All Categories

Quito has two mayors – or one, or none worthy of the role, depending on who is asked. The convoluted power struggle that saw Jorge Yunda impeached on 3 June took another twist on 30 July, when a Pichincha provincial court ordered his reinstatement. However, that ruling came after Ecuador’s electoral disputes tribunal (TCE) had ratified Yunda’s impeachment, and it contradicted a 19 July ruling that appeared to cement the position of his replacement, Santiago Guarderas, who insists that he remains Quito’s lawful mayor. Yunda is back in his old office, but severe dysfunction persists, with the dispute sparking protests and Guarderas vowing to lodge an appeal with the constitutional court.

Yunda, who represents the centre-left Unión Ecuatoriana (UE), was removed from office by a majority vote of municipal councillors on 3 June, amid corruption allegations that centre around the purchase of 100,000 coronavirus (Covid-19) testing kits at an apparently inflated price. Yunda is awaiting trial on that matter, following the announcement of embezzlement charges on 30 April, and is also the subject of an investigation by the attorney general’s office for allegedly conspiring with organised crime groups in the awarding of road paving contracts. He denies all the allegations against him.

With Yunda removed from office, his deputy, Santiago Guarderas (UE), was elected by councillors to step into his role. Yunda immediately raged that Guarderas had conspired to have him impeached for personal gain, and he took to the courts to seek his reinstatement. Following a rejected appeal on 19 July that had seemed to cement Guarderas’ position at the top, Yundas found success 11 days later when the Pichincha provincial court overturned his impeachment. “I was elected at the polls to fight for the rights of Ecuadoreans,” he tweeted afterwards, telling Guarderas that “this is called democracy” and that “elections are coming and you can run for office”.

Guarderas was not content to wait until 2023 to return to the mayor’s office, however. Demoted to his previous rank of deputy mayor, he may have surrendered his office space back to Yunda, but he insists that he remains the top authority in the municipal government. He walked out of the first legislative session since Yunda’s reinstatement arguing that his rival had convened it “unconstitutionally and illegally”. Guarderas has said he will lodge an appeal with the constitutional court, which would have the power to override Yunda’s reinstatement. That could take several weeks, however, extending Quito’s period of limbo.   

There is mounting frustration among the capital’s residents about the dysfunction at the top. On 31 July, the news that Yunda would be returning to office was met with a protest caravan of vehicles that gridlocked Quito’s historic centre. Other groups, including the Frente Cívico de Quito and Frente Dignidad por Quito, called for fresh elections, arguing that neither Yunda nor Guarderas is fit for the mayorship given the gridlock their dispute has engendered.

Meanwhile, a number of business associations have opposed Yunda’s return and continue to back Guarderas, with Quito’s chamber of commerce arguing that “the city cannot continue to be paralysed and buffeted by judicial decisions that lack legality and legitimacy”. The city’s chamber of industry and construction (Camicon) has also backed Guarderas and is threatening “not only to protest against and condemn these bad leaders, but to seek their removal from office” if the current “disorder and anarchy” is not resolved.

Conaie ups the pressure on Lasso

Ecuador’s umbrella indigenous organisation Confederación de Nacionalidades Indígenas del Ecuador (Conaie) presented President Guillermo Lasso with an ultimatum on 4 August, giving him six days to announce the reinstatement of fuel price controls that were lifted under his predecessor, Lenín Moreno (2017-2021). Conaie president Leonidas Iza implied that protests would be staged if Lasso did not accept this demand. This came ahead of protests planned for 11 August by the umbrella trade union Frente Unitario de Trabajadores (FUT), which is also demanding fuel price controls and accuses the government of failing to consult with workers over its planned labour reform.

“We will take the battle to the underworld,” Ecuador’s President Guillermo Lasso declared on 18 October as he decreed a 60-day state of exception to tackle mounting violence related to drug trafficking. The announcement came in the wake of Ecuador’s deadliest ever prison massacre, and follows signs that the country has become an increasingly important transit hub in the international cocaine trade. During the state of emergency, the military will be deployed across Ecuador to work alongside the national police in domestic security operations.

The recent deterioration in public security in Ecuador is clear to see. Police data included in the emergency decree shows that the country’s homicide rate leapt from 7.84 murders per 100,000 inhabitants in 2020 to 10.62 in the first 10 months of 2021. This followed a jump from 6.88 to 7.84 from 2019-2020 and marks this year as Ecuador’s most violent since 2008. Security analysts have attributed the surge in violence to escalating tensions between criminal gangs that act as subcontractors for rival drug trafficking organisations (DTOs) based in Colombia and Mexico [SSR-21-03].

The violence has been particularly pronounced in the province of Guayas, where the battle for control of drug smuggling routes is centred around the port city of Guayaquil. These rivalries were laid bare on 28 September when, in the deadliest prison massacre in Ecuador’s history, 118 inmates were killed at the Penitenciaría del Litoral. This followed a succession of other mass killings at the Guayaquil prison over the past year, which are symptomatic of a wider power struggle taking place on the city’s streets.

To counter this upswing in violence, Lasso’s decree will see the military deployed across the country to conduct operations usually managed by the national police, including drug raids, vehicle checks, and stop-and-search controls. Lasso did not specify the total number of troops to be mobilised, but said that Guayas province will receive the largest share of military personnel.

Lasso also announced plans to bolster legal protections for security personnel accused of excessive use of force, saying he would submit a bill to ensure that “the law intimidates criminals, not police officers.” As a precursor to this piece of legislation, he announced the creation of a new government legal unit to defend law enforcement officers. The proposed bill would have the potential to trigger significant pushback, and the recent mass protests in Colombia against police brutality have demonstrated the risks for governments that vigorously defend security forces accused of human rights abuses [SSR-21-07].

This announcement brought criticism from the two main forces in Ecuador’s national assembly, the indigenous party Pachakutik and the left-wing Unión por la Esperanza, which argued that Lasso is aiming to facilitate the repression of protests against his increasingly embattled government.

• A political ploy?

Pachakutik and Unes have strongly criticised the state of exception, accusing Lasso of using tough-on-crime measures as a stunt to distract attention and repress protests while his government battles a major political crisis. Lasso has come under increasing scrutiny over his naming in the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists’ (ICIJ) Pandora Papers investigation. As this issue goes to press, he is facing an investigation into his tax affairs by the attorney general’s office, as well as a congressional inquiry that could lead to an impeachment vote. For the latest on Lasso and the Pandora Papers, please see our sister publication, the Latin American Weekly Report.

It also received only lukewarm support from the US, a country which Lasso has touted as a key ally following the frosty relationship that prevailed under his predecessors, Rafael Correa (2007-2017) and Lenín Moreno (2017-2021). Visiting Ecuador from 19-20 October as part of a diplomatic tour of South America, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken warned that whilst “democracies at times need to take exceptional measures to ensure the safety and security of their citizens,” these must be “limited in scope, limited in duration… and properly balanced against respect for citizens’ human rights.”

Peru’s congress voted on 17 May to archive three impeachment motions against President Dina Boluarte, which accused her of obstructing justice and taking unauthorised leave to receive cosmetic surgery. The results will boost Boluarte’s hopes of remaining in office until elections are next due in 2026, but her transactional relationship with right-wing parties in congress, which is key to her political survival, is likely to deteriorate as the election approaches.

The three impeachment motions, which were presented by the centre-left Juntos por el Perú-Cambio Democrático (JPP-CD) and the far-left Perú Libre (PL), all accused President Boluarte of ‘permanent moral incapacity’ – the same nebulous charge that was used to impeach former presidents Pedro Castillo (2021-2022) and Martín Vizcarra (2018-2020). Two of the motions accused Boluarte of attempting to obstruct justice, citing her removal of police support for the special anti-corruption task force (Eficcop) and her alleged requests for inside information on the multiple investigations she faces [WR-24-19]. The third impeachment motion accused Boluarte of dereliction of duty regarding an unauthorised 12-day leave of absence in June 2023 to receive cosmetic surgery.

All three impeachment attempts were comfortably swatted away by the government’s right-wing allies in congress, with none gaining more than 38 votes in favour. Proceeding to a formal impeachment vote would have required the support of 52 deputies, and removing Boluarte from office would then have required 87 legislators to unite behind the effort to unseat her.

The vote confirmed that Boluarte retains the support of the four parties that dominate congress: the right-of-centre Fuerza Popular (FP, Fujimorista), Renovación Popular (RP), Avanza País (AvP), and Alianza para el Progreso (APP). However, the government would be wise not to assume that this support will continue unabated until elections are due in 2026. While Boluarte now has a fair chance of exceeding initial expectations by staying in power until then, she can expect the loyalties of the right-wing bloc to shift as the election looms.

