The Week in Review Share This /

This week we learned that Brazil spent a lot of money on its military in 2013, that more drugs en route to the United States are going through the Caribbean, and that the U.S. can play a crucial role in ending 50 years of conflict in Colombia.

Also, welcome to the Latin America blog of Security Assistance Monitor! This week we made the transition from Just the Facts and appreciate you making the move with us. For more information about this site, please see here or email, sam@ciponline.org with any questions. We thank you for your patience and look forward to your feedback. 

• The Washington Office on Latin America published a highly recommended report by Adam Isacson on the Colombian peace talks, "Ending 50 Years of Conflict: The Challenges Ahead and the U.S. Role in Colombia." Isacson gives excellent context to the negotiations and recommendations for U.S. policies. He argued that the United States should increase its aid to Colombia back to its peak levels in the early 2000s, except this time investing in peace, not combat. The report reminds audiences, "If peace talks should fail, it will take many bloody years to defeat the FARC on the battlefield."
• Colombia's lead government negotiator, former Vice President Humberto de la Calle, published an op-ed in the Miami Herald on peace negotiations with the FARC guerrillas addressing "myths and realities" about the process. His piece reassured that "the Colombian people will be the ones who decide the course,” noting that any final agreement reached at the negotiating table would be put to a nationwide vote.

The op-ed seems to be part of a larger push by the government to promote the talks, as members of the Colombian government's peace negotiation team announced this week they will be going on a national tour of the country to campaign in favor of the talks and discuss gains made thus far during negotiations. The tour comes ahead of presidential elections, set to take place May 25.

• The head of the Caribbean division of the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA), Vito Salvatore Guarino, told Spain's El Pais that he estimated 90-100 tons of cocaine pass through the Caribbean per year, up from 70 tons in previous years. Vito also said that 16 percent of the total amount of cocaine destined for the United States now passes through the Caribbean, up from five percent of the total in 2011. U.S. officials have previously warned that as counternarcotics operations in Central America and Mexico have started to force some traffickers to shift their routes to the Caribbean. Just this week U.S. Southern Command interdicted 3,300 kilos of cocaine in the southwest Caribbean Sea.
• Several members of the U.S. congress released statements denouncing the Honduran government's failure to protect journalist Carlos Mejia Orellana, who worked for community radio station Radio Progreso, and who was killed last week. Honduras has one of the worst records of impunity in the region, and the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights has called for the government to protect Radio Progreso employees four times in the past five years. The members of Congress were also "troubled by news reports that the police had announced the murder was carried out by someone close to Sr. Mejia Orellana before any investigation had yet begun."
• Mexican Finance Minister Luis Videgaray said the U.S. must "share responsibility" in fighting violence and drug cartels in Mexico, telling CNBC, "Just as Mexico should fight these organizations and reduce supply, all the efforts that the U.S. can make to reduce demand and to make sure that the younger population in the U.S. does not go into drugs, that's first of all going to help the U.S. a lot..."
• Several Mexican and Central American human rights groups have produced a “Risk Map For the Central American Migrant,” that highlights areas with heightened levels of death, extortion, sexual exploitation and injuries along with markings indicating where there are deserts, migrant shelters and human rights organizations. The map shows that since 1996, the most migrants, by a large margin, have died crossing along the border with Arizona.  
• Several interesting articles on security in Brazil: "Security or Counterinsurgency in Rio favelas?" in Americas Quarterly, "Fear and Backsliding in Rio" by Robert Muggah and Ilona Szabó de Carvalho and "Murders soar in Brazil World Cup city during police strike" by Reuters, and "Uncertain Future for Evicted Telerj Residents" by Rio On Watch.
• The Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) released its annual World Military Expenditure Database, which found Brazil to be the only Latin American country in the world's top 15 for highest military spending.
• Also of note: Venezuela agreed to broaden membership in a 'truth commission' tasked with investigating those responsible for the 41 deaths that have taken place during weeks of political unrest; InSight Crime founder Steven Dudley's evaluation of the El Salvador gang truce; and a report which found that five out of the six "deadliest places in the world to be an environmentalist" are in Latin America.