After Protesters Enter La Paz, What Next for Evo Morales?

Bolivia protesters entered the national capital yesterday, raising questions over what their next move might be. Just six hours after marchers rallied in the city’s center, President Evo Morales invited protest leaders to sit down and negotiate. La Razon says he was promptly struck down for failing to meet their demands about how the meeting should be conducted. BBC estimates there are 1,000 marchers; local media have reported double that number.

The demonstrators are rallying against the proposed construction of a road through the TIPNIS national park and indigenous land. NACLA provides excellent context to the unrest, laying out the protesters’ demands: that the government should annul its contract with a Brazilian construction company and permanently cancel the project.

As the Associated Press highlights, the marches point to the internal divisions within Bolivia’s heterogeneous indigenous population. The article implies that the protests are now fueled, in part, by the perception that Morales is more keen on protecting the interests of Bolivia’s “highland” Indian groups rather than the “lowland” indigenous in the Amazon. According to the AP, the Aymara and the Quecha dominate in Morales’ government. This may be partly a reflection of population dynamics: an estimated 70 percent of Bolivia’s population lives in the “highlands,” even though the Amazonian basin makes up more than half of Bolivia’s total territory. The divisions between Bolivia’s “highland” and “lowland” cultures have long made up part of its national psyche, so it would make sense if these tendencies emerged again during this latest round of unrest.

The question is whether there is enough political pressure on Morales for him to cede to the protesters. As Bloggings by Boz pointed out at the time, this is at least the fourth time this year that the government has backed down and given in to protesters’ demands, following a hostile initial response. What was unusual about the TIPNIS protests was the level of hostility police used against marchers, and the political fallout which resulted, including the resignation of two government ministers.

It is possible that the government’s abuse towards the demonstrators may have influenced the outcome of Bolivia’s referendum last Sunday, concerning the election of judges: 45% of voters allegedly abstained. The AP described it as Morales’ first defeat at the polls during his six years as president. It is hard to say how much of the abstention had to do with unhappiness with details of the judicial vote, or how much of it was an overall expression of discontent with the government. What is clear is that if Morales was facing a “test” among voters, he did not come out strong. Foreign Affairs has more analysis on Morales’ uncertain future, arguing that the TIPNIS controversy is emblematic of how the president has “lost his way.”

Marchers say they are not leaving La Paz until the government calls off the TIPNIS project completely. In wake of the ongoing tensions within his support base, as well as the apparent reprimand delivered by voters on Sunday, Morales may have to give in.

News Briefs

• The LA Times highlights some new theories regarding the “paramilitary” group, the “Mata Zetas,” active in Veracruz state and apparently dedicated to harassing criminal gang the Zetas, with brutal results. Since the gang emerged after the government deployed new military forces to Veracruz in June, there is conjecture that the group is operating with indirect military support, possibly prompted by the June kidnapping and killing of three marine cadets.

• Student protests in Santiago, Chile, saw an estimated turnout of 25,000, thanks to support from teacher and trade unions, reports AFP. The BBC details that the demonstration started peacefully, then broke down after police moved in and students began throwing rocks, burning buses and erecting barricades. The AP quotes a student leader who says a fringe group is using the violent tactics, which is weakening the students’ position and strengthening the government’s argument that the protesters are a radical minority, impossible to negotiate with.

• IPS takes note of Argentina’s upcoming elections on Sunday, examining why the weakened opposition is expected to perform so pitifully against incumbent President Cristina Fernandez. As Reuters lays out, there are plenty of reasons why Fernandez’s economic policies, which emphasize social justice, are expected to result in an easy win. Wall Street Journal columnist Mary Anastasia O’Grady, meanwhile, argues that these “dysfunctional” politics are actually a loss for Argentina’s economy.

• A health expert told the Associated Press that Haiti now has the highest rate of cholera in the world, a year after the disease was introduced to the island. The country is preparing to test a new cholera vaccine, amid declarations by medical officials that the epidemic is still going strong.

• The Center for Strategic and International Studies published a report on the resurgence of Mexico’s PRI party and the implications for the 2012 presidential elections. The reports argues that evern since winning a Congressional majority in 2009, the PRI has managed to “prepare a path towards electoral victory” by pushing federal funds towards the areas and programs most needed to attract voters.

