Bogota Mayor Banned From Office on Dubious Grounds

Colombia’s inspector general has dismissed leftist Bogota Mayor Gustavo Petro and banned him from office for 15 years due to allegations that he abused his authority during a dispute with garbage collectors last year. Petro and his supporters have denounced the move as an undemocratic coup, sparking a national debate over the inspector general’s constitutionally-mandated authority to remove elected officials.

Yesterday afternoon, Inspector General Alejandro Ordoñez announced his decision on the grounds that Petro’s attempt to replace private garbage contractors with an inexperienced municipal service during a dispute last December “violated constitutional principles of commercial competition and freedom.”

The announcement was immediately met with criticism. Petro described it as a “coup against the progressive government of Bogota” and called on supporters to protest his removal peacefully in Bogota's central Bolivar Square. El Tiempo reports that Petro told the thousands who gathered there that he was refusing to leave office, calling Ordoñez’s decision a political power play orchestrated by the extreme right to send “a message of war” to rebel peace negotiators in Havana.

The Miami Herald notes that Petro’s removal could have national implications, as the former M-19 guerrilla is “seen as a model for other rebel leaders who might want to lay down arms and participate in politics.”

Petro was not alone in criticizing the move. Immediately after Ordoñez’s announcement, Justice Minister Alfonso Gomez Mendez condemned the decision and said he supported limiting the inspector general’s ability to remove elected officials.

Semana reports that the decision was technically constitutional, but that it highlights an alarming concentration of power in the inspector general’s office. According to the magazine, in Ordoñez’s first term he dismissed 828 mayors, 622 city councilors and 49 governors. That’s an average of four mayors a week. He also engineered the controversial impeachment of Senator Piedad Cordoba, due to allegations that she had links with FARC rebels.  

 La Silla Vacia has an analysis of the public figures deposed by Ordoñez, pointing out that even in cases involving deeply entrenched corruption, the officials concerned were stripped of their position due to relatively minor infractions. The news site also calls attention to an apparent lack of proportion in Ordoñez’s pronouncements. Bogota city councilman Hipolito Moreno, for instance, was banned from office for only 11 years despite admitting to receiving some $30 million in bribes. Meanwhile, Ciro Ramirez and Luis Humberto Gomez Gallo, two congressmen convicted of paramilitary ties by the Supreme Court, were cleared of administrative wrongdoing by Ordoñez in May.

Petro has said he will appeal the decision, but it is unlikely that the inspector general will change his mind. Ordoñez reportedly has between 30 and 40 days to consider the appeal. After that, the mayor’s political future is unclear. He has called for continued rallies in Bolivar Square, but it is doubtful that popular outrage alone will keep him in office. The Bogota mayor’s only hope may be an appeal to the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR). EFE reports that Petro has said he will ask the IACHR to request precautionary measures to protect his rights to political participation, which he claims have been violated without just cause.

News Briefs

• After months of delay, Uruguay is finally on the verge of becoming the first country on the planet to fully regulate the black market for marijuana. The Uruguayan Senate has taken up debate on the controversial marijuana regulation bill this morning, and because the ruling Frente Amplio coalition controls 16 of 30 seats in the upper house, the measure is expected to pass with ease. President Jose Mujica will likely sign it into law before the end of the year, and El Pais reports that authorities have said that its implementation could begin as soon as April 2014.

• The AP reports that riots have broken out in cities in at least 19 of Argentina's 23 provinces, sparked by opportunistic looters taking advantage of a police strike in Cordoba. La Nacion has a map of the cities where violence has broken out, and reports that 8 people have died so far.

• A new Consulta Mitofsky poll released on Monday shows that the approval rating of Mexican President Enrique Peña Nieto has dropped four percentage points in his first year in office, to 50 percent. The most frequently cited complaints of those polled involved Peña Nieto’s handling of the economy and security. Analyst James Bosworth of Bloggings by Boz recently pointed out that Peña Nieto’s approval after his first year stands in contrast to that of his predecessor Felipe Calederon, who polled at around 60 percent after one year in office.

• A court in Honduras has sentenced four police officers to extremely long prison terms (one to 66 years and the others to 58) in connection with the 2011 killing of the son of National Autonomous University President Julieta Castellanos. Since then, Castellanos has led the campaign to clean up the country’s notoriously corrupt police force. El Heraldo reports that, on Sunday, she denounced the murder of another university student, also apparently at the hands of police.

• O Globo paints an alarming picture of criminal influence on the outskirts of Rio: according to a study by researchers of the University of Rio de Janeiro State, militias have a presence in 45 percent of the city’s favelas, and 37 percent are controlled by drug trafficking groups.

• A day after brutal riots broke out in the stands on Sunday during a soccer game in Santa Catarina, Brazil, World Cup organizers on Monday attempted to reassure the public that similar incidents would not occur in 2014. However, the AP points out that security at the Santa Catarina game was being handled by private guards rather than police, which is the current plan for World Cup matches.

• El Universal reports that Mexico’s controversial energy reform bill was passed in a committee yesterday with the support of lawmakers of the PAN and PRI, and Animal Politico reports that a full Senate vote could take place today.

• The memorial service for Nelson Mandela today in Johannesburg has united many of the hemisphere’s leaders across the ideological spectrum. U.S. President Barack Obama, Cuban President Raul Castro and Brazil’s Dilma Rousseff were all slated to speak today at Mandela’s Funeral. According to the NYT, “At one point, Mr. Obama was seen shaking hands with the Cuban leader.”