The relationship between the government and the FP-led group is purely transactional. Boluarte, elected as vice president in 2020 for the far-left PL, has allowed herself to be dragged ever further to the right in exchange for the support of congressional conservatives, who have now shielded her from no less than eight impeachment motions. The government has repaid this support by bowing to their demands for hardline security policies and a crackdown on illegal immigration. It has also remained silent in the face of efforts by right-wing groups to replace the judicial oversight body (JNJ) and return the suspended attorney general Patricia Benavides to her post, raising concerns over judicial independence [WR-24-10].

The right-wing bloc, and particularly FP, the largest party in congress, is likely to begin distancing itself from Boluarte’s administration as it shifts its attention to the 2026 general election. There is a broad expectation that FP’s leader, Keiko Fujimori, will make a fourth run for the presidency. After narrowly losing to Castillo in 2021, she will be hoping that the subsequent turmoil of Castillo’s presidency, and her party’s later success in extracting conservative policies from Boluarte, will be enough to propel her to victory. To do so, it will want to dissociate itself definitively in the public eye from Boluarte’s government, which repeatedly ranks as one of the most unpopular in Latin America.

Interior minister replaced

Peru’s interior minister, Walter Ortiz Acosta, was replaced on 16 May by Juan José Santiváñez. Whilst Ortiz claimed that he was stepping down for “purely personal reasons”, he had been in the role for just six weeks and had faced heavy criticism from left-wing and centrist legislators regarding the removal of police support for the Eficcop anti-corruption task force. Santiváñez, who previously served as deputy minister for internal order at the interior ministry, is the sixth interior minister to have served under President Boluarte since she took office in December 2022. On his first day in his new role he justified the “elimination” of the police support for Eficcop, saying that the decision was taken from a budgetary perspective.

Political pressure

The government will need swift results against the EMC as it comes under mounting political pressure over the violence. Defence Minister Iván Velásquez is in the opposition’s crosshairs and is facing calls to resign. María Fernanda Cabal, a senator for the right-wing opposition Centro Democrático (CD), said on 21 May that she would submit a motion for Velásquez to face a congressional grilling on the government’s security policy.

JNJ fires Benavides

Peru’s judicial oversight body (JNJ) voted on 22 May to dismiss Patricia Benavides, who was suspended as attorney general in December after being accused in the media of leading a corruption racket [WR-23-50]. The JNJ’s five members voted unanimously against Benavides, who retains the support of right-wing legislators and some magistrates on the constitutional court (TC). The attorney general’s office will now remain under the interim control of Juan Carlos Villena until Benavides’ replacement is selected by a board of supreme prosecutors and approved by the JNJ.

However, Benavides will not stand down quietly, and her removal could reinvigorate efforts from her congressional allies to impeach the JNJ’s members. This has been a longstanding goal of a cross-party group of legislators, who used the JNJ’s move against Benavides as a justification to step up their campaign against the JNJ. Defenders of the current judicial oversight body argue that the legislators are seeking to gain influence over corruption investigations, given that the JNJ is responsible for the appointment and dismissal of judges and prosecutors. 

A lawyer representing 32 crewmembers of Ecuadorean fishing boats that were sunk by the US in the Pacific announced on 7 October that they have been found not guilty of drug trafficking. This was the first of three trials in Ecuador of around 90 crewmembers from five fishing boats targeted by the US. As well as the open involvement of the US Department of Defense in the military strikes, media reports have pointed to the covert involvement of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), which is reportedly running surveillance flights from El Salvador.

The defendants’ lawyer, Juan Alvia, told Spanish newswire EFE that a judge had acquitted 24 crewmembers from the María Candelaria fishing vessel and eight others who had been working on the Conquista 2. The vessels, which were boarded by US forces in late August and early September and sunk after their crewmembers were arrested, were described by US Southern Command (Southcom) as floating refuelling stations supporting maritime drug trafficking.

According to the NGO Human Rights Watch (HRW), US forces intercepted and destroyed eight Ecuadorean fishing vessels between 28 August and 16 September, detaining over 140 crewmembers, of whom 90 are facing criminal proceedings. These operations, which are publicly announced by Southcom and the US Pentagon, are separate to a reported CIA campaign targeting suspected drug trafficking boats in Ecuadorean waters. The Washington Post reported on 13 August that a secret CIA mission is being run from El Salvador, which surveillance aircraft use as a base for flights to detect suspicious vessels. Some of those vessels have then reportedly been targeted in drone strikes, including the Fiorella, which vanished on 20 January with eight crewmembers aboard.

HRW has criticised the methods used to target drug trafficking at sea. In a 2 October statement, the NGO’s Americas director, Juanita Goebertus, said that “intercepting fuel trafficking at sea may be an important step to stop criminal groups, but that doesn’t allow security forces to arrest people without evidence, destroy their vessels, or abuse them,” referring to allegations that some crewmembers had been beaten before being made to sign confessions.

For President Daniel Noboa’s government, the acquittals of the first 32 defendants could spark another front in his long-running tussle with the judiciary. Noboa has railed against what he regards as judges’ soft treatment of suspected criminals, and regularly highlights such cases as a sign that the justice system has been infiltrated by organised crime.

In any case, US-Ecuador security cooperation will almost certainly continue to expand. After a meeting with Noboa in Quito on 9 September, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio emphasised Ecuador’s status as one of Washington’s top security partners and said that “the progress we’ve made on this relationship really has no historic precedent, and there’s so much more to do.”

The immediate priority seems to be on boosting drone capabilities in Ecuador and in neighbouring Colombia, with The New York Times reporting on 6 October that the US has relocated several MQ-9 Reaper drones to the two countries from the Middle East and Africa. The Reaper has previously been used against Islamist militant groups such as Islamic State and Al Shabab, and its deployment against drug trafficking organisations in Latin America would heighten the impact of Washington’s decision to categorise these as terrorist, rather than criminal, groups.

A record year for investment?

President Noboa said on 5 October that it is “very likely” that 2026 will be a record year for foreign investment in Ecuador. According to the central bank, foreign direct investment (FDI) totalled US$715.5m in the first half of this year, up from US$355.4m in the same period last year.

EL SALVADOR | Spain’s extradition request denied. El Salvador’s supreme court of justice (CSJ) has refused Spain’s request for the extradition of 13 former military officers in relation to the murder of six Jesuit priests (five of whom were Spanish), their housekeeper and her daughter by a government death squad in 1989 during the 1980-1992 civil war. In May 2011, a Spanish judge, Eloy Velasco Núñez, charged the officials under the doctrine of universal jurisdiction, championed by Spanish courts, which maintains that some crimes are deemed so serious they can be prosecuted outside of the country in which they were committed. Announced on 8 May, the CSJ’s decision, which represents a major setback in terms of efforts to redress past impunity, is based on the fact that Salvadorean law prohibited the extradition of its citizens prior to 2000; as the murders took place in 1989, the accused cannot be extradited.

REGION | FDI. Inflows of foreign direct investment (FDI) into Central America increased 36% in 2011 to total US$8.246bn, according to the most recent report on FDI in Latin America by the UN Economic Commission on Latin America and the Caribbean (Eclac), released on 3 May. Of this, Panama was the biggest recipient, attracting US$2.790bn (+19% on 2010), followed by Costa Rica (US$2.104bn, +44%); Honduras (US$1.014bn, +27%); Guatemala (US$985m, +22%); Nicaragua (US$968, +91%) and El Salvador (US$386, +231%).

Mexico’s auto sector has been recording impressive figures since the beginning of the year, led by high exports, highlighting just how competitive the sector has become in the global economy.

On 6 August Mexico’s vehicle manufacturers’ association, Amia, reported that that total production for July was 238,146 units, up 17.7% over July 2011 and the highest ever figure ever reported for the month.

Meanwhile Brazil’s vehicle manufacturers’ association, Anfavea, reported that production in the first half of the year was 1.5m units, 9.4% less than in the same period of 2011 last year. According to Anfavea, recent stimulus measures adopted by the Brazilian government, in particular a reduction in the rate of the tax on industrial products, has helped ease the slowdown, but its real impact will not be felt until the second half. According to Anfavea, 223,154 units were exported in the first half of the year, down 12.2% on the corresponding period of the previous year.

The decline in domestic market sales answers to a slowdown in the local economy, but the fact that Brazilian exports are falling even as Mexican exports rise is evidence of weaker competivity.  Even with new import limits imposed by Brazil now in place, Mexico exported 82,000 vehicles to Brazil in January-March this year. Brazil only sold 24,000 vehicles to Mexico in the same period.   The differing fortunes in such a key industrial sector for two of Latin America’s two largest economies appear symptomatic of the current state of their wider economies.

July was the second consecutive month in which production levels in the Mexican auto sector reached historic monthly highs, on Amia data. Production in June was 268,388 units, the highest for the month. Total production from January to July was estimated at 1.7m units, up 13.4% year-on-year and highest first semester output figure ever. Mexico’s automotive sector is well on course to set a new record in 2012.