• In WOLA’s most recent podcast, Senior Associate Adam Isacson speaks with Josiah Heyman, a professor at the University of Texas at El Paso, about U.S. border policy and the impact on El Paso communities. For another look at border issues, a brief documentary by SnagFilms examines a Mexican town where residents have created a theme-park event: a simulated border crossing where participants must enlist “coyotes” to their aid, and try avoid the actors playing the Border Patrol.

• InSight Crime details the saga of a 50-year family feud in northeast Brazil, thought to behind 95 homicides so far this year in one of Brazil’s most violent states. The conflict draws attention to the insecurity and contraband trade so prevalent in rural Brazil, even as the government has tried to promote its efforts to reduce crime in urban centers.

• The Dominican Republic will deport thousands of illegal migrants, many of them Haitian, under the terms of a new law, reports the AP. In counterpoint, the Miami Herald has a feature on how Dominican baseball players, attempting to migrate to play in the U.S., successfully forge their paperwork in order to win contracts with U.S. teams.

Latinos Disproportionately Hit, as US Government Announces Record-High Deportations

U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) announced that that deportations reached a record high in fiscal year 2011, with almost 400,000 people deported. The agency said that some 55 percent of these had criminal convictions, with 1,000 having been convicted of murder, 5,800 of sexual offences, and 80,000 of drink-driving or drug crimes.

The New York Times reports on a University of California, Berkeley, law school reporton the Secure Communities scheme, which relies on data-sharing to check any fingerprints taken by police against records of immigration violations. More than 226,000 people have been arrested through this program, which was launched in 2008, and the report says that programs like this are responsible in large part for the surge in deportations, which have increased four-fold since 1996.

The report found that 93 percent of those arrested under the program were Latinos -- a disproportionately large amount, given that this group makes up 77 percent of undocumented individuals in the U.S. In addition, it points out that more than a third of those arrested under Secure Communities said they had a child or spouse who was a U.S. citizen, meaning that the scheme is having a significant impact on Latino families with members who are U.S. citizens. A major criticism put forward by the report is that the program:

has led to the mass deportation of low-level offenders, such as people who violate traffic laws and people without criminal histories at all.

The Wall Street Journal notes that there was no information available on how many of the deported who had criminal convictions had been found guilty only of previous violations of migration law. According to ICE, some two-thirds of those deported in the 2011 financial year were either repeat border-crossers, or were detained soon after crossing the border. It seems likely, then, that many of the criminal records referred to by the government are simply convictions for previous attempts to cross the border. As Mike at Central American Politics comments: 

I'm guessing that since [the ICE] didn't have the answer to such a basic and predictable question, most of the remaining deportees were simply people desperate enough to get to the U.S. a second or third time.

The NYT reported earlier this month on the changing profile of those crossing the U.S. border from Mexico, saying that despite the decline in border crossers, deterred by the faltering U.S. economy, or the risks from Mexican criminal gangs in the region, there is a hard core of migrants who are determined to get to the U.S. despite having been deported previously:

Migrant shelters along the Mexican border are filled not with newcomers looking for a better life, but with seasoned crossers: older men and women, often deportees, braving ever-greater risks to get back to their families in the United States — the country they consider home.

More from the Washington Post, LA Times.


News Briefs

• Reuters reports on the oil boom in Colombia, where production has hit a record 950,000 barrels per day, driven by the improving security situation. It is set to grow to 1.1 million bpd by the end of 2012, with the biggest finds in the short term expected in the provinces of Meta and Vichada, to the center and east of the country -- both regions with significant activity from the FARC rebel group.

• Jamaican Prime Minister Bruce Golding announces that he will be replaced by current Education Minister Andrew Holness when he steps down on Sunday,reports the Miami Herald. The Associated Press reports that Holness had been the expected choice to take over from Golding, since the PM announced his resignation in September, though the hand-over comes a month earlier than expected. The move followed the Golding government’s damaging attempts to resist the extradition of drug lord “Dudus” Coke to the U.S., resulting in clashes that killed over 70 people in Kingston. His resignation has been widely interpreted as an attempt to give his Labour Party a chance to bounce back from the scandal in time for the coming general elections, due to be held by December 2012.

