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🟧Early November: I’m in Washington with a moderate meeting schedule but some writing deadlines. I’m mostly reachable, but replies may not be immediate.
The State Department’s annual report on other countries’ counter-drug efforts, with some information about U.S. aid. 2020 International Narcotics Control Strategy Report (Washington: Bureau of International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs, March 2, 2020) <PDF from https://www.state.gov/2020-international-narcotics-control-strategy-report/>.
Intricately detailed tables of the status of aid to Central America between 2013 and 2018, from a GAO performance audit. U.S. Assistance to Central America: Status of Funding (Washington: U.S. Government Accountability Office, March 4, 2020) <PDF at https://www.gao.gov/products/GAO-20-163R>.
Two GAO reports about the Homeland Security Department’s processing—and cruel separating—of apprehended migrant families. Southwest Border: Actions Needed to Address Fragmentation in DHS’s Processes for Apprehended Family Members (Washington: U.S. Government Accountability Office, March 18, 2020) <PDF at https://www.gao.gov/products/GAO-20-274>. Southwest Border: Actions Needed to Improve DHS Processing of Families and Coordination between DHS and HHS (Washington: U.S. Government Accountability Office, March 18, 2020) <PDF at https://www.gao.gov/products/GAO-20-245>.
I got a kick out of recording this one with John Otis, from his home outside Bogotá. Since 1997, John has been reporting from Colombia, covering the Andes, for many news outlets. You may recognize his voice as National Public Radio’s correspondent in the Andes, or seen his many recent bylines in the Wall Street Journal. He is also the author of a highly recommended book about aspects of the conflict, Law of the Jungle (2010).
Here, John talks about some of the many changes he has seen in both Colombia and Venezuela during his tenure. The conversation also covers Colombia’s peace process, the difficulty of explaining the country’s complexity, and some places and people who’ve left very strong impressions over the years.
Alejandro Prieto photo at National Geographic. Caption: “Aerial view of wall construction at Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument in November, 2019, from the Mexican side of the border. The Department of Homeland Security has waived dozens of laws to allow this wall to be built, including the Endangered Species Act.”
Según una fuente que militó en dicha guerrilla, el acercamiento entre Galán y Uribe se dio gracias al padre Francisco De Roux, hoy presidente de la Comisión de la Verdad, quien, a su vez, contactó a la esposa del expresidente Álvaro Uribe
La decisión del Eln obedece, en gran parte, a un silencioso trabajo, según pudo confirmar EL TIEMPO con fuentes de entero crédito, de miembros de la comunidad internacional y de la Iglesia Católica
This is the story of “Memo Fantasma” or “Will the Ghost,” who started life in the Medellín Cartel, funded the bloody rise of the paramilitary army, and today lives the high life in Madrid. He has helped move hundreds of tons of cocaine, yet has no arrest warrants and nobody is looking for him
Caught in the middle of the war are former FARC combatants and social leaders. Since the signing of the peace accord, over 191 disarmed FARC and 323 social leaders have been assassinated nationwide
The Colombian criminal group Los Rastrojos is fighting a two-front war: against ELN guerrillas looking to usurp the group’s highly profitable operations along the border with Venezuela, and against Venezuelan security forces that have been targeting them
La extorsión impuesta por las pandillas también ha sido modificada por la crisis del coronavirus. En zonas concretas, dicen, han perdonado el cobro criminal a algunos vendedores informales. El otras zonas, simplemente no han podido recogerlo debido a la presencia masiva de fuerzas del Estado
Miles de personas siguieron las indicaciones que el presidente Bukele había dado y se movilizaron hacia oficinas estatales para preguntar por un subsidio de $300 destinado a las familias afectadas económicamente por el COVID-19. Así, las aglomerarciones rompieron la cuarentena
Honduras’s healthcare system has reached the edge of collapse in recent years after chronic underfunding from the government and a series of corruption scandals that have drained what little public funds do exist
La información disponible permite presumir la tortura y la desaparición forzada contra un número indeterminado de migrantes, a manos de la Guardia Nacional
Luego de difundirse un video en el que aparece el Presidente Andrés Manuel López Obrador saludando a la madre de Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán, dirigentes del PAN y PRI reprobaron el encuentro y exigieron al mandatario dar una explicación
With the world focused on coronavirus, the federal government paves way for 175 miles of new walls along U.S.-Mexico border, through prime wildlife corridors
The intensification of construction during the pandemic is raising fears among residents of Ajo, Ariz., and other nearby border communities that the growing influx of workers increases their risk of exposure
