Adam Isacson

Defense, security, borders, migration, and human rights in Latin America and the United States. May not reflect my employer’s consensus view.

Archives

May 2017

Some articles I found interesting this morning

(Even more here)

May 22, 2017

Argentina

La Unión de Promociones apuntó a “terroristas subversivos de los 70”. Incluye militantes que eran chicos en esa época

Brazil

The Brazilian Order of Attorneys decided early Sunday to formally request Temer’s impeachment after a 25-1 vote in favor of his removal

Colombia

Incumplir acuerdo con la guerrilla podría generar nuevas violencias, dice el jefe negociador

Semana.com le explica por qué la paz transita por el momento más difícil

Este es uno de esos momentos críticos en los que la historia toma nota sobre la grandeza de sus principales líderes

El ministerio para el Posconflicto lanzó el catastro multipropósito. ¿De qué se trata? El alto consejero para el Posconflicto, Rafael Pardo Rueda, se lo explicó a EL TIEMPO

Luego de tres días de manifestaciones para pedir al Gobierno que vire sus ojos hacia esa ciudad, la situación se hizo compleja por los choques entre Fuerza Pública y ciudadanía

Tras dos años en marcha y más de mil capturas de sus integrantes, ‘Agamenón 2’ no estará en manos exclusivas de la Policía Nacional, sino que incluirá tropas del Ejército

A Santos y a Trump les conviene que los dos países mantengan su cercanía y, por eso, la alianza bilateral quedó en firme, y ratificada, esta semana en la Casa Blanca. Por ahora

El Salvador

Escobar, like nearly 11,000 others who were arrested, had no criminal record. He was a prominent member of the local community, and his wife and children are U.S. citizens

El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras

Salvadorans say they are taking their cues from undocumented family members in the United States, who are living in greater fear of deportation

Haiti

The prospect that 58,000 Haitians could be forced to return en masse after spending more than seven years in the United States has raised a rare bipartisan outcry among state and federal lawmakers in Florida

Mexico

Many see a pattern of official complacency, and, in some cases, of complicity. But Valdez’s murder had the feeling of a death too far

The president wants to make 5,000 new hires, under a streamlined process that critics fear could open a door to other rogue agents like Mr. Luna

Venezuela

Weapons experts said there have long been fears that the weapons could be stolen, sold or somehow channeled to the wrong hands, concerns exacerbated by the current civil unrest

I am going to describe what I can about the logic of the event, to help readers to get a feel for it. I am going to end with some critical comments

About 100 people, who had been participating in anti-Maduro protests, surrounded him, doused him in gasoline and set him alight in Plaza Altamira in east Caracas

Links from the past month about: Politics and security in Latin America

Juan Barreto/AFP/Getty Images photo at National Public Radio. Caption: “Protesters display signs from an overpass Monday in Caracas as they call for Maduro’s ouster. The president blames the unrest — and the economic troubles that helped inspire it — on foreign powers like the U.S.”

Protests against President Nicolás Maduro’s regime on the streets of Venezuela have now reached their 50th day, and at least 47 people have died. The U.S. government issued sanctions against the eight Venezuelan Supreme Court justices whose March power grab–a thwarted efort to dissolve the opposition-led legislature–sparked the protests in the first place. Eight Latin American countries, including neighboring Colombia, criticized the government’s “excessive use of force” against protesters. The increasingly isolated government announced that it would pull Venezuela out of the Organization of American States. Maduro’s much-criticized proposal to undo the crisis is to have a constituent assembly, with little opposition participation, rewrite the country’s 1999 constitution. There was a scare about the well-being of jailed opposition leader Leopoldo López, who appears to remain healthy in the Ramo Verde military prison. Still unclear from all the reporting about Venezuela is what’s happening inside the powerful armed forces–which are now trying civilian protesters in military courts–and how deeply the protests have penetrated poorer neighborhoods that were once pro-government bastions.

In Brazil, where it seems like the majority of the political class is under investigation for graft, President Michel Temer may soon be forced out by recent revelations of illegal payments and bribes. A general strike at the end of April, led by unions, ground the country to a halt. Meanwhile large landholders, who have a strong voice in the current conservative government, got a congressional commission to recommend dismantling the indigenous affairs agency Funai, which helps indigenous Brazilians defend land claims. Funai already had its budget cut 40 percent this year. Indigenous protests against land grabs were met with a violent police response in Brasília.

Colombia’s peace accord has brought near-total compliance with an August 2016 ceasefire and the least violent eight months the country has known in decades. Still, the process is facing significant setbacks. A looming May 31 deadline for full FARC disarmament will not be met, because government inaction on setting up disarmament sites delayed the process and because the FARC has reported more than 900 arms caches scattered around the country. And Colombia’s Constitutional Court has just struck down key parts of the “fast track” authority by which the government and Congress were to approve legislation necessary to implement the accords.

