Fujimori's Ghost Haunts Peru

The Ghosts of Leaders Past Peru The recent death of Alberto Fujimori, 86, who served as president of Peru in the 1990s, was a milestone in the South American country’s political history. Fujimori gained respect when he first took office for his neoliberal economic policies and his tough stance against left-wing terrorists who waged a war against the central government from 1980 to 2000. Eventually, as the Washington Post reported, Fujimori’s oppressive governance and corruption caught up with him. In 1998, he was convicted of human rights violations and sent to prison for 25 years. He was released from jail in 2023 due to his advanced age and health, but he was still facing charges dating back to his years in power. Even with his passing, however, Fujimori’s legacy lingers. Peru’s government recently passed a law, for example, giving legal immunity to Fujimori and members of the security forces for human rights abuses committed before 2002. The law was a gift for the president and his allies, the Associated Press wrote. United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Türk panned the legislation. “Lack of accountability for these crimes, whenever committed, risks endangering the rights to truth, justice, reparations and guarantees of non-recurrence for thousands of victims of grave violations in Peru,” Türk said, according to Agence France-Press. Interestingly, lawmakers who passed the law and President Dina Boluarte, who signed it, arguably lack the legitimacy to do so. Their popularity ratings are among the lowest in the world – 10 percent in Boluarte’s case, World Politics Review noted. Boluarte took office because she was vice president when ex-President Pedro Castillo was impeached. Small, fragmented parties dominate the Peruvian Congress. Boluarte began her administration ignominiously when security forces killed 50 demonstrators who had taken to the streets to protest the ousting of Castillo. She claims she was not involved in the decision-making that led to those deaths. Amnesty International disagrees. Before Boluarte, incidentally, Peru had six different presidents in six years, underscoring how all managed to violate the law while none had sufficient popular backing to remain in office. Meanwhile, the true leaders of the country, according to the Economist, are right-wing and centrist lawmakers in Congress. Because Boluarte has no vice president, they don’t want to oust her because the country’s constitution states that new elections must be held if she leaves office. Voters would almost certainly fire these lawmakers if they had a chance. The result is a bevy of laws, like the amnesty legislation, that critics say are eroding Peruvian democracy, Al Jazeera explained – just like Fujimori did.

A Second Senior Prison Official Assassinated In Ecuador

The director of Ecuador's biggest prison was killed in an armed attack on Thursday, the second such killing in under two weeks in the Latin American country, the SNAI prison agency said. Maria Daniela Icaza, director of the infamous Litoral penitentiary in the port city Guayaqui l died of injuries sustained "following an armed attack on the road" leading to the nearby town of Daule, the agency said. She died while being taken to hospital, the agency said in a WhatsApp message, adding that an official from the prison service who was travelling with her was injured in the incident. "We convey our deepest condolences," the agency wrote on social media . Ecuador's prisons are among the most dangerous in the world, and many have been taken over by drug gangs. The penitentiaries have been under military control since January, when President Daniel Noboa declared a state of "internal armed conflict" after a brutal wave of violence, sparked by the jailbreak of a powerful crime boss. In January, gunmen stormed and opened fire in a TV studio and bandits threatened random executions of civilians and security forces. A prosecutor investigating the assault was later shot dead . Icaza's death comes nine days after the head of a prison in the Amazonian province of Sucumbios, Alex Guevara, was killed, also in an armed attack while travelling by car. Two other workers who were with him were wounded after unknown assailants raked his vehicle with gunfire. And two weeks ago, two prison officers in Guayaquil were murdered on their way to work. Ecuador registered a record 47 homicides per 100,000 inhabitants in 2023, up from a rate of six murders per 100,000 inhabitants in 2018. Once considered a bastion of peace in Latin America, Ecuador has been plunged into crisis by the rapid spread of transnational cartels that use its ports -- mainly Guayaquil -- to ship drugs to the United States and Europe. Noboa's government claims that its offensive against organized crime has reduced homicides. Between January and September this year, 4,236 murders were reported, while in the same period in 2023, there were 5,112, according to the interior ministry. Noboa said he is targeting 22 criminal groups, the most powerful of which are Los Choneros, Los Lobos, and Tiguerones. In June, the U.S. sanctioned Los Lobos and its leader, Wilmer Geovanny Chavarria Barre, who also goes by "Pipo." U.S. officials have deemed Los Lobos the largest drug trafficking ring in Ecuador and said the gang "contributes significantly to the violence gripping the country."

