Questioning Otto Perez’s “Iron Fist” Policies

President Otto Perez has primarily followed a “mano dura,” or “iron fist,” security policy during his first 100 days in office, argues IPS in a review of his first 100 days in office.

“Iron fist” policies were most prominently seen in other Central American countries like El Salvador and Honduras, in which the government focused primarily on punitive measures against suspected gang members. This filled the jails in these countries to the breaking point, and failed to do much to reduce violence.

As the first sign of an aggressive anti-crime policy, IPS cites the fact that Perez ordered the military to patrol the streets alongside police about a week after he was sworn in. At the time, the government said they deployed about 500 soldiers to man about 32 checkpoints across the country, with about 15 soldiers per checkpoint, reports EFE. Other checkpoints would have police officers present. So the security sweep did not apparently consist of the military accompanying the police on block-by-block street patrols; instead, it was presented as a series of checkpoints manned by officers from both forces.

Rather than these “joint” patrols, the most aggressive measure that Perez has taken with the military is likely the 30-day state of emergency declared last week in Huehuetenango province, which indigenous and community leaders have protested. Tuesday, in an open letter to Perez, local leaders asked that the state of emergency be lifted, reports the Latin American Herald Tribune. During a visit to the region, Perez argued that the government will respect human rights, “but would not tolerate challenges to the rule of law.”

Perez has tried to present this argument as the core of his anti-crime policy. During the election, he presented himself as tough on crime, leading many observers to wonder whether he would enforce a hardline security strategy as president. His status as a former military officer also raised concerns that he would favor the “iron fist” approach. When Plaza Publica asked him last year whether he would have rather have an administration like Colombian ex-President Alvaro Uribe, renowned for dramatically improving Colombia’s security but arguably at the expense of protecting human rights, or the more moderate President Juan Manuel Santos, Perez said he preferred Uribe.

According to IPS, among Perez’s most noteworthy actions during his first 100 days in office is the creation of seven anti-crime special task forces -- meant to confront crimes like kidnapping, homicides, femicide, and extortion. The most recent task force is charged with intercepting drug shipments that enter Guatemala by sea, reports El Periodico. In theory, such task forces are supposed to bolster inter-agency cooperation, especially between the judicial and law enforcement sectors. In an encouraging sign, some of the task forces have ambitious goals which emphasize reducing impunity rather than meeting a quota of arrests. The head of the anti-homicide task force, for example, told ElPeriodico his primary goal is to reduce impunity in murder cases by 63 percent compared to 2011.

The Perez proposal most often described as rooted in an “iron fist” approach is Law 3189, a bill which he first introduced in 2005 while serving as a congressman. The Law to Prevent, Control, and Eradicate Juvenile Gangs would change the legal definition of an adult from age 18 to age 12. In a March 12 interview with local news source AGN, Perez said he intended the law to deter bullying, and to discourage youths from attacking or even killing one another as part of gang rituals. He said his inspiration to re-introduce the law to Congress came from one recent case involving an 11-year-old boy who was essentially bullied to death.

As IPS reports, Law 3189 has prompted some experts to say that it emphasizes punishment over violence prevention and rehabilitation. The law did not move very far through Congress when it was first introduced. Considering Perez’s 76 percent approval rating in one recent poll, the president may now have the traction to make the law a reality, likely feeding concerns that he has opted to use an “iron fist” after all.


News Briefs

• The US Treasury Department added two sons of Sinaloa Cartel leader’s Joaquin Guzman, alias “Chapo,” to its “kingpin” list, which blocks US companies from doing business with them. The press release notes that Mexican authorities arrested one son, Ivan Guzman, in 2005 for money laundering, but he was later set free. The Treasury Department also includes a very basic chart of the Sinaloa organization, which includes photographs of the drug lord’s sons. 

• The Miami Herald reports on the return of the opposition to power in the Bahamas. 

• IPS reports on conflict between indigenous groups in Peru and a Canadian energy company: the energy company argues that the government gave them permission to conduct oil exploration activities 25 miles from the indigenous group’s lands, and that they have the support and approval of other ethnic groups in the region. The article notes that conflict raises the question of what exactly constitutes the consent of indigenous communities affected by development projects: the agreement of all constituents, or the agreement of select community leaders.  

• In an interview with El Nuevo Herald, Venezuela opposition leader Henry Ramos Allup alleges that the Chavez government is creating and arming dozens of new urban militias with the aim of sowing discord, in order to eventually prompt a “military intervention” and allow the government to call off presidential elections this fall. 

• Jamaica’s political parties are investigating claims that a man currently serving prison time for fraud donated large sums of money to both parties, reports the BBC. 

• Conflict broke out once again in a Venezuelan prison, causing security forces to fire tear gas on inmates, reports the AP. 

• Fox News Latino on an ambitious proposal by the Puerto Rican government to make the island fully bilingual by 2022. 

• A Honduran journalist and activist for gay rights who went missing Saturday was found dead. Honduran human rights organization CONADEH counts 22 journalists or media workers who have been killed during President Porfirio Lopez’s administration, reports El Heraldo.

More Chavez Speculation

The rampant speculation over the health of Hugo Chavez continues this week, but this time there appear to be more substantial indicators that the Venezuelan President may be concerned for his political future. Last week Chavez appointed a “council of state” headed by Vice President Elias Jaua to govern in his absence as he undergoes his final cancer therapy in Cuba. While the country’s 1999 constitution called for such a council to be created as a body of key advisors to the president, it was not activated until now because of Chavez’s signature dominant ruling style.