According to Amia, which groups local subsidiaries of manufacturers including Ford, General Motors, Chrysler, Honda, Nissan, Toyota, Volkswagen and Fiat, the increase in production was driven by exports, which increased 5.8% in July to 208,151 units. Up to 84.6% of all production was exported, with increases in sales to the US (the main market for Mexican vehicles, taking 67% of total exports), Europe, Asia and even Africa, underlining the truly global reach of Mexico’s auto sector. In contrast, exports to Latin America fell somewhat, attributed to the recent auto trade spat between Mexico, Brazil and Argentina.

Mexico, the world’s tenth largest vehicle manufacturer, may not have a national car manufacturing firm, however the world’s leading manufacturers consider the country a key export base. Foreign companies first set up shop in Mexico decades ago, mainly seeking to take advantage of its proximity to  the US. These days, they are also attracted by other factors including the openness of the Mexican economy - and its well developed infrastructure. Mexico currently has in place free trade agreements with over 40 different countries. In addition, it has a young and increasingly more qualified labour force that employers can tap into. Mexico has become increasingly competitive in the industrial sector, to the point that the country is expected to become not only one of the world’s top car manufacturing hubs and also consolidate itself as a global industrial hub.

In early July, Nissan announced that it had begun the construction of a new US$2.0bn plant in Aguascalientes, which upon completion will allow Nissan to increase its production in Mexico from 600,000 to 1.0m units a year. Bill Krueger, Nissan Americas vice-president, said that the company had chosen to increase its investment in Mexico due to “its competivity and its qualified labour force”. This is Nissan’s third plant in Mexico and its second in Aguascalientes. Interestingly, Nissan’s Mexico president, José Luis Valls, has pointed out that the company does not want to export “paying [import duties]”.

In other words, production at the new plant will not be geared towards countries that restrict trade, such as Brazil and Argentina. According to Valls, only 14% of Nissan Mexico vehicles are exported to South America and the new plant’s objective is to supply other markets.

Although Brazil is uncompetitive externally, its large domestic market continues to attract car manufactures. On 9 August Toyota announced plans to build a new US$500m engine plant in Porto Feliz, São Paulo. Toyota said Brazil “is a market in which we expect constant growth”. The new plant will be Toyota’s third in Brazil, following the recent completion of another US$600m plant in São Paulo to produce the new compact car, Etios, designed specifically for emerging markets. The size of this investment, however, is far from the one made by Nissan in Mexico.

The problem for the Brazilian government is that (unlike restrictive trade measures), increasing competivity does not happen overnight. It requires investment, both public and private, in order to improve infrastructure and the labour force, along with measures to improve the business operating environment, and on both counts Mexico is ahead. Moreover, by closing off its economy to imports, Brazil risks reducing the level of competition in the domestic sector.

• Mexico  - a model

Economists say that Mexico’s open economic model is preferable to Brazil’s in the long run. Even at the height of the global crisis Mexico refrained from protectionist measures and now the Mexican government claims that the country is now benefitting from this. A recent study conducted by BBVA Mexico pointed out that if Mexico’s economy grows at the expected 3.5%-3.8% this year it would be the second year in a row that it grows faster than Brazil. Juan Julián Cubero, director of macroeconomic analysis at BBVA, noted that “the gains in Mexico’s competitiveness relative to Brazil are starting to modify the relative outlook of the two economies”. He also noted that Mexico’s competivity gains were achieved through higher levels of overall investment over the past decade, with Mexico investing 24.6% of GDP compared to Brazil’s 18%.

• Automotive

Mexico’s industrial sector was highlighted by Goldman Sachs as one of the factors that prompted the country’s inclusion in its new grouping of emerging economies  - dubbed the Mist (Mexico, Indonesia, South Korea and Turkey). According to Goldman Sachs, given the declining level of economic growth in the Brics, the Mist is set to become one the most dynamic blocs in the world .

Development: On 19 March Carlos Villegas, the head of the state oil company Yacimientos Petrolíferos Fiscales Bolivianos (YPFB), accused hundreds of indigenous Guaraní, currently blockading access to fuel depots in the east of Bolivia, of blackmail.

Significance: The indigenous protesters, represented by the Asamblea del Pueblo Guaraní Takovo Mora (APG), are demanding more funds for development projects to mitigate the effects of a new natural gas liquids separation plant, Río Grande, which is being constructed by an Argentine company, Astra Evangelista S.A. (Aesa), in Santa Cruz region. Villegas complains that Mora is being unreasonable, given that it signed an agreement with the government led by President Evo Morales last year. The Morales government is under pressure to address the dispute; the blockades could jeopardise energy exports to Brazil and Argentina.

Key points:

• In November 2012 the Morales administration and APG signed an agreement under which the government would invest a total of B$13.7m (US$1.9m) in social projects for the region. APG now has two additional demands – that the government cough up an additional B$1m (US$144,000) in funds for the region; and hire six people to monitor the environmental risks of the Río Grande project.

• Construction on the plant, which is slated for completion in May 2013, began in 2011. Once finished, the plant will be able to process 5.6m cubic metres per day (cmd) to produce 361 tonnes (t) per day of liquefied natural gas (LNG); 350 barrels per day (bpd) of natural gas and 195 bpd of isopentane.

• Yesterday President Morales unveiled the new electricity distribution company in the department of La Paz, to replace the Empresa de Electricidad de La Paz SA (Electropaz), one of the four electricity distributors nationalised at the end of last year, He said the new company, Distribuidora de Electricidad La Paz (Delapaz), would offer a single tariff of B$0.60 (US$0.08) for the La Paz region, down from BS$1.50 (US$0.20) previously. The government had pointed to high tariffs and a lack of investment as justification for its seizure of  Electropaz from Spain’s Iberdrola.

MEXICO | Peña Nieto announces infrastructure spending. On 20 June President Enrique Peña Nieto revealed that this year his government would be investing M$310bn (US$23.1bn) to develop the country’s transport infrastructure.

    Speaking at the national communications & transport meeting in Mérida, Yucatán, Peña Nieto said that the investment plan was part of the government’s 2013-2018 national development plan, which envisions the upgrading and expansion of Mexico’s transport infrastructure in order to improve transport connectivity and efficiency across the country. Pointing out that, according to the latest World Economic Forum (WEF) rankings, Mexico’s transport infrastructure ranks 68 out of 144 countries, Peña Nieto said that “we need to speed up the pace of construction and the development of more infrastructure to improve this ranking... [so that] it reflects the wealth of our country and projects it to the world”.

    According to Peña Nieto the funds, M$123bn of which have already been disbursed so far this year, will go towards the development of highways, rural roads, trains and ports as well as for projects in the national water and power systems. “Undoubtedly this is good news for the sector and for the national economy,” Peña Nieto said. Addressing the audience, mostly comprised of members of Mexico’s construction industry chamber (CMIC), which boasts some 10,000 affiliate firms, he added that his government will “decidedly back the development of strategic infrastructure projects in all the geographic regions of the country”.

    All this was intended to encourage the CMIC to look to get involved in some of the projects that the government is promoting and which Peña Nieto briefly presented during his speech. These include the construction of the M$9bn Oaxaca-Istmo highway, which will improve transport connectivity in the Isthmus of Tehuantepec, and for which the government has already earmarked M$1.4bn to be spent this year; and the Transpeninsular railway across the Yucatán peninsula, of which Peña Nieto said that that he has already instructed Communications & Transport Minister Gerardo Ruiz Esparza to conclude all the pending technical studies in order to start the public tender process for its construction contract.

As regular readers of Courcy’s Future Threats will know, a topic our analysts have been following closely over the last few months is progress of the Middle East Respiratory Syndrome (MERS-CoV), and the science assessing the pandemic risk from this disease. MERS, a coronavirus with similarities to SARS has not yet shown significant signs of turning into a pandemic, but understanding exactly where this disease has come from, how it behaves and why, could be critical to preventing a future pandemic from a similar disease. Preventing the occurrence of another SARS-like event is of critical importance.

On 29 August the World Health Organisation (WHO) issued a statement saying that it had been informed of an additional two laboratory-confirmed cases of Middle East respiratory syndrome coronavirus (MERS-CoV) infection in Qatar.

The patients include a 59-year old man with an underlying medical condition who became ill on 15 August 2013. He is currently hospitalised and is in stable condition.

Preliminary epidemiological investigations reveal that the patient travelled to Medina, Saudi Arabia for six days and returned to Qatar on 15 August 2013. He did not take part in Umrah and did not visit to Al-Masjid an-Nabawi in Medina.

The second patient is a 29-year-old man with an underlying medical condition who had no history of recent travel outside the country.

The results of both the cases were confirmed by an international reference laboratory, and a total of 138 healthcare workers, family and community contacts have been screened in the country and so far all tested negative for MERS-CoV infection.

