INTL Latin America and the Islands: Politics, Economics, and Military- September 2020

[Plain Jane]

August 's thread here:

INTL - Latin America and the Islands: Politics, Economics, Military- August 2020

Here is July's thread: https://www.timebomb2000.com/xf/index.php?threads/latin-america-and-the-islands-politics-economics-and-military-july-2020.577743/#post-7904449 Main Coronavirus Thread beginning page 1302...

www.timebomb2000.com

Quarantine-weary Brazilians head to beaches despite warnings

Suellen de Souza could no longer endure the confinement. After six months of precautions, the Brazilian nursing technician decided that Sunday would be her first day at the beach since the pandemic began.

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Quarantine-weary Brazilians head to beaches despite warnings
By MARCELO SILVA DE SOUSAyesterday



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People enjoy the Ipanema beach amid the new coronavirus pandemic in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, Sunday, Sept.6, 2020. Brazilians are packing the beaches and bars this weekend, taking advantage of a long holiday to indulge in normal life even as the COVID-19 pandemic rages on. (AP Photo/Bruna Prado)

RIO DE JANEIRO (AP) — Suellen de Souza could no longer endure the confinement. After six months of precautions, the Brazilian nursing technician decided that Sunday would be her first day at the beach since the pandemic began.

“This week it was very hot ... the truth is I really wanted to come” to the beach, said the 21-year-old at Rio de Janeiro’s Ipanema beach, which is technically still closed to sun-bathers though few respect the prohibition and authorities seldom enforce it.

Under a burning midday sun, she had difficulty finding an empty space in the sand as thousands crowded the famed beach, which was dotted with hundreds of umbrellas and families sunning themselves. Beach-goers were packed close together with few wearing face masks.

With tentative signs the coronavirus pandemic is easing, Brazilians exhausted with quarantine measures and social distancing are increasingly relaxing precautions and flooding beaches as if the pandemic were over. They are being urged to do so - and violate the recommendations of health experts - by President Jair Bolsonaro, who has resisted many lockdown measures and pressed for a return to normal life from the beginning, famously calling the novel coronavirus a “little flu.”

“It is like a rain that is going to reach you,” Bolsonaro said of the virus on July 7, the day he confirmed his own infection from which he has since recovered.

In Rio, recommendations by health experts to remain isolated are being challenged even by people like Souza, a nursing technician who worked in a field hospital for coronavirus patients.

“The coronavirus is being controlled a little more, that gave me security to go out,” she said.

The same scenario is playing out in Sao Paulo, Brazil’s worst-hit state with more than 855,000 confirmed infections and 31,000 deaths. Thousands of residents took advantage of the long weekend to travel to the coast.
“If you stay indoors for a long time, you will go crazy. I was like that. The moment I found out the beach was open, I decided to come,” said Josy Santos, a 26-year-old teacher who spent the day in Guarujá, a seaside resort an hour from Sao Paulo.

With more than 4,100,000 confirmed infections and 126,000 deaths from the virus, Brazil has the second highest totals in both figures behind only the United States. In recent weeks, Latin America’s largest country has left a new case number plateau that had dragged on from almost three months and started seeing a reduction in the number of new confirmed cases. But with an average of 820 deaths per day, its numbers are still considered high by health experts.

Patricia Canto, a pulmonologist at Brazil’s premier biomedical research and development lab, the Oswaldo Cruz Foundation, or Fiocruz, warned that if Brazilians are negligent the country could see a repeat of what happened in Europe, especially Spain, where second waves of new cases were seen.

“Spain controlled the pandemic, but there were new outbreaks when many young people were negligent during the summer,” Canto said. If Brazil’s “population is not conscientious and continues to frequent beaches and bars without precautions, it might mirror this.”

Geraldo Tadeu, political scientist and coordinator of the Center for Studies and Research on Democracy, said the lack of coordination among levels of government in the COVID-19 fight demoralized many Brazilians.

“After six months, no one can stand to stay indoors seeing how there are no clear guidelines for fighting the virus,” said Tadeu. “As there is no serious policy, the population is exhausted. People head out to the streets when they see that others are not complying and the effort of staying home is no longer worth it.”

More than 6 months after the start of the pandemic, Brazilians seem increasingly relaxed about taking precautions to fight the virus’ spread. Some attribute this to Bolsonario’s denial rhetoric.

Souza said many do not believe in taking precautions because “Bolsonaro did not believe in the disease ... He did not set an example.”

But Sao Paulo Gov. Joao Doria, who clashed with Bolsonaro over quarantine measures, does not think this is necessarily the case. The congestion and vehicle flow on Sao Paulo’s highways this weekend exceeded that seen during Carnival in February.

“We see the same problem (of full beaches) in Spain, the United States and England, which do not see these speeches against social distancing,” Doria told The Associated Press.

 

[Plain Jane]

El Salvador prosecutors search prisons in pact investigation

Prosecutors in El Salvador have searched two prisons to investigate whether the administration of President Nayib Bukele had negotiated with one of the country’s most powerful gangs to lower the murder rate and win their support in mid-term elections in exchange for prison privileges.

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El Salvador prosecutors search prisons in pact investigation
today



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Imprisoned gang members, wearing protective face masks, look out from behind bars during a media tour of the prison in Quezaltepeque, El Salvador, Friday, Sept. 4, 2020. President Nayib Bukele denied a report Friday that his government has been negotiating with one of the country’s most powerful gangs to lower the murder rate and win their support in mid-term elections in exchange for prison privileges. (AP Photo/Salvador Melendez)

SAN SALVADOR, El Salvador (AP) — Prosecutors in El Salvador said Monday they have searched two prisons to investigate whether the administration of President Nayib Bukele had negotiated with one of the country’s most powerful gangs to lower the murder rate and win their support in mid-term elections in exchange for prison privileges.

The prosecutors’ office said agents searched two prisons where gang members are held to look for documents or other evidence of the allegations.

The searches were carried out at prisons in Zacatecoluca and Izalco. Attorney General Raúl Melara told local media “we are not going to allow anyone to negotiate with terrorists,” adding “that is not acceptable from any perspective.” Melara’s office is independent of the presidency,

The allegation is highly sensitive in the Central American nation, where the gangs have terrorized people with extortion and killings for years. Multiple former officials from previous administrations are currently being prosecuted for allegedly participating in a similar deal with the gangs.

The allegations were reported Friday by the online media outlet El Faro, which said it had obtained a cache of government documents, including prison logs and prison intelligence reports, that show government officials have held ongoing negotiations with the MS-13 gang since June 2019.

Bukele has strongly denied the allegations. But if true, they would be a severe blow to Bukele who campaigned as a law-and-order president and has sought to reinforce that image through tough talk and actions while in office.

In April, after several days of street violence in which more than 60 people were killed, Bukele ordered that members of rival gangs be mixed within cells, had sheet metal installed to seal cells so inmates couldn’t communicate with those outside and circulated photographs of dozens of gang members stripped to underpants and forced to sit straddling each other on the floor.

“Stop killing immediately or you and your homeboys will be the ones who pay the consequences,” he said in a tweet at the time. “They are close to you, to your homes, to your hideouts, you have a few hours.”

Bukele referred to those actions Friday to suggest the allegations that he was negotiating with a gang were absurd, even linking to statements of concern about his harsh actions from the United Nations and Inter-American Commission on Human Rights.
He said his critics had “invented a novel” with the story after exhausting other attacks against him.


Bukele won election in 2019 as a candidate from neither of the two historically dominant parties — although he rose through the ranks of one of them. During his first year in office, he earned recognition as El Salvador’s notoriously high murder rate began to fall.
Some expressed suspicions that the decline in killings indicated an agreement with the new administration.

In 2012, the government of President Mauricio Funes allegedly reached a similar agreement with the gangs. In July of this year, a court ordered house arrest for retired Gen. David Munguía Payes, who had served as defense minister in that administration and allegedly took part in the negotiations.

Funes, who fled to Nicaragua and received asylum there, has denied negotiating with the gangs.

 

[Plain Jane]

Stalled by pandemic, migrants press in quest for better life

LAJAS BLANCAS, Panama (AP) — Duperat Laurette fled Haiti after her country's massive 2010 earthquake, making her way first to the Dominican Republic, then Chile and five years later to Panama, all with the dream of reaching the U.S. and finding a job to help support 14 siblings left behind in Haiti.

apnews.com

Stalled by pandemic, migrants press in quest for better life
By JUAN ZAMORANOyesterday



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Women and children sit idle at a migrant camp amid the new coronavirus pandemic in Lajas Blancas, Darien province, Panama, Saturday, Aug. 29, 2020. In Lajas Blancas, the migrants did not wear masks or practice social distancing, but Panama's Public Security Minister Juan Pino said there have not been more than 10 infections among the migrants. (AP Photo/Arnulfo Franco)

LAJAS BLANCAS, Panama (AP) — Duperat Laurette fled Haiti after her country’s massive 2010 earthquake, making her way first to the Dominican Republic, then Chile and five years later to Panama, all with the dream of reaching the U.S. and finding a job to help support 14 siblings left behind in Haiti.
The coronavirus finally stopped her.

Panama, the slender bottleneck between the North and South American coninents, is a transit point for virtually every migrant heading from South America to the United States by land and it closed its borders on March 16 to halt the spread of COVID-19. The closure left nearly 2,000 migrants from Haiti and a handful of African and Asian countries stuck in camps in the jungle along Panama’s northern and southern borders.

They are among hundreds of thousands, perhaps millions, of migrants stranded in countries around the world because of virus-related border closures.

Thousands of temporary workers from around Asia were stuck outside New Zealand when that country closed its borders. Other Asian workers got stranded in Moscow airports.

Migrants have also been left in makeshift conditions in the Sahara Desert after being expelled without warning from detention centers in Algeria and Libya.

The migrants in Panama say they know the United States has effectively suspended its asylum process at the southern border, but they want to keep heading there anyway, in the hope that they can somehow get in.

Laurette, 45, and her husband arrived at the Panamanian border with Colombia seven months ago and have advanced no farther. There are no opportunities for work in the jungle, and she and her husband have exhausted their money.

When she was in another camp, Laurette was taken to the hospital for what doctors said was a fibroid tumor that gave her belly pains and caused her to lose weight.

“They brought me to the hospital to operate, but they never did,” she said. “They said there was no space for the operation, the hospital is full with cases of COVID-19.”

Still, the couple have rejected Panama’s offers of free flights home. Many of the migrants left their native countries years ago and cannot imagine returning worse off than they were before.
“I’m still sick. I don’t know what I’m going to do,” Laurette said in her native Kreyol.

Tensions have been rising here in Lajas Blancas where about 200 migrants wait, as well as in nearby Peñitas, where some of nearly 1,100 migrants were accused last month by police of setting fire to tents holding medical supplies at another camp. Eight migrants have been jailed in that incident and could face deportation.


Jean Bernadeau hoisted a young girl up and pointed to the welts mosquito bites have left on her legs. “We know there is a strong illness out there,” he said. “We can’t stay here forever.”
“The problem here is always that we have a lot of children, pregnant women,” said Bernadeau, another Haitian who arrived from Chile. He had lived there for five years and saved $4,000 to continue his journey, but that money is gone now. “Here we live like prisoners in a jail.”

The flow of migrants through the dense and dangerous Darien jungle has been going strong for more than a decade. This is the first time authorities have stopped it for an international health emergency.

In 2015 and 2016, a huge influx of Cuban migrants tried to make it to the U.S. border before the end of a U.S. policy that favored them. That situation forced Central American nations to fly migrants along portions of their route.

Panama saw a wave of migrants in early 2019 that led to agreements with neighboring Costa Rica to allow their free passage. Most of those stuck in Panama fled Haiti after the earthquake that left the country in ruins. Many spent years working in Brazil and Chile, saving money to continue north.

In Lajas Blancas, the migrants live in a grassy field under tarps on wooden platforms packed tight between a dirt road and the brown waters of a river. A row of portable toilets sit across the road, and jungle surrounds them. They prepare their food over wood fires. Border police guard the entrance to the camp.

Jean Edoly, a 30-year-old Haitian, is there with his wife and two children, ages 2 and 1, who were born in Chile. “They don’t feed us well. We’re fed like dogs,” he said.

