Venezuela's Maduro Seeks Decree Powers

While Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro has said that his request for lawmakers to grant him decree powers for 12 months is necessary to root out corruption and economic “sabotage,” it may have more to do with strengthening his hold on power.

In a three-hour speech to the National Assembly yesterday evening, he urged legislators to pass the so-called “Enabling Law,” saying it would be necessary to construct “a new political ethic” and “transform the economy.” The BBC reports that the president stressed that he intended to crack down on corruption across the political spectrum, including among members of his own United Socialist Party (PSUV).

As Spain’s El Pais points out, however, Maduro did not list the specific measures he would implement if granted the authority to rule by decree.

Temporary authorization to rule by decree was a favorite tactic of Maduro’s predecessor, Hugo Chavez, who received it four times during his presidency. The last time his PSUV majority granted special powers, Chavez claimed it was to provide more effective and rapid aid to victims of devastating floods in 2010. But opponents accused him of abusing the authorization to attack the opposition.

This time around, Maduro is facing the same criticism. Venezuelan political analyst Diego Moya-Ocampos told the Wall Street Journal that he expects the president to use decree authority to “legitimize policies of political oppression and judicial persecution of the opposition” ahead of municipal elections in December, in which the opposition is expected to make significant gains against the PSUV.  Opposition leader Henrique Capriles also accused the president of seeking to use the law to persecute members of his Democratic Unity Roundtable (MUD) party, as well as “to distract Venezuelans from the real problems” in the country.

According to Reuters, a vote on whether to grant Maduro decree powers is scheduled for next week. For it to pass, the bill must be supported by 99 of the National Assembly’s 165 legislators. Although the PSUV only has 98 seats, it is expected to gain the support of at least one opposition lawmaker.

In addition to using new powers to delegitimize the opposition, some also see Maduro’s request as part of a bid to circumvent opposition to his administration within the government, among PSUV members who see him as incapable of filling Chavez’s shoes. As Venezuela politics expert David Smilde told the Financial Times, “There is a lot of discontent within the government at all levels, among people who think he does not have the power and vision to make the Chávez project work.” With decree powers, Maduro could cement his authority within the PSUV, neutralizing the critics in his own party.

Perhaps as an illustration of this divide, on Tuesday the Maduro administration announced that finance minister Nelson Merentes, widely seen as a pragmatic policymaker, would be replaced as vice president for economic policy by Rafael Ramirez, the oil minister believed to be more of an ideological purist.  

News Briefs

• Peruvian judge Diego Garcia-Sayan Larrabure, the president of the Inter-American Court of Human Rights, told reporters in a press conference on Monday that he believed the growing reliance on militaries to provide internal security in Latin America is a legitimate policy option, at least in certain cases. El Universal reports that a reporter asked him to weigh in on Mexico’s reliance on the armed forced to take on criminal structures in the country. While Garcia-Sayan refused to comment on the specifics of security policy in Mexico, he expressed limited support for the deployment of the military to fight crime. “Of course, in emergency situations international law allows for the application of certain restrictions, including -- in certain circumstances and locations -- the use of military institutions,” said the judge. “Naturally, the professional bodies charged with the prevention and management of internal security, are and should be police authorities, but this does not necessarily delegitimize the use of other state apparatuses to restore order in certain circumstances.” InSight Crime claims that the statement could have alarming implications for human rights advocates in the region, many of whom look to the Inter-American Court as the only available recourse to challenge military abuses in their countries.

• A new poll by Salvadoran pollster Data Research has found that FMLN candidate Salvador Sanchez Ceren is the most popular candidate ahead of February’s presidential election, with 30.4 percent support among likely voters. He is followed by conservative candidates Tony Saca and Norman Quijano, with 25.5 and 25.2 percent, respectively. The poll found that while Sanchez Ceren would likely beat Quijano in a second round, he would lose to Saca by three points.

• The AP has an excellent feature story on the changing definition of what it means to be a “Cuban exile” in the United States. In contrast to the first wave of Cuban migrants to the U.S., most of those who leave Cuba today do not see themselves as fleeing political persecution. Additionally, thanks to Cuba’s changed immigration laws, they often return to the island to visit family.

• The New York Times reports that a group of human rights advocates in Haiti say they are filing a lawsuit against the United Nations, claiming that international peacekeeping forces first introduced a deadly cholera outbreak three years ago. Despite repeated forensic studies tracing the disease to Nepalese members of the UN peacekeeping force, the international organization has not admitted responsibility for the epidemic. The lawsuit names five Haitian cholera victims as its plaintiffs, and will be filed in a Manhattan court today by the Institute for Justice and Democracy in Haiti.

• The Guardian has an interview with intrepid Guatemalan Attorney General Claudia Paz y Paz and her proven willingness to take on powerful criminal interests in the country.  While Paz y Paz’s term is coming to an end next year, she is confident that she has made an impact on Guatemala’s shaky judicial institutions. Additionally, she told the paper she takes pride in the passage of recent legislation targeting violence against women. “Until 10 years ago, aggression against women did not exist as a crime in Guatemala. It was seen as a private affair. Now two laws have been passed in which violence against women is a specific crime. The justice system is now seen as a new place for women to go to,” she told the paper.

• Argentine President Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner successfully underwent surgery yesterday to remove a blood clot close to her brain. While the administration has claimed the president will be ready to resume her authority in a month’s time, the AP reports that medical experts are split over whether she will have recovered by then.  Some claim she will need at least three months to fully recover from the operation, and say there is a possibility she may have sustained brain damage as a result of the procedure. Meanwhile, Vice President Amado Boudou is overseeing the government, and the Washington Post notes that he lacks the same legitimacy due to the fact that he is the subject of a corruption investigation.

