U.S. Nixes Sanctions in Venezuela, For Now

Though U.S. lawmakers continue to call for sanctions against individual officials linked to human rights abuses in Venezuela, the administration of President Barack Obama is insisting that these would distract from the ongoing dialogue with opposition in Caracas.

At a Senate hearing yesterday, Reuters reports that Assistant Secretary of State for Western Hemisphere Affairs Roberta Jacobson came under fire for the president’s unwillingness to apply targeted sanctions.

As the Miami Herald points out, the push for sanctions is bipartisan. Last month both of Florida’s senators, Republican Marco Rubio and Democrat Bill Nelson, co-sponsored a bill that would target officials who hold assets, property and travel visas to the U.S., in retaliation for the police response to the demonstrations.

Jacobson, however, said it was too soon to level sanctions. According to her, doing so would play into the Maduro government’s claims that the U.S. is meddling in Venezuela’s internal affairs. She also asserted that members of the opposition had asked the administration “not to pursue them at this time.”

The Obama administration is not alone in this analysis. Over at Venezuelan Human Rights and Politics, David Smilde takes issue with a recent Washington Post editorial, which claimed that sanctions could actually put positive pressure on the dialogue. Instead, Smilde argues that they would have the opposite effect, further polarizing the Chavista base and thereby making it difficult for the government to make concessions. He also notes that sanctions could jeopardize the ability of the Union of South American Nations (UNASUR), which is mediating the talks, to keep Maduro at the table.

News Briefs

• Reuters has an interesting analysis of the recent poll showing declining support for President Nicolas Maduro in Venezuela, noting that while he has largely succeeded in neutralizing the protests, scarcity and crime remain his biggest challenges. If he does not rein in these issues, Maduro could face a recall election in 2016. Meanwhile, in Caracas yesterday security forces cleared a series of protest camps, detaining 243 demonstrators. The AP notes that a 25 year-old police officer was killed following the resulting violent clashes, the first such death in nearly a month.

• Yesterday’s scheduled hearing for imprisoned opposition leader Leopoldo Lopez was suspended, El Universal reports.  A new date for the hearing has not been announced.

• São Paulo-based human rights group Conectas, along with a handful of other civil society groups, presented Brazilian Senators this week with a report challenging a controversial “anti-terrorism” bill, which critics say is meant to dissuade mass demonstrations, particularly during the upcoming World Cup. According to the report, the measure calls for disproportionately strict penalties, and amounts to an attempt to criminalize protest.

• As Guatemalan President Otto Perez Molina continues to weigh his choice for the country’s next Attorney General, Plaza Publica has an analysis of the nominating process that led to the current shortlist of six candidates. Far from the meritocratic system it is meant to be on paper, the news site looks at past nominations to show that the objective criteria and scoring system set up by nominating commissions is generally disregarded in the final vote. Meanwhile, the United Nations representatives and the International Commission against Impunity in Guatemala (CICIG) have published a joint press statement in which they recommend changes to the nominating system. Among these is a revision of committee procedures, and the inclusion of public opinion as a factor to be taken into account.

• Costa Rica’s Luis Guillermo Solis formally assumed office as president in a ceremony yesterday, in which he repeated his campaign promise to focus his administration on promoting transparency. According to La Nacion, his first act as president was to request that his cabinet members sign a code of ethics, according to which they must promise to abide by standards of transparency and open access to information.

• Yesterday, Chilean President Michelle Bachelet saw her first major student protest since returning to office for a second term.  Tens of thousands of students participated in the demonstrations, which called on the government to widen its proposals to restructure the country’s public education system and include them in the ongoing debate around reforms. According to La Tercera, 101 protesters were arrested and some 20 police officers were injured.

• The New York Times looks at the recent arrest of four individuals in Cuba accused of planning to attack military installations and promote a violent uprising against the government. While authorities there have linked the suspects to several leading figures in the Miami exile community, a number of Cuba analysts cited by the paper suspect that the case is more about political theater, an attempt to gain diplomatic leverage over the United States.

• Today’s NYT also profiles the emergence of a deadly kidney disease in Central America, the epicenter of which is in the sugar cane-cutting heartland of Nicaragua. While lawmakers in El Salvador have recently moved to ban certain herbicides thought to contribute to kidney failure, researchers say exposure to chemicals alone cannot explain the epidemic.

• The Washington Office on Latin America (WOLA) has released a new report on the endemic corruption within Mexico’s police forces, which has persisted over the past two decades despite multiple reform attempts.  One of the reasons for this, according to the report, is the lack of effective internal and external controls which hold police accountable for abuses. If Mexico is to clean up its police force, it concludes, the country will have to strengthen existing monitoring mechanisms, like internal affairs units and citizens’ observatories.

