Political Instability Continues In Peru

 

No Rest for the Weary

PERU

Protests broke out in Peru over the weekend after President Dina Boluarte said she would request expanded legislative powers and potentially reconfigure a historically unpopular congress, France24 reported.

Demanding the resignation of the president, protesters in the capital of Lima attempted to reach the congressional building but were held back by police after clashing briefly.

The demonstrations broke out after an independence day speech in Lima, where the president said she would request extraordinary legislative powers from congress for 120 days to fight crime. She also said she was considering changing the congress from a unicameral legislature to a bicameral body.

The current congress is dominated by right-wing parties and has a single-digit approval rating. Meanwhile, recent polls show that 80 percent of Peruvians want early elections and 75 percent want Boluarte to resign. The next elections are scheduled for 2026.

Boluarte, who took office after leftist president Pedro Castillo was removed from the presidency and jailed last December, has faced waves of violent protests that have killed more than 60 people.

The deadly clashes between demonstrators and security forces have led to more protests and allegations of human rights abuses against Boluarte, who is facing multiple investigations for her actions during the demonstrations.

Boluarte has called the protests a “threat against democracy” even as she called for reconciliation.

Amnesty International in a report earlier this year said the president oversaw police and armed forces that with “contempt” for Indigenous populations had repeatedly violated international human rights standards by using “lethal ammunition to control demonstrations.”

Peru, long plagued by instability, has had seven presidents in seven years, noted NPR, adding that the country also has the distinction of having the most former presidents in jail: Three are currently serving time in a special prison to house the former leaders.

There is no more room, the broadcaster added.

Humans Were Present In South America 25,000 Years Ago

 

DISCOVERIES

Skin and Bones

The debate about when humans first arrived in the Americas is getting more intense after a new study found evidence that they were already in South America some 25,000 years ago, Cosmos Magazine reported.

Human arrival to the Americas is believed to have taken place around 16,000 years ago, but recent archaeological discoveries have hinted that it was much earlier: In 2013, a study conducted at the Brazilian cave of Toca da Tira Peia revealed that human-made objects found there dated back 22,000 years.

Recently, however, a research team studied artifacts found in the Santa Elina rock shelter in central Brazil, a site rich with cave paintings and stone tools.

They focused on three osteoderms belonging to giant sloths, an extinct behemoth that could grow to 13 feet in length and weighed more than 3,700 pounds.

These osteoderms – bony deposits found within the skin of some animals – had small holes and the researchers closely analyzed these fissures to determine if they were human-made or created by rodents.

Their findings suggested that ancient people had drilled these holes, suggesting that the osteoderms could have been used as ornaments. When the team dated the remains, they turned out to be between 25,000 to 27,000 years old.

This means that humans were already present in South America before the Last Glacial Maximum – the coldest part of the last Ice Age – 21,000 years ago, the authors said.

They told LiveScience that more research of other archaeological sites across South America could help settle the long-running debate about the prehistoric arrivals.

President Lula Fights To Save The Amazon Rain Forest

 

Declaring War

BRAZIL

Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva is leading the charge to protect the Amazonian rainforest.

Following Lula’s example, leaders of eight South American countries are now pledging to end illegal deforestation in the massive region that has been called the lungs of the planet, reported Bloomberg. The pledge is tantamount to a declaration of war against farmers, ranchers, timber companies, oil drillers, and gold miners who have been plundering the rainforest for profit.

Acting as a sink that sucks up and sequesters carbon in the atmosphere while releasing oxygen, the Amazon cools the entire planet by approximately 0.25 degrees Celsius, according to the Lever.

But over the past few years, his predecessor, Jair Bolsonaro, hobbled environmental regulators and encouraged farmers and miners to exploit the rainforest in the name of economic growth, wrote National Public Radio. Under Bolsonaro, deforestation in the Amazon increased to its highest rate in the past 15 years, with around 5,100 square miles lost.