The Economist notes that the body is supposed to consist of “five members selected by the president, one by state governors, one by the legislature and the last by the Supreme Court,” and while only the president’s selections have been named, the others are all likely to be loyal to Chavez as well. Although the government that the role of this council will be purely advisory, some analysts insist that its creation was designed to establish a pool of successors should the president be unable to run in the upcoming October elections.  

Fueling this talk is the notable change in tone that Chavez has adopted in recent weeks. As the Associated Press reports, the president has embraced a much more religious attitude lately, seemingly invoking the name of Jesus Christ more often than that of his political mentor and friend Fidel Castro. Chavez himself says that his experience with cancer has made him “more Christian.”

Others, however, see the religious shift as more of a political move in a heavily Catholic country than an indication of his deteriorating health. Venezuelan political analyst Luis Vicente Leontold the AP that this makes sense because "he cannot hide the illness, but he can hide its characteristics and danger, [and] he's decided to take as much advantage of it as he can, and one advantage is the symbolic and religious issue. He'll present himself as the chosen one, the man who has been cured and healed by the Lord to continue governing the country."

For his part, Chavez is continuing to express optimism about his prognosis. In an interview with state television via telephone from a hospital in Havana yesterday, he expressed faith that he would return to Venezuela soon and give the opposition a “resounding knockout” in October.

News Briefs

·         More out in the English press about Sunday’s Mexican presidential debates. The Washington Post and Economist note that frontrunner Enrique Peña Nieto dashed the hopes of his rivals that he would have a Rick Perry-style crisis moment during the event, which would likely be the only thing that could have an effect on his fifteen-point lead in the polls. The AP profiles another big winner of the evening, the “curvaceous model in a tight gown” that appeared briefly onstage with an urn filled with bits of paper which determined the order the candidates would speak.

·         Colombian officials claim that drug kingpin Javier Antonio Calle Serna, alias “Comba,” turned himself in to U.S. drug officials in Aruba on Friday. LA Times and El Tiempo report that he is now being held in a prison in New York.  Along with his brother Enrique, Calle Serna headed a notorious neo-paramilitary gang known as the Rastrojos in the country.

·         The Associated Press on Sunday ran an interesting profile of the two Argentines charged with managing energy firm YPF after the Fernandez government announced its nationalization: YPF’s new manager Miguel Galuccio and Keynesian economist Axel Kicillof. While Galuccio is tasked with running the business side of YPF, Kicillof has been chosen to enforce the political aspect of the YPF, making sure that it is in line with the Fernandez administration’s priorities. The wire service offers a rather tender portrait of the 41 year-old economist, describing him as a rising star in the government with “penetrating blue eyes and Elvis Presley-style sideburns.”

·         Meanwhile, the Americas Quarterly blog highlights remarks by EU Trade Commissioner Karel De Gucht, who said Argentina may face a retaliation for the nationalization.

·         The Washington Post on Saturday reported on criticism of the taxpayer-funded Radio and TV Marti, which published an editorial by its director calling Cardinal Jaime Ortega (the head of the Church in Cuba) a “lackey” who expressed views that were “contrary to the doctrine of Christ.” The Marti editorial has since been taken down.

·         After the fallout from the Secret Service scandal in Cartagena, Colombian lawmakers have proposed a bill which would give sex workers greater protection in the country.

·         Honduras Culture and Politics looks at Reporters Without Borders’ recent selection of Honduran business tycoon Miguel Facussé as one of the world’s top “predators of the freedom to inform.” The blog points out that, unlike other Latin American countries where predators are drug cartels or armed movements, in Honduras “all it takes is to reach the exalted rank of predator of the freedom to inform is to be a powerful businessman with political connections.”

·         While Guatemalan President Otto Perez was initially commended in some progressive circles for his openness to drug decriminalization, his crackdown on organized criminal activity in the country has human rights activists concerned. Inter Press Services reports that many in the country feel the president’s plan to lower crime constitutes political repression and does not focus enough on preventative measures.

·         Ex-Prime Minister of the Bahamas Perry Christie and his opposition Progressive Liberal Party won elections in the Caribbean nation yesterday, beating the ruling Free National Movement.

Zetas, Rivals Leave 23 Bodies as Warning in Nuevo Laredo

In the latest outbreak of violence in the troubled Mexican city of Nuevo Laredo, which sits on the US border, 23 bodies were found on Friday accompanied by notes indicating that they were victims of a war between the Zetas, the Sinaloa and the Gulf Cartel.

Nine bodies with signs of torture were found hanging from a bridge on Friday, reports the Washington Post. They were left with a banner suggesting that they were members of the Gulf, warning “this is how I’m going to finish off every [expletive] you send to heat up the plaza,” reports Borderland Beat (warning - graphic images of the bodies). It referenced someone called “El Metro 4” who “asked Comandante Lazcano for mercy,” in a reference to Zetas boss Heriberto Lazcano, also known as “Z-3.” The banner appeared to be a threat from the Zetas to the Gulf Cartel warning the Gulf not to send operatives to cause trouble in Nuevo Laredo. The practice of carrying out killings in a territory -- plaza -- controlled by a rival group in order to draw the federal forces into the area, is known as “heating up the plaza.”


Fourteen decapitated bodies were found hours later in a minivan in the city, and their heads were found in cooler boxes in another van parked outside of city hall. Borderland Beat says that a message left with the bodies was a threat against the mayor from Sinaloa Cartel boss Joaquin Guzman, “El Chapo,” reading;

You want credibility that I am in NL?  What will it take, bringing the heads of Zeta leaders?  Or yours?