• A bill to protect Chile’s glaciers by banning mining in glacial areas has sparked bitter debate in the country’s congress. While environmentalists say the measure is necessary to protect Chile’s water supply, mining industry experts say it threatens the future of copper and gold mining projects.

• The Wall Street Journal reports that a U.S. judge has ruled that there are no longer any grounds for a jury trial in Chevron’s lawsuit against lawyer Steven Donziger other representatives of Ecuadorean villagers who successfully won $19 billion in environmental damages against the corporation in an Ecuadorean case in 2011. The decision was made after Chevron agreed not to pursue monetary damages against the defendants, though instead the company will seek to prevent Ecuadorean prosecutors from going after its assets in other countries.

• Colombian authorities have arrested Sor Teresa Gomez, the wife of a half-brother of AUC paramilitary leaders Fidel, Vicente and Carlos Castaño. In 2011, Gomez was convicted of ordering the murder of a peasant leader in Cordoba province who challenged the Castaños’ claims to stolen land. According to El Tiempo, she managed the finance of paramilitary groups in Cordoba and oversaw a mass illicit land grab in Cordoba in the 1990s. The paper reports that she also went on to become a “financial leader” of the Urabeños neo-paramilitary gang after the AUC demobilized in 2006.

• While it was widely reported last month that Colombia agreed to pay Ecuador $15 million to settle a lawsuit filed before the International Court of Justice in response to damages caused by anti-coca fumigation on Ecuadorean territory, the details of the agreement were not published. According to journalist Laura Gil, this was an attempt to minimize criticism of the Colombian government’s use of glyphosate, a pesticide linked to kidney damage and other harmful side effects. News site La Silla Vacia has obtained a copy of the agreement, and points out that it effectively amounts to a recognition by Colombian authorities that its use in aerial fumigation programs exposes thousands of rural citizens to the pesticide. As a result of the agreement, these programs will be subjected to new regulations along the Ecuadorean border, but they will not be applied in the rest of the country.

When Will El Salvador’s President Admit His Role in the Gang Truce?

In last Sunday’s New York Times, Oscar Martinez of Salvadoran news site El Faro wrote an excellent op-ed piece on the politics of El Salvador’s gang truce. He notes that while various officials -- including former Security Minister David Munguia Payes -- have admitted that the government orchestrated the ceasefire between the Mara Salvatrucha (MS-13) and Barrio 18 street gangs, President Mauricio Funes has downplayed his administration’s role. In a speech before the United Nations General Assembly last month, for instance, the president stressed the government “had only been a facilitator” in the truce.

According to Martinez, this is a political calculation on Funes’ part, an attempt to safeguard his image. Instead of recognizing that the government had a hand in organizing a truce which has saved thousands of lives, Martinez claims that Funes is more interested in other numbers, “the kind that reflect his popularity in the polls.”

The problem with this is that it comes at the cost of transparency. Salvadorans are kept in the dark about the deals the government is making with imprisoned gang leaders, like transferring them to lower-security facilities in exchange for their participation in the truce. It also covers up the nature of the gangs’ bargaining power, which was on display last summer after a court ordered Munguia Payes to step down from his civilian position due to his military background. This was problematic for MS-13 and Barrio 18 leaders, as the general was one of the main orchestrators of the truce. As Martinez writes:

Soon after, the number of murders began increasing again. The gangs, upon seeing the governmental godfather of their pact removed from his post, demonstrated their power and left their response in blood. On one day in July, 27 people in different parts of the country were murdered in 24 hours. 

This is the danger of pretending the government doesn’t have a pact with the gangs. That bloody July day, the gangs showed they had learned their lesson, even if the government hadn’t: the government negotiates with improvements in prisons; the gangs negotiate with dead bodies. If the government fails, they will continue to kill. As political actors in this negotiation, the gangs learned that their greatest asset, their most valuable capital, is death. And that is a lesson they won’t forget anytime soon.

With the number of murders on the rise in recent months, there is reason to believe that the ceasefire is faltering. If it fails, Funes will have even less reason to acknowledge his government’s role in the truce. It is no doubt tempting for him to simply wash his hands of the matter altogether, especially since opinion polls show a majority of Salvadorans believe it benefits the gangs more than anyone else.

News Briefs

• Argentine President Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner will undergo surgery today to drain a buildup of blood in her skull after a recent head injury. Clarin reports that two of her doctors released a statement yesterday saying that the surgery was recommended on Sunday after she complained of tingling and a slight loss of strength in her left arm.  According to medical specialists consulted by the paper, the procedure is relatively low-risk.

• The Associated Press takes a critical look at the push to “pacify” Rio de Janeiro’s shantytowns. While homicides have fallen in Rio in recent years, an AP analysis of official figures reveals that the the number of missing person cases in the city and surrounding favelas has risen by 33 percent since 2007, to 4,090 reports last year. Human rights groups and low-income Rio residents blame much of the increase on police officers, who they say are carrying out extrajudicial killings.

• Folha de São Paulo reports that the Brazilian Truth Commission has discovered a previously unknown archive of some 1.2 million pages of internal records kept by the Brazilian Navy during the country’s 1964-1985 dictatorship.

• On Monday, Dominican President Danilo Medina met with a group of activists campaigning against the Dominican Republic’s Constitutional Court recent decision to strip citizenship to the children of largely Haitian migrant workers. While the meeting -- which was held at the request of UN officials in the country -- did not bring any change in policy, one of the activists told reporters the president offered a “glimmer of hope.”

• On Monday, Chilean presidential candidate Michelle Bachelet promised to implement new tax reforms in her first 100 days of office if elected, raising corporate tax to pay for her planned overhaul of the education system. Reuters notes that these proposals suggest Bachelet is veering significantly to the left of the centrist approach she adopted in her previous administration.

