Venezuela Court Upends Two Opposition Parties

Venezuela’s highest court has issued two rulings which undermine the ability of two small opposition parties to ally themselves with opposition candidate Henrique Capriles Radonski. On Wednesday, the Supreme Court declared that internal elections held within the left-wing Fatherland for All Party (PPT) in October were invalid, and ordered it to hold new elections in 90 days. In the meantime, the court named a temporary leader for the party. The ruling effectively prevents the PPT from endorsing Capriles before a Monday deadline by which parties must specify their support for a candidate.

On Thursday, the court decided to accept the claim of Didalco Bolivar that he, and not Ismael Garcia, is the lawful leader of the center-left PODEMOS party. Whereas Garcia has long been an outspoken critic of the Chavez government and has appeared at public events with Capriles, Didalco is expected to endorse Chavez.

The Washington Post notes that Didalco, a former governor of northern Aragua state, has not always been a supporter of Chavez. In fact, he publicly broke with the president in 2007 when he refused to join Chavez’s United Socialist Party (PSUV). In 2009 he fled the country after the government charged him with corruption, and sought asylum in Peru. He returned in 2011, when he turned himself in. After a brief time in jail, he was freed and has been a Chavez supporter ever since.

Caracas Chronicles blogger Gustavo Hernandez Acevedo points out that, although the two decisions were nominally unrelated, the Chavista-dominated Supreme Court likely targeted the opposition parties due to the “leftie street-cred” they contributed to the Capriles campaign. Capriles has presented himself as a “center-left progressive” who claims to admire the economic policies of leftist Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, and the official endorsements of both the PPT and PODEMOS would have helped further this image. Without them, it may be easier for Chavez portray his opponent in the upcoming October 7^th elections as a tool of elite economic interests.

News Briefs

• The mining conflict in Peru’s troubled Cajamarca region is heating up. On Tuesday the president of Cajamarca, Gregorio Santos, called for the removal of President Ollanta Humala due to the latter’s support of the controversial Minas Conga mining project in the region. Santos also blasted Humala’s failure to follow up on his campaign pledge to convene an assembly to change the Peruvian constitution. When Santos asked his followers what should be done with a president who does not stay true to his word, the attendees responded “Remove him!” Santos then voiced approval for this, and cited various protests which resulted in the removal of presidents in Bolivia and Ecuador, according to El Comercio. The president of the country’s highest court, the Constitutional Tribunal, has said that Santos could be prosecuted for inciting rebellion, despite the fact that he did not advocate violence in his remarks. The Wall Street Journal points out that this is the latest incident in a growing trend of dissatisfaction with Humala from the left, and came just one day after three leftist congressmen split from the president’s ruling Gana Peru coalition. A fourth congressman, Cusco’s Ruben Coa, has since left the party as well.

• In Foreign Affairs, the Council on Foreign Relations’ Shannon K. O’Neil argues that Mexico’s democratic institutions are strong enough to withstand a PRI victory in the upcoming July elections, even if the party attempts some of its old tricks like vote-buying and corrupt deals.

• The United States Treasury has added two relatives of drug lord Joaquin “Chapo” Guzman to the “Kingpin List,” freezing their US assets and barring American citizens from doing business with them. The individuals are Maria Alejandrina Salazar Hernandez and Jesus Alfredo Guzman Salazar, whom the Treasury’s press release identifies as Guzman’s wife and son, respectively. This appears to clash with press reports from 2011 which named former beauty queen Emma Coronel as Guzman’s current (and third) wife.

• A three-member panel of appellate judges in Mexico has ruled that Sandra Avila Beltran, also known as “The Queen of the Pacific,” can be extradited to the US on drug charges, reports the AP. Avila was arrested in 2007 and has been accused by Mexican and US officials of being a large-scale cocaine trafficker. Her relatively high status in Mexico’s criminal underworld has made her the focus of several analyses of the role of women in the country’s drug war.

• El Tiempo has new poll numbers that show Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos with a 69 percent approval rating, down ten percent from the month before. Carlos Lemoine, president of polling firm CNC, told the paper that public perceptions of a FARC resurgence are the main cause of the drop.

• The tension between the United Kingdom and Argentina over the Falkland Islands rose even higher yesterday, after British Foreign Office Minister Jeremy Browne accused the Argentine government of imposing an “economic blockade” on the islands by turning away ships bearing the Falklands’ flag and declaring oil exploration off of the island illegal.

• Argentine President Cristina Fernandez, meanwhile, is also facing criticism at home. Reuters reports that thousands of protestors gathered in front of the presidential palace on Thursday to bang pots and pans in protests reminiscent of the massive 2001 riots spurred by economic crisis. Among their grievances were double-digit inflation, the increased difficulty of acquiring foreign currency and rising crime.

• While the unpopularity of Chilean President Sebastian Piñera amongst the general population is well known, elements of the country’s military are also unhappy with the president.  Retired major Carlos Gary told Chile’s El Mostrador that he and other military figures believe Piñera is not prosecuting guerrillas who resisted the Pinochet regime as often as the government goes after the military abuses committed during the dictatorship era.

• Christopher Sabatini, Editor-in-Chief of Americas Quarterly and Senior Director of Policy at the Americas Society/Council of the Americas, has an op-ed in the Miami Herald which profiles AQ’s recently-released Social Inclusion index and the impact of inequality on democracy in he Americas.