In the tightly packed Matamoros camp, social distancing is impossible, and high-level health care is inaccessible. The Trump administration’s Migrant Protection Protocols (MPP) require asylum-seekers to remain in Mexico while their claims are processed
The pandemic has allowed the U.S. Border Patrol to implement the kind of rapid-fire deportation system President Trump has long extolled as his preferred approach to immigration enforcement
On Sunday, just four unaccompanied minors were referred to ORR shelters. DHS averaged 14 referrals a day over the past week, a drop of 78% from the previous month
Los civiles dependen de militares para abastecerse de combustible. Productores agrícolas denuncian que están «en manos» del Comando Estratégico Operacional
Los funcionarios rechazaron las acciones registradas el pasado fin de semana, además de este mismo lunes, por parte de cuerpos de seguridad contra diputados e integrantes de sus equipos de trabajo
The proposal, to be released on Tuesday in Washington, offers to ease American sanctions intended to pressure President Nicolás Maduro and his loyalists over the past year. But it also demands that Mr. Maduro relinquish power
This morning I’m talking to a researcher and then recording a podcast. I should be at my desk writing about Colombia and doing research on the border all afternoon.
Here’s a conversation we recorded late Friday over a beer.
After nearly 30 years of movement away from military rule and toward civilian democracy, Latin America’s armed forces are again playing larger, more political roles. The COVID-19 pandemic is exacerbating the trend, with the danger that having soldiers on the streets may again become “normalized” throughout the region.
Joining me to talk about this is Gregory Weeks, Associate Dean for Academic Affairs in the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte. Weeks doesn’t see a return to 1970s-style military regimes anytime soon—but he is not optimistic about civil-military relations in the region.
A political scientist, Weeks is the author of two volumes that appear very often in university Latin American studies curricula: Understanding Latin American Politics (available as a free PDF and for sale) and U.S. and Latin American Relations. He is one of the first Latin America bloggers, posting to Two Weeks Notice almost daily since 2006. And his Understanding Latin American Politics podcast is one of few other Latin America podcasts in English.
Imported by the wealthy, the virus is now reaching into impoverished communities, at times through domestic employment, infecting people with fewer resources to combat the disease
To reduce crime, it is critical to boost local government’s resources in high-risk crime areas. Crime in these countries is very context-specific and requires nuanced and flexible policies
El Ejército de Liberación Nacional (ELN) decidió declarar un cese unilateral activo al fuego durante un mes, a partir del 1 hasta el 30 de abril, a causa de la emergencia que vive el país por el el nuevo coronavirus
Desde el 5 de marzo pasado, cuando el país estaba alerta por la llegada del nuevo coronavirus, hasta la fecha, cuatro de los exguerrilleros que firmaron el Acuerdo de Paz murieron en confusos hechos en Bogotá, Caquetá y Meta
El Espectador reconstruyó buena parte de lo ocurrido el pasado 21 de marzo en el penal. Una noche que inició con un “cacerolazo”, exigiendo medidas para enfrentar el COVID-19, y terminó con 23 internos muertos
Denuncian amenazas por parte del Ejército Nacional de abrir fuego contra quienes se encontraran en asentamientos campesinos, oponiéndose a la erradicación manual forzada
En Cauca hubo seis hostigamientos, en Chocó y Nariño hay cerca de 800 familias confinadas y en el Valle del Cauca siguen asesinando a comuneros indígenas
Just over a week ago, with assurances from the U.S. Department of Homeland Security that health protocols had been established, Guatemalan authorities allowed flights to resume
Indigenous groups across South America are blockading their villages and retreating into their traditional forest and mountain homes in a bid to escape the potentially cataclysmic threat of coronavirus
Militares consultados no creen que, por ahora, Maduro cambie su anillo de seguridad. Aunque no pueden predecir el comportamiento castrense, vislumbran más acciones de inteligencia a lo interno
Guaidó, who is recognized as Venezuela’s lawful leader by the U.S. and almost other 60 countries, said opponents of Maduro need to be “realistic” and be prepared to share power
Podrían cohesionar el entorno de Nicolás Maduro e impedir una salida pacífica a la crisis política del país, en momentos donde se vive una situación delicada por la propagación de la covid-19
Other than a long morning staff meeting and check-ins with colleagues at WOLA, I should be reachable today. Other than some brief writing about Colombia, my main goal is to make big progress on a project, involving creation of a web resource, that will focus and strengthen my work on the border.
