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With monthly homicides spiralling to ever-more alarming heights, the government led by President Salvador Sánchez Cerén has presented a bill to the legislative assembly to raise additional tax revenue to finance its public security initiative ‘El Salvador Seguro’. The ruling left-wing Frente Farabundo Martí para la Liberación Nacional (FMLN) is at present alone in supporting the unpopular bill and will need allies for it to pass.

The official homicide figures for August showed that it was by far the bloodiest month on record in El Salvador [RC-15-09]. The fact that there were a total of 911 homicides, the number used to dial an emergency, seemed like a bitter symbol of the country’s descent into a maelstrom of violence. Answering the ‘emergency call’, President Sánchez Cerén announced that his government was sending a 10% tax on telecommunications to the 84-seat unicameral legislative assembly for approval, which would help fund some of the ‘softer’ elements of his government’s ‘El Salvador Seguro’, namely a bill to help reinsert repentant mara gang members into society.

The 10% tax on mobile phone, Internet service and cable bills is very unpopular and, as such, the FMLN cannot rely on support from the centre-right Gran Alianza por la Unidad Nacional (Gana). The technical secretary to the presidency, Roberto Lorenzana, argued that the decision by the telecommunications regulator (Siget) to lower the rates which phone companies can charge by 13% would offset the effects of the new tax and to all intents and purposes transfer the burden of the tax to phone companies rather than the general public. If approved by the Siget board of directors the lower rates would take effect on 1 November this year. “We are certain that the approval of ‘the special contribution for security’ would not have an impact on consumers,” Lorenzana said.

Prevention part of the cure
Meanwhile, Sánchez Cerén announced that he would present another bill to the legislative assembly shortly, namely ‘the law for the prevention, rehabilitation and retirement of gang members’. “It is necessary to invest in youth, provide employment and grants for them to study, improve health services, guarantee cultural programmes, recreation and sport,” Sánchez Cerén said. He added that this bill would be “dead in the water if we don’t have resources”.

Sánchez Cerén said he would be willing to modify the proposal sent to the legislative assembly to establish a tax on telecommunications to finance ‘El Salvador Seguro’. But he was adamant that he would not altogether renounce the creation of some kind of “special contribution… to guarantee the fight against crime”.

“Everyone [criticises] the number of homicides, extortion, the impact of insecurity on the economy, but it is time to act,” Sánchez Cerén said. For his part, the security minister, Benito Lara, said that the next tax would provide in the region of US$140m to finance ‘El Salvador Seguro’, giving priority to municipalities afflicted with the highest levels of violence.

While part of the money raised from the tax on telecommunications would go towards enhancing the security forces, Lara said, it would principally be used for preventive not repressive purposes. Lara did not provide any detail of ‘the law for the prevention, rehabilitation and retirement of gang members’ other than that it would entail “a series of programmes in schools, communities and municipalities”.

Sánchez Cerén’s decision to mention the proposed new law looks like a response to mounting criticism that his government’s response to the mara gang conundrum is one-dimensional: bellicose rather than benevolent. This critical view, aired by the likes of human rights organisations, former mediators of the 2012 mara gang truce and influential international observers, was underpinned by a remarkable interview given by the government’s communications minister, Eugenio Chicas, to El Salvador’s online media, El Faro, which was published on 8 September.

Chicas revealed that the government’s strategy of repression to recover territory dominated by the country’s mara street gangs would last until the end of 2016. “To believe that magically the homicides are going to disappear is not going to happen,” Chicas said. “A confrontation with criminality at this time will generate what is happening: many victims. We regret this but we think that this is the only way and this is our strategy,” he added. Indeed, he said the government would pursue this strategy “very actively for what remains of this year and the whole of next year”.

Chicas made it clear that the position of the Sánchez Cerén administration responded to “social expectation over this problem”; that public opinion approves of the mano dura strategy against the gangs (although not enough, it would seem, to be prepared to fund the government’s public security strategy via a 10% tax on telecommunications that would be absorbed by the phone companies anyway).

When El Faro put it to Chicas that the costs of this strategy were high, with 911 homicides in August alone, the government spokesman responded that “there is still a lot to do”. “The fact that over this period the number of murders increased dramatically does not mean that the problem is not being resolved,” Chicas went on. “We have a very complex structural situation in which the upshot of confronting the problem in a full frontal manner is the results that we have. In the past there has not been the same desire to confront [the problem] with this firmness and energy…We are capturing the criminals, pursuing them and giving no quarter. Is this producing a lot of deaths? Yes, it was to be expected.”

Supreme court back up and firing
El Salvador’s political parties reached an agreement on 24 September over the appointment of five new magistrates to the 15-strong supreme court of justice (CSJ). Two of the magistrates were selected by the 35 deputies representing the main right-wing opposition, Alianza Republicana Nacionalista (Arena), two by the FMLN, with 31 seats, and one by the deputies for smaller parties in the legislative assembly.

The new magistrates will serve for nine years. One-third of the CSJ is overhauled every three years under the constitution. As magistrates can only be appointed with the support of two-thirds of deputies in the assembly, candidates cannot be elected without the backing of both Arena and the FMLN. Five alternates have been filling vacant positions on the CSJ for the last three months because the parties could not reach an agreement over their respective candidates, the main bone of contention being the FMLN’s choice of Jaime Martínez, who Arena maintained was too closely aligned to the left-wing party. The FMLN eventually gave way.

The CSJ has the power to hire and fire judges; suspend lawyers and notaries for legal infractions and establish jurisprudence. Although there have been calls for a more meritocratic and independent CSJ whose magistrates are not beholden to their party political benefactors, the constitutional chamber of the CSJ has appeared untrammelled in recent years, issuing a series of contentious rulings which have incensed both the FMLN and Arena alike. The most recent of these rulings was to block the government’s emission of US$900m of bonds last June while deliberating on a legal challenge to the procedure that led to their approval, which led President Sánchez Cerén to pin the blame for any deterioration in public security in El Salvador on the five magistrates sitting on the chamber.

• FMLN elections

The national council of the Frente Farabundo Martí para la Liberación Nacional (FMLN) has called internal elections for 2,972 leadership positions nationwide on 22 November. The party’s secretary general, national council, national convention, departmental leaderships and local secretaries will be elected. At a national convention on 13 December, the ethics tribunal, appeals and comptroller tribunals, bodies which enforce party discipline, will also be elected by secret vote.

• Gang truce

One of the ironies of the government’s wholehearted endorsement of a mano dura strategy against the mara gangs is that senior members of the cabinet were previously wedded to the idea of the gang truce. None other than the defence minister, David Munguía Payés, when he was public security minister, championed the truce. His successor, Ricardo Perdomo, called for a new truce at the end of the last government in early 2014. The incumbent Vice-President Óscar Ortiz, when he was mayor of Santa Tecla, met gang members to start up negotiations in the so-called ‘municipal sanctuaries”, hot spots to be declared free of violence, a move which the current government believes extended the control of the gangs over territory.

Ecuador’s defence minister, Fernando Cordero, announced on 14 October that the government had unilaterally terminated a contract with the Indian manufacturer Hindustan Aeronautics Limited (HAL) from which it had bought seven light multi-mission ‘Dhruv’ helicopters in recent years. The contract was signed back in August 2008. Between October 2009 and January 2015 four of the seven helicopters crashed under different circumstances, resulting in three deaths.

Cordero announced the cancellation of the contract during a press conference. He also posted a serious of messages on Twitter explaining the government’s decision. He said the government had acted in response to “serious breach of contract by HAL”, which he claimed had charged US$3.95m for insurance payments and fines.

Cordero also claimed on Twitter that two of the ‘Dhruv’ helicopter crashes, which took place in January this year, could be attributed to “mechanical failings”, with a malfunction of the automatic pilot responsible in one case and the lack of power supply to the tail rotor engines in the other. Cordero said the remaining three helicopters would be permanently grounded.

One of the helicopters, which had various special features and had been assigned to transport President Rafael Correa and other officials, crashed in February 2014 in San Roque, Huigra, in the province of Chimborazo. It was flying from Quito to Guayaquil. Correa was not onboard at the time. Three of the four crew members were killed.

It is worth noting that back in February, in the wake of the two most recent crashes, Correa had defended the purchases. Correa said that the two crashes were down to human failings and that it would be “serious” if they were found to be down to mechanical failings. He was responding to local media censure of the ‘Dhruv’ contract as poor business by the government given their safety record in Ecuador.

The total cost of the seven helicopters purchased from HAL was US$45.2m. According to Ecuador’s comptroller general’s office the contract with the company runs until 2018 and to this date Ecuador has only met US$37.2m of the cost.

As the government has now decided to cancel this contract unilaterally, Cordero took every advantage to disparage the quality of the helicopters. Cordero argued that HAL was in breach of contract for failing to provide various spare parts requested by the Ecuadorean armed forces (FAE). He also argued that they lacked a whole array of essential systems, such as tracking and emergency contact systems, which he said had been promised, and collision evasion systems.

The government decided to purchase the ‘Dhruv’ helicopters at a time of mounting diplomatic tension with Colombia. The government was determined to improve security along its shared border after Colombia’s armed forces made a border incursion into the Ecuadorean border province of Sucumbíos in 2008. ‘Raúl Reyes’ (Luis Edgar Devia Silva), a senior leader of the Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia (Farc), was killed in an aerial bombardment of a guerrilla camp in Sucumbíos. The government also bought four Chinese-made radar systems at a total cost of US$80m, which they erected along the shared border.