• The BBC reports that Bolivian officials arrested Luis Cutipa, the head of the country’s coca control and industrialization agency yesterday, accusing him of diverting 45 tons of coca leaves to the black market. According to La Razon, Cutipa is also suspected of illegally profiting from an increase in the price of coca sellers´ licenses.

• El Tiempo reports on Colombia’s emergence as a military heavyweight in the region, illustrated by Defense Minister Juan Carlos Pinzon’s recent tour of eight other Latin American countries. Pinzon met with military officials in Honduras, Guatemala, the Dominican Republic and elsewhere in a bid to “export” Colombia’s security model. In a remark with alarming human rights implications, Pinzon told the paper that the decision in some countries to reduce the size of their military after signing peace accords was a mistake, which “left openings for organized crime.”

• Animal Politico profiles Mexico’s experiment with special courts for non-violent drug offenders, modeled after U.S. drug courts.  Judge Demetrio Cadena described Nuevo Leon’s drug courts as an attempt to “copy exactly what the United States is doing to not fill up jails with criminals that menace society with their addiction.”

• Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff has called on the Canadian government to explain itself after local media reported that a document leaked by Edward Snowden suggests Canadian intelligence monitored the electronic communications of personnel within Brazil’s Mining and Energy Ministry for economic purposes. The New York Times reports that so far, Canada has offered no public explanation for the revelation. According to the Wall Street Journal, the surveillance data was reportedly shared with the U.S., U.K., Australia and New Zealand, the members of an intelligence ring referred to as “Five Eyes.”

Marina Silva Shakes up Brazil’s Political Landscape

After an electoral court ruled that environmentalist presidential candidate Marina Silva’s new party did not present the requisite number of signatures to register ahead of elections next year, political analysts began anticipating her next move. Most predicted she would align her Sustainability Network with a smaller party, like the Popular Socialist Party (PPS) or the center-right National Ecological Party (PEN), which would allow her to stay in the race while maintaining control over her electoral platform. Hardly anyone expected Saturday’s announcement, in which she appeared with Brazilian Socialist Party (PSB) candidate Eduardo Campos and publicly endorsed his bid for president.

By joining with the PSB, Silva is ensuring that her political movement will benefit from a nationwide party structure with broad support across class barriers. The PSB has traditionally been an ally of President Dilma Rousseff’s Workers’ Party (PT), and was part of the current ruling coalition until it withdrew its support last month in preparation for Campos’ presidential campaign. Because he is regarded as more business-friendly than Rousseff, Campos also enjoys considerable support from economic elites.

Silva’s move comes at the expense of her presidential ambitions, however. Campos will remain the PSB’s candidate, and while Silva is widely expected to be his running mate, O Globo and Estadão report this has not yet been confirmed.

Citing remarks by senior politicians, Reuters claims that Silva may be perfectly comfortable with this arrangement. She has had a number of health issues recently and seems content to hold a more symbolic leadership role, serving as a kind of moral authority on environmental issues.

But while she may be comfortable with a less active role in her new party, it is unclear whether her wide support base will transfer to the PSB, especially if she is expected to keep a lower profile than Campos. Public opinion polls suggest Silva is Rousseff’s main challenger in 2014, with a September Ibope survey  giving her 16 percent support compared to 38 percent for the current president. Campos is in a distant fourth place with 4 percent of the vote, behind Aecio Neves of the Social Democracy Party (PSDB), who is backed by 11 percent of respondents. For this reason, the BBC notes that analysts are divided on the potential impact of the Silva-Campos alliance. While some believe it will create a united opposition front with the ability to challenge Rousseff's re-election, others argue it will only disappoint Silva supporters.

News Briefs

• Argentine President Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner has been forced to take a month off from her presidential duties for medical reasons, administration officials announced on Saturday. According to a statement signed by the president’s doctors and read by Fernandez spokesman Alfredo Scoccimarro, the president suffered an undisclosed “skull trauma” on August 12. While subsequent scans found nothing wrong and Fernandez exhibited no symptoms, over the weekend she was diagnosed with a subdural hematoma (bleeding on the brain), and was ordered to rest for a month. Vice President Amado Boudou cut short a visit to France in order to return and temporarily assume presidential responsibilities, La Nacion reports.  The Economist and Reuters note that the absence comes as Fernandez’s Front for Victory looks set to see significant losses in legislative elections on October 27, and the corruption allegations that Boudou faces will likely do the party no favors.

• Former Brazilian Secretary of Justice and human rights advocate Pedro Abramovay has written a column on drug policy reform in the hemisphere for Yahoo News, in which he takes on Pope Francis’ recent criticism of drug reform. Rather than refute the pope’s opposition to “drug liberalization,” Abramovay argues that recent drug policy reform initiatives in Uruguay and the U.S. states of Colorado and Washington amount to “responsible regulation,” which he characterizes as the opposite of liberalization.

• UPI looks at the end of Paraguay’s regional isolation triggered by the ouster of President Fernando Lugo last year. But while other members of Mercosur are willing to readmit Paraguay to the trade bloc, newly elected President Horacio Cartes appears to be using a threat to challenge the admission of Venezuela to raise his country’s status in the regional organization.

• The AFP reports that hundreds of Salvadorans took to the streets yesterday to protest the closure of the Tutela Legal human rights and legal office, which many suspect may be an attempt to complicate prosecution of civil war-era rights violations if the country’s 1993 amnesty law is overturned. On Friday, Archbishop of San Salvador Jose Luis Escobar told La Prensa Grafica that the decision to close Tutela Legal had been made due to administrative and judicial “irregularities” in the office.

• Rodolfo Hernandez, the leading opposition candidate in Costa Rica’s presidential election unexpectedly dropped out of the race on Thursday, citing “backstabbing” in his Social Christian Unity Party’s (PUSC). However, on Saturday La Nacion reported that he swiftly canceled that decision, saying he had been swayed by supporters’ calls for his return to politics.