Panama’s government says it is providing migrants with humanitarian support. It has built, along with the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees, a new camp with better shelter on the outskirts of Metetí, where it hopes to soon move 400 migrants, especially families with young children.

“The Panamanian government asks them to remain calm. We’ve already made it six months. What remains is little. Light can be seen at the end of the tunnel,” Public Security Minister Juan Pino said during a recent visit to the area.

Panama has reported more than 92,000 infections and 2,000 deaths from COVID-19. In recent weeks, infections have been stabilizing and deaths declining. The government recently announced a plan to allow the reopening of more economic activity and a lifting of travel restrictions beginning Sept. 7.

In Lajas Blancas, the migrants did not wear masks or practice social distancing, but Pino said there have been no more than 10 infections among them.

Panama proposed the flights back to Haiti in early August with support from the International Organization for Migration. But most migrants were not interested, Pino said.
Edoly dismissed that option as “impossible.”

“We have a destiny. We have a dream to realize,” he said, reciting a list of the countries migrants had traveled through. “We want to give our children a better life.”

 

[Plain Jane]

Mexico diverted money from development to contain migration

MEXICO CITY (AP) — Under pressure from the United States to reduce migration, the Mexican government diverted money from a fund intended to spur regional development to instead renovate immigration detention centers and bus migrants away from the U.S.

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Mexico diverted money from development to contain migration
By MARÍA VERZAyesterday

FILE - In this July 18, 2019 file photo, migrants sit in a bus that was organized by the Mexican government, which will take them from an immigration center in the border city of Nuevo Laredo to Monterrey, Mexico, after they were returned to Mexico by U.S. authorities. (AP Photo/Marco Ugarte, File)

MEXICO CITY (AP) — Under pressure from the United States to reduce migration, the Mexican government diverted money from a fund intended to spur regional development to instead renovate immigration detention centers and bus migrants away from the U.S.-Mexico border.

According to information obtained by The Associated Press through public records requests, the administration of President Andrés Manuel López Obrador designated more than $4 million from the Mexico Fund last year to immigration containment purposes.

In late May 2019, President Donald Trump threatened devastating tariffs on all Mexican imports unless Mexico acted to contain the flow of migrants crossing its territory. Furious negotiations produced an agreement that averted the crisis. Mexico deployed its newly created National Guard to intercept migrants and agreed to expand a program that allowed the U.S. to make asylum seekers from other countries wait in Mexico while their cases were processed in U.S. courts.


Unnoticed at the time was an adjustment the Mexican government made in June 2019 to its Mexico Fund, which supported development projects in Central America and the Caribbean. In a decree, the government said the fund “required a new vision that allows for better use of resources” and that it could now also be used for the “registration, control and tracking” of immigration flows and equipping detention centers.

Asked about changing the objectives of the fund known officially as the Infrastructure Fund for Mesoamerican and Caribbean Countries and whether it was done under pressure from the U.S. government, the Foreign Affairs Ministry initially provided only a list of improvements made to migrant detention centers. It also said the amount diverted was “very small,” less than 4% of the total fund.

Hours after the story was published Tuesday, however, the ministry said in a letter to AP that “our immigration policy, like our foreign policy, is determined exclusively by the Mexican government ... not by the United States nor any other country.”

Tonatiuh Guillén, who resigned as head of Mexico’s immigration agency a week after the agreement with the U.S., said the diversion of the development funds was a “dramatic turnaround” from the fund’s mission and illustrates what happened last year: “a recomposition of the immigration vision completely oriented toward containment that leaves us without tools and resources to design development strategies, which had been the government’s objective.”

President Andrés Manuel López Obrador had campaigned on a different, more humanitarian approach to immigration. Mexico would support countries in Central America’s Northern Triangle that were the principal senders of migrants with the goal of making migration an option, not a necessity. During the first three months of his presidency Mexico issued 15,000 humanitarian visas to Central Americans traveling in caravans.


López Obrador has maintained the same language and launched some development programs in Central America, but government actions changed after Trump’s tariff threat. Guardsmen swept thousands of migrants off Mexican highways. Guillén was replaced by Mexico’s prisons director. Deportations increased. And border cities, already plagued by cartel violence, filled with some 60,000 asylum seekers returned by the U.S. to wait out a process that lasts months and sometimes years.

Many asylum seekers were assaulted, kidnapped and extorted. Some, traveling with children, decided to give up.

The Foreign Affairs ministry provided documents detailing that in July 2019, the Mexican International Cooperation Agency for Development sent some $3.3 million from the fund (at the exchange rate then) to detention centers and in September 2019 more than $700,000 went to transporting asylum seekers south.

The Mexican government has not said how many of those migrants were bused south away from the border, but the Foreign Affairs ministry said months ago that more than half of those waiting had decided voluntarily to return to their countries.

“They’re inviting people to self-deport” without the necessary information and without explaining the repercussions it would have on their asylum cases, said Maureen Meyer, vice president and Mexico director for the advocacy organization Washington Office on Latin America.

“The fact that the Mexican government diverted funding designated to address the economic push factors driving migration to the U.S. in favor of moving asylum-seekers away from Mexico’s northern to southern border, and to improve conditions in Mexico’s detention centers, is a clear sign of how the López Obrador administration has shifted its migration priorities in response to the demands of the Trump administration.”

The program sending asylum seekers back to wait in Mexico stalled this March when the U.S. effectively suspended its asylum process at the southern border due to the COVID-19 pandemic. However, the U.S. government continued sending migrants who had crossed illegally back to Mexico.

In April, the Mexican government tapped the fund again for more than $700,000 for “ground transport, free and voluntary, of people in the national territory,” nearly the same amount as 2019. The AP confirmed at the time that the Mexican government was moving migrants in buses from the northern border south to the border with Guatemala. Many were left there without a way to continue because the pandemic had closed borders.

Since 2011, the Mexico Fund has disbursed nearly $150 million to 11 countries, most of that designated during the two prior administrations for infrastructure projects in Central America.

Last year, López Obrador’s administration also designated more than $62 million from the Mexico Fund for extensions of two social programs to address structural causes of migration in Honduras and El Salvador. It was not clear how much of that money had been disbursed. On Tuesday, the Foreign Affairs Ministry said the two programs had recruited nearly 10,000 participants in Central America.

Asked to comment on use of the fund, Mexico’s Foreign Affairs ministry said that “there’s no money left” and that in May, the government ordered an end to the fund once its commitments are fulfilled, which could take years, as part of López Obrador’s mission to eliminate such pots of money that he sees potential targets of corruption.

Guillén, the former immigration agency director, said, “It is clear the original objective of this fund was distorted and it’s also clear that we don’t have sufficient information about the spending.”
___
Associated Press writer E. Eduardo Castillo contributed to this report.

 

[Plain Jane]

Mexico: Journalist found beheaded – DW – 09/10/2020

A journalist has been found dead and decapitated in the state of Veracruz, his paper has reported. Julio Valdivia had been covering gang warfare in a dangerous area.

www.dw.com

Mexico: Journalist found beheaded
A journalist has been found dead and decapitated in the state of Veracruz, his paper has reported. Julio Valdivia had been covering gang warfare in a dangerous area.





A newspaper reporter in Mexico has been murdered and beheaded, his paper reported Wednesday.

Julio Valdivia is at least the fifth journalist killed in Mexico this year, according to media watchdog Reporters Without Borders.

The body of the 41-year-old was found near his motorcycle on railroad tracks in the town of Motzorongo.

Hugo Gutierrez, security minister and head of police in Veracruz state, condemned the "cowardly murder" and promised to "exhaust all resources to find those responsible."
Read more: Artists take a stand against corruption and violence

'Complicated area'
Valdivia reported for the newspaper El Mundo de Veracruz, working in a rural zone near Oaxaca state that has long been plagued with gang violence.

His newspaper said he had covered a confrontation between police and suspected criminals the previous day.

Valdivia "worked in a complicated area where there are criminal groups," said Ana Laura Perez of the State Commission for the Attention and Protection of Journalists, a government body.

"It must be investigated if he had reported something that bothered these criminal groups," she said.
Veracruz frequently sees fights between Mexico's rival drug cartels and is the country's deadliest state for media workers.
Read more: In Mexico, 'journalism is the only source of truth'

Dangerous place to report
More than 140 journalists have been killed in Mexico in the last 20 years. Only a small fraction of these murders have led to convictions.

In March, journalist Maria Elena Ferral was shot dead by two assailants on motorbikes when getting into her car in Veracruz.

In August, an independent journalist died in police custody in a Mexican border city. Juan Nelcio Espinoza had been arrested while covering a confrontation in the city of Piedras Negras, across from Eagle Pass, Texas.

Mexico frequently ranks highly as one of the most dangerous countries in the world to be a reporter. In 2019, about half of all murders of journalists around the world occurred in Mexico, according to the Committee to Protect Journalists.


Watch video12:36
Mortal danger for Mexico's reporters
ed/rt (AP, AFP, dpa)

 

[Plain Jane]

Bolivia calls on ICC to investigate Morales over blockades

The chief prosecutor of the International Criminal Court says that Bolivia has asked her to investigate whether former president Evo Morales and his supporters committed crimes against humanity.

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Bolivia calls on ICC to investigate Morales over blockades
By MIKE CORDERyesterday

FILE - In this Feb. 21, 2020 file photo, Bolivia's ousted, former President Evo Morales gives a press conference regarding the rejection of his plan to run for Senator in Buenos Aires, where he is living, in Argentina. On Monday, Sept. 7, 2020, a Bolivian court blocked Morales from seeking a senate seat in the country’s October elections, arguing that the ex-leader, living in Argentina, doesn’t meet residency requirements. (AP Photo/Natacha Pisarenko, File)

THE HAGUE, Netherlands (AP) — The chief prosecutor of the International Criminal Court said Wednesday that Bolivia has asked her to investigate whether former President Evo Morales and his supporters committed crimes against humanity by setting up roadblocks aimed at preventing people in one of Latin America’s poorest nations from accessing vital health care during the coronavirus pandemic.

In a written referral to the court filed last Friday, Bolivia argues that Morales and his top supporters incited blockades in August that had “the direct consequence of causing the death of several people and anxiety in the rest of the population” about not being able to access health care and medical oxygen, the court said in a statement.

The request by Bolivia comes amid unrest that erupted after Bolivia’s Supreme Electoral Tribunal postponed elections from Sept. 6 to Oct. 18 following warnings from medical experts that it would be unsafe to hold the election while the pandemic wasn’t yet under control. It was the third time the vote has been delayed, angering protesters who accuse the government of interim President Jeanine Áñez of simply trying to cling to power.

After 14 years in power, Morales resigned under pressure from the military and police on Nov. 10 amid widespread protests and disturbances alleging he was attempting to fraudulently claim reelection. He went into exile, first in Mexico and later in Argentina.

Morales was the country’s first Indigenous president and remains a powerful influence in the country. His party, the Movement Toward Socialism, controls the congress.

In its written referral to the court, Bolivia says that “road blockades lasted 9 days in which more than 40 people died deprived of medical supplies and medical oxygen, due to the impossibility of movement of these supplies.”

It alleges that Morales and his senior supporters committed the crime against humanity of inhumane acts “intentionally causing great suffering, or serious injury to body or to mental or physical health.”

In Bolivia, a member of Morales’ party said the court will either approve or deny the referral.
“In addition, the government is also responsible for the massacre in November’s protests and doesn’t say anything,” lawmaker Sergio Choque said.

The referral of a case by Bolivia’s rulers doesn’t automatically trigger an investigation by the Hague-based global court, but it does mean that should Prosecutor Fatou Bensouda decide to open a formal probe, she does not first need to seek clearance from the court’s judges.

Prosecutors will weigh whether they have jurisdiction and whether the case is admissible under the court’s rules before deciding whether to launch an investigation.

The International Criminal Court was established in 2002 to bring to justice perpetrators of crimes against humanity, war crimes, genocide and the international crime of aggression when other countries are unable or unwilling to prosecute them.

