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Femicides, defined as the murder of women over 15 years of age due to their gender, remain an important problem throughout Latin America. Late last year, Alicia Bárcena, the executive secretary of the United Nations (UN) Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (Eclac) called on the region’s countries to give priority to public policies aimed at preventing, sanctioning, and eradicating all forms of violence against women in the region.

In 2017 at least 2,795 women were killed because of their gender in 23 countries from which the Eclac Gender Equality Observatory for Latin America and the Caribbean (GEO) was able to collect data.

Of the Andean nations, Bolivia had the highest rate of femicide with 110 murders, making for a rate of 2.0 per 100,000 women. Next up is Ecuador on 1.3 femicides per 100,000 women from 109 murders, followed by Venezuela, where the latest data available is from 2016, on 0.8 femicides per 100,000 women and 122 murders. Peru, where street protests pushed gender-based violence up the political agenda in June 2018, recorded a rate of 0.7 femicides per 100,000 women (116 murders), with Colombia on 0.6 femicides per 100,000 women (144 murders).

In fact, the issue of gender-based violence has been receiving increased attention across Latin America and the Caribbean thanks to protests linked to the #MeToo and #TimesUp campaigns. In recent years millions of people have taken to the streets to mark International Women’s Day on 8 March to press for further action on the issue. Bolivia and Peru (2013), Ecuador and Venezuela (2014), and Colombia (2015) have all amended their laws to sanction femicide as a distinct crime, according to Eclac, but there is still a long way to go.

Eclac data show that femicides make up the majority of intentional killings of women, and in most countries the majority of female murder victims are killed by a current or former partner. A report released by Eclac in November 2018 says that polices aimed at reducing femicides must consider that women suffer violence based on their economic status, age, race, and culture as well as their gender. Governments will only be able to keep women safe by understanding their diversity, according to the report.

Eclac also recommends running awareness campaigns among public officials, especially those in the justice sector, in order to improve the monitoring of femicide. This will help to compare the region with others around the world and form better policies.

As Andrea Quiñones, UN Women representative in Guatemala, said in a 2017 interview, published on the UN Women website, Latin America pays more attention to femicide than other regions of the world, where homicide data is not always separated by gender. However, Quiñones underlines that femicide is usually the last act in an abusive relationship, which are common in the region. “In Latin America, we have a culture of high tolerance towards violence against women and girls,” said Quiñones. “You see it in the media all the time – crimes against women are exhibited with very crude images and nobody seems to care about it.”

While the Andean countries have a lot of work to do to reduce femicides, they compare favourably to other nations in the region. The Northern Triangle countries of El Salvador (10.2 per 100,000 women), Honduras (5.8), and Guatemala (2.6) all stand out for their high rates of femicide. Across the region, it appears that the answer to reducing the rate of femicide lies in changing cultural attitudes towards women as well as fighting against impunity for those who commit gender-based crimes.

From 2020-2022 the Apyterewa indigenous territory in the northern state of Pará was the indigenous reserve registering the highest rates of deforestation in the entire Amazon region. At the start of October federal authorities began an operation to remove the illegal cattle ranchers and other land invaders from two reserves in Pará. They set 31 October as the deadline for all remaining ranchers, miners, and loggers to leave of their own accord or face being forcibly removed by law enforcement personnel.

In February, the federal government led by President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva sent a huge security deployment to remove illegal mining groups from the Yanomami indigenous reserve in northern Roraima state. This operation to remove criminal groups from the Apyterewa and Trincheira Bacajá demarcated territories has been a similarly complex initiative involving more than a dozen federal government authorities, including the national guard (‘Força Nacional’), the federal police (PF), federal highway police (PRF), national intelligence agency (Abin), and agents from the national indigenous affairs agency (Funai) and federal environmental regulator (Ibama).

Funai reported on 31 October that, in the previous week, its agents had seized 230 litres of pesticide, nine poached wild animals, 14 firearms, and 70 grams of marijuana, among other actions carried out in the bases of land invaders, and that it had noted evidence of slavery-like working conditions. According to the regional branch of the federal prosecutor’s office (MPF) in Pará state, which had sent a request in 2021 for the supreme court (STF) to authorise this security deployment, the Parakanã indigenous community living on the Apyterewa reserve has only been able to access 25% of the territory which had been officially demarcated for them in 2007.

In May this year, the MPF of Pará state filed a lawsuit against land invaders illegally occupying around three quarters of the indigenous reserve and against the municipality of São Félix do Xingu, in which the Apyterewa reserve is located. It accused the local government of building a road in the reserve that has facilitated the illegal extractive activities.

The indigenous activist umbrella organisation Articulação dos Povos Indígenas do Brasil (Apib) has also criticised the São Félix de Xingu municipal government. On 26 October, Apib released a statement slamming the local authorities for not complying with the removal operation and accusing the São Félix do Xingu mayor, João Cléber de Souza Torres, of incentivising the land invaders to remain on the reserve.

On 20 October the Pará MPF released a statement calling for the mayor to be dismissed, on the grounds that he had spread misinformation on social media claiming that the removal operation had been suspended. In the same statement, the MPF expressed regret for a violent clash on 16 October which resulted in federal security units killing one man who refused to leave the reserve. The MPF cited this incident as evidence that the mayor’s false claims had emboldened illegal occupants to forcefully resist the removal operation. Police are reportedly investigating this confrontation, which occurred before the 31 October peaceful departure deadline.

The persistence of illegal ranchers and other groups causing deforestation and threatening indigenous communities on the Apyterewa and Trincheira Bacajá reserves illustrates the wider concern about the obstacles facing the federal government’s ability to fulfil its declared objective of supporting indigenous land rights. This concern was voiced by the prominent indigenous rights activist, Chief Raoni Metuktire. Speaking to the national daily O Globo on 27 October, Metuktire said that President Lula “promised me he would take actions” to stop anti-indigenous threats, but he lamented that these actions have been “slow”.

International concern over impunity

On 26 October, Brazil’s ministry of justice & public security hosted a delegation from the Inter-American Court of Human Rights (Corte-IDH) to discuss measures to protect indigenous communities, especially the Yanomami people. Having visited the indigenous reserve before the meeting, the Corte-IDH representatives noted a “radical change” in the federal support for the Yanomami since the Lula administration took office but expressed concern that none of the land invaders arrested on Yanomami territory this year have been convicted yet.

Less than a fortnight after the free trade agreement between the European Union (EU) and South America’s Mercosur bloc [EB-26-02] took provisional effect on 1 May, Brussels announced plans to ban Brazilian meat imports from September onwards, citing non-compliance with food safety standards. The move suggests that trade-related disputes could continue despite the landmark trade deal.

On 12 May the European Commission announced that, starting 3 September, Brazil will be removed from the EU’s list of countries authorised to export animal products to the bloc on the grounds it did not meet EU standards on the use of antimicrobials in livestock. The EU prohibits the use of antibiotics that promote animal growth and that are reserved for human infections. Brussels argued that Brazil has failed to demonstrate compliance with those standards.

The ban applies to beef, pork, chicken, fish, and derivative products such as eggs and honey, although it could be lifted once compliance is demonstrated. The news was not entirely surprising as the issue had been discussed before in bilateral meetings. In fact, the Brazilian government in April had already issued an executive order banning some antimicrobials used as animal performance enhancers, but the EU deemed this insufficient.

Still, the timing of the move did raise questions over the prospect for European and South American trade, coming only two weeks after the EU-Mercosur trade agreement provisionally entered into force at the start of May. The deal created one of the world’s largest free trade zones, covering 700m consumers, slashing duties on 90% of goods over a 10-to-15-year horizon, and opening the EU to an additional 99,000 tonnes of South American beef under reduced tariffs.