• The L.A. Times reports on a bill currently being debated by Mexican lawmakers which would authorize foreigners to own coastal land in the country. While the reform is backed by the country’s real estate industry, opponents see it as a violation of Mexico’s proud national heritage.

•  Sunday saw the latest major “pacification” operation in Rio de Janeiro, with 590 police officers and 180 military troops taking the northern Lins de Vasconcelos slums “without a shot,” according to the AP. The BBC reports that two new police pacification units (UPP) will be set up in Lins de Vasconcellos, and Rio state governor Sergio Cabral Filho characterized the operation as “another step towards peace.” However, the reputation of the UPPs as guarantors of peace was significantly undermined last week after 10 UPP officers were implicated in the torture and murder of Amarildo de Souza, a bricklayer whose disappearance has become a symbol of police abuse in the city.

• The Washington Post profiles former Colombian president Alvaro Uribe’s repeated attacks against current President Juan Manuel Santos, and the repercussions this has had on Uribe’s political connections in Washington. The Post notes that Uribe’s vociferous opposition to Santos’ negotiations with FARC rebels has isolated him from U.S. policymakers, both in the administration and in Congress, who see it as a potential threat to Colombia’s prospects for peace.

• Today’s New York Times provides a look at a labor strike in Venezuela’s Orinoco Steelworks factory in the eastern city of Guayana, which revolves around workers’ claims that they are owed millions of dollars in bonuses and other benefits. The strike has created a conflict in the plant’s union which mirrors divisions within Chavismo itself. While the majority of union members support the strike, a minority has aligned itself with President Nicolas Maduro, who is against it. Both sides claim to be ideological devotees of the late Hugo Chavez.

• The Washington Post reports that the Venezuelan government is attempting to crack down on a popular currency speculation scheme involving the purchase of airline tickets in order to take advantage of a more favorable U.S. dollar exchange rate. The government plans to use fingerprint scans at airports to identify individuals suspected of purchasing tickets to abuse currency controls. Meanwhile, on Sunday the Post’s editorial board published a column criticizing Maduro’s recent expulsion of three U.S. diplomats as “one more symptom of the unravelling of the crackpot socialist regime inflicted on the country.”

El Salvador Moves to Protect Legal Center's Records After Surprise Closure

The Salvadoran government has taken measures to safeguard the archives of a historic human rights and legal office after the Catholic Church announced its closure on Monday, but the reasoning behind the decision remains suspiciously unclear.  

Tutela Legal was created in 1977 by Archbishop Oscar Romero to provide legal counsel to the poor. When the Salvadoran Civil War broke out two years later, it began to focus on human rights violations linked to the armed conflict. As the L.A. Times reports, “it became the driving force behind investigations of the most emblematic atrocities of the period, including the 1980 slaying of Romero, shot by gunmen linked to the military as he said Mass.” The office also spearheaded inquiries into the 1981 El Mozote massacre and the military's 1989 assassination of six Jesuit priests.

According to news site El Faro, which broke the story, there was no indication of an impending closure in the months leading up to the announcement, although the hiring of a new administrator to closely monitor the staff’s work raised some eyebrows.  Upon arriving for work on Monday, employees at the legal center found the building closed, with locks on the doors and private guards who prevented them from entering. When Tutela Legal staff asked the Archdiocese of San Salvador about this, they were told that the office had been permanently shuttered, as it “no longer had a reason to exist.”  

The news triggered alarm among local and international human rights groups, many of which speculated that the closure was linked to the Constitutional Court’s decision to admit a challenge to the country’s controversial 1993 Amnesty Law. Ovidio Mauricio Gonzalez, Tutela’s director, described the timing of the move as suspicious. “Just as they are talking about the amnesty, they close Tutela Legal, they close access to the archive, and abandon it to its fate,” he said.

Tutela Legal’s archives hold detailed information about Civil War-era rights abuses, which could prove invaluable to investigations if the Amnesty Law is overturned in the future. As such, human rights advocates argue that the records must be secured. As (now former) Tutela Legal investigator Jose Lazo told El Faro: “That archive does not belong to the Church; it belongs to the people. In it lies the blood of victims.”

Salvadoran President Mauricio Funes also voiced concern about the office’s closure, saying he was disappointed that Tutela Legal had “decided not to accompany the just causes of the people.”

This pressure from political and civil society actors appears to have had some impact. Yesterday El Faro reported that the Archdiocese walked back its initial remarks about the office, releasing a statement clarifying that it did, in fact, believe it had a reason to exist. However, according to Church officials, the closure of Tutela Legal was necessary in order to revitalize its work of “sheltering, supporting and advocating for victims in modern times.”

Meanwhile, La Prensa Grafica reports that the Salvadoran Human Rights Ombudsman’s office has called on the Church to authorize investigators to check on the legal center’s archives, to make sure its records have not been tampered with. If the request is not granted in five days’ time, Ombudsman David Morales warned, he would seek a court order for the inspection.

News Briefs

• Last night, a Brazilian electoral court ruled that environmentalist presidential candidate Marina Silva failed to gather the necessary signatures in time to register her new party, the Sustainability Network. Folha de São Paulo calls the ruling a “major blow” to Silva’s presidential aspirations, but O Globo reports that she can still run in next year’s elections by signing on to another existing opposition party, like the Popular Socialist Party (PPS) or the center-right National Ecological Party (PEN). Silva told reporters early this morning that she intends to announce her next move later this afternoon.

• As another round of peace talks between FARC rebels and the Colombian government gets underway in Havana, the guerrilla group’s negotiating team told the press that there has been “modest progress” made at the negotiating table. The rebels say they have made preliminary agreements on a range of issues, in a document spanning some 25 pages. Semana reports that on Monday, Colombian television aired the first-ever interview with FARC negotiators Ivan Marquez and Pablo Catatumbo that the rebels granted to a Colombian news network. In it, the two voiced sharp criticism of former President Alvaro Uribe, who Marquez blasted for “being incapable of winning the war and now not wanting to make peace.”