It also read:

Keep making Z-40's case to say and deny that we already operate in Nuevo Laredo, just so that Lazcano will not scold this illiterate car washer.

Borderland Beat says that the mayor recently declared in a press conference that the Sinaloa Cartel does not operate in the state of Nuevo Laredo. "Z-40" is the alias ofMiguel Angel Treviño, the Zetas’ second-in-command.


InSight Crime reported in March that the dead bodies of Zetas members had begun appearing around the city, in a sign that the Sinaloa Cartel was moving into the Zetas-controlled territory and making its presence felt. The two have become the most powerful criminal organizations in Mexico, after the Zetas split from the Gulf Cartel in 2010. Since then, the Sinaloa has formed an alliance of convenience with its old enemies in the Gulf to fight against the Zetas.


The LA Times notes that the battle between the Sinaloa and the Zetas is also responsible for the recent violence in Veracruz, where at least four journalists have been found murdered in recent days.


Colombia’s Semana magazine has a report on the violence against journalists in Nuevo Laredo.




News Briefs

• Colombia’s FARC rebel group has confirmed that they are holding journalist Romeo Langlois as a prisoner of war, and said that they will release him soon. In a video recorded by journalist Karl Penhaul and released Sunday, a rebel speaking directly to the camera repeated much of the information given in phone calls to journalists last week, saying that they had Langlois and that he was in good health. Later on Sunday, a message sent from the FARC’s Twitter account said that "the prisoner of war, French journalist Romeo Langlois, will soon be freed safe and sound," reports the BBC. The Colombian Army has saidit will suspend operations in the area where Langlois is being held if necessary for his release.
  InSight Crime looks at the question of whether Langlois can be considered as a prisoner of war, as the FARC claim. It quotes the Committee to Protect Journalists’ guidelines, which say that
  “A credentialed, uniformed journalist legally becomes a part of the military unit with whom he or she is traveling, according to the Geneva Conventions of 1949. Embedded journalists may be fired upon legally by opposing forces as part of the unit, and the individual journalist may later be detained legally and held for the duration of hostilities as a prisoner of war.” InSight Crime says that this means Langlois’ situation is ambiguous, reflecting the fact that it is not clear how far traditional terminology can be applied to modern war zones.

• Mexico’s four leading presidential candidates took part in a debate Sunday ahead of the July 1 election, which the WSJ says is unlikely to derail front-runner Enrique Peña Nieto. The newspaper notes that more significant than the mudslinging may be the fact that three of the candidates said they wanted to open Mexico's energy sector to private investment.
  The WSJ also has a look at the campaign of Josefina Vazquez Mota, presidential candidate of the ruling PAN party. It notes that, like the opposition candidates, she is campaigning on the promise of a change to the status quo, for a public tired of the spiralling drug violence and slow economic growth that have characterized the time in power of President Felipe Calderon. Vasquez is trailing in the polls behind Peña Nieto, candidate of the PRI which ruled Mexico for 71 years until 2000, in what one analyst told the paper is a manifestation of "fatigue of the PAN's last 12 years and a short memory for the PRI's seven decades." She has not rejected Calderon’s assault on the drug cartels, but says that she would focus on going after money launderers, and form a militarized police force.

• A fire in a drug rehabilitation center in Lima killed 14 people, who could not escape because the doors were locked and the windows barred, reports the BBC. La Republica reports that, according to police, the fire was caused by a brawl between inmates, who set mattresses on fire. Five people survived, including the director of the center and four inmates -- only one of whom was in the building where the fire broke out. He is being held in police custody. This follows a fire at another such center in Lima in January which killed 29. After that fire, media reports said that there were 260 institutions in the country calling themselves treatment centers, only 20 percent of which were licensed. In setting out it drug policy earlier this year, Peru’s government listed improving rehabilitation facilities as a top priority.

• A woman identified as the sex worker at the center of the scandal over Secret Service agents using prostitutes in Cartagena has given an interview to Colombia’s W Radio, reports the AP. Dania Londoño Suarez made comments that could be highly embarrassing for the service, saying that the men involved in the case were “idiots,” and that she could have easily gone through her client’s wallet and documents while he was asleep. Londoño said that the US authorities had not contacted her, causing US congressman Peter King, who chairs the House Homeland Security Committee, to say that he was concerned that investigators had not been able to locate the women involved when the media had seemingly done so with no trouble. She said she had fled the country, fearing retaliation from the agents, and that she regretted making a fuss, as the events had put her name into the gutter. Londoño has made a deal to pose for Playboy magazine, reports Cartagena’s El Universal.

• The NYT reports on the US military’s anti-drug operations in Honduras. The force operates under strict rules; they “cannot fire except in self-defense, and they are barred from responding with force even if Honduran or Drug Enforcement Administration agents are in danger.” With the support of the Honduran government, they have constructed three bases in remote areas of the country, allowing them to respond quickly to intercept drug traffickers. The report notes that the US military operations in the country take place in the shadow of the history of US intervention in the region, including using Honduras as a base to support the Contras in Nicaragua.
  With slideshow of the military bases, as well as police operations in Tegucigalpa.

