Arrest warrant issued for González
Sept. 3, 2024
A Venezuelan judge issued an arrest warrant for former opposition presidential candidate Edmundo González Urrutia. President Nicolás Maduro claimed victory in the election, but has not provided proof and faces a skeptical international community.
González claims to have won the July 28 election by a landslide, and has been in hiding since then, as Nicolás Maduro’s government implements a ruthless crackdown on dissent that includes the arrest of several opposition leaders by secret police. On Sunday, human rights groups said at least 86 teenagers who were arrested during the government crackdown had been released but hundreds of prisoners have reportedly been taken to high security prisons where they are facing terrorism charges.
Now the government seeks to paint González, and opposition leader María Corina Machado, as coup-mongering criminals. The arrest warrant for González, signed Monday, was sent to a court that specializes in terrorism charges.
González is accused of various crimes including conspiracy, falsifying documents and usurpation of powers. The warrant follows González’s refusal to answer to summons by the government loyal supreme court regarding the opposition’s publication of vote counts that appear to prove González’s electoral victory. González rejected the interview summons arguing, among other issues, that they did not specify the condition under which he was expected to appear.
Chile’s government protested the arrest warrant for González and reiterated its “condemnation of any form of repression against opponents of the dictatorial regime in Venezuela.”
The warrant request came just hours after the U.S. said an aircraft used by Maduro had been confiscated in the Dominican Republic, a move the Venezuelan government slammed as an act of "piracy." The seizure marks a ratcheting up in tensions between the two countries as the dispute over the election results drags on.
(Reuters, Associated Press, Guardian, El País, Washington Post, Washington Post, New York Times, CNN)
The U.S. is close to announcing 15 individual sanctions on Maduro-affiliated officials who it claims “obstructed the holding of free and fair presidential elections,” according to Bloomberg.
More Venezuela
Maduro announced yesterday that this year’s Christmas holidays will begin early: “It is September and it already smells like Christmas. And that is why this year, in homage to you, in gratitude to you, I am going to decree the advancement of Christmas to October 1,” Maduro said on television. (El País)
“The seizure of a three-ton cocaine shipment at Venezuela’s main airport highlights the role of airport infrastructure in international drug trafficking and exposes an unusual drug trafficking route,” reports InSight Crime.
Brazil
“Brazil's Finance Ministry will submit proposals to Congress this year to tax big tech companies and implement a global minimum tax of 15% on multinational corporations to secure the 2025 fiscal goal if there is a revenue shortfall,” reports Reuters.
“The clash between Brazil and X — and the arrest of Durov in France — are both signals that the age of social media impunity is coming to an end in the democratic world. (It never existed in the authoritarian world.) Social media companies are increasingly likely to be regulated more like legacy media companies and that has costly implications,” writes Gideon Rachman in the Financial Times. (See yesterday’s post.)
The number of fires in Brazil's Amazon rainforest region for the month of August surged to the highest level since 2010, pushed by a record drought affecting the biome, reports Reuters.
Indigenous film-maker Priscila Tapajowara uses her work to tell the stories she first heard from her elders about the spirits that inhabit the trees and rivers, and forest-dwelling people’s relationship to them, reports the Guardian.
Regional Relations
Former U.S. State Department official Roberta Jacobson discusses what a Harris presidency might mean for Latin America, in the Americas Quarterly Podcast.
Honduras
Honduran President Xiomara Castro’s brother-in-law admitted that he had met with a leader of the drug trafficking organization “Los Cachiros” in 2013, just days Honduras announced it would end its longstanding extradition treaty with the U.S. The timing “is feeding fears among Hondurans that the country’s legacy of corruption is continuing,” reports the Associated Press.
Migration
Mexico’s government said it will offer escorted bus rides from southern Mexico to the U.S. border for non-Mexican migrants who have received a United States asylum appointment, reports the Associated Press.
“This U.S. asylum policy and its geographic limits are a driving force behind the emergence of migrant encampments throughout the Mexican capital where thousands of migrants wait weeks — even months — in limbo, living in crowded, makeshift camps with poor sanitation and grim living conditions,” reports the Associated Press.
Arrests for illegal border crossings from Mexico during August are expected to rise slightly from July, reports the Associated Press.
Guatemala
Guatemala's Supreme Court rejected a request by President Bernardo Arévalo to begin proceedings to strip attorney general Consuelo Porras of her immunity. Arévalo said she seeks to undermine his government. (AFP)
Argentina
President Javier Milei vetoed a pension increase approved by Congress in mid-August, his first use of the presidential power since taking office in December, reports the Buenos Aires Herald. The bill passed by Congress established a hike and guarantees aimed at maintaining retirees’ purchasing power in relation to inflation.
The wide vote margins on the original bill mean lawmakers will likely overturn the presidential veto in coming weeks, reports Bloomberg.
Colombia
“Violence in Cauca is skyrocketing, and residents, many of whom supported leftist president Gustavo Petro in elections in 2022, feel they have been abandoned by a government that only seems to care about them when election season rolls around,” writes Joshua Collins at Pirate Wire Services. Despite adverse material and social conditions, Cauca residents “are a model of “resistencia” and peace-building in effectively stateless and conflict-torn regions of the biggest drug transportation corridor in South America, and perhaps the world.”
Rodolfo Hernández, a controversial real estate magnate and anti-corruption crusader who came close to winning Colombia’s presidential election two years ago, has died from colon cancer. (Associated Press)
Haiti
Delays in payment, equipment shortages and lack of manpower have sapped morale among Kenyan police officers deployed to Haiti and hampered their ability to confront heavily armed gangs, reports Reuters.
Mexico
Climate change and youth exodus are threatening Mexico’s ancient and prized cocoa farmers, reports the Guardian.
Osiel Cárdenas Guillén, one of Mexico’s most-feared drug lords, was been released from a U.S. prison last week after serving most of a 25-year prison sentence, reports the Associated Press.
Regional
In an increasingly urban region, with serious traffic and pollution problems, cycling is growing as an agile, economical and clean transport alternative in Latin America, writes Sinar Alvarado in Boom.
Critter Corner
Whale-watching in Colombia - New York Times
Sea turtles in Rio de Janeiro’s Guanabara Bay are getting healthier after after authorities made an effort to clean up the water they live in, reports Reuters.