• El Colombiano and the AP report that Uribe’s former police general Mauricio Santoyo, who is imprisoned in the U.S. for links to paramilitary groups, will be investigated for links to the forced disappearance of two human rights activists in Medellin in October 2000.

• It seems Ecuadorean President Rafael Correa has not given up on his bid to reform the Inter-American human rights system. Correa arrived in Bolivia yesterday to meet with President Evo Morales, with whom he discussed the possibility of leaving the Inter-American Court of Human Rights if it is not reformed by 2014. “If nothing changes, it will reflect seriously on our continued participation in the human rights system that has obvious contradictions,” Correa told reporters after the meeting. The two nations would become the second and third countries in the region to abandon the Inter-American human rights system, after Venezuela’s withdrawal became final last month.  Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro had been slated to attend the meeting as well, but canceled at the last minute due to health reasons, which he described as a “viral cold.”

• Ecuador’s National Assembly has voted to support a controversial decision by President Correa to authorize oil drilling in the Yasuni Amazon reserve. While Correa’s Alianza Pais backed the measre in a 108 to 25 vote, El Comercio notes that it forbids drilling in the park’s so-called “intangible zone,” an area set aside to protect the park’s biodiversity and the land claims of local indigenous communities. Even so, resistance to drilling in Yasuni remains strong, and The Guardian reports that some 680,000 people have signed a petition calling for a referendum on the issue.

• Peruvian President Ollanta Humala has given his tacit approval to the development of the locally unpopular Minas Conga copper and gold project in the northern Cajamarca province, telling reporters that it “isn’t a state problem,” and that its development is in the hands of the company that owns it. In December 2011, Humala declared a state of emergency in Cajamarca to suppress mass demonstrations against the mining initiative.

• According to El Tiempo, Honduras’ controversial new military police force is on track to begin patrolling late this month, with some 500 officers being deployed to the capital city of Tegucigalpa.

• The U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration has issued new warnings of a rise in northbound cocaine traffic through the Caribbean. The Miami Herald reports that the DEA claims 14 percent of cocaine bound for the U.S. was sent through the Caribbean in the first half of 2013, compared to 7 percent in the same period last year.

• Tuesday marked the 45^th anniversary of Mexico’s Tlatelolco massacre, in which at least 25 students were killed by state security forces responding to a demonstration in Mexico City’s Tlatelolco Square. El Proceso reports that a rally held to commemorate the massacre saw clashes break out between police and protesters, in which some 20 people were arrested. Local human rights groups like Centro Prodh and the Mexican League of Human Rights Defenders (Limedh) have called for an investigation into allegations of police abuse at Tuesday’s rally. According to Animal Politico, authorities have charged 10 of the protesters with “insulting authority, small-scale drug dealing and attacks on the public peace.”

• La Nacion reports that Argentine prosecutors have asked for a six-year prison sentence for former President  Fernando de la Rua, who is accused of bribing a group of senators to vote in favor of a labor reform bill in 2000. The BBC notes that over 300 witnesses are expected to testify in the case, including President Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner, who opposed the measure and is not implicated in the case.

Rio Police Accused of Torture, Killing Missing Bricklayer

The disappearance of Amarildo de Souza, a bricklayer from the Rio de Janeiro favela of Rocinha, took a new turn after investigators accused ten police officers in the city of torturing and murdering him. The case has gained traction ever since his disappearance almost three months ago, and the question “Where is Amarildo?” has become a kind of rallying cry for protests against police abuse in Rio.

On Tuesday, O Globo reported that an investigation into the July 14 disappearance revealed that de Souza was arrested by members of Rio’s UPP (Pacifying Police Units) investigating a drug trafficking network in Rocinha. The officers then submitted him to electric shocks and asphyxiation with a plastic bag. The interrogation proved fatal for de Souza, who was an epileptic. According to the paper, at least three other Rocinha residents claim to have been tortured in a similar fashion by UPP authorities.

Ten officers have been accused of involvement in de Souza’s death, including Edson Santos, the UPP commander in Rocinha at the time. Santos allegedly bribed two witnesses to claim that a local gang was behind de Souza’s disappearance, but they eventually recanted the story to authorities.

Neither Santos nor any of the other officials allegedly involved have been detained, though prosecutors have 30 days to file charges against them, according to the AP. Meanwhile, the search for de Souza’s remains continues.

The New York Times notes that the development is sure to fuel frustration with police forces in Rio. This is especially the case in poor neighborhoods like Rocinha, where locals view UPPs with mistrust due to widespread allegations of abuse.

However, in some ways the publication of the investigation’s findings is good news for human rights advocates. Maria do Rosario, the Brazilian Secretary for Human Rights, told reporters that the fact that the allegations have come out after months of silence shows that democratic institutions in the country are “maturing.”

Recent months have brought further signs that Brazil is making progress on investigating and preventing abuses by security forces. In August, for instance, President Dilma Rousseff signed a new law which will create a “National Mechanism to Prevent and Combat Torture.”  As explained in this helpful overview of the law by rights group Conectas, the new body will be staffed with 11 members, who will have the authority to visit civilian and military detention centers to monitor treatment of prisoners, as well as recommend official investigations to authorities. This panel will be selected by a 23-member commission made up of representatives from federal agencies and civil society groups, who will be appointed by the president.