• The NYT takes a humorous look at Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez’s TV show “Alo Presidente!”, commenting that “the show’s cheap production values and quirky theme music bring to mind nothing so much as an old-school cable-access TV show.” It goes some way towards explaining the president’s popularity and the longevity of the show, however, quoting one historian who says that “Alo Presidente!” allows ordinary Venezuelans, who have spent much of their life being ignored, to have the sensation of contact with power.

• The NYT reports on Brazil’s rush to build hydroelectric dams in the Amazon to supply the nation’s rapidly growing demand for electricity. These projects are facing problems due to unrest and discontent amongst workers over salaries and living conditions, with one strike last month on the banks of the Madeira River ending with arson, looting and elite troops being sent in. They are also opposed by environmental groups, who cite displacement of local people and the destruction of the rainforest.

• In Caracas, a severely overcrowded prison which has been the scene of recent reported escape attempts and gunfire is set to be closed down, according to Prison Minister Iris Varela. She told press that half the prison’s inmates had been transferred, and that the institution would be closed as it did not meet required standards. Prison rights activist Carlos Nieto said before the transfers that it had been built for 350 prisoners but housed about 2,600, reports the AP.

• After Bolivian President Evo Morales nationalized a power company owned by Spain’s REE, the Economist has a piece noting that, unlike Argentina’s Cristina Fernandez expropriating YPF, Morales tried to minimize the fallout from the move. It says that the nationalization offers him a “brief respite” from his domestic troubles. Mary Anastasia O’Grady at the WSJ says that Morales is having trouble governing, with his approval rating down to 30 percent, as Bolivians reject what she calls his heavy-handed tactics. She notes the massive protests against his attempt to raise gas prices in December 2010 and against his plans to build a highway through the TIPNIS indigenous reserve. For O’Grady, left-wing defenders of Morales who cite his indigenous heritage as a plus miss the fact that “indigenous Bolivians are no more interested in being tyrannized by someone who looks like them than by someone who doesn't.”

• The LA Times reports on a migrant shelter north of Mexico City, where mostly Central American migrants are warned of the risks of pressing onward by volunteers.

• The Economist reports on the “Animal Game,” an illegal gambling racket invented in Rio de Janeiro in the 19th century, which has become intertwined with organized crime.

• Eleven of Costa Rican President Laura Chinchilla’s 23 cabinet ministers have lost their jobs in the last two years, the latest being Transport Minister Francisco Jimenez who was asked to resign over corruption allegations last week, reports Inside Costa Rica.

Press Freedom Day Sees Journalists Murdered, Missing

There was grim news from the Americas on press freedom day, May 3, with three Mexican journalists found dead in the state of Veracruz, and no confirmation of the fate of a French journalist thought to be in the hands of Colombia’s FARC.

Four dismembered bodies were found Thursday in a canal in Veracruz state. The Wall Street Journal reports that two were identified as photojournalists, while a third was a former photojournalist, and the fourth was his wife.

Seven journalists have been killed in Veracruz in the past 14 months, according to theCommitte to Protect Journalists. Violence has peaked in the state over the last year as the Zetas’ control over the city has been challenged by other criminal groups, including the Matazetas (Zeta Killers), a group which describes itself as paramilitary and claims to want to wipe out the Zetas in order to protect the population, and Gente Nueva, an enforcer gang linked to the Sinaloa Cartel.

Two of the victims, Guillermo Luna and Gabriel Huge, had both worked for Notiverbefore fleeing the area last year after the killing of another journalist, but had recently returned, according to the WSJ. They had both then begun working for VeracruzNews, says the New York Times, which identifies the third journalist as Esteban Rodriguez, who was working for Diario AZ.

Notiver has been the target of attacks in the past, says the NYT: “Last June, MiguelÁngel López Velasco, a columnist and the newspaper’s editorial director, was shot to death along with his wife and one of his children. A month later, Yolanda Ordaz de la Cruz, one of the newspaper’s police reporters, was found with her throat slit.”

The discovery of the bodies comes days after the dead body of Regina Martínez, who wrote for Proceso, was found beaten and strangled in her house in Veracruz. InSightCrime notes that, in the week prior to her death,

Martinez produced articles on a Veracruz mayor's ties to the Zetas drug gang, the arrest of an alleged Zetas financial head, and the detention of nine Veracruz police officers for alleged links to organized crime.

Meanwhile, in Colombia, French journalist Romeo Langlois remains missing without any definitive confirmation that he is being held by the FARC rebels. He disappeared Saturday when an army unit he was embedded with came under fire. Various news stations and organizations have received messages claiming to be from the FARC’s 15th Front and saying that they have Langlois prisoner, but this has not been confirmed. The situation is complicated by the fact that the FARC’s website where they often make annoucements, www.farc-ep.co, is down, apparently having beenhacked and replaced with that of an Argentine party promoter.




News Briefs

• Haitian lawmakers have approved the appointment of Laurent Lamothe as the country’s new prime minister, ending a second period of deadlock in which the country was without an effective government. The AP points out that, in President Michel Martelly’s first year in office, he has had a prime minister for only four months, preventing him from moving forward with reconstructing the country. Martelly had not held public office before. Previous Prime MinisterGarry Conille, appointed after an eight-month delay at the beginning of Martelly’s term, resigned in February after clashing with the president. The AP says it could be weeks before Parliament approves Lamothe’s government plan and cabinet choices. The new PM is 39 years old, a former businessman, and had served as Martelly’s foreign minister since October, reports Reuters.

