Ni Una Menos Fights Violence against Women Throughout Latin America.

By Sabrina Hernández

Ni Una Menos, a civic movement calling attention to the high incidence of sexual violence and femicide, has gained traction in Peru, a country that ranks second in Latin America for the number of incidents of sexual violence with 10 femicides a month  Ni Una Menos organized a massive march on Aug, 13 to bring attention to the issue. (See Aug. 26 edition of NotiSur)

 An estimated 50,000 people showed up and footage of the demonstration in Lima can be seen here:



In Peru, several controversial rulings by judges in domestic violence cases served as the impetus for this call to action and effort to bring the matter of violence against women to the center of the national debate.

Impunity and violence against women is an issue that I tracked very closely during my years in California. I was still back home in the San Francisco Bay area, when a judge handed down an an appallingly paltry sentence to a Stanford University swimmer convicted of rape this past summer.

No matter what country, this is an issue that merits attention, and Ni Una Menos has managed to raise consciousness about the problem not only in Peru, but also throughout Latin America.  Here are synopses of how the organization and local activists have worked to address gender violence in various countries in the region.

Argentina  On June 3, 2015, a Ni Una Menos protest was held in the streets of Córdoba to demand an end to femicides and other types of violence against women. Thousandsof people took to the streets to demand an end to gender-related killings and relative impunity for the perpetrators of gender-related violence. This was only one of several protets in Argentina that year. According to The Huffington Post,  more than 300,000 in Buenos Aires alone marched for Ni Una Menos, joining protestors in other cities. By some estimates, Argentina averages one femicide per 30 hours,  up from an estimated one death per 40 hours in 2008. But these are just estimates. One of the demands of protestors is that the government collect and release accurate statistics on femicide. Another focus of the protest is aimed at prevention; protestors interviewed made mention of the importance of educating men how to treat women.

Mexico  In July of 2015, Mexico held its own march against femicide and the violent killing of women and girls. The country, beleaguered by gender related violence, sees six women killed each day, which places it among the world’s worst countries for violence against women. The culmination of these coordinated protests has led the government to issue “gender alerts.” This alert, the government’s recognition of a serious and systemic problem, will signify that “urgent action” is necessary to prevent the killing of women and to work towards the resolution of the countless open and languishing investigations. As of July, 2016, the federal government has activated a gender alert in 33 municipalities in the states of Mexico, Morelos, and Michoacan. While women see the gender alerts as a step forward, they believe much more needs to be done in Mexico. On a Sunday in late April, of this year tens of thousands of women in 27 states marched through the streets of major Mexican cities to demand an end to domestic violence, harassment of women, and femicides. Organizers dubbed the campaign Primavera Violeta (Violet Spring), an effort to bring attention to the many ways in which women are accosted in Mexico. Read more in SourceMex, May 11, 2016

Bolivia  Activists have led protests to redress a staggeringly high incidence of gender related violence perpetuated by a patriarchal culture that views women as property of men. Bolivian government has taken a considerable action compared to other countries plagued with gender violence.  In 2013, Bolivia passed Law 348 which was designed to guarantee women a life free of violence and prevent partner violence and punish abusers. Recently formed within the Bolivian police is the Fuerza Especial de Lucha Contra La Violencia (FELCV) whose job is to prevent, investigate and combat violence against women and girls. While Bolivia is leading the way with good laws and legal framework, cultural mentalities lag behind and many women find that lack of services and societal pressure to remain quiet makes the process of reporting incidents to be stressful and life-threatening, according to the daily newspaper El Comercio.

Colombia  A new law on femicide was implemented on July 6, 2015. In Colombia, an average of one woman is killed every two days and protesters who gathered on Sept. 16, 2015r attribute that high number, in part, to Colombia’s macho culture and a lack of awareness among women about their rights. Experts now argue that the prosecutor’s office needs to change the way cases of femicide are identified and investigated in order for this new law to begin to chip away at the problem, according to Colombia Informa.

Brazil  With the Rio Olympics in full swing, protestors gathered to condemn the rampant sexual violence that plagues the country. In few other countries can the systemic and institutionalized nature of the problem be as outwardly visible. A high profile rape case involving the Party of Social Christians leader, Marcus Feliciano, serves to illustrate the true depth and extent of the problem in Brazil,  Ani Hao wrote in the online news site Broadly. This protest, in large part motivated by the sexual assault of four women in the Olympic Village, marks a year of intense activism against gender related violence and femicide. Brazil has been tail spinning into political, economic, and social crisis and June 1, 2016, marked the largest feminist mobilization in Brazil’s history in light of a gruesome sexual assault of an adolescent girl by at least 30 men, most of whom, have not been punished. In March 2015, Brazil finally codified a law against femicide, thanks in part to intense feminist activism.

Fracking a Big Concern in the Amazon

As global oil prices remain in the dumps and Brazil’s state-owned petroleum company Petrobras reels from a corruption scandal, an October auction of exploratory oil blocks yielded little interest from major multinational corporations...Greenpeace Brasil called the auction a "double disaster." In a note on its Web site, the environmental advocacy group said, "In addition to being a clear incentive for dirty and polluting energy sources, the onshore exploratory blocks are located in ten large hydrological basins." The nongovernmental organization (NGO) also noted that the auction considered blocks of shale gas in the Amazon, which require the use of a process known as hydrologic fracturing, or fracking, that has been at the center of controversy about natural-gas extraction in the US.-from NotiSur, Nov. 6, 2015

Hydraulic fracking fracking or simply “fracking” is the process of drilling and injecting fluid into the ground at a high pressure in order to fracture shale rocks to release natural gas inside.  

The process is becoming an increasingly popular method to extract natural gas in the US and Europe, drawing strong opposition from environmentalists in both continents. Opponents have raised concerns about the huge amounts of water used in the process and the potential for contamination of groundwater with carcinogens. Fracking has also been known to cause earth tremors.

