Week in Review

01/25/13
Sarah Kinosian
Latin America and the Caribbean
U.S. Policy, Security, Human Rights, Drug Trade, Politics and Security, Judicial Reform, Border Control

The following is a round-up of news highlights from around the region this week.

  • John Kerry, President Obama’s nominee for secretary of state, had his confirmation hearing Thursday. During the hearing he touched on issues concerning Latin America, particularly with regards to Mexico, Venezuela, and Colombia. According to Kerry, Colombia is “an example for the rest of Latin America of what awaits them if we can induce people to make a better set of choices, frankly.”

    Hillary Clinton also heralded Colombia this week, calling the country’s second-largest city a “model” for security when requesting that Congress allocate sufficient security funds to countries that experienced the “Arab Spring.” According to Clinton, the U.S. should “help these countries like it helped Colombia, where the advances are evident.” On his blog, Adam Isacson of the Washington Office on Latin America looks at Medellín’s security efforts in the past decade and warns, “there’s a lot in Medellín’s recent past that Arab democracies would do well not to emulate.”

  • Christopher Sabitini from the Americas Society/Council of the Americas published an opinion piece on Fox News Latino about what Latin America can expect from the next secretary of state. See here for a recent Just the Facts post on the topic.

There was a fair amount of official U.S. military travel to the region recently:

  • The U.S. Chief of Naval Operations Jonathan Greenert spent last week in Brazil "where he spoke with naval leadership, toured multiple navy and marine corps bases, and expanded maritime partnership opportunities," according to a U.S. Southern Command press release.
  • General John Kelly, commander of U.S. Southern Command, spent Tuesday and Wednesday in Peru meeting with President Ollanta Humala, Vice Minister of Defense Mario Sanchez, and Peruvian Chief of Defense Admiral Jose Cueto to discuss “shared security concerns and cooperation.”
  • U.S. Army South’s commanding general, Maj. Gen. Frederick S. Rudesheim, spent several days in Colombia to enhance security cooperation between the two armies and “strengthen personal relationships.”

Drug reform

  • The debate on drug legalization hit headlines this week as Guatemalan President Otto Pérez Molina, a lead champion of drug reform in the region, sparked discussion Wednesday at the World Economic Forum in Switzerland, as he had previously pledged to do. President Molina called for alternative, more science-based approaches to regulate drugs, saying, “Prohibition, this war on drugs, has seen cartels grow, and the results are not what we looked for.” Molina also claimed drug reform would cut violence in Guatemala in half. He was joined by liberal activist/philanthropist George Soros, who echoed Molina, noting, “incarceration is hugely expensive…, the cost of alternatives is smaller than the cost of incarceration.”
  • On Wednesday, Costa Rican President Laura Chinchilla, who also attended the World Economic Forum, told the Associated Press that Costa Rica, Mexico and Colombia have opened talks with U.S. officials to prepare for the legalization of marijuana in some U.S. states. On Thursday, President Juan Manuel Santos of Colombia told a diplomatic corps in Bogotá that Colombia "reaffirms its commitment to fight, as we have been fighting, with more costs but also with more effort and more results than any other country in the world against drug trafficking and its ramifications." However, he continued, noting that "that commitment and these results give us the moral stature to insist on the need to evaluate the effectiveness of the so-called 'War on Drugs' which started more than four decades ago and has not achieved its objectives."

Colombia

  • The Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) released three proposals for land redistribution and rural development this week, all of which can be found on the group's peace process blog. The proposals included alternatives to illicit crop production as well as the development of a national fund for land redistribution. This would give land appropriated by drug traffickers and armed groups to small farmers and marginalized groups, particularly women. According to news website Colombia Reports, “The government's lead negotiator, Humberto de la Calle, agreed that an 'overlap' existed between the two sides in their desires to "transform" the rural countryside, but said that "significant differences remain." Round three of the talks concluded Thursday, with no major advances reported, according to Reuters. They are set to start again on January 31 in Havana.
  • Colombian political analysis website La Silla Vacia examines the FARC’s proposal to legalize coca cultivation in the country and offers six reasons why it makes sense.
  • Colombian think-tank Nuevo Arco Iris posted an exclusive interview between the FARC’s supreme leader Timochenko and newspaper The Voz. It was the first time the leader has talked about the peace process since the talks began.
  • Colombia’s National Liberation Army, the country’s second largest rebel group, kidnapped five foreign mining employees in the Bolivar department on Tuesday, claiming they were “defending natural resources.” However, the move could be motivated by the Colombian government’s decision to exclude the ELN from the current peace talks, despite the rebels' demonstrated interest in participating. The group has made several indications they are interested in joining the process, including sending a delegation to Cuba that the government rebuffed.

    As reported in The Economist, "disgruntled that it has been excluded from the negotiations, which began in November, the ELN has launched a new campaign of attacks to establish its relevance." The day of the kidnapping, the group posted a video with its leader, Nicolás Rodríguez Bautista, asking, “Why aren’t we at the table? That’s a question for President Santos.”

  • The newspaper El Heraldo profiled the contentious security situation in the Bolivar department, where the kidnapping took place, saying the region was “in the middle of a war over gold and drugs.”
  • A Colombian poll showed that 40% of the country would reelect current President Juan Manuel Santos in 2014, which is 30.5% over his closest rival, Antonio Navarro Wolff, who would have 9.5% of the vote.

