Santos: Colombia to Respect IACHR Decision on Bogota Mayor

After weeks of silence, Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos has weighed in on the case of Bogota Mayor Gustavo Petro, announcing that he will remain neutral and respect any decision on the matter by the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR).

Ever since Colombia’s inspector general ordered Petro’s removal in December, Santos has said little about the case, and the few times he has addressed it have been to reassure the public that he would not interfere with constitutional checks and balances in the country. But in an interview with Caracol Noticias yesterday, the president signaled that his administration would also respect a decision on the case by the IACHR.  

According to Santos, the human rights body had approached him for his opinion on Petro’s removal. “When the Inter-American Commission asked us:  ‘what do you think about this particular case,’ I answered: ‘I have no opinion, I respect what you as the commission determine,’” the president said. This was confirmed by Caracol Radio, which obtained a copy of the Colombian government’s written response to an IACHR request for information on the case. In it, Colombian Deputy Foreign Minister Patty Londoño announced that the government “will not present a position or opinion” on Petro’s removal, and stressed that the country would stand by its commitment to the Inter-American human rights system.

Meanwhile, Petro’s removal has been temporarily suspended by a local court in Cundinamarca province, which has halted the proceeding until its constitutionality can be assessed. This has bought Petro some time, but the likelihood of successfully challenging the order in court is unclear.

For this reason, Petro’s defense team is still pushing for the Inter-American Commission to order precautionary measures from the state on his behalf to protect his right to political participation. Rafael Barrios, a lawyer for Petro, is set to meet with the commission today in Washington to argue the mayor’s case. Barrios also told reporters that he expects the IACHR to make a decision on precautionary measures this week, and he is hopeful that it will side with the Bogota mayor.

Others are less certain. In a column for Razon Publica, Nelson Camilo Sanchez of the Bogota-based research center Dejusticia lists the conditions that must be met in order for the commission to back the mayor.  For precautionary measures to be ordered, Petro’s defense must prove that: 1.) a human right is at risk, 2.) the threat is imminent, 3.) the possibility of the right’s violation is serious, and 4.) that the right could not be remedied after the fact.  This in itself is a tall order, and even if the commission orders the mayor’s removal to be put on hold, Sanchez points out that Petro’s political future would likely remain in limbo for years. The commission would have to rule on a direct petition by Petro, and potentially pass the case up to the Inter-American Court of Human Rights. Because the Commission has a long list of cases on its plate, this would likely take place after the mayor’s term is set to end in 2016.

News Briefs

• The New York Times reports on recent remarks by Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro, who has proposed an increase in the subsidized price of gasoline. While he has not provided any details of the suggestion, the NYT notes that his position has already stirred controversy in the country, which has a long tradition of providing cheap gas to its citizens.

• EFE reports that the foreign ministers of Ecuador, Uruguay, Haiti and Argentina are in Montevideo today to discuss the Inter-American human rights system. According to a statement by Ecuador’s foreign ministry, the Ecuadorean and Uruguayan officials will present a report on the implications of moving the seat of the IACHR out of Washington, DC.

• In the wake of Mexican President Enrique Peña Nieto’s recent creation of the “Executive Commission on Attention to Victims,” a new federal agency to oversee attention to victims of the country’s drug-fueled violence, Animal Politico reports that it has several challenges in the year ahead. According to the commission’s director, Olga Noriega, these include organizing a public defense system for victims, preparing a national registry for victims, and establishing regulations for a reparations fund.

• Shining Path founder Abimael Guzman appeared to the public for the first time in seven years on Monday, appearing before a court on a 1992 car bombing that killed 25 people and wounded 155. His defense lawyer has denied that Guzman ordered the attack, and said that those responsible have already been captured and charged, Peru21 reports.

• While the Associated Press today claims that President Maduro has lately taken aim at Venezuelan telenovelas in a bid to rein in insecurity in the country, Maduro has since clarified that he blames the mainstream media in general for contributing to a culture of violence, not just popular soap operas. To remedy this, he has called for a “communicational revolution” in the country. The AP notes that his vice president met with heads of broadcast and cable TV operators on Monday to review the primetime lineup, warning that they may be in violation of a 2004 law promoting "socially responsible" programming.

• Newspapers in Venezuela are continuing to battle a shortage of newsprint in the country, which has caused leading papers in the country to cut back on their content. Yesterday, representatives from some 27 newspapers gathered in Caracas to sign a letter asking the government to take measures to facilitate the acquisition of newsprint, El Nacional reports. Also yesterday, Catalina Botero Marino --  the IACHR’s Special Rapporteur for Freedom of Expression -- released a statement reminding Venezuelan authorities that the American Convention on human Rights prohibits the restriction of newsprint.

• The Mexican government’s announcement of the arrest of an alleged leader of the Knights Templar Cartel in Michoacan has met with limited praise from some of the militia groups in the state. Vigilantes have disputed the suspect’s importance, claiming that he is simply a top hit man for the gang. The L.A. Times reports that that Hipolito Mora, one of the most-recognized leaders of a militia group in Michoacan, said that his men would not disarm until the most important cartel leaders were captured.

