Zones for Economic Development and Honduras’ Sovereignty for Sale

The Zones for Economic Development (ZEDEs), commonly promoted by the Honduran government as "model cities," are set to become a reality in the near future, as domestic and international investors and developers plan to break ground in coming months. The project is supported by a two-year feasibility study, which South Korean investors completed in November of last year on the first planned ZEDE. That "model city" would be located on the Pacific coast near the border of Honduras with El Salvador and Nicaragua, in a community called Zacate Grande – an island connected to the mainland by a highway. For more on the South Korean study, as well as the threats of human rights violations due to government land seizures and other aspects of ZEDE law, see  last week’s edition of NotiCen.



Even though residents of Zacate Grande have fended off attempts by domestic and international investors and their own national government to seize their land in the interest of future development, the threats posed by ZEDEs are unlike any in the past. As international human rights expert Erika Piquero writes in the Latin Correspondent, ZEDE law presents investors and corporations with the unique ability to work within a separate legislative system, with its own laws, courts, infrastructure, tax law and equipped with an ability to evict inhabitants of land slated for development.

Opponents, proponents offer their views
The opposition points out that the creation of ZEDEs is akin to selling off the country’s sovereignty bit by bit, and terribly violating the human rights of the nation’s most oppressed and marginalized peoples.

The government and the project’s neoliberal supporters stand by the project’s main objective: ZEDEs will spur an unprecedented amount of development and economic growth, creating hundreds of thousands of jobs and lifting the nation out of its perpetual state of poverty and underdevelopment.

Opposition leaders, critics, human rights activists and community counter tha this this “development” will only benefit the already wealthy investors; in much the same way as similar schemes have in the past.

A predominantly indigenous, Afro-indigenous community

Photo: Rick Wunderman, Wikimedia Commons

To put the dispute in perspective, it is useful to review the history of the area. Zacate Grande, a predominantly indigenous and Afro-indigenous community, was uninhabited until the 1920s when its current inhabitants were displaced from the mainland. A highway was constructed in the 1970s with plans to develop the beautiful coastline in sight. Some of the nation’s most wealthy individuals have had their hand on local land titles for decades, and now the opening of the ZEDEs is presenting an unprecedented opportunity.

Even though Honduras has signed most major international accords on human rights and the rights of indigenous peoples, the ZEDEs would suspend basic rights like habeas corpus and other internationally recognized rights. Mixed with Honduras’ checkered past in respecting human rights law, many critics are hoping this plan more model cities and economic development does not plunge the communities within these zones into a state of lawlessness, where the whims of investors and corporations literally run the courthouse.

With many human rights activists and academics linking the creation of ZEDEs more to patterns of Honduran militarization than to actual neoliberal plans for development, we may begin to see a situation where military and security forces are literally and legally acting as a strong arm force for the interests of investment, maintaining ‘order’ in these fantastical economic zones, and perhaps physically removing people from their land.

-Jake Sandler

Also in LADB on Jan. 14-16 

• Veracruz Continues to Live Up to Reputation as Dangerous State for Journalists
• Insecurity Takes Back Seat to Immigration at Recent Summit Between Presidents Enrique Peña Nieto and Barack Obama
• Transparency Concerns Regarding Election of  Guatemala's Comptroller General
• Peru’s New Youth Employment Law Sparks Protests, Calls For Repeal
• Venezuelans United Against U.S. Sanctions

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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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PEMEX and Shari’ah Law

Photo: Magister Mathematica, Wikimedia Commons

Mexico’s state-run oil company PEMEX, hurting from the global decline in oil prices, is looking for new ways to raise capital. In an attempt to spur new international investment in 2015, the Mexican government is considering the possibility of issuing Sukuk Bonds, a type of bond compliant with Shari’ah law (Islamic moral code). Because Shari’ah law forbids the charging or paying of interest, certain Islamic governments and financial institutions that seek to invest in global markets will only do so if Sukuk bonds are issued in the place of conventional bonds. Responding to the rapid growth of wealth and investment among the Islamic monarch member states of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC), Sukuk bonds have grown tremendously over the last 10 years.

According to Scotiabank’s Sukuk division, total outstanding Sukuk rose from US$8 billion in 2003 to well over US$243 billion in 2012. Together, the GCC and Malaysia account for over 90% of all issued Sukuk bonds. By issuing Sukuk bonds to lure Muslim investors, the Mexican government would be joining the UK, the US, Canada, Thailand, Singapore and Sri Lanka in a rising global trend of government-issued Sukuk bonds. Mexico would be the first Latin American country to issue Sukuk bonds. For more on PEMEX’s plans to boost investment, see the Nov. 19 issue of SourceMex.