My streak of sending out weekly e-mail newsletters now stands at 13. Here’s the latest one. I resolved at the new year to be more regular at these. So that means this horrible year is already 13 weeks old.
You can read it and subscribe there, or just subscribe at the bottom of this very page.
New meal schedule: *Breakfast *Second Breakfast *Elevenses *Snack, Part I *Lunch *Lunch Dessert *Snack II: 2 Fast 2 Salty *Snack III: Nacho Drift *Sure, let's call it "Dinner" *Episode IV: A New Snack *Snack V: The Jalapeño Strikes Back *The Ice Cream Course *Night cheese
4:00 at atlanticcouncil.org: Impact of the oil market crash on the major producers in Latin America: A closer look at Brazil and Mexico (RSVP required).
Wednesday, April 1
12:00–1:00 at thedialogue.org: Price War Meets Pandemic – Energy’s Perfect Storm in Latin America (RSVP required).
Thursday, April 2
9:00–10:30 at thedialogue.org: Impact of the Covid-19 Pandemic on Migrants and Remittances to Latin America and the Caribbean (RSVP required).
11:00 at migrationpolicy.org: COVID-19 in Latin America: Tackling Health Care & Other Impacts for Vulnerable Migrant Populations (RSVP required).
If coronavirus wasn’t putting a halt to such things, this week the U.S. government would’ve sent back to Colombia one of the maximum leaders of the AUC paramilitary group, Salvatore Mancuso, who was extradited to face drug trafficking charges in 2008. In a detailed piece at Canada’s National Post, Brian Fitzpatrick tells the story of Mancuso, the AUC, and its “Justice and Peace” demobilization process. He also talks to AUC victims exiled in Canada. (Also noteworthy this week: an El Espectadorprofile of Carlos Mario Jiménez alias “Macaco,” a much-feared AUC leader who the U.S. government sent back to Colombia last July.)
The Friedrich Ebert Foundation’s security program published a brilliant overview of security, defense, U.S. policy, great-power influence, multilateralism, globalism, and the crisis of democracy in Latin America, by Argentine-Spanish analyst Mariano Aguirre, former Obama administration defense official Rebecca Bill Chavez, and former Bachelet administration defense official Marcos Robledo. (The paper is dated January 2020, but was just released this week.)
In the New York Review of Books, veteran Brazil correspondent Vincent Bevins portrays the country’s politics, economy, and human rights situation just over a year into the Bolsonaro administration—within the context of the archconservative president’s unhinged coronavirus denialism.
Another populist president in the region, Mexico’s Andrés Manuel López Obrador, has also come under fire for his slow response to the virus. Alex Ward at Vox wrote a nuanced but dire explanation of what’s happening there.