It has faced fierce criticism from the United States in recent months, with the Trump administration imposing sanctions this month on Bensouda and one of her top aides for continuing to investigate war crimes allegations against Americans. The sanctions were immediately denounced by the court, the United Nations and human rights advocates.
Recommended Links

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[jward]

Al Jazeera News
@AJENews
2m

Police killing sparks riots across Colombia that leave seven dead https://aje.io/87f9q

 

[jward]

CNW
@ConflictsW
16m

Iranian tankers with gasoline heading to Venezuela have chosen to go around Africa instead of passing through the Suez Canal. They could still be up to 3 weeks away #Venezuela #Iran

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1304144655190306821

View: https://twitter.com/ConflictsW/status/1304144655190306821?s=20

 

[Plain Jane]

Indigenous men kill Brazilian official with arrow – DW – 09/10/2020

One of Brazil's leading experts for Indigenous peoples, Rieli Franciscato, was killed in an encounter with a group of warriors from an isolated Amazon tribe. Tribe members are reportedly considered to be peaceful.

www.dw.com

Indigenous men kill Brazilian official with arrow
One of Brazil's leading experts for Indigenous peoples, Rieli Franciscato, was killed in an encounter with a group of warriors from an isolated Amazon tribe. Tribe members are reportedly considered to be peaceful.





Activist and government official Rieli Franciscato was shot with an arrow while trying to investigate sightings of the Cautario River isolated group in the Amazon rainforest, Brazilian authorities said on Thursday.

Franciscato and a patrol of military police were moving closer to the group in a reservation near the Bolivian border. The party was then targeted with arrows, prompting them to seek shelter behind a vehicle, but the 56-year-old activist was hit near the heart.

"He cried out, pulled the arrow from his chest, ran 50 meters and collapsed, lifeless," one of the officers said on social media.

Read more: Brazilian Indigenous tribesmen shot in hit-and-run attack
Franciscato worked for the government's indigenous affairs agency Funai, trying to set up reservations to protect uncontacted tribes. He was one of the leading experts in his area nationwide, and a proponent of peaceful coexistence.

Read more: Brazil's Indigenous communities resist Bolsonaro

'A war party'
The tribe he was trying to approach was known as largely peaceful, local photojournalist Gabriel Uchida told the AFP news agency.

"The last time they appeared in the region was in June," he told the French news agency. "It was a larger group, very peaceful. They even left presents at someone's house."

However, Indigenous groups in the Amazon sometimes use violence to retaliate against poachers, illegal miners, or illegal loggers, who enter their territory.

Read more: Brazil's Amazon rainforest has become the Wild West for illegal gold miners
"This time, there were just five armed men — a war party," indicating they were seeking revenge, according to Uchida.

Some 100 isolated tribes still live in the Amazon rainforest. Brazilian NGO Kaninde, which Franciscato helped found in the 1980s, said the tribes had no ability to tell the difference between friends and foes from the outside world.
Read more: 5 deadly countries for environmental defenders

"Rieli dedicated his life to the Indigenous cause," said Ricardo Lopes Dias, an official from the Funai agency. "He had more than three decades of service, and leaves and immense legacy for the protection of these peoples."
dj/sms (AFP, Reuters, dpa)

 

[Plain Jane]

Several dead in Colombia protests over police violence – DW – 09/11/2020

Protesters clashed with police following the death of a taxi driver in police custody. In a video widely circulated on social media, Javier Ordonez is seen being tasered multiple times by the police.

www.dw.com

Several dead in Colombia protests over police violence
Protesters clashed with police following the death of a taxi driver in police custody. In a video widely circulated on social media, Javier Ordonez is seen being tasered multiple times by the police.





At least 10 people were killed in Colombia's capital Bogota when protesters clashed with police overnight on Wednesday. Police said at a Thursday news conference that at least three of the dead were hit by bullets, appealing to people to stay home with further demonstrations expected that day.

The overnight riots broke out after demonstrators took to the streets following the death of a taxi driver who was allegedly tasered multiple times and assaulted in custody by the police.
In a video circulated widely on social media, Javier Ordonez was seen pleading with police officers, who shocked him at least five times.

Ordonez was taken to a police station and later to the hospital, where he died. He reportedly reached the hospital with no vital signs. Ordonez's family later said that he was assaulted at the police station.

The Colombian police said that Ordonez was part of a group of men who were drinking late into the night in Engativa, who "turned aggressive against the police," according to Colonel Alexander Amaya.

Colombia's defense minister said the police officers who detained Ordonez had been suspended pending an investigation.

Claudia Lopez, Bogota's mayor, said that she would insist on an independent probe by the attorney general's office. "None of the families I've spoken with trust in an investigation by the police," she said.

Protests turn violent
Claudia Lopez said that about 147 police officers were injured in the riots, several of whom she visited in hospital on Thursday, while over 320 people were wounded.

She also criticized the police response to the unrest.
"No one gave an order to use firearms, much less indiscriminately. But we have evidence from several places where this happened," Lopez said.

Colombian authorities said that 56 police stations were damaged and eight buses were burned in the violence on Wednesday night. "We are facing a massive act of violence," Colombia's Defense Minister, Carlos Holmes Trujillo, said after several police stations were attacked and destroyed.

More demonstrations were expected in the city. The police has deployed 1,500 additional officers and 300 soldiers throughout Bogota. Lopez appealed to citizens, if they did protest, to return home by 7 p.m., albeit adding that there was no formal curfew in place.

Colombia's President Ivan Duque promised an investigation would be carried out "with total rigor in order to have absolute certainty about the facts."
But Duque also said that he refused to "stigmatize" police "and call them murderers" because of the actions of a few officers.
am/msh (AP, AFP)

 

[jward]

BBC News (World)
@BBCWorld
8m

Venezuela: President Maduro says US spy seized near oil sites

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1304632997560356866

View: https://twitter.com/BBCWorld/status/1304632997560356866?s=20

 

[Plain Jane]

Peru to open impeachment proceedings against President Vizcarra

Peru’s Congress on Friday voted to open impeachment proceedings against President Martin Vizcarra for “moral incapacity” over accusations he tried to obstruct a corruption probe against government officials.

www.france24.com

Peru to open impeachment proceedings against President Vizcarra
Issued on: 12/09/2020 - 07:39

President Martin Vizcarra gives a televised message to the nation, in Lima, on September 10, 2020, amid a political crisis for allegadly trying to obstruct a graft probe involving government officials. © AFP - CARLA PATINO
Text by:NEWS WIRES
3 min

Peru’s Congress on Friday voted to open impeachment proceedings against President Martin Vizcarra for “moral incapacity” over accusations he tried to obstruct a corruption probe against government officials.


The motion was approved by 65 votes, with 36 against and 24 abstentions. Fifty-two votes were required to open the proceedings early next week.

To remove the president, who lacks a party, 87 votes are required. After Vizcarra appears in Congress next Friday to defend himself, the plenary will debate and vote.

Six out of nine parties—representing 95 of the 130 seats in Congress—have backed the motion.

“I’m not going to quit. I do not run,” Vizcarra said in a televised address ahead of the vote in which he denied any wrongdoing.

“We are facing a plot against democracy,” he said, adding that he had nothing to hide but that lawmakers should act “with caution, with responsibility, and to take the decision they deem necessary.”

Vizcarra, in power since 2018, came under fire after leaked audio recordings in which he is heard telling aides to hide details of his office’s controversial hiring of a popular singer as a paid cultural advisor.

In the event of impeachment, legislative speaker Manuel Merino will act as interim leader until the current presidential term ends in July 2021.

Vizcarra has won popular support for an anti-corruption crusade that has put him at loggerheads with opponents in Congress, including over a reform banning convicted criminals from standing for election.

The impeachment motion is reminiscent of the one that forced the resignation of his predecessor Pedro Pablo Kuczynski in 2018, after he became embroiled in the Odebrecht bribes scandal.

It comes as the country is in the throes of an economic crisis triggered by the coronavirus pandemic, which has seen Peru’s second-quarter GDP slashed by 30 percent.

“The dismissal is very dangerous in these circumstances,” political analyst Fernando Rospigliosi told AFP, warning against a change of government in the middle of a crisis and with only seven months to go until a general election.

Prime Minister Walter Martos on Friday denounced the move against the president.

“What Congress is doing right now is to stage a coup d’etat, because it is making an arbitrary interpretation of the Constitution,” Martos, a retired army general and number two in the government, told radio RPP.

The case exploded in May when the press discovered that, at the height of the pandemic, the Ministry of Culture had hired singer Richard Cisneros, a little-known local artist who boasted in the media that he had been an advisor to the government, as a speaker and entertainer.

Parliament opened an investigation into the alleged irregular contracts for which Cisneros received $10,000.
(AFP)

 

[Plain Jane]

Wildfires sweep into Brazil park harboring jaguars

RIO DE JANEIRO (AP) — Wildfire has infiltrated a Brazilian state park known for its population of jaguars as firefighters, environmentalists and ranchers in the world’s largest tropical wetlands region struggle to smother record blazes.

apnews.com

Wildfires sweep into Brazil park harboring jaguars
By DAVID BILLER and MARCELO DE SOUSASeptember 10, 2020

Wildfire has infiltrated a Brazilian state park known for its population of jaguars;

RIO DE JANEIRO (AP) — Wildfire has infiltrated a Brazilian state park known for its population of jaguars as firefighters, environmentalists and ranchers in the world’s largest tropical wetlands region struggle to smother record blazes.

The fire had surrounded the Encontro das Aguas (Meeting of the Waters) park in the Pantanal, located at the border of Mato Grosso and Mato Grosso do Sul states, but for a time rivers helped keep the blazes at bay. Then wind carried sparks into the park and flames have been wreaking destruction for over a week.

There is little outlook for any near-term help from rainfall, said the Mato Grosso firefighters’ spokeswoman, Lt. Col. Sheila Sebalhos.

“The forecast isn’t good,” Sebalhos said by phone from the state capital of Cuiaba, after spending weeks in the fire zone. “High speeds of those winds that change direction many times throughout the day are favoring the rapid spread (of fire).”

Some 200 jaguars have already suffered injury, death or displacement because of the fires, according to Panthera, an international wild cat conservation organization.

The Pantanal is home to thousands of plant and animal species, including 159 mammals, and it abounds with jaguars, according to environmental group WWF. During the wet season, rivers overflow their banks and make most of the region accessible only by boat and plane. In the dry season, wildlife enthusiasts flock to see the normally furtive felines lounging on riverbanks, along with macaws, caiman and capybaras.

What’s unique about the Meeting of the Waters park, which covers more than 1,000 square kilometers (over 400 square miles), is that the jaguars are habituated to human observation. They have been a top eco-tourism draw for more than 15 years, according to Fernando Tortato, a conservation scientist for Panthera, which owns a neighboring property where jaguars can range.

On Panthera’s land, even before fires started raging, employees and volunteers used two earth-movers to create a firebreak around the property’s perimeter. Since blazes arrived, the group has tracked the shifting winds to open new firebreaks and head off the devastation.

“We prepare the team, a truck with a water pump, fire swatters and backpack water pumps so that, in case the fire jumps that barrier, we can combat it,” Tortato said by phone from Panthera’s land. “It’s the only strategy that has managed to resolve the fire, in some situations.”

Despite tireless efforts, some 15% of Panthera’s sprawling property has been consumed by fire, he said.

The Pantanal is located mostly in Brazil and stretches into Bolivia and Paraguay. Whereas ranchers in the Amazon often use fire to clear brush and open new pasture, fires in the Pantanal are often unintentional, set by locals and then spiraling out of control due to climate conditions, according to Felipe Dias, executive director of environmental group SOS Pantanal. One cause of this year’s Pantanal fires was the use of burning roots to smoke wild bees out of their hives to extract honey, said Sebalhos.

This year has been the Pantanal’s driest in 47 years, and rain isn’t expected until October, Dias said. Only rain can truly extinguish the wildfire, he added.

“There’s a climate problem. The rains happen in a concentrated way and then 30, 40, 50 days go by without rain,” Dias said. “The Pantanal is a flood plain; the soil should be soaked.”