• NPR has a report on Mexico’s attempts to attract tourists to the country, despite the bad press from high levels of drug violence. Despite the daily reports of “severed human heads, shootouts, kidnappings or extortion,” this year has seen a rebound in the number of visitors, which is reaching almost record levels. Despite growing homicide rates caused by clashes between cartels for control of tourist areas like Acapulco, much of Mexico’s territory remains relatively untouched by the violence, with most of the killing taking place in hotspots like the northern border region. One such danger zone is the Gulf state of Veracruz, which is important drug gang territory because of the capital city’s position as a major port on the Caribbean coast. There have been a string of deadly incidents in recent weeks, and on Tuesday, as the Associated Press reports, the authorities announced the dismissal of some 1,000 state police officers as part of efforts to purge the force of corrupt elements.

• Reporters without Borders warns of police repression of grass-roots reporting in some of Rio de Janeiro’s favelas, where special police “pacifying” forces known as UPPs have been sent to root out drug gangs. In the Complexo do Alemão district, where security forces have clashed with civilians and gangs in recent weeks, reporters were reportedly ordered to stop filming by soldiers, leading Reporters without Borders to ask whether these zones are in a state of emergency where normal rights have been suspended.

• In more bad news for press freedom in the Americas, Venezuelan authorities have hit TV station Globovision with a fine of more than $2 million for its coverage of a 27-day stand-off at the Rodeo Prison in June. The regulator said the station's reporting advocated crime, encouraged public disorder, and incited hatred. The Washington Post describes Globovision as “the country’s only remaining channel that takes a staunch anti-Chavez stance,” and quoted station owner Guillermo Zuloaga as saying the move was “one more attack by a government that has only fear of freedom of expression.”

• Meanwhile Leopoldo Lopez, a favorite to win the opposition nomination for Venezuela’s 2012 presidential elections, has declared that he will stand for the nomination despite the Supreme Court’s latest move to block him from holding office, reports the Miami Herald.

• Colombian security forces reported the find of another “narco-submarine,” a vessel designed to transport illegal drugs under the surface of the ocean. The vessel was seized in Cordoba, a province on the country’s Caribbean coast, which is unusual as most other narco-subs have been found close to the Pacific ocean. The authorities said it likely belonged to the Urabeños drug gang, a new-generation paramilitary group which is powerful in the coastal region.

• Also on the Colombian drug trade, an article in La Silla Vacia points out that, even as the country gradually disentangles its economy from the drug trade, there are warnings that at least 150 of the country’s more than 1,000 municipalities could elect criminal representatives in the upcoming local elections. The website says the parallel processes of the “de-narcotization” of the economy and the “narcotization” of politics could be explained by the fact that the mafias now need to wash their dirty profits, and “the best way to do this is through public administration. That’s why they need to become governors, mayors, and councilors.”

• Haiti’s new Prime Minister Garry Conille, a former aide to ex-U.S. President Bill Clinton, was sworn into office, five months after President Michael Martelly took office, the Miami Herald reports.

• Protesters in Peru have lifted a blockade of Yanacocha gold mine, the biggest in Latin America, reports the Associated Press. Locals are protesting against plans to drain natural lakes in the area and build artificial ones, saying it would harm cattle farmers.

Semana: Colombia Intelligence Agents Trained Paramilitaries to Make Bombs

Not only did Colombian intelligence agency the DAS illegally wiretap dozens of President Alvaro Uribe’s political opponents and sell intelligence to drug traffickers, but rogue agents may have also trained paramilitaries in explosives and helped orchestrate a car bomb targeting a prominent politician.

The weekend edition of Colombian newsweekly Semana, which recently gained access to thousands of the DAS’s top secret intelligence documents, examines another series of damning revelations from the database. Primarily relying on records of polygraph tests ministered by DAS agents, as well as other intelligence memos, Semana traces the DAS’s involvement in three cases involving criminal abuse of power.