The EU-Mercosur agreement itself remains on shaky legal ground. It provisionally entered into force pending a challenge before the EU Court of Justice, which could take up to two years to issue a ruling. Meanwhile, Poland filed an additional legal challenge against the deal in May. In addition, the European Parliament has yet to give its formal approval.

The Irish Farmers’ Association (IFA) celebrated the antimicrobial ban as vindication, calling it “an important first step” and noting that it followed an IFA and Irish Farmers Journal investigation into unregulated antibiotic use in Brazil.

For European farming lobbies bruised by the Mercosur deal, the ban offers at least a partial political consolation – and a lever to push for stricter enforcement of equal production standards going forward.

After the ban was announced, the government of President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva was swift to defend its agricultural health credentials, pointing to its “robust health system of internationally recognized quality”. At the time of writing, the EU has not rolled back on its decision, despite the diplomatic efforts by Brazilian officials.

On 8 June Vice President Geraldo Alckmin attended an agribusiness sector event in Bahia state where he insisted that the Lula administration is doing all it can to demonstrate that Brazilian meat products are up to standard and reverse the ban. The following day, national daily O Globo cited the European Commission spokesperson Olof Gill as suggesting that the ball is now in Brazil’s court, saying that he believed Brazil has the industrial capacity and knowledge to meet the EU’s sanitary requirements.

Limited impact

According to the figures of Brazilian meat exporters’ association (Abiec), Brazil is the world’s largest beef exporter, registering a total export volume of 3.5m tonnes (t) and an export value of US$18bn in 2025, up from 2.91m t and US$12.9bn the previous year. The EU, while an important premium market, accounts for a relatively small slice of the Brazil’s total beef trade, representing 5.1% of the total volume Brazil exported in 2025 and 5.9% of beef sector revenues. The top export destinations for Brazilian beef remain China and the US, with both countries combined accounting for over 50% of Brazilian beef exports.

There were both peaceful and violent protests in Santiago and other large Chilean cities to mark the seventh anniversary of the social unrest known as the ‘Estallido Social’, which started on 18-19 October 2019.

While most people demonstrated peacefully, there were also violent clashes and 110 arrests. Security Minister Martín Arrau said four demonstrators and 14 Carabineros militarised police officers had been lightly wounded. Arrau strongly criticised those who had set up barricades or looted shops. During the protest anniversary opponents of the government of President José Antonio Kast chanted slogans against him, attacking his fiscal austerity policies. Kast has avoided the Estallido Social tag, opting to refer to it as the “estallido delictual” (delinquent explosion).

The reality is that the upheavals of 2019-2020 continue to cast a long shadow across Chilean society. Back then, the protests started with student action against public transport fare increases but rapidly spread to capture discontent over inequality, low pensions, expensive healthcare and education, and the high cost of living. For months there were nationwide peaceful demonstrations, but also incidents of violence and police brutality. Over 30 people died during the protests. Politically, they led to two major and ultimately failed attempts at constitutional reform in 2022 and 2023. Many of the issues raised by the unrest remain unresolved.

There are some indications that, as time passes, attitudes to the Estallido Social are becoming more critical. A survey of a “citizens’ panel” conducted by the private university, Universidad del Desarrollo (UDD), and published on 17 October, found that 64% of respondents now believe the unrest was negative for the country, up from 2024 when 57% thought it had been negative. UDD researchers say they use the same individual panel members across the years, so the survey is particularly effective as a way of tracking changing opinions. In fact, between 2024 and 2026 a majority of panel members changed their view, from believing the social explosion was “necessary” to considering it “negative”. A total of 80% rejects the view that violence is necessary for social change; however, 49% say the Estallido Social was a “valid” manifestation.

Kast still struggling in the opinion polls

On 18 October Cadem published a new opinion poll showing that the president’s approval rating has dropped to 30%, down by two percentage points on the previous survey on 4 October, and the lowest level since he took office in March. His disapproval rating rose one percentage point to 65%. The poll also showed dissatisfaction with the ministerial team (approval ratings fell for 17 out of 18 ministers). In general, public opinion is downbeat with 69% saying Chile is heading in the wrong direction. Analysts suggest that the decline reflects a worsening economy and poor government communications. According to a separate poll by Criteria published on 11 October, 82% of respondents say the new government has fallen short of their expectations.

Kast appoints new spokesman

On 21 October the government said Gonzalo Arenas, a lawyer and former congressional deputy, had been appointed as the new presidential spokesperson. He replaces Claudio Alvarado who had been “doubling up” as both interior minister and presidential spokesperson.

Arenas comes to the job at a challenging time: seven months since the start of the José Antonio Kast presidency, the conservative’s approval rating has been falling sharply as the economy deteriorates. Unemployment is high, social and other spending programmes are being cut back to meet fiscal austerity targets, and a number of election promises remain unfulfilled.

Arenas is a former member of the chamber of deputies representing La Araucanía (2006-2014) for the mainstream right-wing Unión Demócrata Independiente (UDI). He served as a government consultant on indigenous affairs for the second Sebastián Piñera government (2018-2022) as well as working for the interior ministry and the presidential secretariat (Segpres).

Chilean political analysts say he has good relations both with the president and Alvarado. Communication has not been one of the new government’s strong points. Sources say Arenas has asked to have direct input during ministerial discussions on key policies, and not to be restricted to communicating things that have already been decided.

COLOMBIA | Aprobado plan fiscal a diez años. El gobierno colombiano anunció el 13 de junio que su Consejo Nacional de Política Económica y Social (Conpes), había aprobado un nuevo marco fiscal a mediano plazo que gobernará las finanzas públicas del país durante los próximos 10 años. Al hacer el anuncio el ministro de finanzas, Mauricio Cárdenas, dijo que con la aprobación del plan Conpes había "reafirmado el compromiso del gobierno con la sostenibilidad fiscal expresado en la reducción gradual del déficit fiscal, [y] una reducción en la deuda pública como porcentaje del PIB, en un esfuerzo por asegurar que cada día el país consolide sus finanzas, lo que nos permitirá mejorar nuestro rating de crédito".

Cárdenas continuó explicando que Conpes había aprobado que el déficit fiscal de este año y del año próximo sería del 1% del PIB, cayendo a 0,8% en el 2015 y luego, comenzando en el 2016, el país debería comenzar a obtener superávits fiscales. Los niveles de la deuda pública también están proyectados para que declinen constantemente, con el nivel actual de 24,7% del PIB, cayendo a 23,5% el año próximo, 22,4% en el 2015, 20,5% en el 2016, y seguir así hasta que quede reducido a "sólo 5,9% del PIB" para el 2024.

Cárdenas también enfatizó que por primera vez en la historia de Colombia, el plan aprobado cumple con los requerimientos establecidos en la ley de asociación pública-privada (APP) de 2012, que establece que parte del presupuesto nacional equivalente al 0,4% del PIB debe ser destinado al desarrollo de proyectos público-privados. Según Cárdenas, "inicialmente las asignaciones presupuestaria [destinadas al APP] serían menores, con el 0,05% del PIB asignado para el 2015, creciendo al 0,35% del PIB en el 2016, 2017, y 2018. Pero estabilizándose en el 0,4% del PIB, comenzando desde el 2019".