Honduras

  • Honduras still has the highest homicide rate in the world, according to the United Nations. The country hit a record year for murders in 2012 registering 7,172 killings, 68 more than were registered in 2011. The homicide rate of 85.5 per 100,000 in 2012 actually dropped from 86.5 in 2011 despite the increase in murders due to increases in population. As reported in newspaper La Prensa, there have been 20, 515 homicides in the past three years in the country.
  • Honduras continues to be in the middle of an extended institutional crisis. An article in Upside Down World this week provides a good analysis of the current situation in the country, noting that, "ever since the Honduran Congress flexed its muscles in June 2009, removing the president and demonstrating that the Supreme Court was its tool and not an independent branch of government, Honduras has been living with a legislature that appears to recognize no boundaries to its ambitions."

    A piece by Southern Pulse supported this, determining that “in 2013, Honduras is headed down the same road that led to the 2009 political crisis. Crime and inflation are up, foreign investment is down, the government’s finances are in disarray, and the president is talking about polling the Honduran people to see if they want constitutional changes that could jeopardize the 2013 general elections.”

    An Associated Press article published on Thursday titled,"Honduran government in chaos, can't pay its bills, neglects basic services," underscores the severity of the financial crisis facing the country. The article notes that the country's foreign debt -- $5 billion -- is equal to last year's entire government budget. "Soldiers aren't receiving their regular salaries, while the education secretary says 96 percent of schools close several days every week or month because of teacher strikes." But, as the piece highlights, "the financial problems add to a general sense that Honduras is a country in meltdown, as homicides soar, drug trafficking overruns cities and coasts and the nation’s highest court has been embattled in a constitutional fight with the Congress."

    As political analyst James Bosworth surmises, “The Honduran leadership is inventing its own rules rather than following the constitution, and that mindset is linked to the previous breakdown of the institutions in the 2009 constitutional crisis and coup.”

Mexico

  • Federal and state authorities launched a special operation in Mexico State this Friday in response to a sharp increase in violence in the region. Mexican news website Animal Político reports that in the past 24 days, 66 people have been murdered in Mexico State, which has remained relatively untouched by drug war related violence. January 14 has been the most violent day to date this month, with authorities finding 15 bodies in the towns of Toluca, Zinacantepec, Santiago Tianguistenco, Lerma y Ocuilan.

    According to Insight Crime, “Officials blame a war between the Familia Michoacana and an alliance formed by two breakaway groups: Caballeros Templarios, or Knights Templar, and a recently formed gang called Guerreros Unidos. Smaller cells of the Zetas may also be in the mix. ” The article provides excellent information and analysis on the dynamics between criminal organizations operating in the region.

  • The Miami Herald reports that locals in at least a dozen rural towns in Mexico have created self-defense vigilante groups to defend themselves against the drug cartels. As one rights activist stated, “the situation Mexico is experiencing, the crime, is what has given the communities the legitimacy to say, ‘We will assume the tasks that the government has not been able to fulfill.’"
  • In northern Mexico, 91 of the 158 police officers from the towns of Gómez Palacio and Lerdo who were detained over alleged links to criminal groups two weeks ago, have resigned, reported Mexican news website Animal Político. The military and Federal police are currently handling security in the area.
  • Mexico’s electoral commission decided not to fine the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) over allegations that the party bought votes in July to secure current president and PRI member Enrique Peña Nieto’s election into office.

Some reports on Mexico were released recently:

Guatemala

  • Earlier in January, Guatemala announced it would stop recognizing Inter-American Court of Human Rights rulings on cases of crimes against humanity and genocide that occurred before 1987, drawing much criticism from human rights organizations. Nonetheless, the trial against former dictator General Efraín Ríos Montt for crimes against humanity is still moving forward. Ríos Montt is accused of having directed the murder of thousands while ruling the country as de facto president from 1982-1983, during its civil war.
  • It was reported in early January that Guatemala’s murder rate dropped for the the third year in a row in 2012. However several reports about high levels of violence against women have come out as of late, including a short piece by Amnesty International and a longer article by the International Business Times. The IBT article includes an interview with the Inter-American Dialogue’s Central America program associate who reports, “a lot of the violence against women that occurred during the armed conflict is being repeated today.”

El Salvador

  • The second phase of El Salvador’s government-mediated gang truce began as the the first “peace zone” was inaugurated this week in a town called Ilopango, near the capital of San Salvador. According to the agreement, all gang members in the violence-free areas will not commit any crimes and will participate in gang prevention, reinsertion and job training programs. There are expected to be 18 peace zones in total, while four mayors have already confirmed their participation in the process. The next peace zone will be established in Santa Tecla on the 25th and another in Quezaltepeque on the 31st.

Nicaragua

  • Homicide rates in Nicaragua went down in 2012, with the government registering 675 violent deaths last year, 63 fewer than in 2011, which had a reported 738. That number represents an 8.5% decrease. There was also a reported 9% reduction in overall criminal activity.

Venezuela

  • Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez is still in Cuba and undergoing physical therapy treatment, as Bolivian President Evo Morales asserted in his state of the union speech Tuesday. Venezuela Vice President Nicholas Maduro traveled to Havana on Wednesday to visit President Chávez. Newly-appoint Foreign Minister Elias Jaua also traveled
    to Cuba this week and returned to Caracas on Thursday. In a call to state television, he said that during his visit with Chávez, the president "made decisions about the international agenda, the domestic agenda." He added that while "the president is in the process of recovery, the battle against the most complex and profound part of the sickness is coming." The Venezuelan government said Tuesday that there was no date planned for the president to return to Caracas.