The difference between sukuk and conventional bonds
Conventional bonds are paid back with interest, while sukuk bonds are paid back with a share of assets. Because the payment of interest is prohibited in shari’ah law, Sukuk bonds skirt around that prohibition by replacing interest payments with a promise to share profits. Essentially, purchasing a Sukuk bond is much more like purchasing shares in a company, while a conventional bond represents the purchase of debt to be repaid with matured interest.

Photo: Akif Sahin. Flickr

 Why does shari’ah law forbid interest?
The prohibition of interest, or Riba as it is called under sharia law, is rooted in the writing of the Quran. Saleh Majid, a lawyer representing Islamic Banking laws in Germany and the UK, explains that the prohibition of Riba came gradually, and is based on an interpretation of Verse 2:275, which states that “Allah permitted the sale and forbade Riba,” and that “Every loan which attracts benefit is Riba.”

The principle underlying this prohibition is the need to prevent usury, or the accumulation of unearned accretion of capital… essentially what we call loansharking. Due to varying interpretations of the Quranic verse, and varying methods of implementing it in modern law, each Islamic government has its own particularities. Even Jewish and Christian scripture discourages the use of interest on loans. In fact European banking laws have much to do with the rise of Islam and its medieval conquests. As it turns out, Sukuk is the plural of the Arabic sakk, translated to the medieval French, “cheque”, or our modern word “check”.

-Jake Sandler

Also in LADB on Nov. 19-21....

• Mexican Senate Appoints New Human Rights Ombud in Wake of Guerrero Crisis
• Nicaragua Pushes Ahead with Eco-Friendly Overhaul of Electricity Sector
• Killing of Two Paraguayan Journalists Highlights Narco-Corruption Issue
• Peruvian Business Associations Hoping to Hack Away at Workers’ Rights
• Planned Container Terminal in Costa Rican Port Brings Second Strike in Two Years

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The Debate over Tax Reform in El Salvador

Street vendor in El Salvador (Wikimedia Commons)O

Economists, opposition lawmakers and San Salvador's conservative conservative daily El Diario de Hoy have expressed strong objections to the new tax reform approved in El Salvador this summer.

A central goal of the the reform promoted by Salvadoran President Salvador Sánchez Cerén is to increase taxes on the wealthier contributors to provide the government with new revenues to boost expenditures on social services, education and community facilities. Th reform is is projected to raise the government an additional US$160 million annually. Read more from Benjamin Witte-Lebhar in this week's issue of NotiCen. (This move to boost taxes on wealthier contributors to allow the government to boost spending on social programs is strikingly similar to the argument that Mexican President Enrique Pena Nieto made when pushing his tax-reform plan in Mexico at the end of 2013).

Critics contend the tax hike will not only affect the wealthier taxpayers and the larger businesses, but small and medium-sized ones as well, and will effectually diminish their ability to grow and hire more workers. This, in turn, would create a negative ‘trickle-down’ effect that will hit even the poorest sectors of the economy. El Diario de Hoy, for example, argues in an editorial that that the pupuseras who sell stuffed tortillas on street corners and the minuteros (who peddle cell phone minutes) on the streets as well as the small store owners would be the ones paying for the nation’s new tax plan. The bottom line, says the editorial, is that  that, despite the popular belief that this tax reform was created so “those who earn the most will pay the most," the new system will have an effect on everyone, not just the wealthy elite.

Palacio Nacional, San Salvador

This argument is a classic and well-worn debate over the benefits of supply-side economics, and has served as a fundamental roadblock to socialist reform throughout Latin America, and elsewhere, for decades. President Sánchez Cerén, in contrast, refers to these opposing opinions as untruthful tactics to rally the public against the reform. 

There is also a debate about managing the economy in Panama, where conservative president Juan Carlos Varela is facing criticism from other conservative politicians for pushing through a measure to control food prices. Despite an inflation crisis that has driven the price of basic foodstuffs up more than 30%, members of the Cambio Democrático (former President Ricardo Martinelli's party) have hesitated to support the measure, citing possible side effects that include food shortages, black markets and even rioting and destruction of property. Read more from Louisa Reynolds in this week's edition of NotiCen.

