Mexico: "Say No To War"

MEXICO

Say No to War

Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador has his own version of “just say no.”

He declared the end of his country’s “war” on drugs Wednesday and said Mexico will no longer prioritize using the army to capture drug lords, as it has done since 2006, Agence France-Presse reported.

“No capos have been arrested, because that is not our main purpose,” the president said in response to a question about the number of kingpins arrested since he took office in December. “The main purpose of the government is to guarantee public safety… What we want is security, to reduce the daily number of homicides.”

Critics questioned the vow, however, noting that the army remains in the streets despite his campaign promises and that he has proposed a national guard that they say would institute another kind of militarization.

The military response to fighting the drug cartels has not ended the trade, of course, and many suggest that it has contributed to escalating violence by creating temporary power vacuums and fracturing the big gangs.

El Salvador: "Let The Good times Roll!"

EL SALVADOR

Bullets and Suitcases

Murders in El Salvador, one of the most dangerous countries in the world, declined by half between 2015 and 2018.

That’s the good news.

Still, in the first 20 days of this year, authorities recorded more than 200 homicides, a big spike compared to the recent trend.

What’s happening? Perhaps the killings are related to conflicts arising between police-led death squads and gangs as El Salvador moves closer to presidential elections slated for Feb. 3, suggestedInSite Crime, a foundation that researches violence in Latin America.

A shift in the political landscape could explain why tensions are high.

Ineligible to run for re-election for a consecutive term, President Salvador Sánchez Cerén has an approval rating of around 26 percent, according to the Americas Society/Council of the Americas. His political party, the left-wing Farabundo Martí National Liberation Front, or FMLN, lost ground in legislative and local elections last year. The party’s presidential nominee is in third place in the polls.

The FMLN’s failure to curb crime is a key factor in the party’s dismal prospects. Around 2,700 Salvadorans have joined migrant caravans in hopes of finding a better life in the US, Reutersreported.

The ex-mayor of the capital of San Salvador, Nayib Bukele, a former FMLN member, is the front-runner in the race to succeed Sánchez Cerén. Bukele formed a new opposition party, the Grand Alliance for National Unity, after the FMLN kicked him out for only half-heartedly embracing socialism. Bukele has appealed to the urban middle class with a tight campaign using social media.

In second place is Carlos Calleja of the Nationalist Republican Alliance, or ARENA, the traditional alternative to the FMLN.

The alliance has been tarred by probes that recently revealed widespread corruption in former ARENA administrations. Ex-President Antonio Saca, an ARENA leader who served from 2004 to 2009, confessed last summer to illegally misappropriating more than $300 million, for example, noted Global Americans, a news website run by Columbia University professor Christopher Sabatini.

It’s no wonder that voters are interested in change.

But Bukele, an entrepreneur, and Calleja, a supermarket chain owner, are two of the richest men in the country. They already are fixtures in a power structure that hasn’t helped Salvadorans much,argued the Committee in Solidarity with the People of El Salvador, a left-wing US-based activist group with alleged ties to the FMLN.

It quoted an analysis by Hilary Goodfriend, a writer for the now-defunct news site Upside Down World, who wrote that Bukele and Calleja are both “capitalists who, no longer content behind the scenes, are elbowing out the middlemen and jockeying to take the reins themselves.”

Still, some say that when bullets are flying and an exodus of citizens is underway, at least someone is stepping forward.

Brasil: After The Deluge

BRAZIL

After the Deluge

Brazil’s Vale SA vowed to dismantle 10 dams that are similar to the one that collapsed on Friday, as the country continues to come to grips with the deadly disaster.

The official death toll from the collapse climbed to 84 people on Tuesday, with 276 still unaccounted for, Reuters reported. Local authorities arrested five people in connection with the disaster, including employees of Vale and consultants with a German company that certified the dam for safety, NPR said.

Munich-based TÜV Süd checked the dam twice last year and certified it as safe, despite concerns raised by a representative of a local environmental protection agency that the dam could burst and set off a chain reaction, Germany’s Handelsblatt newspaper said.

Because its reservoir held mining waste for Vale, an iron ore producer, the collapse released a flood of brown slurry that killed fish and prompted warnings to the indigenous people who depend on the river for bathing and irrigation of possible health hazards.

Venezuela: The Heat Is On

VENEZUELA

The Heat Is On

Venezuelans from all walks of life took to the streets of Caracas Wednesday to call for President Nicolas Maduro to step down, even as international pressure mounts on the controversial leader blamed for the country’s economic collapse.

Protesters told the Associated Press they’d turned out in answer to the opposition’s call for further mass demonstrations despite the government’s strict crackdown in reaction to similar protests on Jan. 23.

“We have a lot more faith that this government has very little time left,” said Sobeia Gonzalez, 63.