• Salvadoran news site El Faro has an update on the ceasefire between the MS-13 and Barrio 18 street gangs in the country, noting that it has continued in place despite tension between the negotiators and Security Minister Ricardo Perdomo, as well as the fact that the government has sought to distance itself from the truce.

• Foreign Policy has an interesting column by Evelyn Krache Morris, who dispels some of the popular misconceptions about the drug trade, taking U.S. policymakers to task for conceptualizing drug trafficking in Mexico as a foreign policy issue. She also criticizes drug policy reform advocates for promoting drug legalization as an end to drug trafficking-linked violence, because drug cartels receive funding from other sources than drug money.

Maduro Declares Victory in Venezuela's Municipal Elections

While the opposition won several key races in yesterday’s municipal elections in Venezuela, candidates allied with the ruling United Socialist Party (PSUV) won a majority of the total ballots cast, allowing President Nicolas Maduro to spin the vote as an electoral victory.

With 97 percent of the votes counted, Venezuelan election officials announced last night that the PSUV and allied parties won 49.24 percent of ballots, whereas the opposition Democratic Unity Roundtable (MUD) and its allies won 42.72 percent. According to the National Electoral Council, turnout was around 58 percent.

El Nacional reports that the MUD won mayoral races in the cities of Maracaibo, Valencia and Barinas (the capital of Hugo Chavez’s home state). It also won the Metropolitan District of Caracas, giving it control over a total of five of the six municipal seats that govern the capital city. The PSUV held on to Libertador, the largest of Caracas’ five municipalities.

Despite losing several high-profile contests, the government is touting the fact that the PSUV maintained a majority of municipal seats. According to the state-run Correo del Orinoco, the PSUV now controls 210 of the country’s 337 mayoralties.  

In a triumphant speech following the release of preliminary results, Maduro described the election as a “grand victory.”  He also called on Capriles to “recognize that he has been defeated once again” and resign from his position as the head of the MUD.  The forceful tone of Maduro’s speech stood in stark contrast to his gloomy address following his narrow win in elections last April, in which he and supporters appeared somber and almost bewildered by his lack of a clear electoral mandate. Capriles, meanwhile, gave a less celebratory speech, remarking that the results showed that Venezuelans “have a divided country, and this divided country belongs to all of us.”

At Venezuelan Politics and Human Rights, David Smilde offers this concise take on the municipal elections:

This result clearly gives Maduro some breathing room. Compared to where he was two months ago, with a government in a tail spin, he now looks like he is in control, having gotten past a major hurdle. The opposition clearly did not get the big plebiscite win that it sought. But it is in reasonable shape with a good showing in popular vote despite all of the campaign inequities. They gained ground in number of mayors and control many important capitals. This will give them space to provide an alternative model of governance and maintain their public profile. Maduro has gained some breathing room but 2014 is guaranteed to be a difficult year.

More analysis from the Wall Street Journal and The Economist’s Intelligence Unit, the latter of which notes that Maduro  “now seems more firmly entrenched as president,” and is thus “more likely than not to complete his six-year term.”

News Briefs

• On Sunday, the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) announced they would implement a unilateral, 30-day ceasefire starting on December 15. Semana and the BBC note that the announcement came one day after a bomb attack on a police station in Cauca province, killing nine. In their statement, the FARC called on the government to honor the truce as well, but El Colombiano  reports that President Juan Manuel Santos said in the wake of the Cauca bombing that the military would continue to go after the rebels. 

• Former Honduran President and head of the LIBRE Party Manuel Zelaya officially requested that the country’s Supreme Electoral Tribunal (TSE) nullify the results of the recent general elections, La Prensa reports. Zelaya said that his party found clear evidence of irregularities in the electoral process, calling the vote a “transparent fraud.”

• The Associated Press reports on Cuba’s ongoing economic reforms and their apparent clash with the principles of the Cuban Revolution, a conflict which some worry is undermining revolutionary values like solidarity and unity in favor of individualism and self-interest.

• The New York Times looks at changing attitudes towards criticism of the Cuban government in state media and at official venues, which has become increasingly common on the island. Still, the paper notes that the there are consequences for those who “cross the line between loyal criticism and dissent,” with human rights groups claiming 761 short-term arrests of dissidents in November alone.

• During a visit to Brazil over the weekend, Bill Clinton gave an interesting interview to leading daily O Globo. In addition to endorsing Brazil’s bid for a permanent UN Security Council seat, the ex-president expressed criticism of the recent revelations about the NSA’s surveillance activity in the South American country. In reference to the NSA’s alleged monitoring of Petrobras, Clinton remarked: “We should not obtain economyic information under the pretext of security. Not with an ally.”

• InSight Crime features a post on public perception of Rio de Janeiro's Police Pacification Units (UPPs) by Robson Rodrigues, an consultant to the Rio-based Igarape Institute. Despite recent protests against police abuses in the city, Rodrigues cites polls which show that the UPPs are generally well-received among favela inhabitants. Still, he argues that it is time for the police units to adopt a more specific mandate and tighter operating procedures.