  -Jake Sandler 

Also in LADB this week....
A New Airport for Mexico City :President Enrique Peña Nieto has resurrected a proposal to build a new airport for Mexico City, offering a much larger project than the plan that ex-President Vicente Fox proposed in 2001. In announcing plans for the new airport, Peña Nieto said the existing facility had reached its operating capacity, resulting in bottlenecks in Mexico’s air traffic. The AICM, the second-busiest airport in Latin America, recorded more than 389,000 takeoffs and landings in 2013, surpassing its stated capacity of 340,000.  Read more from Carlos Navarro in this week's issue of SourceMex.

Changes to Ecuador's Constitution: The administration of President Rafael Correa is calling for a series of constitutional reforms based on the argument that the Ecuadoran Constitution—which has been hailed by many for its strong emphasis on human rights and was developed in a constituent assembly and approved by a large majority in a national referendum—is preventing the government from ruling and thus jeopardizes the welfare of the people. Part of the problem, according to the administration, is that constitutional guarantees designed to protect citizens' rights are being used abusively to boycott government plans.  Luis Ángel Saavedra tells us more in this week's edition of NotiSur

A Third Term for President Evo Morales in Bolivia?: For the first time in more than a century, Bolivians are expected to elect a president for the third-consecutive time; indications are that Evo Morales will be re-elected for a term that would keep him in office until 2019 Morales takes credit for important achievements during his eight years as the country’s leader, and his achievements have been recognized by international organizations and even some of his domestic enemies. Meanwhile, his opposition—mainly right-wing and ultraright groups—has failed to build either strong leaders or a united program.  Read more from Andrés Gaudín in this week's edition of NotiSur.

Mexican Union Leader Wins Court Victory:Less than a month after Interpol issued an order for his arrest, exiled Mexican labor leader Napoleón Gómez Urrutia won a victory in the Mexican courts that effectively negates the directive of the international law-enforcement agency .This week's edition of SourceMex expands on this development.

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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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Labor Unions Join Forces To Oppose Paraguay’s Controversial ‘Privatization’ Law

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Article from NotiSur, May 2

Twenty years after a general strike against then President Juan Carlos Wasmosy (1993-1998) provoked a backlash of state repression that decimated the country’s labor movement, Paraguayan workers are once again making their presence felt. On March 26, the country’s various union organizations put aside their differences to carry out a massive work stoppage that paralyzed the country and served as a wake-up call for the government of President Horacio Cartes. Demanding salary hikes and other economic and labor improvements, participants also took aim at the recently approved public-private association law (ley de asociación público-privada, APP), a controversial measure allowing the executive branch to privatize a vast array of state assets and services for a period of up to 40 years . Union members want the APP repealed. Andrés Gaudín Read More

Work Resumes on Panama Canal Enlargement but Key Issues Remain Unresolved

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Article from NotiCen, April 10

The Spanish-led consortium Grupo Unidos por el Canal (GUPC) resumed work on the expansion of the Panama Canal on Feb. 20, after a bitter dispute with the Autoridad del Canal de Panamá (ACP), the autonomous agency that manages the canal, was finally resolved. The expansion of the canal was originally expected to cost around US$5.25 billion but the GUPC argued that it had encountered unforeseen additional expenses that would increase the cost of the project to almost US$7 billion, setting off an acrimonious feud with the ACP, which insisted that the consortium should abide by the terms of the contract. After the two parties failed to reach an agreement, the project ground to a halt on Jan. 20. After a war of words between the two parties and weeks of legal wrangling, the consortium and the ACP agreed that each side would pay US$100 million needed for the project to resume while insurer Zurich will convert a US$400 million deposit into a loan. Louisa Reynolds Read More

Nicaraguan Cane Cutters Face Health Issues; Mexico Launches Anti-Kidnapping Campaign; Bolivia's Evo Morales Seeks Re-Election

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Articles in SourceMex, NotiCen and NotiSur for January 29-31

Nicaraguan Cane-Cutter Movement Brings New Attention To Central America’s Kidney-Disease Epidemic

In Chichigalpa, Nicaragua’s tierra del ron y del azúcar (land of rum and sugar), hundreds of men who developed a "mystery" illness while working in local sugarcane fields are seeking compensation from their former employer, the powerful conglomerate Grupo Pellas. So far the cañeros (cane cutters), all of them with the debilitating medical condition known as chronic kidney disease (CKD), have failed to secure either money or medical attention. Their quest did, however, put them in the crosshairs earlier this month of a police assault that left one person dead and another, a 14-year-old boy, half-blind and fighting for his life. -Benjamin Witte-Lebhar  Read More