• One of the Peruvian policemen who went missing on a mission to rescue 36 gas workers taken hostage by the Shining Path last month has been found dead by his father, reports the AP. Cesar Vilca and Luis Astuquillca were left in the jungle after the helicopter carrying them came under fire on April 12. According to the survivor’s account, Vilca was badly wounded, and told Astuquillca to go and try to send help. He made it out of the jungle on Sunday, but was not able to lead the authorities to his wounded colleague. After Astuquillca’s reappearance, Vilca’s father Dionisio traveled to the town of Kiteni to help search for his son. On Wednesday, he asked the army to let him go out into the jungle unaccompanied, with no troops following him and no aircraft overhead, as local people had told him they could take him to his son’s body but only if he was not with troops that would call the attention of the guerrillas, reports LaRepublica.  The next day he returned to Kiteni with the body of his son wrapped in a blanket. According to La Republica, police said that Vilca’s body had been stripped of its uniform and showed signs of torture -- he had been shot in the head.

• The NYT looks at Brazil’s troop surge on its northern border, as noted in yesterday’s post. “The Amazon is Brazil’s No. 1 priority from a strategic viewpoint, given its importance to humanity as a source of water, biodiversity and food production,” the chief of the Amazon Military Command told the newspaper. One of the things driving the operation is concern about drugs entering the country, which have fed a crack epidemic in some of Brazil’s major cities, it reports. InSight Crime notes that the government carried out three similar troop surges in 2011, helping drive up the price of cocaine paste in some parts of the country. The military presence is intended to be a short-term measure, to be replaced in time by a longer-term deployment of police.

• Brazilian lawmakers have criticized the government’s failure to appoint the members of a seven-person Truth Commission, which was signed into law in November to investigate crimes committed between 1946 and 1988, including during the 1964-1985 military regime, reports the AP. Representative Luiza Erundina, who is on the Congress’ human rights commission, said that the delay in appointing the board raised “questions,” noting that Brazil has done little to reconstruct the facts of what happened during that period. She called for the country’s controversial 1979 amnesty law, which prevents prosecutions for politically motivated crimes committed under the regime. Erundina said that the Congress human rights commission will carry out its own parallel investigation, in order to support the work of the Truth Commission.

• A telephone company owned by magnate Carlos Slim has avoided a $1 billion fine by agreeing to change pricing practices, making it cheaper for users to take calls from those on other networks. Telcel, a unit of America Mobil, controls 70 percent of Mexico’s wireless market. The Mexican anti-trust commission has been fighting for 15 years to cut its dominance of the market, reports the NYT, and imposed the fine in April. Telcel suggested the reforms in order to avoid the fine. The commission said that, with the reforms, Mexico goes from being the fifth most expensive to the fourth least expensive for mobile rates in the OECD,reports the WSJ.

• Argentina’s Congress passed the bill to nationalize Spanish-owned gas and oil company YPF with a massive majority -- 207 of its 257 Congress members voted in favor, reports the WSJ. During the session, Deputy Economy Minister Axel Kicillof, who is thought to have been behind the move, said that Spain’s Repsol, which had owned a controlling stake, might not get any compensation once YPF’s liabilities were taken into account. The Miami Herald condemns the expropriation.

• The British government has dismissed an advert secretly filmed by the Argentine government on the disputed Falklands Islands/Malvinas, which shows an Olympic athlete training with the slogan  “To compete on British soil, we train on Argentinian soil.” Foreign Secretary William Hague said it was a stunt for the country to try to save a bit of pride, reports the AP.

• CISPES reports on a legal challenge being launched in El Salvador against the government’s naming of two former generals -- who retired days or hours before their appointments were announced -- to head the Security Ministry and the police. A coalition of civil society groups are challenging the appointments on the grounds that they are unconstitutional, as the constitution mandates that they be headed by civilians.

• Three US contractors who were held by Colombia’s FARC rebels for five years until 2008 have been awarded $318 million compensation, to be paid from money confiscated from the accounts of Colombian drug traffickers, many of whom were linked to the FARC, reports Colombia Reports.

• Venezuela’s foreign minister has called for Latin America to set up a human rights commission that excludes the US, reports the AP. This follows President Hugo Chavez’s threat Monday to withdraw from the OAS’s Inter-American Human Rights Commission (IAHRC)

AP Predicts Poor Outcome for Vazquez Mota Campaign

In an interview the AP, National Action Party (PAN) candidate Josefina Vazquez Mota said that sexism has played a role in her campaign’s recent troubles, citing one example in which she was asked whether she could act as president while suffering from menstrual camps. "They'd never ask a man the questions that they ask me," she stated.

According to the AP, another one of Mota’s toughest moments during her career came when she was fired from her post as education secretary, after butting heads with another powerful woman who headed the national teachers’ union. “Calderon's team treated her badly. They were extremely sexist,” the ex-commissioner of indigenous affairs told the news agency.

But as the AP profile points out, there are plenty of problems with the PAN presidential candidate’s campaign, which help explain why Vazquez Mota is trailing rival Enrique Peña Nieto by double digits in the polls. These include basic verbal slip-ups, such as Vazquez Mota stating that she would “strengthen money laundering” as part of her anti-crime strategy, or confusing the authors of two prominent books on Mexican policy. Her campaign team also has had difficulty organizing basic events or releasing error-free press releases. The formal announcement of her campaign was conducted in a near empty stadium due to poor planning, while another campaign event had to be canceled due to a picketing airline workers close to the rally site.

In another heavily publicized incident, Vazquez Mota had a dizzy spell during a speech, which was replayed again and again on local news stations, as well as Youtube.

