Daily Headlines: September 2, 2015

* Argentina: The Grandmothers of the Plaza de Mayo helped positively identify the 117th child stolen and illegally adopted during military rule from 1976 to 1983.

* Puerto Rico: The Puerto Rico Electric Power Authority reportedly reached a deal with one of their main bondholders to provide some relief to its $9 billion debt and potentially prevent bankruptcy.

* El Salvador: The 907 murders in August made it the deadliest month in El Salvador since the country’s civil war in the 1980s.

* Chile: Chilean President Michelle Bachelet’s approval rating hit a record low of 24% though it’s greater than the 15% support given by poll respondents to the opposition Alianza coalition.

YouTube Source – teleSUR English

Online Sources – UPI, CNBC, NBC News, Reuters

Daily Headlines: September 18, 2014

* Argentina: Three medical staff and two former commanders of a secret military hospital have gone on trial over their alleged roles in the illegal adoption of babies from political dissidents during the Dirty War era.

* U.S.: New Census Bureau data found that the poverty rate for Latinos dropped by 2.1% in 2013 while median income grew last year for the first time since 2000.

* Panama: Is the Central American nation of Panama really the world’s happiest country?

* Brazil: The U.N. removed Brazil from the World Hunger Map after concluding that the number of undernourished residents decreased by more than 80% in ten years.

Video Source – CCTV America via YouTube (Estela de Carlotto, leader of Argentina’s Grandmothers of the Plaza de Mayo, reconnected last month with her long-lost grandson).

Online Sources – BBC News; Los Angeles Times; The Guardian; ABC News

The Weekender – Once Was Lost, But Now Am Found

“The Weekender” is our new feature where every weekend we hope to highlight a short film, movie or documentary pertaining to the Americas. We’re running this feature today since it’s a holiday weekend here in the U.S.
August 31st was the annual observance of the International Day of the Disappeared, which is an occasion used to commemorate the millions of victims gone missing often as a result of war, violence and human rights abuses.  Sadly, this problem has plagued numerous Latin American countries such as a Colombia plagued by decides of armed conflict and drug-rated violence in Mexico.

One of the most infamous examples of disappearances in Latin America has been the estimated 30,000 individuals missing during the dark “Dirty War” period in Argentina from 1976 to 1983.  While numerous former Argentine military commanders and officers have faced justice in recent years for their roles during the brutal “Dirty War” era, numerous organizations and activists have campaigned to reunite missing individuals with their families.

One of the best known of these groups is the Grandmothers of the Plaza de Mayo, which for nearly four decades has worked to identify babies born to political dissidents and put up illegally for adoption.  Thus far the “Abuelas” have identified 115 missing individuals including two in August alone.  One of these was Guido Montoya Carlotto, the grandson of Grandmothers founder Estela de Carlotto who was born in June 1978 to parents detained and later executed by state security forces.

The video below the page break is a documentary detailing the seemingly tireless efforts by “Abuelas” activists and others to shed light on the illegal adoptions during the “Dirty War”.  The 2010 film produced by Australian TV network SBS includes revealing interviews with several individuals identified by the Grandmothers and the children of a media magnate who rejected any efforts to see if they may have been adopted illegally. 

Daily Headlines: September 26, 2013

* Guatemala: Julio Ligorria, Guatemala's ambassador to the U.S., said that his country would try to complete all pending adoptions by U.S. couples by the end of this year.

* Cuba: According to new government data, approximately 183,000 Cubans were able to legally travel abroad since a migratory reform law took effect in January.

* Venezuela: Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro said that he would skip attending the U.N. General Assembly due to alleged threats against his life.

* Honduras: A poll released yesterday showed that Xiomara Castro, the wife of ousted ex-President Manuel Zelaya, and Congressional chief Juan Hernandez are in a statistical tie in the race to become the next Honduran president.

Video Source – YouTube via The New York Times (Video uploaded in December 2012).

Online Sources- ABC News; Bernama; Reuters

Daily Headlines: February 27, 2013

* El Salvador: A Salvadoran human rights group uncovered numerous cases of children stolen from their parents during the country’s bloody twelve-year civil war.