• This week’s issue of the Economist offers a tidy summary of the proposed reforms to the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights and the future of the Commision’s independence, as well as the recent amnesty granted to the president of Suriname.

New Pacific Trade Agreement ‘Will Not Supplant’ Other LatAm Treaties

Wednesday saw the formal signing of the Pacific Alliance, a new economic and political agreement between Peru, Mexico, Colombia, and Chile, which is the latest move towards deepening economic integration in the region. The four heads of state signed the accord at Chile’s Paranal Observatory in the Atacama desert, during a ceremony also attended by the king of Spain and Costa Rica President Laura Chinchilla. One of its first, most concrete moves will be the elimination of visa requirements between the four countries, reports the AP in a brief note.

Each nation must take the agreement, which has its roots in the 2010 Ibero-American Summit, to Congress before it is fully approved.

Santos called it the “the most important integration process in Latin America,” even as other heads of state were careful to emphasize that the Pacific Alliance is not intended to displace other regional trade agreements like Unasur and Mercosur. Still, it is notable that the Pacific Alliance was signed as Mercosur has seen its achievements steadily decline. The past several years, Mercosur summits has seen little accomplished besides prolonged debates over expanding its original membership from Brazil, Argentina, Paraguay, and Uruguay. Little progress has been made towards accomplishing the goals originally laid out in 1991, when Mercosur was first established. According to much of the conventional rhetoric surrounding Mercosur, the trade agreement should have brought Latin America to something more closely resembling the European Union, but the project has arguably not lived up to its original expectations.

Notably, the Pacific Alliance also emphasizes trade with Asia. “This is a way to enter more competitively into the Asian market,” the Chilean ambassador to Mexico told El Universal. While Asia’s economic expansion in Latin America is still relatively limited compared to the influences of nations like China in Africa, the Pacific Alliance is another sign that Latin America is increasingly looking away from the traditional European and US markets. Last year, Chinese investment in the region was about $23 billion. The signing of several oil and coal deals between China and Colombia last month was further indication of Asia’s increased importance as a trading partner for the region.

News Briefs

• Reuters reports on another flare up concerning the disputed Essequibo territory between Guyana and Venezuela, and the oil wealth found there. An approximate one million square kilometers of land, the Essequibo currently represents about 40 percent of Guyana’s territory, but Venezuela has been claiming the area for its own for nearly a century. President Hugo Chavez reversed the usual policy towards Guyana after a state visit in 2004, when he said he approved of Guyana’s decision to allow foreign oil companies conduct exploration activities in the disputed area. Now, in light of new reports that Exxon Mobil Corp and Royal Dutch Shell both have concessions in areas off the Essequibo coast, the Venezuelan opposition is again criticizing Chavez for his “weak” stance towards Guyana. The opposition directed the critiques against Chavez as its official presidential candidate, Henrique Capriles, formally resigned from his post as state governor to run for the presidency. Chavez has until June 11 to officially register his candidacy. 

• In what has been described as an echo of the attacks leveled against leftist candidate Andres Lopez Obrador during the 2006 presidential campaign in Mexico, a new wave of attack ads depict the candidate as an angry radical, reports the AP. The article highlights one ad which deliberately takes one of Lopez Obrador’s political speeches out of context, and was aired by the campaign of National Action Party (PAN) candidate Josefina Vazquez Mota. The AP notes that the ad’s rhetoric is similar to that approved by Vazquez Mota when she managed President Felipe Calderon’s 2006 bid for office. Meanwhile, the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) is believed to be behind a series of well-organized anti-Obrador protests seen in some Mexican states this week. “Thousands of people in several cities marched with uniform, professional-made banners that were a sharp contrast to the large spontaneous, but rag-tag demonstrations that youth groups staged against Pena Nieto in recent weeks,” the AP reports.

• Ecuador’s attorney general petitioned the Mercosur bloc countries to approve the creation of a regional court that would try international organized crime cases, reports EFE. The court, which would fall under the authority of the Unasur bloc, would have the authority to try cases related to money laundering, human and drug trafficking. Attorney generals from Unasur’s 12 member countries would form part of the criminal court, according to EFE. The petition follows recent remarks by President Rafael Correa that Unasur should create its own human rights monitoring body to replace Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IAHRC) . The overall aim behind these political maneuvers is most likely to strengthen Unasur’s influence in the region over the Organization of American States (OAS). 

• US agents arrested at least 33 people during a drug sweep through Puerto Rico’s largest airport and several other areas, reports the AP. Two workers were arrested at the Miami international airport and another person at Dallas-Fort Worth airport. The detainees are suspected of moving some 14 tons of cocaine from Puerto Rico to the US since 1999. Puerto Rico has seen the volume of cocaine moving through its border rise dramatically in recent years, which has helped contribute to rising violence levels. Last year the territory experienced its most violent year on record. 

• A new report by Honduran government agency the National Social Prevention, Rehabilitation and Reinsertion Program counts more than 4,000 gang members in the country and about 19 homicides a day, reports EFE. The study surveyed 14 cities and estimates that 49 percent of Honduras’ gang members claim allegiance to the Mara Salvatruchas, and another 48 percent form part of rival gang Barrio 18. Capital city Tegucigalpa and the most violent city in the region, San Pedro Sula, have the highest number of gang members, the study found. 

• Women in rural Mexican communities are increasingly the family’s main breadwinner, upending traditional gender roles, according to a Wall Street Journal report. In about one-sixth of Mexico’s approximate six million rural households, women are now the primary economic earners. Many women have been forced into such roles after their husbands left Mexico and stopped sending them back remittances, the report notes. 

