The News Roundup is a regular feature of the blog where we select news articles from various sources around the web, with the goal of providing an overview of the weekly conversation about the countries where MCC works in the region. Quotes in italics are drawn directly from sources and do not necessarily reflect the position of MCC.
Did anyone hear about a Refugee Summit?
On Monday the UN Summit for Refugees and Migrants was hosted by Ireland and Jordan.Despite arrangements being somewhat last minute, it did attract a certain number of high profile attendees with 50 states and organisations represented. Tuesday saw US President Barak Obama convene the Leaders Summit on Refugees in New York. The UN High Commissioner for Refugees, Filippo Grandi, welcomed the new declaration signed at the Summit saying: “UNHCR is hugely encouraged to see the strong political commitments in the New York Declaration made immediately tangible through the new, concrete actions announced by governments today”. Others in the sector weren’t so impressed…
A tale of two summits for Central American refugees
Alan Keller, director of the Bellevue/New York University Programme for Survivors of Torture, has documented refugees’ experiences of torture and war crimes from Cambodia to Bosnia but has been consistently shocked by endless tales of maltreatment alleged by Central American families in US detention centres. “Our government is walking a very fine line towards what is arguably tantamount to torture. This is a refugee crisis. They are fleeing violence and persecution – perhaps not in the classic way we view it as being directed from the government – but they are fleeing organised crime groups which their governments cannot control.”
How Mexico Saves Its Citizens From U.S. Executions
Stafford says the program’s help finding mitigation evidence led to his success getting a district attorney to drop the death penalty and allow a plea for a life sentence. Such a scenario is not uncommon. In a 2008 Hofstra Law Journal article, Greg Kuykendall, the Tucson, Arizona-based director of the program,claimed that it had a 95 percent success rate in keeping roughly 300 Mexican nationals from being executed. Such numbers are difficult to verify, however, because the program tends not to share much about its work publicly; Kuykendall was not granted clearance by the Mexican government to be interviewed for this story. Mexican Embassy spokesman Ricardo Alday told The Atlantic, “Mexico in no way condones or sympathizes with any criminal behavior for which some of its citizens have been accused,” but the country’s government “opposes the death penalty as a matter of principle and has a strong policy of protecting its nationals abroad including in the United States.”
Honduras: Blood and the Water (video)
Just before midnight, on March 2, 2016, Caceres was shot dead inside her home. So why was she killed? And what makes Honduras one of the most dangerous countries in the world for activists? Fault Lines travels to Honduras to investigate the reasons behind the murder of Berta Caceres and to examine what is fuelling the war against land rights defenders and environmental activists.
End U.S. Support for the Thugs of Honduras
Rather than continue to shore up a repressive government by paying for its thugs, the United States should suspend all police and military aid to Honduras immediately, including funds for training and equipment. And instead of promoting cosmetic reforms as cover for the security forces’ abuses, the Obama administration should address the demands of Hondurans for a truly independent, United Nations-backed commission on corruption and impunity.
Deceased legislator will remain the formal head of Nicaragua’s congress
Nicaragua’s congress will have a dead man as its speaker for the next four months, lawmakers in the Central American nation have decided. The national assembly voted overwhelmingly Tuesday night to keep Rene Nuñez, who was the body’s president for nine years until his death on 10 September, as its titular head. The assembly’s vice-president will take on his administrative duties until the end of the legislative session on 10 January, when new leadership is to be chosen. The unprecedented move is intended to recognize Nuñez’s contributions to the country, said Edwin Castro, leader of the ruling Sandinista party’s congressional bloc.
Failure could occur in any number of places. Political pressure and fear could force crusaders in government to resign. The United Nations may decide its job is finished and move resources elsewhere. American support could likewise dry up. Any stumble could lead to disaster, giving the momentum back to organized crime and crushing the public’s faith in peaceful change. What happens in Guatemala matters far beyond its borders. The country is a test case in a region-wide battle against corruption. Reformers elsewhere are watching closely; if organized crime wins out, the illicit forces that govern much of Latin America will be buoyed. But if democracy succeeds, the region’s citizens will gain confidence, inspiration and know-how that can fuel their struggles to build the rule of law.
Surge of Haitians leaving Brazil arrive on U.S.-Mexico border
U.S. border officials are struggling to find enough space to temporarily hold hundreds of Haitian immigrants who left Brazil, where they relocated after Haiti’s 2010 earthquake, but have decided to move again amid recession and the Rio Olympics ending. According to an internal U.S. Customs and Border Protection email sent on Wednesday and seen by Reuters, an official in San Ysidro, California, reported 900 Haitians were waiting to cross from Tijuana in Mexico and asked Border Patrol to send Creole speakers to interpret interviews with migrants. Apprehensions of Haitians in southern Mexico are also on the rise, where an estimated 500 arrived on Monday, indicating that the surge toward the United States could grow when those people travel north. Border officials need more space to hold Haitians in detention while they go through the process of being interviewed and potentially seeking asylum when they arrive in San Ysidro and Calexico, California, according to internal emails seen by Reuters.
U.S. shifts Haiti deportation policy and gives a warning
The U.S. Department of Homeland and Security has a warning to undocumented Haitians en route to its southwestern border with Mexico — turn around. Otherwise, you will be deported back to Haiti. After a six-year moratorium on deportations to the earthquake-scarred country, the Obama administration is resuming them, citing “improved conditions in Haiti” since the devastatingJan. 12, 2010, earthquake and “a significant increase in Haitians arriving at the Southwest border in San Diego, Calif.” “The United States has recently witnessed a sharp increase in the number of Haitian nationals taking dangerous smuggling routes to apply for admission to our country in the San Diego, Calif., area without advance authorization,” said an official with DHS, which announced the policy shift Thursday.
Canada’s Gran Colombia Gold threatens miners with lay-offs, neo-paramilitaries threaten to kill them
The company said Wednesday is losing $2 million a day and claims the contracts are unsustainable if the strike does not end, W Radio reported. “On Friday we won’t have stock if this doesn’t end,” Gran Colombia Gold CEO Lombardo Paredes said in a telephone interview with Bloomberg News, adding that if that happens “we will have to halt operations.” To Bloomberg, Paredes did not mention the threat to massively sack workers, most of whom would be from Segovia, the town that is revolting against the multinational. While the CEO of the Canadian company claims to be on the right side of the law, the illegal paramilitary group AGC sent out a pamphlet in the town, threatening to kill those opposing the company.
SOME ARE MORE EQUAL THAN OTHERS: U.S. “DECERTIFICATION” OF BOLIVIA’S DRUG CONTROL EFFORTS
The Memorandum of Justification outlines Bolivia’s noncompliance with “international counternarcotics agreements” using inconsistent, selective, standards. A closer look at key complaints demonstrates that the U.S. continues to overlook its own criteria for certification, in favor of an apparently political determination, based on accordance with U.S. drug control dictates. Although U.S. domestic drug reform has made progress, international policy, focused on forced crop eradication, including the ‘certification system,’ is obsolete and arrogant. It is time for the U.S. to abandon this system and objectively analyze Bolivia’s efforts. How does Bolivia match up to U.S. drug control standards? See for yourself with AIN’s point-by-point analysis of selected U.S. arguments: