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A constitutional amendment proposal (PEC) submitted to the lower chamber of congress proposes changing Brazil from a presidential republic to a semi-presidential system. The former president of the lower chamber, Arthur Lira (2021-2025), was a vocal supporter of the proposed reform to dilute the authority of the executive by creating a new prime ministerial role. Lira’s successor, Hugo Motta, has also expressed support for the idea of semi-presidentialism. Now that the PEC has been submitted to be reviewed by lawmakers, the legislation could be another tool for sabre-rattling that congress can use to intimidate the government if tensions erupt between the executive and legislative branches.

During Lira’s tenure as house president, the chamber of deputies formed a working group in 2022 to discuss potential reforms towards semi-presidentialism. The final report produced by the group included a draft legislative decree to call for a referendum to ask citizens the following question: ‘Should Brazil adopt a semi-presidential government, in which the president of the republic is directly elected by the people and nominates a prime minister to be approved by the national congress?’ However, this decree was never signed and since 2022 there had been no legislation tabled in congress to enact the reform, until the recent victory of Motta as the new president of the lower chamber.

On 6 February a reform proposal drafted by federal deputy Luiz Carlos Hauly, of the centre-right Podemos party (Pode), surpassed the 171 signatures required for a PEC to be submitted to congress. Defenders of the PEC have argued that having two executives could offer more stability, as the president would be less likely to face impeachment motions whenever the government experiences major political turmoil, such as the crisis that culminated in the 2016 impeachment of former president Dilma Rousseff (2011-2016); instead, the prime minister could face a vote of no confidence, and the president would stay in the role and maintain some form of continuity in government policy.

Hauly’s draft legislation proposes allowing the presidency to retain its authority over matters such as promulgating bills approved by congress; deploying the armed forces and declaring war or a state of emergency; and appointing nominees for positions in public institutions. The prime minister to lead the government would be nominated by the president but require approval by congress. The cabinet of ministers would be appointed by the prime minister with the approval of the president.

Some paragraphs of the PEC suggest that the prime ministerial role would be more beholden to the legislature, as the premier would be obliged to appear before congress at least once a month to debate the government’s policy actions. According to another clause, even though the appointment of the cabinet would be decided by the president and prime minister, congress must be consulted, and the dual executives must consider the parties that hold the most seats in the legislature when choosing which party should control which ministry.  

On 7 February Motta said that there is interest in both houses of congress to discuss the reform, but he also said that he would not fast-track the review process of the PEC. This could suggest that the legislation is currently a tool that could be advanced whenever Motta wants to extract some concession from the government of President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, rather than an immediate prospect. Under Lira, the lower chamber discussed proposed legislation to limit the powers of the supreme court (STF) whenever the judiciary heard cases regarding politically sensitive issues such as drug decriminalisation. 

Harvest forecast

On 13 February the national statistics institute (Ibge) released its latest forecast for the national production of grains, cereals, legumes, and oilseeds, projecting a total harvest of 325.3m tonnes (t) in 2025. This would mark an 11.1% increase from total production in 2024. According to the Ibge, soybean production is projected to reach 166.5m t; maize is expected to total 124.1m t; and the latest forecast for rice production is 11.5m t. In terms of regional rankings, the central state of Mato Grosso is expected to be the leading grain producer, accounting for 29.7% of the national harvest, followed by the southern states of Paraná (13.4%) and Rio Grande do Sul (12.4%).

During the first year with Magda Chambriard as the CEO of state-owned oil company Petrobras, the oil giant has posted an annual drop in profits. The fourth quarter of 2024 saw a significant net loss, which the company has attributed to external factors, such as volatility in exchange rates. On 27 February, the day after Petrobras published its fourth quarter financial results, the company’s market value fell by R$25bn (US$4.3bn) in just one day of trading, not only due to the lower profits but also a lower-than-expected shareholder payout announced on 26 February.

Petrobras posted a net loss of R$17.04bn for the final quarter of 2024, in contrast to the quarterly net profits of R$32.55bn in the third quarter and R$31.04bn in the final quarter of 2023. The company’s annual net profit for 2024 totalled R$36.6bn, down from the profit of R$124.6bn the previous year.

In a press conference to present the results, Petrobras’ CFO Fernando Melgarejo said the 2024 result was “mainly impacted by an accounting-related item: the exchange rate variation in debts between Petrobras and its subsidiaries abroad”. He said that “these are financial operations between companies in the same group, which generate opposing effects that balance each other out economically in the end”. Petrobras also highlighted an agreement made in June 2024 with the government to pay off tax debts, which resulted in a net loss in the second quarter. The company also argued that in 2024 the entire industry was affected by volatility in international oil and diesel prices.

In a separate statement released on 26 February, the Petrobras board authorised the payment of R$9.1bn in dividends. According to Brazilian investment management firm XP Investimentos, this remuneration is lower than shareholders were expecting. The disappointing payout for investors contributed to a drop in Petrobras’ market value to R$491bn on 27 February, the lowest value registered since November 2024 and the first time in 2025 that the company’s value closed a day of trading at a value below R$500bn.

An editorial published by the national daily Folha de São Paulo on 28 February suggested that the most worrying figure from the company’s results was the rise in investments, which totalled R$91bn last year, up 31% from 2023. The newspaper expressed concern that high spending on operations could mean more disappointing dividend payments in future.

Amazon oil drilling

Petrobras CEO Magda Chambriard has denied claims reported by the national daily O Globo on 27 February which suggest that the federal environmental regulator (Ibama) has decided to reject the company’s application to explore oil in the ecologically sensitive waters of the equatorial margin, near the mouth of the Amazon River. Chambriard insisted that Ibama is still reviewing the plans and Petrobras has not received any update about the status of its application.

At the end of August, Belize, Costa Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Mexico, and Panama joined forces in Panama City to try and halt the spread of New World screwworm (NWS), which occurs when NWS fly larvae (Cochliomyia hominivorax) infest the flesh of living mammals – primarily cattle but also other domestic and wild species, including human beings. Eradicated from Central America in the early 2000s, the disease re-emerged in Panama in 2023, and has since been reported in the rest of the sub-region with “direct repercussions on food safety, the rural economy and community well-being”, according to the Inter-American Institute for Cooperation on Agriculture (IICA), which hosted the event.

According to an IICA statement, for the first time, on 28 August ministries of agriculture and health, the private sector, and technical specialists from the IICA, the Panama-US Commission for the Eradication and Prevention of Screwworm (Copeg), and US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) in Central America came together to establish “a pioneering model of intersectoral collaboration for animal health and public health”.

The event is the latest sign of efforts to control the outbreak after NWS detections in Panama exploded in 2023 from an average of 25 cases per year to over 6,500 cases in one year. Until June 2023, Panama was considered the biological barrier against NWS for the rest of Central and North America. In 1998 Copeg, an international US-Panama mission for the control of NWS, began eradication efforts in Panama through the sterile insect technique. This involves the rearing and release of sterile male flies which, when mated with wild females, produce no offspring, thereby reducing the fly population in infested areas. In 2006 a sterile fly production plant was inaugurated in the town of Pacora, Panamá province, which dispersed flies from Bayano Lake, a reservoir in Panamá province, to 20 nautical miles into Colombia.