Brasil's Government Foghts to Stop Deforestation In The Amazon

Rich, Dark Earth Amazon Rainforest If the fabled fountain of youth exists, modern society might be destroying it. In the Amazon rainforest in Brazil, centenarians in indigenous tribes remain spry, hiking barefoot for miles through rough, dangerous terrain after years of active lifestyles and healthy eating. Varî Vãti Marubo of the Marubo tribe, for example, could be 107 or 120 years old. When she was a little girl, she and her family would run from white explorers in the jungle. Now, her friends and neighbors pursue traditional modern careers and share their experiences on social media. The lifestyle that cultivated her longevity and that of other indigenous folks is disappearing. “Since our birth, we’ve kept the traditions alive,” she told the New York Times. “But now I see everything changing. Many young people have forgotten the wisdom of our elders.” Marubo represents the human side of what’s being lost every day in the rainforest. The Brazilian government recently announced that deforestation in the Amazon in the 12 months through August occurred at around half the rate of the prior year, and marked the lowest rate since 2016. The success in reducing deforestation stemmed from Brazilian officials using satellites and rigorous inspection programs that focused on areas where deforestation was most rampant, University of Toronto researchers wrote. Authorities have also cracked down on those who clear land illegally, too. For example, a Brazilian court recently ordered a rancher to pay $50 million for destroying part of the jungle, the Guardian noted. The fee included penalties for emitting carbon into the air. But loggers and others still cleared 1,700 square miles – the size of Rhode Island – in the year through August, the Associated Press reported. The disappearance of this massive carbon sink has major implications for the world when greenhouse gases are causing climate change, the Council on Foreign Relations explained. Illegal gold mining is also taking its toll. Greenpeace recently revealed that 5,000 miners were operating in the rural Brazilian state of Mato Grosso, Reuters reported. President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva has sought to end illegal mining and deforestation by deploying the military, but the territory to cover is enormous and the financial incentive to break the law is very high. Climate change is also a problem. The Amazon saw more forest fires in August than at any other time since 2020, according to Voice of America. Ranchers often light the fires to clear land. But less rain and drier conditions cause them to spread out of control. Experts estimated that almost 40,000 fires occurred in August. Meanwhile, these developments come as scientists say the Amazon may actually store more carbon than originally thought. “Rich soil in the Amazon cultivated over centuries by Indigenous communities may store billions of tons of carbon,” New Scientist wrote. As a result, the “Nutrient-rich ‘dark earth’ soil may store an amount of carbon nearly equivalent to annual CO2 emissions in the US.”