The Brazilian government has also developed an ambitious plan to use fracking to extract natural gas in a vast area of over 122,000 square kilometers across 12 states, including including protected areas and lands directly adjacent to indigenous domains in the Amazon.

"Effects from drilling and extracting oil and gas in the Amazon are characterized as being not only disastrous for ecosystems and biodiversity where drilling takes place, but also for the populations living in surrounding areas, as is the case with many indigenous and traditional peoples," said Amazon Watch. Fracking activities have been linked to devastating environmental, social and economic effects such as water contamination, air pollution, destruction of terrestrial and aquatic fauna, soil infertility, and also to health problems such as increased risk of cancer, neurological and heart problems and birth defects.

Greenpeace Brasil has come out against fracking, but the strongest opposition is heard from the activist group Coalizão Não Fracking Brasil - COESUS (The Brazilian No Fracking Coalition) has organized to fight against the corporate takeover of indigenous lands and precious bioregions. This coalition formed mainly by indigenous leaders and environmental activists, in a strange twist of political resistance, actually represents a shared-interest with those interested in protecting the traditional oil industry, such as the leaders and investors of Petrobras.

In an act of defiance targeting the Brazilian Oil and Gas Agency (ANP), Brazilian indigenous leaders and activists interrupted a major auction of new fracking concessions set to spread across the Amazon rainforest. Holding up signs calling for "No Brazil Fracking" (Não Fracking Brasil), activists seized the spotlight to demand indigenous rights and divestment from dirty energy, briefly halting the 13th round of bidding for fracking exploration rights at the ANP on October 7th in Rio de Janeiro. Amazon Watch

Fracking has had another effect on the Brazilian energy market. The increased availability of shale gas has reduced prices. A boom in fracking mostly in Brazil’s northern Amazonian provinces is literally sucking up a large portion of foreign interest in Brazil’s energy resources.

Fracking in the Amazon might represents a serious threat for Brazil’s oil interests, and contributes to a trend of dropping oil values worldwide, as well as new sites for foreign investment in places like Iraq and Western Africa. US investors, as well as other foreign prospectors, are far more interested in Amazonian fracking than Brazilian oil right now, and that may also have something to do with the fiscal policies that make it much more difficult, expensive and risky to invest in oil.

The greatest obstacle for fracking projects in the Amazon is the inability of the government to draw up land deals that do not violate agreements between the state and indigenous groups.  Because of this, we may be seeing the start of a new era in which national governments are forced to backtrack on land deals they made decades, even centuries ago. States have backtracked on agreements with indigenous peoples for generations. What is different in contemporary times is is the strength of the opposition voices, particularly voices that speak for the wellbeing and sustainability of the earth.

 Jake Sandler contributed to this post

Five Journalists Killed in Paraguay During President Horacio Cartes' Administration

From the time President Horacio Cartes of Paraguay took office in April of 2013, five journalists have been killed in what some Paraguayan leaders are calling a narco-political effort to silence voices of opposition. Andrés Gaudín covered the killing of the fifth and most recent journalist, Gerardo Servia, in last week's issue of NotiSur. "Journalists and campesino groups accuse President Cartes of being a ‘partner and protector of the mafias.’ During a March 6 memorial service for Servián, the secretary-general of the Sindicato de Periodistas de Paraguay (SPP) Santiago Ortiz called Cartes the ‘godfather of these mafia groups’ and said his ‘government of narcopolitics’ is directly to blame for the five journalist killings. ‘Since Cartes took over the presidency, the mafia murders with impunity,’ he said. ‘We’ve got to stop being silent and afraid. We must put an end to narcopolitics. Either that or narcopolitics will put an end to us.’

The repeated killings of journalists and campesinos have also gone unacknowledged by groups such as the Inter American Press Association (IAPA) and Human Rights Watch (HRW), and by regional organizations such as the Organization of American States (OAS) and the Unión de Naciones Suramericanas (UNASUR)."

Despite this apparent lack of attention from others, Reporters Without Borders has taken notice. On their webpage focused on Paraguayan reporters, stories of the five journalists and the broader issues highlighted by their murders are provided for the public, as well as activists, other journalists, and anyone generally interested in the rights of press workers and the freedom of information.

Photo: Reporters without Borders

Gerardo Servian Coronel, a radio journalist in the Paraguayan border town of Zanja Pytá, was assassinated on March 4, 2015, by two men riding a motorcycle near the border city of Ponta Pora. Servian was critical of the local government on his radio program, which was not hard to do in a nation riddled by rampant corruption at the highest levels. Servian’sbrother and fellow journalist Gerardo Servian received numerous death threats after working alongside Santiago Leguizamon. Leguizamon was murdered in 1991 and to this day no one has been held accountable. Servian’s is the 17th murder of a Paraguayan journalist in the last two decades, and the fifth since the election of Horacio Cartes. Reporters Without Borders reports that the vast majority of these murders were reprisals for investigative reporting on the links between organized crime and politics.

Photo: Reporters without Borders

Pablo Medina, a correspondent for Paraguay’s leading daily periodical ABC Color, was murdered on his way back from reporting near the indigenous community of Ko’e Pora on October 16, 2014. Known for covering the drug trade in Paraguay, Medina had received numerous death threats before. His assistant, Antonia Almada, was also fatally wounded. Medina was formerly under police protection, but that protection was lifted in 2013. Reports say that two men stopped his vehicle, asked him to identify himself, and then fatally shot him and his assistant. Medina’s brother and fellow journalist, Salvador Medina, was also murdered in the same region in January of 2001 after covering drug traffickers.