Last month the PAN said that they would revise Vazquez Mota’s campaign strategy, but as the AP argues, it may now be a case of too little, too late.

News Briefs

• Former President Vicente Fox issued a sharp critique of the global war on drugs, stating, “We must end this useless war.” He has previously said that he supports the idea of drug legalization, and that President Felipe Calderon’s government should try to seek a truce with Mexico’s drug cartels. 

• El Universal reports that two soldiers and 10 alleged gang members died during an alleged shoot-out between military troops and criminal gangs in Sinaloa, Mexico. Reforma counts that a total of 34 people have died in Sinaloa in the past five days in alleged clashes with the security forces; this includes one reported gun battle in which gang members opened fire on a military helicopter. Violence in the state began to increase Saturday, much of it concentrated in the municipality of Choix, which borders Sinaloa and Chihuahua. Remnants of the Beltran-Leyva Cartel and the Zetas are reportedly battling the Sinaloa Cartel for control of the region, although the 34 dead registered since Saturday reportedly all died in battles between organized crime and the military. 

• InSight Crime with a profile of a Medellin-based drug trafficker, alias “Mi Sangre,” whom the DEA recently identified as a top target. The article argues that “Mi Sangre” has a couple of key advantages -- including international drug trafficking connections, the arrest of his primary rival in Medellin, alias “Valenciano,” and the collapse of neo-paramilitary group the ERPAC -- which could enable him to become the top player in Colombia’s drug trade. 

• El Universo reports that some elements in Ecuador’s military are uncomfortable with President Rafael Correa’s mandate that they assume a greater role in fighting organized crime. Correa appeared to acknowledge the problem in comments made over the weekend, stating, “There are certain elements who don’t want to do this because it’s not their mission... it’s not a question of equipment, etc, it’s a question that there is certain resistance in some elements.” Correa has recently said that the battle against organized crime is a top priority for the military; as InSight Crime pointed out, Correa’s reasons may be political, as he has had a difficult relationship with Ecuador’s police force for much of his time in office. 

• Guatemala Interior Secretary Mauricio López Bonilla offered a different version for why some 200 people overran a military base in Huehuetenango province Tuesday, leading the government to declare a state of siege in the area. Bonilla said that the revolt began because some of the rioters were drunk, and that there is no evidence for the contrary theory behind the riots: that an activist was killed for opposing the construction of an unpopular hydroelectric plant in the region. 

• Brazil has launched a massive border security operation, sending some 8,700 troops to a 5,000 kilometer stretch of frontier deep in the Amazon, bordering Venezuela, Suriname, and Guyana. According to BBC Brazil, the main goals of the operation include destroying illegal airstrips used for drug trafficking, stemming the flow of drugs, and shutting down illegal mining and logging operations. President Dilma Rousseff has said that securing Brazil’s frontiers is her government's number of security priority, and has approved a $6.3 billion budget to increase border control.

• La Prensa reports on the findings of a delegation from the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, which say that the neglect of Honduas’ prisons and “iron fist” anti-crime policies helped lead to the February 14 fire which killed 361 people in Comayagua. Elsewhere in Honduras, the BBC with a story on the free funeral services offered in Tegucigalpa, sponsored by the city mayor’s office. Plaza Publica also has the second installment of its investigation into Honduras’ struggle with organized crime, with a focus on the country’s northern region, where 45 percent of its violent deaths are concentrated. And Honduras Culture and Politics critiques recent reports that the security forces “forced” a drug plane to land in the northern Yoro department. 

• Two interesting pieces from InfoSur about local security problems in the region -- one examining the usage of stolen cell phones in Guatemala to commit crimes, and another looking at the rising popularity of Venezuela’s armored car industry. 

• Jamaica’s Supreme Court rejected a motion by police officers which would have challenged the powers of an independent commission charged with investigating police brutality, the AP reports. Jamaica has one of the highest rates of extrajudicial killings by the security forces in the hemisphere, with 211 reported killings by police last year. 

• Justice in Mexico released its monthly report summarizing the major developments in the Mexican conflict during April, which include a Senate Committee’s approval of a judicial reform allowing soldiers to be tried in civilian courts, and the New York Times’ investigation into Wal-Mart corruption. 

• From Two Weeks Notice blog, a new article in the Military Review discusses US policy options should Cuba begin the transition to a new regime, similarly to the Arab Spring. 

• Haiti’s new ambassador to the US took office Wednesday, reports the Miami Herald. 

• An Op-Ed in the LA Times argues that Secret Service agents have a long history of tolerating sexual dalliances by presidents and other top-level officials. “Somehow, in Cartagena, to the embarrassment of everyone, including the president of the United States, some of its members threw all that experience right out the window,” the piece concludes.

Cuba to Lift Migration Restrictions?

After decades restricting travel for its citizens, the Cuban government is rumored to be on the verge of drastically altering its migration policies. In addition to sharply limiting access to exit visas, the country strips most of the citizenship rights of individuals once they have been out of the country unlawfully for 11 months. Last month, Cuban National Assembly President Ricardo Alarcon announced in an interview that the government is working towards “a profound radical reform of emigration that in the months to come will eliminate these kinds of restrictions.”

While Alarcon did not specify the nature of this reform, the Associated Press reports today that this has raised hopes that the Cuban government will do away with its unpopular travel controls, a move which would have considerable economic and social effects on Cuban society.