In Paraguay, President Horacio Cartes backed off an attempt to seek re-election, which had triggered violent protests in Asunción in March.

The day ahead: May 22, 2017

I will not be easy to contact today because of near-constant meetings. (How to contact me)

I won’t see the inside of my office very much today. I’ve got a weekly staff meeting, then I’m hosting a large group of visitors from Guatemala’s armed forces school (always a lively conversation). I’m having a farewell cup of coffee with a very good intern, and getting an update via Skype from a colleague in Colombia who is monitoring the government’s post-conflict pacts with coca-growers. In between all of that, I hope to post a thing or two here intermittently.

The week ahead

The last week before Memorial Day tends to be one of the busiest of the year in Washington, especially in Congress. This week, not only are there six congressional hearings with some relevance for our work, but the White House, probably tomorrow, will be sending Congress its 2018 budget request.

We’ll soon have an official sense of how deeply the Trump administration plans to cut diplomacy and foreign aid in Latin America in order to pay for increased defense and border security spending. I’ll be watching the State Department and Homeland Security Department budget pages, and writing up an analysis of the numbers, and the dangers they portend, as quickly as possible.

Expect a lot of posts here this week, about that and other topics. I hope to turn out both a personal podcast and a WOLA podcast, among other content both here and at WOLA’s website.

Latin America-related events in Washington this week

Tuesday, May 23

Wednesday, May 24

Thursday, May 25

5 tweets that made me laugh this week

Last month’s U.S. government reports relevant to Latin America

From the Congressional Research Service Central America report listed below.

Border Security: Additional Actions Could Strengthen DHS Efforts to Address Subterranean, Aerial, and Maritime Smuggling
U.S. Government Accountability Office, May 1, 2017.

GAO looks at the Homeland Security Department’s efforts to detect and curb these unorthodox methods of smuggling across the U.S.-Mexico border, all of which appear to have declined in frequency since 2011.

Central America Regional Security Initiative: Background and Policy Issues for Congress
Congressional Research Service, April 12, 2017

A regular update on U.S. assistance to Central America. This does not reflect the 2017 appropriation that became law on May 5.

Mexico: Organized Crime and Drug Trafficking Organizations
Congressional Research Service, April 25, 2017

A regular update on the main organized crime organizations and dynamics in Mexico, and the strategy being employed to confront them.

Explanatory Statement for Division J of P.L. 115-31, Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2017
U.S. Congress, May 5, 2017.

The narrative accompanying the 2017 State Department and Foreign Operations Appropriations bill. Here, Congress directs how a lot of foreign aid money should be spent. I pulled out 13 clips from this report, and 4 clips from the text of the law, that appeared relevant to U.S. security assistance to Latin America. See also the explanatory statement for the 2017 Homeland Security Appropriations bill from which I drew 2 clips (and 3 clips from the law).

Point that saber somewhere else

From The Washington Post, reporting on a May 17 Coast Guard Academy graduation ceremony:

During the commencement, Trump was presented with a ceremonial saber. After accepting it to applause, he returned to his seat next to Secretary of Homeland Security Gen. John F. Kelly.

Smiling, Kelly leaned over the president and said, of the saber, “You can use that on the press.”

“Yeah, that’s right,” said Trump, as Kelly laughed.

And then, the very next day, Gen. Kelly met with the foreign minister and interior minister of Mexico, where at least six journalists have been murdered since early March.

(Friday, 6:26PM)

Dramatic sky from the office window at the end of yesterday’s workday.

Five links from the past week

Nathaniel Parrish Flannery photo for The Guardian. Caption: “Civilian gunmen in Tancítaro.”

Colombia

Colombia’s second-busiest Pacific port is also the country’s number-one coca (and probably cocaine)-producing municipality. This in-depth multimedia look at Tumaco is worth your time. Great videos.

Late Wednesday, while President Juan Manuel Santos was in Washington, Colombia’s Constitutional Court issued a decision that might delay, or even cancel, implementation of parts of the FARC peace accord. León and Duque look at the implications, including a possible bright side.

Mexico

De Cordoba looks into the complicated story murdered Sinaloa journalist Javier Valdez was working on: an intensifying battle between factions of the disintegrating Sinaloa cartel.

This is what institutional collapse looks like: a Michoacán town’s avocado-growers’ association, some of whose members are probably organized crime-tied, created a paramilitary force that is far more capable than local police. This is illegal, but nobody cares.