• The Economist’s Americas Blog provides an overview of a report published yesterday by the OECD, the UN Economic Commission for Latin America and the Inter-American Centre of Tax Administrations on tax collection in Latin America. The report finds that the region is heavily dependent on revenue from consumption taxes instead of income tax, likely because the former is easier to collect. However, the Economist notes that this contributes to unstable revenue streams and a regressive tax structure, potentially worsening economic inequality in Latin America.

• The Nicaraguan government has announced that Deputy Interior Minister Carlos Najar will mediate a conflict between sugar cane companies and workers. The latter claim that working in cane fields has put them at risk of contracting a chronic kidney disease, which has proved fatal in many cases. In November, AP photographer Esteban Felix won a Gabriel Garcia Marquez International Journalism Award for his multimedia presentation on the mysterious ailments faced by sugar cane cutters in the country, which helped raise the profile of the issue internationally.

Controversial State Secrecy Bill Under Review in Honduras

The fight for transparent governance in Honduras saw a minor victory on Friday. Following backlash from civil society groups, Honduran lawmakers suspended a controversial state secrecy bill passed last week that would restrict freedom of information in the country.

The bill was passed on January 15 by a 71-57 majority, largely supported by the ruling coalition led by the National Party. La Prensa reports that it authorizes the president and cabinet ministers to withhold sensitive documents from the public for 5, 10 or 15 years, depending on their importance to “security interests, national defense and the achievement of national objectives.” So-called “super-secret” information could be labeled as such by the president, keeping it unavailable to the public for 25 years.

The law would essentially supersede the work of the Institute for Access to Public Information (IAIP), which has been charged with withholding or releasing sensitive information since the passage of a transparency law in 2006. For this reason, IAIP Director Doris Imelda Madrid has criticized the measure as a violation of international treaties and a threat to accountability, claiming it “prevents citizens from having access to public information.”

As the AFP noted last week, a number of transparency advocacy NGOs in the country immediately blasted the bill, holding a joint press conference to denounce the vote. Among those present were representatives of the 15-member Grupo de la Sociedad Civil coalition, as well as National Autonomous University of Honduras (UNAH) Director Julieta Castellanos, El Tiempo reports.

The criticism apparently had an impact. According to La Prensa and La Tribuna, the National Party’s congressional leadership has agreed to suspend the bill, naming a committee to assess apparent contradictions between the measure and the earlier 2006 law. 

News Briefs

• In other Honduran political news, President-elect Juan Orlando Hernandez has proposed a radical restructuring of the executive branch prior to his January 27 inauguration. The plan, which has been sold as a way to reduce government waste and bureaucracy, would create eight new “super ministries” charged with overseeing the work of several smaller cabinet ministries. Russell Sheptak of Honduras Culture and Politics has an interesting overview/critique of Hernandez’s plan, and notes that it hit a stumbling block on Friday, when lawmakers refused to pass a law paving the way for the reforms.

• The Independent has an in-depth report on the work of Salvadoran NGO Pro-Busqueda, which works to help reunite children taken from their parents during the country’s civil war with their long-lost relatives. Many of these were illegally sold to international adoption rings, and the paper notes that 2,354 child adoption licenses were granted during the country’s armed conflict.

• The AP reports on a break-through in the case of the 2000 murder of radio journalist Jean Dominique. Nine suspects have been charged with the killing, including a number of ranking members of former President Jean-Bertrand Aristide’s Family Lavalas party.

• The New York Times’ Simon Romero profiles a growing trend in Brazil: so-called “rolezinhos no shopping,” mass gatherings at shopping malls involving hundreds or even thousands of working-class youths in the country’s biggest cities. While the gatherings are not explicitly political (see this detailed explainer by blogger Rio Gringa), the fact that they serve to showcase the wide gap between haves and have-nots in the country has led some to describe them as a new method of protest. Others, however, disagree. Journalist Leandro Beguoci argues that the gatherings are social rather than political, and that characterizations by both the left and right “dehumanize” those who participate in them.

• On Friday, the government of the Dominican Republic announced that it would temporarily stop deporting undocumented Haitian immigrants in the country, until officials can set up a plan to effectively implement the Constitutional Court’s controversial citizenship ruling.

• The Mexican government has released a statement saying it “strongly rejects” the planned execution of one of its citizens in Texas this week, calling it a violation of international treaties. The country officially banned capital punishment since 2005.

• The Washington Post examines the makeup of the “self-defense” militias in the Mexican state of Michoacan, pointing out that many of its members have lived and worked long-term in the United States, and some are even U.S. citizens. One of the top leaders of the most high-profile militia group, for example, is nicknamed “El Americano” because he was born in the U.S.