Trump’s DANGEROUS STUNT in OHIO Gets QUICKLY EXPOSED

The CIA In Chile 50 Years Later

The CIA-in-Chile Scandal at 50 Hersh, NYT article, Kissinger collage Kissinger Misled President, Cabinet and Reporters on CIA Role in Chile, Documents Show; Told Journalist Ted Koppel the Issue Was “Total Nonsense” New York Times Exposé Prompted White House Anger, Panic Over Revelations Secret White House Memo Documented Kissinger’s Attitude: “I Don’t See Why We Have to Sit Around and Let a Country Go Communist Due to the Irresponsibility of its Own People” Archive Calls for Release of Still-Secret Colby Testimony and Church Committee Records Published: Sep 6, 2024 Briefing Book # 870 Edited by Peter Kornbluh For more information, contact: 202-994-7000 or peter.kornbluh@gmail.com Subjects Covert Action Regions South America Events Chile – Coup d’État, 1973 Project Chile Colby CIA Director William Colby secretly testified before the House Armed Services Committee on April 22, 1974, on covert operations in Chile. Harrington Massachusetts Congressman Michael J. Harrington read a classified transcript of Colby's secret testimony and summarized it in a letter to Senate Foreign Relations Committee chairman, William Fulbright. Levinson Jerome Levinson, a ranking staff member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. leaked a copy of the Harrington's letter to New York Times investigative reporter, Seymour Hersh, in early September 1974. BOOKS book The Pinochet File by Peter Kornbluh, The New Press, Updated edition (September 11, 2013) book cover Pinochet desclasificado by Peter Kornbluh, Un Dia en La Vida/Editorial Catalonia (August, 2023) The Condor Years: How Pinochet and His Allies Brought Terrorism to Three Continents by John Dinges, The New Press (August 1, 2012) Los Anos del Condor book cover Los años del Cóndor (Spanish Edition) by John Dinges, DEBATE (June 1, 2021) Chile en el corazón book cover Chile en el corazón (Spanish Edition) by John Dinges, DEBATE (September 1, 2023) Washington, D.C., September 9, 2024 – Fifty years ago, as the New York Times prepared to break a major exposé on CIA covert operations in Chile, the architect of those operations, Henry Kissinger, misled President Gerald Ford about clandestine U.S. efforts to undermine the elected government of Socialist Party leader Salvador Allende, documents posted today by the National Security Archive show. The covert operations were “designed to keep the democratic process going,” Kissinger briefed Ford in the Oval Office two days before the article appeared fifty years ago this week. According to Kissinger, “there was no attempt at a coup.” “I saw the Chile story,” Ford told Kissinger on September 9, 1974. “Are there any repercussions?” Kissinger replied: “Not really.” In fact, the front-page story written by investigative reporter Seymour Hersh—“C.I.A. Chief Tells House Of $8 Million Campaign Against Allende in ‘70-’73”—set in motion the biggest scandal on covert operations the intelligence community had ever experienced. Hersh’s September 8, 1974, article led directly to the formation of a special Senate committee, chaired by Senator Frank Church, that conducted the first major investigation of CIA covert actions in Chile and elsewhere and that was the first congressional body to evaluate the role of secret, clandestine operations in a democratic society. The political repercussions forced President Ford to publicly acknowledge the CIA operations in Chile while forcefully denying they had anything to do with fomenting a coup. The president’s White House lawyer subsequently advised Ford that his statement “was not fully consistent with the facts because all the facts had not been made known to you.” At a September 16th press conference, Gerald Ford became the first president to publicly acknowledge and defend CIA covert operations, which he characterized as limited to protecting Chilean democratic institutions from the threat of Allende. He stated that the CIA actions were "in the best interest of the people in Chile, and certainly in our best interest." (See timecode 11:55 in tape for Ford's statement.) Ford's White House lawyer subsequently informed him that he had misrepresented the facts on the CIA role in Chile "because all the facts were not made known to you." The Senate investigation, which also revealed CIA assassination plots against foreign leaders, and a similar investigative effort in the House of Representatives led to legislation to enhance checks and balances on CIA operations and curtail the ability of future presidents to “plausibly deny” covert action programs abroad. White House documents reveal the acute consternation expressed by Ford and Kissinger that covert operations might be restrained. “We need a CIA and we need