All Categories

There is a broad agreement among reporters that the TdA first emerged as a criminal force around 2014, in a prison in the Venezuelan state of Aragua, around 130kms west of the capital Caracas. The establishment’s official name is the Centro Penitenciario de Aragua, but it is widely known as Tocorón prison. Its inmates also call it “la Casa Grande” or Big House. Like various other penitentiaries across the country, Tocorón has had a form of hybrid management where the official prison authorities partially withdraw, letting prison gang leaders, known as pranes, take over the day-to-day running of the facilities, as well as associated criminal activity.

This has happened against the background of the wider Venezuelan social and economic crisis, marked by hyperinflation and recession, which has drastically reduced resources across the entire criminal justice system. Researchers say that by 2023 at least eight of the country’s 53 penitentiaries were openly run by the gang leaders inside them, who had imposed their own form of internal organisation. It is also estimated that at least half of the country’s 25,000 strong prison population is directly managed by the pranes. This partial withdrawal of the state is also evident in out-of-prison policing, where law enforcement has given de facto control of large neighbourhoods to street gangs in exchange for promising to reduce violence and inter-gang conflict.

A major pran, Héctor Rustherford Guerrero Flores, aka El Niño Guerrero, emerged in Tocorón, leading an illicit criminal business empire that included drug trafficking, robbery, extortion, contract killings, and illegal mining. Tocorón leaders have been involved in gold mining at a site in nearby Bólivar state known as Kilómetro 88. A handful of other top leaders emerged alongside El Niño. After serving time in La Casa Grande, Larry Álvarez Núñez, aka Larry Changa, moved to Chile participating in low-profile criminal activity there before being eventually identified by police. Another leader, Yohan José Romero, aka Johan Petrica, was a criminal from Miranda state who joined forces with the other Tocorón pranes and was particularly involved with gold mining.

There is some controversy over how the organisation got its name. In 2014 local business leaders said they were being extorted by an organisation calling itself the Tren de Aragua. Some security analysts say various criminal groups were involved in rigging contracts for a central Venezuelan railway, a project which never came to fruition, but which was deeply implicated in corruption. The criminal groups involved are said to have spoken of themselves as railway branches, such as Tren del Llano, Tren del Oriente, Tren del Norte, and so-on, with the TdA eventually adopting the similar moniker. However, some analysts reject this story of the birth of the TdA brand pointing out that none of the founding members of the group had any known links to the railway syndicates operating in the vicinity.

Peru’s interim president José Jerí is proving himself different to his impeached predecessor Dina Boluarte (2022-2025) in at least one respect: while she tried to avoid the press at all costs he is trying to run a media-savvy public relations campaign that builds up his image as a ‘man of action’.

President Jerí marked his first 30 days in office this week, proclaiming three major objectives for his interim administration: fighting crime, supporting economic growth, and achieving “transparency and impartiality” in next April’s general elections. Jerí, who earlier declared a state of emergency to crack down on crime in Lima and the neighbouring port city of Callao, is appearing on an almost daily basis in television reports “supervising” police operations.

On 8 November, for example, Jerí joined a police force sweep in the districts of Cercado de Lima and Santa Anita. Speaking to reporters he said that over 50% of crime in the country takes place in Lima and Callao, which has a population of over 10.2m. He has announced that anti-crime measures in the capital and its main port will be developed further and will also be deployed in other parts of the country.

One of the additional measures announced by Jerí is the creation of a Comando de Cooperación Operativa (CCO), a unified operational command which will include members of law enforcement and the military and will be led by the national police commander. Jerí says satellite images, drones, and CCTV will all be deployed, although few details were given. Controls in prisons will also be tightened.

On 10 November, Jerí announced that he was travelling to the central region of Huánuco, launching a three-month consultation tour of the regions. Photographs on social media showed him boarding an air force plane captioned “we are beginning to visit our beloved country”.

Separately, Jerí promised that “in three months we will visit all the regions of the country; all the ministries and all of the national government will be involved”. Referring to the Boluarte administration, Jerí added that “things will not change overnight, but now we have something different in play: there is a government in control”.

There are some indications that Jerí is trying to channel the electorally popular hard-line anti-crime stance of presidents Nayib Bukele of El Salvador and Daniel Noboa of Ecuador, both of whom have been applauded by US President Donald Trump. As in El Salvador, prison videos have begun to appear depicting gang members piled up on top of each other and looking down at the ground in a sign of submission.

Initial signs are that an important segment of Peruvian public opinion is prepared to give Jerí the benefit of the doubt. A survey conducted by the local pollster CPI in early November found that 50.6% of respondents supported Jerí’s appointment as interim president, while 39.9% opposed it, and 9.7% were uncertain. Support for Jerí was lower in Lima and Callao - 48.8% - than in the rest of the country - 51.6%.

The survey also captured some of the continuing anger felt by voters with the political establishment. Asked how they would vote ‘if the elections were held tomorrow’, fully one-third of respondents refused to answer and a further 21.7% said they would cast a blank or defaced ballot, together amounting to more than half of the electorate.

Recent opinion polls suggest the presidential race will be a highly fragmented affair. The CPI poll had the ultra-conservative Rafael López Aliaga, who recently stepped down as mayor of Lima, out in front with 12.7%, followed by Mario Vizcarra, the brother of former president Martín Vizcarra (2018-2020), on 6.2%. Third place went to Keiko Fujimori, the daughter of former president Alberto Fujimori (1990-2000), with 5.5%. Perhaps as a further sign of voter disaffection, fourth place was held, with 3.7%, by TV comedian Carlos Alvarez, a man who makes a living from making fun of Peruvian politicians.

Congressional contest

President Jerí cannot stand in the election because of constitutional term limits. His current electioneering efforts may be designed more generally to favour his centre-right party, Somos Perú, in the concurrent congressional elections.

El Presidente Raúl Castro ha puesto fin al ministerio del azúcar. En su lugar ha creado una compañía holding del estado que enfrenta el desafío de dar un rápido arranque al ex motor de la economía cubana. Se trata realmente de un ejercicio en ahorro de costos y eficiencia, que Castro está intentando llevar adelante en general en toda la economía cubana. Aun así, el anuncio en el vocero del Partido Comunista, Granma, que el alguna vez preeminente ministerio del azúcar ya no cumplirá “ninguna función de estado” fue un crudo epitafio.

La espiral descendente de la industria del azúcar ha sido tratada en muchos artículos. Fidel Castro comenzó el proceso de racionalización de la industria del azúcar en 2002, cuando el número de ingenios azucareros fue reducido dramáticamente de 156 a 61 para elevar la eficiencia, y la tierra dedicada a la plantación de la caña de azúcar fue gradualmente reducida de 2m de hectáreas a 750.000. La decisión que el ministerio del azúcar debía cerrarse fue tomada durante un consejo de ministros la semana pasada. Los cortadores de caña de azúcar ahora serán reorganizados en 13 compañías provinciales bajo la tutela de una compañía holding conocida como Grupo Empresarial de la Agroindustria Azucarera: el número de ingenios azucareros será reducido una vez más de 61 a 56, con solamente 46 operando durante la próxima zafra.

La zafra en 2010 fue la peor en 105 años, con la producción llegando a sólo 1,1m de toneladas, lejos de las 8,2m de toneladas producidas a fines de los ’80. Considerando que Cuba misma consume un mínimo de 600.000 toneladas de azúcar anualmente, y el país está atado en un acuerdo para proveer a China con 400.000 toneladas anuales, incrementar la producción es esencial. La meta es 2,5m de toneladas para 2015.