The first involves at least one DAS anti-explosives expert training dozens of paramilitaries in using and making bombs, while the government carried out peace negotiations with the United Self-Defense Forces of Colombia (AUC). The second case suggests a DAS agent may have supplied the explosives used in a car bomb deployed against current Minister of the Interior, German Vargas Lleras. And in the third case of misconduct, at least five DAS agents participated in an assassination attempt targeting alleged paramilitary warlord and “Emeralds Tsar” Victor Carranza in March 2010.

Many of these allegations have been public knowledge for some time. The DAS’s history of collaboration with the AUC -- which includes helping the paramilitary group traffic drugs and launder the proceeds, as well as sharing intelligence -- led to the agency being nicknamed the “three letter letter cartel” by AUC commanders, according to the organization’s former head of intelligence. The DAS is set to be officially dissolved on October 31 and replaced with a new intelligence agency, although it’s likely that many current employees -- if not the DAS's stained reputation -- will transfer over.

News Briefs

• Chile reinstated the national military draft, citing a shortage in the armed forces as a result of the mass student protests calling for education reform. Over 14,000 volunteers have apparently signed up so far this year, but the military said more than 11,000 more candidates are needed, because many do not actually end up serving in the military. Chile also faced a shortage in its military last year and instituted a draft, but given today’s tense political climate (and the fact that university students may be drafted), the move could fuel more discontent among protesters.

• Global Voices reports on another controversy in the making for President Piñera’s administration: Congress is attempting to pass a law criminalizing the occupation of public and privately owned buildings. Much like the government’s move to install a harsher penal code, which would subject demonstrators to more severe punishments under law, the proposed legislation will likely draw criticism that is intended primarily to deter the education reform movement.

• Venezuelan opposition candidate and former Caracas mayor Leopoldo Lopez might not legally be able to accept the office of president if he wins the election, thanks a ruling by the Supreme Court, reports the Associated Press. The Inter-American Court of Human Rights ruled recently that Lopez could run for office, negating several measures by Venezuela’s top anti-corruption official which barred him from holding public office. Venezuela’s Supreme Court upheld the ruling, but the Court’s president hinted that Lopez may face more legal trouble ahead if he indeed runs for and wins the presidency.

• Mexican authorities, including President Felipe Calderon, said yesterday that the 61 people reportedly kidnapped by criminal gang the Zetas were migrants. This weekend the army rescued the hostages -- 60 Mexicans and one Honduran -- from a safe house in border city Piedras Negras. Authorities arrested three men whom the Mexican Attorney General’s Office say they will charge with kidnapping. The men reportedly approached the migrants at a bus station and said they would help them cross the border, for fees ranging between $600 to $3,000, then forced the hostages to work for the Zetas. The army has rescued 523 people so far this year kidnapped by criminal gangs, then forced to work for them. This appears to suggest groups like the Zetas could be facing a shortage of willing recruits in states like Coahuila, more of a stronghold for their rivals the Gulf Cartel. In the past the Zetas have targeted migrants after human smugglers failed to pay the “piso,” or tax, in exchange for moving people through the gang’s territory.

• Iran said authorities would investigate U.S. charges that the Quds Force plotted to kill a D.C. ambassador, in collaboration with a liaison thought to represent Mexican gang the Zetas, but who was in fact a U.S. informant. Time magazine has some more analysis on the affair, noting that one of the strangest aspects of the case is that the DEA readily ceded the case to the FBI, unusual for an agency usually so protective of its informants.

• Tim’s El Salvador Blog summarizes the effects of the record rainy season felt this year in the Central American nation, and the government’s struggle to respond. The Latin American Herald Tribune reports on the effects of floods and mudslides across the region, which has left at least 84 people dead and could yet leave hundreds more homeless. From South America, Semana examines the price of another heavy rainy season in Colombia.

• BBC reports on a corruption scandal developing in Brazil, first broken by national magazine Veja. The magazine tracks the alleged embezzlement of millions of dollars Sports Minister Orlando Silva, the latest cabinet official to face allegations of misconduct. Four have resigned or were fired from their posts since June.

• Puerto Rico may be on track to register over 1,000 homicides this year, following 2010, the island’s second most violent year on record since 1994. Violent crime has risen in Puerto Rico, believed to be a product of local involvement in the drug trade and police incompetence.