The number of fires the Pantanal has seen so far this year already exceeds the annual totals for every year on record, stretching back to 1998, and is more than double the annual average for the prior 10 years, according to data from the government’s space agency, which uses satellites to count the blazes. More than 10% of the area has been consumed by fire this year, according to WWF and SOS Pantanal.

President Jair Bolsonaro, a staunch supporter of development in Brazil’s hinterland, bowed to international pressure and issued a decree in July prohibiting the use of fire in the Amazon and Pantanal regions throughout this year’s dry season. In practice, it’s done little to slow the burn, with scant enforcement of his moratorium, environmentalists say. Brazil’s environment ministry didn’t respond to Associated Press requests for comment about its oversight.

Brazil’s government dispatched 173 members of the armed forces to Mato Grosso and Mato Grosso do Sul states, along with 139 firefighters from the Chico Mendes Institute, the arm of the environment ministry that manages federal parks, according to the defense ministry.

Tallies provided by state firefighter corps indicate the numbers might be significantly fewer. Bolsonaro has chalked up difficulties in fighting the Pantanal fires to the size of the affected area.

“I started to suffer criticism because the Pantanal is on fire,” the president said Aug. 20 in a live broadcast on Facebook. He noted the vastness of the Pantanal, saying: “You can imagine the difficulty of fighting the fire in that area.”

Unlike the Amazon that has a slew of federally protected areas, some 95% of the Pantanal is privately owned, according to WWF and SOS Pantanal. The Pantanal land can also regenerate quickly.

There are about 2,000 jaguars in an area that is called the Jaguar Conservation Unit, which is half of the Pantanal, according to Panthera.

Between 80% to 90% of Meeting of the Waters is susceptible to fire, with the remaining rivers, brooks and swamps currently serving as refuges for fauna, Tortato said. The most vulnerable creatures are baby birds, reptiles and amphibians, whereas larger mammals have greater ability to flee and survive.

Col. Paulo Barroso, who is coordinating animal rescue for Mato Grosso state’s environment secretariat, hopes animals will escape to the private Sao Joao ranch adjacent to the park. He told the AP by phone from the location that his strategy is to start making firebreaks Thursday to guide animals to an artificial safe haven.

“We’re trying to defend this space (Meeting of the Waters) against the threat from some fires, it’s just that there are fires coming from all sides,” Barroso said. “The fire fronts are closing in on the park and the idea is to create an island to receive those animals and protect them.”
___
Associated Press writer David Biller reported this story from from Massachusetts and AP writer Marcelo de Sousa reported in Rio de Janeiro. Videojournalist Tatiana Pollastri in Sao Paulo contributed to this report.
Recommended Links

https://apnews.com/37a515aa922c4e567b43d3e58b2a49e2

 

[Plain Jane]

Spain imprisons ex-colonel for Jesuits slain in El Salvador

MADRID (AP) — A court in Spain on Friday sentenced a former Salvadoran colonel to 133 years in prison for the slaying of five Spanish priests in El Salvador more than three decades ago.

apnews.com

Click to copy
Spain imprisons ex-colonel for Jesuits slain in El Salvador
September 11, 2020

FILE - In this Aug. 22, 2013 file photo, former El Salvadoran military Col. Inocente Orlando Montano departs federal court, in Boston. Spain’s National Court on Friday Sept. 11, 2020, has condemned the former Salvadoran colonel to 133 years in prison for the slaying of five Spanish priests in El Salvador more than three decades ago. They ruled that Inocente Orlando Montano, a former colonel who served as El Salvador’s vice minister for public security during the country’s 1979-1992 civil war, was responsible for the 1989 “terrorist assassinations.” (AP Photo/Steven Senne, File)

MADRID (AP) — A court in Spain on Friday sentenced a former Salvadoran colonel to 133 years in prison for the slaying of five Spanish priests in El Salvador more than three decades ago.

Spain’s National Court ruled that Inocente Orlando Montano, a former colonel who served as El Salvador’s vice minister for public security during the country’s 1979-1992 civil war, was responsible for the 1989 “terrorist assassinations.”

Montano, 77, listened from a wheelchair as judges read the verdict, imprisoning him to 26 years, eight months and one day for each of the deaths. The verdict can be appealed.


The U.S. extradited Montano to Spain in 2017. During his trial earlier this year, Montano denied having taken part or ordered the massacre that led to the death of eight people in the campus of the Central American University.

Five of the victims were Spanish Jesuit priests, including one of the leading minds behind the so-called Liberation theology, Rev. Ignacio Ellacuría.

 

[jward]

TankerTrackers.com, Inc.


@TankerTrackers
4h

Iranian VLCC supertanker carrying 2 million barrels of gas condensate suddenly pops up at the José Terminal, Venezuela. Most likely sailed all the way around southern Africa given her transponder was switched off. Name & IMO number has been painted over. Goes by new name: HONEY

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1305271201120608256

View: https://twitter.com/TankerTrackers/status/1305271201120608256?s=20

 

[Plain Jane]

Venezuelan president says US spy captured near refineries

Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro says authorities have captured a U.S. spy near a pair of refineries in Venezuela with specialized weapons and a large sum of dollars.

apnews.com

Click to copy
Venezuelan president says US spy captured near refineries
September 11, 2020

FILE - In this March 12, 2020 file photo, Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro speaks at the Miraflores presidential palace in Caracas, Venezuela. The Trump administration pushed back Tuesday, Sept. 2, 2020 on Maduro, saying he deserves no praise for releasing a few political prisoners ahead of a congressional election when many more remain unjustly jailed. (AP Photo/Matias Delacroix, File)

CARACAS, Venezuela (AP) — President Nicolás Maduro said Friday that Venezuelan authorities captured a U.S. spy targeting a pair of refineries on the north Caribbean coast as this nation once wealthy from oil is gripped by a deep gasoline shortage.

The spy, Maduro alleged, was a Marine who had served as a CIA operative in Iraq. He gave no identity or other immediate proof to support the claim, saying more details would follow, such as photos and video.

The suspect was captured Thursday while possessing specialized weapons and a large sum of dollars, Maduro said, adding that the man was being interrogated about his activities around the Amuay and Cardon refineries in Falcon state.

Maduro, an adversary of the United States, also said Venezuelan authorities had dismantled a plot on Wednesday that was aimed at blowing up a third refinery, El Palito in Carabobo state. He urged the nation’s oil workers to be on alert for more attacks.

“The gringo empire wants revenge against Venezuela,” he said. “It wants to prevent Venezuela from producing all petroleum products, gasoline.”

Oil once made Venezuela a wealthy nation, but critics of Maduro say two decades of socialist rule have left it near ruin. Its dilapidated oil fields and refineries barely produce, and the nation today relies on imports from Iran, another U.S. foe.

A second, deep scarcity of gasoline struck in recent days, frustrating drivers stuck in lines for hours and days to fuel up, even in the capital of Caracas. Analysts say the next three Iranian ships hauling fuel won’t arrive for weeks.

While Venezuela’s broken oil industry leaves drivers stranded, stiff U.S. sanctions have also blocked Maduro from importing gasoline.

If Maduro’s claim of netting a U.S. citizen prove correct, the suspect would join two ex-Green Beret soldiers already jailed in Venezuela for allegedly participating in a failed attempt to overthrow the socialist leader. The two former U.S. special forces soldiers were arrested in early May among more than 80 rebel Venezuelan fighters who staged a failed beach attack called Operation Gideon aimed at arresting Maduro.

The ex-green berets — Luke Denman Airan Berry Venezuela — have been sentenced to 20 years in prison. Authorities say the two men confessed to being part of the plot.

While the Trump administration denied having anything to do with the blundered May incursion, Washington backs Venezuelan opposition politician Juan Guaidó who seeks to overthrow Maduro.
Recommended Links

https://apnews.com/a6be632c19f9afa458e930fc9acedccd

 

[Plain Jane]

Haiti capital Port au Prince brought to standstill by protesting police

Hundreds of protesting Haitian police officers and their supporters, many of them armed and wearing masks, sparked panic in the capital Port-au-Prince on Monday, setting cars on fire as they voiced their…

www.france24.com

Haiti capital Port au Prince brought to standstill by protesting police
Issued on: 15/09/2020 - 01:54

An on-duty Haitian National Police (PNH) officer asks protesters to move away during a protest organised by the Fantom 509 group in the streets of Port-au-Prince, Haiti September

14, 2020. REUTERS - ANDRES MARTINEZ CASARES
Text by:NEWS WIRES
2 min

Hundreds of protesting Haitian police officers and their supporters, many of them armed and wearing masks, sparked panic in the capital Port-au-Prince on Monday, setting cars on fire as they voiced their anger at the ruling party.

The cops have demanded higher salaries and the release of a colleague -- a member of the narcotics squad has been held since early May on suspicion of murder, arson and destruction of public property.

"What we're asking for is a better life," said one member of the national police force, wearing a mask and sunglasses so he could not be identified.

The protesters fired their service weapons into the air, and rode around town on motorcycles, demanding that authorities release their colleague in a matter of hours.

Several vehicles were set on fire, and an office was partially set ablaze. A similar protest took place on Friday, and protesters won the release of five imprisoned colleagues.
"The situation is becoming more and more alarming," Renan Hedouville, who runs Haiti's office of citizen protection, told AFP.

"We risk losing Haiti's national police like we lost the armed forces," he said.
Against a backdrop of spiralling gang violence in Haiti in recent months, protesters are angry at the interim director of the national police.

They accuse the director, Normil Rameau, of not doing enough to protect officers.
"Cops are dying and taking bullets, and he says nothing," said one officer taking part in the demonstration.

Haiti's national police has 16,000 among its ranks, and is tasked with ensuring the safety of the impoverished country's 11 million people. It was created in 1994 following the dismantling of the armed forces, implicated in several coups.
(AFP)

 

[Plain Jane]

Venezuela: captured US spy charged in alleged terrorist plot

CARACAS, Venezuela (AP) — Venezuela’s chief prosecutor on Monday said a U.S. citizen recently arrested in the country as a suspected spy has been charged in an alleged terrorist plot to sabotage oil refineries and electrical service in order to stir unrest.

apnews.com

Venezuela: captured US spy charged in alleged terrorist plot
By SCOTT SMITHtoday



Venezuela's Attorney General Tarek William Saab holds a photo of bullets he says were seized with other weapons in connection with what the government calls a failed attack over the weekend aimed at overthrowing President Nicolás Maduro, during a press conference in Caracas, Venezuela, Friday, May 8, 2020. (AP Photo/Matias Delacroix)

CARACAS, Venezuela (AP) — Venezuela’s chief prosecutor on Monday said a U.S. citizen recently arrested in the country as a suspected spy has been charged in an alleged terrorist plot to sabotage oil refineries and electrical service in order to stir unrest.

The man, alleged to have CIA ties, had help from three Venezuelan conspirators, who were arrested with him last week near a pair of oil refineries on the country’s north Caribbean coast, Venezuela’s Chief Prosecutor Tarek William Saab said on state television.
The office gave the U.S. suspect’s name as Matthew John Heath.

Authorities said cellphones taken from the men when they were arrested last week include images of suspected targets, including a large bridge in Zulia state, military installations and dilapidated oil refineries in Falcon state. The prosecutor showed pictures of equipment allegedly seized from the group, including a grenade launcher, plastic explosives, a satellite phone and a bag of U.S. dollars.

“Everything here could qualify as a lethal weapon designed to cause harm and to promote assassinations, crimes against the people of Venezuela,” said Saab, who also accused the man of planning to open a drug trafficking route through Venezuela.

President Nicolás Maduro announced on Friday that an unnamed suspected U.S. spy had been captured, saying he was a Marine and former CIA operative in Iraq.

Heath has been charged with terrorism, trafficking illegal weapons and conspiracy, authorities said.

U.S. authorities have not commented on the case. The Associated Press was unable to make immediate contact with Heath, an attorney or a relative representing him for comment on the accusations.

The arrest surfaced as this nation, once wealthy from oil, has been gripped by a deep gasoline shortage that has sparked mile-long lines to fuel up, even in the capital of Caracas. Venezuela also struggles to provide electricity to residents, especially in Zulia state, once a major hub of the nation’s vast oil production.

Heath is accused of targeting the Amuay and Cardon refineries — part of the massive Paraguana Refinery Complex on Venezuela’s northern Caribbean coast. However, the refineries have ceased producing gasoline, and Venezuela depends on shipments from Iran, despite having the world’s largest oil reserves.

He is accused of entering Venezuela illegally, the prosecutor said, adding that he didn’t have a passport but rather had a copy of it hidden in one of his shoes. The three Venezuelans accused of conspiring with Heath include a military officer, Saab said.

The investigation also landed the arrest of four other Venezuelans accused of helping him sneak into the country from Colombia, authorities said.

Saab said Heath had worked in Iraq as a communications specialist three months each year from 2006 to 2016 for MVM Inc., a Virginia-based private security contracting company.
MVM provided a statement to the AP saying that Heath is “not currently an employee or contractor” with the firm.

The U.S. Marine Corps said it had a record of a man by the same name who served from 1999 to 2003, but it could not confirm that this was the same person detained in Venezuela. Military records showed the decorated Marine was a specialist in communication.

This arrest follows a failed beach incursion in early May that landed two ex-Green Beret soldiers in a Venezuelan jail for allegedly participating in a failed attempt to overthrow the socialist government.

The two former U.S. special forces soldiers were arrested along with more than 80 rebel Venezuelan fighters who staged a failed beach attack called Operation Gideon aimed at arresting Maduro.


The operation mounted from makeshift training camps in neighboring Colombia left several rebels dead. It was orchestrated by Jordan Goudreau, an American citizen and three-time Bronze Star recipient who served in Iraq and Afghanistan.

The ex-Green Berets in Goudreau’s force — Luke Denman Airan Berry Venezuela — have been sentenced to 20 years in prison. Authorities say the two men confessed to being part of the plot.

While the Trump administration denied having anything to do with the bungled May incursion, Washington backs Venezuelan opposition politician Juan Guaidó as the country’s legitimate leader in place of Maduro.
___
Follow Scott Smith on Twitter: @ScottSmithAP
Recommended Links

https://apnews.com/50ba653f96e95d05a1ecdd53d817a3b2

 

[Plain Jane]

Mexico: AMLO wants referendum on prosecuting predecessors – DW – 09/16/2020

Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador has proposed a referendum on possible corruption charges against five of his predecessors. The Supreme Court will decide whether it is constitutional.

www.dw.com

Mexican president requests referendum on prosecuting predecessors
Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador has proposed a referendum on possible corruption charges against five of his predecessors. The Supreme Court will decide whether it is constitutional.





Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador on Tuesday appealed to the Senate for a referendum on whether to prosecute five of his predecessors over allegations that include graft.

Speaking at his daily press conference, Lopez said that Mexicans should decide whether the five former presidents — Carlos Salinas, Ernesto Zedillo, Vicente Fox, Felipe Calderon and Enrique Pena Nieto — should stand trial.

He accused them of presiding over "excessive concentration of wealth, monumental losses to the treasury, privatization of public property and widespread corruption," blaming their neoliberal policies.

Read more: Mexico's former president Pena Nieto accused of receiving bribes
Calderon reacted by saying Lopez Obrador "is mistaking the Republic for a Roman Circus."
"Instead of going to the prosecution with evidence, he asks the crowd whether to convict or pardon innocents, showing a thumb up or down," he wrote on Twitter. "A setback to thousands of years of justice."

Mexican law gives the president the right to request a referendum. The Supreme Court then decides whether it is constitutional.

Lopez Obrador proposed the referendum be held on June 6, 2021 to coincide with legislative elections.
Read more: Mexico: Artists take a stand against corruption and violence

The ex-boss of the state oil company Pemex, Emilio Lozoya, named Pena Nieto, Calderon and Salinas during his corruption trial linked to Brazilian construction giant Odebrecht.
Mexico is considered among the world's most corrupt countries, ranking 130 out of 180 in Transparency International's Corruption Perceptions Index.

The left-wing populist Lopez Obrador, who came to power in 2018, has vowed to end corruption in the country and has called on his predecessors to testify in court.


Watch video12:36
Mortal danger for Mexico's reporters
dvv/dr (AFP, dpa)

 

[Plain Jane]

Bolivian interim president Anez withdraws candidacy for October election

Bolivia’s conservative interim president, Jeanine Anez, pulled out of next month’s general election on Thursday, a move that should strengthen other candidates running against the front-running socialist…

www.france24.com

Bolivian interim president Anez withdraws candidacy for October election
130shares
Issued on: 18/09/2020 - 02:16

Anez made the announcement in a video shared on social media. She had initially ruled herself out of the race before changing course. © Jeanine Añez Chavez via Facebook (screen grab)
Text by:NEWS WIRES
|
Video by:Simone BRUNO
6 min
Bolivia’s conservative interim president, Jeanine Anez, pulled out of next month’s general election on Thursday, a move that should strengthen other candidates running against the front-running socialist party of ex-leader Evo Morales.


Anez said in a video message she sought to unify those opposing the candidate for the party of Morales, who resigned last year after an election sparked widespread protests. Anez, a former senator, took office in the power vacuum that followed Morales’ departure.
The Oct. 18 vote is the delayed rerun of the 2019 ballot. Anez’s candidacy had sparked controversy after she initially ruled herself out and pledged to guide the country to transparent new elections. Socialist candidate Luis Arce of the MAS party leads in opinion polls, followed by centrist former President Carlos Mesa. Anez had been in fourth place.
Bolivian interim president Jeanine Anez withdraws candidacy

01:33
“Today I put aside my candidacy for the presidency of Bolivia, for the sake of democracy,” Anez said, citing “the risk that the vote is divided among several candidates and that as a result of that division, the MAS would end up winning”.



“If we don’t unite, Morales will return. If we don’t unite, democracy loses,” she said, calling for unity among voters opposed to MAS. She declined to say which candidate she planned to vote for.
Bolivia’s Anez withdraws candidacy ‘due to the risk of the vote being divided’

By pulling out of the race, Anez could increase chances that the election will be pushed to a second round by consolidating the anti-Arce vote.

To avoid a second round, the election winner requires at least 40% of valid votes in the first round and a 10-point advantage over the closest competitor.

Arce has more than 40.3% support from likely voters, according to a recent poll, while Mesa was at 26.2%, conservative anti-Morales activist Luis Fernando Camacho at 14.4% and Anez at 10.6%.

(REUTERS)

 

[Plain Jane]

Peru's president to face impeachment vote – DW – 09/18/2020

Peru's Constitutional Court rejected an appeal by President Vizcarra to suspend an impeachment vote. The move comes a week after the parliament voted to start impeachment hearings on grounds of "moral incompetence."

www.dw.com

Peru top court rejects bid to block impeachment vote
Peru's Constitutional Court rejected an appeal by President Vizcarra to suspend an impeachment vote. The move comes a week after the parliament voted to start impeachment hearings on grounds of "moral incompetence."





Peruvian President Martin Vizcarra is set to face an impeachment hearing in parliament on Friday after the country's top court rejected his request to suspend the proceedings.

The Constitutional Court ruled by five votes to two that the congressional case for impeachment could go ahead, the court's president, Marianella Ledesma, told local radio RPP on Thursday.

Last week, the parliament had voted to open impeachment hearings against Vizcarra on the grounds of "moral incompetence" following allegations that he tried to obstruct a probe into government contracts given to a singer.

Read more: Peru: No clear winner in Congress elections amid corruption trial
The court however admitted — by six votes to one — a request by the president to investigate whether the Congress exceeded its powers by seeking to impeach him.

Vizcarra's government had sought the court injunction on the grounds that Congress was not competent to rule on the president's moral capacity.

The Andean country's parliament earlier heard audio recordings which allegedly show that Vizcarra told his aides to downplay his meetings with the singer Richard Cisneros.
Cisneros claims the contracts, amounting to $50,000 (€42,200), were legal.
dvv/sms (AFP. AP, dpa, Reuters)

 

[Melodi]

On the situation in Bolivia - someone really should have told that women that starting her administration by stating publically that "Indians" (Native Americans) who make up the MAJORITY of the countries population "do not belong in cities."

The response of the Native Communities: "Then the food we grow does not belong there either."

This is something that elites all over the world of any political persuasion might want to consider before dissing their farmers...

 

[Plain Jane]

Peru's President Vizcarra survives impeachment vote amid economic crisis

Peru's Congress voted against removing President Martín Vizcarra in an impeachment trial on Friday, quelling political tensions in the copper giant in the midst of an economic recession brought on by…

www.france24.com

Peru's President Vizcarra survives impeachment vote amid economic crisis
Issued on: 19/09/2020 - 07:03

Peru's President Martin Vizcarra addresses Congress as lawmakers were set to vote over whether to oust Vizcarra after impeachment proceedings were launched last week, in Lima, Peru September 18, 2020. via REUTERS - PERUVIAN PRESIDENCY
Text by:NEWS WIRES
2 min
Peru's Congress voted against removing President Martín Vizcarra in an impeachment trial on Friday, quelling political tensions in the copper giant in the midst of an economic recession brought on by the coronavirus pandemic.

The opposition-dominated Congress cast 32 votes in favor of ousting Vizcarra, short of the 87 out of 130 required to remove him from office on the grounds of "moral incapacity" over alleged links to a case of irregular government contracts with a little-known singer.
There were 78 votes against the measure and 15 abstentions.

Congress voted last week to begin impeachment proceedings, but Vizcarra was expected to survive the Friday ballot after key opposition lawmakers distanced themselves from the plan to oust him despite anger over an economic slump and a severe coronavirus outbreak.

Vizcarra, who does not have his own party representation in the legislature, struck a defiant tone earlier on Friday in a 20-minute speech to Congress, saying the country should not be "distracted" from real challenges.

"I do not hide, I have not done so before and I am not going to do it now. I am here, with my head high and my conscience clear," said Vizcarra, 57.

"It is very serious to have the country plunged into this uncertainty." Vizcarra had claimed that the move was a plot by Congress, which was elected in January after the president dissolved the previous parliament last year in the middle of a fight with the opposition over his anti-corruption reforms.

A recent Ipsos poll showed that 79% of Peruvians would prefer that Vizcarra fulfill his mandate until mid-next year following elections set to take place in April. Vizcarra is not running in those elections.

Peru, the world's second largest copper producer, has a history of political turmoil, with three attempts to impeach a sitting president in the last five years.
(REUTERS)

 

[Plain Jane]

Pompeo finishes Latin America tour with focus on Venezuela

U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo has wrapped up a tour of four South American countries. Three of them are neighbors of Venezuela, whose socialist government is under intense U.S. pressure.

apnews.com

Pompeo finishes Latin America tour with focus on Venezuela
yesterday

In this handout photo released by Colombia's Presidential Press Office, Colombian President Ivan Duque and U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo bump elbows before their meeting at the presidential house in Bogota, Colombia, Saturday, Sept. 19, 2020. Pompeo on Saturday wrapped up a tour of four South American countries — three of them neighbors of Venezuela, whose socialist government is under intense U.S. pressure. (Nicolas Galeano/Colombia's Presidential Press Office via AP)

BOGOTA, Colombia (AP) — U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo on Saturday wrapped up a tour of four South American countries — three of them neighbors of Venezuela, whose socialist government is under intense U.S. pressure.

After a meeting with Colombian President Iván Duque on Saturday, the two vowed to deepen ties — including U.S. investment in the country’s struggling economy — and Pompeo praised Colombia’s tough stance against Venezuelan leader Nicolás Maduro.

Pompeo said Colombia’s backing of opposition leader Juan Guaido “and the democratic transition for a sovereign Venezuela free of malign influence from Cuba, from Russia, from Iran, is incredibly valued.

“You are a true leader for the region and the dignity of all of its people,” he said at a news conference.

In a separate statement, Pompeo announced an additional $348 million in aid for Venezuelans, including the some 5 million who have left the crisis-wracked nation. His office said that new funding now brings the total amount of U.S. humanitarian and development assistance toward the Venezuela crisis to more than $1.2 billion since 2017.

Pompeo’s three-day trip to the region comes as the U.S. presidential election nears, with Florida — which has hosted an expanding Venezuelan diaspora — a key battleground.

