Adam Isacson

Still trying to understand Latin America, my own country, and why so few consequences are intended. These views are not necessarily my employer’s.

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December 2020

Some articles I found interesting this morning

Photo from Tal Cual (Venezuela). Caption: “El racionamiento de agua se endureció en todo el país durante la cuarentena”

(Even more here)

December 31, 2020

Brazil

Bolsonaro has surrounded himself with corrupt figures, used propaganda to promote his populist agenda, undermined the justice system, and waged a destructive war against the Amazon

Colombia

Desde el Ejecutivo dicen que reportarán incumplimiento a la JEP y la Fiscalía. Farc invita a un espacio de trabajo conjunto para superar los inconvenientes

El exfiscal anticorrupción, Luis Gustavo Moreno, quien llegó al país el pasado 4 de diciembre, luego de purgar una condena de 48 meses de prisión en Estados Unidos, será trasladado a la cárcel La Modelo

“We have achieved the highest level of manual coca eradication ever recorded by Colombia: 130,000 hectares (321,000 acres),” President Ivan Duque said

La JEP cerró el año pasado con más de 36.000 decisiones adoptadas, 308.000 víctimas acreditadas en los siete macrocasos y un terreno abonado para las primeras decisiones de fondo y condenas contra los máximos responsables

Colombia, Ecuador, Peru, Venezuela

Las investigaciones revelan que existe una red de trata de personas en la que participan presuntos coyoteros que operan en Colombia, Ecuador y Perú

Cuba

Since November, a group of Cubans has been demanding freedom of expression in solidarity with members of an artists collective which has been facing repression from state authorities

Mexico

When met with what they say is official indifference or outright resistance, the collectives purchased shovels and other tools and began conducting their own searches in clandestine mass graves and abandoned properties

En 2020 habrá una disminución de 0.4% en homicidios dolosos y de 1.3% en la tasa de homicidios por cada 100 mil habitantes, con relación a 2019

Military and police forces said on the final day of the year that they had seized an estimated 1.3 tons of the synthetic opioid, compared to 222 kilograms in 2019

The episode, described by one American official as “a total shitshow”, has complicated the Mexican-American relationship just as it had at last seemed to be getting simpler

Peru

Seguridad Ciudadana se prepara para afrontar un nuevo año con retos por venir, en circunstancias que seguramente serán diferentes para nuestra ciudadanía, con eminentes cambios políticos

U.S.-Mexico Border

Don Paco, as he was known to friends and migrants, founded the San Juan Bosco migrant shelter in Nogales, Sonora in 1982

As of Dec. 16 3,600 National Guard and reserve troops are stationed at the border, with a cap of 4,000 issued in June

Venezuela

Denuncias de torturas, detenciones arbitrarias y ejecuciones extrajudiciales se combinaron este año con las vulneraciones a los derechos a la alimentación, salud y servicios básicos

El Arco Minero del Orinoco se ha convertido en una tierra de barbarie donde la ley la imponen los grupos armados irregulares

Some articles I found interesting this morning

(Even more here)

December 30, 2020

Western Hemisphere Regional

Todos nos sentimos sacudidos, hostigados, dañados y algo traumatizados por el paso de Trump. Creo que los latinoamericanos han de sentir algo parecido

Argentina

The Senate vote on Wednesday was a major victory for Latin America’s growing feminist movement, and its ripple effects are likely to be widespread

Bolivia

El anterior jefe de las FFAA había expresado el malestar institucional por los procesos a militares por las muertes de Sacaba y Senkata

Chile

Cabe destacar que la creación del COPE es parte de las modificaciones diseñadas para la nueva Estructura Superior del Ejército (ESE) y depende directamente del Comandante en Jefe

Colombia, Venezuela

The message that Venezuelan migrants are no longer welcome comes from average Colombian citizens and powerful government officials alike

Cuba

On the campaign trail, President-elect Joe Biden promised to reverse Donald Trump’s restrictions on travel and remittances to Cuba. But he stopped short of saying just how far he’ll go

The plan to restore Cuba to the terrorism sponsor list was developed, in a break from standard process, by the State Department’s Bureau of Western Hemisphere Affairs and not its Counterterrorism Bureau

Cuba, U.S.-Mexico Border

U.S. authorities, including police in anti-riot gear, closed off the bridge that leads into El Paso, Texas, with a concrete barrier topped with barbed wire

Honduras

Félix Vásquez, 60, a veteran leader of the indigenous Lenca people, was shot dead at home in Santiago de Puringla, a rural community in the department of La Paz

Mexico

Mexico’s Senate passed a bill in late November legalizing recreational marijuana. Lawmakers in the lower house say they will approve a bill by February, though they want to raise the amount of pot consumers may possess in public

El 6 de junio de 2021, 94 millones de mexicanos están llamados a las urnas para elegir a los 500 diputados federales, 15 de los 32 gobernadores, 30 congresos estatales y mil 900 ayuntamientos

Se inauguraron 22 bases de la Guardia Nacional en la entidad, pero no responden a la violencia

When the flow of drugs regained momentum, the transportation hurdles resulted in a sharp drop in the frequency of shipments, with cocaine from the Andean countries of South America arriving in Mexico once every two weeks, instead of a few times a week