• Mexican government officials claim to have captured three members of the Knights Templar Cartel in Michoacan, including one Jesus Vazquez Macias, who authorities described as a leader within the organization. However, militia groups in the state have disputed this claim, alleging that Vazquez is simply a top hit man for the gang. Meanwhile, Michoacan Governor Fausto Vallejo told reporters that he had named a new state attorney general and police chief, Reuters reports.

• At RiosMontt-Trial.org, The Open Society Justice Initiative’s Emi MacLean has an update on the trial against Guatemalan ex-dictator Efrain Rios Montt, covering the recent appellate court decision ordering the annulment of all court proceedings in the case since November 2011. The ruling has been appealed to the Constitutional Court, which will have the final say on the matter. Maclean also notes that the country is set to replace intrepid Attorney General Claudia Paz y Paz and a new slate of Supreme Court and appeals court judges later this year, and there is already evidence that the process has been politicized.

• Former Guatemalan guerrilla and indigenous leader Juan de Leon Tuyuc Velasquez was killed last week in the central department of Solola. Authorities say he was run over by an unknown vehicle, but Prensa Libre reports that indigenous rights activists in the country are clamoring for a full investigation into his murder, claiming he was killed by political opponent.

• Uruguayan President Jose Mujica is coming under increasing criticism from elements of his Frente Amplio coalition’s support base, as a result of his support for the construction of an open-pit iron ore  mine project. While Mujica contends that the project will bring in much-needed revenue and further economic development, local farmers and environmentalists say it will contaminate the soil in the surrounding area.

Argentina on Autopilot?

The Associated Press has a story this morning on Argentine President Cristina Fernandez’s marked absence from the public spotlight in the past month. While the president made a point of making a series of appearances after returning to work in November following surgery to remove a blood clot near her brain, she has kept a low profile since mid-December.

According to the AP, Thursday marked 37 days since Fernandez last spoke in public, and she has not posted to her Twitter account since December 13. The latter is especially notable, since the Argentine president’s active use of the site has made her the most-followed head of state in Latin America.

CNN also notes that her apparent absence has fueled speculation and rumors about her health. Some have alleged that she is seeking to make room for a potential successor in the 2015 elections, now that she has squarely denied plans to run for a political position after her current term ends.

Cabinet Chief Jorge Capitanich has clumsily downplayed the gossip, insisting alternately that Fernandez has not scaled back her work, and that she “is a human being who needs to rest.”

In the meantime, the AP notes that the mixed messages have fueled rumors of a growing internal power struggle in her administration. Economy Minister Axel Kicillof has dismissed these as attempts to “create a soap opera,” saying that there is no conflict in the president’s cabinet.

News Briefs

• According to Spain’s El Pais, the European Union is preparing to normalize relations with Cuba after 17 years of restrictions on ties to the island country. Diplomatic sources in the EU have signaled to the paper that the bloc’s so-called “Common Position” on Cuba will be revisited as soon as next month, although it is expected to retain language on democracy promotion and human rights concerns.

• The New York Times reports on disillusionment with security forces in the Michoacan city of Apatzingan, where some locals say the military’s recent clashes with vigilante groups rather than the dominant Knights Templar gang has discredited the federal government.

• According to a new study on violence in the hemisphere published by Mexican think-tank Seguridad, Justicia y Paz, 40 of the 50 most dangerous cities in the world -- by homicide rate -- are in Latin America. At the top of the list is San Pedro Sula, Honduras, with 187 murders per 100,000 residents, followed by Caracas, Venezuela with 134 per 100,000.

• Today’s Washington Post features an article which sheds light on the  impact that the rise in U.S. immigrant deportations has had on the Mexican border city of Mexicali, the most popular repatriation point for deportees. While larger cities like Tijuana and Juarez used to be the main unloading sites for deported individuals, security concerns caused the U.S. to shifrk t to places like Mexicali, with less dangerous reputations. At least 113,539 have arrived in the city in the past two years alone.

• In the wake of the temporary suspension of Bogota Mayor Gustavo Petro’s removal order, La Silla Vacia has a helpful breakdown of his legal options to secure his future political survival. Even if the mayor somehow overcomes the inspector general’s suspension order by a court battle, however, Petro will still have to face a recall referendum scheduled for March.

• Another mining conflict has sparked in Peru’s troubled Cajamarca province, over the same controversial mining project that triggered deadly clashes between security forces and demonstrators in December 2011 and July 2012. El Comercio and the Wall Street Journal report that some 500 to 750 locals stormed land owned by the U.S.-based Newmont Mining Corporation yesterday, destroying a telephone tower and taking a security guard hostage, according to the company.

• Guatemala’s major media outlets have largely ignored the content of President Otto Perez Molina’s state of the nation speech this week and focused on the subsequent “powdering” of the vice president at the event. However, news site Plaza Publica takes a hard look at the president’s speech, noting its inclusion of a number of alarming indicators (like the fact that Perez cited figures suggesting that childhood acute malnutrition has apparently gone up by 40 percent in the past year).