At the New York Times, Nathaniel Popper and Ana Vanessa Herrero profile Gabriel Jiménez, the twentysomething coder whose belief in the liberating power of cryptocurrencies led him to create the Maduro government’s “Petro.” Jiménez now lives in exile in the United States; his account is rich with details about the Maduro regime. Don’t miss the part where Maduro asks Vice President Tareck El Aissami to fix his air conditioner by banging on it.
Many now fear that Latin America may go the way of Italy — with too many cases already circulating to gain control of the virus for many weeks or months
Top Trump administration officials grew angry with Matt Albence, the acting director of Immigration and Customs Enforcement, after he announced that immigration authorities would halt most enforcement efforts during the coronavirus outbreak
La propuesta legislativa acordada con las ocho candidaturas que concurren a los comicios prevé que la elección se celebre “entre el domingo 7 de junio y el domingo 6 de septiembre”
In a nationally televised address Tuesday night, he urged governors to limit isolation only to high-risk people and lift the strict anti-virus measures they have imposed in their regions
Hablamos con Luis Fernando Arias, consejero mayor de la Organización Nacional Indígena de Colombia, quien nos dio un panorama de cómo están las comunidades aborígenes de cara al coronavirus
When Salvatore Mancuso was shipped from Colombia to a U.S. cell, he said, ‘they extradited the truth.’ But his sentence ends today and he has secrets to tell
La Fuerza Pública adelanta un plan a nivel nacional para la prevención ante la expansión del covid-19. También se preparan por la posible llegada del virus a las filas del Ejército
Due to the restrictions imposed to contain the pandemic, state protection measures have been weakened, they can no longer keep moving from one location to another for their safety, and their attackers know that public security forces are focusing on issues related to the pandemic
“Cuba offers its international medical missions to those afflicted with #COVID?19 only to make up the money it lost when countries stopped participating in the abusive program,” tweeted an account for the US State Department Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights and Labor
The undersigned organizations call on the U.S. government to issue a time-bound suspension of sanctions on Cuba to facilitate the flow of desperately needed humanitarian and medical supplies to the Cuban people as they cope with the global COVID-19 pandemic
El ingreso de un grupo de deportados salvadoreños este martes 24 ocurrió apenas un día después de que el Departamento de Seguridad Nacional (DHS, por sus siglas en inglés) presionara a los gobiernos del Triángulo Norte de Centroamérica para que levantaran sus cuarentenas en los aeropuertos
A federal judge issued arrest warrants against five government officials and a former marine for torture, forced disappearance, and obstruction of justice in the case of the 43 students
President Trump recently announced strict new border controls, citing concerns over the coronavirus pandemic. Officials will now turn away most migrants entering the country from the U.S.-Mexico border — including people coming legally and fleeing violence. Jean Guerrero of KPBS spoke to families stuck in limbo at the country’s busiest land border crossing, just south of San Diego in Tijuana
Federal prosecutors accused President Nicolás Maduro of participating in a narco-terrorism conspiracy, in a major escalation of the Trump administration’s efforts to pressure him to leave office
An indictment, unveiled at a video news conference in Washington, D.C., accuses Maduro and other current and former officials in his socialist regime of conspiring with the U.S.-designated terrorist group known as the FARC, so that Venezuela could be used as a base for narcotics shipments
El anuncio del gobierno de Donald Trump cierra la puerta a una solución negociada en Venezuela y reafirma la posición de Iván Duque de no hablar con el gobierno del vecino país
Whatever incentive these key power brokers might have had to support a transition has been wiped out. They are each more likely to decide that they’re better off sticking with Maduro, even if it means going down with the ship
A group of Democratic senators joined growing calls for Trump to ease punishing sanctions and provide aid to Venezuela and Iran amid the worsening pandemic
I’m recording podcasts with people at 10 and 3. Otherwise I should be at my desk working on an analysis of Latin America’s militaries and the powers and roles they’re being given during this crisis, as well as some border work.
More than 60,000 people have disappeared in Mexico since 2006. As a March 23 WOLA commentary by Maureen Meyer and Gina Hinojosa notes, the current government is taking some initial steps to address the crisis. A great deal, however, remains to be done, and victims’ groups trying to locate the disappeared continue to work very much on their own.