U.S.-Mexico Border

The cartel operative, who asked not to be identified to avoid retribution, said cartels not only have ties to the Border Patrol but to CBP officers at the international bridges as well

Venezuela

En el acto de salutación a la Fuerza Armada Nacional celebrado el 28 de diciembre de 2020, Nicolás Maduro asistió vestido de militar

Los presos políticos permanecen en diferentes recintos carcelarios como el Helicoide, los calabozos de la Dirección General de Contrainteligencia Militar (Dgcim) y en la sede principal del Servicio Bolivariano de Inteligencia Nacional

Entre las muertes violentas, hubo 4.231 personas que fallecieron en casos de «resistencia a la autoridad», 4.153 homicidios y otras 3.507 muertes que están en averiguación

Some articles I found interesting this morning

(Even more here)

December 29, 2020

Western Hemisphere Regional

The Biden administration will need to expect the unexpected and plan for multiple contingencies, whether migration surges, natural disasters, or constitutional crises

Brazil

Illegal goldminers supported by Bolsonaro bring environmental destruction and coronavirus to Yanomami communities

Colombia

Miembros de las Fuerzas Armadas y de la Policía han participado en espacios de escucha como víctimas del conflicto armado y también han aportado sus versiones para el esclarecimiento de la verdad

Entre las víctimas está Rosa Mendoza, una excombatiente de las Farc y su hija, menor de edad

Sería muy útil para la paz nacional, así como para restablecer la confianza de los ciudadanos, ver un liderazgo menos conflictivo y escudado en el debido proceso para no dar explicaciones necesarias

Colombia, Venezuela

“Desde Colombia se preparan ataques contra unidades militares del país, con mercenarios entrenados bajo el financiamiento de Iván Duque, se preparan ataques a final de este año o en los días por pasar a principio del 2021”, aseguró

Costa Rica

Both versions of 2020 — the rapid and competent initial Covid-response and scientific development, and the blundering financial reaction and misreading of public needs — will be part of the benefits and burdens Costa Rica carries into the future

El Salvador

Tucked into the omnibus spending bill signed Sunday by President Donald Trump was a provision barring access for El Salvador — as well as for neighbors Guatemala and Honduras — to a State Department program that finances the purchase of U.S. defense equipment

Guatemala

In Guatemala, fear of the virus was overshadowed by outrage in the face of corruption and abuse of power

El fotógrafo esperaba la llegada de Mynor Moto a Puerto Barrios, pero captó al excandidato presidencial Fredy Cabrera, que le advertía al juez “¡Metete, metete!”

Honduras

The pandemic is thriving in countries like Honduras where democracy and dictatorship blend together into a toxic autocracy

Mexico

Ni el confinamiento por la pandemia, ni el despliegue masivo de la Guardia Nacional lograron una reducción de la violencia homicida

U.S.-Mexico Border

Additional steps may be tougher, but are still worth considering

The next head of DHS will need to grapple with the insular, hard-right worldview held by influential border and immigration officials

Venezuela

Dos o tres lanchas parten de forma clandestina cada semana en Güiria. Surcan el oleaje del océano Atlántico que baña la costa oriental, con venezolanos que escapan

Nicolás Maduro reaccionó en rechazo a la declaratoria de la continuidad administrativa y constitucional de la Asamblea Nacional (AN) presidida por Juan Guaidó

Some articles I found interesting this morning

(Even more here)

December 28, 2020

Western Hemisphere Regional

Some immigrants have been withdrawing cases against their lawyers’ advice, saying they’re more afraid of being in detention during a coronavirus outbreak than of what might be waiting in the places they fled

Colombia

Gracias al trabajo de la Jurisdicción Especial para la Paz, la Comisión de la Verdad y la Unidad de Búsqueda de Desaparecidos, el país ha podido conocer versiones sobre varios hechos que permanecieron ocultos

Sólo doce han terminado en una condena, pero veinte están en juicio

El Estado colombiano no tiene certeza de cuántos son los predios considerados baldíos y mucho menos sus dimensiones reales. Aprovechándose de esa falencia, cientos de colombianos se habrían apropiado de grandes extensiones de tierra

Rosa Amalia Mendoza y Manuel Alonso Villegas, exarc asesinados este domingo, 27 de diciembre en los departamentos de Bolívar y Cauca

U.S.-Mexico Border

The U.S. has always resisted protecting refugees at its border. The incoming Biden administration will have to decide whether to break with that past

Some articles I found interesting this morning

(Even more here)

December 24, 2020

Colombia

Por situación de seguridad en los territorios, muchos de ellos ya no se podrán entregar. Gobierno dice que tiene toda la logística necesaria disponible para recibir los bienes

Si en efecto vuelven las aspersiones con glifosato, es fácil predecir qué va a ocurrir: la política de drogas de Colombia continuará en el fracaso

La Fiscalía debía informar sobre los avances en las investigaciones penales por los hechos ocurridos el 25 de mayo de 2000 que atentaron contra la vida, integridad y libertad de expresión de la periodista

La nueva cabeza de esa institución es una ficha que genera confianza en distintos sectores políticos, en el Ejército y en las agencias de inteligencia internacional

This role has been most pro­nounced in the U.S. coun­ternar­cotics pol­i­cy in the coun­try for the past few decades. Under the Trump admin­is­tra­tion this pol­i­cy has been mixed with ani­mos­i­ty toward the 2016 peace agree­ment

