The International Coffee Organisation (ICO) has drawn attention to the spread of a coffee fungus – known as coffee leaf rust – through Central America, with potentially devastating consequences.

These are comparatively early days in the spread of the disease but both the ICO and independent analysts are outlining a worrisome impact. The ICO estimates that up to half a million agricultural workers have lost seasonal jobs as a result of the disease, and experts are predicting an increase in crime, deforestation and environmental imbalance, and even a new surge in illegal migration out of Central America northwards to Mexico and the US.

The disease is detected when an orange, dust-like fungus appears on the back of the coffee bush leaves. It sucks the sap from the bushes, which eventually wither and die.

In previous outbreaks, the rust has only been found in coffee bushes planted at 3,000 feet above sea level or lower – but now it seems to have spread much higher up the hills to 5,000 feet. Previously, it has been controlled through fungicides, but coffee growers say the current outbreak is much more aggressive and resistant to treatment. Bringing it under control could take longer than in the past.

It is now said to have affected 70% of Guatemala’s coffee bushes, 64% in Costa Rica, and lower proportions in Nicaragua and Honduras. According to the ICO, Central American coffee production fell by 17.1% in the October 2012 – March 2013 growing season, and is predicted to drop a further 30-40% in the next season, which will run from October 2013 to March 2014.

Despite this Central American crisis, international coffee production and prices have not yet been affected. This is because Central America accounts for only 12% of world coffee production. Central America Arabica beans are frequently used to blend flavours into coffee mixes that rely on Brazilian and African volume supplies of Robusta beans. “What are Folgers, Maxwell House, Kraft, General Foods, Starbucks, and Dunkin’ Donuts going to do? They’ll start mixing more Robusta in bags of Arabica”, said Gerardo Alberto De Leon, a marketing manager for a Guatemalan coffee growers cooperative known as Fedecocagua.

The ICO’s forecasts as far as the effects on agricultural employment are concerned are deeply worrying. The organisation suggests that out of a total Central American population of 41m people, up to 1m seasonal and permanent coffee workers are expected to lose their jobs in the next October-March season. Independent analysts suggests that each person employed in the coffee sector supports an average of up to five other people.

Most of the Hispanics of Mexican origin living now in the US were actually born in the US, a new study has revealed. This is partly the result of the slowdown in recent years of the inflow of immigrants from Mexico. Still, Mexico remains the largest single source country of immigrants to the US, and Mexicans account for the largest number of illegal immigrants to the US.

A new analysis of Census Bureau data by the Pew Research Center, released on 1 May, reveals that in 2012 there were 33.7m Hispanics of Mexican origin in the US. Apart from being a new record, a notable feature of the statistics is that nowadays 35% of Hispanics of Mexican origin were born in Mexico; the remaining two-thirds (65%) were born in the US (52% of them having at least one immigrant parent).

The Pew study notes that the size of the Mexican-origin population in the US has risen dramatically over the past four decades as a result of one of the largest mass migrations in modern history. In 1970, fewer than 1m Mexican immigrants lived in the US. By 2007 it reached a peak of 12.5m. Since then, it has declined as the arrival of new Mexican immigrants has slowed significantly.

From 1980 to 2000, most of the growth in the Mexican-origin population in the US could be attributed to the arrival of Mexican immigrants. That pattern reversed from 2000 to 2010 as births surpassed immigration as the main driver of population growth.

The 11.4m Mexican immigrants who live in the US make up the single largest country of origin group by far among the nation's 40m immigrants. The next largest foreign-born population group, from greater China at 2m, is less than one-fifth the size of the Mexican-born population in the US. Internationally, the US is far and away the top destination for immigrants from Mexico.

Mexican immigrants comprise by far the largest share of the unauthorized immigrant population in the US. More than half (55%) of the 11.1m immigrants who are in the country illegally are from Mexico.

Other findings of the study:

▫ Two-thirds of Mexican-origin Hispanics ages 5 and older speak English proficiently. The remaining 34% report speaking English less than very well, equal to the share among all Hispanics. About nine-in-ten native-born Mexicans aged 5 and older speak English proficiently. This compares to about one-in-three among Mexican immigrants.

▫ The median annual personal earnings for Hispanics of Mexican origin aged 16 and older was US$20,000 in the year prior to the survey, the same as for US Hispanics overall. US-born Mexicans had higher earnings than their immigrant counterparts — a median of US$22,000 vs US$$19,000 respectively.

▫ The share of Mexicans who live in poverty, 27%, is slightly higher than the rate for Hispanics overall (25%). US-born Mexicans are slightly less likely to live in poverty than their foreign-born counterparts —26% vs 29% respectively.

▫ More than half (52%) of Mexican-origin Hispanics live in the West, mostly in California (36%), and another 35% live in the South, mostly in Texas (26%). There is no significant difference in the regional dispersion of Mexicans by place of birth.