A 5 September article by US-based American Society for Microbiology, a professional organisation for scientists who study viruses, highlights that the resurgence in Panama of the disease occurred when “the flies suddenly overpowered the insect barrier and the difficult terrain of the Darien Gap at the southern tip of Panama.” It states that the exact cause of this breach is unclear but is most likely due to multiple factors, including interruptions in the production of sterile flies as a result of the coronavirus (Covid-19) pandemic, illegal cattle imports, “as well as the challenges involved in surveillance of the Gap’s difficult geography”.

With Costa Rica identifying its first case of NWS in 2023, and Nicaragua, Honduras, Guatemala, Mexico, and El Salvador following suit in 2024, national emergencies have been declared across the sub-region in response to NWS. A 14 August report by Italy-headquartered news agency Inter Press Service (IPS) cites figures from the El Salvador-based regional agricultural health organisation (Oirsa) as estimating that as of the start of July, some 99,000 NWS cases had been registered in Central America, mainly in cattle.

As well as the use of sterile flies, efforts to curb the spread of NWS include strategies of prevention, control, and training. The government of the US, where the first human case of NWS in decades was registered on 4 August in a person who had travelled from El Salvador, has also stepped up its response. In June, US Secretary of Agriculture Brooke Rollins announced a five-pronged plan to eliminate NWS. Among other things, this includes US$21m in funds to renovate an existing fruit fly production facility in Mexico’s Metapa de Domínguez municipality, Chiapas state, which will provide an additional 60-100m sterile flies a week to stop the spread, on top of the more than 100m already produced in Panama.  However, Oirsa’s regional NWS coordinator Marcela Marchelli has been cited by the regional media as saying that it could take between 10 and 12 years to eradicate the pest in Central America.

Cost

In October 2024 Central American business magazine Revista Estrategia y Negocios cited José Loaiza, a researcher at Panama’s state university, Universidad de Panamá, as citing scientific studies which estimate that annual economic losses from NWS could total over US$150m in Central America.

Cattle trafficking

A November 2024 report by US non-profit Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS) highlights studies by specialists at Mexico’s Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México (Unam) which suggest that cattle smuggling may be accelerating the spread of NWS.

It cites Alejandro Zaldivar Gómez, a Unam researcher, as saying that the findings of a new report indicate that NWS has been spreading across Central America at an average rate of 1.6km per day. According to Zaldivar Gómez, this spread rate “allows us to project its geographic reach over the short and medium term, offering critical data for designing surveillance and control strategies in high-risk areas”. The WCS report cites Zaldivar Gómez as saying that in recent months, “the spread has accelerated significantly”, with new outbreaks reported up to 300km away from previous infection points. It says that “these long-distance movements provide further evidence that illegal cattle trafficking is likely fuelling the fly’s expansion through Central America”, noting that this claim has been backed by regional health authorities. It highlights official inspection documents from Honduras and Nicaragua, published by the World Animal Health Information System (Wahis), which collects and publishes information gathered by individual countries’ veterinary services, which outline how the parasite has entered these countries via smuggled cattle.

MEXICO| Security. On 18 July the state prosecutor in the Estado de México arrested an unnamed deputy police chief accused of organising the massacre of 11 people. The current governor of the Estado is Enrique Peña Nieto, who heads the opinion polls for the 2012 presidential election. His men are taking charge of this potential scandal, which could involve gangs in the Estado, an area hitherto been free of them. A lot of political commentators expect the federal government to make a move against Peña Nieto, probably after he hands over as governor in November, to try to knock him out of the presidential running. In 2004 and 2005 President Vicente Fox (2000-2006) tried something similar to knock out the then opinion poll frontrunner, Andrés Manuel López Obrador.
It is not clear who the policeman arrested is, or where he worked. The state prosecutor said that he was investigating the murder of 11 people in the Valle de Chalco. He said that another eight people had also been arrested.

MEXICO| Security. On 20 July the federal Procuraduría General de la República (the attorney general’s office) finally released Gregorio ‘Greg’ Sánchez, a former Partido de la Revolución Democrática mayor of Cancún, who was cleared of money laundering charges and of working with the Beltrán Leyva and Los Zetas drugs gangs. Although Sánchez is free, he will have to wear an electronic bracelet, so that the authorities can track him.

HAITI | New security minister. President Michel Martelly has filled the vacancy left by Josué Pierre-Louis, who was forced to resign his post as minister of justice and public safety in November amid a backlash following his ordering of the arrest of an opposition deputy, Arnel Belizaire [WR-11-48]. Michel Brunache, who was secretary of state for foreign affairs, has been named as Pierre-Louis’s replacement. Brunache served as chief-of-staff under the former interim president Boniface Alexandre (2004-2006), who took over after the ouster of Jean-Bertrand Aristide. Brunache comes in amid the debate over Martelly’s controversial proposal to re-establish the Haitian military: the US, Canada and other countries are calling for Martelly to bolster the police instead. A new civilian commission will present its recommendations regarding Martelly’s proposal on 1 January.

The ruling Communist Party (PCC) will hold its first party conference beginning on 28 January, but in contrast to the ground-breaking April 2011 sixth PCC conference, expectations are low.  Indeed, in a 9 January posting the dissident blogger Yoani Sánchez noted that even the state TV was decidedly unenthusiastic. This is being attributed to dashed expectations about the slow pace and limited reach of President Raúl Castro’s reforms.

On 23 December President Castro declared before the national assembly that the government would pardon nearly 3,000 prisoners. He also announced the further expansion of the private sector in his ongoing bid to streamline the State, improve efficiency and increase domestic food production. The pace of reform, however, while rapid by Cuban standards, is too slow for many. The widely anticipated removal of travel restrictions was not forthcoming; Castro, determined not to be rushed, merely promised “gradual changes”.

The disillusion is understandable, but taken in context, Raúl Castro is in fact overseeing a quiet, if carefully measured, economic revolution in Cuba, and one that will almost inevitably snowball. The rising expression of discontent (and the government’s continued tough response to internal dissidence) is itself evidence enough that the seed has probably already been sown.

Sánchez writes, “In the ranks of the Party itself there are many illusions and more than one militant will turn in his or her party card if the meeting ends with poor results. The time “purchased” last April during the Party Congress is about to end. The political reforms are urgent and even the system’s most faithful have begun to despair.” One leading Havana-based dissident economist, Oscar Espinosa, summed it up in a recent article on the prospects for Cuba in 2012: “Change or Chaos”.

2012 forecasts

President Castro singled out the rising cost of food on international markets, along with the US embargo, for Cuba’s slow rate of growth in 2011. He said that 2.7% GDP growth (calculated by awarding an unorthodox weighting to social services) was “acceptable” given the adverse global economic climate, but he pledged to increase it in 2012 by expanding the private sector.  The food import bill in 2012 is forecast at US$1.7bn.

As of January 2012, farmers can lease 165 hectares (ha), up from the current maximum of 33ha.  The leases will be longer, at 25 years rather than 10, and will also be renewable. Also, farmers will be permitted to build houses on their plots. Notably, the state may also reimburse farmers that lose their lease. These moves are very likely a first step towards land titling. It is striking that even as its chief benefactor, Venezuela, seeks to nationalise agriculture (with scant results to date), Cuba, after 50 years of failed state-led efforts to secure domestic food security, is firmly going in the opposite direction.  In November 2011 the government unveiled measures to facilitate bank credit for farmers (and Cuba’s new self employed workers). Farmers can now sell produce directly to the tourism sector, and farm cooperatives can seek supply contracts with state companies, without having to use an intermediary.