Guatemala

Out now in documentary form, The Art of Political Murder presents a riveting narrative reconstruction of one of Latin America’s most controversial and bizarre criminal cases

Mexico

Al menos 26 mil 105 personas fueron asesinadas de marzo a noviembre de 2020, periodo en el que se han mantenido las medidas de restricción por la pandemia

Nicaragua

Carlos Chamorro denunció que el régimen de Daniel Ortega ordenó confiscar todos los bienes que pertenecen a los medios de comunicación, El Confidencial

Peru

Especialista advierte que hace 20 años no se producía un ataque contra miembros de esta institución

U.S.-Mexico Border

The government’s strategy of awarding contracts before acquiring titles to land in Texas has led to millions of dollars in costs for delays. Things could get even more complicated if President-elect Joe Biden stops border wall construction

The work is part of a final sprint to complete as many miles of border wall as possible before President-elect Joe Biden takes office

President Trump issued pardons to Ignacio Ramos and Jose Compean, two U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) agents who were convicted in 2006 of shooting Osvaldo Aldrete-Davil and then attempting to cover up the shooting

There is the promise of more lenient immigration policies to come, but as Tony Payan argues, it’s more about what people are running from than what they are running toward

Venezuela

Like the December 6 sham election, the consultation has done nothing to jump start a transition to democracy

Some articles I found interesting this morning

(Even more here)

December 23, 2020

Colombia

Organizaciones sociales y voceros comunitarios, a pesar del miedo, denuncian una supuesta connivencia entre la fuerza pública y los grupos ilegales

La pugna que enfrenta al grupo narcoparamilitar Los Rastrojos con la guerrilla del ELN ha dejado una estela de muerte

El Nudo del Paramillo, frontera natural entre los dos departamentos, es hoy un corredor que ocho grupos se disputan tras la salida de las Farc

Colombia, Venezuela

President Iván Duque says undocumented Venezuelans will be denied access in a move denounced as unethical and impractical

El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras

Legislation requires creation of “Engel list” of corrupt and undemocratic actors who will be denied entry to U.S.

U.S.-Mexico Border

They are likely the result of a combination of changes to border policy by the Trump administration, an increase in hostility by US Border Patrol toward humanitarian aid workers, and record-breaking heat

The president-elect said creating a system to process thousands of asylum seekers will take months, because the government needs funding to put staffers such as “asylum judges” in place

While tens of thousands of asylum seekers, mostly from Central America, have given up and returned home, many others haven’t

Some articles I found interesting this morning

(Even more here)

December 22, 2020

Western Hemisphere Regional

Judge Hanen declined to immediately end DACA as Texas requested when the state filed its suit in 2018, but he wrote in a preliminary opinion that Texas was likely to ultimately win the suit

Colombia

El fiscal del caso resolvió declarar como crimen de lesa humanidad el presunto delito de concierto para delinquir que se les imputa a los reconocidos empresarios

En la lista de mandatarios, presidentes, cancilleres y primeros ministros que han hablado telefónicamente con el presidente electo de los Estados Unidos, Joe Biden, no aparece el presidente Iván Duque

Colombia, Venezuela

President Iván Duque says undocumented Venezuelans will be denied access in a move denounced as unethical and impractical

Cuba

WOLA and CDA representatives said they had provided the “detailed inventory of what needs to be done” to members of Biden’s transition team, and they hoped the report would create a “momentum for engagement”

Guatemala, Honduras

U.S. President-elect Joe Biden’s transition team is weighing whether to grant them Temporary Protected Status (TPS)

Mexico

Nine journalists killed in 2020, bringing deaths to 120 since 2000

The case that Gen. Salvador Cienfuegos took bribes from drug cartels is largely circumstantial, people in both countries say, clouding chances of a conviction in Mexico

Before this grows into a very damaging bilateral problem, the two governments urgently need to engage to address the serious and legitimate issues at stake and find workable solutions

U.S.-Mexico Border

Rice y Sullivan intentaron contener el “efecto llamada” que puede generar entre los migrantes la próxima llegada al poder de Biden, después de cuatro años de restricciones al derecho al asilo

Federal statistics show that search and rescue operations near Arizona’s border inexplicably dipped to 213 during a record-hot July and August, from 232 in July and August 2019

Rice and Sullivan’s interview with EFE were the first extensive on-the-record statements on immigration policy plans from Biden’s White House team

Uruguay

The law aims to reform a wide range of issues, including broadening the power given to the police force during public demonstrations

Venezuela

Venezuelan authorities are harassing and criminally prosecuting civil society organizations that are doing essential work to address the ongoing humanitarian emergency in the country

For months, Mr. Esper had fended off pleas from the State and Justice Departments to deploy a Navy vessel to Cape Verde to deter Venezuela and Iran from plotting to spirit Mr. Saab away from the island

Some articles I found interesting this morning

(Even more here)

December 21, 2020

Colombia

El presidente de Colombia mantiene su rechazo a los acuerdos de 2016, pero asegura que su Gobierno quiere que la reincorporación salga bien. “Los asesinatos de líderes sociales vienen de atrás”, justifica tras un demoledor informe de la ONU