No queda claro por entero cómo se alcanzará esa ambiciosa meta. Castro, quien dijo que la compañía holding necesitará “generar exportaciones que financien sus costos”, está prometiendo modernizar el sector del azúcar con una administración más eficiente y por medio de nueva tecnología. También ha planteado la posibilidad de inversión extranjera a través de compañías mixtas, pero no proveyó más detalles. Tampoco reveló quién dirigirá la nueva compañía holding, aunque los hechos del pasado sugieren que es probable que él ponga su fe en miembros de las fuerzas armadas o históricos de la Revolución.

• Metas fallidas

La prensa oficial continúa con una reciente tradición de lacerantes críticas de ineficiencia la semana pasada. Granma difundió un informe condenatorio alegando que la producción de leche en la provincia oriental de Camagüey, el corazón de la agricultura de Cuba, fue insuficiente. “Justificaciones, absurdas explicaciones y promesas están formando parte del arsenal usado por algunos cuadros empresarios y administrativos [...] para evadir la responsabilidad cuando fracasan en el cumplimiento de las metas de producción,” dijo. Y también acusó a algunos productores de vender leche ilegalmente, en vez de cumplir con sus contratos para proveer al estado. El Presidente Raúl Castro ha hecho del incremento de la producción de leche uno de los grandes objetivos de su gobierno, para tratar de reducir las importaciones.

¿La reforma viene con represión?

Más disidentes políticos fueron arrestados en setiembre que en ningún otro mes en los últimos 30 años, de acuerdo con la comisión cubana de derechos humanos y reconciliación nacional (CCDHRN). El número de arrestos (563, comparado con el promedio mensual de 278 en los primeros ocho meses del año) muestra “la absoluta carencia de voluntad política de parte del gobierno del Presidente Raúl Castro para mejorar la situación civil, política, económica y derechos culturales de la inmensa mayoría de la población,” afirma la CCDHRN en un informe difundido el 3 de octubre. Y agrega que los prometidos cambios de la administración Castro fueron “señales falsas”.

El Presidente de EU, Barack Obama, dijo más de lo mismo cinco días antes en una mesa redonda de discusión online dirigida a atraer de nuevo a la comunidad hispánica ante las elecciones presidenciales del año próximo. Obama dijo que EU estaba preparado para cambiar su política sobre Cuba, pero que él no había visto ninguna evidencia que sugiera que las reformas de Cuba conducirían a una mayor libertad política o que justifiquen el levantamiento del embargo comercial. Sus palabras desencadenaron una feroz respuesta de Fidel Castro. Escribiendo una de sus Reflexiones, Castro dijo “Muchas cosas cambiarán en Cuba, pero ellas cambiarán debido a nuestros esfuerzos y a pesar de los Estados Unidos. Quizá incluso antes que el imperio colapse.”

“More of the same”. This was one response by indigenous groups to talks held last month with the new right-wing government of President Otto Pérez Molina, following the first national show of unrest from the historically marginalised sector. The government’s failure to deliver concrete pledges in response to long-standing indigenous demands, together with Pérez Molina’s interest in boosting mining and hydrocarbons production (which runs counter to civil society’s calls for a moratoria on such activities in indigenous territories), suggests the unlikelihood that the situation for the indigenous sector, the second-largest proportionally after Bolivia in Latin America, is going to change under the new government.

The 27 March deal struck between representatives of the indigenous sector (which, on UN estimates accounts for some 60% of the total population) and the government delegation headed up by Pérez Molina and the presidential commissioner on agrarian affairs, Adrián Zapata, followed a nine-day march of some 100,000 protesters to the capital, Guatemala City, which began in Alta Verapaz, some 212km away. Indigenous demands, which were whittled down to eight, included: an end to violent land evictions; the forgiveness of farm debts worth some Q$300m (US$39m), a moratoria on mining, hydroelectric projects and other mega-projects in indigenous territories; and the approval of a rural development law, stuck in congress since 2009, which is aimed at land reform. The latter in particular has been a historic demand of the sector given that land reform is one of the chief unfulfilled objectives of the 1996 peace accords, which ended the 36-year civil war (see sidebar).

Rural development was one of the five core components of Pérez Molina’s “Agenda for Change” manifesto. Yet, while the manifesto cited as a priority the need to regularise land, the rural development law itself was not mentioned. Instead, the March deal included the pledge that the government would discuss the issue with the various sectors involved – promises which were made similarly in relation to calls to cancel farm debts. With the two sides due to reconvene on 19 April to evaluate progress on the new agreement, one of the few demands to yield a specific response concerned evictions: the government pledged to end violent land evictions in Valle del Polochic, Santa María Xalapán, Sierra Chinajá, Quiché, and Alta and Baja Verapaz. The issue made international headlines last year and attracted the attention of prominent human rights groups such as Amnesty International (AI) after a series of evictions in Polochic caused three deaths and left 2,500 people homeless. In a statement issued on 29 March to coincide with the indigenous march, AI pointed out that, in January 2012, the Representative of the UN High Commission for Human Rights in Guatemala noted that, from 2008-2012, 114 forced evictions had been registered. According to AI, the evictions are “carried out by the police and the army, often…with very little warning and regularly fail to meet international standards.” The issue also subjected Pérez Molina’s centre-left predecessor, Alvaro Colom (2008-2012), to major criticism. (Despite his 2007 electoral campaign pledge to establish “social democracy with a Mayan face", in practice Colom failed to distinguish himself from his predecessors vis-à-vis indigenous rights.)

An unlikely commitment

That the indigenous demand for moratoria on mining, hydroelectric and other megaprojects is unlikely to meet with success is supported by various reasons. A local online analysis publication, Plaza Pública, points out that, in contrast to the previous Colom administration, in which Environment Minister Luis Ferraté on occasion would challenge his energy & mining counterpart, Carlos Meany, on various issues – albeit with limited success - their replacements in the current cabinet, Roxana Sobenes and Erick Archila respectively, are both firmly aligned with the business sector (of which the mining lobby is a powerful component).

Meanwhile, the January agreement signed by the Pérez Molina government and chamber of industry, aimed at boosting state revenue from mining [RC-12-03], was widely slammed by civil society groups for the lack of provision regarding environmental protection and these concerns are unlikely to wane given that mining remains a burgeoning sector (see sidebar). According to an August 2011 report by the International Trade Union Confederation (Ituc), 137 mining concessions have been authorised since Guatemala signed up to the International Labour Organization (ILO) Convention 169 on indigenous rights, which includes a territory consultation provision. (Ratifying the Convention was also an integral part of the peace accords). Yet civil society groups have long pointed out that, despite the overwhelming rejection of mining and other megaprojects recorded by the various community-organised popular consultations that have been held (some 60 to date), the projects have gone ahead, in contravention of the ILO 169.

Aside from mining, Pérez Molina’s recent announcement of plans to boost oil production, as part of other efforts to lessen the country’s dependency on oil imports (see below), is also unlikely to be well received by the indigenous sector. Guatemala is one of two oil-producing countries in Central America (along with Belize) although production has been falling due to a lack of exploration and the poor condition of existing wells. According to figures from the energy & mining ministry (MEM), oil production reached 3.9m barrels in 2011, an 8.4% drop on the previous year and far below the 7.5m produced in 2000. Colom’s 2010 controversial extension of a 15-year license for the French company Perenco to continue drilling for oil in the Laguna del Tigre, a Mayan Biosphere Reserve in the northern province of Petén, was a major complaint of indigenous groups and environmentalists alike. According to Perenco, its present production is 12,000 barrels of oil per day (bpd), more than 90% of national crude oil production. Providing further cause for concern for these civil society groups, last year, only two companies submitted bids for the four drilling blocks made available to investors, suggesting that the new government will have to consider how to make investment in the sector more attractive.