• One of the most high-profile leaders of the self-defense militias in Michoacan, Jose Manuel Mireles, has apparently been dismissed as spokesman by the vigilante groups’ leadership bodies after his use of offensive language to refer to President Enrique Peña Nieto. However, in an interview with Animal Politico, Mireles denied that he had been dismissed and told the news site he would retain his position.

Uribista Candidate's Campaign Tried to Sabotage Colombia Peace Talks

Colombia's presidential race is heating up, with scandals rocking the campaigns of both leading candidates. After an advisor for President Juan Manuel Santos stepped down earlier this week in response to bribery allegations, the campaign manager for his rival Oscar Ivan Zuluaga has resigned as well. 

Yesterday's resignation of Luis Alfonso Hoyos, Zuluaga's campaign chief, is related to the recent arrest of a hacker accused of illegally gathering information on the peace talks between FARC rebels and the government in Havana. While the individual had also been contracted by the Zuluaga camp to provide information security and social networking services, the Uribista candidate insisted that he had no knowledge of the spying efforts. 

But these claims were contradicted when the head of Colombian news agency RCN revealed that Hoyos and the hacker approached him last month, offering to provide dirt on the peace process. As El Espectador reports, the men claimed to have evidence that the FARC were intimidating citizens into voting for Santos. According to Semana magazine, Hoyos tried to misrepresent the hacker, introducing him as an intelligence expert for the government.

RCN turned them down. Reuters notes that the broadcaster deemed that "the information did not have the quality or precision that it needed to be published."

This is not the first instance of apparent sabotage of the peace talks by the Colombian right. Last year, for instance, Alvaro Uribe himself leaked an army memo showing the coordinates where military operations had been temporarily suspended in order to guarantee the safe passage of guerrilla leaders leaving Colombia to join the negotiating table in Cuba.

News Briefs

• Following Ecuadorean electoral authorities’ invalidation of a petition to hold a vote on drilling in the country’s Yasuni Amazon reserve, the environmentalist group which organized the signature drive has vowed to challenge the decision. According to El Universo, the “Yasunidos” coalition plans to bring the electoral council to local and international courts, in addition to organizing demonstrations around the country.

• Mexico’s Animal Politico profiles a joint report on the use of torture by security forces, authored by the Institute for Security and Democracy (Insyde), the Mexican Commission for the Defense and Promotion of Human Rights (CMDPDH) and the Northwest Citizens’ Commission on Human Rights (CCHR). In the report (PDF), which was released to coincide with the recent visit of UN Special Rapporteur on Torture Juan Mendez, the groups fault the administration of former President Felipe Calderon with launching a security strategy which encouraged impunity for torture and other abuses.

• The new head of Chile’s National Service for Women has confirmed that the government of President Michelle Bachelet is preparing a bill that would loosen the country’s harsh anti-abortion law. According to La Nacion, the reform would allow abortion in three cases: when the fetus is non-viable, when the mother's health is in danger and in cases of rape.

• In Venezuela today, a judge is set to determine whether to proceed with a case against imprisoned opposition leader Leopoldo Lopez, accused of inciting violence in the recent wave of protests, El Universal reports.

• Over at Venezuelan Politics and Human Rights, David Smilde looks at the findings of a new Datanalisis survey which shows a huge drop in support for the government of Nicolas Maduro. Nearly 60 percent of respondents disapprove of Maduro’s performance, and roughly the same proportion (including 15 percent of Chavistas) think he should not complete his term in office, according to the poll. Smilde argues that these numbers offer an explanation for the Maduro government’s decision to dialogue with the opposition MUD coalition. Meanwhile, El Pais notes that a MUD-government meeting planned for yesterday has been postponed to next week.  

• Today’s Washington Post features an editorial backing U.S. sanctions against Venezuela, asserting that they could complement the dialogue in Caracas by pressuring the Maduro government to “agree to reforms that could break Venezuela’s free fall.”

• The military demonstrations that have rocked Bolivia in recent weeks, led by soldiers protesting alleged discrimination against indigenous members of the armed forces, have been suspended. The government and protestors have set up working groups to address the grievances, and the head of the military has reinstated 660 of the 730 enlisted men fired last month for protesting.

• Speaking in London following the recent publication of the LSE report calling for a shift in the global drug paradigm, Guatemalan Interior Minister Mauricio Lopez Bonilla confirmed reporters  that his country is weighing the legalization of marijuana and poppy production. In remarks to Reuters, Bonilla said doing so would mean “raising taxes, fundamental resources for prevention, resources that could be used by the Guatemalan state for social development.”

• In the latest headache for Brazilian authorities linked to the World Cup, the country’s Federal Police union is threatening to go on strike during the upcoming soccer tournament if the government does not improve their pay and working conditions.