covert operations,” Ford told his Cabinet nine days after the Times exposé was published. The article and a flood of follow up CIA stories by Hersh, as Kissinger later conceded in his memoirs, “had the effect of a burning match in a gasoline depot.” Stern's report and Kissinger's remarks THE LEAK THAT CHANGED HISTORY The Hersh story was based on a summary of secret testimony by CIA director William Colby and a legendary agency official, David Atlee Phillips, who provided an overview of covert operations against Allende in Chile during an executive session of the House Armed Services Committee on April 22, 1974. According to the summary, Colby informed the Committee that between 1962 and 1973, the ultra-secret “40 Committee,” which oversaw covert operations, had authorized the CIA to spend $11 million in Chile, including $8 million to “destabilize” the Allende government and “to precipitate its downfall.” The summary stated that “the agency activities were viewed as a prototype, or laboratory experiment, to test the techniques of heavy financial investment in efforts to discredit and bring down a government.” The summary was drafted by a liberal congressman from Massachusetts, Michael J. Harrington, who had heard about Colby’s TOP SECRET testimony and requested special permission to review it. Harrington read the 48-page hearing transcript twice—on June 5, and June 12, 1974—and realized Colby’s testimony clearly contradicted previous denials by Kissinger and top CIA officials (during earlier hearings on the CIA and ITT’s operations in Chile) that there had been any covert efforts to undermine Allende. Harrington shared his concern that CIA officers had committed perjury with Senator Frank Church’s staff director, Jerome Levinson. In his unpublished memoir, Levinson recalled that Harrington “asked what I thought he should do.” Levinson recommended that Harrington write a letter to the chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Senator William Fulbright, requesting a full inquiry into the CIA’s role in Chile. On July 18, 1974, Harrington sent a lengthy letter to Fulbright, providing a summary of the secret CIA testimony and concluding that Congress and the American people “have a right to learn what was done in our name in Chile.” After it became clear that Fulbright was not inclined to order a major investigation into the CIA role in Chile, Levinson decided to take the audacious step of calling attention to Colby’s still-secret testimony: he leaked the Harrington letter to Seymour Hersh. In early September, after lunch with Hersh at Jean-Pierre’s, a swanky D.C. restaurant, Levinson slipped Hersh a copy of the Harrington letter. On September 5, 1974, Hersh began calling State Department officials for comment on his forthcoming scoop, setting in motion a flurry of White House meetings, briefings and reports on what information Hersh might have obtained. On September 8, the Times published the story on the front page of its Sunday newspaper, generating a major scandal and eventually resulting in the prosecution of former CIA director Richard Helms for lying to Congress. telcon REACTION OF THE CIA’s CHILEAN AGENTS The leak of Colby’s testimony forced the CIA to urgently contact its Chilean agents to ascertain the repercussions of the Hersh revelations on its network of assets and informants. In a revealing secret report four days after the Times article appeared, the CIA station transmitted the reactions of several Chilean operatives—identified by codenames such as FUBARGAIN, FUPOCKET and FUBRIG—who were embedded inside the Chilean military, the Chilean Christian Democrat political party, and the El Mercurio newspaper, which the CIA had financed as a bullhorn of opposition to the government of Salvador Allende. “Following Station agents were contacted, period 8-10 September, in connection with referenced revelations,” the Santiago Station informed CIA headquarters. The agent codenamed “FUBRIG-2 “took the news calmly but was most concerned about implications of efforts of revelations and expressed opinion that system in Washington should be changed to prevent such leaks,” the CIA reported. “He was relieved that El Mercurio was not mentioned by name.” According to this cable, the agent inside the Chilean military, FUBARGAIN-1, told the CIA that “General Pinochet did not seem very upset but [had] commented … that the disclosure ‘seemed to be a dumb thing to do.’” But the same agent told the CIA that other younger Chilean military officers interpreted the leak as a deliberate attempt to “damage [the] Junta and falsely cast doubt on their independence and role in bringing down Allende.” “Sum is that Chilean officer corps becoming increasingly baffled and resentful about U.S., according to this