• Brazil-based meatpacking company JBS, the world’s largest, has threatened legal action against Greenpeace, after the environmental activists said that the multinational buys cattle raised on illegally deforested land in the Amazon. Greenpeace’s accusations come two weeks before the United Nations holds its conference on sustainable development in Rio de Janeiro; the protection of the Amazon is supposed to be a top item on the agenda. In other environmental-themed news, Mexico signed a law which makes it the second country in the world to define binding targets on climate change, the BBC reports. 

• Infosur on El Salvador’s new phone tapping technology, donated by the US, intended to enable law enforcement to better intercept communication among suspected criminals. The $2.2 million communications center will allow agents to tap cell phones, landlines, and text messages; under El Salvadoran law, the center also has the authority to track suspect e-mail and radio messages. US agencies the FBI and the DEA are supposed to train the prosecutors and police who will rely on the communications monitoring system. 

• President Cristina Fernandez says she will switch all of her savings from dollars into pesos, in order to set an example for other government officials to do the same, reports Mercopress. 

• El Nuevo Herald examines the shortages of medicinal supplies in Venezuela.

• Argentina has officially nominated human trafficking activist Susana Trimarco as a candidate for the Nobel Peace Prize. Trimarco’s daughter was kidnapped in 2002 and sold into sex slavery; since then, Trimarco has become Argentina’s most activist and documenter of human trafficking networks. For more background on her work, a post from the InSight Crime archives. 

• BBC Mundo visits Michoacan, described as the “birthplace” of Mexico’s drug war.BBC English has a lighter video piece on Mexican wrestling.

Chavez Campaign Suffers, as Illness Forces him to Take Back Seat

As Hugo Chavez’s ill health keeps the usually energetic Venezuelan president off the campaign trail, his chances in October’s election look weaker, which may be making the country more attractive to international investors.

On Saturday, Chavez made his first public appearance since he returned to the country on May 11 after a bout of chemotherapy, reports EFE. The president cracked jokes and appeared to walk without difficulty, but the media were not allowed to ask him any questions.

Chavez's reelection campaign has suffered in his absence, as his allies lack the president’s charisma, and cannot be seen to take too much of a leading role for fear of drawing accusations that they are jockeying to replace him, Reuters notes. Throughout his 13 years in power the president has taken a leading role in campaigning, says the news wire:

Chavez's remarkable energy has seen him crisscross the country, deliver marathon speech-after-speech and work crowds into a frenzy to help win almost a dozen votes.

Meanwhile rival Henrique Capriles is campaigning door-to-door, offering an image of youthful energy in contrast to the ailing president. But despite all this, polls last week showed Chavez on 50 percent to Capriles’ 45, the Miami Herald reported. The polls shift massively in favor of the challenger, however, if respondents are asked how they would vote if Chavez was forced to retire and name a successor.

Slate features an extract from a book by William J. Dobson which says that, if Capriles wants to win, he should look at the success of student protests against Chavez’s shutdown of TV station RCTV. The station had news coverage critical of the president, and in May 2008 refused to renew its license. In response, student protesters blockaded the roads in front of their universities. They carried on protests for a month, establishing themselves as a political force, and eventually were instrumental in defeating Chavez’s referendum later that year that would have changed the constitution to abolish term limits --  “By the fall, it became clear that the student movement had achieved something no one else ever had: Chavez was responding to his opponent’s political message rather than the other way around.”

Instead of carrying out street protests to be beaten back by police, they used creative measures to educate the public about what the reforms would mean, like distributing newspapers with headlines from the future.

If Chavez is removed from power, either through sickness or through the ballot box, the Wall Street Journal reports that it could boost Venezuela’s economy. "The market views a change in government very favorably," one Caracas analyst told the newspaper. The country is attracting an increasing number of international investors now that President Hugo Chavez’s hold on power looks at its most shaky in the 13 years since he came to office, says the report.

According to brokers, Venezuela has been by far the world’s best-performing stock market this year. This is in contrast to falling stocks in other Latin American markets such as Brazil and Argentina.

The WSJ says that whoever wins will likely face pressure to devalue the currency to 9.25 to the dollar, which could boost the economy, although it would drive up inflation.


News Briefs

• Honduras Culture and Politics reports on the latest developments in the Bajo Aguan land dispute, which seem to have been misrepresented in English language media. Farmers' unions have been occupying land in the region, which they say is illegitimately held by landowner Miguel Facusse Barjum and his company, Corporacion Dinant. At least 55 people have been killed since 2009 in connection with the conflict, most of them farmers. The blog points out that, according to Honduran media, campesino organization MUCA are not in fact vacating land they have been occupying in the region, as a recent Associated Press report said, but have accepted the government’s terms of a deal to purchase the land, at a higher interest rate than they had been arguing for.

• Bolivia, Venezuela, Ecuador and Nicaragua have said they will withdraw from a regional defense treaty, arguing that it was created as a US initiative and is no longer valid, reports the AP. The foreign ministers of the four countries, all governed by leftist leaders, announced their decisions Tuesday at an Organization of American States assembly in Cochabamba, Bolivia. As noted inMonday’s post, Bolivia’s President Evo Morales made a speech at the summit arguing that the  Inter-American Reciprocal Assistance Treaty (TIAR), which says that an attack on any Latin American country should be considered an attack on the entire region, was invalid. Morales said that if it was a functioning agreement it would have guided the region’s response to the Falklands dispute between Argentina and the UK.