The new cases bring the global total, from September 2012 to 29 August this year, to 104 laboratory-confirmed cases of infection with MERS-CoV, including 49 deaths.

It is believed that MERS is zoonotic – that is to say it is passed to humans from animals. A major part of the research underway is to try to identify the animal species that is acting as the main reservoir for the disease.

What makes the analysis more complicated is that the animals mostly responsible for passing the disease to humans may not be the ones mostly harbouring it. Rather, it may be passing through other animal species in a chain.

Various new pieces of research have indicated that a number of animal species could be involved.

A sample of the disease genetically identical to the strain infecting humans has been detected in a faecal sample taken from an Egyptian tomb bat, collected close to the home of the first known MERS victim in Saudi Arabia. However, researchers do not believe the disease was passed directly from the bat to the human victim.

Some scientists have suggested that Dromedary camels could be responsible for passing MERS to humans, but the disease itself has not been found in the animals. Only antibodies for fighting MERS have been isolated, which means camels certainly can be infected, but does not prove they are the link to humans.

Of the 105 camels tested in the Canary Islands 15 were found to be carrying the antibodies. Of the 50 camels tested in Oman all of them had the antibodies. This suggests the disease is still circulating widely, and that the problem is more acute in some regions than others.

However, no human cases of the MERS virus have been reported in Oman or the Canary Islands, and researchers say they now need to test more widely to see if the infection is present elsewhere.

If the antibodies cannot be found in large numbers of camels in Saudi Arabia, the country where the virus is the most prevalent, then the researchers will be back to square one, as it will indicate that although camels can be infected they are unlikely to be passing it to humans.

Commenting on the latest findings Professor Paul Kellam, from the Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute in Cambridge and University College London, said the research was helping to narrow down the hunt for the source of the virus.

But he told the UK’s BBC that “definitive proof would be to isolate the virus from an infected animal or to be able to sequence and characterise the genome from an infected animal.”

Health officials say confirming where the virus comes from is important, but then understanding how humans get infected is a priority.

The WHO’s Gregory Hartl said “Only if we know what actions and interactions by humans lead to infection, can we work to prevent these infections.”

“Me duele profundamente que esto pueda crear tensión y malentendido”, dijo José Mujica, el Presidente de Uruguay, al anunciar su decisión de permitir a la planta de celulosa de propiedad finlandesa UPM-Kymmene (anteriormente propiedad de Botnia) incrementar su producción. Unas pocas horas después de la declaración de Mujica, el canciller de Argentina, Héctor Timerman, anunció que él referiría el caso, de nuevo, ala Corte Internacional de Justicia (CIJ) de La Haya para ser sometido al arbitraje internacional.

Desde el 2005 la construcción de la planta de celulosa sobre el Río Uruguay, que marca el límite entre los dos países, ha envenenado las relaciones entre Montevideo y Buenos Aires. Argentina presentó su primer juicio relacionado con el caso en La Haya en el 2006, alegando que la polución de la planta tendría un serio impacto medioambiental. Una resolución de la CIJ en el 2010 efectivamente puso fin a la disputa: aunque criticó a Uruguay por no informar adecuadamente a Argentina de las operaciones de la planta, concedió que no sería apropiado otorgar daños o frenar la operación de la planta. También se estableció un comité conjunto para monitorear el impacto medioambiental de la planta.

Mujica viajó a Buenos Aires el 30 de septiembre, donde inauguró una nuevo ferry entre los dos países con su contraparte argentina, Cristina Fernández. Ambos presidentes se mostraron interesados en enfatizar la unidad durante la visita y evitaron preguntas acerca de la planta de celulosa.

Pero a su retorno a Uruguay, Mujica dijo que él permitiría a UPM incrementar su producción en 100.000 toneladas por año, la mitad de la cantidad que la compañía había requerido, pero por encima del millón de toneladas autorizadas en la decisión de La Haya. “Debemos cuidar el medioambiente, pero yo tengo que cuidar los trabajos de los uruguayos”, Mujica dijo, agregando que la próxima administración decidirá si autorizan la instalación de otra planta en el país.

El anuncio del presidente uruguayo vino después de un fracasado intento de concretar un acuerdo entre los cancilleres de los dos países. En su respuesta a Mujica, Timerman señaló que la incrementada producción vertería “709 litros de desperdicios por segundo en el río, el equivalente a los desperdicios producidos por una ciudad de 240.000 habitantes”.

En una conferencia de prensa acompañado por Sergio Urribarri, el gobernador de Entre Ríos, la provincia argentina enfrente de la planta de celulosa, en Fray Bentos, Timerman acusó al gobierno uruguayo de actuar unilateralmente y de violar los acuerdos firmados por ambos países. Urribarri dijo que Uruguay ponía en riesgo el trabajo de años dedicados a reconstruir la confianza entre los dos países.

Mujica había sugerido que su aprobación para incrementar la producción en la planta dependería de que UPM dé varios pasos para minimizar el impacto medioambiental, tales como reducir la temperatura de las aguas residuales vertidas por la planta en el compartido Río Uruguay, y el nivel de fósforo que contiene.

El 9 de septiembre Timerman dejó en claro que solamente sería posible modificar los actuales niveles de producción si UPM “hace la inversión que se niega a hacer” para reducir la polución del río. Timerman también insistió en que si no lo hace, Argentina sería “inflexible”.

Uruguay firma acuerdo con GDF-Suez que marca un “hito” para planta GNL

El gobierno uruguayo firmó el 1 de octubre un contrato con la firma de energía de Francia, GDF-Suez, otorgándole una concesión de 15 años para construir y operar una planta de re-gasificación de Gas Natural Licuado (GNL), que estará ubicada en Punta de Sayago, en las afueras de la Bahía de Montevideo.

El ministro de industria, Roberto Kreimerman, dijo que el proyecto, el primero de su clase en Uruguay, representa un “hito” para el país. La planta requerirá una inversión total de alrededor de US$1,1mm, y se espera que esté completo para mediados del 2015.

Se espera que la planta procese hasta 10m de metros cúbicos de gas natural comprimido por día durante 20 años, con la posibilidad de expandir la producción diaria a 15m de metros cúbicos.

El jefe ejecutivo (CEO) de GDF-Suez Energy Latin América, Jan Flachet, dijo que el consorcio japonés, Marubeni, se ha unido al proyecto con una participación del 50% y que los socios ahora buscarán asegurar el financiamiento del proyecto. GDF-Suez actualmente está en negociaciones con el Banco Interamericano de Desarrollo (BID) buscando asegurar un crédito de US$400m, y también, gracias a la participación de Marubeni, pedirá un préstamo del Japan Bank for International Cooperation (JBIC), y también de otras instituciones internacionales y multilaterales.

Últimamente ha habido ciertas preocupaciones de que Uruguay no está produciendo suficiente energía para satisfacer la demanda interna, y un reciente incremento en el precio del combustible de casi el 10% ha contribuido a que la inflación se eleve por encima de la meta del banco central de 4% - 6%.

Hinchas argentinos fanáticos del fútbol destruyen centro comercial

Otro brote de violencia de fanáticos del fútbol produjo la destrucción parcial de un centro comercial el 1 de octubre. Alrededor de 50 hinchas fanáticos vandalizaron comercios y negocios en el vecindario portuario de Saavedra el 1 de octubre, antes de un partido entre el Club Atlético Platense y Nueva Chicago.

El presidente de Platense, Pedro Vilariño, trató de distanciar al club de la acción de sus seguidores. “Yo dudo que estas personas que llevaron a cabo este vandalismo estén asociados con nuestra institución. Esta clase de gente se pone un día la camiseta de Platense y al otro día la de otro club”, dijo.

De acuerdo con la ONG, Salvemos al fútbol, más de 70 personas resultaron muertas en incidentes violentos relacionados con el fútbol desde el 2000; tres hasta ahora en esta temporada. Hay creciente evidencia de que la violencia se está volviendo más organizada pues las Barras Bravas, como son conocidos los grupos de fanáticos que apoyan a un club, se han transformado en organizaciones al estilo de las mafias, conduciendo lucrativas operaciones de reventa de entradas, y manteniendo buenos contactos políticos.

Para frenar la violencia, la Asociación del Fútbol Argentino (AFA) ha prohibido que los hinchas de equipos visitantes asistan a los partidos a través del país. La medida se aplica a todas las divisiones del fútbol argentino. Ahora se está probando un sistema de tarjeta de identidad para impedir que hinchas con antecedentes penales ingresen a los estadios. Antes de comprar sus boletos de entrada, los que quieran ingresar deben obtener una tarjeta de identidad con sus datos biométricos y su récord penal.