• Land ownership

Guatemala’s human rights ombudsman (PDH) pointed out in a 2011 report that 3.2% of private landowners control 65.4% of the country’s agricultural territory and that unequal distribution of land has long been considered a factor in the enduring poverty, which particularly afflicts the indigenous sector. On the most recent figures for 2011 cited by an international human rights NGO, International Work Group for Indigenous Affairs (IWGIA), 73% of the indigenous population is poor (as opposed to 35% of the non-indigenous population), and 26% is extremely poor.

• Mining

According to figures from Guatemala’s energy & mining ministry (MEM), revenue from mining production reached Q$4.18bn (US$536m) in 2010, a 41% increase on the previous year and markedly up from Q$69m (US$9m) in 2004. The surge is largely the result of metallic mining, which accounted for 96% of production in value terms in 2011.

BELIZE | Decriminalising marijuana. In the latest sign of the regional shift on drug policy, the Belizean government of Prime Minister Dean Barrow announced this week that it had appointed a committee responsible for drafting proposals to decriminalise small quantities of marijuana. While underlining that “the proposal is not to legalise the offence…but merely to reduce and regulate”, an official press release revealed that the government is proposing to decriminalise the possession of up to 10 grams of marijuana, so that anyone caught with the drug would be subject to fines and mandatory drug education but would not face imprisonment. Under current legislation, the possession of under 60 grams of marijuana is treated as a criminal offence, punishable by a fine of up to B$50,000 (US$25,512) and/or up to three years imprisonment. Anything above this amount is catalogued as trafficking.

    According to the latest figures from the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC), Belize has a higher annual prevalence of cannabis use as a percentage of the population aged 15-65 (8.5%) than Guatemala (4.8%); Panama (3.6%); Nicaragua (1.1%); Costa Rica (1.0%); Honduras (0.8%) and El Salvador (0.4%). The move to appoint the committee follows last month’s announcement by Uruguay’s President José Mujica that he was proposing a plan to legalise the sale of marijuana by the State [RBS-12-07] although he has since said he will only press ahead if the proposal has the support of 60% of the population.

CUBA | Cholera outbreak. On 14 July the Cuban health ministry issued a press release stating that there were 158 confirmed cholera cases and three people had died since the illness was first detected in Manzanillo, a south-eastern city. Cuban authorities first reported the outbreak on 3 July, stating there were 53 cases. Officials said they believed those infected had drunk water contaminated after a period of heavy rains and high temperatures in the area and that the number of reported cases was now falling. The health ministry has said this is the first reported cholera outbreak since soon after the 1959 revolution. The last cholera epidemic in Cuba ended in 1882. The international media reports that while it is not clear what the source of the cholera is, there is speculation that there is a link to Haiti, where Cuban medical professionals have been sent to assist with a cholera epidemic which, since its outbreak in October 2010, has claimed the lives of more than 7,000 people.

MEXICO | Execution. On 7 July Texas executed Humberto Leal García, despite appeals for a stay of execution from both the federal US government and Mexico. The US Supreme Court voted 5:4 that it could not delay the execution, as the US and Mexico had requested on the grounds that the US Congress “may” pass legislation which would have led to a retrial for Leal.

En una elección extraordinaria, el 15 de octubre, el Progressive Liberal Party (PLP), liderado por el Primer Ministro Perry Christie, reafirmó su victoria electoral del 7 de mayo sobre el Free National Movement (FNM), liderado ahora por Hubert Minnis, al reclamar su triunfo en el distrito de North Abaco, retenido hasta su renuncia luego de la elección general por el ex primer ministro del FNM, Hubert Ingraham. Ahora, el PLP retiene 30 de las 38 bancas en el Parlamento.

El continuado resurgir electoral del PLP llega en medio de una serie de malas noticias en el frente económico. A comienzos de setiembre, el Fondo Monetario Internacional (FMI) emitió una advertencia acerca de la relación deuda-PIB de Las Bahamas, que estaba siendo “mucho más alta de lo esperado”, en 54%, o posiblemente más de 60% si se incluyen las deudas de las que son responsables las corporaciones públicas.

Estro fue seguido por una advertencia de Standard & Poor’s el 24 de setiembre, en el sentido que Las Bahamas enfrenta una reducción de grado si es que no produce un plan creíble para la reducción de la deuda. De hecho, ese plan existe en estado embrionario, pero es improbable que sea popular pues es un plan que incluye el impuesto a las ganancias. También es posible que, de acuerdo con Standard & Poor’s, lleva años implementar.

Un Simposio Nacional Sobre Reforma Fiscal celebrado entre el 25 y 26 de octubre, e incluso si el cambio será lento en llegar, la dirección del cambio fue indicada claramente por el asesor del primer ministro, James Smith, a comienzos de setiembre, quien dijo: “hace cinco años, el ingreso debería haber estado sobre la mesa. Pero yo sospecho que se tratará. Ha llegado el tiempo de analizar todas las opciones [...] Las Bahamas ha dejado de promocionarse a sí misma como una jurisdicción libre de impuestos. Pienso que nosotros podemos comenzar a avanzar desde ese modelo.”

Originalmente formado en 1953 para representar a los distritos negros privados de derechos, el PLP es el partido que condujo al país a la independencia en 1973, bajo Lynden Pilling. El FNM, por el otro lado, tiene sus orígenes en el United Bahamian Party, orientado hacia el establishment, y en defensa del poder establecido, aunque con disidentes del PLP como el mismo Ingraham.

Después del desastre de la elección extraordinaria en North Abaco, al que Ingraham había representado por más de 30 años, el sentimiento dentro del FNM es que Hubert Minnis podría no sobrevivir mucho tiempo como líder. Él ha jugado una parte prominente en la elección extraordinaria, acordando la opción de Greg Gómez como candidato, y diciendo que él obtendría más votos que Ingraham, por tanto él no puede evitar fácilmente el hecho que el triunfo de Ingraham por 379 votos en mayo se ha convertido en una derrota aplastante por 2.367 a 1.513 para Gomez en octubre.

La reacción de Minnis ante la derrota en la elección fue decir que esta marcaba el fin de la era de Ingraham. Sin embargo, el partido no parece estar dispuesto a aceptar este veredicto. Inmediatamente después de la derrota, el presidente en funciones Darron Cash envió un memo a los candidatos del FNM para las elecciones generales, diciendo: “Incluso como la responsabilidad ha sido puesta en nosotros, una nueva generación del FNM, es imperativo que recordemos cómo hemos llegado aquí y quién nos trajo hasta aquí [...] Yo me apoyo en los hombros de Hubert Ingraham, Tommy Turnquest, y Cion Foulkes [...] Yo confío en ellos y todos nuestro hombres sabios estarán cerca y disponibles para mí por muchos años más”.

La impresión es que el comentario de Minnis que “la era de Ingraham ha terminado” ha desencadenado el enojo entre los leales al partido y su liderazgo ahora está en riesgo. Si él es destituido, entonces la vice-líder, Loretta Butler-Turner, es su más probable sucesora.

POLITICS | End to unrest. On 22 March the government led by President Evo Morales announced that it had reached a deal with the La Paz Túpac Katari peasant federation. The deal includes the removal of blockades erected around La Paz on 19 March, blocking the main routes in and out of the capital, isolating La Paz from the rest of the country. Under the 10-point agreement the government pledged to: address demands for land; improve health and education services; and promote productive development in the region.  Also on 22 March the regional assembly in Oruro revoked a recent law changing the name of the regional airport to Evo Morales from Juan Mendoza (the locally-born first Bolivian pilot to take flight). That move ends a four-day local protest strike against the name change. The Morales government was keen to put the protests to bed before starting the annual round of minimum wage talks with the country’s main umbrella union, the Central Obrera Boliviana (COB).