▪ The full version of the study is available at: http://www.pewhispanic.org/2013/05/01/a-demographic-portrait-of-mexican-origin-hispanics-in-the-united-states/

On 24 May Justice Minister José Eduardo Cardozo stated that the government led by President Dilma Rousseff had “no plan” to repeal the 1979 Amnesty Law. Cardozo was responding to a recommendation by the new Truth Commission, which began its work a year ago, that the government should take measures to allow for suspected perpetrators to be brought to justice. Brazil is also under pressure from international rights groups to respond to the commission’s unearthing of the officially commissioned Figueiredo report, dating back to 1967 and long thought lost, which detailed horrific crimes against Brazil’s indigenous population by landowners and the government’s own Indian Protection Service (SPI).

Presenting the truth commission’s first annual report on 21 May, the commission’s coordinator, Rosa Cardoso, noted that “there are no statutes of limitations for crimes committed against humanity” adding that “amnesties are not valid under international law”. She suggested that suspects could be tried by the Costa Rica-based Inter-American Court of Human Rights (IACHR), which has previously ordered the Brazilian State “to provide justice” for the victims of human rights abuses by the State under its last period of military rule.

On 14 December 2010, the IACHR, part of the Organization of American States (OAS), held the State of Brazil responsible for the forced disappearance of 62 suspected left-wing militants in the Amazon region of Araguaia in the early 1970s during the military dictatorship (1964-1985), and said that Brazil should allow prosecutions for abuses committed during the military regime. It was the first time that Brazil had been called upon to defend itself before the IACHR for human rights abuses committed during the junta. In its judgment the IACHR said that Brazil’s Amnesty Law was incompatible with the country’s international commitments under the American Convention on Human Rights and was an “obstacle” to justice.

The Brazilian government had previously admitted responsibility for the political deaths at Araguaia and authorised reparations to family members in 1995, but under the amnesty law, relatives cannot bring their cases to trial in Brazil. Relatives of the Araguaia victims, under the ‘Grupo Tortura Nunca Mais’ (which includes some government officials), have long wanted Brazil to open up its military archives so as to allow court cases against suspected perpetrators to go ahead. Brazil is alone in the region in never having prosecuted any military officials for human rights abuses, and most of the political class has long stressed national reconciliation over prosecution. In Argentina and Uruguay, amnesty laws have been challenged in the courts (and invalidated).

The IACHR decision came just before Rousseff, herself a former victim of state imprisonment and torture during the dictatorship, took office (in January 2011) and activists hoped that the ruling would finally force a re-evaluation of the law. Rousseff had promised a truth commission during her 2010 election campaign but said that she was “not in the business of revenge”. In May 2012, at an emotional ceremony attended by Brazil’s former presidents José Sarney (1985-1990), Fernando Collor de Mello (1990-1992), Fernando Henrique Cardoso (FHC, 1995-2002) and Lula da Silva (2003-2010), she swore in the seven members of the new truth commission, with a mandate to examine human rights abuses committed both by the state and left-wing guerrillas in the period 1946-1988 with a focus on the last military junta.

The commission, which sits for two years to May 2014, has no judicial or prosecutorial powers. However, the assumption is that its findings could open the door to future legal cases. Technically, the Amnesty Law prevents that, although the IACHR ruling could potentially force the state to derogate the law. In April 2010, the Federal Supreme Court (STF) upheld the Amnesty Law, a ruling that was crucial to the military’s decision to agree to the truth commission proposal. The government also agreed that the commission examine abuses on both sides by way of a gesture to the military. Cardozo’s latest comments were likely a fresh signal – both to the supreme court and the military – that the Rousseff administration does not ‘proactively’ intend to address the thorny question of the Amnesty Law. However legal experts suggest that come May 2014 the commission may ‘advise’ that the Amnesty Law is not constructive to national reconciliation.

• The Figueiredo report

Upon announcing the truth commission members back in May 2012, President Rousseff stated: “We cannot permit that in Brazil truth is corrupted by silence”.  Certainly, the commission has taken her at her word. The 7,000-page Figueiredo report, commissioned by the minister of the interior in 1967, is a case in point. Despite the appalling nature of the report, which caused international scandal at the time, many rights groups say the political class in Brazil, backed by powerful vested interests, ultimately buried the report; supposedly, it was lost in a fire 45 years ago. Marcelo Zelic, a human rights lawyer, discovered the document in old boxes of files in the Indian Museum in Rio de Janeiro as part of his work for the commission and it will now be examined by the commission.

The London-based rights group, Survival International, which was founded in response to the Figueiredo report, first reported on its re-discovery in late April. International media outlets including the UK daily The Guardian and the US-based Huffington Post have since run follow-up stories. In a detailed article published this week (29 May), The Guardian makes the point that none of Brazil’s leading papers have made mention of the re-discovery.

International rights activists have gone one further, claiming that the same vested interests that buried the report all those decades ago still exert the same influence today, and accuse the Rousseff government of exacerbating the situation by placing its economic growth policy objectives at the apex of the government agenda, at the cost of social and environmental policy. The government firmly denies that, but there is no doubt that the controversies over the Belo Monte dam, the recent congressional amendments to the country’s Forest Code and other issues involving indigenous communities and/or the environment, have damaged this administration’s ‘Green’ credentials and very likely will become an electoral issue for Rousseff in her expected bid for a second term next year.