Lula, 76, has demonstrated success in protecting the Amazon since he won office in a stunning political comeback last year, explained CNN. He has managed to reduce the annual rate of deforestation by 34 percent through June this year compared with 2022.

A leftist who served as Brazil’s president between 2003 and 2010, he served more than a year in jail on corruption charges in 2018 and 2019 before the country’s top court exonerated him on procedural grounds. Then he ran for office again and defeated rightwing populist Bolsonaro.

The question, however, as the Washington Post asked, is whether Lula can keep it up.

Conservative lawmakers in Brazil’s Congress have reversed Lula’s efforts to grant Indigenous communities more authority over their lands, describing them as “constraints on agribusiness that could harm exports,” according to Al Jazeera. Lula’s critics on the left said he could have done more to fight the lawmakers but didn’t. Reports that top players in Lula’s cabinet also have conflicting visions of how they want to enact his policies likely helped fuel that negative reaction from the president’s base.

“Indigenous people and environmental campaigners have reacted in horror,” wrote the Irish Times in an editorial.

Furthermore, while rainforest destruction has declined, it’s risen to a seven-year high in the Cerrado, a savanna region bordering the Amazon. More than 4,000 square miles, an area larger than the Middle Eastern nation of Lebanon were lost between July 2021 and July 2022, reported Reuters in December.

Progress in politics can be slow and unsteady. However, Lula and the Earth don’t have the luxury of time.

Brasil Changes Course On Gun Control

 

The Reversal

BRAZIL

Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva passed a decree over the weekend that would tighten gun control rules previously loosened by his conservative predecessor, a move aimed at reducing gun-related violence, the Wall Street Journal reported.

Under the new decree, Brazilians can only buy two guns for self-defense instead of four, while hunters can only own six guns instead of 30. The yearly ammunition allowance for each gun will be reduced from 200 to 50 bullets and 24-hour shooting clubs will be banned.

The presidential decree comes after Lula passed a series of other gun control measures soon after he took office in January, including a ban on individuals carrying loaded weapons in public.

Lula said the decision will “bring the country back to normality” and reduce the number of crimes involving guns while preventing criminal groups from easily accessing weapons.

In Brazil, the issue of firearms control has become highly contentious due to the prevalence of gun-related crimes. In 2017, the country recorded the highest number of homicides worldwide, with a significant portion committed with firearms.

Lula’s predecessor, Jair Bolsonaro, relaxed gun laws in the country, including allowing owners to carry loaded firearms as long as they were en route to a shooting club. Weapons sales also soared during Bolsonaro’s presidency and the estimated number of guns in civilian hands more than tripled to 2.9 million in a country of 214 million people, according to Brazilian non-profit Instituto Sou da Paz, the Associated Press added.

Bolsonaro and other conservative politicians had said that Brazilians deserve the right to defend themselves against the country’s heavily armed criminals.

Now, Brazilian gun owners and gun-club proprietors criticized the government’s decision as unfair, adding that they will end up at the mercy of criminals if they can’t train to shoot properly.

Trump POST Most DANGEROUS THREATS Yet as he GETS MORE DESPERATE

More Political Unrest In Peru

 

Revived Anger

PERU

More than 20,000 people took to the streets of Peru this week to protest widespread poverty in the Andean nation, while also calling for the resignation of President Dina Boluarte, Reuters reported.

Transport officials said demonstrators blocked at least eight highways across the country Wednesday, while local media reported a few isolated incidents involving clashes between police and protesters.

The demonstrations targeted the inequality in the copper-rich country, while also calling for Boluarte to step down. Others also demanded the dissolution of the country’s right-wing congress and called for early elections and a new constitution.

Wednesday’s anti-government protests are the latest challenging Boluarte. The president took office in December shortly after her leftist predecessor Pedro Castillo was removed for attempting to dissolve Congress.

The ousting of Castillo and his arrest sparked months-long demonstrations in Peru, with authorities launching a bloody crackdown that killed more than 60 people.