Execution of Mexican Citizen in Texas Reopens Controversy on Capital Punishment, Consular Rights

The long-standing conflict between Mexico and the US regarding the death penalty resurfaced in late-January after the state of Texas decided to move forward with the execution of Mexican national Édgar Tamayo Arias. Tamayo, convicted of killing a Houston police officer in 1994, became the ninth Mexican citizen executed by a US state since 1976, according to the Death Penalty Information Center. All but one of the executions have been carried out by the state of Texas, including the high-profile cases of José Ernesto Medellín Rojas in 2008 and Humberto Leal García in 2011. At the heart of all the cases was the failure by local law-enforcement authorities to comply with US international obligations, specifically the 1963 Vienna Convention on Consular Relations. Article 36 of the treaty, which the US ratified in 1969, requires that any foreign national who is arrested be given immediate access to consular staff from his or her home country. -Carlos Navarro   Read More

Bolivia’s President Evo Morales Announces Re-election Plans

As Bolivian President Evo Morales begins the last year of his second term, his re-election as president of the Plurinational State of Bolivia appears assured. If elected next October, he could continue in office until 2020. Both sympathetic and unfriendly political scientists and analysts--in Bolivia social tensions have reached an extreme in which there is no room for middle-of-the-road or undefined positions--believe that, based on current economic indicators and inclusive social policies that have brought the majority indigenous population into economic and educational systems, there’s no possibility that the right could oust the current government in an election. -Andrés Gaudín Read More

Building Collapses and Severe Shortage Worsen Housing Situation for Cubans

Buildings that received little or no maintenance for decades, faulty construction, frequent collapses, and an overall 39% of homes in Cuba in poor or fair condition are worsening the housing situation on the island, confirmed government reports and details from the most recent population census. Cuba has more than 3 million houses, of which 61% are considered to be in good condition, but the rest are in fair or poor condition. The housing crisis is a recurring theme in demographic studies on Cuban families because of the generational issues caused by several generations of the same family having to live together, including those who were previously married and, after divorcing, were never able to move into independent housing. -Daniel Vázquez  Read More

President Enrique Peña Nieto Announces New Anti-Kidnapping Campaign

President Enrique Peña Nieto has unveiled a new strategy to prevent kidnappings and find missing persons that will shift the focus to intelligence gathering. The new plan, announced in late January, seeks to learn from the failed strategies of preceding administrations, primarily those of ex-Presidents Ernesto Zedillo , Felipe Calderón, and Vicente Fox. The Peña Nieto administration does not exactly have a stellar record when it comes to kidnappings. In fact, the number of abductions during the president’s first year in office increased significantly from the last year of the Calderón administration. This increase in abductions is what prompted the administration to put together an anti-kidnapping strategy, which places less emphasis on prosecution of the crime and more on intelligence gathering and prevention. -Carlos Navarro  Read More

Rights Groups Say Peru's New Law Protects "Trigger Happy" Police, Military

Numerous national and international human rights organizations are questioning a new law that gives police and the military more leeway to use lethal force "in the line of duty." President Ollanta Humala enacted the norm on Jan. 13. Ley 30151 modifies Article 20, Subsection 11, of the Código Penal, which exempted police and members of the armed forces from criminal liability in cases where, "in the line of duty and using their weapons in a prescribed manner, one causes injury or death." The Defensoría del Pueblo, Peru’s autonomous ombud’s office, agrees that "law enforcement should be given the tools it needs to tackle organized crime, terrorism, drug trafficking and common crime, as well as address the violence that can result from social conflicts. But it warned that the new regulations put everyone’s lives at risk by allowing the use of weapons without regard to established policing regulations. -Elsa Chanduví Jaña Read More

New MERCOSUR Resource on Dirty War; Mexican President Criticized for Timid Reaction to U.S. Spying; Guatemalan NGO Offers Gender Workshops in Rural Areas

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Articles in SourceMex, NotiCen and NotiSur for September 11-13