• Seven dismembered bodies have been found in Sinaloa state, west Mexico, wearing clothes similar to police uniforms, though authorities have said they were not officers. They were left with a message, addressed to President Felipe Calderon, that accused Governor Mario Lopez Valdez of hiring police chiefs linked to the Sinaloa Cartel, reports La Jornada. The message predicts that soon the Sinaloa Cartel will remove its men from the state, which suggests that it is written by a rival group seeking control. The AP notes that the Zetas may have been behind it, as they are currently making attacks on Sinaloa strongholds.

• The new chief executive of YPF, the Spanish-owned energy company recently appropriated by the Argentine government, has announced an ambitious five-year investment plan, reports the AP. The company plans to invest up to $7 billion a year, helping it grow an estimated 6 percent annually, according to Miguel Galuccio, who was picked to head the company in May. This is part of the government’s plan to boost YPF, having accused former owner Repsol of failing to invest enough. The Financial Times blog comments that, along with its new owners, YPF now has “ a new logo (complete with the Argentine flag) and, as the pro-government Tiempo Argentina newspaper put it, a new “dream team” of savvy professionals to run it.”

• Three years after Mauricio Funes came to power, El Faro looks at the dissolution of the coalition that helped him win.

• A World Bank panel has ruled that Canadian gold mining company Pacific Rim can continue with its lawsuit against El Salvador for blocking a mining venture,reports the NYT. The case can go ahead under Salvadoran law, but is not covered by the Central American Free Trade Agreement, according to the International Center for Settlement of Investment Disputes (ICSID). Tim’s El Salvador Blog gives links to more coverage, and points out that this ruling only relates to the ICSID’s jurisdiction over the case, and not to the merits of the lawsuit itself. The NYT notes that the decision disappointed environmentalists who hoped the case would be thrown out, slowing the spread of mining in Latin America. Reuters reports that both parties claimed victory after the Friday ruling.

• Plaza Publica has a map showing the number of rapes reported in each department in Guatemala over the last four years. The province with the highest number is Guatemala, where the capital is located.

• The Miami Herald reports on concerns that a new industrial park in Haiti could spark the growth of slums on the northern coast, as people flood to the area to find work.

• In Brazil, President Dilma Rousseff has signed several new environmental measures into law, including the creation of seven indigenous territories in the Amazon, reports the AP.

• Paraguay’s President Fernando Lugo has recognized a second lovechild after the 10-year-old’s mother brought a paternity suit against him, reports the AP. He was serving as a Catholic priest at the time that both were conceived.

Peru's Ruling Coalition Starts to Fracture

One year after elections, cracks are emerging in Peru’s dominant political coalition. Three leftist members of the country’s unicameral Congress broke with President Ollanta Humala’s Gana Peru alliance yesterday, objecting to Humala’s shift from a spirited leftist candidate to a relatively moderate president once in office, especially in relation to mining projects.

La Republica reports that the first of the three to break from Gana Peru, Veronika Mendoza, came as a “solid blow” to the Humala government. Mendoza was a founding member of Humala’s Nationalist Party, as well as a longtime friend of First Lady Nadine Heredia. In her renunciation letter, the congresswoman from the Cusco region criticized Humala’s position on the current mining conflict in her constituency, accusing the president of deceiving the country and “defending the neoliberal model.”

Mendoza’s decision paved the way for two other left-leaning legislators, Javier Diez Canseco and Rosa Mavila, to break from Gana Peru. Diez and Mavila also blasted Humala’s handling of mining conflicts in the country, and reserved special criticism for Prime Minster Oscar Valdes, whom the president has tasked with mediating the conflicts but has been condemned by the left as heavy-handed. All three lawmakers spearheaded a recent push in the Peruvian Congress to force Valdes to retire which was rejected by President Humala, who expressed complete support for the minister last week.

It remains to be seen whether any more members of Gana Peru’s left wing will leave the coalition. RPP reported in January that at least nine members of congress had begun to voice ideological differences with the Humala administration. Four of these, including Mendoza’s Cusco counterparts Ruben Coa and Jaime Valencia, are rumored to be considering a break with Gana Peru in the coming days.

Humala’s political opponents have predictably seized upon this internal division to critique the government. Opposition congresswoman Lourdes Alcorta of the Alliance for the Great Change alliance told Peru21 that the disunion was a sign of “immaturity,” saying that those who resigned were simply “not capable of explaining the reality of mining investment to the population, [and] incapable of  bringing order.” Despite such criticism, Gana Peru officials are attempting to minimize the departures and present a united front. This may be more difficult for them, and for President Humala, if the rumors of additional resignations come true.

News Briefs

• A new poll from Mexico’s El Universal suggests that PRIista Enrique Peña Nieto is the indisputable frontrunner in that country’s presidential race with 44 percent support. Leftist Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador is trailing with 28 percent, and the PAN’s Josefina Vazquez Mota is close behind him with 26 percent. However, analyst James Bosworth points out that a survey measuring “favorable” vs. “unfavorable” views of the candidates shows Peña Nieto losing a substantial amount of momentum to Lopez in recent weeks, meaning that this last month of the race before the July elections will likely be more competitive than previously thought.

• In the wake of former PAN president Vicente Fox’s implicit endorsement of Peña Nieto on Sunday, The Economist examines the lack of support for Vasquez Mota among members of her own party, which has made it difficult for her campaign to raise funds.