• Finally, the Washington Post highlights the arrival of Google Maps to an Amazonian village in Brazil.

Hugo Chavez Has Less than Two Years to Live: Doctor

Venezuela’s Hugo Chavez has a life expectancy of less than two years, according to a doctor who reportedly treated the president on a number of occasions in the past, and treats his family. In an interview with Mexico’s Milenio Semanal magazine, surgeon Salvador Navarrete Aulestia said that Chavez is suffering from an highly aggressive tumor located in the pelvic region, which is not prostate cancer as some have speculated. According to the Navarrete, this explains Chavez’s decision to move the elections forward to October 2012 from the expected date of December.

The interview appears to be one of the most credible of recent reports on the health of the ailing president, with a named source giving a detailed assessment of Chavez’s condition, which he claims to be doing in the interests of the public. However, Navarrete does not personally treat Chavez, and seemingly has not done so since soon after the 2002 coup attempt, when he says that the president switched to a team of Cuban doctors. His diagnosis seems to have been pieced together through details gleaned from Chavez’s family, his assessment of publicly available information, and the opinion of other Venezuelan doctors who have treated Chavez in the past.

Navarrete states that Chavez underwent dialysis on between September 25 and 26 because his kidneys were having problems processing his medication, and that a dialysis machine was taken to the Miraflores presidential palace. This appears to support reports in Miami-based newspaper El Nuevo Herald on September 29, which said that the president had been admitted to hospital with kidney failure, something which was strongly denied by the government.

We think that the prognosis of President Chavez is not good. And when I say that the prognosis is not good, it means that his life expectancy could be up to two years.

[...]

The information I have from the family is that he has a sarcoma, a highly agressive tumor with a very poor prognosis, and I am almost sure that this is the reality.

The doctor also discusses Chavez’s struggle with manic depression, and says that he only sleeps for three or four hours a day. He says that those who have treated Chavez agree that you can’t say anything to the president about his health, as he doesn’t listen to anyone. 

The socalist leader left for Cuba on Sunday, in a trip, announced last week, to undergo further health tests. He said that he hoped to return with “good news for the country,” and that he expected the tests would confirm there were no more malignant cells in his body.

Business Week asks whether there can be “Chavismo without Chavez.” It looks at likely successors to the president, including Foreign Minister Nicholas Maduro, and quotes one expert as saying that:

President Chavez sets the agenda not only for the government but also for the opposition. His death would lead to a vacuum of power, more political instability … and a political crisis.

News Briefs

• The New York Times examines Mexican President Felipe Calderon’s attempts to secure his legacy, with attempts to introduce legislation to ensure that the militarized strategy he has pursued against drug cartels will continue after his presidency ends in December 2012. The newspaper notes that the president does not claim he has made Mexico safer, with 40,000 dead in drug violence during his five years in power, but only that if he had not acted, it would have been more dangerous. In a discussion of what he could have done differently, Calderon told the paper that it would have been good to have done more, and earlier, to strengthen local and state police forces which suffer from corruption and incompetence. Excerpts from the interview here.

• The Washington Post looks at Texas Governor Rick Perry’s hardline approach to security on the Mexican border, where it says he has deployed a “small army” in a “secretive, military-style campaign,” spending $400 million since 2008 on “Operation Border Star.” The newspaper describes the border policy of the Republican presidential hopeful as being characterized by “a lot of swagger, with mixed results.” As noted in Thursday’s post, Perry has offered strong words on border security, suggesting he would support the idea of sending U.S. troops into Mexico.

• The UN has voted to reduce the number of peacekeepers in Haiti, cutting the force by 2,750 down to around 10,600, back to the number present before the January 2010 earthquake, and to extend the mandate by another year. The force has faced criticism following a cholera outbreak blamed on Nepalese troops, and the alleged rape of a young man by Uruguayan troops. Meanwhile, the Washington Post published an editorial arguing against new President Michael Martelly’s plans to rebuild the national army, which was dismantled in 1995 after the end of the military regime, amid accusations of abuses against civilians, and involvement in drug trafficking.

