Daily Headlines: August 18, 2016

* Haiti: The United Nations admitted to have “played a role” in a cholera outbreak that has killed at least 10,000 people in Haiti but stopped short of admitting peacekeepers caused the epidemic.

* El Salvador: The Salvadoran Supreme Court unanimously ruled to send former Colonel Guillermo Benavides to prison over civil war crimes and refused an extradition request from Spain relating to the 1989 massacre of a group of Jesuit priests.

* Venezuela: “Venezuela will represent a growing supply risk for oil markets in 2017,” concluded a recent report from Columbia University’s Center on Global Energy Policy.

* Paraguay: Several hundred protesters participated in an anti-government march on the second anniversary of the inauguration of President Horacio Cartes.

YouTube Source – AFP (From January 2015: “Five years since the 2010 earthquake, the cholera epidemic in Haiti is still claiming lives, and there are recriminations over who was responsible for bringing it to the country.”)
 
Online Sources – Fox News Latino, Bloomberg, Reuters, The New York Times

Daily Headlines: March 17, 2016

* Honduras: A member of Honduran indigenous rights group Copinh was killed nearly two weeks after acclaimed environmentalist Berta Cáceres was murdered.

* Guatemala: For the fourth time former Guatemalan strongman Efrain Rios Montt faces a trial on charges of genocide while a judge tossed out separate attempts by defense attorneys and lawyers for civil war victims to delay proceedings.

* Mexico: Restrictions go into place barring the use of thousands of autos in Mexico City on Thursday days after the megalopolis issued its first air pollution alert since 2005.

* Colombia: Colombia’s main labor unions as well as student activist and social organizations will mobilize today to protest against the government.

YouTube Source – teleSUR English
 
Online Sources – The Guardian, ABC News, NBC Latino, Colombia Reports

Daily Headlines: February 1, 2016

* El Salvador: Ex-President Francisco Flores passed away on Saturday prior to standing trial over the alleged embezzlement of $15 million in earthquake relief funds.

* Chile: Manuel Pelligrini will depart from coaching English soccer club Manchester City, while ex-Spanish international Juan Antonio Pizzi will head Copa America titleholders Chile.

* Guatemala: Two former Guatemalan military commanders are expected to go on trial today over the raping and enslavement of eleven women during the brutal civil war thirty years ago.

* Ecuador: Ecuadoran officials finalized the $80 million sale of 500,000-acre oil blocs to a pair of Chinese firms despite resistance from environmentalists and indigenous Amazon communities.

YouTube Source – euronews

Online Sources – USA TODAY, The Guardian, BBC Sport, SBS, The Los Angeles Times

Daily Headlines: January 11, 2016

* U.S.: Mexicans Gael Garcia Bernal and Alejandro González Iñárritu received individual Golden Globes last night while the Pablo Larraín-directed Chilean movie “The Club” lost in the top foreign film category.

* South America: The Dakar Rally reached its halfway point on a tragic note after a spectator was run over and killed during the seventh stage between Bolivia and Argentina.

* Cuba: White House chief-of-staff Denis McDonough confirmed the Obama administration’s plans to close the U.S. military base at Guantanamo, Cuba.

* El Salvador: Gen. José Guillermo Garcia-Merino, El Salvador’s former defense minister, was deported back to his homeland over his likely role in human rights violations during the civil war era.

YouTube Source – TIFF Trailers

Online Sources – Reuters Africa, Business Standard, NBC News, Latin America Herald Tribune, Christian Science Monitor

Daily Headlines: January 8, 2016

* Puerto Rico: Two firms that are insuring Puerto Rico’s bonds filed a lawsuit days after the island’s government missed a $36 million payment on a $70 billion municipal debt.

* U.S.: The Latino unemployment rate dipped last month to 6.3% according to the latest U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics data published today.

* Brazil: In the latest black eye for the Brazilian economy, the 2015 inflation rate of 10.67% was the highest in thirteen years.

* El Salvador: The Salvadoran government will seek the arrest of seventeen retired soldiers suspected of murdering eight people including six Jesuit priests in 1989.