• On Friday, the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) released a report detailing its preliminary observations during its visit to the Dominican Republic last week to observe the effects of the  recent ruling on nationality. The IACHR determined that an “undetermined but very significant number” of Dominicans had been “arbitrarily deprived of their nationality,” and called on Dominican officials to take measures to safeguard the rights of those affected.  The Listin Diario reports that the Dominican Foreign Ministry rejected the IACHR’s findings, issuing a press statement describing the commission’s report as a “subjective, partial and unilateral version of the reality in our country.”

• As Uruguay’s Senate gears prepares to vote on a landmark marijuana regulation bill in its session tomorrow, the Financial Times has an overview of the details of the bill and profiles excitement for the measure among marijuana enthusiasts in the country. As a refresher: the bill was approved in the Senate Health Committee earlier this month exactly as it passed in the lower house, with no amendments. It will authorize cultivation for personal consumption of up to 6 plants per household, and commercial production of marijuana will be carried out by private entities that are licensed by the state. The commercially-grown marijuana will be sold in pharmacies to Uruguayan citizens only, who can purchase up to 40 grams per month. The AFP reports that the bill has neighboring Argentina and Brazil concerned about the potential for cross-border spillover of the drug. Still, the news agency notes that the possibility of Uruguay becoming a marijuana exporting nation is remote, as the black market is dominated by Paraguayan cannabis.

• In other drug policy news, Mexico’s El Universal has obtained the details of a proposed bill by local lawmakers of the Party of the Democratic Revolution (PRD) to decriminalize consumption of small amounts of marijuana in Mexico City. According to the paper, the bill would set up dispensaries around the city which would provide users with safe access to the drug, as well as information about the associated risks and how to seek treatment for addiction.

• Mexican authorities detained six men suspected of stealing a shipment of hazardous radioactive material last week. Only one tested positive for signs of radiation poisoning, and officials in Hidalgo say he is in good health. 

Latin America Mourns Mandela’s Passing

The news that former South African President Nelson Mandela passed away yesterday was met with solemn reactions by Latin American leaders, all of whom praised his leadership and legacy as a freedom fighter.

Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos celebrated Mandela as a “symbol of freedom and tolerance,” and called upon his country to honor the South African leader by following his example and working towards peace and post-conflict reconciliation. “Let's push together, build together an environment of coexistence, dialogue and reconciliation… where we never kill the children of the same nation only for thinking differently,” Santos said in a public address, according to El Espectador.

In Venezuela, President Nicolas Maduro compared Mandela’s death to that of his predecessor, Hugo Chavez, calling them both “Giants of the People” and declaring three national days of mourning. El Nacional notes that opposition leader Henrique Capriles also commemorated the loss, taking to social media to call Mandela an “example for the world.”

El Nuevo Diario reports that Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega also declared three days of national mourning yesterday.

Reuters reports that Mandela’s death united Latin American leaders across the political spectrum, with conservative and left-leaning heads of state alike praising his legacy. The leaders of Brazil, Chile, Guatemala, Argentina and Ecuador all commemorated the former South American president’s death yesterday.

While Nelson Mandela is seen as a hero and a symbol of human rights across the region, Spain’s El Pais points out that his closest ally in Latin America was Cuba’s Fidel Castro. Cuba's military involvement in Angola provided a major boost to the African National Congress (ANC) during the apartheid years, granting exiled leaders as well as the ANC’s armed wing a territorial support base.  The paper notes that Mandela remained a staunch supporter of Castro throughout his presidency, even as his government pursued closer ties with the United States.

In a statement released yesterday, Cuban President Raul Castro expressed his “most heartfelt condolences” to Mandela’s relatives, South African President Jacob Zuma, the ANC and the country as a whole. In Castro’s words, “We will never be able to speak about Mandela in the past tense.”

 News Briefs

• Citing a press release issued by the Supreme Electoral Tribunal (TSE) yesterday, the Associated Press reported that Honduran election officials had delayed a count of vote tally sheets yesterday after members of the opposition LIBRE Party failed to show up as planned. However, Rosemary Joyce of Honduras Culture and Politics notes this is not the full story. LIBRE’s leadership claims that it did not participate in the TSE’s recount because the electoral tribunal’s proposed procedure was inadequate.

• According to El Universo, the Pachamama Foundation -- the Ecuadorean environmental NGO which was closed by the government after being accused of fueling violence -- will take its case to the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights.

•  Ahead of Sunday’s municipal elections in Venezuela, Hugo Perez Hernaiz of Venezuelan Politics and Human Rights has a comprehensive rundown of the latest polls. While he notes that the government is almost certain to win more municipalities than the opposition due to the PSUV’s stronger support in rural areas, Perez provides an overview of some of the most high-profile races to watch.

• Ultimas Noticias reports that Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro has announced that he is considering granting a humanitarian pardon to Ivan Simonovis, an ex-security minister of Caracas who was jailed for allegedly participating in the failed 2002 coup against Hugo Chavez. Simonovis has been hailed by some members of the opposition as a political prisoner, and his lawyers are arguing for his release on health grounds.

• El Nacional has a follow-up on the recent AP piece on Venezuela’s rundown healthcare system, reporting that human rights groups PROVEA and a number of healthcare professional associations have demanded an official explanation for the shortage of medical equipment in the country. The groups argue that the lack of sufficient chemotherapy treatment and testing equipment in public hospitals violates Venezuela’s constitutionally guaranteed right to health.

• Following Mexican authorities’ announcement that the radioactive material stolen earlier this week had been found, and their subsequent claims that the thieves will likely die of radiation poisoning, the Washington Post notes that the theft of nuclear materials is “alarmingly frequent” worldwide.