• Colombian newspaper El Tiempo reported that four former members of that country’s Special Forces have allegedly been training the Zetas drug gang, based in Mexico. In other news on the group, which is perhaps the country’s most violent trafficking organization, Mexico’s army rescued 61 people who were reportedly being held captive and forced to work for the Zetas in the border state of Coahuila.

• Bolivian President Evo Morales has suffered another setback, with more than 60 percent of voters reportedly turning in invalid voting papers in an election for judicial officials. The vote, held Sunday, came days after police used heavy-handed tactics against indigenous protesters marching against the construction of a road through an Amazon reserve, sparking outrage amongst many Bolivians. Reuters explained before the election that the vote was “crucial” to the president, and is being seen as a referendum on his leadership. 

• The Wall Street Journal’s Mary Anastasia O’Grady criticizes the leadership of Argentina’s Kirchners, arguing that since they came to power in 2003, their efforts in the name of social justice have made the country poorer, less equal, and more unjust. President Cristina Kirchner, widow of former President Nestor, is likely to win another term, looking set to triumph in the first round of elections on October 23.

• Laura Pollan, leader of the Cuban Ladies in White protest movement, has died at the age of 63. She co-founded the group in 2003 with the wives and relatives of political prisoners who, like her husband, had been jailed for criticizing the regime. The women began to carry out silent marches through the streets of Havana every Sunday after mass, dressed all in white. On Sunday, to commemorate Pollan’s death, the group reportedly allowed men to march alongside them for the first time. More from the Washington Post, NYT, Miami Herald.

• In more news on Chavez’s Venezuela, the Wall Street Journal reports on that country’s diaspora, which it says is booming due to a stuttering economy and soaring levels of violent crime. The number of Venezuelan nationals in the U.S. more than doubled between 2000 and 2010, to 215,000, while the number in Spain rose five-fold. According to the WSJ, some are now thinking of returning, as the chance of Chavez leaving power next year has begun to look more likely. However, the newspaper does not blame the situation entirely on the current leader, dating the beginning of the exodus to the economic crisis of 1983.

• Colombian weekly Semana reports that 1,000 people were set to march in Bogota last week to demand justice for dead and disappeared members of the Patriotic Union political party. The leftist party, founded as part of peace negotiations with the FARC rebel group in the 1980s, suffered a wave of attacks that claimed the lives of hundreds of its members, from Congress representatives to local activists.

• The LA Times has praise for Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff, who it says has managed to fill the shoes of immensely popular predecessor “Lula” Da Silva. The report notes her handling of a series of corruption scandals, in which she lost several ministers amid allegations of misconduct, her deft foreign policy, and the continuing economic boom which is lifting many people out of poverty in that country.

The Uruguay-Argentina War That Never Was

In a surprise statement this week, former Uruguayan President Tabare Vazquez announced he considered starting a war with neighboring Argentina while in office. Vazquez claims to have weighed the decision in response to a dispute between the two countries over a pulp mill that Uruguay had constructed on the Uruguay River border in 2007, and which Argentina claimed was polluting the waterway. From the BBC:

“The pulp mill row strained ties between Argentina and Uruguay for several years, and there were frequent demonstrations on the bridge linking the two countries. 

Speaking in public on Tuesday, Mr Vasquez [sic] said he had considered going to war over the issue and had even asked then US President George W Bush for support.”

The revelation was met with heavy criticism both domestically and in Argentina, and the current presidents of both countries have agreed to ignore the statement. According to MercoPress, Vazquez’s statement was meant as a blow to Argentine President Cristina Fernandez, who is seeking re-election this year. The news agency alleges that Vazquez has close ties to Fernandez’s distant rival, Socialist Perty candidate Hermes Binner, and that the announcement was likely an attempt to portray her as weak.

Vazquez, meanwhile, has announced his resignation from politics in the country in order to avoid damaging his political party, the Frente Amplio. The announcement comes as a major upset for the Frente, as Vazquez was considered the party’s likely candidate in the 2014 elections.

News Briefs

·         The latest issue of the Economist has been published, with two articles on security in the region. The first takes a look at the work of the International Commission Against Impunity in Guatemala (CICIG) over the past four years, with a focus on whether the project’s successes can be duplicated elsewhere in Central America. The second is a critical analysis of the UN peacekeeping forces in Haiti, and on the need for troop withdrawal to be accompanied by meaningful police reform in the country.