• HAL responds

The directors of Hindustan Aeronautics Limited (HAL) told the Indian station NDTV that it had not been officially notified by Ecuador of its intention to cancel its ‘Dhruv’ contract. They also said that they had not received details of Ecuador’s defence ministry’s investigations that detected the supposed “mechanical failings” responsible for bringing down two of the helicopters purchased by Ecuador.

Deputy Kenji Fujimori has been suspended for 60 days from Fuerza Popular (FP), the party founded by his father, disgraced former president Alberto Fujimori (1990-2000), and now led by his elder sister and twice-former presidential contender Keiko Fujimori. From his jail cell, Alberto has waded in on Twitter, defending his youngest son.

The FP, which controls congress with 71 of the 130 seats, voted to suspend Kenji from activities for 60 days after he openly criticised the party for its antagonistic approach to the minority government led by President Pedro Pablo Kuczynski, and voiced his support for more cooperation Kuczynski’s fledgling one-year-old administration. Kenji’s ‘indiscipline’ has included abstaining from the recent congressional vote that forced out Kuczynski’s respected finance minister (the fourth Kuczynski cabinet member forced out by the FP-led congress) and later comparing his legislative colleagues to lions in the Roman Colosseum. He has also been pictured with senior Kuczynski officials including the interior minister, Carlos Basombrio (who the FP also has in its sights) and more recently the agriculture minister, declaring himself willing to work for Peru under the hashtag #UnaSolaFuerza. His Twitter account, meanwhile, is an act of cartoonish rebellion, with manga-style animations of Kenji as sword-wielding freedom fighter, as Spiderman, and of him in a hard hat, standing alongside a bridge. There are also videos of him doing karate, while awaiting “the FP disciplinary tribunal”. Subtle it is not, and it is quite easy to see why the FP leadership said that Kenji was “damaging the party’s image”. Party leader and big sister Keiko reacted not with videos or silly cartoons but with decisive action, indicating that no party member was beyond reproach. Yet this very action threatens to further divide the FP, with a letter made public this week indicating that 23 party deputies had pressed Keiko to refrain from meting out “justice between siblings” in such public fashion.

Her father clearly felt the same way. “I'm still asking myself why Kenji was punished. Is it because he’s been building bridges with the government, thinking of Peru?” the elderly Fujimori tweeted. “Is it because he has been fighting for the freedom of his father?” “Is it because he extended a hand to a former president?” (in reference to Keiko’s reported ‘care package’ gesture to the recently-jailed Ollanta Humala [2011-2015], who is being held in the same prison as his father). “Is that un-fraternal and disloyal? Kenji has acted honestly with his conscience. I think others are the ones who are un-fraternal and disloyal!”

This is the first time that Alberto Fujimori has openly sided with Kenji in the not-so-subtle power battle between the two of his four offspring that followed him into politics. The last time Fujimori tweeted was on 25 May, when he congratulated Keiko for her 42^nd birthday (a few days earlier, on 19 May, Kenji had turned 37, and he too was congratulated).

Kenji, always a controversial character, is now widely considered to be interested in running for president in 2021 following Keiko’s narrow defeats in the past two elections (2011 and 2016). His popularity has risen in recent months, even as the FP’s has fallen (Keiko’s has remained stable). For her part, Keiko responded on Twitter, telling her father that she loved him and declaring him innocent. However, she was clear that rules must be obeyed, telling the FP bench that “norms must be adhered to” and calling on deputies to show unity and discipline in order to establish a party “beyond surnames”. One critical response to that tweet was to declare that the FP “no longer represents Fujimorismo”. The daily El Comercio and others began to speculate as to an FP break-up, albeit the consensus was that this is unlikely.

• For President Kuczynski, who recently hosted Keiko Fujimori in the presidential palace in a bid to repair the strained executive-congressional relations, the internal difficulties in the FP could allow him some breathing space as he seeks to recover from a difficult first year. However, latest polls also signal bad news for Kuczynski, with his public support also down again.

The results of the latest auction of oil and gas blocks (known as Phase 4, Round 2) were announced on 31 January and quickly hailed by officials as one of the most successful to date. Earlier, the authorities had said that awarding seven or more blocks out of the 29 on offer would qualify as a success. In the event 19 blocks, representing total investment commitments of up to US$93bn, were allocated to bidders.

Deputy minister for hydrocarbons Aldo Flores Quiroga said that if oil and gas was found in all the awarded blocks, they could represent 1.5m barrels per day worth of oil production by 2032, and 4bn cubic feet a day of gas. These deepwater blocks will take time to come on-stream – covering the Área Perdido, Cordilleras Mexicanas and Cuenca Salina basins, the first oil is not likely to be produced until 2028.

Five companies applied for blocks on their own, while a total of 14 did so grouped together in consortia. The results were seen as a big success for Royal Dutch Shell, which acquired an interest in a total of nine blocks. Other successful companies included Malaysia-based PC Casrigali with six blocks, and Spanish-owned Repsol Exploración México, with stakes in three blocks. Pemex, the state-owned Mexican oil company won four blocks, two outright and two as part of consortia.

As part of the 35-to-50 year exploration and production (E&P) contracts that have been awarded in Phase 4, the Mexican government will receive US$525m in up-front payments. Officials estimate that if successful, drilling the new wells and providing the associated infrastructure and maintenance services could generate 230,000 jobs in the first 15 years. Finance ministry officials said that the E&P contracts signed meant that 64.7% of production profits would go to the state, rising to 67.2% in the event of higher-than-expected production or international prices. This was greater than the 59% achieved in the only other deepwater auction in Mexico, held as part of Round 1.

These auction results were significant in various ways. They suggest that the decade-long decline in Mexican oil production may be reversed – this was one of the aims of the oil and gas reforms introduced by the current government, which ended the state oil monopoly and again opened the industry up to foreign investment. Just after the reform in 2014, and during the worst of the international oil price slump in 2015 and 2016, there were fears that international oil companies would be unwilling to commit to the high investment costs required to develop deepwater deposits. However, against a background of moderate price recovery, these worries now seem to have been dispelled. Nor have companies been deterred by the chances that Andrés Manuel López Obrador, a nationalist on oil policy, will win this year’s presidential election (López Obrador remains the front runner). Shortly after the auction results were revealed, López Obrador repeated an earlier pledge to review the contracts if he is elected.

Honduran President Juan Orlando Hernández made a concerted effort this week to undercut support for protesting medical workers and teachers. Hernández unveiled a new agricultural development programme (PDAH) that he claimed would benefit thousands of agricultural producers, reduce high levels of rural poverty, enhance food security, and revitalise the country’s agricultural sector. The launch of the programme coincides with the publication of a report by the NGO Amnesty International (AI) accusing the Hernández administration of “excessive use of force” against demonstrators.

The Plataforma Por la Defensa de la Salud y Educación, an umbrella protest group comprising some 60,000 teachers and 10,000 doctors, announced a brief pause on 7 July in the three-month-long protests in the midst of a dengue epidemic in Honduras which has claimed dozens of lives, mainly children. Medical workers blame the government for negligence in dealing with the dengue emergency. They promised, however, that the protests would go on.

AI claimed in its report, released on 5 July, that “the use of military forces to control demonstrations across the country has had a deeply concerning toll on human rights”, accusing President Hernández of “a desperate attempt to silence the voices demanding his resignation”. The following day, on 6 July, the Honduran bishops’ conference released a statement accusing the government of mishandling the crisis and contravening the constitution “as often as it likes”. It also savaged the Honduran congress as having become “a theatre featuring awful actors, turning their backs on the people”.

The Hernández administration, meanwhile, is working to discourage other sectors from rallying behind the medical workers and teachers. Hernández announced an investment of HL100m (US$4.1m) in the PDAH to benefit some 60,000 agricultural producers. He said it would be coordinated with the armed forces. If Hernández was endeavouring to improve the image of the armed forces, widely accused of employing repressive tactics against protesters, he undermined his own efforts by saying that the military would be involved because “they have an obligation to ensure public order in the country”.

• Agricultural development programme

With approximately 46% of the Honduran population living in the countryside, the main objective of the PDAH is to reduce rural poverty. According to President Hernández, the PDAH aims to empower farmers to help reduce Honduras’s dependence on food imports and to become more self-sufficient. Hernández recognised that rural workers need land and financing, but also highlighted the importance of securing “internal and external markets, education, training, and road, port, and airport infrastructure” to become the largest exporter to the rest of Central America and the Caribbean.

Given the increasing antagonism between the Cuban and US governments, it appears nonsensical that Cuba has chosen this moment to permit some retailers to start selling goods denominated in US dollars. After all, the Cuban government has long resisted use of the US currency.

However, the move is driven by an attempt to improve the government’s chronic shortage of foreign exchange. The move will help improve domestic supply chains but will also complicate the already-complex local currency situation, making currency unification even trickier. 

In mid-October, Cuba’s Vice President Salvador Valdés Mesa stated that 77 stores nationwide would be permitted to start selling appliances and other consumer goods denominated in US dollars from the end of October. The selected products would include those most in demand, including motorbikes, televisions, air conditioning units, and car parts.