Sin embargo, a pesar de lo bien pensado, el plan podría depender en gran medida de una serie de factores que no están bajo control del gobierno, tal como el entorno económico internacional. Un claro ejemplo de cómo esto podría  socavar los planes del gobierno ya ha comenzado a ser visto en semanas recientes, a medida que el dólar finalmente ha comenzado a apreciarse respaldado en la aparente consolidación de la recuperación económica de EU. Esto ha resultado en la depreciación del peso colombiano que después de meses de operar bastante por encima de la meta del gobierno de Col$1.900/US$1 comenzó a operar debajo de esta marca el 14 de junio.

Esto, a su vez, ha tenido un impacto negativo en el mercado interno de bonos y el nivel de demanda por bonos internos del tesoro (TES) parece haber decaído pues los inversionistas han sostenido substanciales pérdidas debido a la depreciación del peso contra el dólar. La semana pasada, por primera vez en este año, el gobierno no pudo colocar todos los bonos por Col$600mm que planeó colocar en el mercado local, logrando emitir solamente Col$443mm. Esto ha llevado al gobierno a anunciar que estaba considerando medios alternativos para obtener los fondos que necesita, tales como obtener préstamos del sector bancario local, o incluso contratar deuda con las multilaterales. En otras palabras, el gobierno está considerando suplantar deuda interna con deuda externa.

PERÚ | Decaen las exportaciones mineras. Las exportaciones mineras de Perú en los primeros cuatro meses del año totalizaron US$7,43mm, o un 16,4% menos que en el mismo periodo del año pasado, reveló el 16 de junio la Sociedad Nacional Minera, Petrolera y de Energía (SNMPE).

SNMPE dijo en una declaración que el resultado llega como una consecuencia de la caída de los precios de los metales en los mercados internacionales, así como también los bajos niveles de producción en el país –tendencias que han continuado desde el año pasado. Sin embargo, la SNMPE señaló que la caída en las exportaciones en el primer trimestre fue menor que la declinación en las exportaciones del 20,9% trimestre en trimestre registrada en el primer trimestre del 2012.

De acuerdo con la SNMPE, esto podría ser un signo de que la tendencia negativa del sector está finalizando. De hecho, la SNMPE destaca que mientras las exportaciones de cobre y oro han continuado cayendo en el periodo, un 11% y un 21,5% respectivamente, las exportaciones de otros metales, tales como la plata y el zinc, en realidad se han incrementado, un 63,7% y un 6,6% respectivamente.

Aun así la recuperación en los niveles de exportación podría verse afectada por el hecho de que el 17 de junio las protestas anti-mineras se reanudaron en la región nordeste de Cajamarca. Desde el 2010, la comunidad local de Cajamarca, un área minera altamente productiva, ha montado violentas protestas contra el desarrollo de la vasta mina de cobre y oro de Conga, expresando preocupaciones medioambientales, que llevaron a la suspensión del proyecto hasta el 2014. Las protestas fueron muy perjudiciales, afectando todas las actividades comerciales, incluyendo la minería en la región, y la reanudación de las protestas una vez más podría de nuevo afectar severamente los niveles de producción.

• Nuevo secretario general de la CAN

El 15 de junio la Comunidad Andina (CAN), el bloque regional de integración compuesto por Bolivia, Colombia, Ecuador, y Perú, eligió por unanimidad al ex viceministro de integración y comercio exterior de Bolivia, Pablo Guzmán Laugier, como su nuevo secretario general por un periodo de cinco años. Guzmán fue electo durante la XXXVI reunión del consejo de cancilleres andinos, que tuvo lugar en las oficinas centrales de la CAN en Lima, Perú. Guzmán, un economista que había sido miembro de la cancillería de Bolivia desde el 2006, reemplaza al secretario general interino, su compatriota Adalid Contreras Baspineiro, en el cargo. Contreras asumió el puesto después de Freddy Ehlers, de Ecuador, quien fue electo en el 2007, dejará el cargo para asumir el puesto de ministro de turismo en Ecuador. Guzmán ahora estará a cargo de presentar los nuevos planes estratégicos del bloque para los próximos cinco años.

New national brand: On 3 September, after five years in the pipeline, the Laura Chinchilla government launched its new national “brand” for the country: Esencial Costa Rica. The US$650,000 cost of developing the new brand was shared by the foreign ministry (Comex), the national tourism institute (ICT), foreign trade promotion agency (Procomer) and national coalition of development initiatives (Cinde). According to a Comex press release, the new brand, which aims to boost tourism, exports and attract Foreign Direct Investment (FDI), draws on Costa Rica’s reputation both for natural beauty as well as its high technology and innovation industry. According to a May 2013 report by the United Nations Economic Commission for Latin America & the Caribbean (Eclac), Costa Rica maintained its position as the second leading destination for FDI in Central America (26% of the total), after Panama (34.0%). According to official estimates, FDI inflows to Costa Rica totalled US$2.3bn, a 5% increase on 2011. Meanwhile exports reached a record US$16.5bn in 2012, up 10% on 2011. According to the latest figures from the ICT, 1.3m tourists visited Costa Rica in the first six months of 2013, up 2.7% on the same period in 2012.

Competitiveness: The latest Global Competitiveness Report 2013-2014 report released on 4 September by the Geneva-based World Economic Forum (WEF) showed that Costa Rica moved up three positions to 54^th place. The report notes that while Costa Rica’s competitiveness profile “remains fairly stable, slight improvements in its innovation capacity (37^th) have driven this progress. Overall, the country continues to benefit from a fairly open economy (44^th) and strong institutions (50^th), despite rising concerns about the wastefulness of government spending (114^th) and fairly high costs associated with crime and violence (106^th)”.

URUGUAY-ARGENTINA | Rising commercial tensions. On 5 November Uruguay’s former foreign minister, Didier Opertti (1998-2005), suggested that the Uruguayan government denounce before the Southern Common Market (Mercosur) dispute resolution tribunal and the World Trade Organization (WTO) new Argentine measures forbidding Argentine exporters from using Uruguayan ports to tranship their goods. Opertti’s comments come after Argentina’s ports subsecretariat unexpectedly issued a new order on 29 October stipulating that Argentine imports “can only be transhipped in national ports or in ports of Mercosur member States and associate States that have existing maritime cargo agreements with the Argentine Republic”.

Unlike Brazil, Uruguay currently does not have such an agreement in place with Argentina. To some in Uruguay, it looks as though the measure was specifically designed to target Uruguayan ports, harming the country’s large transport sector. Uruguayan ports handle 100,000 20-foot containers of goods destined for Argentina each year, earning the national ports authority (ANP) between US$80m and US$100m a year.

The loss of Argentine transport business will have a much bigger impact on local freight firms. As Juan Olascoaga, general manager of local transport firm Montecon, stated: “We are very dependent on Argentine cargo and if this were to stop there is a big risk that Montevideo will no longer be used as an interoceanic stop-over point”. Olascoaga explained that Montevideo is currently on international maritime shipment routes precisely because goods can be transhipped to Argentina; and that if the ban stands it could result in many of these routes being re-directed to rival ports in Brazil. “The measure amounts to great harm for Montevideo and great benefit to Brazil, particularly for Rio Grande do Sul”, Olascoaga concluded.

The fact that Argentina’s decision came shortly after the bilateral dispute over the UPM pulp mill once again flared up further fuelled suspicion that the move was retaliatory. Uruguay’s President José Mujica himself alluded to this when asked about the decision: “We found ourselves between a rock and hard a place [with the UPM issue] and we had to take a decision regarding the pulp mill and now this happens by chance”, he said in an ironic tone. Mujica added: “There have always been difficulties with Argentina… but we will come up with something”.

