Colombia

“Informe del Alto Comisionado de las Naciones Unidas para los Derechos Humanos Sobre la Situacion de Derechos Humanos en Colombia Durante el Ano 2016” (UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Colombia Field Office, March 17, 2017).

The annual report on Colombia of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights. Thorough, based on extensive field research, and much clearer and to the point than most documents written in “UN-ese.”

Irina Cuesta, Andres Cajiao, Eduardo Alvarez Vanegas, “Siete Regiones Sin las Farc, ¿Siete Problemas Mas?” (Fundacion Ideas por la Paz (Colombia), March 15, 2017).

The Colombian security think-tank profiles seven formerly FARC-dominated zones exhibiting four types of post-conflict violence: Chocó, Tumaco, Cauca, Buenaventura, Antioquia’s Bajo Cauca region, eastern plains-Orinoquia, and Catatumbo.

Juanita Velez, Jineth Prieto, Natalia Arenas, “La Incognita de los Milicianos” (La Silla Vacia (Colombia), March 17, 2017).

As the FARC disarms, at least 6,000 more part-time guerrilla supporters, or “militias,” must also report to demobilization sites, where they’ll spend up to a week being registered. Nobody seems to have any idea how this is going to happen.

El Salvador

Sarah Esther Maslin, “How an Innocent Man Wound Up Dead in el Salvador’s Justice System” (The Washington Post, March 17, 2017).

The death of an innocent man in a medieval, overcrowded jail cell, held for a month without even being able to see a judge, “exposes deep flaws in El Salvador’s justice system, with implications that go well beyond this tiny nation of 6 million.”

Mexico

Azam Ahmed, “While Scolding Trump, Mexico Seeks to Curtail Citizens’ Rights” (The New York Times, March 16, 2017).

Much attention in Mexico is on a bill that would codify the military’s participation in policing. Ahmed highlights another bill, introduced by a powerful PRI congressional chieftain, that’s not getting as much attention. It “flips the very premise of modern justice on its head: Rather than innocent before proved guilty, it would require concrete evidence of reasonable doubt.”