Although the announcement implies changes to just a small part of Cuba’s retailing sector, the policy shift has a broader significance. Cuba has long resisted use of the US dollar, with foreigners charged an extra 10% tax over other currencies when they exchange US dollars for local currency in Cuba. 

Government hopes to improve both supply and demand

The shift in policy stance is explained by two factors. First, the Cuban authorities are seeking to crack down on the burgeoning informal trade from Cubans who travel overseas, purchase consumer goods that are in short supply locally, before returning to Cuba to sell the goods on at a profit.

Second, the government is trying to improve local supply given that it lacks foreign exchange to lift import purchases. It hopes that by allowing retailers to sell goods in US dollars, that they will be able to import larger quantities, in turn creating a virtuous circle in which both demand and supply improves. 

Not all Cubans will benefit from the changes, as only people with access to foreign exchange will have the funds to purchase these items. This can happen either through a hard-currency bank account, financed by overseas remittances, or by purchasing a hard-currency bank card from a local bureau de change. However, the latter option is likely to be prohibitively costly for most Cubans, since the market exchange rate makes US dollars extremely expensive for most workers. 

Currency unification remains a lofty goal

The government has not made any reference to how these developments will impact on its long-held goal of unifying the different currencies in circulation (the Cuban peso, used by workers in the domestic economy, and the convertible peso, used by tourists and Cubans working in export-related sectors). However, it is highly likely that by adding in an additional dynamic to the already-complex foreign exchange system, the government will not be planning currency unification anytime soon.

Outright dollarisation of the economy remains highly unlikely, but conversely it will be difficult to simplify the currency system given liquidity shortages and weak reserves.

Interim president Jeanine Áñez’s sudden move to permit trials with five genetically modified seed varieties has stirred passionate debates over food sovereignty and the environment in Bolivia. It has exacerbated the country’s deep political divisions by inciting further accusations that the interim government is overstepping its mandate.

Decree 4232, issued on 9 May but scarcely publicised by the government, will “expedite procedures” for the import and planting of new varieties of corn, wheat, cotton, sugar cane, and soy. The move was celebrated by industry associations that had for years lobbied for the liberalisation of genetically modified organism (GMO) laws, most prominently the Asociación de Productores de Oleaginosas y Trigo de Bolivia (Anapo).

Anapo claims that legalising GMOs will improve crop yields and resistance to climate change, as well as boosting the agriculture sector, to help diversify an economy that currently leans heavily on exports of metals and natural gas. Environmental groups and opponents of the interim government, meanwhile, say that these trials - which run counter to state policy on GMOs under former president Evo Morales (2006-2019) - contravene Bolivia’s constitution. Articles relating to food sovereignty and security explicitly rule out biotechnology.

Bolivia has previously enforced other national regulations on biotechnology, and ratified international conventions against GMOs. NGOs such as the Movimiento Agroecológico Boliviano (MAB) say GM varieties of foreign staple crops could replace those that have sustained Bolivia for thousands of years. However, new seed banks enabled by a stronger biotechnology sector could protect farming communities threatened by droughts and adverse climactic conditions.

Añez is banking on a more productive and efficient agriculture sector in order to weather the economic shock of the coronavirus (Covid-19) pandemic, aiming to build on the US$700m in agricultural export revenues reported in 2019. The introduction of GMOs to boost food production would represent a deviation from the norm in the Andean region - Peru, Ecuador, and Venezuela have all legislated against such technology, with Colombia the only exception.

However, Bolivia would be following agricultural powerhouses Brazil and Argentina in allowing the technology. In these countries, fierce battles have raged over the soil and water degradation caused by extensive monocultures and agrochemical use (notoriously glyphosate) on varieties of soy resistant to the potentially harmful pesticide. As a result, agricultural frontiers have expanded into forest biomes, and conservationists fear the same could happen in Bolivia. 

Morales took to Twitter to decry the GMO decree, claiming it represented the latest “lethal action” against the Bolivian people, following the violence and hunger he accuses the interim government of inflicting upon them. Yet some have accused the exiled former leader of hypocrisy, saying his earlier policies paved the way for this latest development.

Rural development minister, Eliane Capobianco, told the press on 14 May that Bolivia had experimented with GMO crops under former president Carlos Mesa (2003-2005), and even under Morales in 2015. On those occasions, trials took place with ‘Roundup Ready’ soy, a variety of the legume resistant to the US-based agrochemical company’s widely used brand of glyphosate.

Capobianco also noted that despite the war of words over the GMO decree, it still requires approval from the Comité Nacional de Bioseguridad (CNB). She added that no new rules will come into force “from one day to the next”, since the results of these scientific trials could take up to two years to arrive.

The United Nations (UN) Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) in Honduras and Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) have both condemned the recent killing of Pablo Isabel Hernández, a local indigenous Lenca leader, activist and human rights defender (HRD). His murder has underlined a key priority for the new Honduran government – addressing violence targeting HRDs.

According to an OHCHR statement dated 10 January, Hernández was killed the previous day in San Marcos de Caiquín municipality, Lempira department, when unknown men shot him in the back while he was going to church. The director of a local radio station Radio Comunitaria Tenán, Hernández was president of the network of agroecologists of the Cacique Lempira Biosphere and a sponsor of a local indigenous university, Universidad Indígena Lenca y de los Pueblos, among other things.

The OHCHR statement highlighted that he had served as director of the radio station for five years which he had used as a platform to question the local San Marcos de Caiquín government. He also retransmitted the programme “Voces contra el olvido” (Voices against forgetting) made by local human rights group Comité de Detenidos Desaparecidos en Honduras (Cofadeh). Hernández had publicly reiterated concerns regarding the risks he faced along with threats to close the community media outlet.

In its statement, OHCHR highlighted that Hernández is the first HRD to be murdered in Honduras this year. It registered violent incidents against at least 208 HRDs and 93 journalists in 2021, of which ten were murders. Meanwhile the latest (September 2021) annual report from international NGO Global Witness registered 17 environmental HRDs killed in Honduras in 2020, up from 14 in 2019 and four in 2018.

Global witness

A 10 December 2021 blog post by Global Witness underlines that Honduras remains one of the most dangerous countries for environmental defenders, with nearly 140 murdered since 2012 – and many more being criminalised simply for standing up for their rights to their land and a healthy environment.

Guapinol defenders

On 14 January the high-profile trial began of eight environmental defenders, Porfirio Sorto Cedillo, José Avelino Cedillo, Orbin Naún Hernández, Kevin Alejandro Romero, Arnold Javier Alemán, Ever Alexander Cedillo, Daniel Marquez, and Jeremías Martínez Díaz.

Since 1 September 2019, the eight HRDs have been in pre-trial detention for charges related due to their work in defence of the San Pedro and Guapinol rivers. They were placed in pre-trial detention for opposing an iron oxide mine inside a protected national park in Tocoa, a municipality in the northern Colón department. The HRDs come from the community of Guapinol on the Guapinol River, which is polluted by the mine, and belong to the Comité Municipal de Defensa de los Bienes Comunes y Públicos (CMDBCP), a network of local groups dedicated to land and environmental defence.

The case continues to attract international attention. In November 2021, UN human rights experts including Mary Lawlor, UN Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights defenders, urged Honduras, elected to the UN Human Rights Council the previous month, to release the eight defendants in line with recommendations made by another UN body, the UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention (WGAD) in February 2021.

In April 2020 members of the European Parliament sent a letter to then President Juan Orlando Hernández (2014-2022) which said that this pre-trial detention has “no sound legal justification” and constitutes “judicial harassment of the defenders in the absence of clear incriminating evidence against them”.

In a bulletin released on 27 March, Mexico’s association of private security companies (AMESP), an industry association, announced that Mexico’s private security sector was the largest in Latin America. This comes as the use of private security firms, particularly in facilities run by government-affiliated entities, is under scrutiny following a deadly fire at a national migration institute (INM) centre at the end of March, where a private firm had been contracted to provide security services.

According to the AMESP, Mexico’s private security sector is responsible for over a million jobs and 1.3% of GDP. However, of the 4,400 private military and security companies currently operating in Mexico, the AMESP says only 2,700 hold a government licence.

The fact that only around two-thirds of private security firms in Mexico are licensed by the government illustrates one of the major issues facing the sector: a lack of legislation and government or industry oversight. The AMESP highlighted that in Mexico, an overly complex registration system involving various different fiscal authorities discourages companies from obtaining an official government licence, driving up costs and leading to informal security agreements that cannot be regulated.

Ciudad Juárez fire

One private security company operating in Mexico, Grupo de Seguridad Privada Camsa SA de CV, has seen itself embroiled in a major criminal investigation in recent weeks. The investigation concerns a fire that broke out at an INM migration centre in Ciudad Juárez, Chihuahua state, on 27 March. The fire resulted in the deaths of 40 migrants and injured 25 more. Serious questions have since been raised around the conduct of staff at the centre, at which the INM had contracted Camsa to provide security services.

On 30 March, authorities announced that six arrest warrants had been issued in relation to the fire, five of which had been executed. Three of these were for INM officials, and one for the person that allegedly started the fire. The remaining two warrants – one of which has not yet been executed – were issued against private security guards working for Camsa.