• Stagflation?

First quarter GDP growth was just 0.6% quarter-on-quarter (q-o-q). Household consumption, which accounts for 62% of GDP, decelerated to just 0.1% q-o-q. However, gross fixed capital investment grew 4.6% q-o-q and 3.0% year-on-year in January-March, following four consecutive quarters of negative annual results. The president of the national development bank (Bndes), Luciano Coutinho, said the jump in investment activity showed that economic growth has gone through a “qualitative change”. But, to add to the dour picture, the central bank raised the benchmark Selic interest rate by 50 basis points to 8.0%, more than expected. Inflation at the top of the target range (6.5%) is not the only problem for the BCB. The Real this week fell through R$2.10/US$.

Los Caballeros Templarios (LCT, ‘Templar Knights’), a splinter of the Familia Michoacana gang, has been shown up as having no intention of honouring its recently announced withdrawal from criminal activities in Michoacán and leaving it up to the government and the law-enforcement agencies to “maintain the peace”. It had said that it would only continue to act against incursions from outsiders — an allusion to the growing presence of the Cartel de Jalisco Nueva Generación (CJNG), currently an ally of the Sinaloa/Pacífico gang.

However, the LCT is still heavily involved in extortion across the state, targeting isolated rural communities (mainly indigenous) and confronting their attempts to set up armed ‘self-defence’ or ‘community police’ groups. A first-hand insight into this was provided by Luis Prados, a journalist with the Spanish newspaper, El País, who recently travelled to the lemon-growing community of La Ruana (population 10,000), in Michoacán’s Tierra Caliente region, where one such ‘self-defence’ group is struggling to survive after having expelled the LCT.

The LCT had imposed a system of cuotas (‘contributions’) ranging from US$8 per household and US$12 per terminal in videogame shops to US$160 for traffic violations. They had also taken control of La Ruana’s five lemon packing plants, promptly lowering the price paid to growers from US$0.28 to US$0.16 per kilo.

The people of La Ruana armed their traditional ‘community police’ and, after a series of shootouts that claimed 20 lives, drove out the LCT. Soon, though, they found themselves besieged by the LCT. Suppliers of consumer goods and fuel stopped arriving for fear of LCT checkpoints, which also ensured that people from La Ruana (identified by the voting documents) could not travel to the nearby by town of Apatzingán to shop there or seek medical attention.

To make matters worse, clandestine dealers apply a 33% surcharge to petrol delivered to the town. Prados says that two out of every three shops in La Ruana have had to close. Local people fear that they might end up facing the same fate as nearby Tepalcatepec, where at least a fifth of the population have migrated.

In nearby Buenavista Tomatlán, where the authorities recently arrested more than 50 members of the local ‘self-defence’ group on charges of belonging to, or working in concert with the CJNG, the members of the community managed to keep the LCT out.

Prados saw a billboard at the entrance to the town which said, “Welcome to the town of Buenavista, free of cuotas and Caballeros Templarios.” The Buenavista Tomatlán ‘self-defence’ group had at one point briefly ‘arrested’ members of the local police force, accusing them of colluding with the LCT.

The same accusation of connection with the CJNG has been made against the ‘self-defence’ group at La Ruana. They denied this to Prados, but he did see them armed with new AK-47s and at least one Ruger Mini-14 carbine (bought, according to the bearer, for more than US$2,600), which suggested that, just as their peers in Buenavista Tomatlán, they have had access to well-stocked suppliers.

The LCT has publicly offered the leader of the La Ruana ‘self-defence’ group a ‘pact for peace and civility’ — or, alternately, ‘a duel to the death’.

The 26 July 2012 draft legislation for a new elite military-police unit called ‘Tigres’ (Tropa de Inteligencia y Grupos de Respuesta Especial de Seguridad - Intelligence Troop and Special Security Response Troop) is to be taken up for a second time by congress, prompting fresh concern about the militarisation of internal security in Honduras.

The new elite unit is the brainchild of the national police chief, Juan Carlos ‘El Tigre’ Bonilla as part of the reform and overhaul of the widely discredited national police force. Back in July 2012 the plan was to fire around 4,000 of the 12,000-strong national police force and replace part of it with the new elite Tigres, who would focus on providing citizen security and battling organized crime. The root and branch police reform has been very slow to get off the ground; to date the clear-out has not yet happened so now it appears that the new unit, which may be set up with a US$57m loan from the Inter-American Development Bank, would be in addition to the existing force. Los Tigres would receive military training and be stationed at military bases close to the country’s crime hotspots, including the main urban areas of San Pedro Sula and the capital, Tegucigalpa. The unit, to be staffed by young recruits aged 18-22, would be under the command of the security ministry but be independent of the national police. In times of war it would fall under control of the defence ministry.

