Week in Review Share This /

This week the U.S. Southern Command gave Guatemala more vehicles to boost security efforts on its border with Honduras,  the UN reported that Peru grew less coca in 2013, and the U.S. Congress debated what to do about the influx of Central American minors at the southwest border. Read these stories and other highlights below. 

•  U.S. Southern Command is set to donate non-armored J8 military jeeps to Guatemala’s Joint Task Force Chortí, stationed along the country’s border with Honduras, Prensa Libre reported. The U.S. has already donated several armored versions of the vehicle to Joint Task Force Tecún Umán set up along Guatemala’s border with Mexico, but according to the country’s defense minister, their maintenance is ‘complicated.’
•  U.S. Southern Command head General John Kelly and Dominican Defense Minister Admiral Sigfrido Pared Perez visited military members from both countries participating in the humanitarian and civic assistance exercise, Beyond the Horizon 2014. The exercise augments medical assistance and construction projects on the island.
•  U.N. Special Reporter on extrajudicial killings, Christof Heyns, urged Mexico to halt the militarization of its fight against the cartels over continued human rights abuses. In a report presented this week, the U.N. recommended the country improve police training, create a national institute of forensics and pass a general law on the use of force, among other suggestions.
• Mexican President Enrique Peña Nieto expressed willingness to open up debate over legalizing marijuana in an interview with El País. Due to legalization measures in Colorado and Washington Peña Nieto said it would be nonsensical for his country to have “policies that differed from those of the ‘most important consumer market’ for Mexican drugs.”
• This week Jamaican lawmakers approved a bill to relax the country’s marijuana laws that would make possession of fewer than two ounces a petty offense and  would completely decriminalize the drug for religious, medical or scientific purposes.
•  International Crisis Group published a report outlining major steps that need to be taken to reduce violence at the Guatemala-Honduras border. The report calls for the United States, among others, to “provide funds, training and technical support to embattled border communities to help them prevent violence and strengthen local institutions.”
• The Honduran government has been up in arms over the United States’ alleged decision to block the country from repairing its F-5 fleet. The U.S. Embassy in Honduras denied any knowledge of the requested repairs or the country’s desire to contract out in order to make them.   
• The second round of Colombian elections will take place Sunday, with many predicting an extremely tight race. Former Finance Minister Oscar Ivan Zuluaga, who beat incumbent Juan Manuel Santos in the first round, has pulled slightly ahead in several polls, although President Santos has predicted he would win the vote “by at least eight points.” The most decisive issue in the election is the ongoing peace talks with the FARC, which Zuluaga has said he would continue but suspend for review and begin with conditions that many say the guerrillas would likely refuse, effectively ending the talks. Semana and La Silla Vacía both have helpful guides to the elections.
•  On Tuesday President Santos announced exploratory peace talks with the country’s second-largest rebel group, the National Liberation Army (ELN). Zuluaga criticized Santos for announcing the news just five days before the election and accused him of politicizing the peace process.
•  A report published by the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) Thursday found that coca cultivation in Peru dropped 17.5 percent last year -- from 60,400 in 20012 to 49,800 hectares in 2013. While many high coca-producing areas saw massive crop reductions due to forced eradication, alternative development initiatives and increased government presence in main trafficking areas, coca growth did not drop significantly in the Apurimac, Ene and Mantaro river valley, where more that half of the country’s cocaine is produced. 
• Law enforcement officers from Chile, Colombia, Ecuador, Panama, Uruguay and El Salvador celebrated their graduation from a six-week course at the International Law Enforcement Academy (ILEA) in San Salvador. Since 2005 a total of 6,510 participants from 32 countries in the region have been trained at ILEA San Salvador, is funded through the Central American Regional Security Initiative (CARSI). 
• On Wednesday, Republican Senators criticized Department of Homeland Security chief Jeh Johnson during a Judiciary Committee hearing addressing the recent surge in child migrants apprehended at the border. Many Republicans attribute the recent flood of minors crossing the border to a perception in the region that President Obama has eased policies for women and children, while administration officials say high levels of violence and poverty are the impetus. Many conservatives have tied this perception to misleading reporting by Central American newspapers, which the Huffington Post discredited in a study published Friday. Johnson said he was in discussions with Guatemala, El Salvador, Honduras and Mexico about border security strategies. See our Central America news page for links to more articles on this issue.
• One of Venezuela’s top human rights organizations, PROVEA, issued its 2013 report on human rights abuses, citing judicial independence and freedom of the press as the country’s two biggest areas of concern. Earlier in the week, PROVEA and eight other human rights organizations published a report on security force abuse during the country’s widespread protests.