• The human rights ombudsman for the west Brazilian state of Arce, Nilson Mourão, has made waves for proposing that the country temporarily close down its border with Peru, O Estadão reports. Mourão’s suggestion comes as a proposed solution to the influx of largely Haitian immigrants to the state, which has overrun local officials’ capacity. According to the human rights secretary, a camp outside the city of Brasileia currently houses 1, 200 immigrants, even though it has a maximum intended capacity of 300 individuals. Sao Paulo-based human rights NGO Conectas, which visited the camp in August and found its conditions unhygienic and “inhumane,”  has lobbied the federal government to assume greater responsibility for the situation there. 

• A car bomb that detonated outside of a municipal building in a town in Colombia’s western Valle del Cauca province yesterday has been blamed on FARC rebels, who recently ended a month-long self-imposed ceasefire with the government. The bombing killed two and wounded some 50 locals, and President Juan Manuel Santos condemned the FARC for acting “irrational and contradictory.” The BBC notes that the FARC have not claimed responsibility for the incident, however.

• Panamanian officials have announced that North Korea will be forced to pay a fine of over half a million dollars ($670,000) to recover the ship that was caught carrying Cuban weapons through the Panama Canal last year.

Mexico’s Vigilante Catch-22

The efforts of the Mexican government to disarm the so-called self-defense groups in Michoacan have placed it in something of a bind. While the vigilantes’ presence draws embarrassing attention to officials’ inability to guarantee security, their popularity makes it difficult to assume control of the area without public backlash.

From the New York Times:

As convoys of federal police officers and soldiers crisscrossed the rolling farmland, the turmoil here in Michoacán State — where vigilantes have taken up arms to battle cartel gunmen on village streets — has confronted the image-conscious Mexican government with a thorny security challenge and a daunting Catch-22. 

Should it disarm the loosely organized gunmen who have risen up to fight the drug cartels, risking deadly clashes with some of the very citizens it has been accused of failing to protect in the first place? 

Or should it back down and let these nebulous outfits — with little or no police training, uncertain loyalties and possible ties to another criminal gang — continue to fight against the region’s narcotics rings, possibly leading to a bloody showdown?

For now the government appears to be leaning towards the second option, adopting a more conciliatory tone towards the vigilantes in the wake of Monday’s deaths. Yesterday Interior Minister Miguel Osorio Chong told reporters that clashing with them was not the government’s primary objective. "Our target is not them, but the criminals. They have to be convinced that we are going to do our job," Osorio said.

According to a survey released Monday by pollster Gabinete de Comunicacion Estrategica, roughly 58 percent of Michoacan residents are in favor of the vigilante groups operating as long as the government cannot guarantee security. Still, locals are not entirely convinced of the purity of their motives.  Some 47 percent of Michoacanos say they do not believe the vigilantes’ “only objective” is to reestablish public security.

And they’re not the only ones. As the AP reports, a number of a Mexican security analysts and international observers have argued that tolerating the militias sets a dangerous precedent in the country. Yesterday, the U.S. State Department released a statement describing the clash between vigilantes and criminal gangs as “incredibly worrisome,” adding that it is “unclear if any of those actors have the community’s best interests at heart.”

News Briefs

• The L.A. Times reports on cooperation between one self-defense group and federal forces in the Michoacan town of Nueva Italia, just 20 miles from the Knights Templar cartel bastion of Apatzingan. Meanwhile, Reuters highlights growing tension in that city, where residents say the gang has committed a series of brazen attacks in recent days.

• Colombia’s FARC rebels have ended their 30-day unilateral ceasefire, despite optimistic speculation that the guerrilla group would extend it until after elections. While the FARC say they stuck to their promise and refrained from any attacks during that period, the government and various NGOs say there were some isolated breaks from the truce. El Universal has a roundup of reported violations, which vary between 3 and 12 depending on the source.  

• While the temporary suspension of Bogota Mayor Gustavo Petro’s removal order by a local court has bought him some time, his legal defense team is looking for other potential avenues to keep him in office, especially since it remains unclear whether the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights will seek precautionary measures from the state on his behalf. According to El Espectador, Petro’s lawyers believe there is another path forward for the mayor, involving a direct constitutional challenge of his removal order.

• The Global Post takes a look at the impact that $2.8 billion in aid has made in Haiti, four years after a devastating earthquake rocked the country. According to various reports and audits cited by the Post, evidence that sustainable progress has been made is mixed at best.

• The AP profiles a weeklong visit by University of Tampa’s baseball team to Havana, where it has been playing youth league teams in what the wire service describes as an example of “baseball diplomacy.”

• In Peru, a new law has gone into effect which guarantees that police officers and soldiers who use their firearms to kill or wound civilians "in compliance with their duty" cannot be prosecuted. The law has generated controversy in the country, and La Republica reports that civil society organizations like the Legal Defense Institute (IDL) have criticized its potential to further impunity for police abuses, characterizing it as a “license to kill.”  Spain’s El Pais also provides a good overview of the dispute, noting that some legal experts say police and the military have been exempt from prosecution for duty-related fatal shootings since 2007.