• Gunmen burst into a rehab clinic in northern Mexico on Sunday night, killing 11 and wounding at least nine, reports the AFP. As InSight Crime noted in June 2011, rehabilitation centers have become relatively common targets in Mexico’s drug war, largely because of criminal organizations seeking to prevent a former member from speaking to authorities or to exact revenge on a rival.

• Chilean President Sebastian Piñera, who is the country’s most unpopular president since the 1990 return to democracy, has seen a 7-point rise in support in the last month, according to a new Adimark poll. His approval rating now stands at 33 percent after reaching its lowest point ever in April.

• Harvard University’s Nieman Journalism Lab takes a look at some of the difficulties that Publica, Brazil’s first nonprofit news organization, has had in establishing itself since its start in March 2011. Because Brazil lacks a relatively long history of investigative journalism, Publica has decided to focus on key issues that are overlooked in the mainstream press, like the abuses committed by the 1964-1985 military dictatorship, development projects in the Amazon, and the country’s preparations for the upcoming 2014 World Cup.

• Guatemalan Cardinal Rodolfo Quezada Toruno, known for his role as a mediator in talks between the government and leftist guerrillas in the 1990s, passed away yesterday in a Guatemala City hospital.

• After making a name for himself as an outspoken critic of the Castro government (and Mitt Romney's potential running mate) Senator Marco Rubio has made his first-ever trip to the island of Cuba; the Florida senator visited the US military base at Guantanamo Bay last week in a trip that was widely seen as a bid to bolster his foreign policy credentials.

• The Toronto Star has an interesting article on Cuba’s Latin American Medical School, where medical students from all over the world – including 116 Americans – are studying to become doctors.

• IPS reports on the European Union-Central America Association Agreement (EU-CAAA), which is set to be signed in late June. Many analysts believe the treaty, which will open the markets of both regions to the industrial products of the other, will serve the economic interests of the EU more than  the countries of Central America.   

• The Peruvian Supreme Court has ruled that Joran Van der Sloot, the main suspect in the 2005 disappearance of American teenager Natalee Holloway, can be extradited to the US to face charges, but only after he serves a 28-year sentence in Peru for the 2010 murder of Peruvian student Stephany Flores. The ruling will not be made final until it is approved by the Minister of Justice and Humala’s cabinet, however. 

At Summit, Morales Demands Dramatic Change in the OAS

Bolivia President Evo Morales described several recommendations for reforming the Organization of American States (OAS), during the inauguration of an assembly summit Sunday in Cochabamba, Bolivia. These would include revoking the Inter-American Reciprocal Assistance Treaty (TIAR), the article which maintains that an attack against one Latin American country should be considered an attack against the entire region. Morales said that if the TIAR was really a functioning agreement, it should have guided Latin America’s response during Argentina’s dispute with the United Kingdom over the Falklands Islands. Mercopress reports that Morales’ reference to Argentina’s conflict was met with applause and cheers

According to La Razon, Morales also said that the OAS should scrap another multilateral institution, the Inter-American Defense (IAD) Board, which has been criticized for enforcing US Cold War-military policy in Latin America. The OAS should also dissolve the infamous military training facility formerly known as the School of the Americas, Morales added.

US news wire services like the AP focused on some of Morales’ other proposals, such as the elimination of the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IAHRC). Both Venezuela and Ecuador have spoken out in favor of such a measure; both countries have faced frequent criticism from the IAHRC for human rights problems. Earlier this year, President Hugo Chavez again threatened to withdraw from the IAHRC altogether, which he says did nothing to condemn the 2002 coup which temporarily ejected him from power.

During his remarks, Morales said the IAHRC should also supervise human rights violations in the US, in order to be considered a more legitimate body. “If they don’t want to watch over human rights in the US, better that the IAHRC disappear,” he stated.

The AFP angled its coverage around Morales’ remarks about nationalizing natural resources in Latin America, concluding that, “His latest speech was likely to discourage potential foreign investors.”

OAS Secretary General Jose Miguel Insulza followed up Morales’ speech, asking that the countries attending the assembly focus instead on the official agenda, food security in the Americas.

The three-day summit is the second time that Bolivia has hosted an OAS assembly since 1979. The highest ranking US State Department official attending the assembly is Assistant Secretary of State for Western Hemisphere Affairs Roberta Jackson.

News Briefs

• A judge ordered a Peruvian mayor accused of inciting anti-mining protests to be held under preventive detention for up to five months, reports the BBC and AP. The mayor, Oscar Mollohuanca, called the decision “political prison.” The southern province of Espinar has been rocked by protests against proposed mining projects which critics say will do great environmental damage. After the demonstrations grew violent, the government declared a 30-day state of emergency in the province. And with the mayor of the province in detention, protest supporters now say it will be even more difficult to hold productive round-table discussions about the future of the mining projects. RPP has a detailed profile of Mayor Oscar Mollohuanca, noting that this is the second time he was elected to the office, and that he is a leader of recently created political party “Land and Dignity” (Tierra y Dignidad). The party draws many of its recruits from those who headed an aggressive anti-mining protest in Cajamarca province last year, which also forced the government to declare a temporary state of emergency. Global Voices has more helpful background -- as well as a day-by-day account of the protests -- of the Espinar conflict.

