented in Latin American recent history”.... Read More

While last year marked a halt in the trend of rising annual murder rates in Panama since 2018, the early weeks of 2023 have seen a wave of killings and attacks, prompting a targeted response from Panama’s security forces.... Read More

On 23 February the US Department of Justice (DoJ) announced the arrest of three of the highest-ranking leaders of Mara Salvatrucha (MS-13), one of El Salvador’s two main gangs, which was designated as a “significant transnational criminal organisation” by the US in 2012 and as a terrorist organisation by El Salvador’s supreme court in 2015.... Read More

The Inter-American Development Bank (IDB), in conjunction with the Migration Policy Institute (MPI), has just published an important report entitled “Migration, Integration, and Diaspora Engagement in the Caribbean”.... Read More

On 17 March, a US congress delegation was in Guyana with the express intent of “outcompeting China” for Guyana’s affections.... Read More

*** GUYANA-SURINAME BORDER DISPUTE FLARES UP.... Read More