Duque highlighted a report by the U.N.’s top human rights body accusing Maduro’s government of crimes against humanity, including torture and killings carried by security forces.
“The situation there is unsustainable,” he said.

Shoring up support for the Trump administration’s Venezuela policy was a key focus of the trip, which including stops in Guyana and Brazil, where he emphasized U.S. calls for a presidential election to replace Maduro. He also stopped in Suriname, like Guyana a budding oil exporter.

Colombia has been flooded with migrants fleeing Venezuela’s increasing economic crisis while accusing its neighbor of backing armed groups on Colombian soil.

The COVID-19 pandemic, meanwhile, has left millions in Colombia out of work, with unemployment recently soaring to 20% during the nation’s long lockdown. Though virus cases were initially slow to rise, Colombia now has the world’s sixth highest total number caseload.
Duque said he is hoping to attract more U.S. investment to Colombia and he hailed a U.S. government initiative aimed at enhanging private sector investment in infrastructure.
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[Plain Jane]

Mexico arrests 21, seizes ship said used for stolen fuel

Mexican authorities say they've seized a ship, arrested 21 crewmembers and shut down a warehouse presumably used to store stolen fuel along the Gulf of Mexico.

apnews.com

Click to copy
Mexico arrests 21, seizes ship said used for stolen fuel
yesterday


MEXICO CITY (AP) — Mexican authorities said Sunday they have seized a ship, arrested 21 crewmembers and shut down a warehouse presumably used to store stolen fuel along the Gulf of Mexico.

The navy statement said the warehouse was located along a coastal highway in the state of Tabasco while the ship was anchored in the port of Coatzacoalcos in neighboring Veracruz state.

It said it found 16 storage tanks for fuel in the warehouse, along with five trucks. Two other trucks were found supplying the ship with apparently stolen fuel. It didn’t specify where the fuel had come from.


The government of President Andrés Manuel López Obrador has been crusading against rampant fuel thefts, often from clandestine taps into pipelines, that it says have looted public finances.

Authorities say they found 10 million liters (2.6 million gallons) of stolen or illegally transparted fuel between Sept. 1, 2019, and June 30, as well as 3,780 illegal taps over the same period.
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[Plain Jane]

Colombians protest against govt policies, police brutality – DW – 09/22/2020

Organizers are trying to revive last year's protests, which had halted due to the coronavirus pandemic. The second week of September also saw violent protests in the country.

www.dw.com

Thousands of Colombians protest against economic policies, police brutality
Organizers are trying to revive last year's protests, which had halted due to the coronavirus pandemic. The second week of September also saw violent protests in the country.





Nearly five thousand Colombians showed up to protest on Monday, taking a stand against the current economic crisis and recent incidents of police brutality.

Trade unions, students and civil society members attempted to revive last year's protests, after a pause imposed by the coronavirus pandemic.

Protests began peacefully in the morning, with a demonstration of vehicles at the labor ministry, organized by major unions. However, towards afternoon, some violent protesters attacked a bank and some private property in the city center of the capital city of Bogota.
The violence was low compared to the second week of September when protests had claimed 13 lives and left many injured.

Police used tear gas to control crowds but reportedly refrained from using violence. Bogota shut down public transport towards the night, as the mayor urged people to stay indoors.
"I'm protesting for my rights because it's not fair for them to take someone's life. There's so much aggression and corruption," 19-year-old student Alejandro Ortiz told Reuters.

Revival of last year's protest
As Colombia has lifted a five-month lockdown, organizers are trying to revive last year's protests against President Ivan Duque.

Protesters asked for more workers' rights, better pension, and health care after a government decree made it easier for employers to pay workers by the hour.

Demonstrators also called on the president to stop massacres by armed groups. This year alone, more than 60 such massacres have claimed over 240 lives, according to the NGO Indepaz. Two killings that took place this weekend have claimed at least 10 lives.

Rebel groups and drug traffickers are considered responsible for the violence after a 2016 peace treaty was rejected by a guerilla movement, led by the National Liberation Army. The groups are fighting for control over illegal mining, drug trafficking routes, and cocoa plantations.

Earlier protests were stopped due to a rising number of infections. Nearly 765,000 Colombians have been infected and more than have 24,000 died. Unemployment rates in urban parts have risen to 25%, and the government expects the economy to contract by 5.5%.

tg/aw (dpa, Reuters)

 

[Plain Jane]

US firm pleads guilty to paying bribes in Brazil, Venezuela

An American company has pleaded guilty to federal charges that it paid bribes to officials in Brazil, Ecuador and Venezuela to get lucrative contracts, and will pay $16.6 million in fines.

apnews.com

US firm pleads guilty to paying bribes in Brazil, Venezuela
By JOSHUA GOODMANtoday


MEDELLIN, Colombia (AP) — A major U.S. asphalt company agreed to pay $16.6 million in fines while pleading guilty Tuesday to federal charges that it paid millions in bribes to officials in Brazil, Ecuador and Venezuela for almost a decade to win lucrative contracts.
The plea agreement by Sargeant Marine Inc. is part of a broader, ongoing crackdown on corrupt dealings in South America’s commodities markets.

In what appears to be a related case, a former oil trader at Switzerland-based Vitol was charged Tuesday with paying $870,000 in bribes to former Ecuadorian officials from 2015 to 2020 in exchange for fuel oil contracts. Vitol, which is not named in the indictment, purchased half of Sargeant Marine in 2015.

Federal prosecutors in Brooklyn said Sargeant Marine and its affiliates paid bribes between 2010 and 2018 for contracts with state-run oil companies in the three South American countries, all of which were run by leftist governments at the time. The Boca Raton, Florida-company netted more than $38 million in profits as a result of the bribes.

Recipients in Brazil, where the bulk of profits were earned, included a congressman, a Cabinet minister and senior executives at state-run Petrobras during the administrations of former Presidents Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva and his handpicked successor, Dilma Rousseff.

None of the foreign officials are identified by name in the plea agreement but Brazilian prosecutors in 2018 charged a former congressman, Candido Vaccarezza, for negotiating with Sargeant Marine the bribes paid to Petrobras. Vaccarezza at the time was leader of the ruling Workers’ Party in the lower house.

Recently unsealed court filings indicate that Daniel Sargeant, who used to run Sargeant Marine, quietly pleaded guilty last December to conspiracy to commit money laundering and violate the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, which bars Americans from paying overseas officials in exchange for business. He is awaiting sentencing after paying $300,000 in cash bail. This month, a former PDVSA manager once in charge of asphalt sales was arrested in a related case, bringing to seven the total number of Sargeant Marine executives, traders, agents and former Venezuelan officials tied to the long running bribery scheme.
An attorney representing Sargeant Marine declined to comment.

False consulting contracts and fake invoices were used to pay intermediaries who negotiated the bribes in the three countries, according to the plea agreement. Members of the conspiracy, who are not identified by name, would negotiate the payments by composing draft messages in a U.S.-based email account for which they shared the login and password information.

After a company affiliated with Sargeant Marine completed shipments of asphalt to Petrobras in August 2010, the affiliate’s executive emailed Daniel Sargeant stating, “Wow, guess last Brazil trip with crooks paid off. Should go again before contract next year gets hot and heavy,” according to the plea agreement.

Similar tactics were used in Venezuela, whose tar-like crude is among the best in the world for making asphalt. Confidential information obtained through the bribery scheme and which gave Sargeant Marine a competitive edge in its dealings with PDVSA after 2015 was called by the code name “chocolates.”

Sargeant Marine was “one of the largest asphalt providers in the world,” according the indictment. But the company is a shadow of its former self amid a sell off of assets that followed a bitter, multi-year legal fight between Sargeant and his older brother, Harry Sargeant III, for control of the asphalt trading company started by their father.

The older Sargeant, a prominent Republican donor in Florida, was not named in the indictment or his brother’s plea agreement. Some of the bribes were paid before he was ousted from the family business.

Sargeant Marine also acknowledged paying bribes in 2014 from offshore accounts to an official working for state-run Petroecuador, which was looking to supply the country with asphalt.

Separately, Javier Aguilar, a former oil trader for Vitol, was charged with paying bribes to Petroecuador, according to a criminal complaint also brought by federal prosecutors in Brooklyn and unsealed Tuesday. Vitol, which acquired a 50% stake in Sargeant Marine in 2015 for an undisclosed amount, did not immediately respond to an email seeking comment.
—
Follow Goodman on Twiitter: @APJoshGoodman

 

[Melodi]

This is always going to be a problem for the US (and even foreign-based) corporations because the USA has rather strong anti-bribery laws.

This sounds great until these corporations come up against the face of reality in that much of the third world, especially Latin Cultures (from Southern Italy to Brazil) brides are the way of "doing business."

Ireland has a similar "brown envelopes under the table" culture, but I've watched it retreat at least from public view in the 20 plus years we've lived here. Twenty-four years ago, there were tea commercials making fun of "if there's too much excitement, cause your under indictment, have a nice relaxing cup of Tetley Tea."

Complete with a politician sitting at the racetrack with his brown envelope and his court date (lol).

Anyway, US companies/corporations usually have two choices: don't do business in a large part of the world and/or figure out a way to hide the bribes which is what 99.9 percent of them do.

That means they are pretty easily "exposed" if someone(s) in an administration or other position of power, an alphabet agency of the judiciary decides to make an example of them.

Frankly, while I don't like the practice, the USA is one of only a very few countries that officially make bribes or "kickbacks" illegal under all circumstances, many countries (including I gather modern Russia and China) pretty much wouldn't function without them.

I don't have an easy solution but simply "banning" the practice for US based firms (or foreign ones with US connections) hasn't really seemed to work in my lifetime....

 

[Plain Jane]

Brazilian Amazon city of Manaus may have reached Covid-19 'herd immunity', study says

The Brazilian city of Manaus, which was devastated by the coronavirus pandemic, may have suffered so many infections that its population now benefits from “herd immunity,” according to a preliminary…

www.france24.com

Brazilian Amazon city of Manaus may have reached Covid-19 'herd immunity', study says
Issued on: 24/09/2020 - 08:16

A preliminary study estimates that the Brazilian city of Manaus, which was devastated by the coronavirus pandemic, may have reached 'herd immunity'. © Michael Dantas, AFP/File
Text by:NEWS WIRES
4 min
The Brazilian city of Manaus, which was devastated by the coronavirus pandemic, may have suffered so many infections that its population now benefits from “herd immunity,” according to a preliminary study.

Published on the website medRxiv, the study analyzed infection data with mathematical modeling to estimate that 66 percent of the population had antibodies to the new coronavirus in Manaus, where the pandemic’s passage was as fast as it was brutal.

That may be sufficiently high to have reached the threshold of herd immunity, in which enough members of a population are immune to a disease that it can no longer spread effectively, said the study’s authors, a group of 34 Brazilian and international researchers.

“The unusually high infection rate suggests that herd immunity played a significant role in determining the size of the epidemic,” they wrote in the study, which has yet to undergo peer review.

“All signs indicate that it was the very fact of being so exposed to the virus that brought about the reduction in the number of new cases and deaths in Manaus,” the study’s coordinator, University of Sao Paulo medical professor Ester Sabino, told the Sao Paulo State Research Support Foundation (Fapesp), which helped fund the study.

Situated in the Amazon rainforest, Manaus was the scene of gruesome images of overrun hospitals, mass graves and corpses piled in refrigerator trucks when the pandemic was at its peak there in May.

But deaths in the city of 2.2 million people have fallen dramatically in recent weeks, to an average of just 3.6 per day over the past 14 days.

Manaus is now one of the cities reopening fastest from lockdown in Brazil, the country with the second-highest death toll worldwide, after the United States, with nearly 139,000 people killed.
That includes schools, businesses, nightlife and its famed opera house.

However, health experts cautioned that attempting to reach herd immunity was a dangerous path for policy makers.

“Community immunity via natural infection is not a strategy, it’s a sign that a government failed to control an outbreak and is paying for that in lives lost,” tweeted Florian Krammer, professor of microbiology at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai Hospital in New York.