• Mexico’s lower house has passed a modified version of the ambitious reform bill approved by the Senate earlier this week; it will now return to the upper house for renewed debate. Among the changes to the bill, according to El Universal, is a provision which would delay the authorization of lawmakers’ re-election to 2018, so that current legislators could not benefit from the reform.

• Ten people were killed in a shootout between an armed group and police in northern Nicaragua on Wednesday. While the federal government characterized the incident to the press as an attempted robbery, the AP notes that locals say the gunmen ares part of a growing armed resistance movement in the area. InSight Crime recently featured a detailed profile of the emerging group, noting that they trace their roots to Nicaragua’s Contra insurgency.

• Brazilian news site Agencia Publica has a series on the lack of oversight of the Brazilian Development Bank (BNDES) funding projects. According to the site, some 40 percent of BNDES’ finance activity has not been accounted for to the public. After filing a freedom of information request, Agencia Publica has obtained 43 contracts supported by the BNDES in the Amazon region, many of which show evidence of irregularities or a lack of oversight over BNDES activity  in the region. Agencia Publica found that the contracts contain only superficial human rights guarantees, and include funding for the controversial Belo Monte dam project even after a court ordered the project’s temporary suspension in October.  

• Agencia Publica also provides a critical look at Brazil’s approach to drug treatment, which involves a heavy reliance on privately-run “therapeutic communities.”  The majority of the centers are religious in nature, and their treatment regimens are often unregulated by the state. As a result, patients are frequently subject to a range of abuses. The news site cites a 2011 Federal Council of Psychology (CFP) report on therapeutic communities which found evidence of human rights violations in all 68 of the treatment centers that the authors visited. While the report was passed on to health and drug policy officials, at least three of the centers named by the CFP still receive state funding, according to Agencia Publica.

• Also on the issue of drug treatment, the Christian Science Monitor features an excellent article by Miriam Wells on the Ecuadorean government’s recent effort to close down unregulated clinics. Last month, officials announced that some 500 people had been freed from unlicensed facilities in the country, many of which were accused of sponsoring abuse and torture.

Ecuador Shuts Down Environmental NGO

In the latest incident to raise questions about the state of freedom of speech in Ecuador, Ecuadorean officials have forced an environmental NGO to close its doors after holding it responsible for acts of violence against foreign participants in a recent auction of oil contracts. The organization, the Pachamama Foundation of Ecuador, has operated in the country for 16 years and claims the closure is an arbitrary violation of the right to dissent.

Following the end of the 11th Oil-Licensing Round in Quito last week, environmental and indigenous rights protestors gathered outside the hotel where the auction took place and confronted several international participants. Among those who were swarmed by protestors were Juan Pablo Lira, Chile’s ambassador to Ecuador, and a Belarusian businessman. In his November 30 Enlace Ciudadano television address, President Rafael Correa apologized to the Chilean government for the incident, and placed partial blame on a lack of proper security. He also aired footage showing Lira being harassed by demonstrators (see the 3:18:00 mark in this video), and of the Belarussian businessman being hit with a pole before fleeing on the back of a police motorcycle.  Correa claimed that the protest had been organized online by the Pachamama Foundation and other indigenous rights groups, and promised to prosecute those responsible.

In the days that followed, the Pachamama Foundation released a statement defending the protest as an exercise of its democratic right to free speech. The group also lamented that the government continued “fostering exploration and exploitation in the Amazon without having adequately implemented free, prior and informed consultation processes with indigenous nationalities,” allegedly in violation of the constitution.

On Wednesday afternoon, the full extent of the government’s response to the protest became clear. El Comercio reports that police and a number of Interior Ministry and other officials arrived at the Pachamama Foundation’s headquarters and informed the office that its operating permit had been revoked. Images posted to Twitter from the Ministry’s official account showed that two signs had been posted to the office doors, reading:  “Dissolved due to deviation from statutory purposes and objectives.”

Pachamama Foundation President Belen Paez told the AFP that her organization was not responsible for any of the acts of violence, and said she was meeting with lawyers to determine a response. A statement posted to its website yesterday announced that the organization intended to challenge the closure using “all legal means.” The Pachamama Foundation will be holding a press conference later this morning to address the allegations against it.

The closure is in keeping with Correa’s notoriously combative approach to criticism of his administration. In recent years, he has famously gone so far as to pursue a multi-million dollar libel suit against two of his leading critics in the press. Although he later pardoned them the issue has haunted his administration since, and a new communications law passed in June was criticized by international press freedom advocates as an attempt to muzzle the media. The closure of the Pachamama Foundation is sure to fuel similar criticism, as well as his government’s mixed reputation on tolerating dissent.

News Briefs

• One day after meeting with U.S. President Barack Obama and characterizing current U.S.-Colombia relations as at their warmest point in history, Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos took a surprising jab at U.S. foreign policy in the region. In remarks to the U.S. Chamber of Commerce yesterday, Santos said he believed it was time for a new U.S. approach to Cuba, remarking : “I think Cuba would be willing to change, and both sides have to give in some way.” He also described what he saw as a growing amount of young people in the U.S. who believe the Cuban embargo is “obsolete.” Interestingly, the AP points out that Santos used the loaded term “bloqueo” to describe the embargo.