• Adolfo Calero, leader of one of the earliest, and eventually the largest, US-backed Contra groups, died Saturday in Nicaragua. Calero managed the bank accounts into which the US secretly deposited some $18 million in military equipment and another $14 million that was used to buy basic supplies. As the New York Times describes, Calero was also known for providing key testimony during the “Iran-Contra” scandal, describing how Oliver North diverted funds towards Nicaragua.

• Five bodies burned beyond recognition were found in an SUV in Arizona near the Mexico border, possibly related to Mexico’s criminal violence, reports Fox News Latino.

• Brazil has closed its largest open-air rubbish dump, to be replaced with a recycling plant. The BBC report includes a slideshow.

• Colombia drug lord alias “Diego Rastrojo” was arrested in Venezuela. This follows the surrender of another Rastrojos leader, Javier Antonio Calle Serna, last May.

• Mexico’s National Action Party (PAN) criticized former president Vicente Fox for appearing to imply that voters should rally around the most likely winner of the July 1 presidential election -- rival candidate Enrique Peña Nieto of the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI).

• After Venezuela extended a ban against the civilian sale of arms and ammunition, first announced June 2, authorities seized 87 guns, 18 grenades, and nearly 65,000 rounds of ammo in the troubled La Planta prison, reports EFE. The AP provides slightly different numbers for the seizures.

• Thousands marched in Colombia’s capital Sunday in protest of the recent murder and rape of a female street vendor, calling attention to issues of gender violence, reports the BBC.

• From Venezuela, the AP on the seamstress who makes the short-sleeved, collared shirts popularized by opposition presidential candidate Henrique Capriles. His decision to sport clothing made in Venezuela by working-class people may be a clever move towards winning support from the social groups that typically vote for President Hugo Chavez, the AP argues. Sales of the garment have increased dramatically after Capriles began wearing them on the campaign trail, the article adds

• The AP on a corruption scandal and supposed cover-up in Argentina that some are calling Nixonian, involving Vice President Amado Boudou. According to the allegations, Boudou is linked to a holding company that that funneled cash towards pleasure trips for Boudou’s friends and family. The article notes that justice generally “moves slow” in Argentina, and that it is highly unlikely that the pro-government lawmakers will put the investigation at the top of their agenda. Elsewhere, the Latin American Herald Tribune reports that Argentina is reportedly considering putting government icon Eva Peron on a new five-peso bill, in honor of the 60th anniversary of her death on July 26.

• The New York Times profiles the reporter handling the drugs and crime beat for Paraguay’s main newspaper, ABC, in a violent border town near Brazil. Cándido Figueredo has survived 17 years on the job by doing most of his reporting by phone from his home, protected by 24-hour police security. Paraguay is one of Latin America’s relatively safer countries for journalists, ranking 84th out of 179 countries on Reporters Without Borders’ press freedom index, far ahead of Honduras (136th), Colombia (143rd), and Mexico (149th). But journalists who cover crime, like Figueredo, are considered especially at risk, and media based along the Paraguay-Brazil border are facing increased violence, according to a report released in March by the International Press Institute which focuses on Brazil.

• A television reporter in the Dominican Reporter received several threats, after running a story alleging that a powerful senator used his political influence to win some $200 million of construction contracts in Haiti, reports the Miami Herald.

• Foreign Affairs with a long essay about the role of women in Colombian rebel group the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC).

• Miami Herald Op-Ed columnist Andres Oppenheimer critiques Latin America’s response to the crisis in Syria, calling it “shockingly tame for a region that has suffered gross human rights violations in the past.” Over at the Wall Street Journal, columnist Mary Anastasia O’Grady speaks with Repsol over Argentina’s recent decision to nationalize the oil company partly owned by Repsol.

-- Elyssa Pachico

Front-Runner Slips in Mexico Presidential Race

Left-leaning candidate Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador has gained support while front-runner Enrique Peña Nieto has seen his numbers fall, according to the latest poll on Mexico’s presidential race.

The latest poll, published by Reforma, shows Lopez with 34 percent support, Peña on 38 percent, and Josefina Vazquez Mota on 23, reports the Wall Street Journal. Some previous polls had given Peña a lead of 20 points, while earlier this year it looked like Vazquez was the real challenger to his dominance. In March, polls showed her catching up with Peña, with the PRI candidate on 36 percent, Vazquez on 29, and Lopez lagging behind on 17.

The Associated Press notes that, a month ago, Peña had 32 percent to Lopez’s 21 percent.

It now seems for the first time that Lopez, candidate of a coalition of left-leaning parties, including the Party of the Democratic Revolution (PRD), could be in with a chance in the July 1 vote. His image remains tarnished, however, by his refusal to accept defeat in the last presidential election six years ago. He came a close second to Felipe Calderon, which he said was the result of Calderon's PAN party, which held the presidency, using fraud. He set up a shadow government which continued to meet three years after the vote, wore a presidential sash, and called on Mexico to recognize him as the legitimate leader, tactics which did not go down well with the public.

The WSJ says that “The surge by the leftist is likely to cause jitters among Mexico's business elites and foreign investors,” noting that Lopez intends to maintain the government monopoly on oil production, and mandate lower gas prices. The AP reports, however, that Lopez has “sought this time to soften his image, appeal to the middle class and businessmen.”

The two other candidates have both suffered image problems during the campaign, with the PRI party's Peña hit by revelations that he had children with another woman during his marriage to his late wife, and by his seeming inability to name his favorite books. The campaign of the PAN's Vazquez, meanwhile, has made a series of organizational slip ups, including failing to get enough people to fill the stadium where she announced her candidacy. She has also lost credibility for bloopers including saying she would “strengthen money laundering,” and for having to stop a speech because she felt dizzy.