Opertti, who also formerly headed up the Latin American integration association (Aladi), said the Mujica government should take the case to an arbitration panel on the grounds that “Argentina is violating commitments to Uruguay adopted under Mercosur, which establishes the free movement of goods”.  According to the ANP president, Alberto Díaz, the ANP is currently preparing a report outlining the negative impact of the measure for Uruguay’s foreign ministry, so that it can present it to the Argentine authorities. In the meantime, losses will mount on both sides of the River Plate. Uruguay’s industrial chamber (CIU) has warned that there is some US$13.5m worth of goods destined for Argentina stuck in Uruguay. Argentina’s chamber of exporters (Cera) has called for the measure to be repealed, pointing out that “its imposition from one day to the next severely affects existing export contracts… exacerbating the saturation of the ports of Santa Fe, Rosario and Buenos Aries, generating additional costs to international trade”.  Local analysts say the measure could cause regional freight prices to increase by three fold in the short and medium term.

PARAGUAY-BRAZIL | New bridge over the Paraná. On 30 October Paraguay’s public works minister, Ramón Jiménez Gaona, announced that by mid-November Paraguay and Brazil would launch a public tender process to build a new US$100m bridge over the Paraná River to link the two countries. Jiménez said that the new bridge, which will link the town of Presidente Franco in Paraguay with Foz do Iguaçu in Brazil, will help ease the heavy traffic of approximately 35,000 vehicles that cross the ‘Puente de la Amistad’, the only existing bridge over the Paraná (which links Foz do Iguaçu to Ciudad del Este), on a daily basis. According to Jiménez the plan is that construction of the new bridge will begin next year with a view for it to be concluded by 2016.

It did not take long for the right-wing Cabildo Abierto (CA) to come knocking. The fledgling party of Guido Manini Ríos, former army commander and presidential candidate, always looked like being the most troublesome ally within President Luis Alberto Lacalle Pou’s five-member ruling coalition. And events last week confirmed that to be the case as CA presented a bill in the senate to reinstate the Ley de Caducidad, the amnesty law shielding the military from prosecution for human rights violations during the dictatorship which was invalidated by the previous left-wing Frente Amplio (FA) government.

“The most legitimate of all of our laws was annulled by majority vote in the senate in 2011, by means of a law that was in part declared unconstitutional by the supreme court, clearing the way for certain magistrates to act with total impunity driven on by a chorus interested only in revenge,” Manini Ríos said upon presentation of the bill to revive the Ley de Caducidad.

• Ley de Caducidad

After two referendums narrowly preserved the Ley de Caducidad, in 1989 and 2009, and its annulment was defeated in congress in 2010, the FA government led by President José Mujica (2010-2015) pushed through a law invalidating it instead. All human rights abuses committed during the dictatorship were reclassified as “crimes against humanity”; the statute of limitations on military-era crimes, which was due to expire, was also removed. Mujica said the law complied with a ruling by the Inter-American Court of Human Rights ordering Uruguay to investigate crimes from the dictatorship.

The CA’s seven-article bill appeared to catch the government off guard. President Luis Lacalle Pou said it did not form part of the ‘Compromiso por el País’ signed by all members of the ruling multicolour coalition. He said it was “the vision of an important member of the governing coalition but…Uruguay needs to move forwards in peace and [for that] there are many sectors of society that need answers”. He said there was “no government position [on the matter], just a party position”. The defence minister, Javier García, who belongs to Lacalle Pou’s centre-right Partido Nacional (PN, Blancos), echoed his words. Deputy Iván Posada, of another coalition member, the centre-left Partido Independiente (PI), described Manini’s proposal as “like a return to the past”, adding that “for better or worse” this matter had been resolved.

The argument in favour of NGOs is that they may be able to change the world for the better, or, at least, to play a significant role in protecting it. Perhaps the clearest example of the potential soft power of the third sector is its role in seeking to preserve the biodiversity of the Amazon. This particular story also highlights the policy dilemmas and conflicts that many of these organisations end up facing. NGOs have been active in the Amazon for well over half a century. Now, in the 2020s, global warming is being seen as an existential threat to humanity. If governments and civil society fail to reduce carbon and greenhouse gas emissions, and to limit cumulative temperature rises since the start of the pre-industrial age to 1.5 degrees Celsius, the scientific consensus is that the world is going to become increasingly uninhabitable. Fairly or unfairly, what happens to the gigantic Amazon biome will play a large part in determining whether the world avoids ecological disaster. It is therefore not excessively reductionist to say the interplay of NGOs, Brazilian governments, and other international lobbies and interested parties may hold the key to our future.

The key role of the Amazon basin in the current global debate is hard to overstate. The Amazon covers 6.869m square kms, or roughly 40% of the South American continent. It covers nine countries: Bolivia, Brazil, Colombia, Ecuador, French Guyana, Guyana, Peru, Suriname, and Venezuela. Brazil has the largest share of the Amazon – about 69% of its total area. The biome is considered one of the most biodiverse areas of the world, with 30,000 species of plants, 2,000 species of fish, as well as reptiles, mammals, and 1,800 species of birds. Critically the Amazon rainforests act as a carbon sink, sequestering CO2 which would otherwise be dispersed into the atmosphere to accelerate the global warming process. The Amazon also regulates cloud convection across the Latin American region. Clouds originated in the Amazon have been called “rivers in the sky” because of their ability to distribute rainfall to remote locations.

The key point is that deforestation – the felling and burning of rainforest for logging, or to make way for mining, hydroelectric dams, cattle ranching, commercial agriculture, highways, and human settlements - has been surging ahead at unsustainable rates. In the years to 2012 it has been estimated that a total of 757,662 square kms of the Brazilian Amazon were deforested, representing 18.6% of Brazil’s total. Estimates of deforestation in the non-Brazilian Amazon are also high. Across both the Brazilian and non-Brazilian Amazon cumulative deforestation was estimated at 1.299m square kms, an area somewhat larger than the entire territory of Colombia. These numbers exclude a subsequent new surge in Brazilian deforestation, experienced during the four-year presidency (starting January 2019) of Jair Bolsonaro, notorious for his climate-change scepticism and his encouragement of accelerated economic development in the Amazon. 

Brazil’s thinking about the Amazon has changed over the decades. In the 1950s governments and the wider society were proud of the vast resources in the Amazon and saw the economic potential of the region as something to be celebrated and developed. Governments sought to encourage the population to move away from coastal areas and develop the country’s vast interior (the reasoning behind the opening of a new capital city, Brasilia, in 1960). The military governments of 1964-1985 urged settlement and economic development as a strategic priority. The official view was that the diverse indigenous inhabitants of the biome should be absorbed into modern society, benefiting from education and health services. For nationalists, the Amazon was there to be developed.

In the late 1970s however, a different narrative began to emerge. This was that the Amazon and its inhabitants constituted a unique and valuable eco-system that needed to be protected from unregulated and destructive commercial development. Indigenous communities particularly those which had limited contact with the modern world, needed to be protected, not forcibly integrated. Photographs of forest fires and reports of rampant deforestation caused the post-1985 civilian governments to take a more nuanced position. President Jose Sarney (1985-1990) successfully lobbied for Rio de Janeiro to become the host city for the milestone 1992 UN Conference on Environment and Development (UNCED), which helped raise awareness of global warming and was one of the precursors of the Paris climate change conference of 2015 (COP21), which set global GHG reduction targets, and of the follow-up Glasgow Conference in 2021 (COP26).