According to government figures, since 2008 some 4m ha of un- or under-used state land has been leased to 150,000 locals. The state owns upwards of 70% of the arable land. Private farmers have just 24% of the land, but they produce about 57% of locally-grown food. However, agri output has been slow to rise and the state still imports up to 70% of the island’s total food needs at huge cost (approx US$1bn a year.)  Rising international food prices have propelled the cash-strapped government to accelerate agriculture reform. Aside from the land lease scheme, key state productive ministries like sugar have been overhauled and transformed into public holding companies, in a bid for efficiency.

• The PP is back in Spain

Jesús Gracia Aldaz is Spain’s new Secretary of State for Iberoamérica. Aldaz, 51, has ample experience in Latin America, having spent 12 of his 26 year-long diplomatic career in the region. Until late 2011 he was posted as minister counsel at the Spanish embassy in Buenos Aires, Argentina.  Between 1991 and 2001 he was also secretary general of Spain’s International Agency for Cooperation (AECI), which oversees development aid and other forms of cooperation.

More notably, he was Spain’s ambassador to Cuba in 2001-2004, and in March/April 2003 witnessed Fidel Castro’s notorious ‘Black Spring’, crackdown on internal dissidents. The Spanish Partido Popular (PP) government at the time, led by the conservative premier Jose María Aznar, oversaw a tough response by the European Union (EU) to the crackdown, which to all intents and purposes put Cuba-EU political relations on ice until 2008/2009.  The Socialist government led by Jose Luís Rodriguez Zapatero (2004-2011) made an effort, led by the foreign minister Miguel Angel Moratinos, to improve relations. Moratinos was instrumental in the deal agreed in mid-2010 between the Cuban government and the local Catholic Church for the release of political prisoners, over 100 of whom went to exile in Spain.

The on-again-off-again political relationship between Spain and Cuba, and by extension the EU (where Spain likes to monopolise Cuba policy), is unlikely to prosper as much under the new PP administration, elected in November 2011.  But that is not necessarily owing to the political difference between the PP and the Castros. The new foreign minister, José Manuel García-Margallo, who is very familiar with Cuba and is known as a level-headed diplomat, has already signalled that boosting trade and economic relations with South America in particular will be Spain’s priority, as it struggles to pull out of a crippling recession.

Whatever the state of the relations between Madrid and Havana, however, Spanish companies have a major toe-hold in Cuba, not least in the tourist sector. More prominently, Spain’s Repsol is leading the country’s offshore oil-exploration efforts.

• The Pope and Ahmadinejad

Iran’s President Mahmud Ahmadinejad was due in Cuba for a short 24-hour visit on 11 January, where he was scheduled to meet President Raúl Castro and give a conference at the University of Havana. Iranian state media also suggested that he would meet Fidel Castro, who in response to the latest rumours of his death (this time on Twitter) issued a proof of life statement dated 8 January in which he suggested that the US government might be better run by a robot, which might be capable of avoiding “a war that will put an end to the life of our species” (in allusion to his forecast nuclear war between the US and Iran).

It has also been confirmed that Pope Benedict XVI will visit Cuba on 26-28 March next. The last Pope to visit the island was Pope John Paul II, in 1998.

• Lula, Sánchez and Rousseff

Brazil’s former president Lula da Silva (2003-2010) has suggested that the high profile Cuban blogger Yoani Sánchez, creator of the blog Generación Y, should write to President Dilma Rousseff in order to ask for Rousseff’s intercession with the Cuban government to permit Sánchez to travel to Brazil next month.  Sánchez has been invited to Brazil to attend the 10 February debut of a new documentary, Conexión Cuba-Honduras, in which she is interviewed.  In early January, Sánchez appealed to Rousseff (via a video message posted on her blog) to intercede with the Cuban authorities to allow her to travel. To date, the Cubans have turned down 18 travel requests by Sánchez, four of which were for Brazil.  Lula happened to be in Cuba in February 2010 when a hunger striking political prisoner (Orlando Zapata Tamayo) died. His silence generated fierce international criticism.

• Party conference

The PCC conference aims to assess the Party's work and determine changes "necessary" within the organisation. The PCC has over 800,000 members.  The communist youth and the mass sectoral organisations including trade unions, the Federation of Cuban Women and the neighbourhood-based Committees for the Defence of the Revolution were also invited to read and contribute to the draft conference document.

• Evolution

From the PPC draft national conference document: “The first thing we are obliged to modify in the life of the Party is the mentality that, as a psychological barrier, will be the most difficult thing to overcome as it is bound up with dogmas and obsolete criteria. The imperialists pin their hopes on the supposed vulnerability of the new generations and on certain groups or sectors of society. They try to foment division, apathy, discouragement, emigration and lack of confidence in the leadership of the Revolution and the Party. They try to paint us as a society without a future in order to turn back socialism and snatch away our independence and the gains of the Revolution. These intentions make it crystal clear that the sphere of ideas continues to be a decisive battlefront.”

In recent months Kenya has been waging a double headed war against Islamist terrorists (see our March issue). It has military forces deployed across the border in Somalia, and it has been facing an increasing threat from Al-Shabaab’s wing based in North Eastern Province. On 10 June Kenya’s internal security minister George Saitoti, a key figure in the fight against Al-Shebaab, was killed in a helicopter crash.

Al-Shebaab immediately took to Twitter to say “[Al-Shebaab] welcomes the death of the evil minister upon whose authorisation thousands of Muslims suffered both in Somalia and in Kenya”.

Al-Shebaab is desperate to capitalise on discontent among the mostly Muslim ethnic Somalis in North Eastern Province to recruit for its Kenyan wing, and to attract fighters to join its forces in Somalia.

The cause of the crash has not yet been determined, but it seems unlikely that it was due to terrorist action. At the time of writing no group has claimed credit for bringing down the helicopter and Al-Shebaab would not miss the opportunity to boast of its strength had it been responsible.

Saitoti’s successor at the internal security ministry has not yet been named, but unfortunately for Al-Shebaab whoever takes the job is unlikely to take a softer line in counterterrorism policy. The majority Christian population of Kenya are still supportive of the government’s efforts, despite the increase in terrorist violence since Kenyan troops were deployed in Somalia. Indeed, evidence from other countries around the world that have faced domestic terrorism shows that popular support for taking a hard line on counterterrorism tends to increase after incidents, rather than decrease as Al-Shebaab would like.

“For the hundreds of Muslims killed and displaced by Kenya's brutal invasion, Saitoti’s death is but a droplet of justice in a sea of oppression. The remaining invaders should be expectant that Allah will inflict his punishment by himself upon the kuffar (infidels) or by the hands of mujahideen.”

Al-Shebaab on Twitter

Following his convincing victory in last month’s presidential election [RBS-13-04], President-Elect Horacio Cartes wasted little time in addressing the thorny issue of Paraguay fully rehabilitating its status in the Southern Common Market (Mercosur), from which it has been suspended since June 2012. Cartes has said that he is personally convinced that Paraguay is much better off in Mercosur than outside of it; and has pledged to do everything he can to lift the country’s suspension once he assumes office on 15 August. His comments generated optimism that Paraguay’s precarious current situation - and Mercosur’s institutional crisis - will soon be resolved. However, his position is not wholly shared by many of his conservative colleagues in the traditional Partido Colorado and the reality is that in order to resolve the current situation some very delicate political negotiations are still needed, both within Paraguay itself and between Paraguay and its regional neighbours.  