Manaus has registered 2,462 deaths from Covid-19.
If it were a country, it would have the second-highest mortality rate in the world, at 100.7 deaths per 100,000 population.
(AFP)

 

[Plain Jane]

Zerohedge

ZeroHedge - On a long enough timeline, the survival rate for everyone drops to zero

www.zerohedge.com

Iranian Tanker Loads Venezuelan Crude For Sale Abroad As US Threatens Seizure

by Tyler Durden
Thu, 09/24/2020 - 19:40
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Last month US authorities seized the Iranian fuel aboard four tankers en route to Venezuela and diverted them to Houston over alleged sanctions-busting operations between the two countries.
Despite this incident and further threats by Washington to disrupt the growing bilateral trade between the "rogue states" - in US parlance anyway, Reuters has cited an internal company source and documents to allege state-run PDVSA is preparing a sale of 2 million barrels of heavy Venezuelan crude to Iran. Likely it will be sold somewhere in Asia.
Iran tanker file
The sale is said to have been agreed to by the Venezuela's PDVSA and the state-owned Iranian National Oil Company.

Reuters reports that "The Iranian-flagged very large crude carrier (VLCC) arrived in Venezuela’s main oil port of Jose this month carrying 2.1 million barrels of Iranian condensate to be used as diluent for Venezuela’s extra heavy oil production, according to company documents." And it plans to now ship the Venezuelan product abroad in defiance of US sanctions.
The Iranian tanker is allegedly trying to conceal its operations:

The tanker, owned and managed by National Iranian Tanker Company (NITC), made the whole trip from the Middle East to PDVSA’s port with its transponder off and has remained offline while in Venezuelan waters, according to Refinitiv Eikon’s tracking data.

It's as yet unknown when it plans to sail, but the US has threatened to conduct further oil and fuel seizure operations on the high seas, like what happened previously in August.
No doubt the Iranian tanker is "going dark" under threat from US authorities or its allies. What's more is that another few tankers are currently inbound with badly needed gasoline for Maduro's Venezuela.

Reuters records that "Three Iranian tankers - the Fortune, Faxon and Forest - are also crossing the Atlantic Ocean on their way to Venezuela, according to the Eikon data, carrying gasoline to help ease an acute scarcity that has kept Venezuelans lining up in front of gas stations waiting for fuel."

 

[Plain Jane]

Bolivia descends into chaos ahead of elections – DW – 09/24/2020

Some had hoped interim President Jeanine Anez would return the country to normality. Yet, unfortunately, her time in office has only deepened Bolivia’s polarization.

www.dw.com

Bolivia descends into chaos ahead of elections
Some had hoped interim President Jeanine Anez would return the country to normality. Yet, unfortunately, her time in office has only deepened Bolivia’s polarization.





With roughly one month to go until the Bolivian general election, the country is descending into violent political strife. On September 20, for instance, Miguel Roca of the centrist Comunidad Ciudadana party was pelted with stones in the city of La Paz. That same day, supporters of the country’s left-wing Movimiento al Socialismo party were prevented from holding an election rally by thugs. Several days earlier, supporters of both parties had engaged in street fighting in the city of Oruro — the same city where on September 17, Luis Fernando Camacho of the right-wing Creemos party was attacked with stones.
Read more: Opinion: Latin America's upheaval tips toward chaos

The October 2019 elections led to weeks of protests due to accusations of irregularities, leaving 35 people dead and 800 injured. One can expect that the upcoming election on October 18, could precipitate similar violence. Bolivian society, after all, has become deeply polarized. So much so that the United Nations Commission on Human Rights (UNCHR) along with the National Electoral Court of Bolivia have urged all political actors to ease tensions and refrain from violence.

Evo Morales’ legacy
President Evo Morales governed Bolivia for almost 14 years, ruthlessly suppressing all political opposition, stifling free speech and cementing his power as a left-wing autocrat.
Then, he was suddenly replaced by interim President Jeanine Anez and her right-wing allies. Morales was forced into Argentinian exile. Anez, meanwhile, is going after Morales’ supporters and has launched legal action against the former president, accusing him of terrorism. All this, unsurprisingly, has led to further instability, strife and chaos.

It has become practically impossible to find someone who will offer an objective take on the country’s current political situation. Fortunately, Cesar Munoz of Human Rights Watch (HRW) is a rare exception. Munoz is a Spanish national and has worked with the non-governmental organization (NGO) for six years. In his latest HRW report, he paints a bleak picture of the country’s status quo.

Based on interviews with 90 lawmakers, human rights activists and people who witnessed acts of violence, Munoz argues that Bolivia desperately needs to reform its judiciary: "It needs an independent judiciary that is not instrumentalized to persecute political enemies and abused as a political weapon."

Similarities with the US
Evo Morales, like US President Donald Trump, created a deeply polarized society where those on either side of the political spectrum treat each other with disdain and malice. Both have produced societies where critical news organizations are bullied and vilified.

There are indeed striking similarities between Bolivia and the US today — even though ex-President Evo Morales, a staunch socialist, would be loath to admit it. In both countries, the judiciary is being leveraged to gain political advantage. "Evo systematically weakened the judiciary by installing his own allies in key positions," says Cesar Munoz. "He permanently attacked the press for no reason, and curtailed the rights of civil society organizations and human rights activists."


Watch video02:14
Jeanine Anez assumes Bolivian presidency
Anez deepens societal rift
Anez, who declared herself Bolivia’s interim president on November 12, could have embarked on a different course. She could have endeavored to protect citizens‘ human rights and strengthen the judiciary’s independence. Instead, the former second vice president of the Senate opted to go after Morales and his supporters.

Anez launched a callous retaliation campaign, as the case of Patricia Hermosa — Morales’ former cabinet chief and lawyer — illustrates. Hermosa was accused of terrorism, terrorist financing and sedition, and jailed. The only evidence cited against her was a phone call with the former president. Moreover, Hermos was arrested despite being pregnant — a clear violation of Bolivian law. Without medical support in jail, she lost the child. But even then she was not freed, with the state judge telling her she was now no longer pregnant. HRW has documented her case. Munoz says Hermosa was subjected to a spate of "absurd and outrageous human rights violations."

Outlandish accusations
Cesar Munoz has read the 1,500-page indictment against Evo Morales accusing him of terrorism and terrorist financing. "We found zero evidence of him having conducted acts of terrorism," says Munoz. The whole case "is based on private conversations that Morales had in which he said unsettling things." But Munoz says none of this justifies a possible 20-year jail sentence.

After taking power, Anez immediately passed a decree granting legal immunity to security forces who committed acts of violence against protesters. Roughly one year has passed since the violent clashes of October and November 2019, that left many dead — yet so far none of the culprits have been brought to justice.

Officially, protesters attacked and killed each other, without any involvement of security forces. No weapons, however, were found on any of the deceased. And dozens of witness reports indicating state forces committed the murders have been ignored.

Anez has added fuel to the fire by warning that Bolivia’s democracy is at stake and that Evo Morales could return to reinstate his dictatorship. On top of this, Bolivia is already struggling with a strained health care sector and thousands of coronavirus-related deaths. The country’s future, in other words, looks grim.


Watch video02:11
Bolivia: Tensions between political camps
This article was translated from German by Ben Restle

 

[Plain Jane]

He's not running, but Morales looms large in Bolivia vote

LA PAZ, Bolivia (AP) — Even in exile, Evo Morales looms over Bolivia’s election next month. National rifts that contributed to chaos in Bolivia in 2019 threaten to destabilize the Oct. 18 vote and its aftermath nearly one year after Morales, Bolivia's first Indigenous president from the Aymara...

apnews.com

Click to copy
He’s not running, but Morales looms large in Bolivia vote
By CARLOS VALDEZ and CHRISTOPHER TORCHIAtoday



1 of 13
FILE - In this Sept. 19, 2020 file photo, a supporter, wearing a mask depicting former President Evo Morales, strikes a pose during a campaign rally for Luis Arce Catacora, the Bolivian presidential candidate for the Movement Towards Socialism Party, or MAS, in La Paz, Bolivia. MAS is the party founded by Morales who was ousted in November 2019, after several weeks of demonstrations that erupted over allegations of fraud in last year's October presidential election that Morales claimed to have won. (AP Photo/Juan Karita, File)

LA PAZ, Bolivia (AP) — Even in exile, Evo Morales looms over Bolivia’s election next month.
National rifts that contributed to chaos in Bolivia in 2019 threaten to destabilize the Oct. 18 vote and its aftermath nearly one year after Morales, Bolivia’s first Indigenous president from the Aymara group, was forced to resign following disputed vote results, protests, violence and a military call for him to go.

The country is divided mainly along ethnic, regional and socioeconomic lines, and between those who applaud Morales as a voice for the historically poor and disenfranchised and those who say he became increasingly corrupt and authoritarian during 14 years in power. The interim government that replaced him has also been accused of undermining Bolivia’s democratic institutions, including the judiciary.

The feud has reverberated outside the landlocked country of 12 million people, echoing ideological divisions from an era when the political left and right in Latin America were more clearly defined.

In a speech to the virtual U.N. General Assembly on Wednesday, interim President Jeanine Áñez accused neighboring Argentina, where Morales is in self-exile, of ″systematic and abusive harassment″ of Bolivia’s institutions and supporting a “violent conspiracy” led by the former president.

Argentina’s Foreign Ministry said it was regrettable that Áñez, who has withdrawn from the Bolivian election race, would try to involve Argentina in her country’s internal politics and urged her to focus energy on ensuring ″free and transparent″ elections.

In a letter Tuesday to U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, Sen. Bernie Sanders and 27 other members of the U.S. Congress expressed concern that the Organization of American States, based in Washington, had been invited to monitor the Bolivian election. The letter alleged a “lack of accountability and transparency” in an OAS audit that found evidence of fraud and other irregularities in 2019 election results indicating Morales had won.

Morales, a 60-year-old former coca farmer and union leader, faces terrorism and other charges in Bolivia and is not an election candidate this year. Some human rights advocates believe the charges amount to political persecution of Morales, who is basically in campaign mode, talking up his past administration’s achievements.


The party that he founded, Movement for Socialism, also known by its Spanish acronym MAS, controls the congress and is a powerful election contender. Its presidential candidate, Luis Arce, is a former economy minister who oversaw a nationalization program when Morales was president.

The other main candidates draw much of their support from Bolivia’s urban, more affluent population and should benefit from Áñez’s withdrawal from the race. Carlos Mesa is a former president who ran in last year’s election against Morales, and Luis Fernando Camacho led protests against Morales and is strong in Santa Cruz, an eastern region that is Bolivia’s economic engine and a counterweight to the political dominance of La Paz, in the west.

Several polls indicate the Movement for Socialism would lead in the round of voting next month, but struggle for the support needed to avoid a runoff pitting the top two candidates against each other. If there should be a runoff, MAS would come under more pressure if its opponents united.

There is a high number of undecided voters, said María Teresa Zegada, a sociology professor at the Universidad Mayor de San Simón, a Bolivian university.

Morales’ detractors fear a MAS election victory could open the way to the former president’s return to Bolivia and his political rehabilitation.

Whatever happens, Bolivians could face more weak governance, political volatility and economic hardship at a time when the coronavirus pandemic and lockdown measures are undoing years of progress toward alleviating poverty.

In a joint statement last weekend, Bolivian church leaders, the European Union and the United Nations welcomed ’’the most active phase of the electoral process″ in Bolivia and appealed for people to refrain from violence or intimidation.

Many Bolivians are apprehensive.

“We are not excited about the elections. We are interested in generating economic reactivation policies,” said Héctor Delgado, a carpenter and union leader in El Alto, a city next to La Paz that suffers high unemployment and a lack of basic services.

This week, Moody’s Investors Service issued a ratings downgrade for Bolivia, noting the pandemic and weaker foreign exchange earnings because of lower demand for Bolivian oil and gas. Bolivia has a favorable debt structure and the outlook is stable, even as the country endures its first recession since the 1980s, the credit ratings agency said.