* South America: Diplomatic relations between Bolivia and Chile have become tenser as a result of a pair of recent border incidents.

* U.S.: Seventy-five Republicans including Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen and former Secretary of Commerce Carlos Gutierrez signed a letter supporting gay marriage.    

* Mexico: Police arrested Mexican teachers' union chief Elba Esther Gordillo on corruption charges days after the government passed a major educational reform law.

Video Source – YouTube via user WAVPfilms (” A documentary about the children abducted by the Salvadorian Army during the civil war, who were later sold to or adopted by parents all over the world”.)

Online Sources- GlobalPost, Newser, The Santiago Times, Huffington Post

Daily Headlines: December 6, 2012

* Cuba: The Cuban foreign ministry rejected U.S. government allegations over the deteriorating health of imprisoned contractor Alan Gross.

* Latin America: Is Syrian President Bashar Assad planning on seeking political asylum in Latin America?

* Guatemala: Wanted software company founder John McAfee was arrested in Guatemala and could be deported to Belize.

* Haiti: The Haitian government introduced a comprehensive plan to overhaul the country’s adoption system.

Video Source – YouTube via user JewishNewsOne

Online Sources- UPI, Huffington Post, CBS News, CNN

Ex-Argentine Dictators Sentenced Over Illegal Adoptions

In a historic decision an Argentine court sentenced former dictators Jorge Videla and Reynaldo Bignone for the kidnapping and illegal adoptions of thirty-five children during the “Dirty War” era.

Videla, who has already been sentenced to life in prison for crimes against humanity, received the punishment of an additional fifty years behind bars. Bignone, who is also serving a lengthy prison sentences for human rights crimes in the early 1980s, was sentenced to fifteen years in prison.

Videla claimed during testimony last week that the accusations against him were “erroneous” and that the mothers kidnapped by security forces were “active militants in the machinery of terrorism”. Nevertheless, the court agreed with prosecutor Martín Niklison’s arguments alleging that Videla and Bignone knowingly executed a “systematic plan” to rob babies between 1976 and 1983.

Weekend Headlines: April 14-15, 2012

* Argentina: Ex-military strongman Jorge Videla admitted that as many as 8000 people were killed by the state during the “Dirty War” era and coldheartedly justified such deaths as “the price we had to pay to win the war against subversion.”

* Haiti: A former Dominican military officer has been accused of being involved in an alleged plot to overthrow Haitian President Michel Martelly.

* Cuba: Ten former Cuban political prisoners currently residing in Spain have gone on a hunger strike in order to seek additional government assistance.

Haiti: To adopt or not to adopt?

In the aftermath of the recent earthquakes in Haiti several North American and European counties have expedited the adoption process of Haitian orphans. Two dozen Haitian children arrived in Ottawa and 32 arrived in Denver yesterday as part of “fast-track adoptions” in Canada and the U.S., respectively. Politicians such as 34 U.S. senators advocated for making adoptions easier of the scores of Haitian orphans left without guardians due to the tremors.

There is anxiety among some, however, that children could be mistreated by changing the adoption process. UNICEF officials warned that child traffickers could easily exploit “the chaos that follows a natural disaster.” Save the Children underlined how "extreme caution must be used and time taken to carefully verify the situation of children" before they’re put up for adoption. Dr. Jane Aronson- founder of the Worldwide Orphans Foundation- gave her advice to the New York Times’ Motherlode blog:

(…) her message to those who want to adopt from Haiti is don’t. At least not right now…

“Adoption is not the way to solve absolutely massive, tragic issues of vulnerable children,” she says. “An earthquake is a traumatizing event. The best thing for these children is to keep them in their communities, with neighbors and relatives, and with food and shelter and safety.”

The issue of Haitian adoptions has become a sensitive topic that will hopefully not turn into a widespread dilemma for some of Haiti’s most vulnerable children:

Online Sources- YouTube, CBC, 9news.com, New Zealand Herald, Motherlode, CNS

Daily Headlines: November 24, 2009

* Peru: The country’s Supreme Court began a three day appeals inquiry into the 25 year jail sentence against former president Alberto Fujimori.

* Venezuela: Authorities in Uganda are none too pleased with Venezuelan chief Hugo Chavez who expressed “doubts” over the cruelty of the late dictator Idi Amin.