Honduras already has an elite national police force, the Cobras, which receives training from US swat team experts. That begs the question as to whether there is concern in the security ministry that the Cobras also have been infiltrated by organised crime. Moreover, it is also the case that the government has already deployed the military onto the streets of the country’s most violent city, San Pedro Sula, using a state of emergency (recently extended to January 2014) under which the military is empowered to act in a policing role. (For further details see the April 2013 edition of our sister publication Latin American Security & Strategic Review.)

The national university rector, Julieta Castellanos, the leading advocate for police reform since her son and his friend were murdered by renegade officers, has expressed opposition to the idea of Los Tigres being under military command. Castellanos said she acknowledged the need for an elite police force with the capacity to tackle high profile crimes like drug trafficking, money laundering, extortion and kidnapping, but she questioned the need for it to sit under the military, noting that between 19636 and 1993 the police was under the control of the armed forces and was equally “corrupt and criminal”.

Meanwhile, the troubled police reform process continues to run into legal obstacles. On 14 May the pernickety supreme court, which in December 2012 already ruled parts of the police reform unconstitutional (prompting a major institutional crisis with the congress), ordered Bonilla to supply within 24 hours legal documentation in support of his decision to remove several police commissioners. The court warned that failure to present the documents would result in an automatic ruling in favour of the applicants. Over in the security ministry, however, the new ‘super minister’ Corrales is making waves, axing and re-assigning dozens of senior police officials since he took office on 1 May. The newly appointed head of the police purification unit (DIECP), Eduardo Villanueva, also said that the results of ‘confidence tests’ on the police leadership would be ready by end-month.

• The US backs Bonilla

The tiger-in-chief, Bonilla, has himself been the subject of some concern, including by the US State Department, which in August 2012 suspended some law enforcement cooperation funds (worth up to US$3.0m) for Bonilla and his immediate agents pending an investigation into his human rights record. The allegations against Bonilla included claims that he ran a death squad in the period 1998-2002. He was acquitted (of murder) in 2004 in the only case filed against him ever to make it to court, with the verdict upheld by the supreme court in 2009.

After the news got out, the US embassy in Honduras on 13 August last year issued a statement seeking to downplay any rift in bilateral security relations: “US law authorising assistance for the armed forces and the national police of Honduras requires the Department of State to send to congress a report certifying that the government [of Honduras] is implementing policies to protect the freedom of expression and association and the due process of law. [It] must also mention if the government is investigating and processing… military or police personnel… allegedly involved in the violation of human rights, and whether the armed forces and the police are cooperating with the civil judicial authorities… This report must be submitted before 20% of the available funds for these institutions can be released”. Given that the state department report concluded that the Honduran government had complied, "the US has no plans to reduce or eliminate assistance to the Honduran armed forces or the police”, the embassy emphasised.

Ambassador Lisa Kubiske highlighted that a full 80% of the US law enforcement funds for Honduras (amounting to US$56m for 2012) were in place. The-then foreign minister, Arturo Corrales (now security minister), downplayed the issue: “They have asked for information and we have given it. What happened a decade ago for us is something that has already been adjudicated…We expect the investigation to be completed as quickly as possible”, he said. President Porfirio Lobo reiterated his full support for Bonilla, appointed just weeks earlier, calling him “a breath of fresh air”.

On 13 May the US Assistant Secretary of State for the Bureau of International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs, William R. Brownfield, said in a press interview that he “respected and admired” Bonilla’s “effective” work, and stated that he had not seen that the State Department had reached any conclusion in support of the accusations against Bonilla. “For reasons of prudence, we are working with those parts of the police force that do not report directly to the director general (i.e. Bonilla). But I understand that he has taken steps to clean up the police and professionalise it, and that he has been effective in putting a better force on the streets”. Brownfield intimated that the issue was largely procedural and was in the process of being resolved. “I want to make clear that I am working with the Honduran police”, he underlined.

• TSE says no money for elections

On 13 May David Matamoros officially became the chief magistrate on the supreme electoral court (TSE). The TSE is due to call the November general election by 23 May, however some in the institution have complained of a lack of funds to organise the 2013 ballot. Matamoros said President Lobo had guaranteed him sufficient funds.

• Which suitor suits best - Taiwan or China?

The Lobo government has recalled the Honduran ambassador to Taiwan for consultations, amid fresh rumours that Honduras is about to formally establish diplomatic relations with mainland China. It was also reported locally that Taiwan’s deputy foreign minister Simon Ko had been refused a meeting with President Lobo on a recent trip to Tegucigalpa. President Lobo has suggested that it is possible to have relations with both. There has been speculation that moves by Honduras to pivot its foreign axis towards Chinese-allies in the region like Ecuador and Venezuela, as well as the likes of Palestine and Russia, may be the prelude to formalising diplomatic ties with Beijing.

They are the two largest economies in the Americas, but the US and Brazil could do better in terms of business collaboration.