source.” STILL-SECRET DOCUMENTS Fifty years after the scandal broke over CIA operations in Chile, Colby’s original testimony before the House Armed Services Committee remains classified, as does the entire 48-page transcript of the closed hearing. Last year, the Chilean government officially requested that the Biden administration declassify those records as a gesture of “declassification diplomacy” for the 50th anniversary of the coup, but the CIA proved to be uncooperative. “For the sake of historical accountability, it is imperative that the CIA declassify Colby’s testimony on Chile, as well as other relevant documentation,” stated Peter Kornbluh who directs the Archive’s Chile Documentation Project. As the 50th anniversary of the formation of the special Senate Committee to Study Government Operations with Respect to Intelligence Activities approaches in January 2025, the Archive also called on Senate leaders to initiate the release the Church Committee’s voluminous investigative archives on Chile and other countries targeted for covert regime change operations. “A half century of secrecy surrounding these records,” Kornbluh noted, “must come to an end.” The Documents Document 1 U.S. Congress, Letter to Senator William Fulbright, [Representative Michael J. Harrington’s summary of secret testimony of CIA Director William Colby on covert operations in Chile], July 18, 1974 Jul 18, 1974 Source U.S. Congress In April 1974, CIA director William Colby appeared at a closed, executive session of the House Armed Services Committee and provided a lengthy summary of CIA covert operations in Chile between 1970 and 1973. Representative Michael J. Harrington, a liberal congressman from Massachusetts, obtained permission from committee chairman Lucian Nedzi to review Colby’s classified testimony. Harrington then wrote this summary of the testimony in the form of a letter to the Chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, William Fulbright. The summary describes the CIA’s $8 million clandestine campaign to “destabilize,” according to Harrington, the elected government of Salvador Allende. It identifies, for the first time, the “40 Committee” chaired by National Security Advisor Henry Kissinger as overseeing these covert operations to undermine Allende. When Senator Fulbright failed to respond to Harrington’s call for hearings and a major investigation into CIA operations in Chile, in early September 1974 a ranking member of the Senate Foreign Relations staff, Jerome Levinson, quietly slipped a copy of the Harrington letter to investigative journalist, Seymour Hersh. Hersh’s September 8, 1974, front page story in the New York Times—“C.I.A. Chief tells House Of $8 Million Campaign Against Allende, 70-73,”—was based on Harrington’s summary in the letter. Document 2 NSC, Kissinger Telcon, Conversation with CIA Director William Colby over impending Hersh article on the CIA in Chile, September 5, 1974 Sep 5, 1974 Source National Security Archive Kissinger Telcon collection As Hersh began to place calls to the State Department for comment before publishing his article, Henry Kissinger calls CIA Director William Colby to discuss the leak. Kissinger wants to know how Hersh got the information on the 40 Committee decisions on covert operations in Chile and what the CIA did there. Colby promises to “try to get a hold of Hersh and see what he has.” Document 3 Department of State, INR Memorandum, “Forthcoming NY Times Article on US Intelligence Activities Affecting Chile,” Secret, September 5, 1974 Sep 5, 1974 Source National Security Archive Chile Collection After State Department officials receive calls from Hersh for comment, the Department’s Bureau of Intelligence and Research reviews the 40 Committee decisions on Chile to assess possible damage from forthcoming revelations. INR officer James Gardner notes that the Kissinger-chaired committee overseeing covert operations had “inquired in this period about the feasibility and possibility of support to the Chilean military should it engineer a coup attempt against Allende [and] discussed the possibility of creating anti-Allende pressures by precipitating an economic crisis in Chile.” Document 4 White House, Memorandum of Conversation, “Visits; 40 Committee [redacted],” Secret, September 6, 1974 Sep 6, 1974 Source Clinton Chile Declassification Project In an Oval Office briefing for President Ford and Vice President Rockefeller, Henry Kissinger advises them on the forthcoming New York Times article. He misleadingly describes covert financial efforts to block ratification by the Chilean Congress of Allende’s elections and then states that “after the elections we put money into opposition parties and newspapers” that was “designed to keep the democratic process going.” According