MEXICO| Pemex reporta perdidas en el 2013. El 27 de Febrero la empresa petrolera del Estado Mexicano, Petróleos Mexicanos (Pemex), presento su cifras financieras para el 2013, que mostraron que la compañía cerró el año con pérdidas netas de M$169.1bn (US$12.9bn), después de haber reportado ganancias netas de M$2.6bn (US$200m) en el 2012.

El resultado negativo viene justo cuando congreso mexicano está en el proceso de redactar la legislación secundaria necesaria para implementar los planes de reforma energética impulsada por el gobierno del Presidente Enrique Peña Nieto, la cual abriría sector energético del país a mayor participación del sector privado. Los cambios significarían que Pemex perdería su monopolio sobre la producción de petróleo en México y por primera vez tener que competir con otras firmas.

Los resultados fueron presentados por el director financiero de Pemex, Mario Alberto Beauregard, quien dijo que las pérdidas fueron resultado de un caída del 5.3% en las exportaciones de crudo de Pemex y una caída del 2% en volumen de combustibles vendidos en el mercado interno el año pasado en comparación con el 2012. Según Beauregard, los resultados del 2013 fueron la consecuencia de la “caída en los precios internacionales de referencia para el crudo y sus derivados, así como también menores niveles de ventas de estos productos”.

Mientras tanto el promedio de producción de Pemex para el 2013 fue de 2.52m de barriles por día (bpd), un 1% menos que en el 2012. Sin embargo, comentando acerca de la inminente implementación de la reforma energética que transformará a Pemex en una “empresa Estatal productiva” de una “entidad pública descentralizada”, Beauregard dijo que él esperaba que reforma “cambiará el rumbo del sector energético en México y con ello el del Pemex”. En particular, Beauregard, dijo que en el futuro Pemex tendrá que competir con otras firmas en áreas como “exploración, explotación, transporte, procesamiento y distribución de hidrocarburos”.

Desde el punto de vista de Beauregard, esto forzaría a Pemex a hacerse “más eficiente, competitiva y rentable”, ya que no estará obligada a participar en todas las concesiones petroleras y podrá las concesiones en las cuales quiere concentrarse. De hecho, como parte de la reforma, se espera que Pemex presente una lista de concesiones petroleras y proyectos ‘prioritarios’ en los cuales quiera continuar siendo el único operador al ministerio de energía para el 21 de Marzo.

Codelco announces lay-offs: In late October Chile’s state-owned copper company Codelco announced the axing of 350 supervisors as part of cost-cutting efforts in response to the continuing slump in global copper prices. A 29 October press statement noted that the layoffs would allow for an 8% reduction in the supervisor payroll, generating a saving of US$48m a year.

On 26 October, Codelco announced a US$4bn reduction in its medium-term investment programme. Codelco’s CEO, Nelson Pizarro, stated: “We visualize an investment, taking into consideration the peso’s devaluation against the US dollar, of less than US$25bn. The exact value we could say would be between US$21bn and US$22bn”. At the time of writing, copper prices were trading at about US$2.24 per pound (/lb), down from US$3.05/lb a year earlier. News of the lay-offs came after Finance Minister Rodrigo Valdés told reporters on 28 October that the government would inject US$600m into Codelco to help finance the company’s business and development plan for 2014-2018. Valdés added that the funds would come from government bond sales. Under an October 2014 capitalization law, the government is authorized to inject up to US$3bn into Codelco.

Growth: According to the latest (5 November) report by Chile’s central bank (BCCh), the monthly economic activity index (Imacec), which incorporates around 91% of the goods and services included in the country’s GDP statistics, rose by 2.6% year-on-year in September 2015, with a rolling 12-month growth rate of 2.5%. Chile posted real annual GDP growth of 1.9% in 2014, on figures from the United Nations (UN) Economic Commission for Latin America & the Caribbean (Eclac). Eclac projects growth of 2.1% this year, improving marginally to 2.5% in 2016.

• Copper exports

On the latest figures from Chile’s copper commission (Cochilco), Codelco’s copper exports were valued at US$37.96bn in 2014, accounting for nearly half (49.5%) of the country’s total exports. This was down from US$39.73bn in 2013 (51.4% of total exports); US$41.78bn (53.4%) in 2012 and US$43.61bn in 2011 (53.6%). The same figures show that Codelco accounted for 1.8m tonnes (t) of the 5.7m t of fine copper produced in Chile in 2014 (down from 5.8m t in 2013).

*** BAHAMAS GOVERNMENT LOSING GROUND. The Free National Movement (FNM) government, led by Prime Minister Hubert Minnis, is just a year old and already its popularity is slipping worryingly. Opinion polling by a new market research company, Public Domain, in April found that the number of people who think the country is going in the “right direction” has fallen to 40% from 67%. Those who think the country is going in the “wrong direction” have increased from 21% to 39%. Those who think the country is going “very much in the right direction” are now just 12% from 25% last September.

In the view of Public Domain’s chief M’wale Rahming, the main problem for the government is communication. He said: “The main reason I would think that is causing this is communications.”

For Rahming, the poll figures are not yet disastrous, “but they [the government] need to stop the trend because once they go past a certain threshold down, and it has been trending down…that’s the thing that would worry me if I was this administration…Once they go past a certain threshold it’s very, very hard to recover from it.”

The view that the real problem is a communications one has been given credence by the economic figures. The latest figures show that GDP grew by 2.7% in 2017, up from 0.4% in 2016. A press release providing the figures added: “The main industries contributing to this growth in GDP include construction, wholesale and retail trade, business services of a professional nature, administrative business services, and arts and other services.”

In another piece of good news for the government, in mid-April the European Code of Conduct Group, which is composed of high level representatives of member states and the European Commission, recommended that The Bahamas be removed from its list of non-cooperative tax jurisdictions. The country had been blacklisted on 13 March, alongside Saint Kitts & Nevis and the US Virgin Islands. The EU stated that these countries had failed to make commitments “at a high political level in response to all of the EU’s concerns”.

*** TRINIDAD & TOBAGO OUTLOOK CHANGED TO NEGATIVE. On 27 April, Standard & Poor’s ratings agency revised its outlook on Trinidad & Tobago from stable to negative. It maintained its long-term sovereign credit rating at BBB+. The change in outlook to negative points to S&P’s assessment that there is a one-in-three chance of a downgrade within the next two years.

The agency pointed to a mild economic recovery, but it said that it was not certain that this would be sufficient to relieve pressure on the exchange rate and access to foreign currency.

Prime Minister Keith Rowley, in London for the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting, told the Commonwealth Business Forum that “inaccurate reporting” was behind some of Trinidad’s problems. He complained: “This practice has an adverse effect on the nation’s ability to stimulate growth and development.”

According to the prime minister’s office: “The Prime Minister noted T&T pursues tourism as a viable industry for growth and development. However, when some nations issue negative travel advisories on incidents of crime, efforts made in the industry are stymied.”

Appreciated in Western markets for their nutritional properties, Brazil nuts are mostly collected in Bolivia in hazardous work conditions between November and May every year. Key to the conservation of Amazonian rainforests, the Brazil nut industry faces threats in the face of climate change and deforestation.

After soy and soy-based products, Brazil nuts are one of Bolivia’s main agricultural exports. The seeds of wild Bertholletia excelsa trees in the rainforest areas in the north of the country, Brazil nuts have had an export value of US$162m-US$178m a year since 2014 (close to 0.5% of the country’s GDP, according to data from Bolivia’s central bank). The main markets for Bolivia’s Brazil nut exports are the US, Germany, and UK, according to the local private think-tank Instituto Boliviano de Comercio Exterior (IBCE).