Este 19 de diciembre fueron citadas múltiples organizaciones campesinas y civiles para discutir un tema esencial: si se aprueban o no los cambios del Plan de Manejo Ambiental de la Policía, lo que llevaría al regreso de las fumigaciones

SEMANA conoció que, durante los últimos diez años, 326 miembros activos y en retiro del Ejército Nacional han estado relacionados con investigaciones por posible abuso y acoso sexual

So why doesn’t the Colombian government just send more police or troops to protect the land defenders? It’s complicated

Desde el sur de Bolívar, Arauca y Nariño son reconocidos como referentes de procesos organizativos. Este lunes se define su situación judicial

El Ministerio de Defensa, que está a cargo de la primera etapa del sometimiento, se negó a darnos detalles sobre la entrega

El centro de investigación también advierte que a lo largo de 2020 han sido asesinados 292 líderes sociales

  • Juan Gomez, Silvia Corredor Rodriguez, Valeria Arias Suarez, Carlos Mayorga, Periodistas de la Paz en el Terreno, Antioquia Silenciada (El Espectador (Colombia), December 21, 2020).

Así lo mapeó el Proceso Social de Garantías para la Labor de Líderes, Lideresas, Defensores y Defensoras de Derechos Humanos de Antioquia, una red que reúne 80 organizaciones sociales en el departamento

Guatemala

Ayer también hubo cambios en la jefatura del Estado Mayor de la Defensa Nacional

Mexico

Este domingo, el presidente Andrés Manuel López Obrador anunció que la administración, la operación del tren, de Tulum hasta Palenque, que son tres tramos, además del Aeropuerto de Tulum, el Aeropuerto de Chetumal, el Aeropuerto de Palenque y el Aeropuerto Felipe Ángeles de la Ciudad de México estarán a cargo del Ejército

La Fiscalía General de la República (FGR) y la Secretaría de Relaciones Exteriores (SRE) declararon como reservada por un periodo de cinco años toda la información relacionada con la detención en Estados Unidos del general Salvador Cienfuegos

El fundador de la Casa del Migrante de Saltillo falleció a los 76 años, su voz sonó con fuerza en el noreste del país, especialmente en los años más cruentos de la guerra contra el narco de Felipe Calderón

Aristóteles Sandoval was shot in the back inside a restaurant restroom in one of the highest-profile political killings in Mexico in recent memory

El trabajo de la prensa pasó a estar totalmente controlado por el crimen organizado, coludido con autoridades locales. Nada se podía publicar sin el aval de los capos

Funcionarios plantearon que se quiere sentar el precedente de que el gobierno mexicano planea perseguir vigorosamente a quienes trafiquen con armas, aún cuando hayan cometido el delito en territorio estadunidense

U.S.-Mexico Border

Furniture making, housekeeping and makeup practice – people of Matamoros camp pass the time in the long wait for asylum

“For the first time in decades,” she says, “we need to think how we can actually allow, receive, and welcome them in a way that’s fair rather than presume from the get-go that our goal is to keep them out”

Uruguay

El ministro de Defensa Nacional, Javier García, advirtió por el “proceso de desmantelamiento” de las Fuerzas Armadas iniciado por el Frente Amplio

Venezuela

An exit remains possible if the government and opposition adjust their zero-sum thinking to admit the need for compromise. The new U.S. administration can help

The US dollar is increasingly taking precedence over the bolivar, and while the Venezuelan minimum wage is the lowest in the region, the country’s stock market is booming

Ramsey and Smilde offer a series of concrete policy recommendations for the next administration

Weekly email update is out

I just sent off another e-mail update to those who’ve subscribed. It’s a bit shorter because I’ve been off, but it has:

  • Information about a good bill that actually passed Congress about missing migrants at the border;
  • Full text of this week’s Colombia peace update;
  • Full text of this week’s U.S.-Mexico border update;
  • 5 “longread” links from the past week;
  • A brief comment about drug policy; and, finally,
  • An extra helping of funny tweets.

Here’s the page with past editions and a blank to add your e-mail address if you want these more-or-less weekly missives in your inbox.

5 links from the past week

  • In part 5 of a 5-part series, The Washington Post’s Mary Beth Sheridan takes an in-depth look at the increasing power and unaccountability of Mexico’s military. Few countries in Latin America have handed over so many roles to the armed forces, and it happened fast.
  • Pair that with J. Weston Phippen’s investigation in Politico Magazine of a U.S.-aided Mexican Marine Special Forces unit that went on a rampage in the border city of Nuevo Laredo in 2018, disappearing dozens of people—including a U.S. citizen—without a peep from the Trump administration.
  • Pair that with what is probably longtime New York Times bureau chief Azam Ahmed’s last piece before departing Mexico: the story of Miriam Rodríguez, the mother of one of tens of thousands of Mexican victims of kidnapping and murder, who got almost no help from law enforcement and captured her daughter’s killers down on her own until she, too, was murdered in her home in San Fernando, Tamaulipas.
  • Communities in Colombia’s ill-governed coca-growing territories are bracing for a possible holiday announcement that U.S.-funded spray planes are to resume spraying glyphosate after a 2015 suspension. Two analysts at DeJusticia—an NGO at the vanguard of the legal fight against fumigation—decry the policy and the process being used to restart it.
  • The International Crisis Group and the Fundación Paz y Reconciliación published reports warning of a deteriorating security situation along the Colombia-Venezuela border. It is formally closed due to the pandemic, but armed and criminal groups operate numerous illicit crossings. Both reports find the ELN gaining strength, at times abetted by the Venezuelan government, while paramilitaries, FARC dissidents, EPL guerrilla remnants, Venezuelan gangs, and Mexican cartel middlemen all add to the complexity.