to Kissinger, “there was no attempt at a coup. Though there could have been if in ’70 we hadn’t failed.” Ten days later, on September 16, 1974, after the Hersh article has generated a major scandal, President Ford re-states this misrepresentation of CIA operations in Chile during a press conference. Document 5 State Department, Kissinger Telcons, [Conversations with ABC News Reporter Ted Koppel about the Hersh Article], September 9, 1974 Sep 9, 1974 Source National Security Archive Kissinger Telcon collection The day after the New York Times article on Chile is published, ABC News reporter Ted Koppel speaks to Kissinger on the phone at 4:30pm and again at 4:45pm to find out if Hersh’s story is “essentially accurate as far as it goes.” Kissinger dismisses the allegations. “Look, none of this has anything to do with a coup anyway. So this is all total nonsense,” he claims. “It has nothing to do with the coup, Ted, believe me.” Document 6 White House, Memorandum, “Potential Embarrassment re 40 Committee Descriptions,” Secret, September 11, 1974 Sep 11, 1974 Source National Security Archive Chile collection As Ford administration officials are forced to talk publicly for the first time about the 40 Committee, White House aides become concerned about the public attention and inaccurate official descriptions of this ultra-secret entity. Until now, notes this memo for deputy national security advisor Brent Scowcroft, “the name, existence and membership of the Committee has been treated as classified information and had not been officially confirmed.” Although a State Department spokesman has stated that 40 Committee covert projects are approved unanimously, the memo clarifies, there have been numerous examples of disagreement on operations in Chile, and Kissinger as chairman, has been the “final arbiter” of key decisions. Document 7 CIA, Cable, [Contact with Chilean Agents], Secret, September 12, 1974 Sep 12, 1974 Source JFK Assassination Records Act Archives The day Hersh’s article appears in the New York Times, the CIA station in Santiago, Chile, begins contacting its Chilean agents to assess any damage to their operations and their reactions to the revelations. The Station then transmits the conversations with several Chilean assets identified by codenames such as FUBARGAIN, FUPOCKET and FUBRIG—codenames which reflect their positions in the Chilean military, the Chilean Christian Democrat political party, and the El Mercurio newspaper, which the CIA financed as a bullhorn of opposition to the government of Salvador Allende. According to this report, an agent inside the Chilean military, FUBARGAIN-1, told the CIA that “General Pinochet did not seem very upset but [had] commented … that the disclosure ‘seemed to be a dumb thing to do.’” The same agent told the CIA that other younger Chilean military officers interpret the leak as a deliberate attempt to “damage [the] Junta and falsely cast doubt on their independence and role in bringing down Allende.” Document 8 White House, Memorandum of the Record, “Cabinet Meeting, September 17 - 11am, Secret, September 17, 1974 Sep 17, 1974 Source Gerald Ford Presidential Library One day after publicly acknowledging and defending CIA covert operations in Chile, President Ford holds a Cabinet meeting devoted to the issue of covert operations and the impact of the leaks about the CIA in Chile. After the President defends covert action, Kissinger briefs the cabinet on the need for covert operations and measures to stop the leaks about them. He implies that the U.S. should consider a British Official Secrets Act to restrain public information about the CIA. “We face over the world threats to democratic institutions, and we need covert action to deal with them. By their nature, we don’t talk about these,” he informs the cabinet. “So how do we deal with leaks? Britain is certainly a democracy, yet a British paper couldn’t print this stuff.” Speaking about Chile, Kissinger blames Allende’s mismanagement for the coup and denies that covert operations or economic pressures played any role. “The effort of the 40 Committee,” he falsely claims, “was not to overthrow Allende but to preserve the democratic system for the 1976 elections.” “Remember, [Allende] was an opponent of the U.S.,” he tells Ford’s Cabinet members, “and one can ask, why shouldn’t we oppose him?” Document 9 State Department, Kissinger Telcon, [Conversation with CIA Director William Colby about leaks from the Intelligence Community], September 20, 1974 Sep 20, 1974 Source National Security Archive Kissinger Telcon Collection As the New York Times publishes another Hersh article about the CIA’s role in Chile, Kissinger complains to CIA Director Colby about leaks that appear to be coming from the CIA itself. “I