• Indigenous Mexican teacher Alberto Patishtan, who was recently pardoned by President Enrique Peña Nieto after serving 13 years in jail on dubious murder charges, met with the president yesterday for over an hour, Milenio reports. Following the meeting, Patishtan told reporters that he called on the government to guarantee due process of those accused of crimes, saying: “There are many people in jail, indigenous and not indigenous, who suffer from  [a lack of] procedure.”

• The UN's atomic energy watchdog, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), announced yesterday that a group of thieves hijacked a truck in Mexico carrying “extremely dangerous” radioactive materials. While the IAEA refrained from pointing this out, a number of media outlets (Reuters, El Universal) have noted that the material could potentially be used to make a dirty bomb. Fortunately, the AFP is reporting this morning that the cargo has been found. The Washington Post notes that officials say those stole the material will likely die of radiation poisoning.

• Ahead of Venezuela’s December 8 local elections, El Nacional looks at the campaign strategies of President Nicolas Maduro and opposition leader Henrique Capriles to support candidates affiliated with their parties. According to the paper, Capriles visited 117 different municipalities in recent months to stump for opposition candidates, five times more than Maduro, who visited 21. However, the report notes that Maduro benefited from live media coverage of each of his visits.

• Semana magazine reports that former Colombian President Alvaro Uribe, who is running for a Senate seat ahead of March elections, is facing over 100 different lawsuits, and is the Senate candidate with the greatest number of ongoing judicial investigations against him.

• Honduras’ restructured political climate appears to be settling in the wake of the recent general elections, and a National Party-Liberal alliance now appears increasingly likely. La Tribuna reports that, although the National Party will have the largest bloc in Congress, sources in the governing party say it will cede the presidency of the legislature to the Liberals.

• Honduran President-elect Juan Orlando Hernandez carried out a lighting tour of Central America yesterday, meeting with the heads of state of Nicaragua, Costa Rica and Panama.

• Brazilian Guarani leader Ambrosio Vilhalba, who was known internationally as an advocate for indigenous rights and for appearing in the award-winning film “Birdwatchers,” was killed on December 2 in the western state of Mato Grosso do Sul. O Globo reports that officials do not believe the murder was related to land conflicts, and was instead linked to a family dispute.  

Mexican Senators Pass Political Reform Bill

Yesterday, Mexico’s Senate passed a political reform bill designed to loosen the hold of political parties on the country’s democratic institutions. While it still must be passed in the lower house, it has the potential to dramatically alter the country’s political landscape.

 The AP calls the bill “the most dramatic political reform attempt in decades,” noting that it would allow senators and congressmen to run for re-election and remain in office for up to 12 years (two consecutive terms for senators and four consecutive terms for congressmen). Supporters say this, along with a provision which would let independents run for political office, would reduce the influence of party bosses in Mexican politics. The measure would not go into effect until 2018, and presidents would still be limited to one six-year term.

The bill would also create a new National Electoral Institute to replace the Federal Electoral Institute, and grants it the authority to name the members of state electoral institutes, which are currently appointed by state legislatures.

El Informador provides more details about the reform, including that it would replace the Procuraduria General de la Republica (Attorney General's office) with a Fiscalia General, granting it greater autonomy from the executive branch. Milenio reports, however, that the president would still have the power to dismiss the attorney general under special circumstances.

While the bill has received praise from those who view it as a step towards more democratic politics in Mexico, it has also been criticized for some significant omissions. Last week a group of 14 leading pro-transparency organizations sent a public letter to senators calling on them to add a provision to the bill which would regulate the use of public advertising. The article did not make it into the version passed yesterday.

Reuters notes that with the bill’s passage, the Senate is now set to take up debate over a controversial initiative to reform the state monopoly over oil production in the country. The energy reform package is expected to pass later this month with the support of the PRI and PAN parties, as the center-left PRD withdrew from the Pact for Mexico over what its leaders claimed was a disproportionate emphasis on privatizing the oil sector.

News Briefs

• Mexico’s firebrand leftist politician, Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador (often referred to as AMLO), was hospitalized yesterday after suffering a heart attack. He is in stable condition, according to his doctors.

• Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos met with U.S. President Barack Obama yesterday for two and a half hours in the White House. Reuters reports that the environment was cheerful; Obama expressed continued support for the ongoing peace talks in Havana, and the two presidents joked about a potential U.S.-Colombia match in the upcoming World Cup. Just the Facts has a useful roundup of news and analysis related to the meeting, and asserts that the fact that both leaders stressed economic ties is a sign of a changing relationship between the two countries. El Tiempo claims that the meeting benefited Obama as well as Santos, as the recent revelations about NSA espionage have strained relations with governments across the region.

• A year after being convicted of corruption and conspiracy charges resulting from his participation in the mensalão scandal, and weeks after being jailed, O Globo reports that Brazilian Congressman Jose Genoino has officially submitted his resignation. The Wall Street Journal notes that he has claimed he is too ill to serve his sentence in jail, and has been moved to home detention. The Supreme Court is expected to rule on the legality of the move in the coming days.

• Mexican Attorney General Jesus Murillo Karam has announced that his office received a letter from drug trafficker Rafael Caro Quintero, who was released in August after a court overturned his conviction for killing a U.S. anti-drug agent in 1998. Following his release Mexican and U.S. judicial authorities issued warrants for his arrest, but he has been missing ever since. According to Milenio, Karam said the letter was addressed to President Enrique Peña Nieto and asked him not to give into U.S. pressure to continue searching for him.