When announcing the warrants, federal public security minister Rosa Icela Rodríguez said that several irregularities had been found in relation to the company, which only had four security personnel registered in its system despite the INM having contracted 503 personnel in facilities located across 23 states. She also said the company did not have authorisation for personnel to carry weapons. Therefore, she said there would be an administrative process to remove Camsa’s license and impose a fine, in parallel to the criminal investigation that the federal attorney general’s office (FGR) was leading into “the probable responsibility” of the company in the tragic incident. Rodríguez added that the government had asked the INM to withdraw its contract with Camsa, and that federal forces would take over security operations at the facilities at which Camsa operated.

On 11 April, the FGR issued details of its criminal investigation. In its statement, the FGR stated that Camsa, along with the INM, had failed to comply with mandatory training, control, and supervision obligations at the centre. It also raised questions over the contract signed between Camsa and the INM, which it said had been granted by direct award, omitting public bidding obligations and costing twice as much as what is paid in the public sector for the same services.

The FGR also noted that Camsa had not registered the majority of its staff with the national social security institute (IMSS). According to the FGR, this “series of illegal and omissive actions” were “fundamental elements” that resulted in the tragedy.

The INM is also under much scrutiny as a result of the fire. The FGR pointed out that this was not a one-off occurrence, referring to a similar incident in March 2020 at an INM facility in Tenosique, a town in Tabasco state, which left one dead and 14 injured. After this, Mexico’s national human rights commission (CNDH) issued recommendations on security measures that must be followed at such centres. According to the FGR, this advice was not taken on board. Furthermore, the FGR said that reports from Mexico’s federal audit office (ASF) in recent years pointed to continued faults and omissions by the INM.

The FGR has launched criminal proceedings against two of the INM’s top brass – the head of the institute, Francisco Garduño Yáñez, and the director general of migration control and verification, Antonio Molina, as well as four other migration officials including Salvador González, head of the INM in Chihuahua state. President Andrés Manuel López Obrador has refrained from saying whether calls for Garduño to resign and the INM to be dismantled will be heeded.

The incident has also prompted much criticism of migration practices and policy in Mexico, particularly that of immigration detention – the practice of holding migrants in custody while their immigration statuses are resolved. This is an administrative process, rather than a criminal procedure, meaning that migration officials rather than police officers make the detentions. In the aftermath of the fire, Felipe González Morales, the United Nations special rapporteur on the human rights of migrants, tweeted that “the extensive use of migration detention leads to tragedies like this one”, adding that, in accordance with international law, the practice “should be the exception not the rule”.

Others have pointed to pressure from the US as a contributing factor to the tragedy, leading to record numbers of migrants becoming trapped in border towns such as Ciudad Juárez. US-based rights lobby group Washington Office on Latin America (Wola) stated that the tragedy showed the “worst possible consequences of current US border expulsion policies and Mexican enforcement policies, both of which are focused on detention and deterrence”.

Regional growth

According to the AMESP, since 2000, the private security sector in Latin America as a whole has grown by 60%, due to the increased demand for private security as the economy and infrastructure of the region develops, alongside continuing high violent crime rates in many countries.

Garduño

On 25 April, Mexico’s federal attorney general’s office (FGR) presented formal charges against INM head Francisco Garduño for the unlawful exercise of public service in relation to the fire. The same charges were also announced against the INM’s director general of migration control and verification, Antonio Molina. According to the federal penal code, this crime carries a prison sentence of between two and seven years, as well as a ban on holding public office for the same time period.

“A milestone in bilateral ties.” This was the response by Cuba’s deputy prime minister and foreign trade & investment minister, Ricardo Cabrisas, to a string of deals recently signed by Cuba and Russia during the visit to Havana of a high-level delegation from Moscow. The visit comes less than a month after Russia’s foreign minister Sergei Lavrov made a stopover in Cuba as part of a tour of Moscow’s allies in the region [WR-23-17]. Offering a potential lifeline to Cuba, amid ever worsening economic indicators, the prospect of closer cooperation between the two longtime political allies is unlikely to be welcomed by Washington, which has expanded sanctions on Russia over its invasion of Ukraine. It could further complicate US-Cuba bilateral relations which remain tense but have seen movement over efforts to address illegal migration [WR-23-02]. 

A two-day Cuba-Russia economic forum kicked off in Havana on 17 May, attended by representatives from over 150 Russian and Cuban firms. Boris Titov, the head of the Russian delegation of the Cuban-Russian Business Committee, told Russian state news agency Tass that Russian investors are ready to develop around 30 new production projects in Cuba. He said that before the forum “our portfolio contained 11 investment projects, while after the forum it already had around 30 [projects]”, identifying the assembly of Russia-produced cars as one possibility.

The two delegations also took part in an intergovernmental commission on trade, economic, scientific and technical cooperation, which produced a document outlining a string of further agreements. Signed by Cabrisas and Russia’s deputy prime minister, Dmitry Chernyshenko, the document establishes collaboration in areas such as the exchange of information and mutual assistance within the unified system of tariff preferences under the Eurasian Economic Union (EAEU, comprising Russia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, and Armenia).

The document also covers cooperation in the construction and agriculture sectors and other measures to dynamise Cuba’s crisis-hit sugar industry [WR-23-09]. These include plans for a joint venture to overhaul Cuba’s ‘Uruguay’ sugar mill in Sancti Spíritus province, in the hope of eventually exporting up to 150,000 tonnes of sugar per year, according to another Russian news outlet, Sputnik, which also highlights Russian plans to provide Havana with financial support and technical know-how to restart operations at a steel mill, which would help kickstart construction on the island.

Chernyshenko, who said that bilateral trade had tripled to US$452m in 2022 and increased nine-fold to US$137.6m in the first four months of 2023 compared with the same period in 2022, also identified tourism as a further area of cooperation. He expressed hopes that the number of Russian tourists visiting Cuba would eventually rise to 500,000 per year, up from the previous record of 178,000, while on 19 May Russia’s flagship air carrier Aeroflot announced that it would resume regular flights to Cuba on 1 July. Chernyshenko also told reporters that Russia is coordinating the structure of activity of Russian banks in Cuba, recalling that in March, various banks in Havana began to accept Russian mir cards, a local payment card.

The prospect of additional economic cooperation comes as President Miguel Díaz-Canel was recently forced again to acknowledge Cuba’s economic difficulties, which stem from various factors, including the coronavirus (Covid-19) pandemic, longstanding US sanctions, and devastation wreaked by Hurricane Ian last September, and which have intensified over a fuel shortage crisis [WR-23-17]. In a press conference on 18 May, Díaz-Canel recognised that the energy situation – in particular the issue of fuel shortages – has “had an important impact on the country’s economy and on the population”.

With inflation running at 46% annually in April, on independent media reports, and food & non-alcoholic drinks registering increases of 70.67%, Díaz-Canel also alluded to the “complex situation regarding food imports and price increases” and acknowledged that there is “much dissatisfaction”.

Protests

On 6 May, Cubans staged anti-government protests in Caimanera municipality, Guantánamo province. Videos posted on social media, many shared by human rights groups and by dissidents abroad, showed security forces clashing with dozens of protesters in the municipality, which is close to the US naval base at Guantánamo, while UK-based global internet monitoring watchdog Netblocks also reported that internet outages occurred.

State-run digital media CubaDebate sought to downplay the protests, dismissing them in a 7 May report as “unusual” and claiming that they were started by a small group of drunk people. The unrest points to increasing desperation and comes despite an intensification of the government crackdown on dissent which has ensued since the unprecedented nationwide protests in July 2021.

Indeed, a 2 May report by the Observatorio Cubano de Conflictos (OCC), an initiative of the US-based NGO Foundation for Human Rights in Cuba (FHRC), registered 370 public protests in April (including expressions of discontent on social media or physical protests). According to OCC, this is an increase of 25.94% on the number of protests registered in April 2022 but a slight decline on the 372 protests recorded in March.

Other agreements?

The Miami Herald reported that Titov also said that Cuba had offered Russian businesses the right to make use of Cuban land for 30-year terms, which it notes is “an unusual concession” to foreign firms in Cuba. The Herald cites Sputnik and Reuters as saying that the concessions also include duty-free imports of agricultural machinery and the right to repatriate profits in foreign currency, which the Cuban government currently restricts.

Cuba remains on US terrorism blacklist

On 23 May the US administration led by President Joe Biden announced that Cuba would remain on the State Department’s blacklist of State Sponsors of Terrorism, which also features Iran, North Korea, Venezuela, and Syria. The Díaz-Canel government has long demanded Cuba’s removal from the list, to which it was readded in 2021 under Biden’s predecessor, Donald Trump (2017-2021). The designation subjects Cuba to sanctions that penalise persons and countries engaging in certain trade with Cuba and restricts US foreign assistance, among other things.

Mexico’s influential Coordinadora Nacional de Trabajadores de la Educación (CNTE) teachers’ union is preparing to start indefinite strike action, despite the fact that President Claudia Sheinbaum withdrew a controversial reform to the federal public workers’ social security institute (ISSSTE) in March.

The proposal was first outlined by ISSSTE chief, Martí Batres, at Sheinbaum’s morning press conference on 14 January, before the bill was sent to congress on 7 February. Batres’ proposal contained 25 points covering four main areas – healthcare; housing; integrated social security; and financial sustainability and the fight against corruption – which he said would strengthen workers’ rights.