Edgar Fernández Fleitas, a Concepción-based lawyer and presenter of a daily radio program called “Ciudad de la Furia” (City of Fury), was murdered on June 9, 2014, just one month after the murder of fellow journalist Fausto Alcaraz. Fleitas’ radio program openly criticized local government and judicial officials and repeatedly drew attention to their involvement with drug traffickers. Death threats on his life were repeatedly reported to the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights. A single gunman assassinated Fleitas inside his Concepción office.

Fausto Gabriel Alcaraz, a popular radio journalist who covered drug trafficking and the involvement of government officials in illicit trade on the border town of Pedro Juan Cabaellero, was murdered on May 16, 2014. Reports show that Alcaraz was shot 11 times. Alcaraz often accused officials by name on his program for involvement in illicit trade near the border and in other regions. Pedro Juan Caballero has been the site of at least two other murders of journalists in recent memory, including that of Santiago Leguizamon and the radio director Marcelino Vasquez, whose murder took place just months before Cartes entered office.

Carlos Artaza, a press photographer who had recently been covering the aggressive race gubernatorial race in the state of Amambay, was murdered on April 25, 20013 in the city of Pedro Juan Caballero. The homicide occurred just days after Cartes election, a month after the similar murder of Marcelino Vasquez, and on the 24th anniversary of the murder of Leguizamon in the same city. Other journalists in the area who were also covering the heated race and supporting the left-leaning candidate, Pedro Gonzalez, received death threats on their phone reading, for example, “you are next” in both Spanish and Guaraní. Artaza was shot in his car by two men on a motorcycle.

Paraguay ranks 109 out of 180 countries in The Reporters Without Borders 2015 Press Freedom Index.  The index ranks the performance of 180 countries according to a range of criteria that include media pluralism and independence, respect for the safety and freedom of journalists, and the legislative, institutional and infrastructural environment in which the media operate. Other countries in the Latin America-Caribbean region that rank higher than Paraguay are Costa Rica (16), Uruguay (23), Suriname (29), Belize (30), Eastern Caribbean (37), Chile (43), El Salvador  (45), Haiti (53), Argentina (57), Guyana (62), Dominican Republic (63), Panama (83), Peru (92), Bolivia (94), Brazil (99), and Ecuador (108).  In contrast, Guatemala ranked 124, Colombia 128,  Honduras 132, Venezuela 137, and Mexico 148. 

When examining the situation in Paraguay in particular, we see that the northeastern border departments of Concepción, Canindeyú and Amambay (the location of  Pedro Juan Cabellero) continue to be the region in which the greatest effort to silence reporters is exerted. Comprised mainly of rural communities with small and medium-sized urban centers, this is the region traffickers must pass through when traveling from Asunción to the consumer markets of Brazil.

-Jake Sandler 

Also in LADB on March 18-20

• Senate Elects Former Prosecutor Eduardo Medina Mora to Supreme Court
• Same-Sex Marriage Slowly Gaining Acceptance in Mexico
• Price Slide Spells Difficult Days for South American Oil Producers  
• Costa Rica Links Immigration to Development, Focuses on Protecting Immigrant Rights 
• Haitian Immigration Crisis Reaches New Heights

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President Santos Four-Man ‘Peace Squad’ in Havana

As President Juan Manuel Santos and the Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia (FARC) continue peace negotiations, the Colombian chief executive has had to deal with constant criticisms from the far-right and at the same time face the reality that the guerrillas have gained a political advantage have gained by declaring an indefinite cease-fire and then sticking to it. (Read more in this week's edition of NotiSur). This has prompted Santos to seek outside help from a select group of foreign advisors with expertise in peace negotiations.



In early January, the president’s Havana negotiators sat down for a closed-door meeting with four special guests: William Uri, a US mediation expert from Harvard University; Joaquín Villalobos, a former Frente Farabundo Martí para la Liberación Nacional (FMLN) guerrilla who helped negotiate El Salvador’s 1992 peace accords and has since become an outspoken critic of all leftist groups in Latin America; Jonathan Powell, a former British Cabinet chief who helped broker the peace deal with the Irish Republican Army (IRA); and Shlomo Ben Ami of Israel, an ex–foreign minister who played a leading role in the 1978 Camp David peace agreements with Egypt.

Santos seems to have covered all of the political bases with his four-man team of advisors. The four VIPs come from a very diverse background: a Salvadoran ex-guerilla turned British Foreign Service-sponsored peace negotiator and critic of the left in Latin America; a former Israeli Foreign Minister who negotiated for peace at the Camp David Accords; a former British banker and advisor to the Prime Minister who negotiated with the IRA; and a US author and social anthropologist who’s bestselling books have put him in the boardrooms of various peace talks and negotiations.

We thought it would be interesting to provide a bit more information regarding their biographies and their lifelong journey to the Havana Peace talks.

Photo: Fabrizio León in Observador Juvenil

Joaquín Villalobos: Perhaps the most enigmatic of all four, Villalobos began his career as a commander in the People’s Revolution Army, a left-wing Marxist guerilla army that emerged in El Salvador in the 1970s, eventually merging with other groups to form the Farabundo Martí National Liberation Front (FMLN). During the bloody civil war that ensued, Villalobos fought against a US-Israel supported regime and paramilitary death squads. Conversely, he was also accused of participating in the murder of leftist poet Roque Dalton.Villalobos. His entire track record confronts this tension between fighting both for and against the revolutionary left.  Following the 1992 peace agreement in El Salvador, he was sent by British Foreign Service to study in England, and has acted as a major critic of leftist politics in Latin America since then. His main attributes seem to be straddling the line between the feared and ruthless left-wing guerilla commander of the 80s, and the right-of-center peace negotiator of today. Read his article,"La paz: cerca de La Habana, lejos de Bogotá"in El País  

Wikimedia Commons

 
Shlomo ben Ami:While the Israeli-supported Salvadoran government forces waged war against the guerillas in the 80s, Ben Ami was acting as the Israeli ambassador to Spain. A fluent Spanish speaker who was born and raised in a Mizrahi Jewish family in Morocco, Ben Ami began his career as a historian at Tel-Aviv University, concerning himself principally with studying the aftermath of the Spanish Civil War. As Israel’s Minister of Foreign Relations, Ben Ami participated in the 2000 Camp David Summit. Since then, he has publicly supported the Palestinians’ decision to not accept the terms dictated by Israel. He now serves as vice president for the Toledo International Centre for Peace. .