MERCOSUR Unveils New Trove of Files on South American Dictatorships

Human rights violations committed by South American dictatorships during a period of four decades—from the 1954 coup d’état that brought Gen. Alfredo Stroessner to power in Paraguay to the peaceful departure of Gen. Augusto Pinochet in Chile in 1990—are part of the complex history shared by the countries of the Southern Cone. As the justice system continues to investigate the attrociities, with varying degrees of difficulty depending on the country, the Instituto de Políticas Públicas en Derechos Humanos (IPPDH) of the Southern Cone Common Market (MERCOSUR) has launched a guide to reference materials that compile information on crimes committed by the military regimes, "so that justice can act, so that memory can move forward." That was how MERCOSUR authorities put it when they announced, on Aug. 2, that the plan to make this information public had finally come to fruition. -Andrés Gaudín  Read More

Gender Workshops for Men Seek to Question Cultural Patterns at Heart of Guatemalan Machismo

The Colectiva para la Defensa de los Derechos de las Mujeres en Guatemala (Codefem), a Guatemalan nongovernmental organization (NGO) that focuses on empowering women and involving them in development projects for their community, is sponsoring a series of gender workshops targeted at men in rural communities. The 'masculinity' workshops--offered in 12 municipalities in the departments of Huehuetenango, Quiché, Sololá and Chiquimula--are an attempt to sensitize males in rural communities about their roles in society in the hope that this would eventually change some attitudes about women. The workshop organizers have found, however, that changing cultural patterns that have been passed on from one generation to the next has not been easy. -Louisa Reynolds    Read More

President Enrique Peña Nieto Criticized for Timid Response to US Spying Allegations

President Enrique Peña Nieto has taken a cautious approach in his reaction to reports that the US National Security Agency (NSA) spied on him by intercepting his emails and cellular phone communications while he was still a candidate for president. The president's timid reaction has prompted strong criticisms at home, with oppposition parties and political commentators pointing to a much stronger reaction from Brazil, which was also the target of US espionage. -Carlos Navarro Read More

Nicaragua Launches Oil-Exploration Effort In Contested Caribbean Waters

An offshore oil project has sparked a new outburst of ill will between Nicaragua and Colombia, which continue to dispute their Caribbean Sea boundary lines despite a binding ruling issued late last year by the UN’s International Court of Justice (ICJ). The contested waters include an area known in Nicaragua as the Tyra Bank, where last month--at the behest of the Nicaraguan government--the US firm Noble Energy Ltd. began drilling an exploratory oil and natural-gas well. The well is approximately 170 km east of Bluefields, the capital of Nicaragua’s Región Autónoma del Atlántico Sur (RAAS). Drilling is expected to continue until mid-November. Noble Energy also has prospecting plans for the adjoining Isabel Bank. The company gained concession rights to the two banks in 2009. Together the concessions cover approximately 8,000 sq km. -Benjamin Witte-Lebhar Read More

Regional Teachers Union Holds Demonstrations in Mexico City to Protest Public-Education Reforms

President Enrique Peña Nieto’s public-education reform has encountered some unexpected hiccups because of opposition from labor—but the opposition has not come from the beleaguered Sindicato Nacional de los Trabajadores de la Educación (SNTE), the country’s largest teachers union. The pushback is coming from the smaller Coordinadora Nacional de Trabajadores de la Educación (CNTE), whose base is centered in the poor states of southern Mexico—Oaxaca, and parts of Guerrero, Chiapas, and Michoacán. The CNTE has organized a series of very vocal protests against Peña Nieto’s education reform, which the Congress approved a few months ago. Legislators had to pass several secondary laws before the initiative could be enacted. The approval in both the Chamber of Deputies and the Senate came in early September. -Carlos Navarro     Read More

Little Progress in Reparations for Victims of Peru's Political Violence

Ten years after the Comisión de la Verdad y Reconciliación (CVR) issued its report on human rights violations committed during the internal armed conflict that ravaged Peru from 1980 to 2000, the recommendations to ensure truth, justice, and reparation for tens of thousands of victims and their family members are still on the table. "The general conclusion is that, ten years later, the victims of serious human rights violations, the vast majority of whom are poor and from the most remote regions, have yet to receive proper, timely attention from the state," the Defensoría del Pueblo said in its report on progress, setbacks, and challenges in the process. -Elsa Chanduví Jaña   Read More

Haiti Senate Election Remains in Limbo; Mexico Court Releases Killer of DEA Agent; Bolivia Striking Miners Return to Work

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Articles in SourceMex, NotiCen and NotiSur for August14-16