·         InSight Crime reports on the capture of a high-ranking Zetas leader in Saltillo, Coahuila. While rumors emerged yesterday that the individual arrested was Zetas kingpin Miguel Treviño, alias “Z-40,” these proved to be false.  According to InSight’s Patrick Corcoran, the arrest of Carlos Oliva Castillo is “part of a series of heavy blows to the Zetas.” Oliva was the alleged mastermind of the firebomb attack on a Monterrey casino in late August that killed 52.

·         On the topic of Mexican casinos, the Wall Street Journal reports on a growing casino scandal that is threatening President Felipe Calderon’s conservative PAN party. Just days after the Monterrey fire, a video emerged of the city’s PAN mayor receiving large sums of cash at a local casino, suggesting that that the establishment lacked a legal permit and was paying off officials to operate.

·         The L.A. Times profiles the security push in Mexico as the Pan American Games kick off this month in Guadalajara. According to the paper, the athletes will be guarded by “unmanned drones, infrared-equipped Black Hawk helicopters, hundreds of surveillance cameras and more than 11,000 police officers.”

·         Argentinean authorities claim to have been briefed about the supposed Iran-Zetas plot to kill the Saudi ambassador in the U.S. According to Reuters, this is due to the history of Iran-linked attacks on the country’s large Jewish population.

·         Guatemalan prosecutors have declared ex-president Oscar Mejia a “fugitive from justice” a day after a warrant for his arrest was issued on charges of war crimes and crimes against humanity. As the AFP notes, Mejia came to power after a military coup in 1983, and presided over one of the most bloody periods of the Guatemalan civil war.

·         AP reports on the second-ever Guatemalan army general to be arrested for alleged human rights abuses committed during the country’s brutal civil war. General Mauricio Rodriguez was detained yesterday, and charged with abuses during his tenure as the head of the country’s military intelligence force from 1982 and 1983. The first arrested general, Hector Mario Lopez Fuentes, is awaiting trial on genocide charges.

·         Bolivia is holding its first-ever national judicial elections this Sunday, in which voters will go to the polls to elect the 28 national judges that serve in the country’s four high courts. The elections were a pillar of the new 2009 constitution, and are seen as an opportunity to reverse a justice system that has historically favored the interests of rich white elites over the indigenous majority. Reuters offers a nice overview of the elections, with an outline of the procedure and its importance to the administration of President Evo Morales.

·         WOLA’s Geoff Thale has an interesting analysis of what the U.S. presidential elections could mean for U.S.-Cuba relations. Unfortunately, neither President Obama nor Republican frontrunner Mitt Romney has recognized the changing trends on the island. 

D.C. Examines Drug Cartel-Terrorism Links

Testimony heard yesterday in two hearings within the U.S. House Committee on Foreign Affairs was shadowed by Tuesday’s revealing of the alleged "Iran-Zetas" plot. One hearing, “The International Exploitation of Drug Wars and What We Can Do About It,” heard testimony from four interest parties, including the former Chief of Operations for the DEA, who cited the "Iran-Zetas" sting as reason to increase funding for the DEA’s confidential informant program. The DEA’s use of an informant, posing as a member of the Zetas cartel, is what allowed authorities to unravel the alleged Iranian plot to assassinate the Saudi Arabia ambassador in the U.S.

A common thread throughout the hearings was the growing links between Middle Eastern terrorist cells with West African criminal groups, in the interests of the drug trade, and how their relationship could potentially deepen with the Latin America-based crime organizations. Analyst Douglas Farah argued that the relationship between terrorism and the drug trade are “morphing into something new:”

The ideological boundaries and operational constraints that kept many groups from working together during the Cold War have largely been eclipsed, and there is a consistent blurring or erasing of the lines that once separated organized crime (for profit enterprises) from terrorist (political/theological goals) groups. The reasons are multiple, and are magnified and empowered by what the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) has accurately identified as a crucial element in the logistical structure of both groups: the emergence of a small group of “super fixers” -- those able to provide specific, unique services to multiple groups regardless of ideology, motivation or location.