• After the ruling PSUV’s strong showing in local elections in December, Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro has emerged with a much stronger hold on his government. This was evidenced in the delivery of his first state of the union address since his election yesterday. In his three-hour speech, Maduro announced a shake-up of his economic team and insisted that he would not authorize a currency devaluation, which several economic experts say is necessary. Economists consulted by the Financial Times are critical of this, with most characterizing it as putting off the inevitable.

• The Venezuelan opposition, meanwhile, appears to have fractured and weakened in the weeks since it lost what it had been promoting as a referendum on Maduro’s rule.  Over at Venezuelan Politics and Human Rights, Hugo Perez Hernaiz and David Smilde argue that the opposition’s cohesiveness will likely break down even further in ahead of legislative elections in 2015. According to them, “the lack of an impending electoral event means Henrique Capriles’ leadership will probably be challenged or simply lose importance.”

• Guatemala’s El Periodico reports that the white powder thrown into the face of Vice President Roxana Baldetti after the president’s state of the union speech on Tuesday was in fact lime, not flour, which makes Baldetti’s brief hospitalization more understandable.  The two women accused of orchestrating the powder-flinging are in police custody, but this has not stopped the country’s major political parties from accusing each other of planning the incident, as La Prensa Libre reports.

• El Salvador’s Universidad Centroamericana has released the latest poll ahead of the country’s February 2 presidential election, this one showing 46.8 support for the FMLN’s Salvador Sanchez Ceren compared to 32.8 percent for Norman Quijano of ARENA. This is close to the findings of a recent CIP Gallup survey giving Sanchez Ceren a 12-point lead, though both stand in stark contrast to a Mitofsky poll published on Monday, which showed 35.5 percent for Quijano and 31.8 percent for Sanchez Ceren.

Mexico's 'Self-Defense' Vigilantes Clash With Troops

The Mexican military’s efforts to disarm vigilante groups in Michoacan have resulted in violent clashes and left at least two dead, illustrating the pitfalls of officials’ past tolerance of the militias.

During Interior Minister Miguel Osorio Chong’s announcement on Monday that the federal government would assume control of security in Michoacan’s Tierra Caliente region, he called on the various “self-defense” movements in the area to stop their campaign against the Knights Templar cartel and allow the military to do the job. Federal police stepped up patrols in the region, and troops began disarming vigilante groups, El Universal reports.

Leaders of the self-defense groups were less than keen to turn over their arms to soldiers, however. Jose Mireles, the high-profile vigilante leader who is being treated in Mexico City following a plane crash earlier this month, released a series of videos in which he criticized the disarmament (albeit using frequently contradictory statements). Reuters reports that Estanislao Beltran, another vigilante leader, told local radio that laying down their weapons would put local communities in danger.

Beltran also said that security forces had fired on innocent townspeople on Monday, killing four, including an 11 year-old girl. While the Associated Press confirmed only two deaths, and spoke with relatives of a third deceased victim, the National Human Rights Commission corroborated Beltran’s figure in a press release. The defense department, for its part, has only acknowledged one civilian casualty. Other press reports yesterday placed the death toll higher. La Reforma, for instance, cited “preliminary reports from state sources” claiming that 9 civilians had been killed.

The deaths are sure to fuel criticism of the federal government’s relative lenience towards vigilante groups in Michoacan. In recent months the army and federal police have refrained from intervening with the self-defense groups’ battles with the Knights Templar, even coordinating helicopter cover and street patrols with the vigilantes. Just last week, Chong acknowledged that federal police were protecting the exclusive private hospital where Milenes is staying. “Yes, we are protecting him,” the interior minister said. “Because he is a person who has wounded the cartels, particularly the Templars.”

It now seems this honeymoon period has ended, and vigilante organizations will be placed under increased state scrutiny. Yesterday Attorney General Jesus Murillo Karam told reporters that prosecutors have been investigating the self-defense groups’ funding, and that their findings would be released in the coming days.

More on the public relations implications of the army/vigilante clash from the L.A. Times. The New York Times highlights the difficult position the government of Enrique Peña Nieto is in as a result of the violence, while the Wall Street Journal notes that the conflict is pitting the army against local communities, who frequently support the vigilantes.

News Briefs

• The AP reports on the Ecuadorean government’s efforts to discredit opposition politician Martha Roldos. The smear campaign was kicked off by a report in state-owned paper El Telegrafo which leaked Roldos’ private emails to various U.S. human rights advocates and democracy promotion foundations seeking support for a new media platform in her country. Since then, President Rafael Correa has blasted her for seeking help from "the extreme North-American right," and a state-owned TV channel has reportedly begun airing spots depicting Roldos as an enemy of the state.

