Weekly Report - 11 January 2024 (WR-24-01)

Ecuador was plunged into tumult on 9 January as members of criminal gangs ran amok, bursting onto the set of a live television broadcast, taking some 140 prison guards hostage, and killing two police officers in a wave of violence that poses a direct challenge to the authority of President Daniel Noboa, who decreed a state of ‘internal armed conflict’.... Read More

One month ago, a frantic regional effort was underway to prevent escalating tensions between Venezuela and Guyana from spilling into a military conflict over the Essequibo region [WR-23-50].... Read More

Bolivia’s constitutional court (TCP) has dealt a heavy blow to the comeback aspirations of former president Evo Morales (2006-2019).... Read More

President Javier Milei has wasted no time in throwing the gauntlet down to congress.... Read More

Chilean voters have once again rejected a new constitution in a national referendum.... Read More

One year after the thousands of radical right-wing rioters stormed the seats of Brazil’s democratic institutions in the capital, the heads of the executive, legislative, and judicial branches of government gathered for a ceremony on 8 January to mark the first anniversary of the riots.... Read More

The military police of Rio de Janeiro state have announced that its elite unit, Batalhão de Operações Policiais Especiais (Bope), will be required to wear cameras on their uniforms during operations from 8 January onwards.... Read More

BRAZIL | Monthly rise in industrial production.... Read More

The dangers facing those standing for office in Mexico, particularly in local government seats, were thrown into the spotlight with the killing of three opposition candidates between 4-5 January.... Read More

A third candidate has once again entered Mexico’s 2024 presidential race.... Read More

MEXICO | Inflation on the up.... Read More

Fears that Guatemala’s attorney general’s office, which is aligned with the ‘pacto de corruptos’ network of institutional corruption, would prevent president-elect Bernardo Arévalo, a reformist anti-corruption outsider, from taking office on 14 January [WR-23-50] have lessened.... Read More

Suriname’s former president Desi Bouterse has lost an appeal against a 20-year prison sentence for ordering the killings of 15 political opponents in 1982 when he was army commander and de facto president.... Read More

The regional office of the United Nations Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) has called on the government led by President Daniel Ortega to report where it is holding Bishop Isidoro Mora.... Read More

El Salvador’s presidential election campaign is eerily silent with less than a month to go before voters go to the polls on 4 February.... Read More

Kidnappings, long a staple of Colombia’s internal conflict, have been increasing in recent years following a steep decline after the disbanded Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia (Farc) guerrilla group renounced the practice in 2012.... Read More

“We are at war, and we cannot cede in the face of these terrorist groups.”... Read More