 

Photo from Uri's Web site

 William Ury: A bestselling author of books on mediation and conflict management that deal with a wide range of topics. See his  official  Web site. “Bill Ury has the remarkable ability to get to the heart of a dispute,” former US President Jimmy Carter recently said. Trained initially as a social anthropologist in Yale and then Harvard, Ury founded and directs Harvard’s Program on Negotiation. He has participated in a wide array of peace talks ranging from family disputes to mediation for the Bushmen of Kalahari and the clan warriors of New Guinea.

from The Guardian

Jonathan Powell: An adviser to former British Prime Minister Tony Blair (1995-2007) and chief British negotiator on Northern Ireland. One of Powell's chief accomplishments was helping the Northern Ireland peace talks to move forward, resulting in the Good Friday Agreement. Powell also had a close working relationship with former US President Bill Clinton, and participated in a US-UK-Israel project that brought Latin American figures such as Joaquín Villalobos to study in England. The diplomat has also had his share of controversies, including an accusation that he might have divulged too much information Russian officials about the activities of the British spy agency M16 in that country. After retiring from government service, Powell became a senior investment banker with Morgan Stanley in 2007. He left the banking sector to create Inter Mediate, an organization that participates in armed conflict negotiations around the world.

-Jake Sandler

Also in LADB on Feb. 18-20

• Brazil Prepares for Austerity Under New Finance Minister
• UN Report Highly Critical of Mexico for Failing to Address Enforced Disappearances
• U.S. Seeks Request for Extradition of Drug Kingpin Joaquín Chapo Guzmán
• Former President Ricardo Martinelli Faces Corruption Inquiry
• El Salvador Pardons Woman Sentenced To 30 Years For Abortion-Related Offense

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Farming Communities, Environmental Groups Continue Fight to Save Intag Region in Northwest Ecuador

 “Yesterday I was running down the path to bathe in the waterfalls, and passing a pile of leaves they turned into butterflies and flew away. This is a magical place. Thank you for sharing it.” Despite gains in corporate incursion, many Intag residents are hoping that this “magic” can continue to be their largest export to students and tourists from the US, Europe and Japan.  -Carlos Zorilla, organizer, Intag Cloud Forest Reserve & Education Center

Photo: Dina M - Flickr

Imagine an environmental paradise in northwest Ecuador, where the local farming communities are self-sustaining. This paradise is known as the Intag reegion, an area blessed with a microclimate diversity. As a result, local growers have produced a lush cast of mixed fruits and specialty crops-- from shade-grown coffee to papayas, blackberries and plantains, to the uncommon tree tomato. In fact, the tree tomato has been the third most valuable individual crop per hectare for small-scale family farmers, surpassed only by coffee and sugarcane. Such gastronomical specialties, along with a keen sense of self-sustaining environmental protections and local autonomy, began attracting a growing consumer base for exports, tourism and environmental activism both within Ecuador and in foreign markets.

Community farmers and land owners have benefited from a gowing market for ecotourism and specialty, fair trade and organic products, in addition to the region’s notoriety for grassroots environmental activism. The interest and foreign demand for Intag’s agricultural and cultural products is firmly evident in the Intagblog, which displays the important link between Intag community resistance, foreign environmental and human rights activists, and foreign consumer markets that specialize in organic, fair trade produce, crafts and environmental-based tourism. The area housing the Istag communities was the first region to be granted the status of an “Ecological Canton”.
 

Photo: Dawn Paley - Flickr

The problem for this community of 17,000 residents, is that the area is also attractive to the multinational mining companies, who have their eyes on the huge deposits of copper and other minerals in the area. The communities of the Intag region, operating under the defense and protection created via local resistance and organization efforts, fended off a Japanese company in the 1990s and Canadian mining concern Ascendant Copper Corp. more than a decade later.  The mining industry has not abandoned its efforts to gain access to the natural resources in the area.  This time, a mining company has obtained the support of Ecuadoran President Rafael Correa's administration.  In the second half of 2013, Ecuador's  Empresa Nacional Minera del Ecuador (ENAMI) signed an agreement with the Chilean mining firm CODELCO and, without consulting local communities, reopened the project in the second half of 2013.

In this week's issue of NotiSur (as well as a previous issue in March 2014), Luis Ángel Saavedra reported that intervention of ENAMI and CODELCO in the project comes at a time when Intag is fragmented and unable to sustain its long-standing determination to defend its territories. Will the residents of Intag finally lose out to the mining industry?  Even under these adverse conditions, the resistance continues, as evidenced by the emergence of the campaign entitled CODELCO Out of Intag.

-Jake Sandler

Also in LADB on Dec. 3-5...

• Jamaica’s Plans to Decriminalize Marijuana, A Move With Regional Implications
• Densely Populated San José, Costa Rica, Neighborhood Becomes War Zone Between Local Gangs
• Political Establishment Faces Credibility Problems in Mexico
• Leftist Forces Three-For-Three In 2014’s Southern Cone Elections
• Labor, Safety Concerns Raised About Monterrey Subway System    

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So, Why is Bluefin Tuna So Special? Well, It May Not be the Taste…

Photo: Monterey Bay Aquarium

Every January at Tokyo’s most legendary fish market, wealthy aficionados and businessmen bid on the year’ s first bluefin tuna. A symbolic, celebratory auction meant to bring excitement to the new year of one of Japan’s most prized fish, the tuna is never sold at market value; last year, a successful restaurateur bought the year’s first bluefin tuna at Tsukiji fish market for over US$1 million. Of course, that tuna will be sold at a loss, but never mind that, it would be more accurate to view the million-plus-dollar acquisition as a well-spent publicity stunt rather than a gross overpayment for a single fish.