• Cuban officials have announced the arrest of four individuals accused of organizing attacks on military installations with the goal of inciting anti-government unrest on the island. The suspects have been linked to members of the Miami exile community with ties to Luis Posada Carriles, a well-known former CIA operative and anti-Castro saboteur. Reuters reports that Posada’s lawyer denies the allegations.

Ecuador Rejects Petition for Referendum on Amazon Drilling

Ecuadorean electoral authorities have invalidated roughly half of the signatures on a petition to hold a referendum on oil-drilling in the Yasuni Amazon Reserve, a move that activists say amounts to blatant fraud.

While the official conclusion of the National Electoral Council’s (CNE) analysis of the petition will be announced later today, El Universo reports that CNE President Domingo Paredes told journalists the news yesterday. According to Paredes, only 359,761 of the 756,000 signatures presented by the “Yasunidos” activist coalition were accepted, with the rest allegedly bearing irregularities. The CNE official also said some individuals associated with the petition had signed various times, demonstrating what he called “an apparent attempt to delude the CNE and the public to the detriment of the democratic system.”

In response, Yasunido spokesman Patricio Chavez has alleged that the review lacked transparency, and called on the CNE to publish evidence of the allegedly widespread irregularities. “This is without precedent. This is fraud, a clear fraud…We have a copy of everything we turned over and before turning it over we did a verification to prevent any problems,” Chavez told the AP. Diario Hoy reports that the group is organizing a demonstration in front of the CNE headquarters in Quito to protest the rejection of the petition.

Whether the electoral authorities’ claims are legitimate or not, the incident is bound to fuel allegations that the government is attempting to stifle independent civil society.  Last year the ruling Alianza Pais party passed a controversial media law that press freedom  advocates warned would pave the way for arbitrary sanctions and censorship of the media. In December, Ecuadorean officials forced a separate environmental NGO to close its doors after holding it responsible for acts of violence at a protest.

It’s worth noting, also, that the results of a recent poll published in state newspaper El Telegrafo (but only highlighted in private media) showed that 72 percent of Ecuadoreans are in favor of a referendum on oil drilling in Yasuni.

News Briefs

• Following the resignation of President Juan Manuel’s chief campaign strategist amid bribery allegations, his main rival in this month’s elections is seeing a campaign scandal of his own. Yesterday police arrested a tech expert and suspected hacker accused of gathering information to sabotage the peace talks between FARC rebels and the government. The individual had also been contracted to provide information security and social networking services to the campaign of right-wing presidential candidate Oscar Ivan Zuluaga, which critics say is no coincidence. According to Semana magazine, the hacker boasted that he had information that could “end the peace process,” something which Zuluaga and his powerful ally Alvaro Uribe are accused of wanting as well.

• A new report published by the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE) and signed by five Nobel Prize-winning economists is making headlines for highlighting the failures of the dominant global paradigm. Especially interesting for Latin America watchers are the chapters by Alejandro Madrazo Lajous of Mexico’s CIDE and Colombian drug policy expert Daniel Mejia, both of which examine the negative impact the war on drugs has had on state institutions and democratic governance in the region.

• Despite some hopeful signs last month, the UNASUR-facilitated talks between the Venezuelan government and the opposition appear to have made no major progress in recent weeks. The biggest development in the dialogue recently has been the MUD coalition’s success at persuading officials to review the cases of students imprisoned following recent protests, as Ultimas Noticias reports. In remarks on his radio show yesterday, President Maduro admitted that the talks are “going slow,” but said he believed they would bear fruit in the coming days and weeks.

• The Miami Herald looks at price increases in Venezuela and their impact on the thriving smuggling trade that has sprung up on the Colombian border thanks to price controls in the country.

• Reuters has a profile of Wang Jing, the Chinese billionaire behind Nicaragua’s attempt to build a rival to the Panama Canal. As the news agency points out, Wang has been criticized for his apparent lack of experience in funding major infrastructure projects, as well as by those who say the plans are not addressing social and environmental concerns.

• After President Michel Martelly announced the creation of new electoral council in response to opposition demands, Haiti appears one stop closer to holding long-overdue local and legislative elections. But as the AP reports, some of his political opponents have voiced criticism of his appointments.

• With the World Cup around the corner and many planned projects far from being finished, a number of Brazilian officials are conceding that they are out of time. As a result, some cities are rolling out their “plan B” procedures, which has many analysts concerned about the Olympics preparations for 2016, according to the Washington Post.

• The Guardian looks at Brazilian politician Katia Abreu, the head of the country’s powerful agricultural lobby whom critics have dubbed the “chainsaw queen” for her support of weakened restrictions on Amazon logging.