am getting sick and tired of the way the Intelligence Community … if this keeps up we’ll have to talk to the President to see how to keep it under control,” he admonishes Colby. “The 40 Committee has existed for years [and] the SOB leaders in this country know this is the case and they are all letting us take it as though this is a scandal.” Document 10 The White House, memorandum, “Background on Covert Operations in Chile,” Eyes Only, October 31, 1975 Oct 31, 1975 Source Gerald Ford Presidential Library As the Senate investigation into the CIA’s role in Chile progresses, it becomes clear to the White House that the Church Committee has uncovered significant wrongdoing, including the CIA-supported assassination of the Chilean commander-in-chief of the armed forces, General René Schneider, that go far beyond the official claims of the Ford administration. President Ford’s White House counsel, John Marsh, sends him a set of recommendations on unprecedented open hearings that the Committee plans to hold to publicly air the recent history of U.S. clandestine intervention against Allende. Marsh warns Ford that his account of what the CIA did in Chile, given at the September 16, 1974, press conference, misrepresented the extent and purpose of the covert operations. “It has been brought to my attention,” he advises the President, “that you should exercise extreme care because of a response you made to a press question in one of your press conferences shortly after becoming President. This question related to Chile and I am advised that the response is not fully consistent with the facts because all the facts had not been made known to you.”

Nicaragua Is Making Millions Of Dollars As A Gatewy For Migrants Wanting To Come To The US

Weaponizing Migration Nicaragua In Senegal, Haiti, India, China, and Libya, the hot new ticket is Nicaragua. Famed for its beaches, volcanos and rainforests, citizens of dozens of countries are attracted by a different lure: It’s become a major gateway to the United States. “In Senegal, it’s all over the streets – everyone’s talking about Nicaragua, Nicaragua, Nicaragua,” Gueva Ba, 40, of the capital Dakar, told the Associated Press. Ba paid about $10,000 to get to Nicaragua in July 2023, where he then made his way to the US border with Mexico. After crossing it, he was caught, detained and deported a few months later, along with 131 other Senegalese who had also tried their luck. Ba, like many of the tens of thousands of migrants now trying to use this route, had already tried to make it to Europe 11 times by boat from Morocco across the Mediterranean. But with Nicaragua, he knew he had a special advantage; not only did he not need a visa to land there, but more importantly, Nicaragua is actively encouraging such migration as a way to punish the US for sanctions against the repressive regime of President Daniel Ortega, in power for 28 of the past 45 years, say US officials. “The Ortega government knows they have few important policy tools at hand to confront the United States … so they have armed migration as a way to attack,” said Manuel Orozco, director of the migration at the Inter-American Dialogue, in an interview with NPR. “This is definitely a concrete example of weaponizing migration as a foreign policy.” Beyond a tit-for-tat for sanctions, Nicaragua’s government, led by the Sandinista National Liberation Front (FSLN), is making millions of dollars with its business of human trafficking, imposing arbitrary entry fees on the migrant arrivals that can be as much as $200 per person, as well as thousands of dollars in landing and departure fees imposed on the charters, wrote El País. And those prices are going up – arrivals from Africa now will be charged more than $1,100 to land in Nicaragua. US Assistant Secretary of State for Western Hemisphere Affairs Brian Nichols said he was “concerned” about the “dramatic” increase in flights to Nicaragua to promote migration. “No one should profit from the desperation of vulnerable migrants – not smugglers, private companies, public officials or governments,” he wrote on X. The US slapped new sanctions on Nicaragua in May over the migration issue. The numbers tell the story. Between May 2023 and May 2024, more than 1,000 flights with migrants from countries such as Libya, Morocco, Uzbekistan, India, and Tajikistan landed in the Nicaraguan capital Managua, while in a six-month period between June to November 2023, about 500 flights, mostly from Haiti and Cuba, landed there, according to the Inter-American Dialogue. At the same time, while arrests for illegal crossings on the US-Mexico border topped 6.4 million between January 2021 and January 2024 (before falling steeply later in 2024), Mexicans accounted for only about one-quarter of