Hinchas argentinos fanáticos del fútbol destruyen centro comercial

Otro brote de violencia de fanáticos del fútbol produjo la destrucción parcial de un centro comercial el 1 de octubre. Alrededor de 50 hinchas fanáticos vandalizaron comercios y negocios en el vecindario portuario de Saavedra el 1 de octubre, antes de un partido entre el Club Atlético Platense y Nueva Chicago.

El presidente de Platense, Pedro Vilariño, trató de distanciar al club de la acción de sus seguidores. “Yo dudo que estas personas que llevaron a cabo este vandalismo estén asociados con nuestra institución. Esta clase de gente se pone un día la camiseta de Platense y al otro día la de otro club”, dijo.

De acuerdo con la ONG, Salvemos al fútbol, más de 70 personas resultaron muertas en incidentes violentos relacionados con el fútbol desde el 2000; tres hasta ahora en esta temporada. Hay creciente evidencia de que la violencia se está volviendo más organizada pues las Barras Bravas, como son conocidos los grupos de fanáticos que apoyan a un club, se han transformado en organizaciones al estilo de las mafias, conduciendo lucrativas operaciones de reventa de entradas, y manteniendo buenos contactos políticos.

Para frenar la violencia, la Asociación del Fútbol Argentino (AFA) ha prohibido que los hinchas de equipos visitantes asistan a los partidos a través del país. La medida se aplica a todas las divisiones del fútbol argentino. Ahora se está probando un sistema de tarjeta de identidad para impedir que hinchas con antecedentes penales ingresen a los estadios. Antes de comprar sus boletos de entrada, los que quieran ingresar deben obtener una tarjeta de identidad con sus datos biométricos y su récord penal.

• Silencio de la Corte Suprema

La fecha límite del 30 de septiembre para que la Corte Suprema de EU decida escuchar la apelación presentada por Argentina sobre su batalla con los fondos especulativos que rechazan los términos de reestructuración de su deuda, pasó sin que la corte haga mención del caso. Una lista de nuevos casos que la corte acordó atender, publicada antes de su nuevo término, que comienza el 7 de octubre, no incluye la apelación presentada por Argentina. Esto podría significar o que la corte no atenderá el caso o que pedirá a la administración Obama que de su opinión sobre si la disputa merece su atención.

• Nuevo ferry

Los presidentes Mujca y Fernández inauguraron un nuevo servicio de catamarán de alta velocidad entre Buenos Aires y Montevideo. El catamarán fue bautizado Francisco por el nuevo Papa argentino. El nuevo catamarán estará impulsado por potentes motores propulsados por GNL. El catamarán de la compañía binacional, Buquebus, puede transportar hasta 1.000 pasajeros y 150 autos. Iniciará sus viajes desde Buenos Aires a Montevideo el 2 de octubre, trayecto que cubrirá en dos horas y doce minutos.

*** Indian concerns about Chinese influence in Nepal.  The head of India’s SSB paramilitary border force, Arun Chaudhary, raised concerns this week with his Nepalese counterpart about Chinese influence in Nepal.  At a meeting with Nepal Police Inspector General Upendra Kant, Chaudhary raised concerns about Chinese study centres which are spreading fast in Nepal and which are said to be “indulging in anti-India propaganda”.

*** Increase in Israeli West Bank building.  According to Israel’s Central Bureau of Statistics annual housing market survey, Israel started building twice as many houses in the West Bank in 2013 than it did in 2012.  The bureau reported that work was begun on 2,534 new housing units in settlements, compared with 1,133 in 2012 – a 120% rise.  The increase in housing starts in Israel overall was 3.4%.

*** China upsets Hong Kong’s opposition.  The chairman of China’s National People’s Congress, Zhang Dejiang, has said that any leader of Hong Kong must be a patriot, by which he meant he must be a supporter of China’s Communist regime.  He said any leader of Hong Kong “must love China and love Hong Kong”.  He said this was “self-evident and necessary”.  Pro-democracy activists in Hong Kong say that this requirement means that Beijing will have a veto over leadership elections in Hong Kong.

*** Syrian refugees in Jordan.  The Jordanian authorities said on 4 March that the number of Syrian refugees who had now crossed into Jordan since the beginning of the crisis in March 2011 had exceeded 600,000.

*** Warning on political violence in Indonesia.  Indonesia’s National Police chief General Sutarman warned on 4 March about rising political violence ahead of the legislative elections in April.  His warning came after several shooting incidents in Aceh, including one in which a candidate was killed.

Sutarman said: “The motives are political.  Political violence and disturbances to public order have begun to escalate…Intimidation where people are forced to vote in favour of certain candidates or forced not to choose them has already started, particularly in some areas along Java’s southern coast and in Purworejo in Central Java.”  Other areas of concern are Aceh, Papua, and Poso in Central Sulawesi.

- Setback for Panama’s Martinelli as Parlacen denies him immunity.

President Danilo Medina and his predecessor thrice president Leonel Fernández (1996-2000; 2004-2012) are locked in an undeclared internal power struggle within the ruling Partido de la Liberación Dominicana (PLD). Medina has been careful not to announce his intention to seek re-election. But he is so popular there is a move within the PLD to reform the constitution to allow him to stand for immediate re-election in May 2016. Fernández, who wants a fourth term in office, opposes this and has strong support within the party himself. In the face of a weak and disunited opposition, the PLD can afford the luxury of squabbling over its presidential candidate but if it gets too acrimonious it could open the door.

Fernández, who began a nationwide tour last week to rally support, confirmed on 12 March that he would openly seek the PLD’s presidential nomination after opinion polls suggested he was the favourite to win in the second round of presidential elections next year. Fernández said the constitution must be respected. In other words, President Medina should not seek to emulate him in order to prolong his stay in power - Fernández changed the constitution himself to permit non-consecutive re-election. Opinion polls suggest, however, that Medina would not require a second round but would cruise to a first-round victory if he were to run again.

Fernández has been palm-pressing scores of legislators and mayors across the country. He has also met 57 PLD deputies and 18 senators who have openly backed him to run for the presidency in 2016. The latest opinion poll released last week, however, showed that 69% of Dominicans favour modifying the constitution to permit consecutive re-election and 71% would vote for Medina. One of the reasons Medina would perform better than Fernández is because the public perception is that he has honoured his campaign proposals on issues such as education funding and combating illiteracy, while seeking to confront some of the endemic corruption from the Fernández administration that preceded him. Fernández would be much more vulnerable to attack on this front and a united opposition behind a popular candidate could pose a serious threat.

The PLD’s 35-strong political committee agreed on 26 March that it would address the issue of reforming the constitution to allow immediate re-election on 19 April. While Medina is more popular among the public, Fernández has stronger support within the PLD; Fernández is the party president and Medina would have to win over his loyalists in congress for a constitutional reform to prosper.

The opposition has been discounted with the whole political focus on the PLD’s next move. There are moves afoot, however, for two estranged opposition parties to bury their differences ahead of next year’s presidential elections. The majority of congressional deputies representing both the Partido Revolucionario Dominicano (PRD) and the Partido Revolucionario Moderno (PRM), a PRD splinter - 62 out of a total of 77 - recently signed a petition urging the principal leaders in the two parties, Miguel Vargas Maldonado, former president Hipólito Mejía (2000-2004) and Luis Abinader, to seal an electoral pact. The PRD has 43 deputies and the PRM 34 in the 158-seat legislative assembly.

The 62 deputies who signed the petition argued that unity was the only way to defeat the PLD, which has held executive power since 2004. But the deputies also fear that, without unity, they will lose their seats which they have held for an exceptional six years, rather than the customary four, in order to comply with a constitutional reform harmonising the staging of presidential and legislative elections in the country.

Abinader, who has announced his intention to run for president for the PRM, expressed his support for the proposal to “unite all the opposition”, arguing that “unity has to happen not only to win the elections, but to make real changes in the country”. Abinader should be confirmed as the presidential candidate of the PRM, which is led by Mejía, at a party convention on 26 April. On a recent pre-election campaign rally in Puerto Rico, where there is a huge Dominican expatriate community, Abinader promised to prioritise tackling what he described as the rampant corruption and impunity that has prevailed during the PLD’s tenure.

The PRM was formed out of the irreconcilable differences, and leadership tussle, between Mejía and Vargas within the PRD. The splinter group finally broke away in protest at Vargas’s determination to run for president for the PRD in 2016. The PRD released a statement in response to the petition by the deputies ruling out any electoral pact without Vargas as the presidential candidate. Opinion polls suggest Vargas is not the man to take advantage of any potentially damaging infighting between Medina and Fernández supporters in the PLD.

* A bilateral commission of the Dominican Republic and Haiti met on 27 March to try and overcome the recent tension that saw the closure of Dominican consulates in Haiti on 4 March after they were attacked by Haitian protesters demonstrating against xenophobic attacks suffered by their countrymen in the Spanish-speaking half of Hispaniola [WR-15-09]. The Dominican consulates were reopened on 17 March. While the Dominican foreign minister, Andrés Navarro, maintained that relations were “stellar”, his Haitian peer, Pierre Duly Brutus, said there was an urgent need to “calm the waters”.