News Briefs

• On September 30, the Catholic Church in El Salvador shut down Tutela Legal, a legal and human rights office of the Archdiocese of San Salvador which has played a historic role in human rights investigations in the country. Salvadoran news site El Faro reports that the closure was completely unexpected. The legal center’s staff arrived to work on Monday morning to find the doors shut and security guards placed in front of the building. When they asked about the reason for the closure, employees were told that the center “no longer has a reason to exist.”   The L.A. Times notes that Tutela Legal’s closure was suspiciously announced right after the country’s judicial branch agreed to hear challenges to its amnesty law, which, if overturned, could lead to the prosecution of human rights abuses.

• Police in Brasilia clashed with indigenous rights demonstrators yesterday who were attempting to enter Congress, part of nationwide protests against a proposed constitutional reform which would allow congressmen to have a role in demarcating indigenous land. As the L.A. Times reports, the law has the support of the country’s powerful agricultural lobby, and is opposed by indigenous groups who say it is a continuation of escalating disputes with rural farm owners seeking to expand into their ancestral homelands.

• Spanish news agency EFE reports that an Ecuadorean commission charged with investigating the 2010 police revolt in the country found that "certain political actors" were behind it, including former President Lucio Gutierrez.

• A coalition of women’s’ rights groups in Colombia has presented a new report to the UN Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW), providing a critical look at the role of sexual violence in the country’s armed conflict. According to the report (.pdf), the majority of reported cases of sexual assault against women which were linked to the conflict in 2011 were attributed to state security forces, (58 percent) followed by paramilitary groups (27 percent) and guerrilla groups (some  15 percent).

• The BBC provides an interesting overview of the work of the Colombian Agency for Reintegration (ACR), the institution charged with facilitating the demobilization of members of armed groups. According to ACR Director Alejandro Eder, his agency has the capacity to receive some 40,000 ex-combatants, and has had considerable success helping former rebels reintegrate into society. Still, he estimates that the rate of those who have left the program only to resume criminal activity is around 20 to 25 percent.

• Honduras Culture and Politics has some analysis of the latest poll data ahead of the country’s November presidential elections. A September survey by polling firm Paradigma shows left-wing LIBRE candidate Xiomara Castro statistically tied with Juan Orlando Hernandez of the conservative National Party, with 22.8 to 21.9 percent. With undecided voters likely to split fairly evenly between these two, the blog’s authors argue that the election will be determined by supporters of the declining Liberal and Anti-Corruption Parties, some of whom may choose to abandon their candidates for the leader closest to their ideology.

• On Tuesday, riot police in Haiti broke up an anti-government demonstration by thousands of people marking the anniversary of the 1991 ousting of former President Jean-Bertrand Aristide. Protesters called for new local and legislative elections, which are two years overdue and do not appear to be held anytime soon despite the promises of current President Michel Martelly.

• While opinion polls have consistently shown that a majority of Uruguayans (albeit a diminishing one) are against a marijuana regulation bill under consideration in the country’s senate, a new survey conducted by Factum shows that this opposition is much more flexible than the previous polls showed. According to Factum, the vast majority -- 78 percent -- of those surveyed say they prefer users of marijuana have access to the drug through the state, compared to just 5 percent who say they prefer it to be sold on the illegal market.

• Today’s Wall Street Journal features a favorable account of Uruguay’s marijuana bill, placing it in the context of a series of civil rights legislation which included decriminalizing abortion and legalizing gay marriage in the country. As the WSJ notes, this right-based agenda has opened up the ruling Frente Amplio coalition to criticism that it is losing focus on the state’s role in providing social services. In an AP profile of Senator Lucia Topolansky, the wife of President Jose Mujica who has been named as a potential vice president in the next administration, the senator argues that the president’s agenda is based on the fact that the party has already accomplished its main social aims. “The country is ready now for this rights agenda,” she told the wire agency.

Guatemala to Assess Domestic Drug Policy Reforms

While he has become known as one of the main proponents of drug policy reform in the Americas, Guatemalan President Otto Perez Molina has done relatively little to enact policy shifts in his own country. It looks like this may finally change, however, with the creation of a new advisory commission tasked with proposing alternative drug policies in Guatemala.

According to Prensa Libre, the commission will be chaired by Foreign Minister Luis Fernando Carrera, who will appoint several policy experts to study the matter, as well as Interior Minister Mauricio Lopez Bonilla. The paper reports that the group is in charge of coming up with policy proposals that are: “comprehensive, multidisciplinary, respectful of human rights and fundamental freedoms, as well as related to reducing the supply and demand of drugs, drug enforcement, money laundering, asset forfeiture, drug trafficking and associated criminal activities, institutional structure and legislation on drugs, foreign policy on drugs and gender.”

Former Foreign Minister Edgar Gutierrez, who serves as Guatemala’s special ambassador to the OAS on drug policy, told Prensa Libre that the commission’s main role will be to recommend changes in sentences for drug-related crimes. “The government has criticized excessive penalties for possession of cannabis for personal consumption, as this represents an excessive prison population. Reducing or eliminating penalties with the aim of easing such pressure, as well as providing alternatives to poppy growers are some of the actions under consideration,” said Gutierrez.

Perez announced the commission’s creation in his speech before the UN General Assembly last week, the same address in which he praised marijuana legalization initiatives in Uruguay, Colorado and Washington. Perez also met with Uruguayan President Jose Mujica in New York, signing an agreement to exchange information related to the design and implementation of drug policies.

Depending on how much weight is given to the commission’s recommendations, this could be an important first step for drug policy reform in the country. While Perez has advocated decriminalizing marijuana, and spoken at length in international forums on the issue (see his remarks at the World Economic Forum in January, for example), he has made no major push to enact reforms in his own country. Part of this doubtlessly has to do with the fact that his government receives considerable support for counternarcotics operations from the United States. With no other governments in the region considering relaxing drug laws, Guatemala risks standing out as a rogue state in Central America, potentially putting its U.S. ant-drug aid in jeopardy.  

