25 months of exception in ES
May 30, 2024
El Salvador
El Salvador has been under a state of emergency for the past 25 months, renewed monthly. The total official number of detainees was 79,947 earlier this month. Human rights organization Cristosal has registered 261 deaths of detainees under the state of emergency, as of May 22. (El Faro)
The U.S. will send a delegation, led by Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas, to President Nayib Bukele’s re-inauguration on Saturday. Last week El Faro reported that the U.S. has taken a more conciliatory stance with the Bukele administration in recent months, which has resulted, according to embassy sources, in a private pledge from Bukele to end the two-year state of exception — “but no clarity as to if or when it will actually occur.”
Regional Relations
Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva withdrew his country’s ambassador to Israel, yesterday, after months of tensions between the two countries over Israel’s war on Gaza. (Al Jazeera)
Mexico
Alfredo Cabrera, a mayoral candidate in Mexico’s Guerrero state was killed yesterday at a campaign rally. He had been under police protection since last year, after being the target of a previous attack. More than 30 candidates have been killed in this electoral season. (BBC)
Security is a central concern for Mexicans, but the presidential candidates “are proposing mostly ambiguous security measures that fail to address the complexity of organized crime in the country,” according to InSight Crime.
The likely winner of Mexico’s presidential elections on Sunday, Claudia Sheinbaum, faces a challenge familiar to female politicians in the region: perceptions that she will be the pawn of her male mentor. Sheinbaum insists she is independent, but President Andrés Manuel López Obrador’s popularity also pushes her to hew to his agenda, reports the New York Times.
Regional
“Amid record levels of migration crossing borders and continents, the 2.8 million recorded internal displacements in the Americas in 2023 are often an afterthought—but they should not be ignored,” argues Jordi Amaral in the Americas Migration Brief.
Climate and environmental disasters have been the leading cause of temporary internal displacements in the Americas, causing 2.1 million movements in 2023 and leaving 50,000 IDPs still stranded by year’s end, according to the Internal Displacement Monitoring Centre. (Americas Migration Brief)
Haiti
The killing of two U.S. citizens in Haiti last week might be the underlying factor behind this week’s consensus by the new transitional presidential council to appoint Garry Conille as the country’s new prime minister, following pressure from U.S. officials, reports the Miami Herald.
Dominican Republic
The Dominican Republic’s recently reelected President Luis Abinader “has cultivated an image as a moderate, but his anti-Black and anti-immigrant policies lay bare a far-right agenda,” according to Nacla.
Argentina
Argentine President Javier Milei’s new cabinet chief, Guillermo Francos will play a critical role for the stalled national agenda, particularly as the president focuses on international travel, writes Juan Cruz Díaz in Americas Quarterly.
Bolivia
The struggle between Bolivian President Luis Arce and former president Evo Morales for control of the MAS party is consuming national politics and jeopardizing the economy, writes Rich Brown in Americas Quarterly.
Critter Corner
More than 12,500 domestic animals have been rescued since disastrous flooding in Brazil’s Rio Grande do Sul state started a month ago. Surges of homeless animals are common after natural disasters around the world, notes the New York Times.