Colombia peace update: Week of December 13, 2020

Cross-posted from WOLA’s colombiapeace.org site. Between now and the end of the year, we’re producing weekly sub-1,000-word updates in English about peace accord implementation and related topics. After that, we will evaluate the experience—both audience response and our own time commitment—before deciding whether to produce these permanently.

Consultation puts a restart of fumigation on the front burner

On December 19 Colombia’s environmental authority, the ANLA, is holding a long-awaited public hearing about resuming coca fumigation. The term refers to a U.S.-backed program that uses aircraft spraying the herbicide glyphosate to eradicate coca. The hearing is a step toward ANLA’s deciding whether to award the controversial program an environmental license, one of several prerequisites that Colombia’s Constitutional Court has set for its restart.

Colombia suspended fumigation in 2015, after 21 years and over 1.8 million hectares sprayed, following a World Health Organization literature review’s finding that glyphosate was “probably carcinogenic.” Since then, the government was slow to implement an alternative—whether on-the-ground eradication or building state presence and services in coca-growing zones—and coca cultivation surged.

The December 19 public hearing centers on the 4,000-page modification that the National Police—which runs the spray program—is proposing to the ANLA’s environmental management plan for the spraying. The hearing responds to a March request from four NGOs, Acción Técnica Social, Elementa, Viso Mutop, y Dejusticia. The pandemic has delayed it: courts ruled that communities in remote areas far from internet access could not be consulted “virtually.” A higher court overruled that in October, however, finding that virtual consultations could go ahead.

The groups that called for the hearing contend that the spray program is risky and ineffective. DeJusticia’s co-founder, Rodrigo Uprimny, notes, “The argument against fumigation is simple: it is not effective, it has serious negative effects, its legal viability is precarious, and there are better strategies.” María Alejandra Vélez of the Universidad de los Andes’ Center for Security and Drugs (CESED) contends that fumigation causes “a loss of state legitimacy,” a “balloon effect” as coca cultivation moves elsewhere, and conflict with the peace accords’ offer of help with crop substitution.

Should this process lead to a restart of spraying, we can expect Colombian organizations—including those that called for the December 19 hearing—to challenge it before the Constitutional Court. An analysis from DeJusticia advocates finds “poor transparency and access to information in the process, weak evidence, and failure to comply with constitutional orders,” while little is known about the health study that Colombia’s equivalent of the CDC (the INS) has been required to carry out. A joint letter from numerous Colombian organizations found that “the government is not complying with the legal and constitutional mandate to respect consultation and free, prior, and informed consent in eradication plans in ethnic territories,” and demanded that the December 19 hearing be suspended.

Coca fumigation has been the subject of numerous WOLA reports and commentaries, a November 30 joint letter with Colombian partners, and an event we co-hosted on December 9.

International warnings about massacres and social leader killings

“I call on the Colombian authorities to take stronger and much more effective action to protect the population from this appalling and pervasive violence,” reads a statement from UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Michelle Bachelet that counts 375 people murdered in 2020 by massacres and targeted social leader killings. A summary of the statement was featured for at least two days this week on the main page of the United Nations’ website. During the past week, strong concerns about massacres (defined as the killing of multiple people at a time) and social leader murders also came from:

  • The 29th semi-annual report of OAS mission in Colombia (MAPP-OEA), drawing attention to “illegal armed groups’ territorial and social control.”
  • A Verdad Abierta resource that allows a reader to view brief biographical and geographical information about 602 social leaders killed between January 2016 and September 2020, selecting for year, region, and stage of judicial investigation.
  • WOLA’s monthly alert about the human rights situation, which “cannot stress enough that international actions are required to stop the human rights rollbacks occurring as a result of the inadequate implementation of the 2016 peace accord.”

Two reports warn about security along the Colombia-Venezuela border

Two high-credibility security think tanks released reports raising alarms about worsening security conditions at the Colombia-Venezuela border. Even as pandemic measures stop all legal border crossings, violent organized crime activity has increased, in a way that mixes dangerously with the neighboring governments’ poor diplomatic relations.

“In the 24 border municipalities of Colombia, during 2020, 472 people have been assassinated, 63 of Venezuelan nationality; 24 have been massacred; 1,365 persons have been forcibly displaced and 13 have been kidnapped,” reports the Fundación Paz y Reconciliación in a 55-page report on The Situation of Security and Migration on the Colombia-Venezuela Border. “On the Venezuelan side,” however, the Foundation could obtain “no known figures that would allow us to specify” how bad the situation is.

“Numerous armed groups clash with one another and harm citizens along a border marked by abundant coca crops and informal crossings,” reports the International Crisis Group’s Disorder on the Border: Keeping the Peace between Colombia and Venezuela. “High bilateral tensions could spur escalating border hostilities while perpetuating the mistreatment of migrants and refugees whose movements have been restricted by COVID-19.”