Boluarte criticized the new demonstrations as “a threat to democracy” and the government warned it will “make rational use of force” if the protests turn violent.

Peru, the second-largest supplier of copper globally, could also face disruption along its key mining corridor, a region where Castillo is popular.

Previewing Argentina's Presidential Election

 

ASSESSMENTS

Previewing Argentina's Presidential Primary

9 MIN READJul 18, 2023 | 19:01 GMT

Anti-government protesters hold up Argentine flags during a rally outside the presidential palace in Buenos Aires on July 9, 2022.

(LUIS ROBAYO/AFP via Getty Images)

By offering a glimpse into the makeup of the country's next government, the outcome of Argentina's upcoming primary elections could spook markets, spur nationwide demonstrations and potentially even trigger a run on local banks. Argentina will hold primary elections on Aug. 13 to choose the candidates who will run in the country's October presidential and legislative elections. When it comes to the presidential race, polling indicates there are four main contenders: leftist Economy Minister Sergio Massa, conservative Buenos Aires Mayor Horacio Rodriguez Larreta, conservative former Security Minister Patricia Bullrich, and libertarian lawmaker Javier Milei. 

• Massa represents the ruling populist Union por la Patria (UP) coalition. A career politician, he became Economy Minister in August 2022 with the main promise of reducing Argentina's inflation and avoiding a worsening of the country's economic crisis. Despite these promises, inflation in the country has continued to rise during his tenure. UP has another presidential contender who will participate in the Aug. 13 primary, but Massa is expected to win the coalition's nomination by a broad margin.
• Larreta and Bullrich will be competing to become the presidential candidate for the conservative Juntos por el Cambio (JxC) coalition, which opinion polls suggest will be a tight race. Both candidates have promised to cut public spending, make labor laws more flexible, and reduce taxes and regulations. But they have different views on how quickly these pro-business reforms should be implemented. If elected president, Bullrich has pledged to push through a spate of reforms in the first hundred days of her tenure, while Larreta has advocated for a more gradual approach that seeks to gain consensus from opposition parties. 
• Milei, who was only elected to the lower house of Argentina's Congress in 2021, is a wildcard candidate with little political experience. He has attracted voters who are disenchanted with the mainstream political parties by proposing radical ideas like shuttering the country's central bank, replacing the Argentine peso with the U.S. dollar, drastically cutting public spending, and denouncing the ''political caste.''

Voting in primary elections is mandatory in Argentina, which means next month's ballot will serve as a strong indicator of the outcome of the presidential election in October. Since 2009, Argentina has made it mandatory for all citizens of voting age (18-70 years old) to participate in primary elections. This sets it apart from other countries like the United States where voting in primaries is optional, resulting in lower turnout compared with general elections. Argentina's ''open, simultaneous and obligatory primaries'' (commonly known by their Spanish acronym PASO) have, in turn, become a strong indicator of overarching electoral trends in the South American country, which have historically been confirmed in the subsequent general elections. In both 2011 and 2019, for example, the candidate who obtained the most votes in the presidential primary went on to win the presidency. And in 2015, the candidate who secured the most votes in the primary won the first round of the presidential election, though lost in the second round. This means that if a candidate secures significantly more votes than anyone else in next month's primary, there's a fair chance they'll go on to replicate their victory in the October presidential election. However, if the primary elections show a narrow margin between two or more candidates, the results of the presidential election will remain open.