Both Vazquez and Peña are struggling to get away from the negative associations of their respective parties. Vazquez must defend the legacy of current President Calderon, who has presided over a massive surge in murder rates sparked by his aggressive tactics towards the drug cartels. Peña has the opposite problem, facing down massive student protests over accusations that his PRI party is too tolerant to organized crime. The PRI held power in Mexico for seven decades until 2000, and many Mexicans are suspicious that it has not fully moved on from its corrupt and repressive past.

The WSJ notes that Lopez has “benefited from the dynamics of the campaign, in which both he and Ms. Vazquez Mota have attacked the front-runner as an empty suit and a return to the past.


News Briefs

• Farmers in Argentina’s Buenos Aires province are planning to protest a hike in rural property tax, reports the WSJ. The area’s biggest farming group has called a strike on selling non-perishable goods and protest on the streets. The move was pushed through by Governor Daniel Scioli, who Reuters says is seen by some as a market-friendly successor to President Cristina Kirchner. In 2008, farmers strikes forced the government to withdraw higher grain export taxes, but this time the government is standing firm, says the WSJ, as the country’s economic policies, such as the take-over of YPF, have driven up borrowing costs, making it necessary to raise more money at home. In Buenos Aires, anti-government protests known as the “cacerolazo,” where citizens bang pots and honk car horns, kicked off on Thursday night, reports the AP. People angered by high inflation and tight currency controls took to the streets in what the news agency said was a highly symbolic protest.

• The NYT has a piece on the US’s expanding anti-drug operations in Central America, which have met with some success -- "For the first time in a decade, air shipments are being intercepted immediately upon landing,” according to State Department anti-drug official William Brownfield. It points out that some governments in the region think the US is too focused on shipment seizures and not enough on stopping the violence related to the trade.

• After being released on Wednesday by the FARC rebel group, who held him in the jungle for a month, French journalist Romeo Langlois has arrived in Paris and been reunited with his family, reports the AP. He told media that the rebels had given him a letter to hand to new President Francois Hollande “to ask France to continue to play its role as a friend of Colombia to help in trying to negotiate.”

• The NYT Latitude blog has a report on “Venezuela’s top party prison” from the Caracas Chronicles’ Francisco Toro. It tells the story of a weekend-long mothers’ day party with 5,000 guests, costing $93,000, held in a disco within a jail outside Caracas. Toro says that the country’s authorities have given up trying to control the interior of prisons, limiting themselves to guarding the perimeter and letting “pranes” or gang bosses run things within the walls. In Tocoron, site of the massive mothers’ day party, a boss known as “The Warrior Child” taxes inmates $12-$25 a week, for “services like special foods or simply not being killed in their sleep. Booze, mobile phones, drugs, laptops and guns cost extra.”

• Venezuela’s government says that illicit drug flights in the country’s airspace have been cut 50 percent since the beginning of the year, reports the AP. Interior and Justice Minister Tareck El Aissami said that the authorities have been bombing clandestine landing strips, destroying 36 so far, though it was not clear what period this covered.

• The Associated Press has details of the accusations against new Honduran police chief Juan Carlos Bonilla, known as “El Tigre,” citing a 10-year-old police report which details allegations that he was part of a death squad. It describes a witness account of Bonilla sending a team of police to find a suspected gang leader, and then telling them “You’ve got him. Do what you have to do.” The suspect was later found dead in a crashed car. Top human rights official Ramon Custodio told the AP that he backed Bonilla’s appointment. Then-police commissioner Maria Luisa Borjas, who headed the investigation against Bonilla in 2002, told the AP how her work was hampered by the government, and that the security minister “took away her investigators, then gasoline for her cars, then the cars.”

• Bolivia’s government has dismissed the claims of opposition Senator Roger Pinto, who is claiming asylum in Brazil on grounds of political persecution, saying that this is part of a move to discredit the government ahead of an annual meeting of foreign minister to be held in Cochabamba, reports the AP. Pinto claims that he has been threatened because he has evidence of government links to drug trafficking.

• Speaking in Washington this week, Mexico’s Ambassador to the US Arturo Sarukhan said that his government had not been informed about the anti-weapon trafficking scheme “Fast and Furious,” reports the LA Times. Under the operation, US agents allowed “straw buyers” to purchase guns they suspected were headed to Mexican cartels, in order to try to track cartel bosses. Sarukhan said the operation showed an “outrageous lack of understanding” of the issue, and revealed that his government is holding an investigation into it.

• Plaza Publica reports on the progress of a bill on rural development, backed by campesino movements. Some 2,000 rural dwellers carried out a march to Guatemala City in March to back the bill, and congresspeople and the president signed a letter promising to support it, but some representatives are now preventing it being brought to a vote in Congress, saying it may be unconstitutional. The head of farmers’ movement CUC told the site that the legislators are "subject to powers" that want to keep rural people in poverty in order to maintain control over the means of production.

• The WSJ reports on the Brazilian government’s efforts to revitalize its economy, cutting interest rates on Wednesday to a historic low, in an effort to weaken the real and help exporters.

• The LA Times reports on forced displacement in Sinaloa, west Mexico, where it says at least 1,500 families have had to flee in the last month, amid fighting between the Zetas and the Sinaloa Cartel. Last year, according to a study, at least 160,000 people were displaced across the country.