In terms of healthcare, the reform aimed to improve the services provided to ISSSTE members, including hiring more staff and boosting investment in equipment and infrastructure, as well as reducing waiting times and improving the availability of medicines. The reform also aimed to improve access to housing for the lowest paid workers and restore the capacity of the ISSSTE’s housing fund, FOVISSSTE, to build houses, as well as facilitating access to personal loans.

It also contained a number of proposed changes to the pension system, with some positive measures such as guaranteeing widower pensions and the revision of the lowest paying pension schemes, but others which sparked opposition. For example, it would have allowed officials to lower or cancel payments from high-paying pensions which were found to have exceeded the legal limit allowed under the scheme, as well as reforming the contribution scheme to make the highest earners pay more into the ISSSTE than lower earners. Although seemingly a progressive measure, teachers claimed that the proposed changes to pension contributions would violate their labour rights due to the possibility of pension payments being reduced or cancelled. 

Gustavo Leal Fernández, a researcher in public health policy at the Mexico City (CDMX) public research university Universidad Autónoma Metropolitana (UAM) Xochimilco, believes the CNTE was angered by the last point in Batres’ proposed reform, which would have imposed extra charges on higher earners.   In an article published on 25 March in local weekly, Proceso, Leal Fernández said this would have been unconstitutional. He also said there were concerns about the speed with which the bill was sent to congress, which meant there was no consultation with those affected.

The CNTE spoke out against the reform and announced demonstrations in CDMX from 19-21 March. Although Sheinbaum withdrew the bill following talks with the CNTE on 18 March, the protests took place anyway. Demonstrators took to the streets across the Mexican capital, disrupting traffic in the city centre and blocking access points to the city’s international airport in a show of strength.

Wider aims

While Sheinbaum had hoped that withdrawing the bill would head off the protests, the CNTE maintained its combative position in pursuit of its wider aims. Its key demand is the repeal of the 2007 education law, which brought about significant changes in the working conditions of teachers. Another major demand is the return to using years of service to determine retirement age, meaning female teachers could retire after 28 years of service and their male counterparts after 30, no matter their age. Teachers are also calling for the elimination of private pension fund administrators (Administradoras de Fondos para el Retiro, Afores) and a return to state management of pension funds, as well as a change in the way that pension contributions are calculated, which would end the use of Unidades de Medida y Actualización (UMA), a reference unit which is updated each year on 1 February and currently stands at a daily rate of M$113.14 (US$5.46), in favour of using the minimum wage of M$278.80 per day.

According to Leal Fernández, the CNTE believes its concerns were not addressed by the previous government of Andrés Manuel López Obrador (2018-2024) and it is now pressuring Sheinbaum to pay what it sees as a historic debt to the teachers by striking down the 2007 reform. Sheinbaum has admitted that the reform had a negative impact on workers’ rights, but she has also said that the government doesn’t have the money for the extra spending that rolling back the reform would require.

In a further attempt to de-escalate the situation, the president issued a decree freezing the retirement age for teachers at 56 for women and 58 for men on 2 April. Nonetheless the CNTE rejected the measure, claiming that it doesn’t address its concerns over the 2007 reform, and said that it would start preparing for a national strike. Sheinbaum has emphasised that she remains open to dialogue and is scheduled to meet with union representatives on 8 May. However, finding a resolution will not be easy as the CNTE appears to be crystalising its position around striking down the 2007 reform, which it labelled “criminal” in a statement published on 5 April.

Far from placating the union, Sheinbaum’s concessions have seemingly emboldened the CNTE to step up its campaign. On 11 April the union announced it would start national strike action on 15 May. In a press conference, union representatives stated they would no longer meet with Sheinbaum on 8 May as previously planned. The CNTE strike action will be coordinated with 62 other labour unions and social organisations, with a joint statement underlining a desire to unify workers from across the public and private sectors in “a national front with a reciprocal solidarity that allows us to represent the demands of the working class.”

Sheinbaum looks to be on a collision course with the increasingly militant CNTE. Indefinite strike action will frustrate the parents of those children who are missing out on their education, as will the hassle or expense of finding alternative childcare arrangements. Further protests like those seen from 19-21 March could also have significant economic costs, particularly as the CNTE has shown that it is willing to target key infrastructure such as airports. While there could be a temptation to clear protesters in an attempt to limit any economic damage, Sheinbaum would then run the risk of alienating an important part of her base by repressing a protest by workers fighting against a reform introduced during the “neoliberal period” against which the political project of the ruling Movimiento Regeneración Nacional (Morena) so often defines itself.

Walmart announces US$6bn investment

On 27 March, US retail giant Walmart’s Mexican subsidiary, Walmart de México y Centroamérica (Walmex), announced that it would invest over US$6bn in Mexico in 2025. The investment, which is approximately triple the company’s spending last year, will be spent on new store openings as well as construction work on two distribution centres, one in the Bajío region of west-central Mexico and the other in Tlaxcala state, Walmex said. CEO Ignacio Caride announced the plans during President Claudia Sheinbaum’s morning press conference, adding that the moves would create 5,500 direct jobs.

Walmex, which runs Walmart, Sam’s Club, and Bodega Aurrera shops in Mexico, is one of the largest private employers in the country. According to Caride, the company currently has more than 3,200 shops in almost 700 municipalities across Mexico’s 32 states.

Bullfighting has been the subject of two key votes in separate state congresses in recent weeks. On 2 April legislators in Michoacán state voted to ban the practice, becoming the sixth of Mexico’s 32 states (including the capital city) to have prohibited bullfighting. This came shortly after a vote in the Mexico City (CDMX) congress on 18 March which banned traditional bullfighting, permitting instead a non-violent form. The rulings reflect a shift in perception among the public regarding bullfighting, which has been practiced in Mexico since the 1500s, while the CDMX ruling demonstrates an attempt to protect animal rights and also safeguard livelihoods attached to the bullfighting industry.

Michoacán’s state congress voted by 19 in favour to nine against to approve a reform to the animal rights, welfare, and protection law banning the practice of bullfighting in the state. The reform initiative was presented by Giulianna Bugarini, a deputy for the federally ruling Movimiento Regeneración Nacional (Morena). Bugarini stated that the majority of Mexicans do not approve of bullfighting and that the practice violates federal regulations. She noted that bullfighting had already been banned in Sonora state in 2013, followed by Guerrero in 2014, Coahuila in 2015, Quintana Roo in 2019, and Sinaloa in 2022, as well as in several municipalities in Veracruz, Nayarit, and Michoacán itself. Bugarini added that the initiative did not seek to attack cultural traditions, but rather “transform them to be compatible with the principles of respect and care for animals”.

This last point formed the focus of a reform approved by the CDMX congress on 18 March. The initiative, which amended the animal protection and wellbeing law, banned traditional bullfighting in the capital and replaced it with a version ‘free from violence’. In a rare show of cross-party consensus, the approval was near unanimous with just one deputy voting against the reform. The initiative was conceived by legislators as a happy medium – protecting animal rights while not jeopardising jobs in the bullfighting industry as an outright ban would do.

New rules

The new legislation explicitly forbids the wounding or killing of any animals participating in the bullfight, both during and after the event. The various sharp objects traditionally at the bullfighter’s disposal have all been prohibited, while the bull’s horns must also be padded to limit the risk to the bullfighters, who are left only with their iconic capes – the ‘capote’ and ‘muleta’ – with which to incite the bull. Furthermore, the total duration of fights has now been limited to 15 minutes per bull, down from the customary 20 minutes, with a maximum of six bulls per event. Once concluded, the bull is to be returned to the cattle ranch. Fines have also been introduced in case of violations.

Throughout the process, those behind the new legislation have stressed their commitment not only to animal welfare, but also to the workers whose livelihoods depend on the bullfighting industry. In a video celebrating the passage of the reform, CDMX mayor Clara Brugada stated it complied with the constitutional duty to protect animals while also conserving Plaza México, the city’s 41,000-capacity bullring, as a major generator of jobs and economic activity.

Jesús Sesma, the leader of Morena ally Partido Verde Ecologista de México (PVEM) in CDMX and another vocal backer of the reform, has also argued that the new measures will not have a negative impact on the bullfighting industry. In an interview with Mexican newspaper Expansión Política, published on 19 March, Sesma said the bullfighting industry generates around M$141.5m (US$7.2m) a year in CDMX through the breeding of fighting bulls, transportation, ticket sales, food and drinks sales, and sponsorship, among other things. He argued that the elimination of violence in bullfighting would not impact many of these jobs, saying some 98% of employment in the sector would be maintained.

However, representatives of the bullfighting industry are not so sure, with key venues like the Plaza México, industry groups, and bullfighter associations all publicly condemning the new legislation as a fatal blow to the industry and vowing to get it overturned in the courts. These groups accuse the government of failing to engage in dialogue with the industry before proposing the reform and state the new measures will kill demand for bullfighting and, ultimately, for fighting bulls. As Raúl Pérez Johnston, the head of the legal committee at Tauromaquia Mexicana, a bullfighting industry association, said to CNN México on 18 March: “It would be like changing the ball in football for something else, like a rugby ball. In the end, it wouldn’t be the same show.”