Both reports find the Rastrojos, a paramilitary-derived organized crime group, losing ground to the ELN along the border between Norte de Santander, Colombia and Táchira, Colombia: a more densely populated part of the border especially coveted by smugglers. The Rastrojos were found to have helped Venezuelan Assembly President (recognized by several dozen countries as Interim President) Juan Guaidó to cross overland into Colombia in February 2019. Since then, Venezuela’s security forces have cracked down on the group, along with the ELN, which moved quickly to fill the vacuum and to consolidate its dominance on the Venezuelan side on the border.

The Venezuelan government appears to have aided and abetted the ELN, the Crisis Group notes, as Caracas officials “view the ELN as a supplement to the state’s border defenses and seem willing to overlook occasional clashes between its fighters and the Venezuelan military.”

Other groups, like FARC dissidents, remnants of the EPL guerrillas, Venezuelan gang networks, and Mexican cartel middlemen, are also very active, adding to the chaos. “The Colombian army, for its part, is under orders not to rock the boat” in order to minimize the likelihood of conflict, the ICG finds.

Links

  • The Fiscalía is investigating 2,314 cases of “false positive” cases involving 10,949 members of the Army, including 22 generals, involving 3,966 victims, according to a September document that the prosecutor’s office sent to the International Criminal Court.
  • Despite the sharp rise in massacres and social leader killings, Colombia’s 2020 homicide rate to date is 23.8 murders per 100,000 residents, which Colombia’s Police say is the lowest in 46 years.
  • Kyle Johnson and Juanita Vélez of Conflict Responses take issue with government claims that nearly all 250 killings of ex-FARC guerrillas are related to narcotrafficking.
  • “Of the 75 municipalities with the most coca or substitution leader killings…there were specialized judges in only 3 (Puerto Asís, Tumaco, and Cúcuta) and criminal judges in 6. There were judicial police in 11 and specialized prosecutors in 7,” reads a La Silla Vacía analysis of the justice system’s absence.
  • Prominent center-left columnists Ramiro Bejarano, María Jimena Duzán, and Cecilia Orozco continued to question former Fiscal General Néstor Humberto Martínez, whom they accuse of plotting with the U.S. DEA to entrap participants and supporters of the peace process between 2017 and 2019.

Weekly border update: December 18, 2020

There’s so much happening at the U.S.-Mexico border—much of it outrageous, some of it heroic—that it’s hard to keep track. With this series of weekly updates, WOLA seeks to cover the most important developments in 900 words or less. We welcome your feedback.

You can get these in your e-mail each week by joining WOLA’s “Beyond the Wall” mailing list.

2021 spending package probably includes some border wall money

The House and Senate have almost completely agreed on a federal budget for 2021. Its final approval might not come until next week, as negotiations continue over an accompanying COVID-19 relief package.

Border wall and ICE detention money were reportedly two of the sticking points on the 2021 omnibus budget bill. The Republican-majority Senate’s Homeland Security appropriation had sought to devote $1.96 billion to border wall-building next year, while the Democratic-majority House sought to zero out the wall and rescind some past-year money. The House also would have paid for roughly half as many ICE detention beds as the Senate.

The chambers appear to have reached a compromise. “The final disposition of immigrant detention bed capacity and border wall funding wasn’t immediately clear,” Roll Call reported on December 14. “But there was an expectation that the average daily population at ICE facilities would be cut under the tentative agreement in exchange for some wall construction funding.”

Nobody has seen any numbers, and it isn’t clear how the bill’s language might compel President-elect Joe Biden, who has said he would stop wall construction, to spend any new wall-building money.

The Washington Post learned from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers that about $3.3 billion in its Defense budget wall construction accounts will be unspent as of January 20. As it might cost $700 million in fees to extricate the Corps from its contracts with construction companies, a halt would bring a net savings of about $2.6 billion.

Meanwhile in Arizona, NPR reported, “contractors have added shifts—they’re working all night long under light towers to meet Trump’s goal of 450 miles of new barriers before his term is over.”

El Salvador “safe third country” agreement is finalized

Chad Wolf, the acting secretary for Homeland Security (depending on whom you ask), visited El Salvador this week. There, he met with President Nayib Bukele and announced implementation accords for a so-called Asylum Cooperative Agreement (ACA, or “safe third country” agreement) that the United States and El Salvador signed in September 2019.

Under this agreement, El Salvador—a country so unsafe that it often tops the list of U.S. asylum seekers’ nationalities—will accept U.S. transfers of other countries’ asylum seekers, who would then need to seek protection in El Salvador.

DHS signed similar agreements with Guatemala and Honduras in 2019. Only the Guatemala agreement entered into force, and the Trump administration sent 939 Salvadoran and Honduran asylum seekers to Guatemala City between October 2019 and March 2020, when pandemic measures suspended the arrangement. Only 20 percent of them decided to apply for asylum in Guatemala; at least some of the rest were assuredly returned to danger. Human Rights Watch and Refugees International performed follow-up fieldwork in Guatemala, and found that of 30 returnees interviewed:

Several said they had no family or support networks in Guatemala and that they feared for their safety in Guatemala. Many indicated they would return to El Salvador and Honduras despite continuing to express a fear of persecution there.