• Yesterday a judge in San Salvador officially issued an arrest warrant for former President Francisco Flores, who has been charged with embezzlement and illegal enrichment. The AP reports that the judge asked for Interpol’s help in finding Flores, who many believe has fled to Panama. However, as the AFP notes, the Panamanian foreign minister has denied reports that Flores has requested asylum there.

Santos: Colombia May Widen Peace Talks

Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos has indicated that his government is looking to incorporate the country’s second-largest guerrilla group, the National Liberation Army (ELN) in ongoing peace talks in Havana. But it’s unclear whether significant progress is being made on this front or whether the remarks are part of his re-election strategy.

In an interview with Spanish news agency EFE, Santos said he was hopeful that the current talks with FARC rebels could reach a final agreement before the end of the year, and that the peace process would be widened to include the ELN.

The ELN has been particularly vocal about its desire to participate in the negotiations, even sending representatives to Havana  only to have them turned away by Cuban officials because they lacked the permission of the Colombian government. Last year, the president called on the guerrillas to free all of their hostages, and then signaled that he was “ready to talk” with the ELN following the August release of a Canadian hostage. In the weeks after the release, there were rumors that Uruguayan President Jose Mujica -- a former guerrilla himself -- would help facilitate dialogue with the rebels, but ultimately this never materialized.

There is reason to be suspicious about the timing of Santos’ remarks, however. His critics have accused him of using the peace talks to boost his campaign ahead of the May 25 presidential elections, an allegation that was fueled by the announcement that the official negotiating team would go on a nationwide tour to promote the talks this month. And as EFE points out, the president has made stump speeches under the campaign slogan “Vote for peace.”

La Silla Vacia also notes that the remarks could have more to do with the ongoing rural agricultural protests in the country, which have been joined this week by campesino movements sympathetic to widening the talks to include the ELN. Mentioning giving the guerrillas a seat at the table, the news site claims, is a strategy to appease these sectors.

Santos’ announcement also comes amid a developing campaign scandal. Yesterday, his  chief campaign strategist J.J. Rendon  was forced to resign after El Espectador and Semana  reported that he is accused of accepting money from drug traffickers in exchange for communicating their offer to turn themselves to avoid extradition to the U.S.

News Briefs

• Meanwhile, a new poll published on Monday suggests that Santos’ conservative challenger, the Uribe-backed Oscar Ivan Zuluaga, continues to gain on him. While Santos remains in the lead, Cifras y Conceptos survey shows that a second-round vote would be tight, with the president beating Zuluaga by just 34 percent to 31 percent, Reuters reports.

• While Panamanian Vice President Juan Carlos Varela was elected to serve as the country’s next president in Sunday’s vote, a full count of legislative elections revealed yesterday that his party will hold just 12 of the 71 seats in Panama's National Assembly. The largest bloc, with 29 seats, will be current President Ricardo Martinelli’s party, followed by the center-left Democratic Revolution Party with 21. The Wall Street Journal notes that although Martinelli will retain significant political influence, Varela may not have a difficult time working with the next legislature because of his promises to continue much of the policies of his predecessor, “only more efficiently.”   

• Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro also appears to have seen his popularity fall of late. According to a Datanalisis survey published in El Universal on Monday, 59.2 percent of respondents disapprove of his performance, up from 44.6 percent in November. The poll also found that Venezuelans placed the economy as their top concern, beating out insecurity and crime for the first time, according to the AFP.

• A new Human Rights Watch report published yesterday, “Punished for Protesting,” documents 45 cases of abuse committed by Venezuelan security forces against protesters in the recent wave of demonstrations in Caracas and elsewhere. The report, which also accuses security forces of cooperating with armed Chavista collectives, has been covered extensively in international (see the Wall Street Journal, The Guardian, BBC) and domestic press (El Nacional, Ultimas Noticias)alike today. The release coincides with recent remarks by Interior Minister Miguel Rodriguez Torres, who accused various human rights advocates of participating in an “insurrectionary” and “conspiratorial” plot. In response, more than a dozen of the most well-known Venezuelan human rights organizations are set to hold a joint press conference this morning to condemn these allegations, as well as a wider “criminalization of protest” in the country.

• According to a report by the Cuban Commission for Human Rights and National Reconciliation (CCDHRN) -- referred to by the Miami Herald as “the island’s top human rights group” -- the first four months of 2014 saw a record number of short-term arrests of dissidents in Cuba. Some 3,821 individuals were arrested during this time, compared to 1,588 reported arrests in the same period last year.

• Award-winning Mexican director Alfonso Cuaron, who has become one of the leading figures in the country to question President Enrique Peña Nieto on his proposed energy reforms, published yet another full-page ad in Mexican newspapers yesterday calling on the president to hold a series of public debates on the reforms. El Pais notes that such a national debate were to happen it would have to be organized soon, as the government is seeking to pass the reforms before July.