Other state officials have been less than amenable to this notion, however, casting doubt on rumors of a wholesale eradication of migration restrictions. In a Cuban government-sponsored teleconference in Washington with some 115 Cuban exiles last weekend, Vice Foreign Minister Dagoberto Rodriguez cautioned expatriates not to get their hopes up. Rodriguez claimed the island would likely keep at least some visa controls in place for the foreseeable future, saying “reasonable countermeasures will be imposed to preserve the human capital created by the revolution."

Still, as the AP notes, even limited reform – like lowering the costly fees associated with obtaining an exit visa or making it easier for Cubans to live or work abroad longer without penalties – would be a major human rights concession from the Cuban government, and could potentially set the stage for greater US-Cuba engagement. While some longtime anti-Castro politicians like Republican Florida Representative Ileana Ros-Lehtinen have downplayed the significance of the move, officials in the Obama administration have been more receptive. State Department spokesman Mark Toner said the US "would certainly welcome greater freedom of movement for the Cuban public," although an anonymous official told the AP that the Obama administration couldn’t promise a reciprocal move without knowing the full extent of the policy changes to come.

News Briefs 

·         Bolivian President Evo Morales marked International Workers’ Day yesterday by expropriating the assets there of Red Electrica de España, a Spanish power company. La Opinion reports that the move began with Bolivian soldiers marching peacefully into the headquarters of the company’s offices in Cochabamba and hanging a flag across its entrance. The announcement marks a continuation of Morales’ bid to nationalize Bolivia’s electric, water and telecommunications services, a hallmark of his administration. Although this has drawn comparisons to Argentine President Cristina Fernandez’s recent expropriation of Spanish-controlled oil company YPF, analyst Joao de Castro Neves of the Eurasia Group told the AP that Morales is far more economically practical than Fernandez. "He knows his limits, The Bolivian state doesn't have the capacity to take over all these sectors (including mining) and maintain the high levels of investment they need," Castro Neves said.

·         The LA Times’ World Now blog on indigenous groups’ resumed protest march against a proposed highway through the TIPNIS nature reserve in the Bolivian Amazon region. Vice President Alvaro Garcia Linera reportedly characterized the protest as “the first march in the history of Bolivia against democracy.”

·         The Guatemalan government has declared a state of emergency in the province of Huehuetenango, along the border with Mexico, after some 200 people armed with machetes and guns overran an army base last night in order to protest the death of a man killed hours before. The AP says the residents are against the proposed construction of a hydroelectric plant in their town and believe the individual was murdered for his activism.

·         With Guatemalan President Otto Perez vowing to tackle poverty, a new UNDP report has found that the number of people under the poverty line in the country has increased by 3 percent since 2006, and that one of every five Guatemalans live in extreme poverty.

·         One day after Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos blamed FARC rebels for kidnapping French journalist Romeo Langlois, a woman claiming to represent the guerrillas told reporters by phone that they were holding him as a “prisoner of war.”  Langlois was embedded with a Colombian military unit when it was ambushed on Saturday, but the government rejects assertions that he had a military role, according to El Tiempo. The FARC have yet to make a statement about Langlois’ whereabouts on their official website.

·         Mexico presidential frontrunner Enrique Pena Nieto’s 20-point lead over her rival has stayed steady, suggesting he will be the likely winner in the July elections barring a major campaign disaster. The Miami Herald notes that he has given few clues as to what his presidency would look like.

·         Both the Washington Post and Spain’s El Pais take a look at the life of the late Tomas Borge Martinez, the last surviving founder of the Sandinista political movement. As the first Sandinista interior minister, he oversaw the creation of the Sandinista Defense Councils, community-based political groups which now exist as Citizen Empowerment Councils. InSight Crime has previously credited these structures with safeguarding Nicaragua’s low level of street violence compared to other countries in the region.

·         The AP profiles emerging cracks in Rio de Janeiro’s “pacification” strategy, noting rising reports of police corruption and violence in the supposedly pacified favelas. Perhaps the best known case is the Rocinha favela, where the police presence was doubled this month in response to a wave of killings.

·         Nora Lustig writes on the difficulties of measuring income inequality in Latin America for Americas Quarterly.

·         The New York Times reports on the growing popularity of soccer in Cuba, a country where baseball has long been the dominant sport amongst youths. Some on the island feel that the shift is due to a recent decline in the quality of national baseball, while others chalk it up to the comparatively less amount of necessary equipment to play soccer. 

Venezuela Threatens to Leave Regional Human Rights Commission

President Hugo Chavez said Monday that Venezuela should withdraw from the Organization of American States’ (OAS) human rights body, echoing threats he has made in the past. But it is worth questioning whether this new round of threats carry any teeth, given the long history of Venezuela’s rocky relationship with the OAS and the Inter-American Human Rights Commission (IAHRC).

Chavez made the announcement as he was signing a new labor law that reduces the work week by four hours to 40, shortly before he leaves for Cuba for another round of medical treatment for his cancer. Chavez’s main critique is that the IAHRC, which frequently attacks Venezuela’s human rights situation, including a damning 300-page report released in December 2009, is a tool for US political interests, reports Dow Jones newswires. Chavez said he had asked the state council, which forms part of Venezuela’s National Assembly, to write and release a draft summarizing Venezuela’s reasons for leaving the body.

Many news agencies quoted officials who said that Venezuela’s departure from the IAHRC would be irresponsible. “A decision like this reaffirms that there is a situation of indifference and complete inattention to human rights,” a Venezuelan human rights activist told the AP.

