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.
Cross-Border Migration is a Humanitarian Crisis, Not a National Security Crisis
In the world’s most violent sub-region, a collapse of weak and corrupt public security and justice institutions and an increase in gang violence have left hundreds of thousands of people vulnerable and targeted. “In many ways [Central American parents] are trying to save their children” from this violence, Gen. Kelly said in 2015. The recent rise in migration to the United States from its decades-old low is a humanitarian crisis, not a threat to U.S. national security. We should be focusing on due process guarantees and how to process protection claims more efficiently.
President Obama’s extension of gratitude to Nieto, however, may have been somewhat premature. Apprehensions at the U.S. border over the last six months have gone up by 78 percent compared to the same time period the year before. While U.S. officials survived the first wave, there may be another one coming. A study released by Vanderbilt University presented foreboding confirmation of what is yet to come. Armed with evidence that the harrowing journey through Mexico has grown more dangerous, and options to remain in the U.S. are limited, potential migrants said almost nothing would stand in their way of taking the risk. “Even with Mexico’s enforcement, people are still trying to leave the northern triangle,” Ms. Meyer said. “That is something that we’re going to continue to see until circumstances shift.”
Mexico protests: how gas prices lit the flame under a quietly smoldering rage
Angry protests over the 20% hike in gasoline prices – known as the gasolinazo – have plunged parts of Mexico into chaos as citizens protest in the streets and block highways, petrol stations and installations of the state-run oil giant Pemex. More than 250 stores have been looted, amid allegations that paid agitators infiltrated the protests. The gasolinazo provided the spark for the protests, but analysts say social unrest has been quietly building for months. The Mexican peso has been steadily dropping in value while threats from the US president-elect, Donald Trump, have sowed disarray in the country’s economy. Mexico’s minimum wage is just $4 a day and people are so sensitive to price increases that hikes in the cost of public transportation are one of the principal reasons high school students abandon school, according to the public education secretariat. On Monday, the state statistics institute announced that inflation had hit a two-year high of 3.36% – a figure economists expect to climb even higher in 2017.
Guatemala: A Glimmer of Hope for Violence Reduction in the Region
However, it is important to recognize the results of effective policies, including team training and specialization, coordinated inter-institutional work, the use of scientific evidence, and the design of intervention strategies based on prioritizing specific places and situations in order to reduce violence. These efforts should be evaluated and adjusted in 2017 so that the downward trend of violent deaths may continue. Likewise, they should be complemented by strategies that prioritize crime prevention, especially measures to facilitate access to work and education for youth.
El Salvador Govt Unlikely to Accept MS13 Dialogue Proposal
Moreover, regardless of the government’s stance, the total disbanding of the MS13 is hardly a feasible concept. While gang leaders have a certain level of control over its street-level members, the group’s lack of a strongly hierarchical leadership structure would make it difficult to ensure that all factions of the gang would come on board with the process. Adding to this dynamic is the fact that many rank and file gang members rely on extortion and other criminal activities to sustain themselves and their families, giving them little incentive to enter the legitimate sphere of society. But if dialogue is not a viable way forward, violent repression alone is not much more promising. Even Police Director Cotto acknowledged to El Faro that the state’s iron fist approach has not been as effective as was hoped. Keeping the pressure on the gangs may weaken them, but other social and political initiatives are more likely to generate positive long-term results.
Daniel Ortega sworn in as president for third time
Ortega and Murillo were elected in November with 72.5 percent of the vote, but with a high rate of abstentions. Their party won 71 of the 92 seats in parliament. Nicaragua could face economic challenges in Ortega’s third five-year term amid a steep drop in aid from Venezuela, which has funded many social programmes. A law is also being considered in the US that could block Nicaragua’s access to loans from international lending organisations, pushed by US legislators claiming a critical of a lack of government transparency. Economists and business leaders say Ortega will now have to be more transparent, especially with the US Congress already considering sanctions.
Will the Trump Administration Approve a Military Deal Between Honduras and Israel?
Honduras is a small, relatively inconsequential country, but if the Trump administration sanctions the Israeli-Honduran deal it would confirm what seems likely: that its foreign policy would rest heavily a revived “Nixon Doctrine,” that is, using proxies to do its security work (a “doctrine” that, despite its name, is not exclusive to Nixon). It would also extend Israel’s warrant in Latin America…Now, as in the 1980s in Guatemala, the relationships built by these security deals are more than mercenary; they help to draw together ideologues who see the world as one big Gaza or Aguán Valley and diplomacy as occupation management.
Obama ending special immigration status for migrants fleeing Cuba
The Obama administration, in one of its final foreign policy initiatives, on Thursday ended the special status accorded migrants fleeing Cuba who, upon reaching this country, were automatically allowed to stay. Cubans are still covered by the 1966 Cuban Adjustment Act, which grants them permanent residency — a green card — after they have been here for one year. Until now, they were given temporary “parole” status while waiting for that year to pass. That will no longer be granted, making the act moot for most by denying them entry on arrival. Effective immediately, President Obama said in a statement, “Cuban nationals who attempt to enter the United States illegally . . . will be subject to removal,” treating them “the same way we treat migrants from other countries.”
Rebel. Drug Fugitive. Hero? Haiti Erupts Over an Arrest
Mr. Philippe, he said, claimed to have transformed his army into a political party. Mr. Concannon said it was funded by illegal enterprises, which gave him the largess to be generous to a community that lacked basic government services and was vulnerable to influence by a larger-than-life character who shared his spoils. “It was like a mafia in the good and bad sense of it, where he controlled the area around the city of Pestel,” he said. “With some of the money he got, he provided public services or advantages to his neighborhood. He was also getting a lot of government money through his machine and obviously apparently getting a good amount of money from trafficking and maybe other activities such as gambling.”
FARC Unity Shatters in Colombia
The break-up of the FARC is going to further complicate the criminal landscape in Colombia. Some of the rebels will retain their Marxist ideology and rebel façade. Others may join their cousins of the National Liberation Army (Ejército de Liberación Nacional –ELN), which although engaged in preliminary peace talks, is still in the field and years away from any kind of peace deal. Many will join other criminal structures, or simply go into business for themselves, taking over the drug, extortion and gold mining operations the FARC have long controlled. After the demobilization of the AUC a new generation of criminal groups was born, which the government dubbed the “BACRIM” (from the Spanish “bandas criminales”). Colombia needs to brace itself for the birth of the “FARCRIM.”
In Bolivia, an Entrenched President
Electoral authorities are unlikely to heed Mr. Morales’s call to nullify the referendum results on the basis of the supposed disinformation campaign. But Bolivia’s Congress, which is dominated by his party, Movement for Socialism, could change the Constitution. Either way, the likely outcome — a new term for Mr. Morales — would be bad for Bolivians. Mr. Morales has already been in office longer than any other leader in Latin America. His policies have transformed the country’s power structure by giving voice to the indigenous majority and reducing poverty. But his administration has been dogged by allegations of corruption and criticized for co-opting nominally independent institutions and cracking down on the press. These trends can only be expected to worsen if he manages to stay in office longer.