YouTube Source – Al Jazeera America News
 
Online Sources – Reuters, GlobalPost, Fox News Latino, The Tico Times

Daily Headlines: January 7, 2016

* Mexico: Mexican government officials expect some 2.3 million visitors to be present at a motorcade and rally on February 14th as part of during Pope Francis’ trip to the that country.

* Costa Rica: Several hundred migrants stranded in Costa Rica over the past few weeks will reportedly be allowed to leave for El Salvador starting on January 12th.

* Colombia: Irish advocacy group Front Line Defenders deemed Colombia at the most dangerous state for human rights activists in Latin America.

* Guatemala: Fourteen ex-military officials were detained over alleged involvement in the disappearances of at least 588 indigenous Guatemalans during the civil war some three decades ago.

YouTube Source – Reuters (Bolivia was one of four countries in Latin America and the Caribbean that Pope Francis traveled to in 2015).

Online Sources – BBC News, ABC News, Reuters, teleSUR English

Daily Headlines: April 24, 2015

* El Salvador: Congress is considering declaring a “state of siege” for the first time since the civil war era while Salvadoran police proposed the return of “death squads” as an extreme measure to combat increased violence from street gangs.

* South America: Argentine team San Lorenzo was eliminated from the Copa Libertadores; thus, South America’s top soccer club tournament will not have a repeat champion for the thirteenth straight year.

* Bolivia: Lawmakers and farmers in Bolivia were unable to reach a compromise over the use of genetically modified organisms (GMOs).

* Uruguay: Turbine manufacture Gamesa of Spain plans to supply fifty megawatts of equipment for a Uruguayan wind energy farm expected to start functioning in 2016.

YouTube Source – teleSUR English (Video published in January 2015.)
 
Online Sources – ESPN FC, The Latin Americanist, IPS, Bloomberg, teleSUR

Daily Headlines: December 29, 2014

* Puerto Rico: Will the U.S. follow up the liberation of former contractor Alan Gross by intervening to free imprisoned Puerto Rican activist Oscar Lopez Rivera?

* Venezuela: President Nicolás Maduro named Foreign Minister Rafael Ramirez as the next ambassador to the U.N. days before Venezuela will be represented on the international body’s Security Council.

* Paraguay: “I'm healthy after all this time, I'm calm, I'm okay,” admitted former hostage Arlan Fick who was let go by his EPP rebel captors.

* El Salvador: A Salvadoran man kidnapped by the armed forces at the age of three in 1982 reunited with his biological family last week.

Video Source – YouTube user Fusion (Video uploaded in June 2014).
 
Online Sources – Latin American Herald Tribune; Reuters; teleSUR English; The Latin Americanist; MercoPress

Weekend Headlines: March 11, 2012

* Brazil: A report in the Estado de Sao Paulo newspaper today claimed that federal prosecutors are looking into over 150 cases of disappeared people during a twenty-year period of military rule.

* Argentina: Buenos Aires officials announced that Tuesday would be the reopening of a street that had been closed after a nightclub fire in 2004 but near the site of a rail accident last month.

* Venezuela: According to intelligence cables unearthed by Wikileaks, senior Venezuelan military officials urged the extradition of suspected drug trafficker Walid Makled to neighboring Colombia instead of the U.S.

* Mexico: Could there be a link between 167 decomposed bodies recently found in a southern Mexican cave and Guatemala’s civil war?

Video Source – YouTube via gaires

Online Sources- Boston.com, Buenos Aires Herald, The Latin Americanist, Miami Herald, MSNBC

Daily Headlines: February 24, 2012

* Latin America: According to Mexican and British researchers a severe drought led to the demise of the Mayan civilization over one thousand years ago.

* Argentina: The blame game into the cause of Wednesday’s train crash that killed fifty people continued with allegations of government corruption and malfeasance by the heads of the private firm that runs the Buenos Aires passenger rail network.

* Venezuela: President Hugo Chavez is expected to arrive in Cuba today in order to undergo an operation for a new lesion in the same area where a cancerous tumor was removed last year.

* El Salvador: Ex-defense minister Carlos Eugenio Vides Casanova may soon be deported from the U.S. to his native El Salvador where he awaits trial for alleged “war-related crimes.”