To discuss the crisis and Mexico’s incipient efforts to address it, Meyer and Hinojosa are joined by two guests from the frontlines of Mexico’s fight to locate and identify the disappeared. Mariano Machain is the international advocacy coordinator at SERAPAZ Mexico, a non-governmental organization working for peace and positive transformation of social conflicts. Lucy Díaz (seen in a December 2019 ABC News Nightline feature) is a leader of Colectivo Solecito, a group of mothers searching for the disappeared in Veracruz state; her son Luis disappeared in 2013.
After many years of accumulating home office-type gadgets, working at home is tolerable.
In the frame: Mac Mini with dual monitors, MacBook Air, sheet-fed scanner, podcasting mic, HD camera, blu-ray burner, printer, mechanical keyboard, mouse, Hue lamp, amp, LED lighting, speakers, turntable, headphones.
If you find this horrifying, I totally understand. If it’s any consolation, there’s a washer/dryer and a litterbox behind me.
Leo Correa photo at Associated Press. Caption: “A volunteer with a face mask walks past a police officer after distributing soap and detergent in an effort to avoid the spread the new coronavirus.”
In every region, under all kinds of political systems, governments are turning to increasingly stringent measures — and deploying their armed forces to back them up
A video apparently recorded in the City of God circulated on social media this week showing a loudspeaker broadcasting the alert: “Anyone found messing or walking around outside will be punished”
Law-and-order strategies that “stuff” Brazil’s crowded prisons with new inmates may actually exacerbate the problem, given that the PCC has effectively converted the country’s prisons into logistical hubs and training centers of illicit activity
El consejero para la Estabilización, Emilio Archila, resaltó la importancia del trabajo de los campesinos que han dado el paso a la legalidad y a través del Programa han sustituido 41 mil 370 hectáreas
Con el operativo militar, que fue concertado con el Gobierno nacional, el alcalde espera enfrentar dos grandes crisis que vive el municipio: la situación sanitaria por el COVID-19 y el aumento de la migración venezolana
El poder extraordinario que la Asamblea ha dado al Ejecutivo mediante los decretos de emergencia y excepción no son cheques en blanco, sino auxilios contemplados en la Constitución
“People expressed fear of contracting the COVID-19 virus and announced their intention to start a hunger strike if they were not released,” the rights groups said. National Guard and INM officers deployed poles, water hoses, pepper spray and Tasers
Por redes sociales o a través de mensajes por WhatsApp, diversos grupos en el Estado de México, Oaxaca y Puebla han hecho llamados para realizar saqueos en tiendas departamentales por las noches o en la madrugada
La banda delictiva de Tlacotepec que dirige Onésimo Marquina Chapa, alias El Necho, irrumpió en las comunidades de Tepozonalco y El Naranjo para desplazar al grupo denominado Cártel del Sur, que encabeza Isaac Navarrete Celis, El Señor de la I
The protesters demanded greater controls and screenings on southbound traffic at the U.S.-Mexico border out of concern that travelers from the U.S. could import new cases of the coronavirus into Mexico
In a lengthy message Tuesday, the leader of operations in Tucson, Arizona, alerted the region’s 3,700 agents that two agents tested positive for the virus
The government of President Nicolas Maduro is hoping to renegotiate oil-for-loan deals agreed nearly 15 years ago under late socialist leader Hugo Chavez
Vivas Santana, escritor de una columna en el portal web aporrea, es el tercer periodista agredido por los cuerpos de seguridad del régimen en menos de una semana
The threat against Avila, who is now in hiding but spoke with Reuters by telephone, is one of at least seven recent episodes in which Venezuelan authorities have sought to arrest critics of the government’s preparedness for the coronavirus
Karl writes that one of the options Trump “had in mind was a naval blockade of Venezuela, which didn’t make sense for a lot of reasons, including the fact that Venezuela is not an island.”