In the 1980s and 1990s a number of Amazon-focused environmental NGOs were founded in Brazil. Many were home grown organisations such as SOS Mata Atlántica (1986), SOS Amazonía (1988), Fundação Vitória Amazónica (FVA- 1990), and Instituto Socioambiental (ISA – 1994). International environmental NGOs also began to open offices in Brazil. They included The Nature Conservancy (TNC-1988), Friends of the Earth (1989), Greenpeace (1992), and the Worldwide Fund for Nature (WWF – 1996). This large group of domestic and international organisations became the informal guardians of the Amazon. To a certain extent so too did a range of government agencies with a semi-autonomous role in environmental and indigenous protection, such as Ibama (Instituto Brasileiro do Meio Ambiente e dos Recursos Naturais Renováveis) and FUNAI (Fundação Nacional do Índio).

Brazilian environmentalist Luiz C Barbosa has produced an interesting classification of the participants and policy position in the Brazilian debate on the Amazon. In essence, he identifies what he calls three political blocs. Bloc one includes all those who prioritise the economic development of the region above all other considerations, for example those that say building large hydroelectric power plants in the Amazon is the best route to reduce the country’s dependence on fossil fuels. This pure development approach is shared by big business, farmers, and many politicians. President Bolsonaro represents a particularly extreme version of this group, as evident in his attempt to dismantle environmental regulation, his support for mining in protected indigenous territories, and his frequent complaints that foreign NGOs are interfering in Brazil’s domestic affairs. Traditionally Brazil’s military strategists have also been part of this group, favouring any measures that build greater presence and economic strength in border and remote locations. They also argue that only Brazilians, and not foreigners, should determine the pace and extent of Amazon development.

Bloc two is formed by opposing leaders and organisations who place a high priority on preserving the environment. It includes scientists and NGOs who value the Amazon’s role as ‘the lungs of the world’ and who want to preserve its biodiversity. As in the other blocs there are some internal differences of emphasis. International NGOs such as Greenpeace and WWF call for zero deforestation while indigenous groups and some small scale extractivists – such as rubber tappers and nut gatherers - argue that both their livelihoods and the forests need to be protected in a balanced manner.

Bloc three attracts a group in the middle that argues for sustainable development, a more explicit combination of conservation and low-harm economic activity for the benefit of current and future generations. Some NGOs are also present in this bloc, along with farmers’ associations. A number of Brazilian governments have, at a rhetorical level at least, spoken of sustainable development but critics say it has been used more as a slogan than as a practical policy. There are differences in how sustainable development should be defined. The three blocs are relatively fluid, and it is possible for lobby groups to move between them. One example of evolving coalitions might be Brazilian farming interests. While many farming groups have been members of Bloc 1 and in favour of the rapid expansion of commercial farming in the Amazon, others, conscious of changing consumer sentiments in key export markets, are more likely to move into Bloc 3, framing their commodity exports as being environmentally friendly. 

In July a delegation of experts appointed by the United Nations (UN) arrived in Tegucigalpa to begin analysing the creation of a new international commission against corruption and impunity in Honduras (CICIH). CICIH’s establishment was a major electoral pledge by President Xiomara Castro who took office in January 2022. While in December 2022 the Castro government and UN inked a memorandum of understanding (MoU) regarding CICIH’s installation, frustration persists regarding the lack of progress on the issue. Meanwhile a report released in May by anti-corruption NGO Consejo Nacional Anticorrupción (CNA), accusing the government of nepotism, and the brief departure of CNA’s director Gabriela Castellanos who cited threats, have provided an uncomfortable backdrop for discussions regarding the CICIH’s establishment.

The deployment of UN experts is the first phase of the MoU inked in December 2022. The panel comprises Amerigo Incalcaterra, an Italian legal expert with extensive experience working with the UN in Latin America; Ana Gabriela Contreras, a Guatemalan jurist, a former consultant for the now-defunct UN-backed anti-impunity commission in Guatemala (Cicig), and Pedro Biscay, an Argentine jurist with over 20 years’ experience investigating financial and economic crimes. It is tasked with analysing the strengths and weaknesses of Honduran institutions like the attorney general’s office and judiciary, and with identifying necessary constitutional, legal and administrative reforms.

• MoU

The MoU inked by the Honduran government and United Nations in December 2022 also stipulates that parallel to the first phase, the two sides will negotiate the terms of the bilateral agreement to establish the mechanism. The second phase begins with the ratification of this bilateral agreement, with the two sides then to define the terms of reference to select CICIH’s leadership, as well as issues like staffing, contracts, and finance.

Having arrived in Honduras on 9 July to much media attention, the panel left on 23 July without providing any further declarations. While Foreign Minister Enrique Reina has since revealed plans for the panel to return from 13-19 August to continue its work, Transparency Minister Edmundo Orellana was compelled to reject media speculation regarding “negative, hostile or adverse circumstances” regarding the panel’s departure.

This speculation follows tensions which had emerged between the Castro government and foreign community over Castellanos, who briefly left the country in June following death threats, having accused government members of nepotism. On returning to Honduras, on 20 July Castellanos gave a press conference attended by the UN representative in the country, Alice Shackelford, whose presence led Castro to tweet that the “politicisation of the United Nations in Honduras [is] unacceptable!”. This prompted Shackelford to respond with a further tweet lamenting any discomfort her presence may have caused, underlining that her role as UN representative is based on “good faith and… principles of objectivity, neutrality and independence.”

Nepotism allegations

On 24 May CNA released a report accusing Castro’s government of nepotism and related practices, and drew comparisons with her disgraced predecessor, Juan Orlando Hernández (Partido Nacional, 2014-2022), who was extradited to the US in April 2022 to face drug- and weapons-related charges [SSR-22-05].

The CNA report highlights that multiple members of Castro’s close family hold key government posts. Examples include her husband, ejected former president Manuel Zelaya (2006-2009), and son José Manuel Zelaya Castro, both presidential advisors. It highlights that another son, Héctor Manuel Zelaya Castro is private secretary to the president, while a daughter, Xiomara Hortencia Zelaya Castro, is a national legislator, as is Castro’s brother-in-law Carlos Armando Zelaya Rosales, whose daughter, María Alejandra Zelaya Rosales, is director general of foreign policy within the foreign ministry. Castro responded to CNA’s report by defending those in her government, insisting that her administration and that of her predecessor were not comparable.

PERU | Trade surplus up. Peru posted a trade surplus of US$21.99bn in September for the last 12 months, the central bank (BCRP) reported on 18 November. This was up by 4.2% on the same month a year earlier and by 10.7% on August this year.

Exports in September amounted to US$6.64bn, according to the BCRP, up by 12.4% year-on-year, driven in large part by the higher price fetched by mining exports. Imports fell by 3.4% year-on-year to US$4.30bn.

COLOMBIA | Economic improvement consolidated. The economy expanded by 2% in the third quarter of 2024 compared with the same period in 2023, according to figures published by the national statistics institute (Dane) on 18 November. This is the fourth consecutive quarter of year-on-year GDP growth. It was driven by the agriculture, livestock, and fishing sector, which expanded by 10.7%, contributing 1.1 percentage points of the registered growth.

Colombia posted GDP growth of just 0.6% in 2023. The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) expects that to double to 1.2% this year before jumping to 3.3% in 2025.

ECUADOR | Combating energy shortage. The government announced this week that it had signed four contracts for the purchase of three (and hire of one) thermal generators, for a cost of US$467.28m. The generators are expected to add an additional 632.1MW to the national grid, the ministry of energy and mines said.        

The government announced on 18 November a reduction in the length of scheduled daily power cuts from 12 hours to eight hours. It explained that energy production by Ecuador’s giant Coca Codo Sinclair hydroelectric plant had improved, while Colombia’s government announced the resumption of exports to the country on 16 November after heavy rains.

Dead seaweed is accumulating on Caribbean beaches at a faster rate than ever before. It could pose a serious problem for the environment, fishing, and for tourism.