At this year’s January sale, however, the first fish sold for a mere US$70,000 (still far above the market price, but much less than expected). According to Andrew David Thaler on his deep-sea blog Southern Fried Science, the exorbitant price of the symbolic tuna will be “presented as an argument against bluefin fishing,” and perhaps this year’s decline is an industry reaction to sharp criticism about overfishing, an attempt to mellow-out the ostentation in the face of serious international attention and pressure to stop the craze that will soon cause the species extinction.  Before brokering an agreement at the Inter-American Tropical Tuna Commission (IATTC) meeting in California a few weeks ago, Japan had proposed asking its importers to avoid buying Pacific bluefin tuna from Mexico to pressure the Mexican government to take measures to avoid overfishing of this species.  Read more in the Nov. 5 issue of SourceMex.

So, why the craze? What makes bluefin tuna so popular, and so incredibly valuable? We all know that preparing sushi and sashimi is a form of high art in Japan, so there must be an intricate, quality-based reason for bluefin tuna’s supremacy, right? Well, maybe not… turns out for quite some time, tuna (and especially the fat belly-cut we know pay so much for) was considered disgusting and at one point even used for cat food.

Photo: Flickr user Frits Ahlefeldt-Laurvig

Foul-tasting' fish
 Until after World War II, tuna was considered foul-tasting compared to the prized white flounder and mackerel fish, and tuna was mainly served as a poor-man’s food on the street. This history is strikingly similar to that of a prized delicacy in the U.S; the lobster. The crustacean was once served to prison inmates, before popularity surged in upscale, cosmopolitan markets.

Once Japanese society began absorbing a considerable influx of American culture during the 1950s and 1960s, the Japanese began demanding fattier, American style proteins, but tuna still remained largely unwanted and sold for pennies per pound. However, as Japan’s export economy entered a golden age, “Japanese airline cargo executives began promoting Atlantic bluefin for sushi so they’d have something to fill their planes with on their return trip from Tokyo.” The craze only increased, until today’s current mayhem, in which reports show that the Mitsubishi Corporation is even stockpiling frozen bluefin in order to control the world’s inventory at inflated prices once the species cannot be found any longer. That, and other shocking truths about the current state of the bluefin market can be seen in the documentary The End of the Line.

Despite the popularity and the high prices at the dinner table, real sushi aficionados in Japan still think of bluefin as a fatty, metallic tasting fish much inferior in quality to more traditional fish used for sashimi and sushi. Ironically, it seems, popularity in this market follows advertising trends, rather than the actual refined tastes of the experts.

-Jake Sandler

Also in LADB on Nov. 5-7....

• Supreme Court Rejects Proposals to Bring Energy Reform, Minimum Wage, and Reduction of Congress to Citizens for Vote 
• Ruthless and Corrupt Haitian Dictator "Bébé Doc" Duvalier Dies Unpunished
• Secret Salvadoran ‘Hit List’ Shines New Light On Civil War Rights Abuses
• Venezuela on U.N. Security Council Despite Official U.S. Concern
• Re-elected Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff Faces Second-Term Challenges 

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Argentine Forensic Team Working in Guerrero

Photo: Via Creative Commons on Flickr

A team of Argentine forensic experts arrived in Iguala in Guerrero state in Mexico on Oct. 7 to help federal and state authorities identify the remains of bodies found in a clandestine, mass graves. It is unclear how many of the bodies uncovered in the mass grave are connected to the disappearance of 43 students following protests in Iguala on Sept. 26.This week’s issue of SourceMex lays out the array of unclear reports regarding what actually transpired on Sept 26, when students at a teacher’s college organized a protest against plans to cut funding to their university.

The Argentine Forensic Anthropology Team (Equipo Argentino de Antropologia Forense, or EAAF), was founded in the mid-1980s when a team was formed to investigate the remains of disappeared families in Argentina. Since that project, EAAF has expanded its work to over 30 countries and helped form the Association of Latin American Association of Forensic Anthropology (ALAF). The two organizations have worked jointly in Guatemala, Bolivia, Spain, Colombia , Mexico and other countries. The joint work of EAAF and ALAF in Mexico dates back to the early 2000s, when the EAAF was asled tp participate in an international seminar titled "Truth Commissions: Torture, Reparations, and Prevention." Recently, EAAF was asked to assist a new Special Prosecutor investigating cases of people disappeared for political reasons during the 1960's and 1970's. Over the past several years, EAAF members worked in the state of Chihuahua on a project to exhume, analyze, and attempt to identify the remains of over a hundred individuals associated with the investigation of murdered and disappeared women in Ciudad Juárez.

The EAAF's mission statement explicitly states that the objectives of the team are to cater to the wishes of relatives of victims and their communities, and that  "the team's track record in international tribunals displays a deep and sincere dedication to truth and “the historical reconstruction of the recent past, often distorted or hidden by the parties or government institutions which are themselves implicated in the crimes under investigation."

Even though  President Enrique Peña Nieto's administration requested the intervention of the EAAF,  family members of the victims are relying on the Argentine experts for truth and justice because of  deep distrust of police and government authorities. Melitón Ortega, a relative of one of the missing students, has publicly expressed his distrust of state involvement in the investigation, representing a general attitude among his community members that the police and the government are the last people they want in charge of investigating this site.