The United States’ legacy in Latin America is much older than Trump and Graham are. It’s a legacy that weighs heavily on the Pentagon’s reluctance to sail major warships through Latin American waters
I’ll be easiest to reach in the mid-to-late afternoon. (How to contact me)
The new computer is set up and working well. It’s a gigantic improvement.
Lots of virtual meetings today: I’m on a conference call about human rights defenders in Colombia, recording a podcast about Mexico, and guest-teaching a George Washington University class. I’ll edit and post that podcast, and try to book some new ones. In any extra time, I plan to start building an online resource for the border work.
I’m happy to say that a new section of my colombiapeace.org website, which I’ve been overhauling since late January, is ready to go. This is the final feature that I’d planned to add. (I’ve already added a timeline, a page of important numbers, infographics, links to reports, public-domain photos, and embedded videos.)
Explainers, the new section, is a series of brief articles offering plain-language, fact-filled explanations of persistent, evergreen topics. Each looks at an aspect of Colombia’s conflict, peace effort, human rights challenges, or U.S. policy. The format is inspired by—but less ambitious than—the “card stacks” that Vox.com used when it first launched, but later abandoned.
These Explainers are never “finished.” We’ll edit and update them as new information emerges or situations change. Months from now, some may look quite different than they do now.
I’ve completed three Explainers so far, and plan to add approximately one per week between now and June. Right now, you can find Explainers about:
Coca Cultivation and Eradication: An overview of the bush used to make cocaine, the criminal activity that has grown up around it, its relation to the conflict, and unsuccessful efforts to eradicate it.
Protection of Ex-Combatants: The threats and attacks former FARC fighters are facing, and the measures the peace accord proposed to protect them.
Explainers about the ELN, and about Colombia’s efforts to build state presence in rural areas, will be coming soon. By June, I hope to stop at about 10 to 15 Explainers on the page.
Amnesty International believes that authorities must show leadership by prioritizing human rights and by refraining from abusing their power in the middle of this emergency. Here is a preliminary list of “Do’s” and “Don’ts”
The struggle to hold the military to account for crimes against humanity are a part of Argentinian identity. A group of grandmothers leads the story of that struggle
Santiago says that he does whatever he can to prevent infection, but his family is exposed to vectors every day, and because they don’t have the necessary access to water, he is very afraid
The immediate trigger for the so-called panelaço protests has been Bolsonaro’s response to the coronavirus pandemic, which he has repeatedly dismissed as hysteria, fantasy and, a media “trick”
A joint team of U.S. service members providing medical aid and training in the remote La Guajira region of Colombia found their options to leave the country dwindle in mid-March
Despite criticism that he is responding to the crisis too slowly, the president has targeted his response to the millions of Mexicans who live day-by-day, many in informal or precarious working conditions
López Obrador, who most know as Amlo, has responded to the coronavirus crisis with nonchalance – never missing an opportunity to contradict the advice of public health officials or paint the pandemic as a plot
Those requesting protection at official ports of entry (including those who, due to policies like “metering,” have been waiting for months) will be turned away
Here’s an analysis we posted yesterday in response to the closure of the U.S.-Mexico border to “inessential” travel. As noted in yesterday’s podcast, such travelers apparently include threatened people seeking asylum or protection in the United States, who are being turned away.
The result is a potential death sentence, once COVID-19 really hits, for people confined in crowded shelters, encampments, and substandard housing in Mexican border towns. This could get really ugly.
I had two cancellations or postponements, so today’s calendar is lighter than I expected. I also don’t have a podcast interview booked today, so today will stop my streak of weekday podcasts at six. (I’ve got three interviews scheduled for Thursday and Friday, so it will recover.)
Other than a late-afternoon conference call with groups that work on Colombia, I’ll be at the computer, posting a new “explainers” section to the Colombia peace website and starting to build a new web tool to assist my border work.
Also, today is when some groceries I ordered a week ago will finally be delivered, so that’s exciting.
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