As the Latin America Herald Tribune points out, part of Chavez’s ill-feeling towards the IAHRC dates back to the 2002 coup which temporarily removed him from power, during which he says the IAHRC concerned itself with protecting the interests of the governor who proclaimed himself the acting president during that time. Venezuela has refused to allow the IAHRC to visit the country, stating that the Commission must first apologize for its reaction to the coup.

Chavez’s threats to leave the IAHRC follow the testimony of government representatives at a commission panel in D.C., which addressed the issue of freedom of expression in the country. As Venezuela Analysis reported at the time, the government representatives accused the IAHRC of bias against the Chavez administration, arguing that previous governments had violated human rights, and the Commission still regarded them as democratic regimes.

But neither is this the first time that Chavez has appeared to defy the IAHRC, or threatened to leave the OAS. The human rights commission issued a unanimous ruling last year ordering Venezuela election officials to restore the politicals rights of former mayor and popular opposition candidate Leopoldo Lopez, after the Chavez administration banned him from running for political office for alleged corruption charges. At the time, Chavez dismissed the ruling.

Chavez also threatened to leave the OAS in early 2010, amidst debate over whether the organization should implement its Democracy Charter over Venezuela and Nicaragua. He made similar threats that same year, after Colombian President Alvaro Uribe used the OAS as a platform to present detailed intelligence of rebel group the FARC’s presence inside Venezuelan territory.

Chavez’s threats to withdraw from the IACHR could also be interpreted as a manoeuvre intended to re-focus Venezuela’s energies on using the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States (CELAC) as the primary body for resolving regional disputes. But given the number of times that Chavez has threatened to leave the OAS in the past, as well as the fact that he must focus his energies this year on his ailing health and his election campaign, it is worth questioning whether Venezuela will fully follow through with its withdrawal from the human rights commission.


News Briefs

• As expected, Mexico’s lower house of Congress approved a law which would allow victims of organized crime to apply for compensation from the government. The law creates a new body, the National System for Attention to Victims, made up of representatives from victims’ groups and the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights. Animal Politico has a useful breakdown of what the law actually promises victims of violence. The body will be responsible for overseeing compensation payments to victims of organized-crime related violence, which could include medical, legal, and financial support. Crucially, the law will also apply to victims of abuses carried out by the police and military. Reuters reports that victims will be eligible to receive compensation of up to 1 million pesos (about $73,000) each; the funds will be taken in part from the financial assets seized from organized crime groups. Now the measure must be signed into law by President Felipe Calderon. 

• The AP reports that the search continues for the French journalist allegedly kidnapped by rebel group the FARC this weekend. The Defense Minister told the news agency there is currently no rescue operation planned for the journalist, who came under fire while accompanying the security forces in the southern Caqueta department, because “we don’t know where the journalist is.” President Santos offered his condolences to the families of the four members of the security forces killed during the attack via Twitter, then stated that there were “very clear indications that the French journalist is in the FARC’s possession,” Semana reports. The French government said that the journalist’s apparent kidnapping is a chance for the rebel group to prove that they mean to keep their promise, made earlier this year, to cease all kidnappings, reports El Tiempo. Asides from the weekend FARC attack which saw the French journalist taken hostage, Colombian security forces suffered another disaster Monday, after a helicopter crashed and killed all 13 passengers on board. 

• The last surviving founding member of the Sandinista guerrilla movement died Monday night. Tomas Borge Martinez was an avid defender of President Daniel Ortega’s administration, and the government declared three days of national mourning. El Nuevo Dia reports that President Ortega is working closely with the Borge family to organize memorial services. Confidencial has a succinct summary of Borge’s life and legacy, noting, “Borge symbolizes part of the history of this country, from the time of the revolution which overthrew the dictatorship, to the darkest period of the 80’s, and the corruption denounced in the present day.” 

• The AP profiles the ongoing struggle to pacify the favelas in Rio de Janeiro, noting that despite the deployment of some 4,000 police in nearly 89 shantytowns, some local residents say that the impact has been limited and progress slow. Other communities have complained of abuses by law enforcement, and the tensions have sometimes escalated into riots and attacks against the security forces: the article notes that in February alone, the military supporting the police pacification units suffered some 89 attacks. But besides the lingering problems in Rio, the country also faces new tensions at its border region, after the Bolivian army reportedly entered Brazil and began evicting families who live up to 50 kilometers from the Brazil-Bolivia border. Brazil responded by deploying a platoon of 30 soldiers to the region, who have remained in place even after Brazil’s foreign minister said that Bolivia has pledged to investigate the assaults, reports BBC Brazil. 

• A Guatemalan judge ordered the trial of a former police officer alleged involved in the 1980 fire at the Spanish Embassy which killed 37 people, including the father of Nobel Peace Prize winner Rigoberta Menchu. Prensa Libre reports that the accused, a former district police chief in Guatemala City, followed orders not to allow anyone to escape or be rescued from the burning building. 

• IPS on a new book which says major newspapers in Latin America chose not to report on certain US State Department cables released by whistleblower site WikiLeaks, if the cables depicted the media in an unflattering light. 

• Riots erupted inside a Venezuelan prison yesterday during what officials described as the second escape attempt made in a 3-day period. 

• The BBC reports on the mysterious deaths of hundreds of pelicans along Peru’s coastline, following the mass death of hundreds of dolphins. The Deputy Environment Minister has said a virus could be responsible for the die-offs, but other environmental activists have said the deaths are related to the seismic explorations that a Houston-based oil company is conducting off the northern Peruvian coast.