• In New York, Raul Castro’s daughter Mariela told an audience at a panel onLGBT issues that Cuba’s electoral system was open and fair, reports the Miami Herald. The gay rights campaigner also said that it would be hypocrisy for the Cuban government, headed by her father, to apologize for its past persecution of gay people.

FARC Free French Journalist

After 33 days in captivity, yesterday the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) freed French journalist Romeo Langlois in a release overseen by the International Committee of the Red Cross, former Senator Piedad Cordoba and a representative of the French government. Langlois was then flown to the village of San Isidro in the southern department of Caqueta, where he addressed members of the press.

The journalist spoke relatively highly of his captors, saying he had never been mistreated or tied up, and told those gathered that the guerrillas had always treated him “like a guest.” El Tiempo notes that, upon returning to Bogota, the reporter said the only thing he missed during his time in the jungle was the feeling of being cold.

His lack of harsh words for the guerrillas did not go unnoticed by ex-President Alvaro Uribe, never one to miss out on an opportunity to speak his mind. Uribe spoke out against Langlois via his Twitter account yesterday, accusing him of “identifying with terrorism.” “Langlois: One thing is journalistic curiosity and another is identifying with terrorism,” wrote the former Colombian president in one tweet, following it up with “Langlois, what were you doing in Colombia, what relationship did you have with the Farc? Some of us are aware that you know how to lie.”

He did offer some criticism of the armed group for using his release as a propaganda tool, however. According to the AP, the FARC freed Langlois “on their movement's 48th anniversary on a specially built stage, hanging pro-peace banners in this remote southern hamlet and organizing a barbecue.” Langlois also vehemently denied reports that he had been wearing a military uniform at the time of his capture, rumor the rebels initially used to portray him as a “prisoner of war.”

On the whole, Langlois used his time in the spotlight to advocate for peace, reminding the press and members of the humanitarian team of the brutal reality of war in Colombia, which he characterized as “the poor killing the poor." “The conflict has become invisible, we [as journalists] have to think about how to cover it” he said, adding that “the government has sold the idea that this conflict is over, but it isn’t. He also told reporters that the guerrillas are “tired of war,” and had given him a letter to present to French President François Hollande, presumably asking for his help in pressuring the Colombian government to begin peace negotiations.

News Briefs

• The New York Times covers an emerging scandal in Brazil, in which a Supreme Federal Court justice has accused former President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva of trying to postpone a trial over a vote-buying scandal in Lula’s Worker’s Party.  In turn, Lula accused Mendes of having potential links to imprisoned gambling kingpin Carlinhos Cachoeira, who is accused of paying off numerous officials in turn for political favors. The paper notes that this latest scandal is yet another obstacle to President Dilma Rousseff’s attempts to change public perception of widespread corruption in the government.
• The Times’ Room for Debate Forum has a series of short op-eds featuring differing answers to the question: “Should Latin America end the war on drugs?” Guatemalan President Otto Perez, Mexican security analyst Alejandro Hope, and the Drug Policy Alliance’s Ethan Nadelmann are among the debaters.
• While Mexican drug cartels have attempted to address the public though narco-banners and YouTube videos, it seems a new medium has been adopted in Culiacan. Suspected drug traffickers dropped thousands of leaflets from an airplane on the northern city yesterday, reports the AP. The leaflets accuse the governor of Sinaloa state of links to drug kingpin Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman.
• The Sabritas company, which distributes snack products like Ruffles, Doritos and Cheetos, may have been targeted by organized crime. Five of the company's distribution centers were attacked and set on fire in the states of Guanajuato and Michoacan over the weekend, according to CNN.
• Peruvian police on Wednesday arrested the mayor of Espinar for his role in leading heated anti-mining protests in the area, which resulted in the government declaring a state of emergency this week. Some 50 police stormed City Hall to arrest Mayor Oscar Mollohuanca while he sat in a meeting with local community groups, Peru’s RPP reports.
• The Andean Information Network as a nice overview of the current divisions in Bolivia’s police force. Although President Morales appointed Víctor Maldonado as the new national police commander on May 21^st, he does not have widespread support in the institution.
• Former CBS Evening News anchor Dan Rather has entered the Chavez health speculation game, reporting that the Venezuelan leader’s has a terminal form of cancer. Citing “a highly respected source close to Chavez” who has had access to his medical records, Rather wrote on the website for his HDNet show Dan Rather Reports that the president has an aggressive form of metastatic rhabdomyosarcoma cancer that has “entered the end stage.” Meanwhile, the International Business Times takes a look at the figures who might follow Chavez if he dies or is too weak to run in October’s election. The paper quotes Venezuela expert David Smilde, who says that the weak point in Chavez’s governance style may be his insistence on concentrating too much power at the top, much like another well-known leftist revolutionary. "Just look at Lenin," Smilde said. "Chávez has done the same thing, concentrating power at the top and expelling political opponents. When Lenin got sick and Stalin took over, he realized he had created a monster, but by then it was too late."
• Reuters profiles the work of Guatemala’s bold attorney general, Claudia Paz y Paz, in prosecuting civil war-era human rights abuses and drug trafficking networks alike. While the number of cases resolved by the country’s traditionally rickety justice system has nearly doubled under Paz y Paz’s watch, she has made herself a number of enemies among the political and military elite.
• The Guardian reports on how Haiti’s rush to develop its mineral resources could have a minimal effect on poverty in the country, as mining projects in the country have a history of benefiting only a wealthy few.