• Nationality

Speaking at a seminar on human rights, nationality and sovereignty this week former president Leonel Fernández said that the Dominican Republic did not have to abide by “an absurd ruling” by the Inter-American Court of Human Rights last August which called on the country to provide redress for human rights abuses suffered by Dominicans of Haitian descent and Haitians as a result of illegal deportations, denial of identity documents and arbitrary deprivation of nationality [WR-14-45]. It also ruled that a resolution by the Dominican constitutional tribunal (TC) in 2013 effectively leaves an estimated 200,000 Dominicans of Haitian descent stateless, violating “the right to nationality”.  

Between 2006 and 2014 Mexico’s federal authorities seized 308,881 firearms from suspected criminals. The figure emerges from data disclosed under freedom of information legislation to the newspaper El Universal by the federal procurator-general’s office (PGR) and the defence and navy ministries. Of the total, 66% were seized before the beginning of Enrique Peña Nieto’s administration ― indeed, 153,326 (50%) in the last two years of Felipe Calderón (2006-2012)’s term.

Mexico City (DF) accounted for the highest concentration of seizures (30%). Another 32% were accounted jointly by four states that have been among the criminal violence hotspots in the period reviewed: Tamaulipas (10%), Michoacán (10%), Sinaloa (8%) and Guerrero (4%). Another five hotspots (Chihuahua, Sonora, Baja California, Nuevo León and Jalisco) figure, with smaller shares, among the top 10 where most of the firearms were seized. In all, these top 10 accounted for 78% of all the seizures countrywide.

To drive home the magnitude of the problem revealed by the statistics, El Universal notes that the firearms seizures would have sufficed to arm many forces with the strength of Mexico’s federal police (about 45,000). Other comparisons with military forces in Mexico and abroad are less apt, because the data disclosed do not break down the seizures by types of weapons.

The new information published by El Universal adds to that provided by the CESOP (the centre for social studies and public opinion of the federal chamber of deputies). In a report released last December it estimates that the inflow of firearms to Mexico from the US averages about 2,000 a day; it also cites a private estimate that puts the number of unregistered firearms in Mexico in 2011 at 15.5m and ventures that the figure may have increased since then. Data published by the US Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives (ATF) show that the US was probably the main source of slightly more than 45% of the 26,430 illegal firearms seized by the Mexican authorities and sent in 2011-14 to the US for tracing.

The newspaper cites a 2014 United Nations (UN) report on crime prevention [which we have been unable to locate] according to which firearms are used in 70% of homicides in Mexico. The UN Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC)’s Global Study on Homicide 2013 puts the incidence of firearm use in homicides for 2011 in Mexico at 57%, and in the Americas as a whole at 66%. Mexico’s national institute of statistics and geography (INEGI) put the figure for 2013 at 60%.

BRAZIL | Increased aerial links to Europe. On 31 March, European budget airline Norwegian Air UK operated the inaugural flight of its new London-Rio de Janeiro route. Norwegian Air had announced the launch of this new flight route, which will have a frequency of four flights a week and aims to break the monopoly of direct flights between Brazil and the UK, last November.

Brazil’s national tourism institute, Embratur, has celebrated the launch of Norwegian Air’s operations in the country as a success for Brazil’s tourism industry. Embratur expects the new low-cost flight route to contribute to an increase in the number of British and European tourists in Rio de Janeiro. In a statement, Embratur noted that the flight not only improves connections between Brazil and the European continent but will also stimulate competition, generate employment, and increase inflows of foreign currency. Overall, this new flight route is expected to inject some US$29m into the Brazilian economy within a year.

Flight capacity between Europe and Brazil has already been growing. On 29 March, Embratur announced that the number of flights linking Europe to Brazil had increased by 4% in March this year compared to March 2018, with 44 extra flights, while the number of seats had increased by 8% (with a further 25,000 available seats).

Embratur has made the expansion of Brazil’s aerial network a priority. Earlier in March, Virgin Atlantic announced that it will be launching daily flights between London and São Paulo in 2020. This will be the British airline’s first South American destination. Meanwhile, Spanish company Iberia (which operates the most flights between Europe and Latin America) also plans to increase the frequency of its flights to Brazil, according to Embratur.

URUGUAY | Adverse figures. Uruguay’s public account deficit deteriorated again, reaching 4.5% of GDP in the 12 months to February (down by a fifth of a percentage point on January), a figure not seen since June 2003, according to data released by the economy and finance ministry on 29 March. Poverty also increased for the first time in the 14 years since the ruling left-wing Frente Amplio (FA) came to power, according to the national statistics institute (INE), falling by two decimals on 2017 to reach 8.1% in 2018 (indigence remained steady at just 0.1% of the population). In absolute terms this means that 8,000 Uruguayans fell beneath the poverty line in 2018. The figure needs to be put in context. FA governments have brought down poverty from 39.9% of the population since coming to power in 2004. But it adds to the growing public perception that the FA’s cycle could be over and a steady decline setting in.

GDP growth was 1.6% in 2018 down from 2.7% in 2017 (indeed only in 2015 has it been lower since the FA came to power), according to a report released by the central bank (BCU) on 28 March. Again, this figure needs to be seen in the context of Argentina’s sharp contraction, and Brazil’s continuing economic difficulties.

• GDP growth slows

Uruguay’s 1.6% GDP growth in 2018 marked the 16^th consecutive year of positive growth in the country, although it slipped to just 0.6% year-on-year in the fourth quarter of 2018 (and contracted by 0.1% in the fourth quarter compared to the third quarter). The central bank’s report highlighted the positive results of the transport, storage and communications sector (6.8% annual growth) and the primary sector (5.7%). This was counterbalanced by a 2.8% contraction of the construction sector and a 1.3% contraction in the trade, repairs, restaurants and hotels sectors.

Deputy Roberto Chiazzaro of the FA’s Partido Socialista (PS) actually pointed to the adverse economic developments in Argentina to highlight the competent economic stewardship of the FA in difficult times. “Orthodox and neoliberal economic policy [the preferred economic strategy of the Uruguayan opposition] has delivered poverty rates of 32% of the population and indigence has already reached 12% [in Argentina],” Chiazzaro said.

A major breakout from a state prison in Ciudad Juárez, Chihuahua state, on 1 January was due to “a system of corruption”, according to the then-Chihuahua state attorney general (AG) Roberto Fierro Duarte. The incident was shocking in its level of violence, with 19 people killed in the breakout and its aftermath. However, this is not the first time that Mexico has seen prison breaks in which high-ranking members of drug trafficking organisations (DTOs) have been able to coordinate activities from inside their cells, pointing to endemic problems of corruption and inmate self-rule, evident in prisons all over the country.

Armed subjects in armoured vehicles opened fire on guards at the entrance of the Centro de Readaptación Social (Cereso) No. 3 prison, with shooting also taking place inside the prison. The raid appeared to be planned by the local DTO Los Mexicles to free their alleged leader Ernesto Alfredo Piñón de la Cruz ‘El Neto’. The incident was indeed successful in freeing El Neto, who was serving a life sentence for kidnapping and murder, as well as other Los Mexicles members. However, on 5 January, El Neto was reported to have been killed by police.

In the aftermath of the breakout and violence that spilled onto the streets of Ciudad Juárez, Mexico’s defence minister, Luis Cresencio Sandoval, announced that ten VIP cells had been found within the prison, which contained televisions, alcohol, a jacuzzi, and other luxury items. Other confiscated items included mobile phones, firearms, drugs, and cash. It appeared that El Neto was able to manage Los Mexicles using the prison as a base of operations, given the ease with which such objects appeared to be smuggled in and out of the state penitentiary. Indeed, Mexican newspaper Milenio reported that El Neto, as an inmate, was able to coordinate an attack on a rival group inside the prison on 11 August 2022, in which three prisoners were killed and 20 were injured. This then escalated into a wave of violence across Ciudad Juárez, reportedly led by Los Mexicles, which resulted in the deaths of at least nine citizens [SSR-22-10].

The situation found in Cereso No. 3 in Ciudad Juárez, in which prisoners (many of them affiliated with powerful DTOs) effectively control the prison, is not unique. According to a report on the prison system published by Mexico’s national human rights commission (CNDH) in April 2022, 44 out of the 233 state prisons visited showed evidence of inmate self-rule in 2021. Interestingly, the Ciudad Juárez prison was not listed as one of them. In its analysis of this particular prison, the CNDH noted overcrowding, poor living conditions, the presence of illicit activities, and insufficient numbers of security staff and guards.