So will the Argentine team succeed in helping relatives of  the students arrive at the truth? The task might be difficult. A slew of reports in the last week have revealed that the Argentine forensic team has had difficulty accessing the grave site, where state and federal authorities are tightly securing the area.

-Jake Sandler

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After months on the lam, former Salvadoran President Francisco Flores (1999-2004) is now behind bars pending trial on charges that he misappropriated roughly US$15 million donated during his presidency by the government in Taiwan. Flores, who hails from the hard-right Alianza Republicana Nacionalista (ARENA), El Salvador’s leading opposition party, disappeared from public view in late January. And, in May, when a judge in San Salvador issued a warrant for his arrest, he officially became a fugitive from justice.  Read More

Murder of Guatemalan Civil Servant Reveals Lack of Compliance with Private-Security Law
On July 3, well-known Guatemalan civil servant and feminist activist Patricia Samayoa Méndez was shot dead in a pharmacy by the establishment’s private security guard, who later barricaded himself in the pharmacy and attempted to shoot the police officers who were trying to arrest him. This case has highlighted that a new law imposing tougher sanctions on private security companies is not being properly enforced. Samayoa’s murder has called into question whether a law imposing more stringent regulations on private security companies that came into force in October 2013 is really being enacted.  Read More

Chinese-Mexican Consortium Submits Only Bid to Construct High-Speed Rail in Mexico
President Enrique Peña Nieto has set the process in motion to develop a high-speed train to connect Mexico City with the industrial hub of Querétaro, about 210 km northwest of the Mexican capital. On Oct. 15, the administration closed the bidding process for consortia to participate in constructing the rail line. Only one consortium submitted a bid, a partnership led by China Railway Construction Corp. (CRCC) that included Mexican companies GIA and Prodemex.  Read More

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Colombian Peace Process Feels Different

Photo from Caguan Peace Talks,  Wikimedia Commons

"Members of the security forces and their families have been given equal footing alongside members of the guerrilla and their families [in cases where] both groups suffered harm or had their rights substantially impaired as a consequence of gross human rights violations." - Committee that selected victims to testify at Havana Peace Talks

The Colombian government and the Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia (FARC) appear closer than ever to a peace agreement after 50 years of conflict. The ongoing talks, which have taken place in Havana, could lead to substantive change. According to the British non-governmental organization Justice for Colombia, several earlier attempts to achieve peace have failed, including the Caguan Peace Talks in 1998-2002. 

What is difference this time around? The Colombian government has made a concerted effort to enter this round of talks, the first after many violent years, with a tone of mutual respect, rather than one of superiority. Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos is demonstrating that respect in several ways, through the location of the meeting in Havana, through the composition of the panel, and most importantly, through the inclusion of and focus on testimonials of war victims from both sides of the half-century of conflict.

Although the Santos government does maintain positive relations with Cuba, Havana has an even tighter connection with the FARC, which has maintained a firm alliance with Marxist-Leninist philosophy since its beginnings during agrarian movements of the early 1960s .With a more or less neutral ground established, Santos sent his highest ranking military official, General Javier Florez, to meet face to face with the FARC leaders, a message that the Colombian administration respects the legitimacy of the group. This gesture also opens the door for FARC guerillas to lay down their weapons and reenter society without fear of being exterminated.

Finally, the inclusion of victims’ testimonials have taken center stage, stirring up heavy emotions on both sides. The presence of victims at the peace talks represent an acknowledgement that grave injustices have been committed by both sides, not just by the FARC guerillas. A great deal of tension surrounds the failure of the government’s right-wing factions to accept responsibility for the alleged crimes and human rights violations. However, Santos’ negotiating team has emphasized that a goal for these talks is to “satisfy the victims’ rights to truth, remembrance, justice and the admission of responsibilities. Andrés Gaudín addresses the role of the testimonials in the Havana peace talks in this week’s issue of NotiSur.  See additional coverage of the talks in Granma,the official newspaper of the Communist Party of Cuba.

 -Jake Sandler

Also in LADB this week.... 
Guatemala’s Plan to Privatize Tax-collection System:  President Otto Pérez has proposed a plan to privatize the country’s tax-collection system to try increase tax revenues, which have fallen below target. Louisa Reynolds tells us about opposition to the plan and related questions of corruption in the latest issue of NotiCen..

Costa Rica: The Report before the Report: Before making public his account of the first 100 days of his administration, Costa Rican President Luis Guillermo Solís repeatedly said he was going to tell Costa Ricans the state in which he found the country and what his government’s roadmap would be. The opposition prevented Solís from presenting his findings to Congress, so he released the report before an audience of close to 1,000 members of civil-society sectors. Read more from George Rodríguez in NotiCen.

Cartel of Cartels in Mexico: Four of the most notorious and ruthless drug cartels in Mexico have apparently proposed joining forces rather than fighting each other in turf battles. Intelligence reports from the US and Mexican governments indicate that leaders from the Cartel de Jalisco Nueva Generación (CJNG), the Carrillo Fuentes organization (also known as the Juárez cartel), the Beltrán Leyva cartel, and the Zetas held a meeting in the city of Piedras Negras in Coahuila to discuss the possibility of forming some sort of alliance. The latest issue of SourceMex provides more details.

Mexican Court Upholds Ban on GMO Corn. A Mexican federal court handed multinational seed companies another setback with a ruling against the Swiss-based seed company Syngenta, which had appealed a ban on the use of genetically modified (GM) corn in Mexico. Carlos Navarro expands on this development in the latest edition of SourceMex.