This is not the first time that a ban on bullfighting has caused a stir in the capital. In 2022 a judge ordered the suspension of bullfighting in the Plaza México in response to a legal appeal (‘amparo’) filed by a human rights organisation. Arena officials challenged the ruling and in December 2023 the supreme court (SCJN) overturned the judge’s decision, paving the way for bullfights to return to the arena. In January 2024 a different judge imposed a new ban on bullfighting in the arena, in response to a petition from animal rights groups. Lawyers working for Plaza México immediately filed an appeal and days later the ban was lifted.

The bullfighting industry has indicated it also intends to file legal challenges to the reform passed by the state congress, although it will likely be more difficult to reverse. However, both the ban on bullfighting in Michoacán and introduction of a non-violent version in CDMX seem to reflect a shift in public opinion regarding bullfighting. According to a poll published by local pollster Enkoll on 31 March, 72% of Mexicans are opposed to traditional bullfighting, whilst 52% believe it should only continue provided that anti-violence regulations are in place. The poll also showed that 66% of respondents approved of the proposal to ban traditional bullfights in CDMX and replace them with a non-violent form. While the new legislation appears to align with public opinion and to cross party divides, it remains to be seen whether the new format will prove successful, or whether it will spell the death knell for the bullfighting industry in Mexico’s capital.

Bullfighting industry

According to figures from Mexico’s association of fighting bull breeders, Asociación Nacional de Criadores de Toros de Lidia, the industry generates 80,000 direct and 145,000 indirect jobs on a national level. Furthermore, Mexican bullfighting lobby group Tauromaquia Mexicana puts the tax generated from the industry payable to the Mexican government at M$816.9m (US$41.6m) per year.

Over three years into President Gustavo Petro’s four-year term, hopes for a breakthrough in his flagship ‘total peace’ initiative have been all but extinguished. This was made brutally clear on 21 August when the southwestern city of Cali suffered the worst attack in a departmental capital since 2019. This came hours after a police helicopter was downed over Antioquia department. Authorities have blamed both attacks on the Estado Mayor Central (EMC), an alliance of dissident units from the Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia (Farc) guerrilla group.

Described by local media as this decade’s worst day of guerrilla violence, the attacks of 21 August left 20 people dead and over 70 injured. The downing of the police helicopter came first, taking place over Amalfi municipality in the north-western department of Antioquia. The aircraft was hit by a drone, causing it to crash in a mountainous area and killing 13 of its crew, which had been carrying out coca eradication work. Some of the deaths occurred hours after the crash, while survivors were stranded at the crash site awaiting rescue. President Petro and the attorney general’s office blamed the EMC’s 36^th Front for the attack.

A few hours later, two bombs were detonated outside the Marco Fidel Suárez air force academy in Cali, the capital of Valle del Cauca department. The blasts left seven people dead and over 70 injured, according to the mayor’s office. This was the worst attack in a major urban centre since a 2019 suicide bombing by the Ejército de Liberación Nacional (ELN) guerrilla group killed 22 people at a police academy in Bogotá. For the second time in a matter of hours, the EMC was blamed for a mass-casualty attack – this time its ‘Jaime Martínez’ unit, which is one of the main drivers of violence in Colombia’s southwest.

Despite allegedly both being committed by the EMC, the two attacks were not necessarily coordinated. The EMC is a loose grouping of dissident units that is riven with internal divisions, as was evidenced when its fracturing in July 2024 spawned a splinter group, the Estado Mayor de los Bloques (EMB). EMC units operate with a high degree of autonomy and, whilst the Cali bombing was clearly planned, the decision to shoot down the police helicopter may have been made spontaneously.

Nevertheless, the attacks compounded a sense that Colombia is sliding back towards serious insecurity. This year began with a major offensive by the ELN in the Catatumbo region of Norte de Santander department, in the north-east, sparking fears that the internal conflict was reigniting on multiple fronts [SSR-25-02]. Since then, a presidential aspirant and senator, Miguel Uribe Turbay, has been assassinated [SSR-25-07], peace negotiations with various armed groups have remained suspended, and on 15 September the US government announced that it was decertifying Colombia as a counter-narcotics ally due to rampant growth in coca cultivation (see the next edition, or our sister publication the Latin American Weekly Report, for more information on the decertification and its impact).

This was clearly not the outcome that Petro envisaged in August 2022 when he embarked on his ‘total peace’ plan, which aimed to create a domino effect of peace accords resulting from simultaneous negotiations with armed groups. That plan lies in tatters, with the Comuneros del Sur, a small breakaway faction of the ELN, the only group to have demobilised. With polls indicating mounting public concern over insecurity, the momentum is likely to be with security hardliners in next year’s general elections.

Terrorist designations

President Petro responded to the bombing in Cali by announcing that he would declare the EMC, as well as a separate dissident Farc grouping, Segunda Marquetalia, and the Clan del Golfo drug trafficking organisation, as terrorist groups. “What happened in Cali is an act that spreads panic through the civilian population…it’s terrorism,” Petro said.

The right-wing Partido Liberal (PL) of former president Jair Bolsonaro (2019-2023) had been planning to form an electoral alliance with Ciro Gomes, of the centre-right Partido da Social Democracia Brasileira (PSDB), in the north-eastern state of Ceará. However, on 30 November Bolsonaro’s wife, Michelle Bolsonaro, publicly discredited the potential alliance, and Bolsonaro’s sons criticised their stepmother for her comments. The spat highlighted tensions within the Bolsonaro family and the ‘Bolsonarismo’ movement, which has not yet chosen a new torchbearer to rally behind in next year’s presidential race.

The former first lady, who is currently the leader of the PL’s women’s wing, was in Fortaleza, the capital of Ceará state, on 30 November to attend an event to launch the gubernatorial pre-candidacy of Senator Eduardo Girão, of the Partido Novo, a right-wing party allied with the PL. At the event, Michelle Bolsonaro expressed support for Girão to run for the governorship of Ceará and criticised other members of the PL who were considering backing the possible gubernatorial bid of the PSDB’s Gomes. “Making an alliance with a man who is against the greatest leader of the right, that won’t do,” Michelle said at the event. Before joining the PSDB in October this year, Gomes was a member of the centre-left Partido Democrático Trabalhista (PDT) and was a staunch opponent of Bolsonaro.

After her speech, Bolsonaro’s eldest son, Senator Flávio Bolsonaro, said that Michelle had overstepped and said that his father had supported the decision for the PL to ally with Gomes in Ceará. His second son, Rio de Janeiro city councillor Carlos Bolsonaro, echoed his brother’s concerns and argued that the family needs to be united and respect the will of their father. The third son, federal deputy Eduardo Bolsonaro, described his stepmother’s comments as “unfair and disrespectful”. On 2 December the PL reportedly suspended its talks for a potential local alliance with the PSDB until the party can resolve the divergences between its leading members.

Michelle Bolsonaro’s vocal criticisms of proposed plans by the PL to ally with centrists reflects a point of tension that is not limited to Ceará. Michelle appears to be seeking to maintain the hardcore far-right populist stance of the Bolsonarismo movement, while other PL members are willing to be more pragmatic and work with centrist and moderate conservative allies.

Michelle political potential

The former First Lady Michelle Bolsonaro’s comments also come amid media speculation over her own political career. Some political pundits have suggested that she could be a good vice-presidential candidate to São Paulo’s governor Tarcísio de Freitas, a Bolsonaro ally who is affiliated with the conservative Republicanos party and is regarded as a potential presidential candidate capable of uniting Brazil’s centre-right and far-right spaces. There has also been speculation that Michelle could run for a senate seat for the Distrito Federal (DF), the administrative region of Brasília.

BRASIL | Tombini pronostica un crecimiento de $% para el 2013. El presidente del banco central de Brasil, Alexander Tombini, dijo el 23 de octubre, que la economía de Brasil exhibirá una tasa anual de crecimiento de 4% para la segunda mitad de este año y para todo el año próximo.

La economía brasileña, la más grande de América Latina y fuerza económica conductora del Cono Sur ha estado mostrando cifras de crecimiento menos impresionantes este año, en tanto sus niveles de exportación de materias primas han si afectados por la crisis económica global que a su vez ha producido cierta incertidumbre entre los inversionistas locales.

En verdad, en meses recientes el sector privado de Brasil, y las organizaciones internacionales como el Fondo Monetario Internacional (FMI) han hecho una sustancial revisión a la baja de sus pronósticos de crecimiento para la economía este año, y el pronóstico consensuado de crecimiento para fin de año para la economía brasileña ahora está en 1,5%. Mientras, los pronósticos para el 2013 han permanecido más estables y, en general, en línea con las predicciones de Tombini, estas llevan la advertencia que si no existen signos de que la crisis económica global está cediendo, estos pronósticos también pueden ser rebajados.

Aún así, Tombini dijo a líderes empresariales en una reunión en São Paulo que aunque él cree que la declinación económica global será prolongada, la economía de Brasil aún está “relativamente cerrada” y, como tal, más dependiente de lo que ocurre en su mercado interno. Tombini explicó que mientras el hecho que el escenario internacional estaba afectando a las exportaciones de Brasil y el crecimiento general, no podía ser ignorado, la economía interna aún estaba mostrando bajos niveles de desempleo, altos niveles de creación de empleos, incrementos en los salarios y la expansión del crédito –todo lo cual sugiere que esto aún está yendo as través de un periodo expansionista.