• After Uruguayan President Jose Mujica signed the implementation guidelines of his country’s historic marijuana law yesterday, they have officially entered the legal record, according to La Republica. Meanwhile, El Pais reports that National Drug Council Secretary Julio Calzada has provided more details on the state land where commercial marijuana will be grown. According to Calzada, commercial cannabis will be produced not in rural parts of the country, but in Montevideo and the surrounding metropolitan area.

• While international human rights groups continue to express surprise over the exclusion of Claudia Paz y Paz from a shortlist of candidates for Guatemala’s attorney general, Paz y Paz has accepted the development. Siglo21 reports that the prosecutor has told reporters that she will not challenge the nomination of her successor, and plans on returning to academic life when her term ends this month.
   
• Today’s New York Times features a look at the epidemic of a fungus known as “coffee rust” in Central America, which has taken a major toll on the region’s coffee production. Experts say the problem has been exacerbated by climate change, which has allowed the fungus to thrive at higher altitudes.

• The Washington Post takes on reports that the price of limes in the U.S. has skyrocketed recently due to extortion of lime growers and drug cartel violence in lime-growing states like Michoacan. While the violence may be a contributing factor, the main reason for the spike in price, according to growers consulted by the Post, is poor weather conditions.

Uruguay Fleshes Out its Marijuana Law

After repeated delays, on Friday the government of Uruguay finally released the accompanying regulations of its marijuana law, a major development in the establishment of the world’s first fully-regulated cannabis market.

Following the press conference, held by Presidential Under-Secretary Diego Canepa and Julio Calzada, secretary general of the National Drug Council (JND), there was a flurry of reporting. Local and international media picked up on their confirmation that the drug would be sold at roughly $1 per gram, their comments that “between two and six” entities would be licensed to grow the drug commercially, and that it would be available for recreational and medicinal use in pharmacies in late November or early December.  

Interestingly, none of these details are actually in the text of the implementation guidelines that President Jose Mujica will sign today, and have presumably been left up to the Institute for Regulation and Control of Cannabis (IRCCA), the law’s new regulatory body. Incidentally, it was revealed on Friday that Calzada will serve as the first IRCCA president, which is understandable considering how active he has been in championing the law. UPDATE May 14: While this is in fact what Canepa said at the conference, the JND's representation in the IRCCA leadership will actually be Augusto Vitale, a drug policy expert with the National Drug Secretariat.

Meanwhile, much of the actual content of the document itself has gone unreported. This makes sense. After all, there is plenty to sift through in the regulations, like their additional requirements for the 15-45 member “cannabis clubs” (they must educate members on responsible use) new distribution rules (commercial growers can store the drug on-site only, and ship it directly to pharmacies) or further restrictions on purchases (10 grams per week, narrowed down from 40 grams per month in the law). Many of these will only kick in when the first commercial marijuana becomes available in late 2014.

But one of the most important elements in the new rules will go into effect even before the drug becomes commercially available. When the IRCCA registry is up and running a 180-day “amnesty period” will begin, during which individuals who had previously grown their own pot illegally will be allowed to register their plants with authorities. Under the law, households may keep up to six plants, with a maximum yield of 480 grams annually. So long as these conditions are met, Uruguayans will have six months to register their currently clandestine crops. Afterwards, the IRCCA will only accept applications seeking prior permission to grow cannabis, and unlicensed growth will be subject to sanctions.

This is a major victory for alternative drug policies, and fits with the overarching logic behind the marijuana law. As Uruguayan civil society advocates, Calzada and President Mujica himself have all said: the measure is about recognizing an existing social reality. Like it or not, there is a market for the drug, which is mostly dominated by criminal and frequently violent elements. By allowing people to come out and register their own plants without fear of repercussion for the first time in the country’s history, Uruguayan authorities are taking an important first step towards bringing the black market into the light.

News Briefs

• Yesterday’s election in Panama saw a major blow to outgoing President Ricardo Martinelli, who was widely seen as attempting to hold onto power through his chosen successor, Jose Domingo Arias. La Prensa notes that while polls in the lead-up to Sunday’s vote gave Arias a slim advantage, he ultimately lost to Vice President Juan Carlos Varela by seven percentage points (32 compared to Varela’s 39 percent). Juan Carlos Navarro, of the center-left Democratic Revolutionary Party, came in third place with 28 percent of the vote. As the AP reports, one of Varela’s central campaign promises has been to end the corruption seen under Martinelli’s administration.

• A standoff between Ecuadorean President Rafael Correa and the indigenous community harboring three opposition figures accused of defaming him appears to be heating up. While the Sarayacu have called for a mediated dialogue over the situation, Correa rejected this yesterday, saying there was “nothing to negotiate,” according to BBC Mundo.