• Yesterday, El Universo reported that Roldos held a press conference in response to Correa’s remarks, and to denounce the hacking of her email. Her lawyer told journalists that she would request the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights to seek precautionary measures from the state on her behalf. She will also request a court to release the name of the author of the El Telegrafo report, which was published anonymously. 

• It appears that Bogota Mayor Gustavo Petro’s appeal to the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights was not, strictly speaking, his only hope. In a surprise development yesterday, a Cundinamarca province judge temporarily put Petro’s removal on hold. As the BBC and Semana report, Judge Jose Armenta ruled that President Juan Manuel Santos should not execute the order to dimsiss the mayor until it could be determined whether it violated Petro’s right to political participation. The ruling has proven controversial, however, as the judge’s wife works for Bogota’s publicly-owned water company that the mayor turned trash collection services over to in 2012. As a result, judicial officials have opened a disciplinary inquiry into Armenta. Over at La Silla Vacia, Juanita Leon has a rundown of the main legal arguments in Armenta’s decision and their weaknesses, according to constitutional experts.  

• As FARC rebels and Colombian government negotiators convened for the latest round of peace talks in Havana yesterday, the guerrilla group unveiled an outline of their proposal to reform Colombia’s drug laws. The document, which is based on a plan presented during previous negotiations in 2000, calls on the state to demilitarize drug-producing areas and regulate the cultivation and sale of illicit crops like coca leaf, poppies and cannabis. In remarks to El Tiempo, Colombian drug policy expert Daniel Mejia characterized the proposal as unrealistic, as it does not account for the violent actors farther along the production chain of illicit drugs. “[It’s] one thing to reduce repression,” said Mejia, “and another not to control or attack the drug trade, because alongside the crops are the ‘crystallizers,’ the precursor chemical routes, and the places where hostages are held.”

• The White House has confirmed that President Barack Obama will travel to Mexico next month to attend a North American leaders' summit with Mexican President Enrique Peña Nieto and Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper.

• Following Guatemalan President Otto Perez Molina’s state of the union speech last night, police detained two young women who threw flour in the face of Vice President Roxana Baldetti in an act of protest. The flouring has become a national incident, overshadowing Perez’s speech. El Periodico notes that Baldetti was carried out of the national theatre in a stretcher and taken to a hospital, and claimed that the flour attack triggered “conjunctivitis and high blood pressure.”

• Polls suggest El Salvador’s presidential race is still quite close, despite a recent CIP Gallup survey giving a 12-point lead to FMLN candidate Salvador Sanchez Ceren. According to a new Mitofsky survey, Ceren is actually just behind ARENA’s Norman Quijano, 31.8 to 35.5 percent.

• The AP reports on serious shortages of newsprint paper in Venezuela, which El Nacional notes has been denounced by press freedom advocates as an indirect method of media censorship. According to the AP, editors of the country’s two largest papers -- El Nacional and El Universal -- say they have only enough paper reserves to continue publishing for the next month and six weeks, respectively.  

• A new report on arms trafficking published by the São Paulo-based Instituto Sou da Paz and highlighted in Spain’s El Pais and BBC Mundo sheds light on the illegal arms trade in Brazil’s largest city. While just a fraction (1.6 percent) of arms seized by police in 2011 and 2012 were high-powered assault rifles, submachine guns or rifles, the report’s authors claim that over a third of these (roughly 36 percent)  came from the United States.

The Inter-American Commission is Petro’s Only Hope

Colombia’s inspector general has ratified his decision to remove Bogota Mayor Gustavo Petro and ban him from office for 15 years, meaning that the mayor has few options left to stay in power outside of his appeal to the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR).

Yesterday, the office of Inspector General Alejandro Ordoñez responded to Petro’s appeal, finding it unwarranted. The mayor’s handling of a dispute with garbage collectors in 2012, according to Ordoñez, was a grave overstep of his authority. El Tiempo reports that the inspector general’s statement listed three primary justifications for Petro’s removal, asserting that by attempting to place municipal trash services under public administration the mayor: knowingly handed trash services over to an inexperienced entity, limited economic competition and potentially endangered the health of Bogota residents.

A number of media outlets (see EFE and El Heraldo) have reported that Petro’s political fate now depends on either President Juan Manuel Santos not signing Ordoñez’s order or the IACHR requesting that the government take preventative measures to safeguard Petro’s right to political participation.

However, while many observers have expressed concern that the removal of the mayor -- who is an ex-M-19 guerrilla -- would send a bad message to FARC rebels engaged in peace talks in Havana, Santos does not appear convinced by this argument. His justice minister has told reporters that Santos will abide by the constitution, which gives Ordoñez the authority to remove elected authorities from office. And La Silla Vacia claims that sources in the administration have signaled that Santos will only refrain from signing the order if the Inter-American Commission requests it.