Además, Tombini agregó que los efectos totales de las medidas adoptadas por el banco central continúan estimulando el crecimiento, tales como la reducción de las tasas de interés y el alivio en los requerimientos de reservas de los bancos, “aún no se habían sentido”. De acuerdo con Tombini, como estas medidas comenzaron a prender más, ellas promoverán crecientes niveles de inversión pública y privada en el país, que no solamente alimentará más crecimiento, sino también ayudarán a elevar la competitividad de la economía brasileña.

The Chilean economy has shown that it is incredibly resilient, posting better-than-expected economic growth in the past couple of years (of 6% year-on-year on average) in spite of a major earthquake and tsunami in 2010 and wildfires in 2011/2012 which, coupled with the widespread social unrest that afflicted Chile last year, would have severely hindered most economies. Yet Chile has been humming along, on the back of a dynamic domestic market and a stable business environment. However, there are continuing concerns about the challenge posed by Chile’s chronically low levels of domestic energy production.

On 27 September Chile’s national energy commission (CNE) released its preliminary report on energy sector node prices for the second half of 2012.

The node price report is released twice a year by the CNE. It contains official estimates of the market prices for fuel and energy in coming months, which determines the marginal cost of electricity production in Chile. According to the latest report, the marginal cost of electricity production for Chile’s central interconnected grid (SIC), the country’s main energy distribution system, is set to increase 24.9% by May 2013. In turn, the SIC’s marginal costs determine the levels of electricity tariffs that consumers, and more importantly businesses, have to pay.

According to the CNE, the low levels of rainfall observed in late 2011 and early 2012, which impacted hydroelectric production, along with higher fossil fuel prices, will result in a sharp increase in electricity costs moving into 2013, with average costs rising to US$167 per Megawatt (/MW), up from US$118/MW.

This will result in an increase in the price on the local energy spot market to US$101.7/MW, from US$81.38/MW.  Local firms often resort to the spot market to meet their electricity demand.

Thus business operating costs are also bound to increase, in particular in the electricity intensive mining and manufacturing sectors. The CNE’s projections are based on the assumed fossil fuel prices of US$94 per tonne of coal; US$7.6 per 1m British Thermal Units of liquefied natural gas; and an average oil price of US$100 per barrel.

If the CNE’s projections were not worrying enough, local energy sector analysts also point out that the CNE’s forecasts are often “idealistic” and that the SIC’s marginal costs are already quickly approaching US$170 per MW.  As one analyst, María Isabel González, explained, “The CNE sometimes bases its forecasts on optimistic views that don’t always pan out”. González noted for example that rainfall levels this year have again been much lower than projected, with a deficit in all reservoirs. She added that the CNE assumes that that all energy production projects will meet their expected construction deadlines without any problems; and that there will no unexpected shocks on local or global fuel markets.

Gonzalez’s warnings resonated on 7 November, when British Gas (BG) told its Chilean energy partner, GNL Chile, a conglomerate grouping three of the country’s main energy providers, Endesa Chile, Enap and Metrogas, that it would have to reduce its supply of liquefied natural gas to GNL by 40% next year, amid low production in BG’s production plants in Egypt.

GNL singed a collective US$940m 21-year gas provision contract with BG in 2007 in an effort to reduce its dependence on unreliable gas exports from Argentina. Enap, the state-owned oil firm, has already said that BG’s proposed reduction is “unacceptable”, demanding full compliance with the contract. Emphasising that gas provision is crucial to Chile’s energy needs; Enap said it would seek to defend its rights in the courts if BG failed to honour its contract.

The situation has caused a lot of concern in Chile, with users bracing for the possibility of even higher energy prices. Furthermore, the central bank’s latest growth figures, released on 5 November, suggested that the creeping energy prices are already having an impact on economic activity. According to the bank, year-on-year growth in September was 4.6%, the lowest so date this year, amid lower industrial production

• El Salto substation upgrade

On 13 November Chilectra, Endesa Chile’s electricity business subsidiary, announced the completion of an upgrade to the El Salto electricity substation, Chile’s largest, which supplies power to Santiago’s northern area. Chilectra said that following a US$11m investment , the potential installed capacity at El Salto is now 800 Mega Volt-Amperes, which will allow Chilectra to supply power to some 4m users in the Santiago area, over half of the metropolitan area’s total population of over 7m. Energy Minister Jorge Bunster praised Chilectra for “providing a forward response” to energy needs.

El presidente de Uruguay, José Mujica, sostuvo una reunión a puertas cerradas con su par de Brasil, Dilma Rousseff en Brasília, el 10 de noviembre, poco antes de volar a Caracas para reunirse con el Presidente de Venezuela, Nicolás Maduro, dos días después. El Mercado Común del Sur (Mercosur) estaba al tope de la agenda: la completa re-incorporación de Paraguay en el bloque; las prolongadas conversaciones de libre comercio con la Unión Europea (UE); y el aplazamiento de la cumbre del 17 de diciembre en Caracas hasta fines de enero, has que la Presidenta de Argentina, Cristina Fernández, aún está convaleciente y no retornará a sus tareas hasta el 18 de noviembre.

Ni Mujica ni Rousseff ofrecieron detalles sobre la sustancia de las conversaciones en Brasília, pero el pro-secretario de la presidencia uruguaya, Diego Cánepa, dijo un día antes que las conversaciones con la UE tuvieron un lugar prominente. Cánepa dijo que Uruguay, Brasil y Paraguay, todos tienen listas sus propuestas de tarifas y productos para presentar a la UE, pero que Argentina “está viviendo una realidad diferente”.

Los dos presidentes casi con certeza, también discutieron acerca de Paraguay. El 25 de octubre, Mujica recibió al presidente de Paraguay, Horacio Cartes, en Montevideo, donde Mujica anunció que Paraguay representará al Mercosur en la próxima ronda de conversaciones con la UE. Esto fue hábil diplomacia de parte de Mujica. Con esto simultáneamente envió un mensaje a Asunción de que Paraguay aún es considerado una parte integral del Mercosur, y a Bruselas, la cual ha respetado la constitucionalidad de la remoción del poder del ex presidente Fernando Lugo (2008-2012) en junio del 2012 (lo que condujo a la suspensión de Paraguay del Mercosur y la consecuente adhesión de Venezuela) y que ha reconocido que las conversaciones de bloque a bloque no podrían continuar sin Paraguay.

Es probable que la cuestión de Paraguay también haya sido tocada por Mujica con Maduro en Caracas, ya que la incorporación de Venezuela en el bloque es el principal escollo para el retorno de Paraguay al bloque. Esta fue la primera visita de Mujica a Venezuela desde que Maduro asumió el poder el 19 de abril. Maduro dio la bienvenida a Mujica como “un hermano y un maestro”, y después de que ambos intercambiaran lugares comunes acerca de la consolidación del Mercosur, Maduro esbozó un gran esquema para que esta abarque el Caribe, alegando que Mercosur solamente podría fortalecerse si se expandía. Considerando el fracaso en profundizar el Mercosur, ampliarlo es quizá inevitable (se espera que Bolivia se convierta en miembro pleno en el 2014) aunque agrupamientos más grandes no exactamente se han encontrado con éxito sin precedentes en América Latina.

Bordaberry competirá por la presidencia

Unas 6.000 personas se reunieron en el local deportivo, Palacio Peñarol, en Montevideo el 10 de noviembre para ver al senador Pedro Bordaberry lanzar su candidatura presidencial por el opositor Partido Colorado (PC; Colorados) para competir en las elecciones generales de octubre del 2014. Bordaberry fue derrotado por Mujica en las últimas elecciones del 2009 y casi ciertamente enfrentará al ex presidente Tabaré Vázquez (2005-2010) en el 2014. Ambos deberán pasar por elecciones primarias en junio próximo: Vázquez se enfrentara a la senadora Constanza Moreira, quien al parecer está más interesada en usar la contienda primaria para reclamar una puesto en un futuro gabinete de Vázquez (o incluso ser su compañera de fórmula) que en tratar de ganar; Bordaberry necesitará vencer al senador José Amorín Batlle, a quien él derrotó confortablemente en las elecciones primarias previas en junio del 2009, por más de 50 puntos porcentuales.

Bordaberry enfrenta un formidable desafío si es que quiere negarle a Vázquez y al gobernante Frente Amplio (FA) otro periodo de gobierno, aunque su objetivo primario será también terminar frente al eventual candidato del Partido Nacional (PN; Blancos) para competir en una segunda ronda, donde él esperara ganar el apoyo de la mayoría de los partidarios del PN. En una entrevista con el diario nacional El Observador el 12 de noviembre, Bordaberry acusó al FA de estar obsesionado con cuestiones partidarias, tales como la anulación de la ley de amnistía (la Ley de Caducidad) en vez de las cuestiones nacionales, particularmente la seguridad.

• Seguridad

Pedro Bordaberry está conduciendo una gira llamada ‘100 barrios, 100 pueblos’ en Montevideo, para reunir ideas y sugerencias para elaborar un manifiesto que aborde las principales preocupaciones del público. La inseguridad está al tope de la lista. Hubo 289 asesinatos en Uruguay en el 2012. Esto representa un masivo salto del 45% sobre el 2011, y significa que la tasa de homicidios en Uruguay creció a 8,71 por cada 100.000 habitantes. Bordaberry ha buscado capitalizar sobre el humor del público encabezando la recolección de firmas para celebrar un plebiscito al mismo tiempo que las elecciones del próximo año sobre si debe reducirse la edad de sentencia de 18 a 16 años para delitos tales como violación y homicidio. Las encuestas sugieren que esto sería exitoso.