Venezuela

“Established democracies are not supposed to implode like this. Steven Levitsky, a Harvard University political scientist, said Venezuela was one of ‘four or five, ever.’ Among those, none was as wealthy or fell so far.” This was a long, gradual process; Fisher and Taub concisely highlight some of the main steps.

Some articles I found interesting Thursday and Friday

(Even more here)

May 19, 2017

Brazil

The calls for Mr. Temer to resign have come from many sides, including an editorial Friday in O Globo, part of Brazil’s most powerful media group

If Mr. Temer is ultimately impeached, Brazil’s Congress would elect an interim president to serve out the remainder of the presidential term until the scheduled presidential election in 2018

Colombia

Este viernes, para no ir a un juicio por la demanda de las mujeres, el expresidente y hoy senador se retractó de lo dicho en su trino del 25 de junio del 2015

Publicly, Trump gave no such commitment during a joint news conference with Santos in the White House East Room. Trump did not mention Colombia’s hard-fought peace process until a reporter asked about it

Pence le comunicó a Santos que está interesado en que las relaciones se mantengan y sigan mejorando y por eso nos ofreció todo su apoyo

Mexico

Mr. Valdez’s slaying has caused shock waves here and abroad in a way few other killings have during the last decade in Mexico

Since the vast majority of the reporters who have been murdered since the start of the drug wars work anonymously for tiny provincial papers, it has generally been assumed that someone like Javier Valdez would be safe

If Brazil were included in the list — with its more than 50,000 violent deaths per year in recent years — it would rank higher than Syria. Venezuela had more than 29,000 homicides in 2016, which would put it ahead of Mexico

Colombia, Mexico

The seemingly contradictory messages presented by Trump and his top cabinet officials suggest that the new administration has yet to chart a clear course

Venezuela

Reuters journalists visiting the town on Friday had to negotiate permission from masked youths manning roadblocks and turning back traffic

La orden de usar a francotiradores para matar a manifestantes ha sido dada en el seno de la Fuerza Armada Nacional de Venezuela

The most important reason that these sanctions will not likely work is that with no “escape hatch,”–i.e. possibility of being lifted for changed behavior–they raise sanctioned officials exit costs and thereby increase their loyalty to the regime

Maduro had largely been careful not to antagonize Trump. But Trump’s repeated criticisms of the troubled South American nation appear to have struck a nerve

The sanctions are the latest U.S. effort to put pressure on the “bad actors” in the government of Nicolas Maduro in the midst of daily opposition streets protests

The sanctions are the first unrelated to drug trafficking imposed by the Trump administration against high-ranking members of the Venezuelan government

May 18, 2017

Colombia

In Meta, and other large parts of Colombia, the retreat of the FARC has created a vacuum that has attracted criminal gangs, narco-traffickers and hired guns working for wealthy landowners

El fallo de la Corte Constitucional es una mala noticia para la implementación del Acuerdo con las Farc en el corto plazo pero a mediano plazo le podría dar más legitimidad

Cuba

Even if the final recommendations suggest that Trump should not make drastic changes at the moment, the administration must present them in a way that satisfies the pressure from Cuban-American Florida Republicans

Mexico

“Estamos cansados de ver como emboscan a nuestros compañeros de forma cobarde y que ninguna autoridad, Organización No Gubernamental y de Derechos Humanos ‘hagan algo’”, subraya

When Mexican drug cartels threatened the country’s $1.5bn avocado export industry with extortion and murder, farmers in Tancítaro decided to fight back

Venezuela

As protests grow increasingly violent, strapped security officers say they’re exhausted, misused and demoralized

The day ahead: May 19, 2017

I will be most reachable in the morning and near the end of the day. (How to contact me)

With the Colombian President’s visit over, I’m working at home all morning. I need to stop and spend several hours planning the next few months: which big projects should be completed next, and what are the likely events we’ll have to prepare for. (One big event is next week, when the White House will issue what promises to be a devastating 2018 foreign aid budget request to Congress.) So I’m up to my elbows in project planning software all morning.

In the afternoon I have meetings with a journalist and with Guatemala’s military attache. This weekend I have to finish two academic articles about Colombia that are nearing their due dates.

The day ahead: May 18, 2017

I will be most reachable in the morning and near the end of the day. (How to contact me)

My to-do list for today looks a lot like yesterday’s. Between a bunch of interviews to discuss Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos’s visit to Washington (happening now—he meets Trump today), being on 2 hours’ sleep, and a water main break shutting down WOLA’s building in the afternoon, no “project” work really progressed yesterday.

Today won’t be much different. I expect to be covering the Santos visit, while I have a lunch with a longtime Spanish embassy colleague, and an afternoon meeting with a visiting USAID Colombia official. And I’m getting a late start, after making up for yesterday’s sleepless night of database work.

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