The Brazil nut value chain is the economic backbone of the Amazonian North of Bolivia, a region of more than 100,000 square kilometres and some 250,000 inhabitants. It usually involves whole families temporarily migrating from nearby cities – mainly Riberalta, Beni department – to camps in the rainforests and hundreds of women working in processing plants back in the city.

Hazardous work

The harvest is hazardous work. Workers enter the rainforest during the rainy season, leaving them vulnerable to diseases and wild fauna. Shelled seeds are extracted from the fallen capsules (cocos, which resemble coconuts, each containing around 12 seeds) using machetes. The threat posed by falling cocos from the trees, which grow up to 50m high, is one potentially deadly risk of the job.

During collection, workers fill bags weighing up to 70kg and carry them on foot several kilometres to camps near the river. The Brazil nuts are then transported by boat to the factories in Riberalta and other urban centres in the region, where they are processed and sent to the international market.

Usually, men and teenagers harvest in the forests while women and children stay in the camps. Most shelters lack safe water and other basic services. Both the International Labour Organization (ILO) and US Department of Labour have expressed concern related to child labour in the Brazil nut harvest and school absenteeism.

Sustainability

Brazil nuts constitute a sustainable and non-timber forest resource and the trees contribute to carbon fixation and climate change mitigation. Since Bertholletia excelsa is a wild tree, its healthy reproduction requires the sustainability of the whole ecosystem.

Brazil nut production is vulnerable to climate change. Alternating droughts and floods in the Amazonian basin in recent years have forced workers to go deeper into the forest to harvest enough nuts. With the full impact of the recent fires in the Amazon yet to be quantified, the tree-growing areas have already been affected by increasing deforestation, boosted in part by surging state-funded mechanised agriculture and sugar cane plantations nearby, propelled by a law passed in 2018 allowing ethanol to be a part of transportation fuels.

Local and international human rights groups have denounced a “surge in repression” by the government led by Nicaragua’s President Daniel Ortega in April. The claims were made against the backdrop of the second anniversary of the start of the protests against the Ortega administration which has left hundreds dead and tens of thousands of Nicaraguans in exile. These complaints come as the government has sparked fresh human rights fears over its handling of the coronavirus (Covid-19) pandemic.

In a statement released on 18 April, a group of human rights organisations including US-based think-tank Washington Office on Latin America (Wola) and Costa Rica-headquartered Center for Justice and International Law (Cejil), as well as local human rights groups such as Centro Nicaragüense de Derechos Humanos (Cenidh) warned of an “exacerbation of government repression as a strategy to inhibit the commemoration of the 2018 crisis”. According to the statement, between the night of 17 April and the early morning of 19 April, 65 incidents had been recorded. Of these, 32 were aggressions directed at women activists and their families, including insults and threats of a sexual nature.

Three days later the Inter-American Human Rights Commission (IACHR) tweeted that it had received civil-society complaints regarding an intensification of repression in the previous seven days against government opponents on the eve of the anniversary of the protests. According to the IACHR there were 138 cases of surveillance or raids, ten raids without judicial orders, 11 direct threats, 16 acts of aggression, and 39 arbitrary detentions carried out by the national police and parapolice.

The anniversary also prompted the international community to express disappointment about the lack of progress regarding efforts to address democracy and human rights-related concerns relating to the social and political crisis. In a statement dated 23 April, the European Union (EU) said “no tangible advances have been made” in these areas while “repression by security forces and pro-government armed groups of political opponents, demonstrators, journalists, civil society organisations and members of the Catholic Church continues”.  The statement also notes that the three main areas highlighted by the EU Foreign Affairs Council in conclusions adopted in October 2019 where “tangible progress needs to be urgently made remain valid”. These are the reestablishment of political freedoms and the release of the remaining political prisoners; full cooperation with and the return of international human rights bodies to Nicaragua; and an agreement on electoral and institutional reforms between the government and the main opposition groups, aimed at guaranteeing fair and transparent elections.

Fresh human rights concerns

Against this backdrop, the government’s response to the pandemic has attracted condemnation from the IACHR, Amnesty International (AI) and Human Rights Watch (HRW) among other institutions, as further evidence of its failure to take human rights seriously. Unlike the rest of Central America, the Nicaraguan government has failed to impose strict measures to stop the spread of the virus such as a nationwide quarantine, curfews, closure of educational establishments and non-essential business. Rather, its apparent promotion of mass marches and gatherings that contravene recommendations for social distancing, have been a source of bafflement.

In a statement released on 16 April AI said it was “surprising that, after preventing and suppressing any form of social protest for the past two years, [the government] is now promoting mass marches and gatherings, exposing the population to the pandemic”. It cites as examples of these events which took place in April, the organisation of a public mass by state institutions; the promotion of a public event to choose the 2020 summer queen in Managua department and the Nicaraguan tourism institute’s organisation of the Summer Music Fest 2020 festival in several locations.

Human rights groups and medical associations are also complaining about the lack of reliable information regarding the pandemic. The latest bulletin from the Central American integration system (Sica) at the time of writing, based on official figures, showed that as of 29 April there were just 13 Covid-19 cases reported in Nicaragua. This compares with 6,200 in Panama, 738 in Honduras, 705 in Costa Rica, 557 in Guatemala, and 377 in El Salvador. However, Observatorio Ciudadano Covid-19, a collaborative civil-society group set up in March to monitor the outbreak in Nicaragua, reported 370 suspected cases in Nicaragua up to 27 April. These included 13 cases confirmed by the health ministry (Minsa), 15 suspected cases reported by Minsa and 342 suspected cases verified by the Observatorio which bases its reports on information from “civil-society, territorial networks, digital activists, and relatives of those affected by Covid-19” and stresses that it is not an official report.

Repression

In a statement released on 18 April, Cenidh said it had been working with the opposition group Azul y Blanco to document complaints against sieges, threats, injuries, and detentions in the departments of Masaya, Granada, Chontales, Managua, Matagalpa, Madriz, Bluefields and Nueva Guinea, which, it claims, confirms an increase in governmental repression and “are intended to remind the population that only the government has power and they won’t permit another April of strikes”.

On 3 December Honduras’s electoral commission (CNE) received registration details for parties taking part in pre-presidential primaries scheduled for 14 March, ahead of the November 2021 general election. At least three of the leading contenders - congress president Mauricio Oliva and Tegucigalpa mayor Nasry “Tito” Asfura, of the ruling Partido Nacional (PN), and Yani Rosenthal, a former minister of the presidency (2006-2007), congressperson (2010-2014), and presidential precandidate (2012) for the traditional opposition Partido Liberal (PL) - either face corruption allegations or have been convicted. This has once again fanned concerns about the calibre of candidates ahead of the presidential vote.

The first to declare his intention of running, back in March 2020, for the PN’s Juntos Podemos faction, Oliva had been named years earlier in connection with investigations unveiled by the Organization of American States-sponsored Mission to Support the Fight against Corruption and Impunity in Honduras (Maccih). Oliva was a vocal opponent of Maccih, the mandate of which ended in January 2020. Most recently, in May 2020, a report by Central American investigative magazine Expediente Público alleged that Oliva had purchased various properties from a business associate at Inversiones Acrópolis, a firm linked by local media to the Los Cachiros drug trafficking organisation (DTO). According to the magazine, Oliva sought to cover up the transactions by placing his assets in a trust.