Brazilian Elections. The untimely death of Partido Socialista Brasileiro (PSB) candidate Eduardo Campos has added a new dynamic to the Brazilian elections. Campos' replacement Marina Silva could actually prove to be a more formidable opponent to President Dilma Rousseff (Partido de Trabalhadores, PT), and conservative challenger Aécio Neves (Partido da Social Democracia Brasileira, PSDB). Silva has a broad base of support thanks to her politics and biography. Her sustainability credentials appeal to urban leftist intellectuals and progressive youth. Gregory Scruggs tells us more about the upcoming Brazilian elections in the latest edition of NotiSur.

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Should a 10-Year-Old Child Be Allowed to Work?

There are 13 million (8.8%) of children in child labour in Latin America and the Caribbean -International Labour Organzation's latest report on Child Labor

Child labor already exists, and it is difficult to fight against it. Rather than crack down on it, we want to guarantee children’s labor security so that, step by step, we can eradicate [child labor] in the next five years. For that reason the law includes necessary safeguards in labor, health, and education rights. -Bolivian Sen. Adolfo Mendoza.

Image for ILO's Football Resource Kit

On July 17, 2014, the Bolivian Congress approved the Código Niño, Niña Adolescente, which lowers the minimum age at which children can work—to 10. The governing Movimiento al Socialismo (MAS) defended the decision by saying it reflects what for "innumerable" families is simply a fact of life.

Is this a pragmatic decision or does it further entrench a practice that the global community believes is unacceptable?


The Bolivian Congress believes that children are having to work by necessity, and that any prohibition against having children as young 10 years old participate in the workplace would be counterproductive, particularly when this practice has taken place for generations. The legislation recognizes that low-income Bolivian children will and must work. And if this is going to happen, they have to have protections.

While the arguments of Bolivian legislators and President Evo Morales might merit strong consideration, the International Labor Organization (ILO) and the UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF) believe that the standards were set for a reason: to provide a framework to eradicate the practice of child labor. "One of the most effective methods of ensuring that children do not start working too young is to set the age at which children can legally be employed or otherwise work," the ILO says in a report on conventions and recommendations on child labor. Read more about this issue from Andrés Gaudín in this week's edition of NotiSur,

Here is the ILO's latest report on recent child labor trends.  Here is the ILO's Football Resource Kit on using football (soccer)  in child labor elimination and prevention projects.  And here is what UNICEF says about child labor.

Also in LADB this week...
Other Issues involving Youth and Children
If you have been following the ongoing coverage of the surge in the number of unaccompanied minors fleeing from Central America to the US, Ben Witte-Lebhar offers us the perspective from El Salvador in  this week's edition of NotiCen.

In NotiSur, we look at youth from a totally different perspective. Greg Scruggs tells us why Brazil's newest potential voters, those aged 16 and 17, have chosen not to register to vote in record numbers.

Health-Related Matters
We also covered children from a broader-health related perspective in this week's newsletters.  In NotiCen, Louisa Reynolds examined how Latin American countries are dealing with the problem of obesity in a region where (according to the Food and Agriculture Organization, FAO)  23% of the adult population and 7% of preschoolers are overweight or obese.

In SourceMex, we wrote how a chemical spill into the Sonora River forced environmental and health authorities to declare an environmental emergency in seven cities. 

International Hero or Corrupt Fugitive?
Our other article in SourceMex reported on the latest effort to bring fugitive miners' union leader Napoleón Gómez Urrutia back to Mexico. There are two sides to Gómez Urrutia.  Even though he has been accused of embezzling US$55 million from the union, he has been reelected as secretary general on numerous times. And international labor organizations have given him awards for his efforts to shine the light on corporate greed and inadequate safety standards for miners in Mexico.

-Carlos Navarro

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At the Other End of the Migration Journey

Honduran school children ( ZackClark. via Wikimedia Commons)

'The program is aimed specifically at children at social risk and with no access to formal education, and in it the child’s interests are involved. The beneficiaries are children practically living in city dumps, and others with no access to school, those who have no father or mother to provide them with a family and support." - Col. Gustavo Adolfo Amador, administrator of Honduras' Guardianes de la Patria

Most of the attention on the recent migration of minors from Central America to the United States has been on the point of destination--the United States. The coverage in the US media ranges from the detention centers where the young migrants are housed to U.S. immigration policies.

Even in this week's issue of SourceMex, we discuss a controversial move by Texas Gov. Rick Perry to send 1,000 National Guard Troops to the Texas-Mexico border as a response to the surge of minors from Central America. To some extent, we have also covered news from the point of transit, which is Mexico.  And in our coverage, we have alluded to the poverty and violence in Honduras, Guatemala, and El Salvador, which is largely behind the large exodus of unaccompanied minors.

Official T-shirt

So how do you keep young people from joining gangs?  Honduran President Juan Orlando Hernández thinks he has a partial solution.  Earlier this year, he launched a program called Guardianes de la Patria, aimed at covering some 25,000 youngsters in the 5-15 age group in low-income, densely populated neighborhoods nationwide. The goal is to  teach young people values, prioriites and love of country.  "They receive formal and nonformal education, such as workshops, lectures, Christian education, training in technical work, physical training, sports, recreation activities according to age groups, and there is a school for fathers and mothers," said  Col. Gustavo Adolfo Amador, one of the officers who has oversees the program.

Human rights organizations warn, however, that the program has a Nazi-type component, exposing kids to a political-military culture of weapons to make up for a failed strategy to draft youngsters into the volunteer military service. "That’s a neo-Nazi project. We’re going to have youngsters with only military training since their childhood, and they’re having, with all that, all their rights … violated. It’s a project to annihilate a country’s dreams and the hope one places in youth. It’s a horror, what we’re living," said Bertha Oliva, head of the Comité de Familiares de Detenidos Desaparecidos en Honduras (COFADEH)   Read More from George Rodríguez in NotiCen, July 31, 2014

(This video in Spanish from HispanTV provides addtional information)



Also in LADB This Week....