Bilateral trade last year was estimated at US$59bn, but from a Washington perspective at least, Brazil is seen as too much of a closed market to US manufactured exports. From a Brasília perspective, the view is just as critical. The US has long been seen as a pot calling the kettle black as far as protectionism is concerned - US agricultural tariffs and subsidies are highly criticised. There are some prospects of progress however, given the announcement in April that Brazil’s President Dilma Rousseff is expected to pay a State visit to meet her US counterpart Barack Obama in Washington later this year - possibly in October. Better diplomatic relations between the two countries might trigger some progress on the business front. Washington was displeased with the attempts by Rousseff’s predecessor Lula da Silva (2003-2010) to broker an agreement over Iran's nuclear programme: Rousseff has kept a lower profile on that front, and although a centre-left leader like Lula, has kept some distance from the more radical Latin American countries such as Venezuela. To get bilateral relations onto a more solid footing, Washington would have to make some moves too, such as being a little more supportive of Brazil's quest for a permanent seat on the UN Security Council.

If the political and diplomatic mood music can be got right, what is on the business agenda? One key aim would be to conclude a treaty to avoid double-taxation on US and Brazilian companies, something that has been discussed for years but never achieved. Some from of progress on reducing import tariffs and other barriers to bilateral trade is also necessary. For that to happen, further discussions on exchange rates will probably be necessary. Rousseff's administration has increased protective tariffs for some industries in response to what it says is a 'currency war' being fought between the US and other developed countries to make their exports unfairly competitive. That said, the Brazilian side may be ready to consider some concessions on this front, given the slowdown in economic growth in 2012, and strains in relations with key regional economic partners like Argentina.

The number of US nationals caught trafficking drugs across the border has increased threefold between 2005 and 2011. That is the headline conclusion of research conducted by the California-based Center for Investigative Reporting (CIR) which was published in late March. Though the report claims that these cases account for a large majority of the drug-trafficking busts, the data provided is inconclusive in this respect. Another claim — that the US Border Patrol (USBP) and Customs and Border Protection (CBP) have been playing down the role of US nationals — does seem proven, with caveats.

The CIR researchers examined USBP and CBP records of 81,621 seizures of drugs carried out along the Southwest border between 2005 and 2011, “obtained through the federal Freedom of Information Act, including records never before made public”. Of those cases in which the nationality of the smuggler was recorded, US citizens accounted for 60% of the total, and “more than two-thirds” in the specific cases of marijuana seizures of more than 454kgs.

Enter, at this point, two important caveats. First, in “nearly half” of the seizures the nationality of the smugglers is unknown, because they fled, leaving their consignments behind. This means that the reported percentages refer to “more than 40,000” seizures. Second, the report notes that “most busts” involving a US national are of amounts below the threshold at which they are considered drug trafficking — for example, one kilogram of marijuana. The report states that “Border Patrol agents mostly seize drugs in amounts large enough to be considered drug trafficking”, but does not specify the proportions, nor those of loads above 454kgs.

A CBP spokesman is cited as saying, “[The] bulk of people arrested are for personal possession amounts, not smuggling for resale. Anecdotally, we have US citizens who smuggle drugs, in large amounts sometimes [but the] majority of people involved in smuggling drugs are citizens of Mexico”.

The researchers examined “nearly 2,000” USBP and CBP press releases issued in the period under review and found that 38% mentioned that a Mexican national had been arrested, adding that “US citizens, meanwhile, were mentioned roughly 30% of the time, even though they represent a much higher percentage of those busted, according to the analysis. The remaining one-third of press releases did not include information on the nationality of those caught with drugs”. As with the broader breakdown of captures, there is a large gap in the data.

The report cites a CBP statement to the effect that it only issues news releases on significant or “otherwise noteworthy seizures” — mostly large consignment, unusual trafficking methods or concealment methods.

Over the past couple of years, the report notes, seizures in Tucson and the Rio Grande Valley in south Texas, accounted for “roughly 80%” of all marijuana interdicted countrywide. It also notes that in the Tucson area more “unauthorised migrants” than US citizens were caught smuggling.

An interesting aside is that “the number of immigrants illegally crossing the US-Mexico border has dropped to its lowest level in decades”, based on a Pew Research Hispanic Center study showing that USBP apprehensions had fallen from more than 1m in 2005 to 286,000 in 2011. The number of US nationals caught smuggling drugs, the report says, has increased every year from 2005 to 2010, followed by a “slight” decline in 2011.

Successive Uruguayan heads of state are developing a habit of being caught out making inappropriate and tactless remarks about Argentina, which, while delighting the national media, could have an adverse effect on diplomatic relations and bilateral cooperation. President José Mujica continued a trend begun by Jorge Batlle (2000-2005) and continued by his predecessor, Tabaré Vázquez (2005-2010), after he was caught referring pejoratively to Argentina’s President Cristina Fernández and her predecessor and late husband, Néstor Kirchner (2003-2007).

Former president Batlle had to travel to Buenos Aires in tearful contrition after Argentina had decided to default on its sovereign debt in 2001 and he branded Argentines “a bunch of thieves from the first to the very last one of them”, adjuring a journalist from the news agency, Bloomberg, in what he thought was an ‘off the record’ conversation, “don’t you dare compare Uruguay with Argentina”.