• Oliva

In December 2017, Maccih claimed to have uncovered a corruption network in congress. It said there was sufficient evidence to prosecute five deputies for receiving L8.3m from the finance ministry, channelled through an NGO meant to be carrying out social projects. Maccih spokesperson at the time Juan Jiménez Mayor also maintained that the investigation had exposed the involvement of “more than 60 past and present deputies, including the president of congress [Oliva],” in the corruption network. Jiménez said that congressional deputies could have embezzled L1.3bn in this way.

As regards Olivia’s chief contender in the PN primaries, Asfura, of the Movimiento Unidad y Esperanza faction, on 26 October 2020 the attorney general’s office requested the removal of his immunity from prosecution so that he can be investigated for crimes including presumed abuse of authority, fraud, embezzlement of public funds, and money laundering. The charges - which Asfura has rejected as a smear campaign by the opposition - are in connection with the alleged diversion of over L28m (US$1.13m) from municipal coffers for “personal benefits”, and to “benefit third party individuals”.

As regards the PL, which fell apart in the aftermath of the 2009 coup which ejected President Manuel Zelaya (PL, 2006-2009), the main contender is Rosenthal, who launched his campaign on 11 October for the Movimiento Liberal Yanista faction. Rosenthal returned to Honduras in August 2020, having served a three-year prison sentence after pleading guilty in 2017 to laundering money for Los Cachiros through a holding company controlled by his family, Inversiones Continental (Panama). Ahead of his arrival, in late July, local daily La Tribuna cited PL legislator Juan Carlos Ávila as saying that Rosenthal is the “only person that can unite 90% of the country’s political opposition”, and that “14 congressmen will recommend Rosenthal run for president”. His main contenders include Luis Zelaya - the PL president and its 2017 presidential candidate - running under the Recuperemos Honduras movement, and Darío Banegas, a political cartoonist and PL national deputy, who represents the Movimiento de la Esperanza faction.

Disillusionment

A survey published in September 2020 by pollster CID-Gallup showed that corruption was considered by the 1,200 respondents to be the country’s main problem, concerns over which have intensified due to issues with government spending in response to the coronavirus (Covid-19) pandemic [SSR-20-12]. This has also translated into disillusionment with the political class: a survey by the same pollster back in June revealed that 49% of respondents did not identify with any political party in Honduras, while 29% identified with the PN, 13% cited the PL, and 7% the Partido Libertad y Refundación (Libre), the largest opposition party.

DOMINICAN REPUBLIC | Emerging from the shadow of the pandemic. The governor of the Dominican Republic’s central bank (BCRD), Héctor Valdez Albizu, announced on 30 March that in February the country experienced its first positive year-on-year economic growth since the coronavirus (Covid-19) pandemic began. Valdez said that the country’s monthly indicator of economic activity (IMAE) grew by 1.1% year-on-year in February, describing this as an “extraordinary” rebound from a crash that bottomed out in April 2020, when output fell by 29.8% compared with the same month in 2019.

Excluding the hospitality sector (which contracted by 50.8% due to public health restrictions and the collapse of global tourism), the average year-on-year growth for all sectors in February was 3.3%. This included a 10.3% year-on-year rise in output for the construction sector, followed by mining (8.1%), local manufacturing (6.5%), health (6.4%), and trade (4.1%).

Valdez said that the BCRD is forecasting GDP growth of between 5.5% and 6% for 2021, pointing to the World Bank’s latest GDP forecast for the Dominican Republic, which predicts growth of 5.5% in 2021. He also highlighted how foreign direct investment (FDI) remained on a par with previous years in 2020, despite the uncertainties wrought by the pandemic. Annual FDI totalled US$2.5bn in 2020, and Valdez said that he expects this to exceed US$2.7bn by the end of 2021.

Honduras’s new president Xiomara Castro has formally requested support from United Nations (UN) Secretary-General António Guterres for the creation of a commission against corruption and impunity in Honduras (CICIH). The move comes just weeks after her leftist Partido Libertad y Refundación (Libre) government took office and makes good on a core campaign promise to fight corruption. It follows the recent arrest in line with a US extradition request, of Castro’s predecessor, Juan Orlando Hernández (2014-2022), of the right-wing Partido Nacional (PN), who has been implicated in drug-related allegations [WR-22-07]. While this may have raised hopes that Hernández will be brought to justice in the US, some argue that it should be happening in Honduras, a prospect many consider impossible at present due to the weakness of institutions like the judiciary, serving to underline the need for an internationally backed CICIH.

President Castro announced that she had filed the request on 17 February for CICIH which she promised would be established “without ceding sovereignty”. This was a clear allusion to attacks levelled at a previous internationally backed anti-impunity commission in Honduras, the Mission to Support the Fight against Corruption and Impunity in Honduras (Maccih) sponsored by the Organization of American States (OAS). This was established in 2016 but closed down in 2020 under the Hernández administration following complaints by legislators, some of whom were implicated in its investigations, that it represented an attack on national sovereignty.

• Maccih

Maccih was set up in 2016 in response to widespread protests over a massive corruption scandal involving the embezzlement of at least US$300m from the Honduran social security institute (IHSS) during the PN administration led by Porfirio Lobo (2010-2014), with some of the embezzled funds used to finance Hernández’s 2013 election campaign.

Many questions persist about the nature and scope of the body that the Libre government is proposing to establish. Maccih did achieve some success, contributing to the prosecution of 133 people, including congresspeople and senior officials, 14 of whom stood trial. However, unlike the more effective UN-backed anti-impunity commission in Guatemala (Cicig), which operated from 2007-2019, it was accused of lacking teeth in terms of investigatory or prosecutorial powers, being limited to an advisory role.

The government adviser on matters associated with transparency and combating corruption, Edmundo Orellana, a former attorney general (1994-1999) who held the defence and foreign ministries under the administration led by Castro’s husband Manuel Zelaya (2006-2009), has so far shed little light on the new commission, in terms of its composition and mandate beyond saying that it would investigate corruption “without limits”. Meanwhile in an interview with local media Criterio published on 21 February, UN resident coordinator Alice Shackelford identified as a possible next step, the designation of a technical evaluation team. She said that there was no date for this but she expected more clarity soon.

Fiscal and financial emergency decree

Honduras’s 128-member legislative assembly approved a decree on 15 February declaring a state of fiscal and financial emergency which authorises the government to borrow up to US$2bn in 2022 and 2023 in domestic and foreign debt. The government argues that this is necessary to address the parlous fiscal situation which, in her inauguration speech last month, President Castro had described as an “economic catastrophe”.

The decree cites finance ministry figures which put Honduras’s public debt at US$15.68bn at the end of 2021, (approaching 60% of GDP) and a surge in the poverty rate from 58% of the population in 2009 to 74% in 2021. Libre legislator and congress vice president Hugo Noé Pino told Reuters that “the decree also authorises the government to use US$335m in Special Drawing Rights (SDRs) provided by the IMF [International Monetary Fund] and held by the central bank to be used for budget execution”.

Mexico’s agriculture and rural development ministry (Sader) revealed on 12 February that US authorities had suspended avocado shipments from Mexico, the world’s main avocado producer. The US suspended its avocado inspection programme in Mexico’s Michoacán state for security reasons, after an official with the US animal and plant health inspection service (Aphis) received a threatening phone call while working in the city of Uruapan.

US authorities said that they would assess the threat and determine what action to take to ensure the safety of its staff working in Michoacán, where the Cártel Jalisco Nueva Generación (CJNG) - one of the most powerful and violent drug trafficking organisations (DTOs) in the country - has long been involved in turf wars with rival DTOs and clashed with local security forces. The US restarted imports of Mexican avocados on 18 February. In a press statement, US ambassador to Mexico Ken Salazar said that resumption of exports was possible thanks to the rapid response and cooperation of federal and local authorities in Michoacán, as well as local producers.