Ubicada entre la autopista de la Avenida Brasil por el oeste, y la Linha Vermelha por el este, el Complexo do Maré se encuentra entre las dos carreteras principales para entrar y salir de la ciudad de Rio de Janeiro. El ingreso o la salida del aeropuerto internacional de Galeão, exige pasar por el extendido complejo de favelas, con sus 144.000 residentes. Como tal, permanece en una ubicación estratégica que el gobierno del estado prometió pacificar hace ya mucho tiempo. A inicios de esta semana, el gobierno inició este proceso, reforzando la fuerza de policía local con personal de las fuerzas armadas federales.

La decisión de ocupar el Complexo do Maré siguió a una reunión entre la Presidenta Dilma Rousseff y el gobernador del estado de Rio, Sergio Cabral. Cabral viajó a Brasília la semana pasada a fin de pedir asistencia federal ante la estela de un resurgimiento de la violencia contra un número de Unidades de Pacificación Policial (UPP). Durante el curso de la noche del 20 de marzo, cuatro UPPs fueron atacadas por bandas criminales en Manguinhos, Arará/Mandela, Camarista Méier, y Complexo do Alemão.

La UPP del Complexo de Manguinhos sufrió el daño más severo durante los ataques del 20 de marzo. Dos vehículos de la UPP y cinco bases de apoyo fueron quemados, y tres oficiales de la policía militar recibieron disparos, incluido el comandante de la UPP.

“Los grupos del crimen organizado están usando estos cobardes ataques para tratar […] de desestabilizar la presencia policial en estas comunidades, creando pánico y malestar en las comunidades y causando víctimas entre los militares y la policía civil”, dijo Cabral en una conferencia de prensa después de reunirse con la Presidenta Rousseff. “Nosotros no tenemos problema en pedir apoyo de las fuerzas federales. El Estado debe mostrar su fuerza, su unidad, y su capacidad para triunfar sobre el crimen organizado”.

Cabral agregó que la tasa de homicidios en las áreas pacificadas ha caído más del 65% desde que llegaron las UPPs, y que es crucial que el programa sea sostenido. “Los criminales quieren que esta política fracase”, dijo Cabral. “Pero la mayor parte de la sociedad quiere que esta política sea exitosa y que se convierta en una política de todo el gobierno”.

Después de a la reunión con Rousseff, todas las UPPs de la ciudad han recibido refuerzos, y la policía militar ha comenzó la ocupación el fin de semana pasado. El personal de las fuerza está compuesto de tropas de las unidades civiles, militares y de la policía federal –y las fuerzas armadas (ejército, armada, y fuerza aérea) han sido desplegadas en las favelas por tiempo indefinido.

Desde la instalación en el 2008 de la primera UPP, en Santa Marta, 11 oficiales de policía de las UPPs han sido muertos, incluyendo a cuatro en los dos últimos meses. Las acciones contra las UPPs se han incrementado en intensidad desde comienzos de febrero, cuando el soldado, Alda Rafael Castillo, fue muerto a tiros frente a una UPP en Parque Proletariado.

Hasta la fecha, 36 áreas en favelas de Rio de Janeiro han sido pacificadas, con más de 9.000 policías patrullando vecindarios donde viven 1,5m personas. El éxito inicial en desalojar a las bandas criminales fue aplaudido, pero las operaciones de la policía han sido criticadas por el hecho de que el delito solamente ha sido desplazado a otras favelas.

Se estimada que 600.000 fanáticos del fútbol llegarán a Brasil para la Copa Mundial de la Fifa en junio. Siete partidos serán jugados en Rio de Janeiro, incluyendo la final el 13 de julio, en el legendario estadio Maracaná ubicado a pocos kilómetros de la favela Manguinhos.

Admiral Carmen Meléndez, the defence minister since July 2013 when she became the first woman to hold the post, has shifted across to the interior and justice ministry, after President Nicolás Maduro removed Army General Miguel Rodríguez Torres on 23 October. Meléndez, a powerful figure believed to be the ‘pulse’ of the military in the Maduro government, has been replaced at the defence ministry by General Vladimiro Padrino López, the powerful head of the armed forces’ strategic command. In the past 18 months the Venezuelan military has consolidated an unprecedented grip on the national government, while it is also in firm control of key state governorships in the country since regional elections a year ago.

There are some suggestions that Maduro’s latest moves - which also involved the removal of the entire high command in the Cuerpo de Investigaciones Científicas Penales y Criminales (CICPC), the investigative arm of the national police - were an effort to placate the pro-government armed militia groups known as ‘collectives’ (‘colectivos’) after a murky incident on 7 October in which a well-known Caracas collective leader, José Odreman, was killed in a shootout with CICPC officers.

In a video clip recorded during an eight-hour standoff and hostage situation with the CICPC, Odreman said he would hold Rodríguez responsible for whatever happened to him. After his death, Odreman’s ‘5 de Marzo’ collective demanded that Rodríguez resign by 23 October, warning of negative consequences otherwise. There have been suggestions of links between the Odreman/CICPC incident and the murder, not long before, of Robert Serra, a prominent young deputy for the ruling Partido Socialista Unido de Venezuela (PSUV) - the rumour being that Serra, a criminologist, was looking into police corruption. Both cases remain so shrouded in secrecy, however, that it is impossible to know.

The ‘5 de Marzo’ had planned a rally at the attorney general’s office on 23 October to push for Rodríguez to be removed. It was called off before Maduro made his announcement, suggesting the government had done a deal with the collectives. Oddly, Maduro did not say Rodríguez had been sacked, but that he was taking a two-week holiday from his post, before moving on to other duties.

The colectivos see themselves as legitimate civilian defenders of the Bolivarian Revolution, but are criticised by critics including the Venezuelan opposition as a bunch of armed thugs given complete impunity. Observers are divided as to whether the colectivos won this particular battle against CICPC/Rodríguez-led efforts to rein them in, or whether a problem resides with the CICPC itself (as Odreman and others from the PSUV base, notably including the journalist José Vicente Rangel, have hinted). Whatever the truth, the Venezuelan military is pulling many of the strings in the situation, and may gradually seek to assert, on behalf of the civilian state, a monopoly on the use of force in the country.

• Police reform?

As interior and justice minister, Admiral Meléndez automatically becomes head of the general council of the police (Congepol), established in 2008 under an organic law of the police, which was meant to launch a wholesale reform of policing in Venezuela but has delivered precious few results on the ground. Congepol is tasked with “helping to define, plan and coordinate public policies on policing” (see sidebar).

• Police reform

The eight-member general council of the police (Congepol) was given permanent status in January 2012; it meets every 15 days and the interior minister can call emergency sessions. Congepol comprises the minister as president, along with a representative of state governors, mayors, the public ombudsman and the attorney general’s office, plus three policing experts.

ECUADOR | GDP forecast slashed for 2015. Admitting that the economy “is decelerating” and “growing at a lower rate than we’re used to”, Ecuador’s central bank (BCE) has slashed its 2015 real annual GDP forecast to just 1.9%, from the original 4.1%, as a near 50% fall in oil export earnings has left the economy stuttering.

With oil-revenue-fuelled public spending rising exponentially under the left-wing government led by President Rafael Correa, to account for a massive 44% of GDP in 2014, the sudden drop-off in income has impacted throughout the economy.

Announcing the revised GDP forecast, which is now based on an average oil price of US$45 per barrel (/b), from US$79.7/b previously, Mateo Villalba, the BCE’s general manager, focused on the positive, noting that inflation in the dollarised economy would be low this year. In 2014 Ecuador registered real GDP growth of 3.8% and inflation of 3.7%.

The government has taken a string of measures in an effort to shore up its financial position, starting with an emergency tax package in November 2014 and followed thereafter by the imposition of global ‘balance of payments safeguards’ in March. It has also placed US$3.5bn in high-yielding international bonds since January, strongly suggestive of fiscal strains.
Chinese lending of some US$4bn, announced to great fanfare by President Correa in January, seems to be trickling through only very slowly, and in such small amounts as to not make much difference (while much of the lending is in any case tied to existing infrastructure projects).

The Quito government’s latest measures – new inheritance and capital gains tax measures – have provoked fairly sizeable public protests in recent days and much criticism by the disparate political opposition, which seizes on any and every opportunity to land a blow on Correa and what it describes as his micro-managing and autocratic tendencies.

With Correa out of the country to attend the EU-Celac summit in Brussels, and with tensions rising, Vice-President Jorge Glass called a meeting on 10 June with the cabinet and legislators of the ruling Alianza País (AP) to analyse the situation. The outcome was predictable; the AP accused the opposition of trying to destabilise the country and called for counter demonstrations in Quito and elsewhere, which will not do much to ease tensions.

• Polarisation in Ecuador

Chants of ‘Fuera Correa’ by anti-government protestors in Ecuador were met with retorts of ‘Uh, ah, Correa no se va’ by his supporters, signalling the increasing political polarisation in the country. This has been intensified by the congressional moves to lift the ban on re-election ahead of the 2017 general election, which may allow President Correa to stand for a fourth consecutive term.