This election cycle comes as Argentina is battling a growing economic crisis fueled by record inflation, ineffective governance and high debt levels. Argentina's inflation is expected to reach 145% by the end of 2023, one of the highest inflation rates in the world. Amid very tight capital controls, Argentina's central bank sells millions of dollars every day in an effort to prevent a steep devaluation of the country's local currency. The peso's unofficial exchange rate is nearly double the official exchange rate, serving as a consistent drain on Argentina's foreign currency reserves. With insufficient foreign financing and negative central bank reserves, the government risks being forced to implement a large one-time devaluation of the peso. Buenos Aires is also struggling to make interest and principal payments to reduce its massive debt burden, which reached 83% of GDP at the end of 2022 (or $394.1 billion). While the government's program with the International Monetary Fund helps cover some of Argentina's foreign currency obligations, a large domestic currency debt and generous welfare payments for low-income households still force the Argentine government to print millions of pesos every month, which then exacerbates the country's sky-high inflation. 

• According to the IMF, Argentina's economy will expand by a mere 0.2% in 2023, while neighboring Brazil and Uruguay will grow by 0.9% and 2%, respectively.

Markets would likely respond negatively if Massa, the favored ruling party candidate, performs surprisingly well in the presidential primary, as it would raise the prospect of another leftist administration. But since Massa is seen as more centrist than Argentina's current president, such an outcome would unlikely result in significant economic turmoil. Most polls don't have the ruling UP coalition winning the presidency in October. But should Massa, the coalition's frontrunner candidate, perform better than expected in the primary next month, it could stoke panic among investors and Argentine savers who fear another leftist UP president would see a continuation of the heavily interventionist economic policies that have come to define leftist President Alberto Fernandez's time in office. This could see bond rates rise and the peso's unofficial and official exchange rates slide shortly after the primary results are announced. But while he hails from the same coalition, Massa is seen as a more centrist and less polarizing political figure compared with the country's outgoing president. Many members of Argentina's political and economic establishment also perceive Massa as a more skilled political operator than Fernandez. This means that some local businessmen and investors could still view a potential Massa presidency as an improvement from the Fernandez administration, as evidenced by sovereign bonds rising roughly 4% after Massa announced his candidacy. If Massa performs well in the primary, Argentina would thus likely see its tumultuous economic climate continue but not worsen in the months leading up to the October runoff election. A strong Massa performance would also be unlikely to result in significant unrest, as many of the Argentine unions and activists support the country's current leftist government and would thus welcome the prospect of another UP president.

Conversely, markets would likely respond positively if the conservative JxC candidates perform strongly in the August primary, though Argentina could see disruptive protests among left-wing activists and labor unions. Both Larreta and Bullrich have promised to reduce taxes and regulations in Argentina's economy, as well as cut public spending as a way to reduce inflation. They have also both promised to make the country's labor laws more flexible to make it easier and cheaper for companies to hire workers. As many of these measures are considered pro-business, a strong performance by either JxC candidate in the primary would likely help to temporarily stabilize the peso (or at least slow its devaluation). But the country's broader investment attractiveness would still be unlikely to improve in the short and medium term due to underlying poor economic conditions. If the combination of primary votes for Larreta and Bullrich suggests that JxC could win the presidential election, Argentina's unions, activist groups and pro-UP sectors would probably call for strikes and stage demonstrations as well, for fear that a JxC administration would introduce pro-business labor reforms and scale back the scope and scale of welfare benefits. A strong showing for Bullrich could even provoke a mass protest movement, as she is seen as the more conservative ''law and order'' candidate between the two who would be more likely to crack down on social unrest and push her policy agenda through without first seeking consensus from opposition parties in Congress and other civil society sectors.

• A strong performance of either JxC candidate would likely also prompt the outgoing Fernandez administration to quickly enact measures aimed at undermining its potential conservative successor. This could include hiring public sector workers en masse in the hopes of forcing the next administration to conduct widely unpopular layoffs akin to those imposed by former President Mauricio Macri, who triggered nationwide demonstrations in 2016 after laying off 20% of the country's public workforce.