Image Source – Flickr via Mike_fleming (Mayan ruins at Chichen Itza in southern Mexico). (CC BY 2.0)

Online Sources- BBC News, IOL, The Latin Americanist, CNN, UPI

Daily Headlines: July 22, 2011

* Venezuela: The OPEC Annual Statistical Bulletin found that Venezuela has surpassed Saudi Arabia as the country with the highest proven oil reserves.

* Caribbean: According to a pair of cables released by WikiLeaks the U.S. and Haiti’s interim government were engaged in a diplomatic quarrel in 2006 while U.S. diplomats were aware of corruption allegations in the Dominican Republic’s top court.

* Nicaragua: President Daniel Ortega raised the possibility of a referendum to decide if Nicaragua should revive a multibillion-dollar claim against the U.S.

* Mexico: The World Trade Organization ruled in favor of Mexico over the U.S. as part of a two-decade long trade dispute over the safety of Mexican tuna.

Image – Reuters (“Oil facilities are seen on Lake Maracaibo in Venezuela's western state of Zulia March 1, 2008.”)
Online Sources- UPI, Dominican Today, CNN, Reuters, MarketWatch

Suspected Guatemalan war criminal arrested

In the twentieth century some Latin American political leaders and military officials abused their power and were behind terrible human rights atrocities. In recent years, however, the long arm of the law caught up with several of these figures and they’ve been forced to pay for their crimes. In the last month alone, for instance:

• Ex-Argentine president Jorge Videla, who ruled for several years during the infamous “Dirty War” era, was sentenced to life in prison.
• The former head of Chile’s secret police under dictator Augusto Pinochet was convicted for the murders of six political prisoners.
• Corruption and misappropriation of public funds charges were raised against former Haitian president Jean-Claude Baby Doc” Duvalier. (Quick aside: where does ex-Congressman Bob Barr get the cojones to serve as Duvalier’s “advisor”?)
  

Jorge Sosa was a former military commander for several years in his native Guatemala during that country’s bloody civil war. He is accused of numerous war crimes including 1982’s Dos Erres massacre where he supposedly ordered troops to kill over 250 villagers. (A “United Nations-backed Truth Commission” found that soldiers killed babies by bashing their heads with hammers while women were repeatedly raped before being murdered).

Since fleeing Guatemala in the mid-1980s Sosa emigrated legally to the U.S. and Canada. While thousands of victims of Guatemala’s war nursed their physical wounds and psychological trauma, Sosa lived in impunity and even managed a martial arts training school in Calgary.

After one too many years living as a free man, Sosa was finally arrested in Canada last week. According to the Calgary Herald, Sosa “was retrained by heavy chains visible from his hands, which were closed and held up by his chest” during his first court appearance on Thursday.

Though he is wanted in Guatemala for his suspected war crimes, Sosa may face extradition to the U.S. where he’s accused of lying on his immigration papers. His son, who left Guatemala with Sosa for the U.S told the Canadian media that his father was innocent of the immigration charges against him. For one Guatemalan human rights activist whose bother died in the massacre, however, Sosa must be punished for the suffering his callousness caused:

"We're not looking for revenge, but we want justice to be applied and for these men to own up for what they've done -- to own up for the lives they took and give some peace to the families that continue to live with voids in their lives that can never be filled," (Aura Elena Farfan) said.

"They destroyed people's humanities, killed the innocent, and we're looking for a way for them to acknowledge the innocents, the lives they destroyed."

The Sosa case has raised serious questions over the Canadian immigration process. (He currently holds U.S. and Canadian citizenship). "I was astounded that war criminals always find a way to get into Canada and people who come in through the legal procedures have to wait like nine years to get all their papers" said Carmen Aguilera, Guatemala's former honorary consul to Canada, to the press.

Image- YouTube via CBC (“Jorge Vinicio Orantes Sosa, 52, seen in a karate demonstration, is wanted in Guatemala on war crimes. He was arrested in Lethbridge, Alta., on Tuesday.”).
Online Sources- Herald Sun, Gawker, The Latin Americanist, EPA, Reuters, Calgary Herald, Vancouver Sun, Toronto Sun, CTV News

Guatemalan Suspected in 1982 Massacre Arrested in Florida

Federal agents arrested Gilberto Jordán in Palm Beach County, Florida on Wednesday for suspicion of lying on citizenship paperwork processed years ago.