Don’t expect the Biden administration to implement the El Salvador or other Northern Triangle safe third country agreements. A Biden campaign document was unequivocal: “Biden will end these [detrimental asylum] policies, starting with Trump’s Migrant Protection Protocols and Safe Third Country Agreements.”

CBP’s November numbers show the expected migrant “wave” flattening out, for now

On December 14 Customs and Border Protection released monthly border statistics, covering November. After six consecutive months of increases in Border Patrol’s apprehensions of undocumented migrants, the new data showed a leveling off last month.

Download a PDF of dozens of border infographics at bit.ly/wola_border.
  • Apprehensions declined by 0.8 percent, from 67,639 to 67,101, from October to November.
  • This, however, was the largest apprehensions number for a November since November 2005.
  • Note that this number measures “apprehensions” or “encounters,” not “people.” The quick turnaround of CBP’s pandemic-era expulsions is spurring recidivism as migrants turn around and try to cross again. The 67,101 includes much double and triple-counting.
  • Between March and November—with some double-counting—CBP expelled 328,037 apprehended migrants under the “Title 42” CDC pandemic policy, which ejects adult and family asylum seekers without a hearing. That policy faces legal challenges; on whether to lift or alter it, “the incoming administration has been silent,” a New York Times analysis notes.
  • Demographic trends are mixed. Compared to October,        
    • single adults from Mexico declined 2 percent;
    • single adults from the Northern Triangle increased 21 percent;
    • unaccompanied children from Guatemala and El Salvador increased, but children from Honduras and Mexico declined;
    • family unit members from Guatemala and Mexico increased, but those from El Salvador and Honduras declined.
Download a PDF of dozens of border infographics at bit.ly/wola_border.

As noted in previous updates, officials and press coverage are predicting a migrant “surge” from Central America in early 2021. While that remains likely, November’s apprehension data revealed an unexpected break in momentum. One hypothesis: mobility was curtailed during the first half of November, when Central America was slammed by two major hurricanes.

Links

  • In a Wednesday voice vote, the House of Representatives passed the Missing Persons and Unidentified Remains Act (S. 2174), which addresses the longstanding crisis of hundreds of migrants each year dying in U.S. borderlands of dehydration and exposure. It authorizes spending for rescue beacons, identification of remains, and other priorities, as discussed in last week’s update. Because of some technical changes to the bill’s language, it needs the Senate—which passed the bill in November—to quickly approve it a second time before it goes to the President for signature.
  • A new Human Rights First report counts at least 1,314 attacks, including kidnappings, rapes, and assault, on asylum seekers subject to the “Remain in Mexico” policy in Mexican border cities.
  • Though a Supreme Court decision just preserved the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program, a big challenge goes before a Texas federal court on Tuesday. A suit led by Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, now known nationally for leading a multi-state challenge to Joe Biden’s Electoral College victory, is going before Houston District Judge Andrew Hanen, who during the Obama administration ruled against two other deferred-action programs and now may find DACA to be illegal.
  • “Although Biden promised to reverse Trump’s most restrictive immigration policies, he didn’t include immigration among his top four priorities: the coronavirus pandemic, economic recovery, racial equity and climate change. That was intentional,” an unnamed source close to the transition told NPR’s Franco Ordóñez, adding “that the Biden campaign and then the transition team felt that immigration activists had become too adversarial.”

Some articles I found interesting this morning

Luis Antonio Rojas photo at The Washington Post.

(Even more here)

December 18, 2020

Western Hemisphere Regional

Nearly a dozen immigrants arrested by Immigration and Customs Enforcement were kept in solitary confinement for more than two months, including two people who were isolated for more than 300 days

Aruba, Curacao, Trinidad and Tobago, Venezuela

Venezuelan migrants have greatly struggled to gain access to legal status in host countries in the Caribbean

Bolivia

Solo se destruyeron 2.177 hectáreas de la hoja verde. Efectivos encargados de esa labor atribuyen el descenso a la pandemia y a los conflictos que vivió el país

Colombia

La Fiscalía investiga 2.314 casos de falsos positivos contra 10.949 miembros del Ejército que involucran a 3.966 víctimas

Sería un error histórico para Colombia desconocer tanto la evidencia sobre la aspersión como las demandas sociales y ambientales de los territorios

Rechazamos la pretensión del gobierno nacional de imponer el plan de aspersión aérea y dejamos constancia de nuestros desacuerdos frente a la audiencia del Plan de Manejo Ambiental del PECIG con la que se pretende haber ajustado al Plan de Manejo Ambiental con miras a reactivar las fumigaciones

De acuerdo con la Fiscalía, el actual presidente (José Miguel Linares) y el expresidente de la multinacional (Augusto Jiménez) carbonífera habrían financiado y promovido la creación y los propósitos ilícitos de las Autodefensas Unidas de Colombia entre 1996 y 2001

El Salvador

A police chief allegedly protecting cabinet ministers under criminal investigation underscores how the force’s highest officials still act in ways that obstruct justice and guarantee impunity

Guatemala

El Ministerio de la Defensa (Mindef) gastó más de Q48 millones en vehículos y reparaciones de aeronaves bajo el Plan de recuperación de Capacidades del Ejército