• Environmental advocates have accused Belize Prime Minister Dean Barrow of reneging on his commitment to a sustainable-tourism policy by allowing a subsidiary of Norwegian Cruise Line (NCL) to invest US$50 million in the construction of a cruise port on Harvest Caye, a 75-hectare island 5 km southwest of Placencia Village.
• The center-left Movimiento de Regeneración Nacional (Morena),  created by former presidential candidate Andrés Manuel López Obrador, is now officially a political party and is ready to compete with the Partido de la Revolución Democrática (PRD) for votes in Mexico's election in 2015..
• The World Cup was a disaster for Brazil, when measured by the results on the field (a 7-1 loss to Germany,  Off the field, the tournament ran smoothly for the record number of foreign tourists visiting the country and affluent Brazilians attending matches, but preparations also caused the widespread displacement of low-income Brazilian families. Either way, the event will have little impact on President Dilma Rousseff's reelection chances.  An economic downturn, however, could influence voters.
•  In the days leading up to the BRICS summit in Brazil on July 15, the Russian and Chinese presidents came to Latin America offering generous loan packages and cooperation plans. As leaders of the strongest economies of the five countries in the BRICS group, Presidents Vladimir Putin of Russia and Xi Jinping of China signed hundreds of agreements for billions of dollars with Latin America’s progressive governments with which they either have, or are looking for, points of agreements on the necessity of modifying structures of the global agencies and establishing a fair and polycentric new world order based on international law with the UN playing a central coordinating role.

-Carlos Navarro

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Economic Development, Energy Needs Clash with Environmental Protection, Right of Communities to Control Natural Resources

Photo: Carlos Navarro

In March 1977, the United Nations Water Conference recognized water as a right for the first time declaring that “All peoples, whatever their stage of development and social and economic conditions, have the right to have access to drinking water in quan tities and of a quality equal to their basic needs”.

The right to protect water and natural resources has become a source of conflict in many countries in Latin America.  Four countries--Peru, Chile, Ecuador, Panama--have had to struggle or are struggling with a decision regarding this precious natural resource. Environmental advocates and indigenous communities are among hose opposing the privatization of water or the development of huge water-related projects.  The government and the business sector are on the other side. They see the large-scale projects as a means to promote development/and or create sources of energy for the country. The results have been mixed.

Let's examine each of the conflicts.

Chile. In June, the government’s Comité de Ministros—the top of the bureaucratic totem pole for decisions regarding development projects—voted unanimously to reject the polemical HidroAysén power project, a multibillion-dollar hydroelectric complex planned for a mostly untouched area of Chile's far-southern Región de Aysén.  The ruling ended years of on-again, off-again legal limbo regarding the costly venture, which its corporate backers—Endesa (51%), a Spanish-Italian energy giant, and Colbún (49%), a privately owned Chilean utility—first unveiled in 2007.  Read More in Read More  from Benjamin Witte-Lebhar in NotiSur, July 11, 2014

Ecuador: A march staged by Ecuador’s indigenous movement—the second during President Rafael Correa’s time in office—was so small that, instead of influencing the government, it showed the indigenous movement to be weak and fragmented. A water law, as this set of regulations for the use and administration of a natural resource that the Ecuadoran Constitution classifies as a human right is known, was approved by 103 of the Asamblea Nacional’s 137 members despite ongoing debate since the bill was proposed in 2009. Read More  from Luis Ángel Saavedra in NotiSur, July 18, 2014

Panama: Panama’s newly elected President Juan Carlos Varela, who took office on July 1, comes to power amid a drought-sparked energy crisis that has highlighted the perils of depending heavily on hydroelectric power at a time when rain patterns have become increasingly erratic as a result of climate change. Panama’s new government has stated that it wishes to review the contract awarded by the former administration to Brazilian company Norberto Odebrecht for construction of the Chan II hydroelectric dam on the Río Changuinola, in the northern province of Bocas del Toro. Representatives of the Ngöbe indigenous group have reiterated their opposition to the project and have complained that Varela has not met with them to discuss his plans for Chan II. Read More from Louisa Reynolds in NotiCen, July 24, 2014

Peru: The  Congress on July 11 passed a packet of laws to promote investment and reactivate the economy despite numerous national and international criticisms that labeled the proposal a blow to the country’s environmental structure, control, and management. The new regulations basically relax sanctions for environmental violations. Iván Lanegra, former intercultural vice minister, told the newspaper La República, "Clearly, reducing fines implies less environmental protection and, worse yet, dismantling environmental protection is done with a law called "Investment Promotion," which increases the risk that it could be interpreted to mean environmental policy is being used to attract investment, which is precisely what should not be done."  Read more from Elsa Chanduví Jaña in NotiSur, July 25, 2014

Also in LADB the Past Two Weeks...
In Mexico, a federal court granted bankruptcy protection to PEMEX contractor Oceanografía,, the federal government reduced estimates for the number of disappeared, President Enrique Peña Nieto created an office to manage immigration policies along the southern border, and several states  have approved a ban on the use of animals in circus performances, thanks to the efforts of the Partido Verde Ecologista de México (PVEM)

In Central America, Salvadoran President Salvador Sánchez Cerén made a pair of early overtures to human rights victims, raising hopes that his presidency, which began just last month, might usher in an era of greater accountability regarding the many abuses and atrocities committed during the country’s dozen-year civil war (1980-1992)...Guatemala's Congress approved a nonbinding resolution that denies that genocide was committed during the country’s 36-year civil war and calls for "national reconciliation."And President Daniel Ortega added a new item to his already bulging portfolio of powers: direct command of the Policía Nacional (PN), Nicaragua’s 12,000-strong national police force.

In South America,.the Paraguayan government and business leaders moved to encourage more investments from already economically dominant Brazil, and political infighting fueled a standoff between the Venezuelan government and the oposition
 
-Carlos Navarro

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