Andean Group - June 2026

We begin this June 2026 edition of the Latin American Regional Report: Andean Group in Venezuela, which has embarked on one of the most complex debt restructurings in history. On 13 May President Delcy Rodríguez’s government announced the beginning of a comprehensive process to overhaul the country’s external public debt obligations, including bonds issued by the government and by state oil company Pdvsa. Whether Venezuela can successfully negotiate with creditors and regain access to international capital markets will help shape the recovery of a country that possesses the world’s largest oil reserves but has suffered one of the worst economic collapses in modern history.

The next article looks at how the Caribbean has been a diplomatic priority of Rodríguez since she took over as Venezuela’s president in January. Her first two trips abroad as president were to Barbados and Grenada, and the third trip, to the Netherlands, was to testify in a territorial dispute with Guyana – a key player in the Caribbean Community (Caricom). A visit to Caracas by the foreign minister of Suriname swiftly followed. Lacking widespread diplomatic support in Latin America, Rodríguez will be hoping to rebuild some of the Caribbean alliances that were forged by her predecessors Hugo Chávez (1999-2013) and, to a lesser extent, Nicolás Maduro (2013-2026), and which for a while made the Caribbean a key bastion of support for the ruling Chavismo movement.

A third article on Venezuela then discusses the implementation of the amnesty scheme for political prisoners, after Rodríguez announced on 23 April that it was drawing to a close. Although the government later rowed back on Rodríguez’s comments, prisoner releases had already slowed substantially compared with the start of the year. The exception to this came in late May, when dozens of political detainees were released in a short period. This may have been a response to widespread outrage which followed the revelation that a political prisoner had been dead for nearly a year without his family being informed.

We then turn to Bolivia, where President Rodrigo Paz has been facing mass protests across the country since mid-May, with trade unions, indigenous organisations, miners, and peasant farmers joining forces to demand his resignation. On 20 June Paz took the escalatory step of declaring a state of exception and sending in troops to clear roadblocks that have ground the country to a halt, after weeks of growing pressure from congress and the business sector.

The final article looks at the worsening situation facing Ecuador’s health system. Shortages of medicines have been a factor in President Daniel Noboa cycling through seven health ministers since he took office in November 2023.