Vázquez picked up the baton in October 2011 (admittedly after he had left office) when he candidly told former pupils of a school in Montevideo that he had considered war scenarios with Argentina when the dispute over the construction of a pulp mill on the Uruguayan side of the shared River Uruguay reached fever-pitch in 2007.

Mujica had already ruffled feathers in Argentina while campaigning for president in 2009, when a book entitled Pepe.Coloquios (Pepe.Colloquies) was published by a journalist to whom Mujica believed himself to be speaking ‘off the record’. This included some very forthright criticism of Argentina and its government. He described Argentina as a country of “totally irrational, hysteric, mad, paranoiac reactions [which] has not reached a level of representative democracy, and whose institutions are not worth a damn”. He also pilloried the presidential couple as “lefties, but what a Left, mamma mia, what a gang!”

At least here, however, Mujica would have been able to assure Fernández privately that he had been misquoted. The same could not be said for his latest ill-judged remarks which caused the website of Uruguayan national daily, El Observador, to crash such was the traffic once word of Mujica’s latest gaffe got out.

Mujica has been extended a fair bit of latitude in the past because of his straight-talking style but even he was left fumbling when, unaware the microphone was switched on, he commented to the governor of Florida department, Carlos Enciso, just before a news conference on 4 April, that “this old hag is worse than the one-eyed guy”. He compounded the gaffe by subsequently blustering that he had been talking about Brazil’s former president, Lula da Silva (2003-2010), and his successor, President Dilma Rousseff, if this would somehow make the insult more acceptable.

The Argentine foreign ministry issued a formal complaint later in the day about the remarks referring to Kirchner, who had a lazy eye. In an open letter to the Uruguayan embassy in Buenos Aires, Argentina’s foreign minister, Héctor Timerman, described Mujica’s comments as “denigrating and unacceptable”, adding that they “offend the memory…of a deceased person by someone that Dr. Kirchner considered to be a friend”.

Mujica initially said he had no need to apologise, but with diplomatic channels becoming distinctly frosty he thought better of this. First he made a public apology on the radio, explaining that his comments were the product of his “coarse jail slang”, after spending years as a political prisoner, which he used with friends. He said that he had found it necessary back then to speak adopting nicknames in order to survive.

Mujica went on to express support for Argentina which he said had for years faced “an almost permanent campaign” stating that the country was going to collapse. He said that despite this Argentina had continued to grow and had never had a government that had done so much for the poor. “It has problems, but who doesn’t?” he asked rhetorically. He also said that relations with Argentina were of paramount importance for Uruguay: “When things go well for Argentina, they go well for us and when they go badly for them we suffer”.

Mujica has done far more than either Batlle or Vázquez to preserve strong relations with Argentina in the face of provocative economic policymaking emanating from Buenos Aires. He has faced strong pressure from Uruguay’s domestic political opposition, for instance, to take a much tougher stance in the face of protectionist measures from Argentina, which contravenes the central tenets of the Southern Common Market (Mercosur) treaty. Determined to capitalise on Mujica’s travails (and perhaps concerned that his comments would make it even harder for Mujica to get tough with Argentina over protectionism and other divisive bilateral issues such as deepening the Martín García canal), the opposition suddenly became sententious. Senator Sergio Abreu of the Partido Nacional (PN, Blancos) warned Mujica that his comments could “have consequences” if he did not make amends, and Senator Jorge Amorín, of the Partido Colorado (PC, Colorados) urged him to follow Batlle’s example and “assume responsibility for his serious mistake”.

Mujica’s first apology failed to cut the mustard so he then told the national daily, La República, that he would send a letter to Fernández. Fernández reacted with froideur. The Uruguayan foreign ministry said that she had neither replied nor sent any acknowledgement of receipt of the letter and that she had not been available to take any of Mujica’s calls. Uruguay’s deputy foreign minister, Roberto Conde, travelled to Buenos Aires for a meeting at the foreign ministry: he was not received by Timerman but the deputy for Latin American affairs, Diego Tetamanti, and other junior officials.

Fernández appears to have been intent on letting Mujica squirm for a couple of weeks because on 18 April Mujica was invited to travel aboard Tango 01 presidential plane to attend an extraordinary meeting of the Union of South American nations (Unasur) in Lima, Peru, to discuss post-electoral developments in Venezuela before flying on to Caracas for the inauguration of Nicolás Maduro on 19 April. Mujica’s presumably contrite letter won him an opening and he must have worked his magic in person because Fernández tweeted from the plane: “Yes, I’m a little stubborn and I’m an old hag” adding that “I’m fortunate to get this old. Everything is alright”. The Kirchners have not shown themselves to be the most thick-skinned of politicians in the past, however, so there will be more than a lingering concern in Montevideo that Fernández continues to harbour a grudge.

Uruguay approves same sex marriage

Uruguay has become only the second country in Latin America to legalise same sex marriage after Argentina. Following the approval last year of a bill legalising abortion in the first 12 weeks of pregnancy, congress voted to approve same sex marriage: the lower chamber voted by 71 votes out of 92 in a four-hour session to approve the bill, with the ruling Frente Amplio (FA) legislators (50) joined by a reasonable number of opposition legislators. The bill was approved by 23-8 by the senate a week earlier.

