Weekly News Roundup, October 9

Mural in a Colombian church. Anna Vogt

The Coming Turmoil in Latin America

A larger, politically awoken middle class has far less tolerance for corruption these days, particularly as the deteriorating economy threatens to sabotage their newly attained standard of living, and they have access to new technologies that facilitate the spread of information and lower the costs of political coordination. These dynamics may produce positive outcomes like removing politicians and parties that have been in power for far too long, but they could also result in corrosive social conflict, government paralysis, and political instability.

Rapper’s lyrical fight for Mexican women’s rights

Both live and in her recorded tracks, Lirika has a staccato, percussive and dense delivery. “The only place women are in first place,” she sings on one track, “is in the stats on violence.” Her tracks resemble fight songs in Mexico’s battle for women’s rights.According to Mexico’s National Registry of Missing or Disappeared Persons, 7,185 women have gone missing since 2006, when former President Felipe Calderon started ordering raids on organised crime groups across the country. But women have not become any safer: Fifty-two percent of these disappearances have taken place after current President Enrique Pena Nieto took office in 2012.

Indigenous Communities Seek Autonomous Development Projects in Guatemala

The communities have stated that they are not necessarily against development projects. Rather, they oppose the form that these projects take, including eviction from their ancestral land and other violations of their rights. “It isn’t that [indigenous communities] are against the development,” Buzoc Che told Truthout. “The problem is that they are not in agreement with the form and the methodology of work. There are constitutional and international rights of indigenous communities that companies and the government must comply with. However, whenever they implement one of these megaprojects, they do not consult the populations that are affected. We feel affected by these projects. It is because of this that we resist. But the state uses the entire force of the state and the police against these communities.” But there are alternatives to these projects of death and destruction.

US university sues CIA for information on El Salvador massacre

“The soldiers were killing the people, and the people were crying out, ‘Ayyyy’ they were crying, and they were burning them, finishing them off because they were alive and … where I was hiding, I could hear the lamentations, the desperate shrieks of the people, some children were yelling ‘Mama! Mama!’ Those agonizing cries,” the UW CHR report quoted a survivor, whom it did not identify by name.The report concluded that war crimes may have been committed, and the center said further investigation was needed. UW CHR’s director, Godoy, emphasized that the center was not accusing the CIA of participating in alleged war crimes but of failing to disclose information about them. “A court needs to hear this case,” Godoy told Seattle alternative newspaper The Stranger. “We need to establish a much fuller record. That’s what we’re hoping to do with the lawsuit.”

US Releases Indictment Against Honduras Business Behemoth

Their indictment will send shivers through the other elites in Honduras. These elites are not held accountable in a country where, more often than not, they make the rules and decide who can break them. The entrance of the United States justice system changes this equation. US justice is less susceptible to political and economic pressures regarding criminal cases of this magnitude (although certainly this has been put to the test in recent money laundering cases in the US). The impact may reach far beyond any convictions secured in this case. US investigations can also lead to the freezing of assets, divestment by foreign companies from their Honduran investments, broken contracts amongst partners, and the loss of travel visas, among other problems.

Financial, environmental questions plague Nicaragua canal project

“This is the third year in the row that we have had a drought [in Nicaragua]. Climate change will affect Nicaragua and people are already struggling to find water,” Jorge Huete-Pérez, director of the Molecular Biology Center at Central American University, told The Tico Times. “So if you ruin the lake that will be very negative for Nicaragua.” For Huete-Pérez, an outspoken opponent of the canal project, the bigger problem with the assessment is not ERM’s conclusions, but the government’s failure to release the entire study for independent evaluation. The ESIA was completed in just a year and a half, and as of HKND’s official groundbreaking ceremony last December, no publicly known feasibility or impact studies had been completed.

Instill integrity in Haiti’s election

There are many reasons to believe that the next rounds of Haiti’s elections — starting Oct. 25 — can be better. First, past elections have been better. Presidential elections in 2006 were controversial, but only 3 percent to 8 percent of the tally sheets were excluded, and there was a broad consensus that the winner, René Preval, really did have the most voter support. Second, Haitian voters make valiant efforts when they believe elections will be fair. Presidential elections in 2006 and 2000 had turnouts of 59 percent and 78 percent, respectively. Recently, I attended a press conference including unsuccessful voters from rural Saut d’Eau who had been turned around at gunpoint after walking for hours. They insisted that the government and CEP needed to stop the intimidation and improve voter access — but they also promised to make that walk again on Oct. 25 if improvements were made.

Colombia’s local elections are a mess — and the voting hasn’t even started yet

However, that developing peace deal could be upended by fraud and violence that has been rampant in Colombian elections, the latest round of which are slated to begin on October 25. An election that goes smoothly — and well for President Juan Manuel Santos — is considered important to continuing and ultimately completing the peace process. Local governors and mayors who face election will be needed to help disarm and reintegrate 20,000 former FARC fighters, as Colombia Reports notes.

INDIGENOUS PEOPLES OF YAIGOJÉ APAPORIS VICTORIOUS AS COURT OUSTS CANADIAN MINING COMPANY

After five years of legal contests and uncertainty, the Colombian Constitutional Court has confirmed that Yaigojé Apaporis, an indigenous resguardo (a legally recognized, collectively owned territory), also has legitimate status as a national park.The decision is cause for celebration for Indigenous Peoples who call the region home. But it is less welcome news for Canadian multinational mining corporation Cosigo Resources, the company contesting the area’s national park status. The court’s ruling immediately and indefinitely suspends all mining activities in the park, including Cosigo’s license to mine gold from one of Yaigojé’s most sacred areas.

Bolivia’s man-eating mountain (photo essay)

After almost 500 years of mining, the top of Cerro Rico started to collapse, creating a sinkhole which sinks a few centimetres deeper every year despite government efforts to stabilise it with light cement.  The solution would be to stop the mining, but depriving the city of its main activity is not considered an option for the population of whom 15,000 are miners.