Mexico

Durante su visita a Bavispe, Sonora, señaló que ya no se encubren delitos cometidos por militares y hay autoridad moral en el comandante de las Fuerzas Armadas y los mandos

Under President Andrés Manuel López Obrador, troops have taken on expanded tasks well beyond their bases

López Obrador denied that the U.S. government had pressured Mexico to impose the restrictions, including the ‘Remain in Mexico’ policy on asylum seekers

Peru

We have gathered worrying evidence of excessive use of police force against demonstrators protesting the very questionable removal of president Vizcarra

U.S.-Mexico Border

Environmentalists hope President-elect Joe Biden will stop the work, but that could be difficult and expensive to do quickly and may still leave pillars towering over sensitive borderlands

Some articles I found interesting this morning

(Even more here)

December 17, 2020

Colombia

La Misión de Apoyo al Proceso de Paz en Colombia de la Organización de los Estados Americanos (MAPP/OEA) presentó hoy ante el Consejo Permanente de la Organización su vigésimo noveno informe semestral

En esas comunidades se sienten frustrados, porque lo pactado no sólo incluía obras y recursos, sino que también le apostaba a empoderar y darles mayor capacidad de decisión a los habitantes de estas regiones. Y esta apuesta se ha ido diluyendo

Registrar cifras tiende a deshumanizar y a invisibilizar las historias de valientes ciudadanos y ciudadanas que asumieron la vocería de sus comunidades para exigir derechos o para denunciar atropellos

Rober Daza, Adelso Gallo y Teófilo Acuña, dirigentes y voceros del Coordinador Nacional Agrario y la Cumbre Agraria, fueron capturados en tres operativos realizados entre el 15 y 16 de diciembre, acusados de rebelión agravada

The helmeted officer can be seen punching him in the face, pulling a handgun and appearing to cock it before holstering the weapon and putting Sampson in handcuffs

La Jurisdicción argumenta que no es el momento para evaluar si los militares pierden o no los beneficios por entrar a la JEP o si son expulsados

El Salvador

Not long before the pandemic touched down in El Salvador, which over the years has been the Central American country hardest hit by gang violence, the

Guatemala

The OAS actions appeared based more on personal relations between its representatives and Guatemalan officials, particularly the appointment of someone with a clear conflict of interest

ICE emails show officials scrambling to decide what to do after a plane carrying 32 immigrant children landed in Guatemala — right around the same time a judge blocked the controversial Trump administration policy that allowed them to be deported

Honduras

Honduras is experiencing dire symptoms of a failed state, accelerated by a pandemic and two hurricanes, and nurtured by weak state capacity, corruption and poor rule of law. How to fix that?

Peru

Los oficiales, pasados al retiro el 24 de noviembre, sostienen que las decisiones tomadas por el Ejecutivo violaron la normativa de la Policía

U.S.-Mexico Border

The government would owe construction firms about $700 million for terminating contracts

This bipartisan and bicameral legislation will enhance local jurisdictions’ ability to record and report missing persons and unidentified remains found in South Texas and elsewhere along the U.S.-Mexico border

The Trump Administration continues to break U.S. laws and treaty obligations that protect refugees from persecution, returning to danger people seeking protection at the southern border

Rethinking drug policy

Here’s a 250-word comment in yesterday’s edition of the Inter-American Dialogue’s Latin America Advisor newsletter.

Q: U.S. Representative Eliot L. Engel (D-N.Y.), the chairman of the House Committee on Foreign Affairs, on Dec. 1 released the final report of the congressionally mandated Western Hemisphere Drug Policy Commission, which includes recommendations to improve U.S. drug policy in Latin America and the Caribbean. Does the United States need a renewed blueprint for counternarcotics policies, as the report suggests? What are the most significant changes in drug policy that the commission recommends, and are they the right ones? In what ways would the proposed policies affect anti-drug cooperation between the United States and countries in Latin America and the Caribbean?

A: Adam Isacson, senior associate for the regional security policy program at the Washington Office on Latin America: “For four decades, U.S. administrations have sought to address illicit drugs as a problem somehow separate from Latin America’s other challenges, as though a country wracked with impunity, poverty and weak governance could somehow eliminate drug trafficking. Washington encouraged the region to pursue coercive strategies with short-term success measures and punished countries that failed to ‘cooperate fully.’ It hasn’t worked. Today, the United States is at a moment of record overdoses from illicit drugs produced in the region, while seizures and price data indicate burgeoning supplies. Organized crime, which gets much of its revenue from the drug trade, is thriving and spurring alarming levels of violence in many countries. Overall, the Western Hemisphere Drug Policy Commission’s most important contribution is its encouragement of a long- term time frame and a more equal, consultative approach. It would replace the unilateral ‘certification’ process with agreed-upon ‘compacts.’ It would place badly needed emphasis on illicit financial flows, which too often benefit corrupt officials and economic interests. In Colombia, it would de-emphasize forced eradication in favor of implementing the peace accords’ rural governance provisions. In Mexico and Central America, it prefers criminal justice reform and citizen security to endless ‘kingpin’ operations. The commission’s less threat-based, more equal approach might take longer to yield results and will require unaccustomed patience. These results, however, would hold much more promise of being permanent. A more consultative posture, meanwhile, would do far more to improve cooperation regionwide than the asymmetric relationship we’ve seen for so long.”

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