* Guatemala: International adoptions may resume after a two year moratorium caused by fraud and corruption.

* Mexico: Support for President Felipe Calderon has been sliding since May though nearly three in five Mexicans back him.

Image – EFE
Online Sources- AFP, AP, The Latin Americanist, Angus Reid Consultants

Daily Headlines: May 11, 2009

* Brazil: At least 44 people have been killed and an estimated 126,000 are homeless due to heavy rains and torrential flooding in northern Brazil.

* Caribbean: The recent lynching of a Haitian migrant in the Dominican Republic has highlighted simmering tensions between the neighboring countries.

* Colombia: A hospital in Bogota has been fined over $5000 for refusing to perform an abortion which would have been legal.

* Guatemala: Researchers in the U.S. have warned that some children adopted from Guatemala may not be vaccinated for polio or measles.

Image- MSNBC
Online Sources- Independent Online, Dominican Today, LAHT, UPI

Guatemala: War orphans sold says gov’t

Another dimension has been added to the troublesome aspect of adoptions in Guatemala when the government revealed yesterday that civil war orphans had been placed up for adoption.

According to the government investigation, there has been at least one confirmed case of two children illegally put up for adoption after their parents were killed in Guatemala’s civil war. Evidence suggests that hundreds of other orphans from the country’s 36-year war were put up for adoption and were likely taken in by U.S. families said the director of the government’s Peace Archive, Marco Tulio Alvarez.

Alvarez added that the final report is expected to be revealed by next month. Yet what they uncovered was reminiscent of “Dirty War” orphans illegally adopted in Argentina:

“In the analysis carried out, patterns of activity can be established that show the ease with which the adoption procedures were handled to hide the violation of rights of Guatemalan children through forced disappearance,” he said.

Alvarez did not rule out that members of Guatemala’s police and armed forces could be implicated in the selling of the children.

He said that during the civil war, the children of people “disappeared” by the security forces were sent to government-run orphanages, and that some of those youngsters were then sold to adoptive parents.

“In these cases, many human rights of the children were violated” and all the indications found so far “make one think that the business was very profitable”, Alvarez said.

Guatemala had been one of the main sources for adoption by U.S. parents for many years with nearly 5000 kids adopted in 2006. Yet the State Department put a halt to Guatemalan adoptions last September citing the lack of “regulations and infrastructure necessary to meet its obligations under the convention."

Image- ABC News
Online Sources- AP, thandian.com, BBC News, Washington Times

Guatemala: Fifteen adoption cases voided

Guatemalan authorities annulled fifteen adoption cases due to suspicions of fraud or similar problems. Officials have not ruled out that more cases could be voided after a government measure earlier this month placed all potential adoptions on hiatus.

Nearly 5000 Guatemalan children were adopted by couples in the U.S. in 2006, making Guatemala the second largest source of children adopted in the U.S. Nevertheless, hundreds of prospective parents in the U.S. worry that that the adoption process from them will never be renewed:

Sienna's crib waits for her, but Jacki and her husband, who also have a two-year-old daughter named Isabella, said they fear the child may never get to use it.

"We've held her," Jacki said. "We've bonded with her. She is our daughter."

Sources - The Latin Americanist, BBC News, MSNBC, WFAA

Image- TIME

Guatemala: Adoptions temporarily suspended

Adoptions in Guatemala will be suspended for a month while paperwork is sorted out, according to government officials. As the Associated Press reported earlier today:

A Guatemalan official says that 2,286 pending adoptions will be suspended for at least a month while officials review related paperwork.

Attorney General Baudilio Portillo says Monday's decision was made after lawmakers asked his office to review adoptions on a case-by-case basis.

Adoptions council chief Elizabeth de Larios says additional DNA testing could be required to ensure some babies are in fact being given up by their birthmothers.

The move is similar to one instituted by Vietnam last month after both countries have come under fire over illegal adoptions. Nevertheless, the Guatemalan government’s decision has worried some of the hundreds of adoptive parents in the U.S.

Image- BBC News

Sources- International Herald Tribune, The Latin Americanist, MSNBC, FOX News