• Salvadoran President Mauricio Funes has ordered state prosecutors to investigate a $10 million donation that Taiwan gave to the Central American country ten years ago during the administration of ex-President Francisco Flores. While the money was intended to go to a land registering agency for small farmers, Funes claimed that the U.S. Treasury detected irregularities in the transaction and the funds never made it to the agency. Interestingly, an El Faro investigation recently cast suspicion on Funes himself for accepting a $3 million donation from a businessman to his election campaign in 2009. Funes has dodged questions about the money ever since, claiming at various times that it was a personal gift, a loan or a donation to his political party.

• Guatemalan authorities have arrested some 21 people linked to a money laundering scheme for the Sinaloa Cartel of Mexican drug lord Joaquin “Chapo” Guzman. Prensa Libre has more on the operation, which took place in four provinces across the country and involved the laundering of millions of dollars in 2009 and 2010, according to Attorney General Claudia Paz y Paz.

• In Costa Rica, a new poll commissioned by La Nacion ahead of the presidential race in February shows that neither of the top three candidates has an overwhelming lead, although Jose Maria Villalta of the left-wing Frente Amplio is a few points ahead of his competitors.  The AFP points out that this is the first time in Costa Rican history where a left wing candidate as a real shot at the presidency.

• Hugo Perez Hernaiz and David Smilde of Venezuelan Politics and Human Rights offer a sobering look at the efforts of President Nicolas Maduro to expand and cement its control over public media, highlighting several incidents in which individuals and outlets have been closed after expressing criticism of the government.  Interestingly, they point to the left-wing Aporrea.org as the only major source of criticism of the Maduro administration from the left. 

• The Inter-Press Service profiles opposition to U.S. biotechnology corporation Monsanto in the Argentine farm belt, where locals in Cordoba have occupied property meant for the construction of a transgenic seed factory since September. The article provides some complementary statistics to the recent AP report on the health effects that rampant use of the chemical herbicide glyphosate has had on the area.

• Last week, Reuters published an fascinating in-depth investigation of Chinese involvement in Ecuador’s oil industry. The news agency found that China has obtained a near-monopoly on Ecuador’s crude oil exports since mid-2009, a development which critics say could fuel corruption in an industry that already lacks transparency. 

Xiomara Castro, Honduras’ AMLO? Probably Not

Honduran election officials have agreed to a request by the leftist Liberty and Refoundation Party (LIBRE) to recount the vote tally sheets of each polling station, which may encourage LIBRE presidential candidate Xiomara Castro to drop her victory claims.

Yesterday, LIBRE presented a list of alleged irregularities that took place in polling stations around the country, demanding a recount of the tallies of more than 16,000 voting centers. The request is a partial compromise for LIBRE, as Castro and her supporters had initially demanded a full vote-by-vote recount. The Supreme Electoral Tribunal (TSE) accepted the request, with TSE President David Matamoros urging the party to recognize the outcome of the election based on the audit.

Castro’s allegations of electoral fraud following the November 24 election led to comparisons with Mexican leftist presidential candidate Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador (see FT and BBC Mundo), who famously refused to recognize the results of the 2006 and 2012 elections. Following the narrower 2006 vote AMLO occupied the main square in Mexico City for months, proclaiming himself the “legitimate president” of the country. The decision was controversial among Mexico’s left, as it cost his Party of the Democratic Revolution (PRD) support among those who wanted to see the party move past the election dispute.  

It appears that the LIBRE candidate is not going down that route, however. By scaling back her demand for a vote-by-vote recount, Xiomara Castro is already demonstrating some flexibility in her claim to victory. Additionally, the AP reports that during the public presentation of the party’s complaint on Monday, ousted ex-president and Castro’s husband Manuel Zelaya announced that “if the recount of the vote tallies shows that the National Party wins, we will also recognize it.”

Still, the recount is incapable of completely ruling out electoral fraud.  Russell Sheptak of Honduras Culture and Politics notes that LIBRE alleges that many of the vote tallies themselves were tampered with. Sheptak also claims to have confirmed the existence of over 500 problematic tally sheets through participation in a public review being carried out here.   

Ultimately, even if Castro does not abandon claims that she was robbed of an electoral victory, it is unlikely that she will be sidelined in the way that Lopez Obrador was. Her LIBRE party is projected to have picked up 39 seats in Congress, giving it sufficient clout to serve as the primary opposition voice in the country.

News Briefs

• As mentioned in Monday’s brief, the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) have staked out a pro-reform stance on drug policy, which rebels detailed in a press release in Havana yesterday. The communique, which the AFP notes was read by FARC negotiator Pablo Catatumbo, lays out “10 Minimal Proposals” to address Colombia’s illicit drug problem. These include a drug policy “oriented towards the rural poor and consumers,” the” treatment of psychoactive drug use as a public health problem” and the “decriminalization of users.” Perhaps the most controversial of their proposals is the suggestion that illicit crop substitution programs should be accompanied by a state effort to recognize and encourage the “food, medicinal, therapeutic, artisanal, industrial and cultural uses of cultivating coca leaves, marijuana and poppy.” RCN reports that Attorney General Eduardo Montealegre has rejected this as “unviable.”