Deputy Sebastián Sabini (FA) argued that if marriage were only for procreation “we would have to ban marriage for certain couples”, a sad lament for Uruguay’s fading demographic. Fernando Amado was one of several deputies from the Partido Colorado (PC) to argue, along with the Roman Catholic Church, that “the foundation of society is the family but not a prefabricated family”.

The new law empowers same-sex parents to choose the order of the surnames of the children they adopt. It also increases the age of consent for sexual relations to 16, from the current threshold of just 12 for women and 14 for men.

• Poverty

Poverty fell to 12.4% in 2012 from 13.7% the previous year, while indigence remained at 0.5%, according to figures released by the national statistics institute (INE). In Montevideo poverty was higher than the national average, at 16.7%. In the interior of the country poverty fell, mainly in localities with more than 5,000 inhabitants, from 12.1% to 10.1%.

• Mujica on Maduro

President José Mujica has also succeeded in putting a few noses out of joint in Venezuela with some of his comments about the Bolivarian Revolution over the years. His reaction to the narrow electoral victory of Nicolás Maduro on 14 April was one of the most nuanced in Latin America. Mujica recognised Maduro’s victory but tempered this recognition with a call for “stability and compromise” in Venezuela, adding that Maduro now had the opportunity to show “his true stature as a leader”. Maduro’s stature currently looks literal rather than figurative: he has yet to show any inclination to reach out to his defeated rival, Henrique Capriles Radonski, who he called a “fascist coup monger”.

A new Russian-built training centre for anti-drugs officials, recent joint drug seizures and the prospect of a bilateral free trade agreement (FTA). These are the latest signs of strengthening ties between Russia and Nicaragua in the key areas of security and trade. This cooperation, which has gathered pace since the ruling Frente Sandinista de Liberación Nacional (FSLN) government of President Daniel Ortega took office for a second time in 2007, was reaffirmed during a series of inter-governmental meetings held in Moscow in late January between high level representatives from both countries.

On 6 April Colonel Orlando Palacios, Nicaragua’s army director of public relations, announced the seizure of 100 packages of cocaine following a joint operation with the Russian federal drugs control service (FSKN). The operation was carried out in the Caribbean waters assigned to Nicaragua by the 19 November 2012 ruling by the International Court of Justice (ICJ) at The Hague on the 122-year old maritime and territorial dispute with Colombia [RC-12-12]. The cocaine was found in a ‘go-fast’ boat abandoned by presumed Colombian drug traffickers, 30 nautical miles north-west of the keys, of Roncador and Quitasueño, and 136 nautical miles north east of the Miskito keys.

The seizure, which served as a boost for the Ortega government given concerns expressed by its Colombian counterpart that drug trafficking could increase in the area once Colombia ceded control of the territory to Nicaragua, was in line with a bilateral security accord inked in February 2012. There have been other signs of this joint security cooperation which has prompted a response from the US (see box). On 22 March the FSKN began work on a new centre to train up Central America and Caribbean anti-drugs officials, which Nicaragua’s police chief, Aminta Granera, said would be ready within a year. Ten days earlier, FSKN director, Víctor Ivanov, announced that a joint Nicaragua-Russia operation had dismantled a Nicaragua-based drug trafficking ring believed to be moving cocaine to Europe and Russia, which triggered new concerns about Nicaragua’s role as a drugs transit country (see sidebar). Reporting on the operation, Nicaragua’s state mouthpiece, El 19 Digital, said that earlier that month, 63 raids had been carried out in Managua, Rivas, Masaya, Matagalpa and Chinandega departments. Headed up by a Mexican national, Martín Flores, believed to be a member of Los Zetas criminal organisation, the gang comprised Nicaraguans, Panamanians, Salvadoreans, Guatemalans and Hondurans. A total of 26 people were arrested and some firearms and vehicles seized, but no drugs were found.

Other cooperation

As well as security, trade also features high on the bilateral agenda. Following the 21-26 January visit to Moscow by a Nicaraguan delegation led by deputy foreign minister, Valdrack Jaentschke, and Ortega’s son, Laureano, in representation of ProNicaragua, the official investment and export promotion agency; the head of Nicaragua’s trade & industry ministry (Mific), Orlando Solórzano, announced various accords. These include the continuation of Russian shipments of wheat to Nicaragua, which first arrived in November 2011, aimed at improving nutrition and boosting the bread industry. Solórzano said that a further four Russian shipments of wheat, each of 25,000 tonnes (t), would arrive this year. He also said that the Russians had pledged 1,000 tractors and 1,000 mowers. Meanwhile, on 21 March Ortega announced that Russia had donated 130 public buses, bringing the total number to 485 since 2009.