Avocados are essential for the economy of Michoacán, which accounts for around 75% of Mexico’s avocado production and is the only state currently certified to export avocados to the US, the top consumer of Mexican avocados. In 2020, the US imported almost 1.05m tonnes (t) of avocados from Mexico. Local press reported on 28 February that the state of Jalisco will also start exporting avocados to the US in April, having agreed inspection arrangements with Aphis in December 2021. However, it is likely that producers there will also face challenges derived from the presence of DTOs, particularly the CJNG.

Exports

On 20 February, Sader reported that the three top agri-food exports during 2021 were beer, tequila and mezcal, and avocados, with exports of the fruit valued at US$3.09bn. Beverages, fruit, and vegetables are Mexico’s main food exports which account for more than 62% of the sector’s total. In 2021, the country produced 2.45m t of avocado, around a third of global output. Exports of avocado in 2021 equated to around 1.4t.

In April US Secretary of State Antony Blinken paid a visit to Panama where he met President Laurentino Cortizo, signed a bilateral accord on migration and co-hosted a ministerial meeting on migration, attended by representatives from 20 countries. His visit and the meeting reflect US efforts to address the issue of illegal migration - a top priority for the administration led by President Joe Biden with regard to the region. It comes as Panama has signalled alarm about the surge in migrants making their way through the Darién Gap, a dense jungle without roads bordering Colombia, which last August led Panama to hold an unprecedented virtual regional meeting to address the issue [SSR-21-10].

With US Customs and Border Protection (CBP) reporting the highest monthly total of undocumented migrants at the US-Mexico border in March 2022 since Biden took office in January 2021 (221,303), Panama has repeatedly highlighted the strains on its own institutions as record numbers of migrants enter the country through the Darién Gap. According to a report published on 29 March by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), 8,456 people crossed the Darién Gap in the first two months of 2022, nearly triple the 2,928 reported in the first two months of 2021. The same UNHCR report notes that refugees and migrants of various nationalities have been crossing the Darién Gap for years, but 2021 saw record numbers, with some 133,000 making the journey last year. It adds that the large majority are from Haiti - including their children born in Chile and Brazil, followed by Cubans, Venezuelans and those from outside Latin America from countries such as Angola, Bangladesh, Ghana, Uzbekistan and Senegal. The UNHCR notes that the majority were on the move due to the socio-economic impacts of the coronavirus (Covid-19) pandemic.

Unlike the previous US administration led by Donald Trump (2017-2021), which pursued hard-line anti-migrant policies, the Biden government is seeking to address the longer-term causes of illegal migration, unveiling a four-year US$4bn plan for Central America last year and more generally echoing calls by countries such as Panama for the issue to be addressed on a more comprehensive, regional basis. The US delegation headed up by Blinken, which visited Panama on 19 and 20 April, accordingly included top officials, including US Secretary of Homeland Security Alejandro Mayorkas and representatives from the US State Department, National Security Council (NSC), US Agency for International Development (USAID), and Department of Homeland Security (DHS).

Following the ministerial meeting, Blinken said that “we talked about some of the most urgent aspects of this issue, including helping stabilise and strengthen communities that are hosting migrants and refugees; creating more legal pathways to reinforce safe, orderly, and humane migration; dealing with the root causes of irregular migration by growing economic opportunity, fighting corruption, increasing citizen security, combating the climate crisis, improving democratic governance that’s responsive to people’s needs”. He also announced the inking of a bilateral arrangement by Panama and the US “to increase our bilateral cooperation across all of these issues”.

The Panama summit follows other regional summits held in recent months to address the issue on a regional basis. Following the August 2021 Panama summit [SSR-21-10], a ministerial meeting took place in October 2021 in Colombia. More recently, in March Costa Rica’s outgoing president Carlos Alvarado hosted a meeting attended by Cortizo and Dominican peer Luis Abinader along with top US officials as part of the alliance for development in democracy (ADD) which was launched in September 2021 by the three countries and US (see sidebar). The March meeting produced the first bilateral arrangement on migration inked by the US and Costa Rica. More generally both the Costa Rican and Panama summits as well as initiatives such as ADD, reflect US efforts to boost ties with alternative partners in Central America as democracy concerns intensify in countries such as El Salvador, Guatemala and Nicaragua.

Mixed messages over protection of migrants in the Darién

On 17 and 18 March a delegation from the Costa Rican-based Inter-American Court of Human Rights (Corte-IDH) visited Panama and the Darién province, to examine how far urgent measures ordered by the Corte-IDH in 2020 and 2021 for Panama to protect the health and lives of thousands of migrants in the context of the pandemic had been heeded. The Corte-IDH delegation included president Ricardo Pérez Manrique and Vice President Humberto Antonio Sierra Porto, among others. It was there in relation to two resolutions issued in July 2020 and June 2021 whereby the Corte-IDH adopted provisional measures to protect the rights to health, personal integrity and life of those in three migrant reception stations (ERMs) La Peñita, Lajas Blancas and San Vicente, as well as a community reception point Bajo Chiquito, all in the Darién.

     The resolutions were issued in response to a particular case, the Vélez Loor v. Panama judgment of 2010, which had involved the detention and subsequent judicial process against Jesús Tranquilino Vélez Loor, an Ecuadorean national, on offenses related to his migratory status. In line with the case the Corte-IDH identified various stringent guarantees required for the use of immigration detention. Addressing reporters on 18 March, Pérez Manrique said that “we have seen progress and a will to resolve the issues” adding that “our task will be to measure the volume of these advances in relation to the Corte-IDH’s original reasons for decreeing the measures”.

   However, this assessment of progress was challenged by Costa Rica-headquartered NGO centre for justice and international law (Cejil), which also sent a delegation. In an 18 March statement, Cejil said that over ten years since the judgement was issued and nearly two years since the measures were authorised, the Panamanian state has failed to comply entirely with what the Corte-IDH had ordered. Cejil said that it recognised that measures had been adopted to improve the conditions of detention of the over 130,000 people who transited the Darién over the last year and cited as signs of progress, the closure of ERM La Peñita and the construction of ERM in San Vicente. However, it complained that the detention of migrants remains a “systematic practice” in the Darién. It also highlighted as concerning, the phenomenon of sexual violence, citing public information that in 2021 around 288 cases of sexual violence against women and children were registered. It said despite this, the Panamanian state has not presented a protocol of attention for these cases.

• Venezuelans

The UNHCR 29 March statement notes that in the first two months of 2022, Venezuelans became the top nationality crossing the Darién Gap at more than 2,400, nearly as many as crossed in all of 2021. According to the same statement, last year, the majority of those who crossed the Darién Gap were of Haitian origin.

• ADD

The ADD launched in September 2021 involving Costa Rica, Panama, and the Dominican Republic to promote democratic strengthening and economic growth through the tightening of the countries’ commercial, demographic, and cultural ties. Speaking at the Costa Rica summit in March, Panama’s President Cortizo said the objective of the alliance was institutional strengthening linked to the administration of justice, the fight against corruption, the battle against organised crime and the promotion of social and economic development. Migration was also discussed. He said that the Dominican Republic had assigned some US$400m this year to address the health of Haitians while in Panama, the government assigned over US$50m to the border with the Darién.

Santiago Peña takes over as president of Paraguay on 15 August. Although he is from the same Asociación Nacional Republicana-Partido Colorado (ANR-PC) as the outgoing head of state Mario Abdo Benítez, they are from rival factions within the ruling party as Peña is a ‘Cartista’, a protégé of former president Horacio Cartes (2013-2018). Complete continuity is therefore not a given, although Peña has so far indicated that he will stand by his predecessor’s foreign policy line on two key relationships, those with Taiwan and the US.