those arrested, the rest coming from more than 100 countries, wrote the think tank. From July to December 2023 there were more than 20,200 arrests of just Senegalese migrants for crossing the border illegally, 10 times the figure for arrests in the same period in 2022. “Migration flows to the United States have more than doubled to over eight million people annually from 2020 and 2023,” the organization wrote, adding that Nicaragua is responsible for at least 10 percent of all migration that has arrived at the Mexico-US border. The charters first began in 2021, when the Nicaraguan government opened the doors of the Augusto C. Sandino International Airport, relaxed visa requirements for African nationals and welcomed the first migrant arrivals from Cuba, the Dominican Republic, El Salvador, Curacao, and Haiti. Today, passengers now fly from countries in South America, North Africa and Central Asia, to the country on their way to the US to avoid the dangerous crossing at the Darien Gap at the Colombian-Panamanian border, the World wrote. The Senegalese and others became part of a surge in migration at the southern border, made up for the first time of people from countries such as Mauritania, Ghana, Tajikistan and Bangladesh, who usually head towards Europe. They were able to coordinate the trip because of travel agents, smugglers and the information that comes from social media and apps like WhatsApp, and pay for the trip with electronic payments. Meanwhile, Nicaragua itself has been increasingly contributing to the flows headed toward the US border over the past few years, according to the Migration Policy Institute. It has deported hundreds of its own nationals, while the deepening repression in the country has led to thousands more deciding to head north. “Nicaragua is caught in a spiral of violence marked by the persecution of all forms of political opposition, whether real or perceived, both domestically and abroad,” said Jan Simon, the chair of a United Nations human rights group that accused the Nicaraguan regime led by Ortega and his wife, Vice President Rosario Murillo, of “crimes against humanity.” A former police special forces officer, going only by the name Edwin, was ordered to shoot protesters during mass anti-government demonstrations in 2018. Instead, he fled, before being captured, imprisoned, raped, and severely tortured. These days, he lives in exile in Costa Rica, making ends meet with odd jobs while waiting for asylum in the US. He worries about Nicaraguan officials finding him. “There were moments of desperation when I thought: ‘It would have been better if I stayed … killed all those people,” he told the Washington Post. “But I didn’t go into the police to kill people.” Share this story

Maduro Struggles To Hang Onto Power In Venezuela

Public Enemy No. 1 Venezuela As Venezuelan authorities continue to intensify their crackdown on the political opposition following the disputed July 28 presidential elections, a court in the South American country ordered the arrest of former presidential candidate Edmundo González, the Washington Post reported. González, 75, is wanted on a slew of charges, including usurpation, forgery of public documents and sabotage, authorities said Monday. The charges are linked to González’s alleged involvement in posting alternative vote results online, which showed him defeating incumbent President Nicolás Maduro. The opposition candidate has gone into hiding to avoid arrest following the July vote. At the time, Venezuela’s electoral council – which is seen as being under Maduro’s influence – declared the incumbent as the winner of that poll, prompting accusations of fraud and irregularities. Last month, the opposition published the receipts from more than 23,000 voting machines that showed González received more than twice the number of votes as Maduro. However, the electoral council has not released detailed voting results and the Maduro administration has begun persecuting the opposition and its supporters, forcing many of them to go into hiding, according to CNN. The arrest warrant for González is expected to draw criticism from the United States and Latin American leaders. Washington and other international bodies have expressed strong opposition to Maduro’s actions and called for respect for democratic processes. The Biden administration, along with leaders from Colombia, Brazil, and Mexico, has been pushing for negotiations with Maduro, though these efforts have seen limited success. Monday’s arrest warrant came shortly after the US seized a luxury aircraft allegedly purchased illegally and smuggled for Maduro’s use. Later that day, Bloomberg reported that the US Treasury Department would soon announce sanctions against 15 officials linked to Maduro.