Throughout his campaign, Cartes, a successful businessman, time and again said that in his opinion Paraguay should reintegrate into Mercosur. He argued that as a landlocked country, membership of the (admittedly imperfect) customs union with its main trading partners, Argentina and Brazil, is critical for Paraguay.

Yet despite his assertions, certain domestic sectors have been re-thinking the utility of membership of the regional bloc.

Local business people grouped in the industrial union (UIP), to which Cartes is affiliated, have long complained about the inconsistent implementation of the Mercosur rules, in particular the regular flouting of provisions establishing the free movement of goods and services. They argue that this has rendered Mercosur woefully inefficient, to the point that many now consider it pointless, as it has failed to deliver on its promises of economic benefits. In addition, the fact that Mercosur membership impedes a country from signing trade agreements with third parties (Mercosur must negotiate all economic agreements as a bloc) is increasingly seen as a serious impediment that has hindered the economic development of the individual members. Industrialists in Uruguay – and also in the dominant member Brazil – have also complained about this point. Uruguayan producers hanker after a bilateral free trade deal with the US, for instance; likewise their Brazilian counterparts often argue that Brazil would be better off pursuing free trade talks with its European and US partners bilaterally, rather than having to be weighed down at the table by its ‘troublesome’ neighbours (for which read Argentina)

Following Paraguay’s political suspension from Mercosur (it was never economically suspended and so continued to benefit from the various regional market trade provisions), the UIP’s president, Eduardo Felippo, emerged as one of the most visible proponents of the idea that Paraguay should consider leaving Mercosur altogether. He argued that given the increasingly dysfunctional state of Mercosur, Paraguay would be much better off leaving the bloc altogether, and could then re-negotiate bilateral agreements with each its regional neighbours individually and, more significantly, pursue trade agreements with other partners.

Paraguay’s two main traditional parties: the ruling Partido Liberal Radical Auténtico (PLRA) and the Asociación Nacional Republicana-Partido Colorado (ANR-PC), which fielded Cartes in the elections, have also adopted a critical stance against Mercosur. With the exception of some leftist parties, the local political class rejected Paraguay’s political suspension from Mercosur (and the Union of South American Nations [Unasur]) as illegitimate and unwarranted. The suspensions were imposed after Paraguay’s congress impeached the former leftist president, Fernando Lugo (2008-2012). Mercosur considered the process ‘undemocratic’, despite the fact that it was carried out in strict accordance with Paraguay’s constitution. Mercosur’s subsequent decision to take advantage of Paraguay’s absence to expedite Venezuela’s admission as full member - overriding the express opposition of Paraguay’s congress, which was blocking Venezuelan entry - further irritated. The political consensus was that Mercosur imposed its will on Paraguay, gravely undermining its sovereignty. In this domestic political scenario, Cartes will have his work cut out to convince the local political class to abandon its lingering hostility.

A test of Cartes’ negotiating skills

The key for Cartes will be to obtain assurances from Mercosur that Paraguay’s sovereignty will be respected and that changes can be introduced to make the bloc more effective.

Cartes has one significant leverage point. Venezuela’s irregular entry into the bloc (i.e. without the unanimous consent of all Mercosur members, as per the founding treaty rules) still has the potential to blow up into major institutional crisis for the bloc. If Paraguay’s senate continues to reject Venezuela’s entry, then this would lead to an unprecedented situation, whereby one member is not recognised by all of the other partners. Paraguay could well argue, not least to the watching international community, that the Mercosur integration project has failed and is no longer working on either the economic or the political front and has been hijacked for ideological reasons by the bloc’s dominant left-wing governments. Bar Paraguay, all the other Mercosur countries have left-leaning governments, all of which have a strong degree of affinity with each other.

Such accusations might be particularly worrisome for Mercosur given the rapid consolidation of the region’s newest economic bloc, the Pacific Alliance. Indeed, along with a host of other Latin American countries, Paraguay has already expressed an interest in joining the Pacific Alliance (see sidebar).

After his electoral victory, all four Mercosur heads of state (including Venezuela’s President Nicolas Maduro, accused of fomenting an army coup in Paraguay during Lugo’s impeachment) were quick to contact Cartes to congratulate him and express their willingness to restore relations. Brazil in particular has stressed the need to resolve Paraguay’s (and Mercosur’s) ‘situation’. Cartes may look to take advantage of this ‘disposition’ in future talks.

• Getting to work

Much still needs to be done in the home front first. Since being proclaimed president-elect on 10 May, Cartes has embarked on a campaign aimed at changing the negative domestic attitude towards Mercosur. In a series of interviews with a local daily, Ultima Hora, Cartes emphasised Mercosur’s relevance to Paraguay, stating that the country “must return to Mercosur without making much of a fuss, but demanding changes and results”, making it clear that he would demand concessions Mercosur but failing to specify what these might be.

The problem for Cartes is that it is still not clear exactly what sort of concessions would be enough to convince Paraguay’s senate to sanction Venezuela’s admission which, effectively, is a pre-condition for Paraguay’s suspension to be lifted. The ANR-PC, which previously adopted a party stance against Venezuela’s entry, won a simple majority in the incoming senate (19 seats in the 45-seat chamber). Similarly, the PLRA, the second largest group in the senate, has also consistently voted against admitting Venezuela. The general consensus in Asunción is that Cartes will find it difficult to convince all of the ANR-PC senators to vote in favour of Venezuela, and will have the same problem with the PLRA. Notably, on 16 May Cartes held a meeting with Lugo, who was elected a senator, to discuss “the possibility of developing a common political agenda in congress”. Along with Lugo, four other members of Lugo’s Frente Guasú coalition won senate seats; Cartes may end up needing their support.

• Pacific Alliance

On 8 May Paraguay’s deputy foreign minister, Antonio Rivas, said that the country had formally submitted an application to join the Pacific Alliance trade bloc as an observer State, the first step to join the bloc formally. Rivas said that the move was part of a policy to “strengthen” trade relations with partners outside Mercosur. The decision to submit the application likely was discussed by the transition teams overseeing the handover period. Cartes stresses that even though he wants Paraguay back in Mercosur, “I want Paraguay to have trade ties with Mercosur, Asia-Pacific and Europe equally”.

• RTA negotiations suspended

On 13 May president-elect Horacio Cartes asked the incumbent Federico Franco to suspend talks with the mining multinational firm, Rio Tinto Alcan (RTA), about an aluminium processing plant in the country. The US$3.5bn investment project has been in the pipeline since 2009, but progress stalled under the Fernando Lugo administration (2008-2012) on environmental concerns. Following Lugo’s ouster in mid-2012, his replacement Franco advanced the project and inked a memorandum of understanding with RTA. However as part of the handover, Cartes has requested that all public tenders and contract negotiations be suspended, pending an audit and analysis by his transition team.

The result was close, and made all the more agonising by the length of time it took to produce the final tally, but in the end Ricardo Colombi, the Unión Cívica Radical (UCR) governor of the northern province of Corrientes won re-election in the vote held there on 15 September. Despite the party’s longstanding success in the province, the UCR was pushed close by Carlos ‘Camau’ Espínola, the candidate of the ruling Frente para la Victoria (FPV), who came within five percentage points of victory. Given no Peronist party has won the province in the last 40 years, the FPV’s performance shows it retains a significant popular following going into October’s legislative elections.