But Perez’s lack of initiative is likely based on domestic political factors as well. As it is in Mexico and Uruguay, public opinion on the drug policy reform is divided in Guatemala. According to an April 2012 Prodatos poll, roughly half of all Guatemalans surveyed are against decriminalizing drugs.

News Briefs

• The Miami Herald reports that human rights groups in the Dominican Republic have announced plans to protest last week’s court ruling which effectively stripped thousands of individuals of Haitian descent of Dominican citizenship. In a press conference yesterday members of the group Reconoci.do, which advocates for the rights of Haitian-descended Dominicans, said they would appeal the decision to international organizations, including the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights. Meanwhile, Haiti has recalled its ambassador to the Dominican Republic for consultation over how to further respond to the ruling.

•  A judge in Ecuador has initiated a trial against ten top police and military officials, accused of ordering the torture of members of an armed opposition movement in 1985. As the BBC and El Comercio report, it is the first case involving crimes against humanity to be initiated in Ecuador’s history.

• After only a few hours of deliberation, a California jury yesterday convicted a former Guatemalan soldier of lying about his military past and alleged participation in the 1982 Dos Erres massacre  in order to obtain U.S. citizenship. He will be sentenced in December, and faces as many as 15 years in jail for the crime, as well as the loss of his citizenship. Authorities in Guatemala have expressed interest in his extradition, so he can be tried for his role in the Dos Erres killings.

• Following Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro’s Monday announcement that three U.S. diplomats would be expelled from the country for allegedly encouraging economic “sabotage,” the Venezuelan government released a video yesterday which shows images of the diplomats meeting with opposition figures, set to ominous background music. In response to their expulsion, the U.S. ordered three Venezuelan diplomats, including Venezuelan charge d'affaires Calixto Ortega Rios, to leave the country in 48 hours. The U.S. Embassy in Caracas also published a statement vigorously denying that its representatives had committed any wrongdoing. The L.A. Times described the expulsion of the U.S. diplomats as “another sign of the increasingly dire problems Venezuela’s government faces and the extreme measures [Maduro] is taking to try to divert supporters’ attention from them.”

• Today’s New York Times features a critical take on the Maduro administration, profiling dissatisfaction with the president in Venezuela among Chavistas who view him as a poor substitute for his deceased predecessor, with far less political acumen.

• The list of criminal allegations against officials close to former Colombian President Alvaro Uribe keeps growing. On Monday, authorities arrested former security chief Flavio Buitrago, who has been charged with illicit enrichment. The AP notes that Buitrago is the second security chief of the Uribe administration to face criminal charges. The first is Mauricio Santoyo, who is currently imprisoned in the U.S. on drug charges and links to paramilitary groups.

• Yesterday Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos announced that his proposal to hold a national referendum on an eventual peace deal with FARC rebels would have to be negotiated with the guerrilla group, Caracol Radio reports. Previously the FARC have rejected a referendum, insisting that the peace process include a constituent assembly to alter the constitution instead.

• Brazilian indigenous groups have begun a weeklong series of demonstrations demanding that the federal government respect their territorial claims, with close to a thousand participating in protests in Brasilia against a constitutional reform that would involve lawmakers in the demarcation of indigenous land.  According to a report released by the Missionary Council for Indigenous Peoples (CIMI) cited by the AFP, violence against indigenous communities linked to land disputes increased last year, with 54 Indians killed in 2012.

• Reuters reports on backlash to the Brazilian government’s announced plans to force tech companies to store data domestically in order to limit U.S. spying capabilities in the country. Industry analysts and executives say the real security benefits of such a move would be limited, and argue that it will only serve to dissuade investment in the technology sector in the long run.

• The L.A. Times looks at the Mexican government’s scaled-back projections for economic growth this year, which have fallen from 3.5 to 1.8 percent. Officials blame the drop on sluggish economic recovery in the United States, and say that the recent storms have taken a further toll, damaging key infrastructure.

• In keeping with his pro-market business background and campaign promises to shake up Paraguay’s government, newly-elected Paraguayan President Horacio Cartes is slashing government jobs in the country. Saying it lacks the necessary funds to pay all of its 258,000 public employees, the AP reports that his administration has fired 4,000 people and will eliminate another 15,000 government jobs by December.

Brazil’s Environmentalist Candidate Faces Uphill Presidential Race

The Economist has a long, in-depth interview with former senator and environmental minister Marina Silva, who left the ruling Workers’ Party and ran for president in 2010 as a Green Party candidate. This time around she hopes to challenge President Dilma Rousseff’s reelection bid under the banner of a new political movement, called the Sustainability Network.

The October 5 deadline for her new party to submit the necessary signatures to participate in next year’s election is fast approaching, however. And while she has sent 900,000 signatures to election authorities, only about half have been approved, leaving her short of the 492,000 required. Silva claims that an unusually high number of signatures were rejected by notaries in Workers' Party strongholds, saying "obviously there was something happening on the notaries' side that the electoral courts will have to judge."

Perhaps the most interesting element of the interview involves Silva’s campaign platform. While she has long been seen as a kind of moral authority on environmental policy in the country, Silva has also embraced transparency and improved political representation, issues which may resonate greatly among Brazilians in the wake of last June’s wave of demonstrations.  Some highlights of the interview:

[If] you govern according to a programme, and you have a strategic agenda, you can't ignore society in implementing that agenda. You can't think that this is something you can "do to" society without having created that agenda together with society. The big problem we are facing right now is that there is a complete separation between a society that wants a better Brazil, and politicians who imagine that it is their prerogative to do things for society in whatever way they want. That they can, in their position of representatives, replace the represented. Representative democracy doesn't mean excluding the voices of those who are represented. 