The authorities in Barbados, Mexico, and the Dominican Republic were cited by the international media as saying that hotel bookings are down this year by 30%-40% during the peak sargassum period (which typically runs between May and August). Beaches in Puerto Rico and Cuba are also among those affected. In Mexico, the Yucatán tourism business council (Cetur) says stopover hotel bookings are down as reports from the beaches speak of piles of brown seaweed, dead fish, and the smell of rotting algae. In June some schools near the coastline in Martinique were forced to close to protect children from increases in hydrogen sulphide and ammonia fumes coming from the seaweed. 

Speaking at the United Nations Ocean Conference in June, the Dominican Republic’s President Luis Abinader called for recognition of the environmental crisis posed by sargassum in the Caribbean, which he said could deliver “a significant blow to the GDP of island nations”.  

Sargassum is a type of seaweed found in the Sargasso Sea. Farah Nibbs, a marine science expert at the University of Maryland in the US, says that in normal times it is a “good thing” playing a positive role in the ocean eco-system. However, times are not normal. Since 2011 the seaweed blooms have been expanding dramatically. Brian Barnes, a research associate from the University of South Florida (USF) in the US was cited by British newspaper The Guardian as saying that “the peaks just seem to be getting bigger and bigger, year after year”. This is thought to be connected to global warming and increased nutrients from fertiliser run-off into the Atlantic carried by major rivers such as the Amazon and Mississippi.

A 31 July bulletin by the USF’s Optical Oceanography Lab calculates that in July there was 38m tonnes of the seaweed floating in the Caribbean and neighbouring parts of the Atlantic.

The economic impact is significant. A report published in May 2024 by the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (Noaa)’s National Centers for Coastal Ocean Science (NCCOS), a US government office, estimated that in Quintana Roo, Mexico, for example, sargassum cleanup efforts are estimated to cost as much as US$1.1m per km per year. Tourism is the number one industry and source of foreign exchange in many Caribbean countries (in the Dominican Republic it accounts for 16% of GDP). There are also important negative impacts on fishing and on the leisure boats sector (the seaweed clogs up propellers and moorings).

Governments and businesses are looking at ways of responding and cutting their losses. Yucatán’s state tourism board is promoting seven non-beach destinations in the state to try and retain visitors. UK-based aquaculture company Seafields, says it has developed a satellite-based system which can track the seaweed before it arrives onshore, allowing it to be captured and held in open-water paddocks, for potential use in biofuels and livestock feed. Meanwhile BioPlaster, a Mexican company, says it has developed a way of using sargassum as an alternative to cling-film and plastic bags. It is not yet clear whether such approaches will prove commercially viable, but pressure for solutions to the Caribbean’s “seaweed problem” is likely to increase.   

*** Israel getting nervous about Turkey.  Turkey’s ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) is on target for a decisive win in the 12 June general election, and there is even talk of Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan leading the Islam-based party to a two-thirds constitution-controlling majority in parliament.  Although Israel is keeping dilomatically quiet, behind the scenes it is alarmed by the prospect of a landslide AKP victory.

Israel’s concern has been heightened by some of the anti-Israeli language used on the election campaign trail, particularly by Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu.  On 5 June, for instance, he was quoted as telling voters in his home province of Konya: “There cannot be peace in the Middle East if Israel is seen as a ‘privileged’ country that is above international law.  Israel needs to accept being subject to international law as an ordinary nation state.”

Davutoglu also compared Israel unfavourably with Colonel Gaddafi’s regime.  He said: “Israeli is killing civilians...in Gaza.  What sanctions are imposed on it? Libya is [Gaddafi’s] own country.  Killings cannot be legitimized, but it’s something happening in his own country.  Israel is killing people in another country, in the Palestinian territories.  For me this is the main psychological threshold.”

*** Russia still standing by Assad.  Speaking at a news conference in Moscow on 2 June, Russia’s Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov reiterated Russia’s opposition to any attempts at regime change in Syria.  He said: “Such attempts are being made and we think it is necessary to prevent them.”

He added: “If [Syria’s] opposition groups continue to think only of how to reject everything that is proposed by the Syrian authorities, I think this would be an absolutely irresponsible approach.”

*** South Korean report warns about North’s special forces.  A report released in Seoul on 7 June, writen by retired general Lee Wong-seung and presented at a forum organized by the army, warned about the capabilities of North Korea’s special forces.

The report claimed that intelligence from defectors suggested that North Korean special forces had the capability to “infiltrate more than 90% of important facilities in South Korea”.

Last December, the latest South Korean defence white paper claimed that the North had increased the number of its special forces by tenfold to 200,000.

The report said that the North’s special forces “have been trained to conduct composite operations, such as major target strikes, assassinations of important figures, and disruptions in rear areas.”

On 22 September Peru’s unicameral congress approved tax reforms for the mining sector. The new laws will increase tax revenues by about US$5.5bn over the five year term of the Humala government.

President Humala said “This will allow the state to have more resources to be used primarily for infrastructure in the poorest areas of the country, in order to bring about social inclusion.” The new legislation creates a new mining tax, modifies the law on mineral royalties and establishes a new legal framework for the industry.

The powerful mining sector agreed to the measures in August and congress passed the measures without substantial amendment from either the radical left or pro business right.

Mining is central to the Peruvian economy, accounting for 60% of exports. The Sociedad Nacional de Minería (SNM) which represents mining companies, says private firms paid US$646m in royalties last year.

The three new measures: Impuesto Especial a la Minería (IEM), a modification of the Ley de Regalías Mineras (Royalty) and Gravamen Especial a la Minería (GEM), passed with a comfortable majority of 87, 84 and 83 respectively of a possible 130 votes. This reinforces the government’s position in congress and shows it is able to get cross -congressional support on specific issues. Assuming 2010’s profit figures, the total increase realised by the government in new taxes skimmed will be roughly 40% of 2010’s mining tax revenues. The point of the changes is to increase government revenue. The new tax is now levied on operating profits, not net profits and international metal prices. The combined taxes are expected to increase revenues by NS$3bn (US$1bn) in a year.

Mining companies will have to submit their own royalty, IEM or GEM figures and accounts, and pay up on a quarterly basis in arrears. This self assessment will minimise the cost to the government in terms of information collection. The calculations will then be processed and audited by the government’s tax body, Sunat. The law sets out the equation for the calculations, so companies will be able to anticipate how much they are likely to have to pay in advance.

All new contracts will have to pay a minimum 1% royalty regardless of how much or how little in the way of minerals they extract and process. The maximum will be set at 12%. Economy Minister Luis Castilla said last week that this modification will involve changing from a royalty of 1% to 3%, paid on sales, to a 1% to 12% tax on operational profits. The IEM’s progressive and cumulative rate will be between 2% and 8.4%, and the GEM’s between 4% and 13.2% - although these latter rates are not included in the legislation.

The two new taxes and the royalty modification will not affect the regional governments’ separate royalties.

The law does not outline how this revenue will be spent or distributed – the memo from congress states that it will go towards anti-poverty policies and national infrastructure, but gave no details.

Credit rating: On 30 August Standard & Poor’s, the credit rating agency which downgraded the US from AAA to AA+, upgraded Peru to BBB, above Brazil (BBB-) and on a par with Mexico. The upgrade is the first international round of applause for President Ollanta Humala’s government, which has been in office for little over a month. S&P said that it expects Humala’s government to run a mix of economic policies that will deliver strong growth as well as improve social inclusion.

S&P’s upgrade puts Peru at the top of the second division among Latin American sovereign risks behind Chile, which is the unquestioned best credit in the region with an A+ rating.

