September 22, 2020

Western Hemisphere Regional

• Nick Miroff, “Immigrant Detainees Get Poor Medical Care, Face Retaliation for Speaking Out, According to Democrat-Led Report” (The Washington Post, September 22, 2020).

Guards threatened to lock detainees in isolation cells in retaliation for making too many complaints or medical requests

• “Homeland Security Committee Releases Staff Report Finding Ice Facilities Fail to Meet Basic Standards of Care” (House Committee on Homeland Security, September 22, 2020).

Instead of prioritizing bed space, ICE needs to put the health of its migrants in its care first by enforcing its own standards of care and only sending taxpayer money to facilities that meet these standards

• Jeremy Redmon, Alan Judd, “A Week After Warning, Ice Detainee Dies From Covid-19” (The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, September 22, 2020).

Cipriano Chavez-Alvarez, 61, a Mexican national who had been held at Stewart Detention Center near Lumpkin, died early Monday in a Columbus hospital

Bolivia

• Marco Antonio Chuquimia Huallpa, “Gobierno Paga Bs 100 Mil a Familias de Fallecidos en 2019” (El Deber (Bolivia), September 22, 2020).

Al menos seis organismos internacionales de DDHH condenaron al Estado boliviano

• Ishaan Tharoor, “Bolivia’s Left Could Win an Upcoming Election. U.S. Democrats Don’t Want a Repeat of Last Year’s Crisis.” (The Washington Post, September 22, 2020).

Current polling shows a clear lead for Socialist presidential candidate Luis Arce over centrist former president Carlos Mesa and a slate of other candidates

Brazil

• Oliver Stuenkel, “Why a Trump Defeat Would Be a Disaster for Bolsonaro” (Getulio Vargas Foundation, Americas Quarterly, September 22, 2020).

With Brazil’s president openly campaigning for re-election in 2022, another question then arises: How would U.S. election results impact Bolsonaro’s political fortunes?

Colombia

• Joe Parkin Daniels, “Colombia: Spying on Reporters Shows Army Unable to Shake Habits of Dirty War” (The Guardian, September 22, 2020).

Many analysts are skeptical that the investigations will pinpoint the officers or politicians who ordered the spying

• “La Calle se Reactiva Con Menos Fuerza Que el 21n, Pero Mas Radical Contra la Policia” (La Silla Vacia (Colombia), September 22, 2020).

Al final, aunque miles de personas -sobre todo jóvenes- salieron a marchar en todo el país, la movilización fue significativamente más pequeña que las del año pasado

• Luis Eduardo Celis, “La Paz Con el Eln Pasa por Arauca” (Fundación Paz y Reconciliación (Colombia), September 22, 2020).

Hoy hay cinco cosas que se pueden hacer para mover la acción de la sociedad y del estado regional y local a la cual el Frente Domingo Laín siempre está alerta

• Tim Padgett, “Is Colombia Interfering in the U.S. Election in Florida – With Tactics It Exported to Florida?” (WLRN, September 22, 2020).

Conservative elected officials in Colombia are also helping drum up the falsehood that Biden is a clone of left-wing Latin American dictators like the late Hugo Chávez

• Juan Pappier, “The Urgent Need to Reform Colombia’s Security Policies” (Human Rights Watch, Americas Quarterly, September 22, 2020).

The country needs a stronger civilian police force that reports to the Interior Ministry instead of the Defense Ministry, and less reliance on the military as the main representative of the Colombian state in rural areas

• “A las Farc Le Llego la Hora de la Verdad Ante la Jep” (Semana (Colombia), September 22, 2020).

Muchos han pedido a la JEP expulsar a los líderes de las Farc porque no han aportado aún la verdad que el país espera. Llegar a esta no va a ser fácil, pero los desarrollos de la última semana muestran una luz de esperanza

• Carlos Holmes Trujillo, “Colombia Moves Forward Decisively in the Fight Against Narcotrafficking” (Dialogo (U.S. Southern Command), September 22, 2020).

The goal for this year, to eradicate 130,000 hectares, is an important challenge in which we are moving forward with the conviction that reducing coca plantation areas will provide more security for the communities

• “Estados Unidos Ofrece Hasta US$5 Millones por un Jefe del Eln: ¿Quien Es?” (El Espectador (Colombia), September 22, 2020).

Wílver Villegas Palomino está en la mira de la justicia estadounidense. Se trata de un hombre acusado de narcoterrorismo y de tráfico de drogas, que, al parecer, delinque para el Frente de Guerra Nororiental del ELN

El Salvador

• Jessica Avalos, “Un Juez se Estrella Contra el Cerco Militar Que Mantiene Impune la Masacre de el Mozote” (Revista Factum (El Salvador), September 22, 2020).

La Fuerza Armada de El Salvador desobedeció una orden judicial e impidió el ingreso del juez del caso El Mozote a buscar archivos militares

• Emily Green, Deborah Bonello, “El Salvador’s Hipster President Is Attacking the Media” (VICE, September 22, 2020).

The environment for investigative outlets in the Central American nation is dire. Journalists who’ve written critically about the president face criminal investigations and threats from government officials

El Salvador, Paraguay, Venezuela

• “Authorities in the Americas Convert State-Run Quarantines Into Form of Repression” (Amnesty International, September 22, 2020).

Authorities in three countries have disproportionately held migrants, refugees, people returning to their countries of origin, and low-income communities in state-run quarantines

Mexico

• Nathaniel Parish Flannery, “Does Mexico’s President Have a Plan for Fighting Violent Crime?” (Forbes, September 22, 2020).

In his rhetoric, Lopez Obrador works to distinguish himself from his predecessors but when it comes to security problems he is repeating many of the same mistakes as previous administrations

• Patricia Davila, “Mas Recursos en Materia de Seguridad, Exigen Alcaldes y Gobernadores” (Proceso (Mexico), September 22, 2020).

El proyecto de presupuesto prevé una reducción e incluso la eliminación de algunos apoyos federales para la seguridad de estados y municipios, por lo que gobernadores, alcaldes y organizaciones de la sociedad civil hicieron un llamado

U.S.-Mexico Border

• Max Rivlin-Nadler, “Whistleblowers Say Cbp Knowingly Broke the Law as It Turned Back Asylum-Seekers” (KPBS (Los Angeles), September 22, 2020).

In a deposition, the whistleblower is asked, “So you were instructed to lie to people when turning them back. Is that right?” The response: “We were instructed, yes”

Venezuela

• Sasha Chavkin, Patricia Marcano, “How Banks Helped Venezuela’s ‘Boligarchs’ Extract Billions” (International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ), September 22, 2020).

The FinCEN Files show public money pouring out of the collapsing country

• Esfandyar Batmanghelidj, Francisco Rodriguez, “Sanctions Are Driving Iran and Venezuela Into Each Other’s Arms” (Bourse and Bazaar, Kellogg Institute for International Studies, Foreign Policy, September 22, 2020).

Maximum pressure has not destroyed the Iranian economy, and Tehran is now sharing its lessons in resilience with Nicolás Maduro’s beleaguered regime in Caracas

• Keymer Avila, “What Is Deadlier in Venezuela: Its Security Forces or Covid-19?” (OpenDemocracy (UK), September 22, 2020).

Once the pandemic is over, the control mechanisms deployed will be difficult to reverse. They may remain among us for much longer than the virus itself, which had served as a pretext