Farah said that identifying and arresting these “super fixers” should guide the U.S. approach toward addressing the “criminal-terrorist” threat. In terms of policy recommendations, some analysts recommended investing more law enforcement resources in West Africa, others argued that the U.S. is losing focus on the threats growing in “backyard” territory: Central and South America. Farah’s testimony in particular described the relationship between Venezuela, Ecuador, Bolivia and Iran as especially dangerous to U.S. and global security interests.

Meanwhile, Vanda Felbab-Brown of the Brookings Institution emphasized the need of the U.S. to be strategic when prioritizing the most important criminal and terrorist threats. This would have little to do with geography, and more to do with identifying “those with the greatest links or potential links to international terrorist groups with global reach.” The question now is whether, in hindsight of the "Iran-Zetas" affair, U.S. policy makers will begin considering Mexican groups as more disruptive and dangerous to global and U.S. security than they arguably are. Yesterday's testimony certainly implied that there are parties willing to make this case.

News Briefs

• Analysis on the alleged Iranian-Mexico plot from the Miami Herald, InSight Crime, Plato O Plomo and Bloggings by Boz emphasize the unlikeliness that Mexican cartels should be interested in carrying out such an attack on U.S. soil, and ask whether this means the U.S. will begin exaggerating the threat of collaboration between Mexican criminal groups and Middle Eastern terrorist cells. The essential argument is that Mexican cartels would not be willing to court U.S. wrath by engaging in such terrorist strikes, which would increase their visibility and only end up hurting their drug sales to the U.S.

• The U.S.-Colombia Free Trade Agreement (FTA) was approved by Congress yesterday, with 262 favorable votes in the House of Representatives, and 66 votes in favor in the Senate. The Miami Herald examines what the repercussions of the agreement hold for Colombia’s farmers, while the LA Times focuses on what the bipartisan passage of the treaty means for D.C. politics, a similar angle taken by Time. For helpful context, Dinero has a timeline tracking the bill’s long and difficult journey through U.S. Congress, as well as an extensive briefing on what the FTA actually implies for the Colombian economy. For coverage more focused on what the FTA’s passage means for Colombia, La Silla Vacia lists three reasons why President Santos was able to achieve what President Alvaro Uribe could not, and three reasons why the FTA may return to haunt him politically.

• Colombia media is stepping up their coverage of neo-paramilitary violence and displacement, in anticipation of the October 30 municipal elections. La Silla Vacia reports from the Pacific coast departments, whileVerdad Abierta details the difficult return of displaced families to a former hub of paramilitarism, the Western Antioquia region.

• Henrique Capriles, current governor of Miranda state and pegged as a strong potential rival to President Hugo Chavez, has officially launched his presidential campaign in Venezuela. The campaign is likely to present Capriles as preferring a soft-spoken style, conciliatory style; the governor is also likely to continue courting comparisons former Brazilian President “Lula,” in order to present himself as a significant change from the current Venezuelan head of state.

• After Haiti’s new president had a sit-down with ex-dictator “Baby Doc” on Wednesday, allegedly in the name of “political reconciliation,” the AP examines the implications of these links between the new and old regimes.

• Colombian students protested yesterday against proposed reforms to the university system, expressing many of the same concerns previously seen in Chile. Colombia Reports takes note of the demonstrations which took place in the country’s three major cities; Bogota saw the largest turnout with 30,000 protesters, as well as a few reported incidents of violence.

• A group of human right activists and journalists will reportedly try to press charges against Mexican President Felipe Calderon in the International Criminal Court. The effort appears to be a symbolic one, meant to draw attention to government abuse brought about by Calderon’s militarized, anti-crime strategy, the activists said.

• The Knight Center for Journalism in the Americas highlights a report released in late September on the persecution of the Ecuadorean press after last year’s political crisis, in which President Rafael Correa clashed violently with police protesters. Since the events of September 30, 2010, there have been 211 “aggressions” against journalists, the report says. The study was released by Fundamedios, an NGO that focuses on press freedom in the Andean region.

• Finally, Reuters uses the story of Brazil’s biggest-ever bank heist to report on the country’s growing private security sector.