• In an interview with Spanish news agency EFE, the main challenger to Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos’ reelection next year said that, if he wins, he would halt peace talks with the FARC and “submit them to conditions.” According to the Uribista candidate, Oscar Ivan Zuluaga, these would include promises to renounce drug trafficking and criminal activity, as well as guarantees that FARC leaders responsible for abuses be subject to prosecution.

• Santos, for his part, is currently in Washington DC, where he is slated to meet with U.S. President Barack Obama. Semana magazine reports that the Colombian leader is expected to request U.S. help as his country transitions into a post-conflict phase. At the same time, the administration is pushing back from suggestions that the meeting signifies an endorsement of Santos’ reelection. An anonymous administration official has told the press that the meeting “is not an expression of support for any candidate in particular, but a show of support for the people of Colombia.”

• On the fourth anniversary of his arrest by Cuban authorities, USAID contractor Alan Gross has sent a letter to President Barack Obama. The Washington Post has obtained a copy, in which he expresses veiled criticism of the president by praising his efforts to free “other U.S. citizens imprisoned abroad.” The Post notes that the letter is part of his family’s strategy to raise pressure on the Obama administration to negotiate his freedom.

• The Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) has begun its five-day country visit to the Dominican Republic, and the delegation has called on officials not to speak publicly about its meetings until Friday, when it will release a statement with its initial findings. According to EFE, the IACHR will also be accepting petitions from locals who have been affected by the recent nationality ruling.

• La Republica and the AP report on the ongoing exhumation of mass graves in Peru’s Chungui district, home to the biggest excavation of remains dating back to the country’s armed conflict. Forensic experts are expected to unearth some 200 bodies in total, though an estimated 1,384 people were killed in Chungui.  

• A major power blackout affected most of Venezuela yesterday evening, including Caracas. President Nicolas Maduro has blamed the outage on an opposition attempt to discredit his government ahead of local elections. Reuters profiles reactions to the blackout among Caracas residents, many of whom fault the government. El Nacional reports that officials said the blackout started in the same location as the last major power outage in September.

• Transparency International has released its 2013 Corruption Perceptions Index, which shows that the countries of the Americas continue to suffer from high levels of perceived corruption in public institutions. According to the report, Uruguay is seen as the most transparent country in the region, while Venezuela is the most corrupt. Alarmingly, perceived levels of public sector corruption are on the rise in Central America, where most countries of the region are slowly slipping down the CPI rankings. 

• The L.A. Times is the latest media outlet to provide an overview of Mexican President Enrique Peña Nieto’s first year in office, noting that despite passing a number of important reforms, he has failed to deliver on economic and security policy. The paper cites an op-ed by Excelsior columnist Leo Zuckermann, who claims that Peña Nieto promised “great expectations” but has not fulfilled them. A recent Buendia-Lardo poll shows that the president has around a 50 percent approval rating, down from 56 percent in February.

Colombia Names Women to Negotiating Team as Peace Talks Shift to Drugs

Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos has appointed two new female members to the government’s official negotiating team with FARC rebels in Havana, a move which some say could ensure that the talks take more gender-related aspects of the armed conflict into account. The two parties resumed negotiations Thursday on yet another tricky issue on the agenda, illicit crop cultivation and drug trafficking.

One of the appointments, that of Nigeria Renteria, was first reported on November 23, when members of the administration told the press that she would replace Luis Carlos Villegas, who was moving on to serve as the new Colombian ambassador to the United States. Renteria’s appointment received quite a bit of praise. She is an Afro-Colombian woman from the department of Choco, and until now has been the head of a presidential advisory committee for women’s equity (see profiles of her by Reuters and El Espectador). Then, later in the week it became clear that there would be another woman appointed to the negotiating table: Maria Paulina Riveros, previously the head of the Interior Ministry’s human rights division. Both are plenipotentiaries, meaning they have been granted full authority to speak and negotiate on behalf of the government.

While their appointment has clear symbolic value, Colombia conflict expert Virginia Bouvier is optimistic that the move will have consequences for the direction of the peace process as well. In an article for Foreign Policy magazine, she writes:

The inclusion of women -- including an Afro-Colombian woman -- as full members at Havana's negotiating table challenges some of the stereotypes behind gender and ethnic discrimination that permeate Colombia. But it also has the potential to be transformative in other ways: As the president's senior advisor for gender equity since last June, Rentería was charged with mitigating "intra-familial violence, child pregnancy, sexual abuse, and human trafficking." Before joining the government, she worked as a lawyer and as the regional director of the Colombian Institute for Family Welfare for Colombia's most impoverished state, Chocó. Riveros has been a liasion for the Interior Ministry with ethnic communities on human rights issues presented before the Organization of American States's Inter-American Commission on Human Rights. If she and Riveros can use their backgrounds to help ensure that the peace table addresses the gendered and ethnic dimensions of violence that permeate Colombian society, they could reshape the face of long-term peace in Colombia.

The two parties resumed talks on Thursday in Havana, tackling the next item on the agenda: “The Solution to the Problem of Illicit Drugs.” Previous agenda items have been extremely contentious (political participation was seen as a particularly prickly issue, and the recent agreement was a key breakthrough), and this one is sure to have its own pitfalls as well. For one thing, the FARC has consistently downplayed or denied its involvement in the drug trade. It is unclear how much the rebels are willing to admit that some elements of the group are active mid- and upper-level traffickers, to say nothing of their routine taxation of drug smuggling and coca cultivation. Still, in an interview published Wednesday by Reuters, Colombia’s newly-appointed police chief General Ricardo Restrepo told the news agency that negotiations would make it far easier to carry out coca eradication and crack down on trafficking.