The demonstrations come as opposition leader and National Assembly President Juan Guaido – who has also declared himself interim president saying Maduro’s re-election was invalid – wrote in an editorial that he has been meeting secretly with the military and security forces to negotiate Maduro’s ouster, Reuters said.

At the same time, while the US on Monday unveiled new sanctionstargeting the state-owned oil company Petroleos de Venezuela, Russia, China and Turkey continue to back Maduro, and a Russian jet reportedly landed in Caracas to spirit away some $840 million in gold.

Honduras: The right To Honor

HONDURAS

The Right to Honor

In corruption-plagued Honduras, the trial of opposition lawmaker Maria Luisa Borjas on charges of defamation began Monday, highlighting concerns that a constitutional guarantee of “the right to honor” is being used to silence criticism of the abuse of power.

The charges relate to a 2017 news conference where Borjas, formerly a high-ranking officer in the country’s national police force, named the “intellectual authors” of a high-profile murder while reading from government investigative reports about three such killings, the Associated Press reported.

If convicted, she could face a possible fine and the loss of her seat in Congress.

“It’s a political persecution and they want to set a precedent so that nobody dares to denounce absolutely anything here,” Borjas said.

Camilo Atala, president of Ficohsa bank, accused her of defamation for disclosing him as one of 16 people suspected of plotting the killing of environmental activist Berta Caceres in 2016, saying the accusation hurt his business relationships as well as his “honor, prestige and dignity.”

However, since 2003, the Honduras-based Committee for Freedom of Expression has counted 41 criminal cases related to crimes against honor, including 13 targeting journalists, AP noted.

Venezuela: A Deadline Looms

VENEZUELA

A Deadline Looms

Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro and opposition leader Juan Guaido are vying for the support of the military after the US and Europe ratcheted up the pressure on Maduro to step down.

On Sunday, supporters of Guaido distributed leaflets to soldiers explaining a planned law that would offer amnesty for helping to oust Maduro from office, while the beleaguered president appeared on television flanked by his top generals and addressed the troops directly, the Associated Press reported.

As president of the National Assembly, Guaido has cited his constitutional right to replace Maduro because of the widespread contention that his re-election was invalid. But the support of the military will likely be essential to his success.

Maduro blasted Guaido’s efforts as an “imperialist” coup orchestrated in Washington. But he backed off from his demand that all US diplomats exit the country, as US National Security Adviser John Bolton warned of “a significant response” to any violence or intimidation directed at US staff or Guaido himself.

Meanwhile, Germany, France and Spain said Saturday they’re prepared to recognize Guaido as interim president if Maduro doesn’t announce elections within eight days.

Brasil Loosens Up Gun Ownership Rules

GUNS

Shots Heard Round the World

Brazil leads the world in homicides.

Newly elected President Jair Bolsonaro believes making it easier for Brazilians to own guns would help address the problem.

Recently, he signed legislation that loosened restrictions on gun ownership, though would-be buyers of firearms still must be at least 25 years old, sport a clean criminal record, and pass a psychological exam and a gun club course. The new rules will let people defend themselves, said Bolsonaro.

It’s not clear if Brazilians agree. Polls show that more than 60 percent of them believe firearms should be prohibited, the Associated Press reported. But the South American country’s voters also rejected a ban on making and selling guns in a 2005 referendum.

Brazilians aren’t the only ones who share Americans’ stance about self-defense and the role of guns in violent crime.

Civilian ownership of firearms worldwide increased by almost a third between 2007 and 2017, according to Small Arms Survey, a Geneva-based research group.

Berlin student Carolin Matthie, 26, applied for a gun permit after she heard about North African or Arab migrants allegedly assaulting hundreds of German women in Cologne and other cities on New Year’s Eve three years ago. “If I don’t do it now, I will have to wait maybe another half year,” Matthie told the Wall Street Journal.

She represented a trend. Europeans are buying more guns amid a spike in terror attacks, fears over immigration and a rise in gun-toting criminals. Germany’s strict gun control laws might delay Matthie’s purchase. But they haven’t stopped a black market in deadly weapons from thriving on the continent, the Journal added.

American firearms companies have capitalized on the trend, exporting 64 percent more handguns, rifles and shotguns for civilians between 2010 and 2016, according to Small Arms Analytics, another research firm.

Those commercial connections have led the National Rifle Association (NRA) to take positions “that are hard to square with its all-American persona,” wrote Bloomberg. The NRA supported Iran, North Korea, and Syria’s objections to an arms trade treaty and criticized the US government for slapping sanctions on the Russian maker of the AK-47 over the issue of Russia’s aggression in Ukraine.

Still, the pushback against gun violence is also strong. After a spate of shootings in Toronto last year, Canadians are debating stricter gun control, reported the Atlantic. South Africans are sick and tired of the shootings that mar their daily lives, according to Forbes.

It’s a cycle of violence that seems impossible to stop without at least the threat of more violence. And in Brazil, and elsewhere, scholars say that’s what’s to come.