With all the votes counted, Colombi won 50.87%, some 286,597 votes against Espínola’s 45.81%, or 258,070 votes. A third candidate, Nito Artaza from Cambio Popular, won just 2.98% of the vote. Given that the UCR had outperformed the FPV by nine percentage points in August’s primary elections, the result represents something of a comeback for the Peronist party.

Corrientes

Corrientes, in the far north-east of Argentina, bordering Paraguay and Brazil, is one of the country’s poorest provinces. Thirty-one percent of the district’s workforce is employed by the government and three out of every 10 children have basic needs unmet, according to the 2010 census. Colombi, first elected to the governorship in 2001, has been compared by his critics to President Cristina Fernández in terms of his obstinate approach to opposition lawmakers and the press. Artaza, an actor, comic and member of the UCR, decided to run against Colombi because of the governor’s authoritarian approach to politics.

Though a member of the leftish UCR, which positions itself as a centrist alternative to Peronism, Colombi formed a broad-based alliance to contest the seat. The Encuentro por Corrientes (ECO) coalition which he led included representatives from 19 different parties, including right-wing organisations such as the Propuesta Republicana (PRO) of Buenos Aires mayor Mauricio Macri and the Unión por Córdoba (UPC) party led by Córdoba Governor José Manuel De la Sota.

Colombi acknowledged the tough nature of the competition in his acceptance speech. “It was a hard campaign, with many accusations and allegations. This victory does not give us rights, but greater obligations. And in this new phase due to start in Corrientes, we hope for a new relationship with the national government,” he said, adding that the people of the province did not wish to be politically isolated by virtue of having elected the opposition. Unable to resist some gloating, he pointed out that 16 Peronist governors had travelled to the province, along with most of the national government, to support his rival. 

UCR prospects

Colombi struck a more pragmatic note than his party president, Mario Barletti, who claimed that the result showed that the UCR was well on its way to becoming the definitive alternative to Kirchnerismo for the presidential elections of 2015. Currently, the UCR holds 43 seats in the chamber of deputies, making it the second-largest party after the FPV, with 116. Three possible presidential candidates for the party have already presented themselves: Ricardo Alfonsín, who lost in 2011, coming third with 11% of the vote; former vice-president Julio Cobos; and Ernesto Sanz, a UCR senator, who has been the most blatant in his desire to secure the party’s nomination. 

• Armed forces

In her first broadcast interview for four years, President Cristina Fernández called on Argentines to end the divide between civil society and the armed forces that had existed since the period of military rule. Speaking before opening a joint civilian-military hospital in Río Gallegos, Fernández argued her government was uniquely well-placed to facilitate this process, given its record on human rights. She also pointed out that 85% of those serving in the armed forces received their commission after the end of military rule.

Foreign direct investment (FDI) inflows in the first quarter of 2014 were valued at US$469.1m, up 37.9% on the US$340m registered in the same period of 2013, according to the central bank. The sector attracting most investment was hydrocarbons (US$365.9m, up from US$244.8m in 2013), followed by mining (US$83.8m up from US$43.1m).

According to the most recent report on FDI by the United Nations (UN) Economic Commission for Latin America & the Caribbean (Eclac), released in May 2014, total FDI in Bolivia reached a record US$2.03bn in 2013, up 35% on 2012, of which the bulk was destined for the hydrocarbons sector. The report noted that “FDI in other sectors has declined over the past few years as a result of nationalizations of foreign subsidiaries, especially in mining and electricity services”. The report also highlighted that “Petrobras of Brazil has been the primary partner of the State-owned oil and gas company Yacimientos Petrolíferos Fiscales Bolivia (YPFB), winning a bid that is estimated to require an investment of more than US$ 800 million.”

Other significant partners mentioned include Spain’s Repsol and a consortium comprising Russia’s Gazprom and Total of France. Total has signed an hydrocarbons exploration contract worth US$130m, while Repsol spent a total of US$640m, US$373m of it during 2013, to expand its natural gas processing plant by 60%. Other Spanish companies are cooperating with YPFB in separate gas liquefaction plants, such as Tecnicas Reunidas in Gran Chaco and Sener Ingeniería and Ros Roca Indox Cryo Energy in Santa Cruz. Samsung (South Korea) is spending US$843m on an entire petrochemical complex centred around a fertilizer plant. As regards future significant investments, the Eclac report notes that the Morales government is seeking to drum up interest in its Mutún iron ore deposit, located in the Santa Cruz region and thought to be among the richest in the world. The project has been held up since a US$2.1bn contract awarded to India’s Jindal Steel & Power to develop 50% of the mine was cancelled in July 2012.

Three of Brazil’s largest companies are responsible for 65% of the funding for the presidential election campaign. JBS, the largest food processing company in the world; Ambev, the brewer; and Grupo OAS, the construction firm, together contributed the lion’s share of the financing received by the top three presidential candidates: President Dilma Rousseff, of the ruling Partido dos Trabalhadores (PT), Aécio Neves of the opposition Partido da Social Democracia Brasileira (PSDB), and Eduardo Campos of the also opposition Partido Socialista Brasileiro (PSB).

JBS has donated the most, R$11m (US$4.8m), and appears to be hedging its bets. Both Rousseff and Neves, her closest challenger, received R$5m; Campos only got R$1m. In a press statement the company said, “our donations are in line with the relations we have with the political parties, nationally as well as at state level. The donations to the PT and the PSDB were larger because of the greater presence and weight of these parties in the country”. Ambev has spent a total of R$6.7m on the three candidates; OAS, R$2.6m.

According to an analysis last week by O Estado de São Paulo, the cost of Brazil’s elections has grown exponentially over the past 20 years. In 1994, the first elections which private companies were allowed to make campaign donations, the total cost of the campaign was R$190m. This year the cost has been estimated at R$916m.

Perhaps a more useful metric is the cost per vote in comparison with other democracies. In 2010, US$10.93 was spent for every vote, including presidential, legislative and state campaigns: in comparison the cost per vote in France was US$0.45; in the United Kingdom, US$0.77; in Germany, US$2.21; and in Mexico, US$3.42. The US, by contrast, spent US$19.89 per vote.

Over the past four years, Brazil’s major companies have invested R$370m in donations to political parties to ensure good relations with current and future governments. Andrade Gutierrez, the building firm and one of the major beneficiaries of construction contracts for the Fifa World Cup, spent R$120m in that period; other major donors were Queiroz Galvão (construction, real estate and energy) and Camargo Corrêa (clothing, energy, engineering, shipbuilding and construction).

According to the Kellogg Institute for International Studies, part of the University of Texas, for every Real these companies invest in political parties, they receive R$8.5 in contracts with the State.

Campaign gears up

The ‘air-war’ begins on 19 August, when electoral television and radio advertising is allowed. With 50 minutes of campaign material allowed each day, a third of the time is divided equally between all the presidential candidates. After that the amount of time each candidate receives is based on the number of deputies in the federal congress of their political parties and allies.

Rousseff will receive 11 minutes and 24 seconds per day; her closest rival, Neves will get four minutes and 35 seconds; while third-placed candidate, Campos will have two minutes and three seconds. The remaining eight candidates will have between one minute and 10 seconds and 45 seconds.

In the meantime, the candidates have been taking to the road, speaking in front of Brazil’s business elite. On 6 August, they spoke to the country’s national confederation of agriculture. Neves received the warmest welcome for a promise to create a “superministry of agriculture” and to limit indigenous peoples’ claims to land.