That leaves the IACHR as Petro’s only hope. And he knows it. In a statement before a crowd of supporters gathered in Bogota’s Bolivar Plaza last night (which was significantly smaller than previous pro-Petro demonstrations), the mayor accused the inspector general of being afraid of the commission, “because he violated international treaties.” Caracol Radio notes that Rafael Barrios, the lawyer overseeing Petro’s appeal to the IACHR, has said that he is confident that the human rights body will weigh in on the matter. “What is coming is that the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights will order the President not to execute the decision of the inspector general until they speak out on this decision,” Barrios told journalists.

News Briefs

• Following the high-profile conflict between vigilante groups and criminal organizations in Mexico’s Michoacan state, the federal government has stepped in to try to reassert control over the situation. After signing an agreement with state authorities yesterday, Interior Minister Miguel Angel Osorio Chong announced that the federal government would be assuming security responsibilities in the Tierra Caliente region. Chong also ordered the so-called “self-defense groups” in the area to lay down their weapons and allow the army to take over, El Universal reports. According to the L.A. Times, vigilante leader Hipolito Mora has said that his organization has no intention of disarming. The Wall Street Journal reports that Apatzingan, the largest city in Tierra Caliente, has been virtually closed, with residents holing up inside their homes for fear of violence. The New York Times notes that the intentions of vigilante groups are murky, citing several security analysts who say they may have links to criminal gangs looking to expand their influence in the area.

• It appears that Mexico City’s proposed marijuana bill is less far-reaching than originally reported. According to Animal Politico, the bill has been revised since El Universal reported in December that it would provide users with safe access to the drug. While the legislation would still open “dispensaries” around the city, these offices would only be authorized to provide information on the drug’s potential health effects from a harm reduction perspective, not to distribute it. Meanwhile, the presentation of the bill to Mexico City’s legislature has been postponed to the end of the month, Milenio reports.

• Although Guatemalan President Otto Perez Molina has dropped his criminal complaint against El Periodico Editor Jose Ruben Zamora, the Inter-American Press Association has announced that it will send a delegation to the country to assess the government’s recent campaign against Zamora.

• Ahead of El Salvador’s election next month, a new poll by CIP-Gallup gives a huge lead to FMLN candidate Salvador Sanchez Ceren. According to the pollster, 49 percent of the country supports Sanchez Ceren, compared to 37 percent for ARENA’s Norman Quijano.

• The AP and Miami Herald report on the arrival of 15 Cuban students to Miami Dade College, a rare example of Cuban residents studying at a U.S. school that the university’s provost, Rolando Montoya, said was made possible by recent changes to the island’s migration policies.

• Newsweek has an excellent overview of the 2013 massacre of a small indigenous Amazonian tribe, the Taromenane, by another, the Waorani, in Ecuador. Quito-based journalist Bethany Horne alleges that the government of President Rafael Correa intentionally feigned ignorance and fueled misinformation related to the massacre in order to discredit criticism of a plan to authorize oil drilling in the Yasuni Amazon reserve. As El Comercio reports, Horne’s story has earned backlash from Correa himself, who accuses the journalist of fueling controversy to raise her profile.

• After at least 12 young men were killed in drive-by shootings within hours of one another on Sunday/Monday in the Brazilian city of Campinas, investigators have said that they are looking into whether military police had a hand in the murders. The incidents took place after the shooting of an off-duty police officer in the area, and may have been retribution for his murder, according to Estadão.

• The Wall Street Journal reports that the police force in Rio de Janeiro is undergoing training in human rights in an effort to improve its reputation for violence. However, the paper notes that the program began two years ago, and does not appear to have made much of a positive mark on its image.

• While the head of the Peruvian congressional committee investigating allegations of corruption in the administration of former President Alan Garcia told reporters last week that there were “indications” that some administration officials had benefited from illegal enrichment, Peru21 reports that these charges did not make it into the  committee’s final report, published yesterday.

• Eighteen months after breaking off relations with to protest the ouster of ex Paraguayan President Fernando Lugo, the government of Venezuela appears to have reconciled with the country.  The AP reports that Venezuela has reopened its embassy in Asuncion, and presented a new ambassador to the country. El Nuevo Herald notes that the move comes after the Paraguayan Congress ratified Venezuela’s entry into Mercosur and voted to end its classification of Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro as a “persona non grata.”

Rios Montt Prosecutors Appeal Post-2011 Annulment to Guatemala's Top Court

The odds that the victims of Guatemala’s conflict will see justice in the case against Efrain Rios Montt anytime soon are looking slim. On Friday, a Guatemalan appeals court backed a lower court ruling which annulled all court proceedings in the case since November 2011, citing alleged procedural irregularities.

Hector Reyes, a lawyer for the plaintiffs in the case with the Center for Human Rights and Legal Action (CALDH), criticized the decision and told reporters it would be challenged in a higher court. 