In its latest survey of the national prison population (ENPOL), published in December 2021, Mexico’s national statistics institute (Inegi) found that 36.7% of respondents said they had witnessed examples of inmate self-rule between July 2020 and July 2021. Of these, 23.5% reported seeing inmates handling keys to prison cells, 16.2% reported disputes between inmates for control of the prison, 14.1% had witnessed prisoners assigning cells to other prisoners, and 13.3% had witnessed inmates performing patrol duties. However, the full extent of inmate self-rule is difficult to ascertain, given the clandestine nature of collusion between guards and prisoners.

The existence of VIP cells and the prevalence of inmate self-rule is strongly linked to prison overcrowding. The CNDH report noted that the capacity of the Ciudad Juárez prison in 2021 was reported to be 3,125, but it held over 3,500 inmates. According to figures from the World Prison Brief (WPB), published by the UK-based Institute for Criminal Policy Research, Mexico’s total prison population as of 30 November 2022 was 230,000, even though the country’s official prison capacity was reported to be 217,286.

Corruption is also a major issue, with often under-resourced and under-paid prison staff known to accept bribes and offer services to inmates in exchange for payment. The Inegi report found that 55% of inmates surveyed in 2021 had paid prison staff to be included on the roll call, whereas 43.2% had paid to have access to electronic devices, 34% to change or to avoid changing cells, 24.3% to have access to a telephone, and 8.4% for protection. Others reported paying for even more basic services such as receiving food, drinking water, and medication.

A history of corruption

In the aftermath of the 1 January attack on the Ciudad Juárez prison, Chihuahua state governor María Eugenia Campos Galván declared that violence in prisons was a “cancer which affects the whole country”, stating it was a consequence of “the corruption and inaction of generations and administrations from the recent past.”

Marches took place across Central America in June to mark Pride Month for the lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and intersex (LGBTI) community, including well-attended events in Costa Rica and El Salvador. However, many activists and human rights groups highlight that considerable work remains to be done in terms of improving LGBTI rights across the region. Violence against individuals from the LGBTI community in the region is still widespread and there has been a lack of progress regarding legislation to promote the rights of the community.

Costa Rica – the outlier?

Widely considered the most progressive country in Central America regarding LGBTI issues, Costa Rica is the only country in the region where same-sex marriage is legal, having legalised it in 2020. Although there is no national law which explicitly prohibits discrimination based on sexual orientation or gender identity, there have been a series of executive orders and workplace polices which prohibit discrimination on this basis as noted by the latest (2022) US State Department human rights report.

The same report highlights that Costa Rica has also seen progressive rulings on adoption by same-sex couples. On 15 June 2022, a family court approved the adoption of a child by a same-sex couple. This was a historic ruling as it established that the requirements for adoption are the same regardless of the sexual orientation of the adopting couple.

There have, however, been concerns in the country for LGBTI rights since the inauguration of the socially conservative President Rodrigo Chaves in May 2022. In one incident during the election campaign, Chaves pledged to evangelical pastors that he would eliminate “gender ideology” from the education system if elected as president. Most recently in July 2023, the media reported that the president’s office had asked ministers and leaders of public institutions not to sign the “San José Declaration 2023”, which forms part of a campaign against LGBTI discrimination in workplaces, led by the Alianza Empresarial para el Desarrollo (AED), a Costa Rican non-profit business organisation.

Steps back elsewhere

In Panama same-sex marriage continues to be prohibited by law. In February 2023, following legal challenges by same-sex couples, a ruling by Panama’s supreme court of justice declared that the country’s prohibition of same-sex marriage is “objectively and reasonably justified” as US-based NGO Human Rights Watch (HRW) highlights in a recent report. A similar court ruling followed in May.

HRW highlights that these rulings defy a landmark 2017 opinion by the Inter-American Court of Human Rights (Corte-IDH) which stated that all rights applicable to the family relationships of heterosexual couples should extend to same-sex ones. Same-sex persons are consequently unable to access the legal benefits that come with marriage, such as being covered under their partner’s health or employment benefits, or applying for immigration and residency for a partner from another country.

In Guatemala in December 2021, a commission in congress unanimously passed a bill that would stigmatise transgender individuals and harm young people’s rights to education. The bill cited a need to protect children and adolescents from “gender identity disorders” to justify measures including banning information about transgender identity in school sex education classes. The bill would also require media outlets to mark programmes with transgender content as not recommended for under-18s. The bill remained pending in congress as of September 2022.

In March 2022, Guatemala’s congress voted down a controversial law that would have prohibited same-sex marriage and implemented stricter sentences for abortion, which is illegal in the country. The bill provoked outcry however and President Alejandro Giammattei said that he would have vetoed it, had it been approved (despite support for it from his conservative Vamos party) [SSR-22-04].

Little meaningful progress on transgender rights

While there have been some signs of movement on transgender rights, there has been little meaningful policy change. In an apparent step forward on 23 February 2022, El Salvador’s supreme court ruled that discrimination on account of gender identity is unconstitutional. The court consequently gave the legislative assembly one year to create an official procedure allowing transgender individuals to change their identity documents to reflect their gender. However, this one-year deadline was not met by the legislative assembly.

In May 2022 Honduras’s President Xiomara Castro committed to implementing a 2021 Corte-IDH ruling which found Honduras responsible for the killing of Vicky Hernández, a transgender woman, during the 2009 military coup. One measure included in the ruling ordered the creation of a straightforward procedure by which trans persons can change their name and gender on official documents. The procedure had not been established as of October 2022 according to HRW.

Across the sub-region, there is a lack of legal recognition of gender identity, despite a Corte-IDH advisory opinion in January 2018, which said that countries should establish “efficient, inexpensive, and straightforward” procedures to allow legal gender self-identification. Costa Rica is the only country that has made concrete progress on this issue after former president Carlos Alvarado (2018-2022) signed a directive and decree in June 2018 ordering government agencies that issue official documents to recognise gender identity based on self-declaration.

Violence

High levels of violence against LGBTI individuals continued to be registered across the sub-region. A February 2023 report on Guatemala by the United Nations (UN) High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) tallies 27 violent deaths of LGBTI individuals in the country in 2022.

Honduran LGBTI rights organisation Cattrachas was cited by the media as saying that 43 LGBTI people were murdered in Honduras in 2022 while a report by the US State Department said that violence against LGBTI individuals in El Salvador in 2022 was widespread. In Nicaragua, there were 43 attacks against LGBTI individuals in the first six months of 2022 according to the US State Department human rights report, one half of which were against transgender women.

Same-sex marriage

Same-sex marriage is legal in Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Cuba, Ecuador, Mexico, and Uruguay in Latin America.

A new government rule, introduced at the beginning of August, requires all transactions worth CUP 5,000 (US$21) or more to be conducted digitally, part of an effort to develop the banking system and give the Partido Comunista de Cuba (PCC) government greater control of monetary policy. However, it has not been well received, with many individuals and small businesses expressing a strong preference for cash.

According to state mouthpiece Granma, in August Prime Minister Manuel Marrero accused business owners of “refusing to allow customers to pay electronically”. His views were echoed by the president of central bank, Banco Central de Cuba (BCC), Joaquín Alonso Vázquez, who said that further public awareness and support was needed to digitise Cuba’s economy. 

The August rule change appears to have had major unintended consequences. Amid a population which for years has put its trust in US dollars first, followed by cash pesos in second place, ‘virtual’ pesos are seen as coming a distant third, being less desirable and therefore having lower value. Many fear ‘virtual’ pesos will remain locked up in hard-to-access bank accounts.

What has emerged, therefore, is another de-facto parallel currency market. According to independent digital media outlet 14ymedio, social media platforms are now being used to trade in dollars with different values offered for cash and virtual pesos. “I sell 5,000 CUP in cash for a digital transfer. Best offer,” 14ymedio cites one Cuban as saying. Another states “I sell 150 dollars for 200 CUP. Payment in cash”.

According to the independent foreign currency website El Toque, at the end of August one cash peso was worth 1.13 virtual pesos. The website was immediately attacked by Granma, which accused it of manipulating prices and being “the voice of everything which serves the counterrevolution”. BCC Vice President Alberto Quiñones denounced “illegal behaviours” including those caused by people “who offer cash for a greater amount by transfer”. These transactions, he said, were a violation of the BCC’s Resolution 111 which establishes that “all channels must be on an equal footing at the time of making the payment.”

The move to a digital peso creates difficulties for Cuba’s privately owned small and medium sized businesses. A café owner on Calle San Lázaro in central Havana told 14ymedio that she is rejecting the virtual peso because “we still have to buy many of the inputs and raw materials in cash”. She noted that agricultural markets selling vegetables, fruits, and grains that she needs for her business still operate in cash pesos. To avoid taking payment in virtual pesos many business owners have been claiming that their card reading devices (which process virtual peso payments via the Transfermóvil debit card) are out of order or temporarily offline. 