• UN Special Rapporteur on Torture Juan Mendez’s visit to Mexico came to an end on Friday with the UN rights champion holding a press conference to announce his preliminary findings. According to Mendez, there continues to be evidence of torture committed by all levels of security forces in the country, labeling the practice “widespread.” EFE notes that Mendez said torture was not deliberately or systematically ordered by authorities, but rather occurred during interrogations and following arrests of suspects by military and police. Animal Politico has a copy of Mendez’s full statement, which outlines the reasoning behind his remarks.

• Writing for the New Yorker’s News Desk blog, Patrick Radden Keefe also takes a look at torture in Mexico. For his widely-circulated account of the manhunt for Sinaloa Cartel kingpin “El Chapo” Guzman, Keefe spoke with a former DEA agent who directly linked the arrest with information obtained by allegedly torturing of some of the cartel leader’s accomplices. This set off a debate over whether the case amounted to a real-life case of the “ticking time-bomb scenario,” in which some claim that torture can be justified. However, Keefe argues against characterizing the case this way, and points out that interrogation provided only some of the intelligence that led to Guzman’s arrest.

• El Faro’s Sala Negra looks at prison violence in Honduras, where some of the worst mass killings in the region’s history have taken place. The news site examines a handful of the most recent incidents, noting the overcrowding and poor conditions that are hallmarks of the country’s penal system.

• Former Salvadoran President Francisco Flores, who is accused of embezzlement and illicit enrichment, has taken refuge in Panama, where he has reportedly requested political amnesty. Over the weekend, President Mauricio Funes formally called on his Panamanian counterpart not to grant the request.

• The latest round of negotiations between FARC rebels and the Colombian government ended on Sunday, with both sides still unable to reach a draft agreement on drugs and drug trafficking, the issue currently on the table. Still, the AFP reports that the guerrillas say they are “close” to reaching a deal with officials, and that rebel negotiators say they have also placed an emphasis on combating money laundering as well. The next round will begin on May 12.

• Progress appears to have been made in the ongoing rural protests in Colombia, which echo last year’s “agrarian strike” that took a toll on President Santos’ approval ratings. According to Radio Caracaol, the government has begun negotiating with the striking farmers.

• On Friday, Venezuelan authorities announced that 58 foreigners had been arrested in connection with the recent unrest in the country, with Interior Minister Miguel Rodriguez Torres listing an American, a Spaniard and an Arab among the “mercenaries” accused of inciting violence. In other Venezuela news, officials are investigating the Sunday murder of bodyguard of President Maduro, who was gunned down yesterday while driving in Caracas, El Universal reports.

• Guatemala’s Plaza Publica profiles Thelma Aldana, who is believed to be President Otto Perez Molina’s likely nomination for the next Attorney General. As the news site points out, she is also suspected of having ties to the Guatemalan Republican Front (FRG) party of former dictator Efrain Rios Montt.

Cuba: a 'State Sponsor' of Terror?

This week the U.S. State Department published its annual list of state sponsors of terrorism, and once again it includes Cuba despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary. 

Cuba, which has been on the list since 1982, was listed alongside Iran, Sudan and Syria as countries that have “repeatedly provided support for acts of international terrorism.” It is telling, however, that the brief section on Cuba is less than 200 words, while at least three times as much content is devoted to each of the other countries on the list. The report also points out “there was no indication that the Cuban government provided weapons or paramilitary training to terrorist groups.”

It’s also notable that while the State Department names two terrorist organizations -- the Basque Fatherland and Liberty (ETA) and the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) -- as having enjoyed support on the island in the past, it notes that the Cubans have played key roles in facilitating dialogue between both groups and the governments of Colombia and Spain. Both of these countries have expressed gratitude for Cuba’s cooperation.

Critics of U.S. policy towards Cuba have long pointed to its inclusion on the terrorist sponsor list as a sign of an antiquated, Cold War-era approach in Washington. While the U.S. has adamantly refused to remove Cuba from the list, this clashes with the fact that the island has made steady progress in line with U.S.-supported anti-terrorism standards. 

In 2012, for instance, Cuba joined the Financial Action Task Force of South America, an international organization which fights money laundering and terrorist financing. This year’s report excludes previous mentions of non-compliance with the task force. As Café Fuerte points out, this appears to be in recognition of an anti-terrorism law passed in late 2013.

And while it is true that a number of individuals wanted in the U.S. continue to enjoy asylum on the island, in recent years the government has turned over several would- be fugitives. In 2006, the State Department even acknowledged that Cuba had provided assurances that it would not accept any more of these, whether or not their crimes were considered “political.”