Yesterday, elPeriodico reported that representatives of CALDH and the Association for Justice and Reconciliation (ARJ) presented an appeal to the ruling. In remarks to the press, ARJ lawyer Edgar Perez said that the sentence had been issued on September 26, 2013, despite the fact that the prosecution had not been notified of it until last week. The victims’ lawyers have filed their appeal directly to the Constitutional Court, which will have the final say in the matter.

If the ruling is upheld, it could be an irreversible blow to the efforts to successfully prosecute the former dictator on charges of genocide and of crimes against humanity, after the Constitutional Court overturned a guilty verdict in May. Rios Montt is 87 years old, and has a number of health complications. Rewinding the case back by two years would leave a good chance of him passing away before a verdict is reached.

Even if the appeals court’s ruling is struck down, Rios Montt’s day in court would be a long way off. In November judicial officials postponed the reopening of his case from April 2014 to January 5, 2015, citing case overflow.

 News Briefs

• The private sector lending arm of the World Bank (the International Finance Corporation, or IFC) was criticized on Friday by the bank’s ombudsman over a loan granted to Corporacion Dinant, a palm oil company accused of fueling a bloody land conflict in Honduras’ Bajo Aguan region. As the New York Times reports , the Compliance Advisor/Ombudsman of the IFC has released a report finding that the  institution failed to follow its internal procedures when it first approved a loan to Dinant in 2009, and that subsequent supervision of the company was inadequate. IFC representatives have responded by announcing that it is working with the Honduran company on an action plan to address the report, according to the AFP.

• The Miami Herald has an interview with Haitian Prime Minister Laurent Lamothe, who discussed the anniversary of the devastating January 12, 2010 earthquake that rocked his country. 

• El Tiempo reports that the Colombian government’s decision to revoke the extradition order for the FARC folksinger known as alias “Julian Conrado” last week -- which allowed him to leave Venezuela for Havana to join the rebels’ negotiating team -- was a humanitarian gesture.  According to the head of the government’s negotiating team, Humberto de la Calle, the move came after the government took into account “humanitarian considerations.” De la Calle also assured reporters that the peace talks will be well insulated from the upcoming election process in the country.

• Last week, São Paulo Mayor Fernando Haddad announced that the city would be implementing a new policy to address crack cocaine use in the central city slum popularly known as “Cracolândia.” According to the mayor, a shift from strategies of the past would be needed, one that treats the issue of crack use as a public health problem instead of a law enforcement problem.  O Globo reports that Haddad announced that the mayor’s office had devised a new approach with a “very strong appeal in Holland,” involving work opportunities to those living on the streets in the neighborhood. The move comes as public prosecutors have announced an investigation into alleged abuses that have occurred in local, state and federal operations in Cracolândia in recent years.

• The AP’s Frank Bajak looks at a telling indicator of hard times in Venezuela: the U.S.-based Citizens Energy Corp, which has distributed nearly a half billion dollars' worth of Venezuela-donated heating oil to low-income and elderly households across the U.S. since 2005, has not received this year’s shipment.

• El Universal reports that on Sunday, Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro criticized local and international media outlets for their coverage of the high-profile murder of beauty queen Monica Spears, accusing them of exploiting the death for political reasons. Meanwhile, David Smilde and Rebecca Hanson of Venezuela Politics and Human Rights take a look at the political spin that Maduro himself has put on Spears’ death, and the subsequent shakeup in the country’s police command. This included replacing a police reform advocate with a retired general as head of the National Security University, as well as the ouster of the former civilian head of the National Police in favor of another retired army general.

• The NYT’s Lede Blog has video footage of Fidel Castro’s rare public appearance at a nonprofit art studio in Havana last week, in which the former leader appears animated as he greets the studio’s director.

• In a contribution to the debate over media concentration in Peru -- which was fueled earlier this month by President Ollanta Humala’s remarks alleging a dangerous media monopoly in the country -- IDL Reporteros has an exclusive interview with Mario Vargas Llosa. The writer has been one of the staunchest critics of Peru’s largest media conglomerate, Grupo El Comercio, which owns some 70 percent of the country’s print media market.

• Clashes between vigilante groups and alleged cartel gunmen in the Mexican state of Michoacan continued to make headlines over the weekend, after over 100 armed vigilantes stormed the town of Nueva Italia on Sunday. The AP reports that the group claims it is advancing towards Apatzingan, the stronghold of the Knights Templar gang, and El Universal reports that the violence has caused a wave of displacement as local residents flee to the neighboring state of Colima.

• Ahead of its general election in February, El Salvador held its first-ever presidential debate last night. The event was televised, and brought together the three leading candidates -- Norman Quijano (ARENA), Salvador Sanchez Ceren (FMLN), and Antonio Saca (Unidad) -- and two minor ones -- Oscar Lemus (FPS) and René Rodríguez Hurtado (PSP). La Prensa Grafica reports that citizen insecurity and the economy were the two main subjects of the evening, and highlights the campaign promises of each candidate. El Salvador blogger Tim Muth also has an excellent rundown of the evening, outlining the main candidates’ remarks on crime.