Mystery Chinese Firm To Tackle Nicaragua’s "Great Canal" Project

Sticking to his grandiose promise of building an ocean-to-ocean canal through Nicaragua, President Daniel Ortega has decided to place his faith--and a huge swath of national territory--in the hands of an untested Chinese firm whose mysterious owner, telecom tycoon Wang Jing, promises nothing less than to "change the world." This past June--much to the chagrin of opposition leaders, environmental groups, and other government critics--Ortega used his vast support in the Asamblea Nacional (AN) to quickly approve a concession deal that gives Wang’s HKND Group exclusive rights to "design, develop, engineer, finance, construct, possess, operate, maintain, and administer" the proposed canal. HKND, which is based in Hong Kong but registered in the Cayman Islands, has no major infrastructure-construction experience. -Benjamin Witte-Lebhar   Read More

Mexican Court Orders Release of Notorious Drug Trafficker Convicted of Killing U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration Agent in 1995

Just weeks after the Mexican government arrested notorious drug kingpin Miguel Ángel Treviño Morales, the top leader of the Zetas cartel, another infamous Mexican drug trafficker has been set free. On Aug. 9, a panel of judges from a federal court (Primer Tribunal Colegiado en Materia Penal) in Guadalajara ordered the early release of Rafael Caro Quintero, one of the founders of the Guadalajara cartel, on a technicality. Caro Quintero, who had already served 28 years of a 40-year sentence, was charged in the kidnapping, torture, and murder of US Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) special agent Enrique Camarena in Guadalajara in 1985. -Carlos Navarro Read More

Ecuadoran Government Seeks to Control Civil-Society Organizations

As if managing to take political control of all state institutions were not enough, the Ecuadoran government is now attempting to control all organizations created at the initiative of civil society. To do so, it has implemented a series of legal, political, and financial controls requiring each organization to submit periodic reports that allow the government to know its activities and, if it considers them detrimental to the government, to close it down on the grounds that it has violated a regulation. On June 4, President Rafael Correa signed an executive order (Decreto Ejecutivo 16), creating the Sistema Unificado de Información de Organizaciones Sociales (SUIOS), under the direction of the Secretaría Nacional de Gestión de la Política, which, in turn, is under the Ministerio Coordinador de la Política. -Luis Ángel Saavedra   Read More

Haitian President Michel Martelly Says He Wants Senatorial Election; Opposition and Civil-Society Leaders Doubt It

One-third of the seats in Haiti’s 30-member Senate expired on May 8, 2012, and those legislators’ replacements had to be elected no later than five months before. The country’s legislature consists of a 30-member Sénat and a 99-strong Chambre des Députés, respectively elected for six-year and four-year terms. In the Senate, one-third of its members are elected every two years, the reason for the vote that has been delayed for some nineteen months. Government-opposition clashes, presidential dismissal of several Conseil Electoral Permanent (CEP) members, and difficulties in appointing a provisional authority--Collège Transitopire de Gestion--to run the CEP are among the factors of an election crisis that has kept the vote on hold. -George Rodríguez  Read More

Bolivia's Striking Miners, COB Return to Work

During the first three weeks of May, the administration of Bolivian President Evo Morales had to confront a difficult situation when the labor federation Central Obrera Boliviana (COB) and workers--especially miners, the country's key labor sector--declared an indefinite strike. The country was paralyzed and a spiral of violence began. In their daily demonstrations, the miners resorted to the sector's long-standing practice of setting off dynamite sticks in the streets of the cities. The strike had one demand, something still not achieved by workers in any country in the world: when they retire, salaried employees would receive a pension equal to 100% of their pre-retirement salary -Andrés Gaudín    Read More

Popocatépetl Volcano Creates Constant Anxiety, Economic Opportunity for Nearby Residents

Every three or four months, dozens of communities in Puebla, Tlaxcala, and México states receive alerts from the federal disaster center Centro Nacional de Prevención de Desastres (CENAPRED) to watch for possible eruptions from the Popocatépetl volcano, also known as Popo. These alerts, which apply to about 60,000 residents in 42 communities bordering the volcano, are issued every time the volcano starts to rumble and/or exhale smoke. The volcano, which has kept area residents on edge for generations, is now also a source of economic development. Area researchers have discovered that ash from Popo is a good source of material to treat the denim cloth used for blue jeans, which could provide a new source of income for residents of nearby communities. -Carlos Navarro  Read More

Corruption Cases in Mexico, Costa Rica; Nicaragua Cracks Down on Press; Outgoing Chile President Urges Political Continuity

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Articles in SourceMex, NotiCen and NotiSur for June 19-21

Uruguay Strengthens Ties With U.S.