Should Milei perform strongly in the primary, his radical agenda could result in a run on Argentine banks by creating a general panic in households and the financial sector. A self-proclaimed libertarian, Milei is running on a promise to completely dismantle Argentina's current economic model by abolishing the central bank and replacing of the peso with the U.S. dollar. Should Milei see a stronger-than-expected performance in next month's presidential primary, it would likely stir anxiety among investors, citizens and businesses alike by suggesting he stands a serious chance of winning the presidency in October. The massive uncertainty about what a Milei presidency would look like and what it'd mean for the economy would almost certainly see investors press pause on starting new projects in Argentina, which could be detrimental to the growth in the country's crucial mining and hydrocarbon industries, along with its budding start-up culture. By raising the specter of dollarization, a surprisingly strong showing for Milei in the primary may also lead to a run on Argentine banks, as households and companies scramble to swap their pesos for U.S. dollars before they're potentially forced to do so when the exchange rate is less favorable. Such a mass panic could, in turn, force the outgoing government to impose even stricter capital controls (including a prolonged bank holiday to prevent savers from withdrawing their money), as well as implement a large one-time devaluation of the peso before the general election. 

• If Milei wins the presidency in October and follows through on his campaign pledge, Argentina would be the largest economy in the world to dollarize. Milei has promised that Argentinians would be able to exchange their pesos for dollars at a rate similar to what they currently get on the black market (a key source of U.S. dollars for millions of Argentinians). However, economists from other political parties have warned Milei's proposed dollarization would take place at a more unfavorable exchange rate due to the central bank's poor dollar reserves, which would severely cut into Argentinians' wages and savings and drastically reduce their purchasing power. 

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Honduras: Community Policing

 

Community Policing

HONDURAS

The president of El Salvador, Nayib Bukele, has earned plaudits from many of his people – and brickbats from human rights activists – for his crackdown on the gangs that have long run rampant in the Central American country.

Now El Salvador’s neighbor to the northeast, Honduras, is getting in on the act.

Honduran police recently “frog-marched” tattooed inmates around a prison in a video that was clearly inspired by Bukele’s conflicts with convicts who orchestrate drugs trafficking, rackets, violence, and other criminal schemes from behind bars, the Associated Press reported.

Critics said the police were treating the criminals unfairly, citing images of half-naked men sitting in cramped groups on the ground. Honduran military police commander Ramiro Muñoz dismissed that criticism out of hand. “These criminals violate people’s human rights, they kill, kidnap and extort money, who is defending those rights?” he said.

Recent prison violence included gangs fighting in a women’s prison near the capital of Tegucigalpa that resulted in the deaths of 46 women, wrote National Public Radio. Honduran President Xiomara Castro said gang leaders organized the bloodshed, but prison officials were also involved. Muñoz ordered his troops into the prison in order to bring it back under control. They retrieved a massive cache of weapons, drugs, and other contraband.

Muñoz urged his soldiers not to allow gang members to bribe them, reported the Tico Times, an English-language newspaper based in Costa Rica. “No more corruption and collusion with prisoners,” he told them.

A few days later, a gunman fired shots in a pool hall in the northern city of Choloma, killing 13 people.

Castro responded by mandating a curfew and other curtailments of liberty in order to preserve public safety, wrote Reuters. It’s not the first time she’s taken such action.

Late last year, Castro suspended constitutional rights to empower law enforcement to arrest or kill gangsters who extort law-abiding citizens, explained Agence France-Presse. Gangs, for example, would force bus drivers to collect protection fees, known as a “war tax” because the fees paid for inter-gang conflicts, added InSight Crime. Experts told Deutsche Welle that extortion generated almost $750 million for criminals in the country, or three percent of its gross domestic product.

Gang violence has worsened however, prompting the latest draconian crackdown that mirrors Bukele’s no-holds-barred approach to bringing peace to Salvadoran communities.

Observers at Gzero Media wondered whether Castro, a leftist, was becoming an authoritarian. But they also concluded she might simply be a good politician. Bukele’s approval rating is around 90 percent. He hasn’t allowed democratic norms to prevent him from bringing law and order to his country.

Nobody knows if he’s ever going to bring the democratic norms back, however.