It is worth noting that S&P rates Panama as BBB-, the same as Brazil.

S&P expects that under Humala, Peru’s government debt as a proportion of GDP will decline over the next three years. The agency said that it was minded to upgrade Peru’s credit further if GDP growth became broader-based and the Nuevo Sol became a more dominant currency in financial transactions: currently, 45% of bank assets in the country are in the form of dollars.

CHILE | UN Mapuches report. Ben Emmerson, the United Nations special investigator on human rights and counter-terrorism, visited Chile in July and said the situation was ‘volatile’ in the southern region of Araucanía and Bío Bío, where nearly 1.0m Mapuche Indians live. Violence has increased in the region again since last year, as the Mapuche involved in a struggle to recover ancestral lands. The UN official urged the government to find a solution to the land issue. Emmerson said that the situation could turn into a major regional conflict unless the government took urgent action. He was particularly critical of the government’s use of anti-terrorist legislation against the Mapuche, dating back to the 1973-90 military dictatorship, which was applied in a “confusing and arbitrary way” and which discriminated against the indigenous people. A radical faction of the Mapuche have occupied and burned farms; on 29 July around 90 Mapuche attacked a police station in Alto Bío Bío.

CHILE | Polls still back Bachelet. An opinion poll carried out for Radio Cooperativa by Imaginacción and Chile’s Central University on 30 July put the centre-left presidential candidate Michelle Bachelet way ahead of her conservative coalition rival Evelyn Matthei in the race for November’s election. Over three quarters (76.9%) of respondents believed Bachelet would win to become president for a second time (the first was in 2006-2011), against only 20.5% expecting Matthei to do so. Matthei, a member of the conservative Unión Democrática Independiente (UDI), the senior partner in the ruling coalition, was nominated after Pablo Longueira dropped out on health grounds. With a comfortable lead in her favour, analysts are predicting that Bachelet will win in the first round on 17 November. Bachelet’s campaign managers, meanwhile, denied rumours that she was suffering from fatigue and was unable to stand for extended periods of time.

CHILE | New Labour Minister. On 24 July President Sebastian Piñera swore in Juan Carlos Jobet as his new labour minister. He replaces Evelyn Matthei, who officially resigned on 22 July to run as the presidential candidate for the ruling Coalición por el Cambio in the scheduled 17 November general election after the previous candidate Pablo Longueira stepped aside for health reasons. A member of President Piñera’s Renovación Nacional (RN), the junior member in the  governing coalition, Jobet initially served as coordinator of the interior ministry under the former interior minister (and now defence minister) Rodrigo Hinzpeter. Jobet was transferred to the post of deputy housing secretary in July 2011, a position he left in November to serve as campaign programme coordinator for the RN’s pre-presidential candidate, former defence minister Andrés Allamand (2011-2012), who was defeated in the 30 June primary contest. Matthei, like Longueira, hails from the senior coalition party, Unión Demócrata Independiente (UDI).

BRAZIL | No to IMF Greece bailout. In what could be described as a reversal of roles compared to one or two decades ago, Brazil said that along with another ten Latin American countries it was not supporting the latest International Monetary Fund (IMF) bailout for Greece. Paulo Nogueira Batista, Brazil’s executive director at the IMF, said his country had abstained in an executive board vote on a US$2.29bn pay-out to Greece, because Greek austerity measures had been “unsatisfactory in almost all areas”.

BRAZIL | Confidence is still ebbing. According to the national statistics institute (Ibge), 120,000 jobs were lost in June as the unemployment rate edged up from 5.8% in May to 6.0%. The Ibge said that approximately half of the industrial jobs lost were based in the São Paulo area, the country’s industrial heartland. Meanwhile, the Leading Economic Index (LEI) for Brazil, compiled by the Conference Board and Fundaçao Getúlio Vargas, which had been flat in April, fell by 1.2% in May and contracted again by 0.6% in June. Conference Board economist, Ataman Ozyildirim, said that “The LEI points to sluggish economic activity for the rest of 2013. The weakening of the Brazil LEI is in accordance with weakening leading indicators in China and India”.

• Brazil forecasts bottom out

The central bank of Brazil’s weekly ‘Focus’ survey of over one hundred private analysts released on 29 July showed that their average real annual GDP growth expectations for the Brazilian economy in 2013 had bottomed out at 2.3%, after 10 weeks of consistent week-on-week reductions.

The Canadian owned, Colombia-based oil company Pacific Rubiales, which has shares listed in both countries as well as capital held via Brazilian Depositary Rights (BDRs), is thinking of moving its board of directors somewhere else entirely: to Panama.

According to a Reuters report in late February, which cited a senior management source in Pacific Rubiales, which is the largest independent energy producer in Colombia, the company is thinking of moving its board of directors to Panama for two main reasons. One is to minimise taxes. “The decision is to move the entire board to Panama, including vice-presidents. Pacific is now a more international company, and Colombian taxes are higher than Panamanian taxes,” the source said. The second reason is to allow the company greater flexibility to manage its distribution and sales. While over 90% of the company’s oil production is still Colombia-based, it seems executives have decided that Panama is an ideal platform from which to manage expansion into countries like Peru, Brazil, Mexico, Guatemala and Suriname. Pacific Rubiales’ business model involves significant oil deliveries to the US and Europe on spot markets, and for these types of contracts Panama is deemed a good sales location. The source said that at a later date the entire marketing and distribution operation might be moved from Colombia to Panama.

Although the company stressed that it was not closing its Colombia management office, the decision to consider relocating at least part of the headquarters away from the country comes after a difficult year. Lower international oil prices, a depreciating Colombian peso, concerns over emerging markets in general, and worries over the future of a key production bloc have combined to give the share price something of a battering. The value of the company’s shares plunged 38% during the course of calendar 2013. This reflected various factors. Earnings in the five quarters to Q313 came in consistently below analysts’ consensus forecasts. Crude oil prices reached a two-year peak in August 2013, but dropped 9% in the period running from then to February 2014. The collapse of the Argentine peso in early 2014 also triggered general investor nervousness and a ‘flight to safety’ away from perceived high-risk emerging markets.

An important factor affecting investor perceptions has been the fact that one of the company’s main assets, its 42% share in the Piri Rubiales field in the Llanos Basin in Colombia, is due to come to an end in June 2016, when the concession terminates. This single field represents over half (56%) of Pacific’s daily crude oil production. If nothing else were to change, Pacific could therefore lose roughly half its revenue and profitability in two years’ time – a prospect guaranteed to alarm already nervous investors.

That said, there are strong signs that Pacific will meet the 2016 challenge and keep crude output on an upward trend. Ahead of releasing its fourth-quarter 2013 results, management was saying that output for the full year was expected to have grown by between 3% and 5%. Through its US$1.45bn acquisition of Petrominerales last year, Pacific now controls additional blocs under development in the Llanos (CPE-6 and Rio Ariari), which when fully on-stream should represent some 70,000 barrels per day (bpd), more than the 65,000 bpd at risk when the Piri Rubiales concession ends. These blocs produce light crude that can be used to dilute the company’s heavy crude output from other wells. The purchase of Petrominerales also gives Pacific a valuable 5% equity stake in the OCEANSA pipeline. Another plus for the company is its proprietary STAR technology, which has demonstrated its ability to increase oil reservoir recovery rates; boosting production and therefore reserves.