News about military-cooperation programs between the US and Uruguay is making headlines, especially the political debates on the issue, in this small country with a long history of clearly anti-US sentiment. While the assistance plans, troop training, provision of materials, and even the possibility of building a military base have come into the spotlight in recent months, they have been developing since 2005, when, after nearly two centuries of institutional life, the left and political progressives took power for the first time, through the Frente Amplio (FA) and President Tabaré Vázquez.   -Andrés Gaudín    Read More

Nicaraguan Authorities Criticized for Press Crackdown

Rights groups are sounding the alarm about a pair of apparent press-freedom violations, both involving news photographers who--on separate occasions last month, just days apart--were prevented from completing their respective assignments after being pushed around up by Nicaraguan security personnel. On May 24, photographer Manuel Esquivel was forcibly removed from Managua’s Complejo Judicial (central courthouse) while attempting to cover an event involving Zoilamérica Narváez Murillo, the estranged stepdaughter of Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega. In a second incident, Agence France-Presse photographer Héctor Retamal of Chile was deported--after being held incommunicado. Retamal was seized by security personnel while trying to cover a meeting between President Ortega and Palestine Foreign Minister Riad al Malki.  -Benjamin Witte-Lebhar    Read More

In Final State Of The Nation Address, President Sebastián Piñera Makes A Pitch For Political Continuity

Taking the podium last month for his fourth and final State of the Nation speech, President Sebastián Piñera delivered a resounding toot of his own horn, citing an array of facts and figures to make the case that Chileans are better off now than they were when he took office three years ago. The approach looks to have paid dividends: a poll released in early June showed a six-point bump in Piñera’s approval rating. But with Chile’s next election just five months away, the president’s conservative coalition still has some convincing to do if it hopes to stay in power beyond March 2014, when Piñera is set to leave office.   -Benjamin Witte-Lebhar   Read More

Charges Against Ex-Tabasco Governor Andrés Granier Test President Enrique Peña Nieto’s Commitment to Fight Corruption

The governing Partido Revolucionario Institucional (PRI) has once again been linked to charges of massive corruption, which could affect efforts by the party and President Enrique Peña Nieto to regain the trust of the Mexican public. The latest case involves former Tabasco Gov. Andrés Granier Melo (2007-2012), who is under investigation, along with several associates, for embezzling billions of pesos. The ex-governor is said to have diverted about 20 billion pesos (US$1.5 billion) in public funds for personal purposes, with the whereabouts of US$1.9 billion pesos (US$143 million) still unknown. But the discontent with the governing party might not necessarily translate into votes against the PRI in upcoming elections, particularly the July 7 gubernatorial race in Baja California state, because the alternatives, including the opposition parties, are considered part of a corrupt political establishment. Rather, citizens are finding other ways to demonstrate displeasure with the government, including registering animals as candidates in upcoming mayoral elections. -Carlos Navarro   Read More

Borrowing Private Plane for Costa Rican Presidential Trips Abroad Backfires for President Laura Chinchilla

On May 11, the Presidencia de la República issued a brief communiqué reporting that Costa Rica’s President Laura Chinchilla was on her way to a private visit in Peru and was scheduled to meet with that nation’s President Ollanta Humala. The high-level talks would include strengthening the bilateral diplomatic link and the passage in May by the Costa Rican unicameral Asamblea Legislativa (AL) of the Costa Rica-Peru free-trade agreement (FTA), according to the official report. The president returned two days later, and 24 hours after that, a series of events began to unfold that would rock the local political scene. On May 14, several opposition legislators, both rightist and center-left, requested that the Ministerio Público (MP) and the Procuraduría de la Ética Pública, part of the Procuraduría General de la República (PGR), investigate the trip.   -George Rodríguez   Read More

Mexico, ILO Sign Agreement to Help Boost Formal Jobs, Increase Social Benefits for Workers

The Mexican government and the International Labor Organization (ILO) have entered into a five-year agreement to develop greater social protections for workers in Mexico, expand the job market to create more alternatives for workers in the informal economy, and bring Mexico in line with international labor standards. Mexican Labor Secretary Alfonso Navarrete Prida and ILO secretary-general Guy Ryder signed the agreement at the ILO’s annual meeting in Geneva in mid-June. -Carlos Navarro   Read More