• Brazil 10^th in millionaire rankings

Brazil comes in tenth in the list of countries with the largest number of multimillionaires, according to a study by New World Wealth. There are 10,300 residents with over US$10m in the country. São Paulo is home to 4,400 of them; Rio de Janeiro to 2,200. The list is headed by the US, with 183,500 multimillionaires, followed by China and Germany.

Los intentos de último minuto de la oposición para crear dudas sobre el mismo proceso electoral son, por último, improbables que tengan algún impacto ante las elecciones generales del 12 de octubre. La última encuesta de Ipsos, publicada el 2 de octubre, muestra al Presidente Evo Morales y su gobernante Movimiento al Socialismo (MAS) tomando por primera vez todos los nueve departamentos de Bolivia.

La encuesta de Ipsos, que fue realizada entre el 8 y el 23 de septiembre, muestra que el MAS, que actualmente controla siete de los nueve departamentos de Bolivia (exceptuando Santa Cruz, y Beni en el este del país) con 70% del apoyo en La Paz, 63% en Oruro, 62% en Potosí, 59% en Cochabamba, 54% en Pando, 52% en Chuquisaca, 50% en Santa Cruz, 44% en Beni, y 43% en Tarija.

En general, la encuesta muestra a Morales sin cambios, con 59% de las intenciones de votos, mientras su principal rival, Samuel Doria Medina, del dentro-derecha Unidad Demócrata (UD), cayendo cuatro puntos porcentuales a 13%, comparado con el mes previo. Esta declinación ha sido atribuida en parte al daño causado a la campaña de Doria medina por alegatos de violencia de género que emergió como una inesperada cuestión de campaña (ver más abajo).

Mientras tanto el ex presidente, Jorge Quiroga (2001-2002), quien está compitiendo por el Partido Demócrata Cristiano (PDC), está tercero con 8%, subiendo cuatro puntos sobre la encuesta de agosto; el apoyo para el ex alcalde de La Paz (2000-2010), Juan del Granado, del izquierdista Movimiento Sin Miedo (MSM), también permanece sin cambios en 3%, mientras que el líder de la resistencia indígena, Fernando Vargas, del Partido Verde de Bolivia, se mantiene en la retaguardia con1%.

Deserciones importantes

Mientras que la reelección del Presidente Morales para un tercer mandato consecutivo parece casi asegurada, en cuanto al desempeño del MAS en la legislatura nacional bicameral –donde todas las 130 bancas en la cámara baja y las 36 bancas del senado están en juego– no podría decirse lo mismo. El principal objetivo del partido gobernante es recobrar su mayoría de dos tercios en la legislatura, que fue perdida después que un puñado de candidatos indígenas rompieron filas con el gobierno como reacción a su plan de construir una controversial autopista a través del territorio indígena y parque nacional, Isiboro Sécure (Tipnis), en el 2011.

Aunque hubo algunas deserciones en otros partidos, que son significativas para el MAS –no menos el retorno en agosto a las filas del MAS, del ex ministro del agua de Morales, Abel Mamani (2006-2007) que se había pasado a las filas del MSM en el 2010 luego de la ruptura de su alianza con el MAS. Desde el retorno de Mamani, unos 500 miembros del MSM –que había surgido como el segundo partido más grande de Bolivia luego de las elecciones municipales de abril del 2010– han seguido su ejemplo, junto con seis candidatos legislativos del MSM.

El gobernante partido también continúa atrayendo a otros miembros de la Derecha. UN notable ejemplo de este giro en el apoyo fue el anuncio, el 2 de septiembre, por el vocero del MAS en Santa Cruz, Saúl Ávalos, que más de 600 ex miembros del tradicional partido de derecha, Acción Democrática Nacionalista (ADN, que carece de presencia legislativa) se han pasado al MAS.

• Preocupaciones electorales

El candidato presidencial por el opositor de izquierda Movimiento Sin Miedo (MSM), Juan del Granado, se quejó el 30 de septiembre que los nombres de dos personas muertas que no solamente estaban aún en el registro electoral oficial, sino que ellos habían sido designados como funcionarios de los lugares de votación en las elecciones generales. Wilma Velasco, la presidenta del tribunal electoral de Bolivia (TSE), admitió el error –por el cual ella culpa a los familiares de los fallecidos por no presentar los documentos necesarios para removerlos del registro, aunque ella buscó minimizar los temores de un fraude electoral. Velasco también dijo a los periodistas que había requerido a la Organización de Estados Americanos (OEA) auditar el registro electoral, aunque ella ha reconocido que eso solamente era posible después de las elecciones.

Violencia de género

La violencia de género ha surgido como una inesperada cuestión de campaña electoral luego del brutal asesinato de una mujer de 26 años en Santa Cruz [IL-14-34], forzando a algunos candidatos a hacerse a un lado. Entre estos, Jaime navarro, un candidato legislativo de UD, quien el 2 de septiembre fue forzado a retirar su candidatura después que un medio local filtró una grabación de audio en la cual puede oírse a Samuel Doria Medina presionando a la ex pareja de Navarro, Jimena Grock, para que llegue a un acuerdo con Navarro, a quien ella había acusado de abuso físico.

Después de ser difundida la grabación de un segundo audio el 4 de septiembre, en el cual Doria Medina dijo a Grock que no sea una “imbécil” y concrete un acuerdo con Navarro, el mismo candidato presidencial de UD se vio compelido a emitir una disculpa pública. La cuestión también ha tenido un impacto sobre el partido de gobierno, donde un candidato del MAS para el senado, Adolfo Mendoza, fue forzado a hacerse a un lado en julio luego de emerger alegatos en el sentido que él también había abusado físicamente de su pareja.

*** CARIBBEAN NATIONS SECURITY CONFERENCE 2022. The annual Caribbean Nations Security Conference, held in Barbados from 5-7 April, had as its theme “Multinational Cooperation in a Changing Operational Environment”, with a particular focus on counter-terrorism initiatives, counter-illicit flows operations, coordination for humanitarian assistance and disaster relief, and protecting the blue economy. In addition to the co-hosts US and Barbados, defence leaders from Antigua and Barbuda, Bahamas, Belize, Dominica, Dominican Republic, Grenada, Guyana, Haiti, Jamaica, St Kitts and Nevis, St Lucia, St Vincent and the Grenadines, Suriname, and Trinidad and Tobago participated.

In her opening address, General Laura Richardson, commander of US Southern Command (Southcom) emphasised in particular the threat posed to the region by transnational criminal organisations (TCOs). She called them “one of the most imminent threats” and said: “TCOs are poisoning the Caribbean and American people, trafficking in drugs, arms, humans, and other illicit products, and worsening corruption. Local gangs engage in violent crime, kidnapping, and sexual assault.” She added that these groups “are even involved in illegal, unreported, and unregulated fishing, robbing the region of 20-30% of fish stocks and causing the Caribbean US$750m in loss each year”.

Richardson told the conference that “these cross-cutting threats are too powerful, too overwhelming for one nation to handle on its own”, and during the conference participants discussed increased cooperation to counter the TCO threat, including cooperation with the US’s Joint Interagency Task Force-South which conducts detection and monitoring operations in the region. Also discussed was the use of the Cooperative Situational Information Integration (CSII) system, an online system that allows the US and partner nations “to share air-, maritime- and land-domain awareness information”.

*** GUYANA AND TRINIDAD & TOBAGO AT ODDS. In comments made at the end of March, Guyana’s Vice-President Bharrat Jagdeo infuriated Trinidad by saying that its economy was “falling apart”. When upbraided by Trinidad’s Prime Minister Keith Rowley, an unrepentant Jagdeo responded by saying: “The fact is Trinidad’s economy is reliant on one sector – oil and gas – [and] this has nothing to do with just Rowley. This is the fact of the economy of Trinidad and Tobago going for a long period only relying on one sector.” He said it was because of this example that Guyana was so determined to avoid the same pitfall.

The row was compounded by the fact that Guyana’s ruling People's Progressive Party/Civic (PPP/C) is largely supported by voters of East Indian origin as is the main opposition United National Congress (UNC) in Trinidad. However, Jagdeo denied his comments were intended to favour the UNC. He said: “I’m dealing with straight language…There was no pitch for any opposition or government.” This didn’t satisfy Trinidad’s Foreign Minister Amery Browne, who described the comments as “arrogant, hostile, and xenophobic”. Browne also reminded Jagdeo that when, in March 2020, Guyana’s disputed election was threatening to lead to civil unrest, “it was our prime minister…who went there with the prime minister of Barbados and a Caricom delegation to help ensure that democracy and peace would prevail”.

For good measure, Browne added: “There are many economies within our region that are as dependent on tourism as ours has been on petrochemicals, but that has never been the basis for us to politically disparage each other as we each and all seek to expand our economic base.”

• Guyana’s Ali enjoys high approval ratings

According to a poll from the North American Caribbean Teachers Association (Nacta), Guyana’s President Irfaan Ali has an approval rating of 72%, up eight percentage points from late 2021.

COLOMBIA | Viva Air grounds fleet. The low-cost Colombian airline Viva Air caused havoc at airports around the country on 28 February when it grounded its fleet and suspended ticket sales, claiming it was not financially able to operate flights.

The grounding of the Viva fleet occurred the day after Colombia’s aviation authority, Aeronáutica Civil, delayed its verdict on a proposed merger between Viva and the Colombian airline Avianca. Other airlines, including Chile’s LATAM and Colombia’s Wingo, have argued that a Viva-Avianca merger would breach competition law.

Amid allegations that Viva has resorted to strong-arm tactics in an attempt to win approval for the merger, the company’s president, Francisco Lalinde, insisted that Viva “is not blackmailing the government” with the grounding of its fleet, which sparked protests by Viva ticket holders at airports around the country.

PERU | Inflation still climbing. Inflation in February increased by 0.43%, bringing the annualised rate of inflation to 8.99%, the national statistics institute (Inei) reported on 2 March. The big driver of inflation in February was the price of food and drinks, which climbed by 0.82%. The price of tomatoes increased by 15.1%, ollucos (similar to potatoes) by 14.4%, and carrots by 10.5%.

The food price increase owed in no small part to widespread anti-government roadblocks causing shortages. But there is a growing concern of further shortages in the months ahead due to lower production of various food staples as a result of the soaring cost of fertilisers. A week earlier, for instance, Inei reported that potato production in December was down 12.5% year-on-year at 264,091 tonnes.

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.

During a visit to El Bolsón on 11 February, a town in the southern province of Río Negro, Argentina’s Security Minister Patricia Bullrich, alongside Defence Minister Luis Petri, announced that the government will create a federal emergency agency to combat the intense wildfires raging through various Patagonian provinces such as Río Negro, Chubut, and Neuquén. Environmental groups have expressed concern over the increasingly dry and hot weather, aggravated by human-induced global warming, making this summer season (December-February) one of Patagonia’s worst wildfire seasons in recent decades.

According to Argentine fact-checking website Chequeado, the federal government has not published up-to-date official figures on the number of active fires in Patagonia. Chequeado reported on 12 February that it had requested information on wildfires from the security ministry, which oversees the national fire management service (SNMF) but did not receive a reply. The site has gathered wildfire data from other sources, such as Brazil’s national space research institute (Inpe), the satellites of which detected a nationwide total of 3,625 outbreaks of fires in Argentina from 1 January-12 February; more than triple the 1,045 fires that Inpe detected in Argentina during the same period in 2024. In addition to Patagonian provinces in southern Argentina, Inpe also flagged fire hotspots in northern provinces such as Formosa and Corrientes. The Argentine branch of international environmental NGO Greenpeace released data on 18 February showing that 48,688 hectares (ha) of land in Patagonia had been affected by fires in 2025 so far.

The government of President Javier Milei has previously faced criticism from environmental groups over its apparent disregard for environmental protection, not helped by Milei’s record of climate-denialist rhetoric [SSR-24-02]. On 11 February the government’s cabinet chief, Guillermo Francos, spoke on local radio to deny suggestions that the Milei administration does not care about wildfires. Francos went on to allege that indigenous armed groups such as the Resistencia Ancestral Mapuche (RAM) were responsible for starting fires. On the same day, Justice Minister Mariano Cúneo Libarona stated on social media the fires were caused by “terrorists disguised as Mapuche [indigenous people]” and that the government will seek reforms to toughen the punishments for people who start fires illegally. This is not the first time that government officials have expressed rhetoric that criminalises Mapuche communities [SSR-25-02], and indigenous activists have rejected such accusations as attempts to scapegoat the Mapuche people.

On 6 February Greenpeace Argentina released a statement to condemn the accusations made by local politicians that sought to blame and stigmatise the Mapuche people without presenting evidence. The NGO has estimated that 95% of forest fires in Argentina are caused by intentional or accidental human action, and Greenpeace suggests that a greater threat arises from farmers using fire to clear land to expand their farms and from the forestry industry, which has replaced native trees with exogenous species such as pine that are known to be more flammable. Chequeado has also suggested that underspending on fire prevention and response measures could raise the risk of fires spreading. Data from the national budget office analysed by the site’s fact-checkers revealed that the SNMF spent only 22% of its allocated budget in 2024. This means that the SNMF’s expenditure in 2024 was down 81% in real terms compared to the amount it spent in 2023, when it was still overseen by the environment ministry – which Milei reduced to a sub-secretariat when he took office in December 2023.

Sub-secretary resigns  

On 13 February Argentina’s sub-secretary for the environment, Ana Lamas, resigned from her post, explaining that this was due to “personal reasons” and “exhaustion”. The timing has raised eyebrows in the media, given her resignation came amid rising national concern over the environmental damage of intense forest fires. The Argentine press has been seeking to ascertain other possible reasons behind Lamas’ decision. National daily La Nación has speculated that it could be a signal of wider discontent within the sub-secretariat, citing sources that have revealed other members of the sub-secretariat are also planning to quit.

PARAGUAY | Gov’t makes progress on trade in Asia tour. President Santiago Peña led a government delegation to Japan, Singapore, and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) from 19-27 May. In Japan and Singapore, the Paraguayan government made progress on efforts to boost agricultural exports to its Asian partners. On 22 May Japan’s ministry of agriculture, forestry, and fisheries announced that it will send personnel to Paraguay to inspect sanitary conditions and evaluate the potential authorisation of beef exports to Japan. According to the head of Paraguay’s national service for animal health and quality (Senacsa), José Carlos Martin, who also joined the Asia tour, Japan will confirm a date for the inspection within 30 days and it is expected to take place by the end of this year. On 23 May, when the delegation visited Singapore, Peña announced that Singapore has approved imports of Paraguayan beef, pork, and poultry. From 24-26 May Peña held meetings in the UAE with executives from Emirati transport and logistics firms, such as aviation company Terminals Holding and port operations company DP World. In addition to companies involved in trade infrastructure, Peña also met with executives from artificial intelligence development company G42, which has expressed interest in establishing data centres in Paraguay.