Another thing to watch during the next stage of negotiations is the issue of drug legalization. Santos, of course, has made a name for himself as one of the biggest champions a new debate on drug policy in the hemisphere. But not many know that the FARC adopted the “legalization of drug use” to their political platform years ago. RCN Radio reports the rebels released a press statement on Thursday reaffirming their commitment to this stance and to resolving the issue of drugs, which they claimed was “used as an excuse for intervention by foreign powers” in Colombia. Considering that the consumption of small amounts of cocaine, marijuana and synthetic drugs is already decriminalized in the country, there is a chance that the guerrillas could push the issue even further, perhaps even advocating full legalization.

News Briefs

• On Saturday, the president of the Dominican Republic signed an executive order outlining a plan to implement the recent controversial court ruling on nationality. According to an official press release, the plan provides a period of 18 months for those affected by the ruling to apply for citizenship or workers’ visas, and those who do not participate would be subject to deportation. Meanwhile, an Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) delegation has arrived in Santo Domingo for a country visit to assess the human rights consequences of the ruling. The Listin Diario reports that a demonstration was held in the city yesterday in support of the ruling and to protest the IACHR’s visit.

• The Senate vote on Uruguay’s marijuana regulation bill, which has been delayed for weeks, finally has a fixed date. Officials in the country’s ruling Frente Amplio (FA) coalition have told the press that the vote will take place on December 10. Because the FA has a comfortable Senate majority, it is expected to pass and be signed by Mujica before the end of the year. On Sunday, Brazil’s Folha de São Paulo published an extensive interview with the Uruguayan president, in which he requested “the help of the world” with his country’s “social-political experiment” with marijuana legalization. According to Mujica, Uruguay’s neighbors (Brazil and Argentina) have applied considerable pressure on his administration to abandon the measure, out of fear of cross-border spillover of the drug. Mujica also noted that the bill has a “high political cost” for him at home, acknowledging that it is largely unpopular. 

• On Thursday, Mexico’s main leftist party, the Party of the Democratic Revolution (PRD) announced it would be pulling out of the Pact for Mexico, the accord it made in December 2012 to adhere to a loose agenda with the other two major parties in the country. According to PRD Chairman Jesus Zambrano, the decision was made in response to the PAN and PRI parties’ plan to end the monopoly of state-owned oil company Pemex, which he said went far beyond what his party deemed acceptable. As a result, The Wall Street Journal and Reuters note that the other two parties are expected to rewrite the proposal even further to give private companies a greater role in Mexico’s oil industry.

• The Associated Press reports on Venezuela’s quiet cutbacks to foreign aid under President Nicolas Maduro, largely consisting of loans and subsidies through Petrocaribe. According to the AP, spending on these programs fell to $1.7 billion in the first nine months of 2013, compared with over three times that amount for the same period last year. For many analysts, this is a sign that the country’s regional influence has peaked.

• The Washington Post has an update on the military occupation of the Mexican port city of Lazaro Cardenas, an attempt by President Enrique Peña Nieto to weaken the Knights Templar cartel’s influence in the area. While many locals support the army’s presence in the city, some say it has scared off cargo ships from the port.

• The Post also has an overview of opposition to corruption and drug cartels among Catholic clergy in Michoacan, where outgoing Apatzingan Bishop Miguel Angel Patiño has become a vocal critic of the government’s response to organized crime (see this profile of Patiño’s criticism by Dudley Althaus of InSight Crime). The paper notes that the bishop’s decision to call out corrupt officials has put the Church in an awkward position, as it has maintained a less confrontational stance in the state.

• Following President Barack Obama’s recent calls for an updated U.S. policy toward Cuba, the Miami Herald published an editorial last week arguing that any changes should take into account the Cuban government’s ongoing repression of pro-democracy advocates in the country, some of whom support the embargo.  In response, The Center for Democracy in the Americas’ Sarah Stephens points out in a letter to the editors that this view is hardly representative of all Cuban dissidents, and argues that easing the trade embargo could be a method of fostering continued economic and political reforms on the island.

• Honduran presidential candidate Xiomara Castro has challenged the results of last week’s presidential election, calling it a “fraud of incalculable proportions” and demanding a vote-by-vote recount. Thousands of supporters marched in downtown Tegucigalpa yesterday to support her claim. Castro’s LIBRE party has not challenged the legislative elections, however, which give it the second-largest number of seats in Congress after the National Party. RAJ of Honduras Culture and Politics offers a helpful breakdown of the dynamics in Honduras’ new Congress, highlighting remarks by political analysts which suggest that an uneasy alliance between the National Party and the more traditional wing of the Liberal Party can be expected, which could establish a simple majority (roughly) aligned with president-elect Juan Orlando Hernandez.

• The AFP profiles Hernandez’s campaign promises on crime and violence, noting that he has backed military involvement in law enforcement and is widely seen as the biggest supporter of a “mano dura” approach to crime in Honduras.

• Reuters notes that despite the bitter opposition voiced by some, Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff’s plan to bring in thousands of Cuban doctors to the country has been well-received in the poor communities where they have been sent. Still, the news agency notes that Brazil’s medical community continues to oppose the measure, even as polls suggest that over 70 percent of Brazilians are in favor of it.