The News Roundup is a regular section of the blog, featuring 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.
Promoting Gender-Sensitive Drug Policies in Bolivia
In the Plurinational State of Bolivia, women account for 8 percent of the country’s more than 17,000 people behind bars. In only three other Latin American countries (Guatemala, El Salvador and Chile) do women comprise a larger share of the overall incarcerated population. Almost 40 percent of the women behind bars in Bolivia are held for low-level drug offenses, often as a result of structural socioeconomic conditions, such as poverty and the pressures of single parenting. These women are typically poor, have limited education, and do not have access to stable jobs with decent pay; a startling percentage have been victims of domestic and sexual violence. They are often driven into the drug trade out of economic necessity. High rates of pretrial detention have also contributed to severe prison overcrowding. Indeed, according to the online database the World Prison Brief, Bolivian prisons are ranked as the eighth most congested in the world.
FARC Leader Turns Back on Congress, Further Jeopardizing Peace
In the meantime, it is uncertain what will become of Santrich’s and Márquez’s senatorial seats. The National Electoral Council (Consejo Nacional Electoral) is navigating in unchartered waters. Even if the FARC retain both seats, the party’s rift may tear it apart for good, and the consequences for Colombia’s criminal landscape could be dire. Despite Márquez’s assurances that El Paisa remains attached to the peace process after having left the concentration zone, he may lose the benefits that came with the accord. That would accelerate his drift towards ex-FARC mafia, who may be eagerly waiting to feed on the FARC’s steady disintegration.
Illegal Dominican goods cost Haiti $400 million a year. U.S. lawmakers want crackdown
Goods brought illegally across the border between Haiti and the Dominican Republic cost the Haitian government about $400 million a year in uncollected revenues — money that could be used for sorely needed healthcare and other basic services at a time when the U.S., Venezuela and other foreign governments are cutting aid to Haiti. And now, some U.S. lawmakers want the Trump administration to help Haiti crack down on the contraband. Six members of Congress — including three from South Florida — have sent a letter to Acting Secretary of State John J. Sullivan and Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen requesting U.S. assistance with Haiti’s efforts to reduce the flow of illicit goods.
In Just a Week, ‘Nicaragua Changed’ as Protesters Cracked a Leader’s Grip
More and more people joined the protests. And while the opposition movement is huge, it does not have any clear, national leaders, making it even more difficult for Mr. Ortega to tamp down. On Sunday, when Mr. Ortega rescinded the social security measures, he failed to mention the students who died in the protests, focusing instead on how the demonstrations had been infiltrated by gangs that looted stores. The speeches by Mr. Ortega and Ms. Murillo “are adding gasoline to the fire,” Mr. Carrión said. “If these people, this couple, were firefighters, they would be lighting the place on fire.”
A Visit to the Biggest Little Mosque in Honduras
Latin America has the largest Arab population outside of the Arab world. For many years, Honduras was the only Latin American country without a mosque—despite the fact that up to 25 percent of San Pedro Sula’s population is of Arab descent. Now, there are two: the one in San Pedro Sula, and a smaller one in the capital city of Tegucigalpa.
Intipuca: A town that relies on remittances braces for end of TPS
Of the $5bn sent back to El Salvador last year, an estimated 20 percent was sent by TPS holders, according to the bond credit rating agency Moody’s. The announcement by the Trump administration on January 8 about the termination of TPS for an estimated 200,000 Salvadorans living and working in the US could simultaneously end the flow of remittances and flood the town with returning migrants. Unless US Congress passes legislation to provide an alternative migration status for these TPS holders, they will be expected to leave the country by September 2019.
Roundtable: Ríos Montt is Dead
Guatemala’s most notorious dictator, retired army general José Efraín Ríos Montt, died of a heart attack on April 1, 2018 at the age of 91. In 2013, after years evading justice, his victims proved in a court of law that he was guilty of genocide. The judgment was later erased by the action of the Constitutional Court at the bidding of powerful business and military elites who feared they’d be next on the docket. But the genocide trial and the testimonial, documentary, and other evidence it produced are helping rewrite the history of the Guatemalan civil war and to empower other victims of state terrorism to pursue justice. In the following reflections, NACLA contributors reflect on Montt’s life and the legacy of genocide he leaves behind in Guatemala.
HOW U.S. GUNS SOLD TO MEXICO END UP WITH SECURITY FORCES ACCUSED OF CRIME AND HUMAN RIGHTS ABUSES
But if the aim of firearms sales to Mexico is to abate criminal violence, it has failed dramatically. Homicide victims in 2017 in Mexico surpassed 29,000, the highest on record. The exponential growth in sales to Mexico has not been accompanied by controls to track where the guns go or to ensure that they do not land in the hands of police or military units that are credibly alleged to have committed gross human rights abuses or colluded with criminal groups – the very groups that security forces are being armed to combat. Legally exported U.S. firearms have been used in massacres, disappearances, and by security forces that collude with criminal groups in Mexico on a broad scale.
Migrant Caravan Is No Threat to U.S., But Trump’s Scare Tactics Are
Let’s also be clear: The real threat is not the migrant caravan or any other individual wielding their right to seek asylum. The real threat is the U.S. government and how it is shamelessly using the migrant caravan as a scapegoat to militarize the border and eliminate protections for immigrants….What many people don’t realize is that one of the only legal ways of claiming asylum in the U.S. is by presenting oneself at a point of entry, like a border.
‘Breathtaking homicidal violence’: Latin America in grip of murder crisis
Latin America has suffered more than 2.5m murders since the start of this century and is facing an acute public security crisis that demands urgent and innovative solutions, a new report warns. “The sheer dimensions of homicidal violence are breathtaking,” says the report by the Igarapé Institute, a Brazil-based thinktank focused on security and development issues. The publication, released on Thursday, paints a bleak portrait of what it calls the world’s most homicidal continent. Latin America suffers 33% of the world’s homicides despite having only 8% of its population. One-quarter of all global homicides are concentrated in four countries – Brazil, Colombia, Mexico and Venezuela – all of which are gearing up for presidential elections in which security is a dominant theme.