In response to its designation, the Cuban government has expressed indignation. As Reuters reports, the country’s Foreign Ministry characterized the list as “spurious” and “arbitrary.” Considering all the evidence against its inclusion as a state sponsor of terrorism, it is hard to disagree.

News Briefs

• After repeatedly delaying the publication of the regulatory details of the country’s landmark marijuana law, the government of Uruguay is poised to finally release them today. Citing a source in the presidency, Subrayado reports that President Jose Mujica will hold a press conference later today to announce the law's specifics.

• Guatemalan President Otto Perez Molina appears to be weighing his choices for the country’s next attorney general. The president has announced that he will hold a 45-minute interview with each of the six candidates today, and intends to make his selection either before or after a scheduled trip to the UK next Tuesday. Because he has postponed the trip for the interviewing process, Perez Molina has also raised the potential of cancelling the visit altogether. Meanwhile, Prensa Libre outlines seven challenges that the country’s next top prosecutor could face, and El Periodico highlights commentary by various analysts who suggest improvements to the work of outgoing Attorney General Claudia Paz y Paz.

• Ahead of Sunday’s presidential elections in Panama, Reuters has a useful roundup of the positions and alliances of the three main candidates. Polls suggest Jose Domingo Arias of the ruling Democratic Change (CD) party, whose VP pick is President Ricardo Martinelli's wife, is nearly tied with Juan Carlos Navarro of the Democratic Revolutionary Party (PRD). Both Navarro and the third-place candidate, current Vice President Juan Carlos Varela, have run on platforms to be more transparent than Martinelli, who is accused of seeking to maintain a grip on power after leaving office.

• Bolivia’s Supreme Electoral Council has set a fixed date for the country’s upcoming presidential elections. La Razon reports that the vote, in which President Evo Morales will be seeking re-election, will be held on October 12.

• Foreign Policy’s Angel Ricardo Martinez looks at the combination of crime, scarcity and inflation in Venezuela, factors which he claims are being “pushed aside” by an overwhelming focus on the human rights situation in the country. He goes on to focus on the government’s long-standing fuel subsidies as a primary example of the economic mismanagement which has contributed to the recent wave of protests.  

• In a recent article in Foreign Affairs, Cynthia Arnson and Carlos de la Torre offer a comparative look at the ALBA bloc governments to the region’s populist leaders of the 1930s and 1940s, noting key differences in their discourse. The two also weigh the benefits of this updated version of populism -- like ethnic inclusion and reduced poverty -- against its primary drawbacks: a general deterioration of independent civil society and liberal democratic norms.

• InSight Crime has a new investigation on the armed “self-defense” militia groups in Mexico’s Michoacan state. In it, authors Steven Dudley and Dudely Althaus note that the emergence of these groups highlights a weak state presence in crime-ridden rural areas, and comes out of a longstanding tradition of volunteer community policing in southern Mexico. Ultimately, the two caution that the rise of militias may have led to the creation of new criminal actors that will complicate the security situation there in the long term.

• With opinion surveys suggesting that her lead ahead of Brazil’s general elections in October is narrowing, and that many of her base would rather have former president Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva (see this analysis on recent polls by The Economist) back in office, Folha reports that the president is weighing naming Lula as her official campaign coordinator.  Meanwhile, the Wall Street Journal notes that Rousseff announced an expansion of the popular “Bolsa Familia” program by 10 percent yesterday.

• Amid ongoing rural protests in Colombia, led by campesino groups which accuse President Juan Manuel Santos of not fulfilling promises made during similar protests last year, La Silla Vacia takes a look at the specific accords and assesses the government’s level of compliance with them.  In general, the news site notes there has been mixed progress on some issues, but that it has been held up by a lack of political will and bureaucratic delays.

• Earlier this week, Oscar-winning Mexican director Alfonso Cuaron received a wave of press for publishing a full-page ad in several newspapers in which he asked President Enrique Peña Nieto 10 questions about his oil reform proposal. Among the list were questions related to how foreign capital would be allowed to invest in Pemex, and how officials would contain corruption in the oil sector. As the L.A. Times reports, the president issued an in-depth response to the questions, which was presented publicly and provided further details about the president’s plan.  Animal Politico has the full, 13-page response from the administration.

Mexico Lawmakers Vote for Military Justice Reform

In a major step forward for human rights in Mexico, lawmakers in the country have passed a bill ending military jurisdiction over crimes committed by military personnel against civilians.

Following the Senate’s passage of the bill last week, Mexico’s lower house approved the reform to the military code of justice by a unanimous vote, according to Animal Politico.

The move comes after years of pressure from human rights organizations in the country, involving multiple claims against Mexico in the Inter-American human rights system. The most famous of these, Radilla Pacheco v. Mexico, resulted in a landmark 2009 Inter-American Court of Human Rights decision which ordered Mexican authorities to limit military jurisdiction over cases involving civilians.