Normally that sort of charge wouldn't make headlines, but Jordán is no normal ICE case. It is suspected that he was one of the members of Guatemala's elite Kaibiles unit who massacred 217 civilians in the village of Las Dos Erres.

The massacre was one of the worst in the 35-year-long Guatemalan Civil War. From the Miami Herald article reporting details of his arrest:

In a chilling interview Tuesday with ICE special agents, Jordán, now 54, "readily admitted that he threw a baby into the well and participated in killing people at Dos Erres, as well as bringing them to the well where they were killed,'' according to an affidavit filed with the criminal complaint.

Two other former Kaibiles who currently reside in the US, Jorge Vinicio Sosa-Orantes Pedro Pimentel-Rios, are also being sought on similar grounds.

The Kaibiles were and are a highly skilled jungle warfare group with a dubious human rights record. More recently, several Kaibiles have joined ranks with the violent Los Zetas organization - originally a force protection group for the Gulf Cartel who are now operating more independently in the Mexican drug arena.

It remains unclear whether there will be additional charges against Jordán besides the immigration violation - a charge that could lead to 10 years in prison and revocation of his naturalized US citizenship.

Image Source: Global Post - "The wood boxes that once contained the victims' remains decomposed long ago, leaving bundles of bones, boots and clothes."

Online Sources: Miami Herald, NY Times, Mexidata.info, Wikipedia, Sun-Sentinel

Today’s Video: The bones of war

It is very difficult to tackle the demons of past conflicts, as is the case with looking back at Guatemala’s civil war. Yet that hasn’t stopped some activists and scientists from uncovering the mass graves of Guatemala’s dead and trying to bring some form of justice to so many victims:

Online Sources- Guardian UK, YouTube

News Briefs: Human Rights

* A report released by Amnesty International USA concluded that human rights violations are prevalent in the U.S. immigration system. The types of abuses are numerous according to the study including excessive periods of detention and substandard detention centers.

* A former Cuban political prisoner has undergone a hunger strike that has lasted over a month. 'We are conscious of the risks and dangers to the human body… But you are talking to a person who spent 17 years in prison in a country where there are no legal channels to pursue,'' said Jorge Luis García to the Miami Herald over his protest on the island.

* The National Security Archive obtained declassified security documents showing that U.S. knew of Guatemalan rights abuses in the 1980s. "Government security services have employed assassination to eliminate persons suspected of involvement with the guerrillas or who are otherwise left-wing in orientation," read one 1984 State Department report obtained via the Freedom of Information Act.

* Earlier today we mentioned how a Mexican court upheld a ruling that exonerated ex-president Luis Echeverria over the 1968 Tlatelolco massacre. Local human rights activists have decried the decision with one politico calling it “an insult to the Mexican people.”

Image- Reuters (“Mexican immigrant Antonio Lemus waits at a processing center in Santa Ana, California, September 13, 2007.”)
Online Sources- miamiherald.com, AP, Scoop, The Latin Americanist, MSNBC, Monsters & Critics, boston.com, AFP

Daily Headlines: February 27, 2009

* Mexico: Days after U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder announced a major crackdown of Mexican drug gangs Sen. Joseph Lieberman said that the Senate will hold hearings over rising violence in Mexico.

* Colombia: Will U.S. military operations become headquartered in Colombia after they leave the base at Manta, Ecuador this August?

* Guatemala: One week after apologizing to Cuba for the failed Bay of Pigs invasion, Guatemalan President Alvaro Colom apologized to victims of his country’s cruel 36-year civil war.

* Haiti: Kristian Dyer of ESPN.com takes a great look at the legacy of Joe Gaetjens- the Haitian immigrant who scored the game-winning goal for the U.S. in one of the World Cup’s greatest upsets.

Image- Al Jazeera English
Online Sources- BBC News, Reuters, The Latin Americanist, AFP, ABC Online, ESPN