With a population of around 7m and an economy heavily dependent on beef and soya, landlocked Paraguay is always the junior partner in its relations with other nations. It nonetheless plays a not insignificant role in global geopolitics for two reasons: on the one hand it is a key player in the international drug trade – as South America’s biggest producer of marijuana and an important hub for cocaine trafficking to Europe – and related criminal activities such as money laundering; and on the other, it is one of just 13 countries worldwide that maintain diplomatic ties with Taiwan rather than the People’s Republic of China.

No switch

The issue of Paraguay’s relationship with Taiwan emerged as a major talking point in this year’s elections. The permanence of these ties has been in question, fuelled by a campaign in Beijing, which claims Taiwan as its own territory and has succeeded in getting many countries to switch allegiances in recent years, and situations such as Paraguay’s difficulties to access vaccines during the coronavirus (Covid-19) pandemic [SSR-21-08]. Establishing diplomatic relations with China – as Honduras recently did – is a demand of the agricultural sector, which complains that Paraguay’s lack of formal ties to the Asian giant costs them greatly in potential export revenue. Had opposition candidate Efraín Alegre clinched a win in April, Taipei would have lost its last remaining ally in South America.

But Peña pledged to stand by the position defended by Abdo Benítez and the relationship with Taiwan – adopted for ideological reasons in 1957 under the anti-communist dictatorship of Alfredo Stroessner (1954-1989) – during and after the election campaign, saying the issue is one of “principles and values”. He reinforced his position with a five-day trip to Taiwan in July ahead of his inauguration, to reaffirm political and economic ties with the island. “We have come to express our determination to be close to them [the Taiwanese], to maintain a relationship and fluid contact with the president [Tsai Ing-wen], … knowing that the best years could be ahead for Taiwan and Paraguay,” Peña said, while also calling on Taipei to increase its investments.

The president-elect has also argued that maintaining ties with Taiwan is more beneficial to Paraguay’s economic development in the long term. He told reporters Paraguay would “love” to trade more with mainland China but that the relationship with Taiwan will allow the South American nation to better develop a domestic industrial sector and give added value to its raw agricultural exports. Still, his visit to Taipei was preceded by a stop in the United Arab Emirates during which he reportedly discussed opening up the market for Paraguayan meat with government officials there, perhaps a nod to the demands of farmers back home.

US-friendly?

Peña’s victory in April also threw up questions about the future of Paraguay’s relationship with the US. The country has long been a reliable US ally in South America on security and economic issues – and not just because it continues to resist Chinese influence, although that no doubt sits well with Washington.

But the US’s move to sanction Cartes in the last year – with the Department of State designating him for involvement in significant corruption last July [SSR-22-09] and the Department of the Treasury then slapping financial sanctions on him and companies he owns in January [SSR-23-03] – raised the possibility of more strained relations ahead. Some Cartistas looked upon the timing of these moves as unwelcome meddling from the US in an attempt to keep Cartes away from power. While Peña is not Cartes, he is expected to defer to his mentor at least where mobilising the political base is concerned, as Cartes is the ANR-PC president and a still-influential heavyweight within the party, while the incoming head of state is a technocrat whose political clout is dependent on Cartes.

Pragmatism looks set to prevail, however (as it did under Abdo Benítez, whose vice president Hugo Velázquez was sanctioned alongside Cartes). Fresh from his trip to Taiwan, Peña held a meeting with US ambassador Marc Ostfield. “We spoke of the cooperation between our countries, of our common vision on many international issues, and of the historical friendship ties built between our nations,” Peña said on Twitter. Ostfield went one step further, saying their discussion included the “fight against corruption” as well as the “fair development of Paraguay”, signalling that the US is keen to maintain and even deepen ties with the South American country. Following the meeting, Peña’s designated foreign minister, Rubén Ramírez, stressed Paraguay’s commitment to fighting the “scourge of organised crime” and its manifestations such as corruption and money laundering, and evoked the country’s ambition to achieve an investment grade from the US’s credit ratings agencies.

Evan Ellis, a professor with the US Army War College Strategic Studies Institute, has argued that the administration of US President Joe Biden would do well to shore up ties with Paraguay under Peña by expanding security assistance, supporting anti-corruption efforts (and not putting the Peña administration in the same bag as Cartes), and boosting trade by concluding the re-certification process of Paraguayan beef (a process begun by the US Department of Agriculture in 2019). “In light of all that is at stake, a little money and love for Paraguay may be one of the best bargains Washington has in 2023,” Ellis wrote in a recent opinion piece for Global Americans.

Possible friction points

Peña and his foreign minister Ramírez will have to deal with potentially vexing issues that loom over Paraguay’s relationship with regional neighbours. Top of the list is the renegotiation with Brazil of the Itaipú Dam treaty that governs the binational hydroelectric dam. Negotiations for the treaty’s Annex C – which concerns the financial arrangements of the dam’s operations and in which Paraguay feels it was hardly done by – are due to start before the end of the year, and both the outgoing and incoming administrations have indicated that they wish for a wider renegotiation of the whole treaty. With domestic pressure to secure better terms for Paraguay and Brazil unlikely to easily give in, tough negotiations could lie ahead.

Looking further afield, there is one controversial foreign policy point on which Peña looks set to break with the Abdo Benítez line in favour of Cartes’ position – that is with regard to Paraguay’s embassy in Israel. Cartes had controversially moved it to Jerusalem at the end of his term in 2018, but Abdo Benítez promptly moved it back to Tel Aviv within a month of taking office. This led Israel to close its embassy in Asunción just three years after re-opening it. Peña looks set to emulate Cartes – he spoke of moving the embassy to Jerusalem during his campaign and discussed the issue again with Israel’s non-resident ambassador to Paraguay, Yoed Magen, in May.

Rubén Ramiréz  

The incoming foreign minister Rubén Ramírez is, like Peña, an economist by training and understood to be close with the president-elect. He previously held the role of foreign minister in 2006-2008, during the ANR-PC government of Nicanor Duarte Frutos (2003-2008).

MEXICO | BBVA unveils major investment. Spanish banking group BBVA has announced a major investment of over M$100bn (US$5.19bn) in Mexico, to be rolled out between 2025 and 2030. The announcement was made by BBVA chair, Carlos Torres Vila, at the opening of a national meeting of regional advisers of BBVA México.

Torres Villa underscored the strength of BBVA’s operations in the country, noting that BBVA México’s lending business had grown by 17% in 2024 and that the group’s active customer base in Mexico had expanded from 21m in 2019 to 32m in 2024.

While the BBVA chair noted the impact of tariffs and global uncertainty, he added that the medium-term outlooks are more favourable for Mexico than the current GDP projections for 2025. He also praised the Mexican government’s efforts to reinforce the country’s domestic market through President Claudia Sheinbaum’s Plan México initiative.

MEXICO | Agricultural sector optimistic on US livestock exports. Mexico’s agriculture and livestock confederation, Consejo Nacional Agropecuario (CNA), has said it is “optimistic” that the US will reopen livestock imports from Mexico in the coming days, following agreements made between Mexico’s Agriculture Minister Julio Berdegué and his US counterpart, Brooke Rollins, on 27 May.

In a statement, the CNA celebrated the “technical and political will” of both governments to move forward with an agreement regarding the New World Screwworm (NWS) outbreak in Mexico, which prompted the US to temporarily halt imports of Mexican livestock on 11 May. Among agreements made by Berdegué and Rollins was the implementation of a regionalisation strategy to keep northern Mexico unaffected by the outbreak and the investment of US$21m by the US to expand a sterile fly production plant in Mexico’s Chiapas state.