In fact, STAR may be the key to leveraging some kind of continuing presence for Pacific in the Piri Rubiales field. When the concession terminates in 2016, the field is due to revert to Ecopetrol, Colombia’s state-owned oil producer. In February, Amylkar Acosta, Colombia’s mines and energy minister, who also sits on Ecopetrol’s board, said it had received “with great interest” a proposal from Pacific concerning arrangements for the field after June 2016. It was suggested that Pacific was offering the rights for Ecopetrol to use STAR in return for a share of the output extracted. Pacific would not itself comment on what had been proposed, but analysts believed the chances of a mutually beneficial deal looked good.

The company itself is bullish about the future. It has estimated that the acquisition of Petrominerales will allow it to boost its total oil production by between 15% and 25% this year (up to between 148,000 and 162,000 bpd). The forecast includes production from assets in Latin America, although roughly 95% of the total will remain Colombia-based.

CHILE | Bachelet passes new foreign investment law

President Michelle Bachelet passed into law on 16 June a new regulatory regime for foreign investment in Chile. The new law, which replaces the 1974 Foreign Investment Act, will provide “a more modern legal framework” allowing the country to adopt a proactive role in attracting investors, Bachelet said during a ceremony to mark the law’s passage at the La Moneda presidential palace. “It is a law that not only establishes the conditions for foreign investors but that also involves the creation of a national strategy to promote foreign direct investment (FDI)…For the first time in history, Chile will have a national investment policy that is able to fit in with the rest of our economic policy and to provide sustainable development,” Bachelet said.

The law entails the creation of a committee of ministers for the promotion of foreign investment, which will advise the President regarding foreign investment policy. It also involves the setting up of a foreign investment promotion agency that will implement the policy of attracting foreign investment and also coordinate the efforts of the country’s regional governments to do so, following advice laid out by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD). The new law, which will come into force in 2016, guarantees foreign investors’ access to foreign exchange markets and to the free remittance of capital and earnings. But current foreign investors in Chile will have the option to maintain contracts signed under the terms of the 1974 legislation, which will also be available to new investors for a maximum period of four years with a fixed tax rate of 44.45%.

“This new legal and institutional framework is a true opportunity for Chile, to attract better projects which bring greater productivity, greater innovation, greater diversification, more sustainability and better cooperation between the State, the communities and businesses,” Bachelet said. She emphasised “the position of Chile as a serious economy, open to the world, that is managed responsibly and that serves as a link between the Pacific and Latin America”, as a feature that was attractive to foreign companies looking to invest. “We are a country whose economy has its doors open and that warmly receives foreign businesses that contribute their knowledge, technology and ideas to the development of our nation”, she said.

The United Nations Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (Eclac) released a report in May of this year showing that Chile remains the third most popular Latin American country for foreign investors, behind Brazil and Mexico. According to figures published by the Chilean central bank, Chile received US$111.27bn in FDI between 2010 and 2014. FDI in 2014 was US$23.30bn, 15% above that of the year before, but below the US$28.54bn invested in 2012. FDI is concentrated in the mining sector, which absorbed 44.9% of the total between 2009 and 2013; over the same period the US was the biggest investor, with 16.7% of total FDI.

• “Finally Chile is up to date since the law that we passed is exactly the kind of institutional framework that will incentivise and promote better and greater foreign investment in our country. We did it because, as a government, we firmly believe that private investment makes a great contribution to our development and to the generation of wealth in Chile.” Chile’s President Michelle Bachelet.

MEXICO | Getting tough on oil theft from Pemex. On 10 December the lower chamber of congress approved, with cross-party support, a new law providing for the imposition of harsher penalties for the illegal tapping of Pemex oil pipelines. It then passed upward to the senate for final approval. This came after the failure of a policy adopted last February to deter the thieves by pumping only unrefined fuels through the pipelines. Not only did the thefts fail to decline, the number of detected illegal taps increased sharply ¾ a development that has been attributed by the authorities to the spreading influence of organised crime in this activity.

In the first 11 months of this year Pemex reported the detection of 5,091 taps on its pipelines, an increase of 55% on the same period of 2014. A straight projection would take this year’s total to about 9,000, up from 3,348 taps detected in the whole of 2014, and approaching the equivalent of all those detected between 2000 and 2014.

Senator Emilio Gamboas Patrón, coordinator of the ruling PRI’s bloc in the upper house of congress, reckoned that this year’s losses to oil theft could reach M$40bn (US$2.3bn) which, he said, would suffice to repair 80% of Mexico’s public schools.

The bill as approved by the senate imposes prison sentences of 15 to 25 years and fines from M$1.05m (US$61,000) to M$1.65m (US$95,859) on those found guilty of involvement in placing the illegal pipeline taps, financing them, or storing, transporting or distributing stolen oil.

To put the penalties into perspective, rapists are handed down sentences of six to 10 years, and murderers of up to 30 years.

MEXICO | Confrontation with protesting trainee teachers. In early December trainee teachers took over a tollbooth on the Pátzcuaro-Uruapan highway in Michoacán to demand money to fund their campaign. They hijacked two cars and held up buses and, when arrested by state police, were found to be carrying homemade grenades in violation of the federal law on firearms and explosives.

Thirty of the male protesters were arrested and charged with acts of violence. They were remanded into custody without bail, at a prison in Sonora. Twenty-two female students faced similar treatment.

This triggered a protest march by members of the combative teachers’ union Coordinadora Nacional de Trabajadores de la Educación (CNTE) marched to the state congress in Morelia, the capital of Mexico’s Michoacán state, to hand over an official letter demanding that it intercede with the federal authorities to secure the release of the detainees. Relatives of the detainees also took part and took part in the erection of roadblocks.

The governor of Michoacán, Silvano Aureoles, met them and promised to mediate with the federal authorities to resolve the matter. The teachers are protesting the introduction of teacher performance assessments, part of a broad education reform championed by federal education minister Aurelio Nuño, who has adopted a hard line towards the protests.

Exactly three years after the notorious murder of Honduran environmentalist and indigenous activist Berta Cáceres, a trial is set to begin into irregularities surrounding the award of a contract to build the Agua Zarca dam and hydroelectric project she had protested against. Sixteen people stand accused of fraud, abuse of authority, conducting negotiations incompatible with their official duties, and falsifying documents to the detriment of the state.

The charges were filed before the supreme court of justice (CSJ) on 4 March by the anti-corruption unit of the Honduran public prosecutor’s office (Ufecic), which was set up in September 2017, and the Organization of American States (OAS) Mission to Support the Fight against Corruption and Impunity in Honduras (Maccih). Among those charged are the former deputy minister for natural resources and the environment, Darío Roberto Cardona, the former director of the state power company Empresa Nacional de Energía Eléctrica (ENEE), Roberto Martínez Lozano, and the former executive president of Desarrollos Energéticos Sociedad Anónima (Desa), Roberto David Castillo, who was arrested three days earlier accused of being the intellectual author of Cáceres’s murder. They will appear in court on 13 March.

Seven men were convicted in November 2018 of the murder of Cáceres, with the court claiming that Desa executives ordered her shooting because of delays and financial losses linked to the protests she had coordinated. The upcoming court case will look into how Desa obtained the contract to construct the 22MW dam on the Gualcarque river in western Honduras.

Ufecic and Maccih charge that the contract between ENEE and Desa was signed in violation of the law as Desa was not listed on the official registry as a provider and state contractor. Prosecutors contend that Castillo used his position as a technical assistant to ENEE management to secure the project despite Desa lacking the experience or capital to carry it out. Desa’s lawyer insisted that the company had faced “an implacable campaign of false accusations”.

On 1 March, three days before the suit was brought, the NGO Center for Justice and International Law (Cejil) demanded justice for Cáceres, calling on the government to revoke the concession granted to Desa, and arguing that human rights defenders still faced criminalisation, repression, and violence in Honduras.