“Given Bolivia’s weak institutional and governance framework, a highly polarized society, and fragile social fabric, Moody’s expects a prolonged period of political instability and policy uncertainty, even after the upcoming October election is held,″ the agency said.
___
Associated Press writer Carlos Valdez reported this story in La Paz, Bolivia, and AP writer Christopher Torchia reported from Mexico City.
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[Melodi]

Again, anyone who starts their term of office with "Indians don't belong in Cities" followed by the majority of population Native American Farmers saying "fine, our food does not belong in Cities," needs a career outside of politics.

That said, ignoring all the rhetoric of who is or isn't a "socialist" or who or who isn't "a terrorist" (a word quickly losing any real meaning especially in situations like this) I warned years ago that the old "elites" who understandably would prefer a return to the old system of European descended families with a few local editions owning 90 percent of the wealth and are about five percent of the population were ignoring one thing about Morales to their peril.

Regardless of him being personally, financially, or morally corrupted he might be (and personally I don't know, most people in power that long in Latin America have issues), he was ANOINTED AS THE INCA.

Now the ceremony was modified to be not Inca for life but for his Term of Office - so basically King for an allowed time.

The problem - In the eyes of the majority of the population (aka the Native Americans for who he was an anointed King) he didn't FINISH his term, he was ousted.

The truth of that is debatable but that seems to be how people (and even some but not all courts) have seen it - so you have a situation of an extremely divided country mostly along racial and economic, trying to hold an election when the candidate the majority still view as being "in power" isn't even allowed to sit the election in Exile.

In fact, he's under all sorts of "charges" if he returned to the country for any reason much less to stand and election.

Again, I'm not saying this to support Morales's policies or argue he's a wonderful and nice man - I don't know him personally and power does things to people.

I do, however, have some understanding of the ceremony and popular power of "Kingship," and as long as the majority of the population see him as Bonny Prince Charlie waiting "over the water" to "come ye back again," it is going to be difficult for anyone else to seriously take power.

The obvious solution would be a negotiated situation where an interim government is seated with leaders from both communities with the blessing of Morales who hands over the scepter, but that would mean compromise which is something very lacking in today's world.

And that isn't just a problem in Latin America.

 

[Plain Jane]

Mexico orders arrest of soldiers in missing students case – DW – 09/27/2020

Mexico has issued arrest warrants for police and military personnel suspected of involvement in the 2014 disappearance of 43 students. The unresolved kidnapping case sent shockwaves across the country.

www.dw.com

Mexico orders arrest of soldiers in 2014 missing students case
Mexico has issued arrest warrants for police and military personnel suspected of involvement in the 2014 disappearance of 43 students. The unresolved kidnapping case sent shockwaves across the country.





Mexico has issued arrest warrants for police and military personnel suspected in the 2014 disappearance of 43 Mexican college students.
President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador announced the warrants on Saturday while presenting a report on the probe into the unresolved case that drew international criticism.
"Orders have been issued for the arrest of the military personnel," Lopez Obrador said at an event with family members of the missing students.
"Zero impunity — those proven to have participated will be judged," he added.
Omar Gomez, head of the special prosecutor's office for the case, told the media that the warrants had been issued for the "material and intellectual authors" of the crime, including the federal and municipal police.


Watch video01:58
Bone fragment of one of 43 missing students found in Mexico
The warrants come on the sixth anniversary of the disappearance that sent shockwaves across Mexico.

The students from the Ayotzinapa Rural Teachers' College disappeared on September 26, 2014, in the state of Guerrero, as they traveled to a protest in five buses. They were said to have been stopped by corrupt police in Iguala and handed over to a drug cartel.

Prosecutors had initially said the cartel mistook the men for members of a rival gang. They were killed and their bodies were incinerated at a garbage dump before being tossed in a river.

The remains of only two of the students have been positively identified so far.
Family members of the victims have long accused Mexican authorities, including the military, of involvement in the students' disappearance.
dvv/sri (AFP, Reuters)

 

[Plain Jane]

Bolivia: Ministers resign ahead of election – DW – 09/29/2020

The sudden resignation of three ministers has revealed a deep split in interim President Jeanine Anez's administration. It is the latest crisis to rock her government before the country heads to the polls on October 18.

www.dw.com

Bolivia: Key ministers resign ahead of presidential elections
The sudden resignation of three ministers has revealed a deep split in interim President Jeanine Anez's administration. It is the latest crisis to rock her government before the country heads to the polls on October 18.





Three top Bolivian officials resigned on Monday, plunging interim President Jeanine Anez's government into a crisis just weeks ahead of the country's presidential election.

Economy Minister Oscar Ortiz said at a press conference that he quit because he was about to be fired from his post. "I understand they have already decided to appoint another person," he told reporters.

Shortly thereafter, Labor Minister Oscar Mercado and Productive Development Minister Jose Abel Martinez also announced their resignation on Twitter. Unlike Ortiz, they did not cite a reason for their decision.

Ortiz's resignation comes after he opposed the government's decision to hand back shares of a nationalized electricity company to a group of private shareholders. He had expressed concerns over the decision being taken so close to the elections.

Read more: Bolivia descends into chaos ahead of elections


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Ortiz said the press conference that the government's decision has no legal backing. "I am not ready to sign just any decree that goes against the legal system or does not have sufficient legal support," he said.

"I do not believe the government, in its last weeks, should make new contracts or important awards that should be left for the next administration," Ortiz said.

Government Minister Arturo Murillo had said earlier that the way Ortiz had expressed opposition to the government on the issue "was not correct."

Shortly after the resignations, interim president Anez announced that businessman Branko Marinkovic would assume the economy portfolio.

Political rifts ahead of election
Earlier this month, Anez had announced that some shares in ELFEC, nationalized by former leftist president Evo Morales in 2010, would be returned to a private company.

Morales criticized the government's move on Twitter, calling it "a serious attack on the chain of production and distribution of electricity."

Bolivia will hold general elections on October 18, a year after Morales was reelected for a fourth term in a controversial victory that led to mass protests over allegations of vote rigging.
Morales, who served as the South American country's leader from 2006 to 2019, was forced to resign and flee the country, first to Mexico before settling in neighboring Argentina.

The exiled ex-president remains a popular figure in his Movement for Socialism (MAS) party.
Anez, who took over from Morales last November, pulled out of the presidential race two weeks ago after a national poll put her in fourth place. Her administration has further been weakened by the coronavirus pandemic, economic problems, and allegations of corruption.

Key contenders in the presidential elections are former Economy Minister Luis Arce of Morales' MAS party and former centrist President Carlos Mesa, who ran against Morales last year.
adi/rs (AP, AFP)

 

[Plain Jane]

Four men executed in Colombian mangrove forest amid wave of massacres

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Four men executed in Colombian mangrove forest amid wave of massacres

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Two videos showing armed men executing several people in the middle of a mangrove forest in southwestern Colombia recently emerged on social media.
Indepaz, a local organisation, reports that it is the 61st massacre to take place in the country this year. The number of massacres has been rising in spite of a peace deal signed in 2016 between the government and the FARC, which used to be the country’s most powerful guerilla group.

This screengrab shows the moment just before this man starts shooting in the 17-second video.
Four people were shot and killed in this massacre, which occurred on September 20, somewhere between the towns of El Charco and Mosquera, in the Nariño department, according to reports published in the local press and by Indepaz (short for the Institute for the Study of Development and Peace), which works on issues relating to conflict and armed groups.


"Filming this kind of act allows armed groups to sow terror and fear amongst the population”
Leonardo González Perafán works for Indepaz, where he focuses on issues related to human rights and armed conflict.

We know the identity of the victims. A resident of El Charco informed us that they were thieves, all hailing from the same neighbourhood. But the fact that they were thieves isn’t justification for their murder. [Editor’s note: Local police said that they were conducting an investigation to establish the motive for the crime].

On the other hand, we don’t know the identity of the assassins. There are a number of armed groups operating in the zone, including Autodefensas Gaitanistas de Colombia [Editor’s note: a paramilitary group also known as the Clan del Golfo], Guerillas Unidas del Pacífico, dissidents from the FARC [Editor’s note: The Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, which was the principal guerilla group in the group in the country until they signed a peace deal with the government in 2016], ELN [Editor’s note: the National Liberation Army, the principal guerilla group in the country currently]... so it is quite possible they are members of one of these groups.

"It’s relatively new to see a video like that”

It’s relatively new to see a video like that. Over the past few months, I’ve seen two similar videos, one filmed in Nariño, the other in Cauca. But I had never seen anything like that before. That said, I think that some groups would have filmed themselves back in 2000 if there had been as many cellphones then as there is now [Editor’s note: That year, there were more than 200 massacres committed in Colombia, according to the organisation InSight Crime.]

Killing people on camera allows armed groups to sow terror amongst the population and sends a message to other armed groups, showing just how brutal they can be.

Cultivation of coca increased in this region after the peace deal [Editor’s note: Nariño is the department with the largest number of acres used for this crop]. There is also illegal gold mining and timber logging. Cocaine from the department of Putumayo is often transferred through this area on its way to the port in Tumaco.

Indepaz reports there have been 61 massacres in Colombia in 2020

Indepaz reports that 61 massacres have been committed in the country in 2020, totaling 246 victims (you can see a list in Spanish here). The department of Antioquia has seen the most massacres, followed by Nariño and Cauca. Indepaz defines a "massacre" as the "intentional and simultaneous homicide of several people (three or more), who are protected under international human rights law and can’t defend themselves, [...] in the same location". This definition excludes those killed in combat.


Indepaz didn’t record the number of massacres in recent years. However, the organisation estimates that the number has increased in 2020. The United Nations has confirmed this. In mid-August, the UN stated that it had documented 33 massacres since the start of 2020 and that there were seven more it was in the process of verifying (at the same period, Indepaz had recorded 42 massacres). By comparison, the UN documented 36 massacres in 2019, which had been the highest number since 2014.



"Since the peace deal was signed, we’ve recorded an increase in confrontations between armed groups for control of territories”
Leonardo González Perafán offered several explanations:

We believe that there haven’t been this many massacres since the early 2000s, but confrontations between armed groups have increased since the signing of the peace deal. The FARC pulled out of quite a few zones that they had previously controlled. Other groups moved in and now they are fighting over the territories. That’s what’s happening in the department of Nariño.

Moreover, a lot of these armed groups are run by young people who aren’t capable of strong intellectual and political leadership. Committing massacres is a way to put themselves on the map and gain a certain notoriety.

It’s also true that there is such a culture of impunity in Colombia that the perpetrators of these massacres think that nothing will happen to them. Quite a few of them have close ties to the military, some of whom are corrupt. Moreover, it’s the most militarised zones where the most massacres take place.

The victims of the most current massacres vary immensely, they include young people who broke lockdown restrictions, Venezuelan immigrants, sometimes thieves.

In mid-August, the UN declared that the massacres in 2020 took place in regions with high rates of poverty and active illegal economies, with a limited government presence and that 80% occurred in departments where there were "enclaves of illegal coca production".

The Colombian government has stated that "collective homicides" – their name for massacres – are essentially linked to "the growth of illegal crops and drug trafficking".

 

[Plain Jane]

Man pleads guilty to trying to smuggle guns to Haiti

Federal prosecutors said a Haitian man living in Georgia has pleaded guilty to trying to smuggle guns and ammunition to Haiti by hiding them in a car he planned to ship to the island.

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Man pleads guilty to trying to smuggle guns to Haiti
yesterday


ATLANTA (AP) — A Haitian man living in Georgia pleaded guilty Tuesday to trying to smuggle guns and ammunition to Haiti by hiding them in a car he planned to ship to the island, federal prosecutors said.

Jacques Mathieu, 51, pleaded guilty to attempting to export the 12 guns and roughly 36,000 rounds of ammunition, according to a news release from the U.S. attorney’s office in Atlanta. He’s set to be sentenced Jan. 8.

Mathieu, who lives in Tucker, tried to ship a 2007 Suzuki Grand Vitara to Haiti from the port in Palm Beach, Florida, in September 2019, prosecutors said. Shipping documents said the car contained 12 boxes of used clothing, but federal agents searched the car and found the guns and ammunition hidden in the boxes.

“Firearms traffickers help fuel violence on our streets and outside the United States,” U.S. Attorney Byung J. “BJay” Pak said in the release. “Alert agents found the weapons and ammunition and stopped the shipment before it reached its intended destination.”