.… 

But corruption will only be cut when tackling it stops being seen as the government's responsibility and starts being seen as society's. It was only when slavery was seen as a societal issue and not an issue for government, that it was ended. It was the same with Brazil's dictatorship, and then economic instability, and after that dire poverty: these were finally dealt with once they stopped being seen as issues for government to resolve and were adopted by society. It will be the same with corruption, and it has already started. Those who think that things will just return to normal are fooling themselves. It'll never be the same after the protests.

Despite Silva’s appeal to the messages which led over a million Brazilians to participate in demonstrations earlier this year, public opinion polls suggest she has a difficult campaign ahead even if  her party gets approved. Although a July poll placed her just eight points behind Rousseff (22 to 30 percent approval, respectively), a survey published last Thursday shows that the president has made a rebound in public opinion. She remains the second most popular candidate in the running, but the Ibope poll shows that the gap between her and Rousseff has more than doubled. Silva is now trailing the president by 22 points, with 16 percent support compared to 38 percent.

News Briefs

• The United Nations will carry out an “exhaustive study” of the recent court ruling in the Domincan Republic that strips citizenship from thousands of individuals of Haitian descent, in order to determine whether it violates international treaties, according to UN Resident Coordinator Lorenzo Jimenez. Meanwhile, the Listin Diario reports that Haiti has temporarily recalled its ambassador to the Dominican Republic to evaluate the impact of the ruling.

• On Monday, Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro announced the expulsion of the top U.S. diplomat in the country, chargé d’affaires Kelly Keiderling, as well as two other high level American diplomats. As the New York Times reports, Maduro made the announcement during a speech at a military ceremony commemorating a battle in Venezuela’s war of independence. El Nacional reports that the president accused the diplomats of financing and encouraging the opposition “to take actions to sabotage the electrical system, to sabotage the Venezuelan economy.” Considering that polls show less than 5 percent of the Venezuelan public believes the government’s claim that recent electric blackouts were caused by “sabotage,” it is unclear whether the Maduro administration will reap any benefits from this move politically.

• Venezuela’s telecommunications agency has announced that it will levy a fine against Venezuelan news network Globovision for allegedly contributing to public anxiety in reports on goods shortages in the country. As the AP notes, this would be the ninth fine against Globovision in recent years, and perhaps a sign that its anti-government editorial slant has not altered as much as some say, despite a recent change in ownership.

• Yesterday the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) officially ceased all of its activities in Bolivia. La Opinion reports that the U.S. embassy in La Paz released a statement to the press announcing the development, noting that it was “in accordance with the decision of the government of President Evo Morales to expel it from the country.” Morales expelled the aid agency in May, accusing it of using democracy promotion programs for political purposes. Meanwhile, last week the city council of La Paz voted to expropriate a building owned by the U.S. development organization, which will now be used to provide municipal services.  

• The L.A. Times takes a look at the impact of the recent UN finding that Peru has surpassed Colombia as the world’s top producer of coca. The paper notes that U.S. anti-drug aid to Peru is set to double this fiscal year, though it is still pales in comparison to the aid Colombia received during the height of Plan Colombia.

• A federal jury in California is debating whether a former Guatemalan soldier accused of participation in the 1982 Dos Erres massacre lied about his military past to obtain U.S. citizenship. If convicted, he could face 15 years in jail and lose his citizenship.

• As Uruguay’s Senate takes up debate  on the marijuana regulation bill passed by the lower house on July 31, opposition to the measure has largely turned to attacking Regulacion Responsable, the coalition of civil society groups campaigning in favor of the law. Most of the criticism has centered on the support that the campaign receives from Open Society Foundations (OSF), with local press focusing on false allegations that OSF founder and chairman George Soros has links to bioengineering company Monsanto. Fortunately for the campaign, this was cleared up by OSF Latin America Program Director Pedro Abramovay in an interview published in Sunday’s El Pais. In it, Abramovay clarified that OSF’s support was based on an interest in drug policy reform, and that the foundation would be helping with independent evaluation of the bill to facilitate its implementation. He also rejected the Monsanto rumors, saying: “there is no pressure from Soros' business interests and there is no link between him or Open Society with Monsanto.”

• While Uruguayan President Jose Mujica’s speech at the UN General Assembly proved to be a disappointment to drug policy reform advocates hoping he would use it to defend the marijuana bill, the issue was taken up by other regional leaders at the international forum. Guatemalan President Otto Perez Molina, for instance, hailed the “visionaries” behind marijuana legalization campaigns in the U.S. states of Colorado and Washington, and also expressed support for the Uruguayan initiative. The International Drug Policy Consortium (IDPC) has a helpful overview of the remarks of the four speakers (Perez, Costa Rica’s Laura Chinchilla, Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos and Mexican Foreign Minister José Antonio Meade Kuribreña) who touched on drug policy in their speeches last week. For the IDPC, this is clear evidence of a growing consensus in the region that the dominant drug policy paradigm must be altered.

• La Nacion reports that polls show the leading rival of Argentine President Cristina Fernandez, Sergio Massa, has an 11-point lead over Fernandez’s preferred candidate in the race for the congressional seat of Buenos Aires province ahead of the October 27 elections. The Wall Street Journal claims that this increases the chances that Fernandez’s party will lose firm control over the country’s lower house.

• The Associated Press profiles the difficult task Cuba faces in its bid to do away with its dual currency system. While President Raul Castro denounced the system in his July address to the National Assembly, it will be extremely difficult to adopt a single currency without contributing to inflation and potentially fueling economic inequality on the island. According to Cuban economist Pavel Vidal, the government has quietly set up a pilot program in key industries with an exchange rate set between the two currencies.

• While the Mexican government maintains that a recent spike in kidnappings is due to an aggressive campaign encouraging citizens to denounce crime to authorities, Animal Politico reports that a poll by Mexican statistics institute INEGI has found that 98 percent of kidnappings and 82 percent of forced disappearances went unreported last year.