In an analysis for El Universal, Javier Cruz Angulo Nobara of the CIDE research center notes that once the bill is signed by President Enrique Peña Nieto, it will effectively end an 80-year debate in the country over the limits of military authority. The paper also notes that in addition to limiting the armed forces’ jurisdiction to cases solely involving military personnel, the reform will rename various institutions within the military justice system.  The Judicial Military Police, for example, will be known as the Ministerial Military Police, to reflect its more internal and disciplinary role.

But while the law is seen by many as an “undeniable” victory for victims of military abuses, human rights advocates in Mexico caution that there is still much work to be done.  In a joint statement released yesterday, four of the country’s leading human rights organizations (Centro Prodh, Centro Tlachinollan, Fundar and the IMDHD) praised the bill while lamenting that the measure does not allow civilian oversight over human rights abuses committed by military personnel against their peers.

The groups also point out that that one of the main factors fueling military abuses is the government’s continued reliance on the armed forces for law enforcement purposes in the first place. “The human rights violations committed by members of the armed forces,” the statement reads, “can only be reversed when the prevailing militarization of public security is put to an end.”

More on the story from the L.A. Times, Reuters and the Associated Press.

 News Briefs

• In the first round of talks on normalizing relations, Cuban and European Union officials have reached an agreement on establishing a road map for further negotiations. Christian Leffler, the European Commission’s director for the Americas, told the AP that the two sides had hammered out "the general structure" for future discussions, but said they had not discussed the EU’s “Common Position” on the Cuba policy. Interestingly, Cuba’s support for Russia in the Ukraine crisis may have cast a shadow over the EU-Cuba talks, as Reuters reports.

• Ecuadorean President Rafael Correa has backed away from his previous support for a referendum on his decision to allow oil drilling in the Yasuni National Park, telling reporters that the matter had become “too politicized,” according Diario Hoy. The announcement comes after the campaign against drilling presented electoral authorities with the necessary signatures to trigger a popular vote on the measure, and amidst allegations that officials are tampering with signature records.

• In time for International Workers' Day, Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro has announced a 30 percent increase in his country’s minimum wage, El Nacional reports. Critics of the measure note that this is below the level of annual inflation, which was 56 percent for 2013. And as BBC Mundo points out, many Venezuelan workers on minimum wage say ongoing inflation is making it increasingly difficult to make ends meet.

• The US-based Freedom House has released its annual report on freedom of the press. Worldwide, the organization claims press freedom had fallen to its lowest level for over a decade, and its assessment of the state of media in the region is equally grim. As the AP reports, Freedom House classifies just two states in Latin America  -- Uruguay and Costa Rica -- as having “free” press. This excludes Belize and the Caribbean nations of Jamaica and Trinidad & Tobago, which joined the U.S. and Canada as free press bastions in the Americas.

• Yesterday, El Salvador’s Attorney General charged former President Francisco Flores with corruption and embezzlement, making him the first ex-president in the country to be issued a warrant for his arrest. The NYT and El Faro note that Flores is accused of embezzling “at least $5.3 million” in loans from Taiwan during his term, though La Prensa Grafica reports that this figure is much higher, at $15.3 million.

• After being denied a second term as Guatemala’s Attorney General, Claudia Paz y Paz gave a  short interview to El Periodico on the development, noting that she -- like many analysts -- was “surprised” that her name was not on the shortlist presented to President Otto Perez Molina.

• The Global Post’s Rights blog takes a look at the growth of mining operations in Guatemala, which has been accompanied by an alarming rise of violent attacks on indigenous communities in the country.

• A fugitive Argentine priest accused of direct participation in Dirty War disappearances, torture and kidnappings has turned himself into Interpol authorities in Paraguay, La Nacion reports. Aldo Omar Vara has been wanted since last year, and the AP notes that witnesses say he colluded with military officials by “psychologically torturing prisoners inside his office as well as their family members on the outside.” Citing his advanced age, a Paraguayan judge has ruled that he can remain in a retirement home in the country for now.

• Today marks the fourth day of rural protests in Colombia, echoing last year’s nationwide “agrarian strike” albeit on a smaller scale. Semana reports that the government and demonstrators have yet to come to an agreement, and according to El Tiempo talks have been suspended since yesterday afternoon.

• Rodrigo Uprimny, head of Bogota-based human rights center Dejusticia and former assistant judge of the Constitutional Court, has been selected as one of two Latin American representatives to the Committee on Social Economic and Cultural Rights. Uprimny’s strong record is good news for advocates of strengthening global recognition of ESC rights, and his rejection of the dominant global drug paradigm could bring a fresh perspective on the issue to the committee.