Another businesswoman, Yulieta Hernández of Grupo de Construcciones Pilares, a building company that employs a staff of 60, told Reuters news agency she understands there is a shortage of physical cash pesos and a need to adopt banking and virtual pesos but adds “this is our money”: the company often needs quick access to cash to pay for emergencies on job sites. Hernández says that by denying companies quick access to cash the new rules have introduced a kind of “paralysis”. She says people are waiting to see “if a solution is found for the problems the rules have created”.  

Rise in tourism

On 22 September, Cuba’s national statistics institute (ONEI) released new figures which show that the country received 1.67m international tourists in the first eight months of 2023, up 171.6% on the same period in 2022. However, this is still far short of the levels received prior to the coronavirus (Covid-19) pandemic when Cuba was receiving between 4m and 5m tourists per year, making tourism one of the mainstays of the economy. A total of 1.614m tourists visited Cuba in 2022. In May Cuba’s tourism minister, Juan Carlos García, said that the government had the target of 3.5m foreign tourists visiting in 2023; the latest figures suggest that the country is not on course to meet this target.

Oil find positive for troubled energy sector

An onshore oil find has boosted optimism in the energy sector, hit by diesel and petrol shortages and intermittent power cuts. Australian independent Melbana Energy, in partnership with Angolan state oil company Sonangol said it had discovered oil in the Alameda-1 and Alameda-2 wells in Block 9, which tested at rates of 1,903 barrels per day, and which was a “tremendous success,” suggesting long term production development could be in prospect.

Officials at Cuban state oil company Cupet recently said the country has 41 onshore and shallow-water blocks, of which eight are under contract, five are being evaluated, and two are under negotiation.

Companies involved include Canada’s Sherritt International and Petro Australis Energy of Australia.  However, analysts remained cautious about projecting any rapid increase in upstream production. Volumes are small, while development will take a number of years and require successful negotiation of production contracts; many companies fear the Partido Comunista de Cuba (PCC) government may unilaterally seek changes to contract terms.

Suriname is launching the world’s first sovereign carbon credit issuance under rules set up by the 2015 Paris Agreement on climate change. Being first has advantages but it can also throw up risks. Among them is local resistance: environmental and indigenous groups say they have not been properly consulted.

In an exclusive report to Reuters published on 13 September Kevin Conrad, executive director of the non-profit Coalition of Rainforest Nations (CfRN), who is advising the Suriname government, said the planned sale would be the first signal of “whether the Paris Agreement is actually working”.  Suriname is one of the few countries in the world which absorbs more carbon than it emits, with around 93% of national territory covered by rainforests. The scheme is designed to raise money from this fact, selling carbon credits, the proceeds of which will be reinvested in forest protection and sustainable development.

It has taken three years to get to this point. According to a press release issued at the end of August by two private companies involved, ITMO Ltd (based in the US and UK) and BancTrust (a London based investment bank), an initial 1.5m sovereign carbon credits, known as Internationally Transferred Mitigation Outcomes (ITMOs), will be offered for sale, representing the absorption of some 1.5m tonnes (t) of CO2 in 2021. The two firms are handling the sale. Conrad told Reuters that around 30 companies, including asset managers, pension funds, and commodity brokers are considering buying Suriname ITMOs. He did not give a value for how much the sale might generate. 

Private carbon credit trading has recently received some bad press, with allegations of poorly designed schemes, “leakage” between protected and unprotected rainforest areas, as well as corruption and doubts about certification. BancTrust says that this scheme, using United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) certification procedures, will be more trustworthy.

But Suriname-based environmental and indigenous groups complain that they have not been properly consulted. Mongabay, a campaigning environmental website, says indigenous and Afro-descendant communities in Suriname who have protected the rainforest from deforestation caused by mining, agriculture, and logging, have been ignored. Samenwerkingsverband van Tribale volken in Suriname (Collaboration of Tribal Peoples in Suriname, consisting of the Kwinti, Aluku, Matawai, Paamaka, Okanisi and Saamaka, or KAMPOS), which represents Afro-Surinamese communities, and Vereniging Inheemse Dorpshoofden Suriname (VIDS), which is an organisation of village chiefs that represents the interests of indigenous Surinamese, have both said the government has failed to explain how the scheme will work.

The programme includes a “grievance mechanism” to respond to complaints but the communities say its workings are not clear. Mongabay highlights that while the government has said that at least 95% of revenues earned will remain within Suriname, it has reviewed government documents showing that “indigenous and Tribal peoples would receive only 10% of carbon credit revenue, while 40% would go into the national budget and 20%...into the country’s sovereign wealth fund”. KAMPOS president Renate Simson told Mongabay “The fact that the government only advised us what their plans were, after they had put them on paper is something that’s problematic for indigenous and tribal people.”

There is also what some analysts describe as poor “optics” around the sovereign carbon credits launch.  This is because at the same time that it is seeking to monetise and protect its rainforests, Suriname is also pursuing aggressive development of its high-emission offshore oil and gas reserves. It is expected that carbon emissions saved by protecting the rainforests will be tiny compared to those additional ones created by the burning of fossil fuels associated with oil and gas production.

A calculation by Lara Williams of Bloomberg suggests that annual sales of ITMOs could capture 4.8m t of CO2, but that oil and gas output in offshore Block 58 will release nearly eight times more CO2, at 36.5m t.  This does not undermine the case for protecting Suriname’s rainforest, but it may reduce investor enthusiasm.

Security Minister Patricia Bullrich shared a video on social media celebrating the eviction on 9 January of a Mapuche indigenous community from the Los Alerces national park in Chubut province. The eviction of the Mapuche in Los Alerces came after President Javier Milei signed a decree in December which rolled back on previous legal guarantees that offered indigenous peoples protection from being evicted from territory they claim as their ancestral lands.

Milei’s moves to remove protections for indigenous people could be attributed to several ideological and economic considerations. The far-right president has been a staunch opponent of the ‘2030 Agenda’ of sustainable development goals pursued by the United Nations (UN). When he gave a speech at the UN General Assembly in September last year, he criticised the 2030 Agenda’s emphasis on addressing climate change and gender inequality, among other priorities which he considered “socialist”. The UN’s goals also include several objectives related to improving the welfare of indigenous peoples. In November, a UN committee voted on a draft resolution to recognise indigenous peoples’ rights, and Argentina was the only country to vote against it. Furthermore, Milei is seeking to deregulate Argentina’s economy and attract private business and investment, especially in sectors such as mining, fossil fuel exploration, and other extractive industries. This all suggests that Milei would view commitments to upholding indigenous land rights as restrictive regulations that inhibit the economy.

On 9 December Milei signed decree 1083/2024 which overturns a previous decree signed in 2021 that renewed a law passed in 2006 (Law 26160). The law declared a four-year ‘territorial emergency’ in Argentina’s indigenous lands, which suspended legal sentences and other processes that could lead to the eviction of indigenous people from the territories they occupied. On 10 December the Centro de Estudios Legales y Sociales (Cels), a Buenos Aires-based human rights group, released a statement criticising Milei’s decree, but also said the law was always just a “partial” response that left indigenous communities in a precarious legal state. The law had to be repeatedly renewed by decree, since more permanent measures to guarantee protection for indigenous communities were never passed. Cels added that the law’s implementation in recent years has been “lacklustre and erratic”.

According to the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR), even before Milei repealed Law 26160, forced evictions of indigenous communities were being carried out. The IACHR suggested these involved institutional violence, such as an incident in Río Negro province last August that saw local police kill a member of the local Mapuche community.

“For 18 years, they usurped [land] in Argentina with impunity, and usurpation had practically been legalised,” Bullrich said on 9 January as she accompanied federal police units after they evicted the Mapuche people from Los Alerces. “Private property had lost its value. We fought for many years to put an end to Law 26160, and this government has achieved it.” The Mapuche community, known as Lof Paillako, had occupied land in the national park since 2020, claiming that their ancestors had settled on the land before the establishment of the park, but last August a federal judge ruled that they had to leave, since they had occupied the land by force. This was the first indigenous community eviction since Milei’s decree and could be just one of many to come. The decree recognised that there are currently over 250 territorial disputes in Argentina that had been stalled due to the 2006 law.

Park fires

Fires broke out in the Los Alerces national park in mid-January. Chubut’s governor, Ignacio Torres, blamed the fires on the Lof Paillako Mapuche community, who had been evicted from the park the previous week. Speaking to the press, the president of the national parks association, Cristian Larsen, suggested that the community could have had ties to the armed group Resistencia Ancestral Mapuche (RAM), which has been known to carry out attacks in both the Chilean and Argentine sides of the Patagonia geographical region. Argentinian indigenous activist Moira Millán rejected the authorities’ comments as a “perverse plan” to scapegoat the Mapuche people.