The most recent report on foreign cooperation by Nicaragua’s central bank, published in March 2013, revealed that Russia remained the biggest single foreign donor for Nicaragua’s public sector in 2012, accounting for US$37.4m (28.8%) of the US$130.1m in bilateral donations for the public sector. Yet there is room for improvement. Last October the two countries announced they were negotiating a trade agreement. Bilateral trade reached US$94.5m in the first ten months of 2012 on the latest figures from the Central American economic integration system (Sieca) – just over 1% of Nicaragua’s total US$8.7bn. This follows US$87.8m in 2011, up on the US$46.4m registered in 2010. Russia has also yet to feature as a significant source of foreign direct investment (FDI). The top five sources of FDI in the first half of 2012, on the latest figures from ProNicaragua were the US, Panama, Mexico, Switzerland and Venezuela, accounting for 73% of the total US$584m over the period.

• US response

At a graduation ceremony for English-language students in Managua on 24 March, the US ambassador to Nicaragua, Phyllis Powers expressed US hopes that the new security cooperation deal between Nicaragua and Russia would “complement” but not “replace” the US Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) in its efforts to combat drug trafficking and organised crime in the country. While Washington has long raised concerns about the state of Nicaragua’s institutions, announcing in June that it would not renew its fiscal transparency waiver for Nicaragua amid democratic concerns about the controversial November 2011 general election [RC-12-09] security cooperation – particularly with Nicaragua’s navy, has remained strong.

According to the latest (1 March 2013) US State Department’s International Narcotics Control Strategy Report (INCSR), Nicaraguan authorities seized 9.3 tonnes (t) of cocaine in 2012 (up from 8.8t in 2011), 986 kilograms (kg) of marijuana, 4 kg of crack, and 13 kg of heroin and reportedly neutralized 14 drug trafficking cells. The INCSR also noted Nicaraguan authorities seized US$13m in bulk currency and other assets in 2012 - up from US$5m the previous year.

• Changing patterns?

The latest (March 2013) US State Department’s International Narcotics Control Strategy Report (INCSR), notes that Nicaragua is a major transit route for cocaine flowing from South America to the US, as more than 80% of cocaine trafficked to the US in 2012 first transited through the Central American corridor. However, Nicaragua is not currently considered a major transit point for Europe. The recent dismantling of the Nicaragua-based drug trafficking ring by Russian and Nicaraguan authorities suggests that this could be changing.

A major combined operation in the Vizcatán area of the VRAEM led to the seizure of several camps of the Sendero Luminoso (SL) unit led by the Quispe Palomino clan, including what appears to have been the group’s logistical hub. It did not, however, succeed in capturing or killing the group’s third-ranking leader, who had been based there when the operation began.

When intelligence gathered by the national police pointed to the possible location of one of the key guerrilla camps in the mountainous Vizcatán area of Huanta, Ayacucho, plans for a major combined operation were drawn up. Codenamed Ocaso Rojo (‘Red Sundown’), involving more than 300 soldiers and police officers and supported by 12 helicopters, it was launched on 23 February. The ground force did not go in until after air force attack aircraft fired rockets at six locations, and army helicopters followed suit.

On 26 February police sources announced that at one camp in the Ayahuanco district of Huanta they had killed two ‘third-echelon’ SL members and ‘Camarada Carmen’, common-law wife of ‘Camarada Alipio’ (Orlando Alejandro Borda Casafranca) — reputed ‘military commander’ of the SL units that operate in the VRAEM.

Three days later came the announcement that the combined forces had located and raided the camp of ‘Camarada Raúl’ (Jorge Luis Quispe Palomino), third-ranking SL leader in the VRAEM and, to judge by the documents and equipment seized in the camp, the man who handled their logistics. Raúl was not found at the camp, but the attackers found the body of ‘Camarada Luisa’, a member of the ‘women’s detachment’ that served as Raúl’s inner security circle. They also found blood trails which suggested that perhaps as many as five SL fighters had been wounded or killed in the raid.

Raúl’s camp showed every sign of being a permanent installation, with a roofed structure up to 20 metres long, underground storage silos, and kitchens skilfully camouflaged so as to prevent the smoke giving away their location. Stored in the camp were communications equipment, solar panels, a range of explosives and ammunition, and a hoard of documents.

Admiral José Cueto, head of the joint command of the armed forces, said on 5 March that the documents would help ‘generate a series of actions to capture people who are in collusion with [the SL] and to plan further operations.’ Cueto said that there were probably about 200 guerrillas in the VRAEM. All told, Ocaso Rojo had located six SL camps and, according to the antidrugs prosecution service of Ayacucho, ‘several’ drug-processing labs.

Jaime Antezana, a much-cited ‘Senderologist’, noted that Ocaso Rojo was comparable in size and results with Operación Excelencia, conducted in the Vizcatán area between August and December 2008, and concludes that it may have been a tactical success but not a strategic one. Looking at it from a different angle another ‘Senderologist’, Pedro Yaranga, notes that the police and military had missed the opportunity of killing or capturing the entire SL leadership which — he claims — they knew had been in the area since January. He too describes the operation as a strategic failure.

On 4 March an army corporal was killed in an SL attack on the antiterrorist base of Unión Mantaro, in Llochegua, Huanta. On 14 March a marine and a police officer were injured in an a clash in Mazángaro, in Satipo, Junín.