ARGENTINA | Telecom Argentina sells bonds to cover acquisition. On 22 May media outlets reported that Argentine telecommunications company Telecom Argentina has sold US$800m in bonds due in 2033. The proceeds from this sale will reportedly help cover the loans that Telecom Argentina used to fund its US$1.25bn acquisition of the Argentine subsidiary of Spanish telecommunications firm Telefónica. The purchase was announced in February this year but in March it was suspended by the government of President Javier Milei, over concerns that Telecom’s acquisition of Telefónica’s local business could form a monopoly.

BRAZIL | Homicide down, other crimes up in São Paulo. The number of intentional homicides in the state of São Paulo in 2011 was down by 3% to 4,189, equivalent to 10.05 per 100,000 inhabitants — just short of the target of 10 per 100,000 set by governor Geraldo Alckmin. The governor says this is because the police erroneously classified 62 cases of deaths in traffic accidents as intentional homicides.

Critics say that the target would have been missed in any case due to another flaw in police statistics, that of computing multiple homicides as single incidents. The number of homicide victims in 2011 was 4,398, or 209 more than the reported number of intentional homicides.

In São Paulo city the number of homicides in 2011 was down by 14.5% to 1,023, equivalent to a rate of 9 per 100,000 (the number of victims reached 1,074).

The state’s public security secretariat says that the decline in homicides is the result of increased investment in public security, the seizure of illegal weapons, the intensification of preventive policing and improved specialised homicide investigation.

Statewide two high-impact crimes showed increases in 2011: robbery with violence was up by 20.9% to 306 cases; vehicle theft by 15.5% to 79,190 cases.

CHILE | Banks targeted in arson attacks. Three banks, all in the Nuñoa district of south-eastern Santiago, were targeted in arson attacks which bore the same signs as previous incidents involving anarchist groups; though in none of the cases did anyone claim responsibility. In the first case, on 6 February, the attackers sprayed petrol on the automatic cash dispensers of the BBVA bank causing considerable damage.

The following two cases took place on 27 February: incendiary devices were used against branches of Santander and Bancostado, causing damage to the automated cash dispenser of the former and walls and windows of the latter.

CHILE-ARGENTINA | Crackdown on hackers. In a coordinated police operation in Chile, Argentina, Colombia and Spain, codenamed Exposure, 25 people associated with the ‘Anonymous’ network were arrested. In Chile five Chileans and one Colombian are being investigated in connection with the May 2011 attacks on the websites of Endesa and HidroAysén, the June 2011 attacks on those of the education ministry and the national library, and several of the Colombian government, among them that of the defence ministry. The detainees were freed on bail but may be recalled for formal indictment.

Ten more members of the network were arrested in Argentina, five in Colombia and four in Spain. In Chile hacking carries penalties ranging from 54 days to five years in prison.

URUGUAY | Police buys Russian. The government announced on 3 February that it had approved the purchase from the Russian state-owned firm Rosoboronexport of US$91,000 in new weaponry for the police, to replace their largely outdated arsenal. The purchase includes machineguns, rifles and ammunition; the interior ministry declined to provide a breakdown of numbers and type ‘for security reasons’. Delivery is expected within six months.

This is part of a modernisation programme was set in motion in response to the fact that insecurity appears as the leading public opinion concern in surveys. It must be noted that Uruguay has one of the lowest rates of high-impact crimes in Latin America.

FOREIGN RELATIONS & SECURITY | Obama breaks silence on Colombia-Farc talks. In a 29 October radio interview with La W, which also airs in the US, President Barack Obama spoke about the new peace talks between the government led by President Juan Manuel Santos and the Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia (Farc). Obama stated: “My hope is that we can create a peaceful Colombia and that the Farc will lay down their arms and recognize that, even though they disagree with the government, they should take part in the political process instead of resorting to violence”. Obama also recognised that the US plays an important role in incentivising narco trafficking and promised that if re-elected on 6 November, he would work towards “lowering consumption” in the biggest drug market by value in the world.

“I am scared of narco trafficking, not drugs”, President José Mujica of Uruguay said in an interview with BBC Mundo published last weekend. In it, he explains why, despite “being somewhat against” the legalisation of drugs, he eventually promoted that controversial strategy in the small Southern Cone nation. One of the main reasons, he said, was witnessing the increase of violence in Mexico during the presidency of Felipe Calderón – “Mexico shook up my soul”. And while Uruguay still has negligible violence levels when compared with its regional counterparts, Mujica was scared by the rise of crimes that were previously unheard of in the country and which are directly related to the drugs trade, like “settling of scores”.

This week the Mujica administration finally submitted to the lower chamber of congress the long awaited bill proposing the legalisation of marijuana in the country - to the ruling Frente Amplio (FA) on 13 November and to the opposition today (15 November) as we go to print. The document proposes that the state controls the production, distribution and sale of marijuana, but also allows private consumers to cultivate a certain amount of plants for their own use. President Mujica says these measures are necessary to avoid marijuana consumers from coming into contact with drug dealers, who may offer other substances that create a bigger health problem. “This makes my blood boil, because every time I have to spend more money on police, in jails and in the consequences and I don’t have money to treat the patients”, he told the reporter.

However, Mujica also recognised that he lives in a country with an ageing population that views his proposal with mounting distrust. “Uruguay is a prudish country, of old people. Most of us are old and we have a conservative tendency. You talk to people about ‘regulating marijuana’ and they start looking at you, right? As if it were a thing of the devil...It’s all a great exaggeration...It [marijuana] has accompanied the whole epic of the New World. It deserves to be treated with a lot more respect and that we get to know it better.” While Mujica recognises that he is fighting against “prejudices” and should not impose his will, the FA has enough votes in congress to pass the bill without the support of the opposition – which has already come out against legalisation.

Spearheading an emerging trend

During the 6 November general election in the US, several states added public consultation votes onto the presidential and congressional ones. The states of Washington and Colorado voted in favour of legalising marijuana for recreational use, by 55%-44% in the former and 53%-47% in the latter. The decision legalises personal possession of up to one ounce of marijuana and permits its legal sale and taxation in licensed stores. Undoubtedly, its implementation will add to the complexities of Mexico-US border security and to US-Latin America relations in general.

Days after the US vote, Luis Videgaray, the chief coordinator of the transition team for Mexico’s president-elect, Enrique Peña Nieto, expressed concerns about the outcome. This was echoed by President Felipe Calderón, who said it demanded a “fundamental rethink of drug policies across the hemisphere”. Calderón’s interior minister, Alejandro Poiré, went further and said that the changes in the US make “necessary” a global debate on the legal status of marijuana in order to establish a “coherent stance”.

While Mexico could feel an impact from the passage of the law, namely a reduction in the profits of drug trafficking organisations, such improvements will not take place for some time – if they materialise at all. Also, the US federal government, which has not changed its drug policy, has yet to respond to the legalisation votes (see sidebar).

• Federal options

While the US Department of Justice reacted to the referendums by saying its drug policy had not changed, Attorney General Eric Holder has not been as outspokenly against the measures as he was with California’s Proposal 19 in the 2010 midterm elections. Thus it is unclear how federal authorities will react. They could: try to overthrow the legalisation decisions in court; increase federal anti-drug police presence and efforts in the two states; or selectively prosecute users, sellers and distributers.