Braga Netto arrested
Dec. 16, 2024
Brazilian police arrested Gen. Walter Braga Netto, a close ally of former President Jair Bolsonaro, on Saturday. Braga Netto, who was Bolsonaro’s vice presidential candidate in 2022, was preventively detained on allegations of meddling in the police investigation into a plot to stage a coup after their ticket lost the election.
The arrest request was authorized by the Supreme Court Justice Alexandre de Moraes, with a favorable assessment from the Prosecutor-General’s office, reports the Associated Press.
Braga Netto has denied any role in the alleged conspiracy. (Reuters)
It is the latest twist in a coup plot uncovered last month that has gotten increasingly close to the former president himself, reports the New York Times.
The 884-page report drawn up after a nearly two-year police investigation called on Brazil’s prosecutor general to indict Bolsonaro and the others for planning an attempted coup and seeking to "violently overthrow the democratic state." (AFP)
The arrest shows that Brazil’s judiciary is “ready to play hardball with those accused of plotting to violently overturn election results, breaking with the impunity that shadowed nearly a century of military coups,” according to Reuters.
More Brazil
Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva left the hospital six days after an emergency procedure to address bleeding in his brain. “Wearing a panama hat – “so you don’t see the dressing on my head” the president joked – Lula spoke for 13 minutes and, at one point, became emotional,” reports the Guardian.
Though doctors say he has recovered well and there is no damage, “the incident has stirred doubts over the physical condition of the divisive politician, who is equally loved and loathed in his homeland — along with a debate on whether he will, or should, stand for re-election in 2026,” reports the Financial Times.
Brazil’s feared PCC criminal organization is now moving into the most remote corners of the Amazon forest, where it’s expanding into environmental crime, reports the Washington Post.
Grenell gets Trump administration’s Venezuela portafolio
U.S. president-elect Donald Trump named Richard Grenell as his presidential envoy for special missions. The move ends weeks of speculation over which role the president-elect’s former intelligence chief would take in the new administration, according to the Financial Times.
The post is new; though Grenell’s exact responsibilities remain unclear, Trump wrote on social media that the envoy “will work in some of the hottest spots around the World, including Venezuela and North Korea.”
Giving Grenell the Venezuela portafolio sets up a clash with the incoming administration’s Secretary of State, Marco Rubio, according to James Bosworth at the Latin America Risk Report. While Rubio’s hawkish views on Venezuela are well established, Grenell is expected to focus on potential deals with Nicolás Maduro.
In September 2020, Grenell led a back-channel pre-election mission to persuade Maduro to step down. (USA Today)
Venezuela
The U.N. office on human rights in Venezuela partially resumed operations in recent weeks, months after the government of President Nicolás Maduro expelled its staff for allegedly helping coup plotters and terror groups, reports the Associated Press.
Members of Venezuela’s opposition presidential campaign who sought refuge from political persecution in the Caracas Argentine embassy residences nearly nine months ago have reiterated their urgent need for safe-conduct passes to leave the country, as they withstand government harassment, reports El País.
“The harassment, according to those who spoke to reporters, includes constant surveillance by heavily armed security agents, the interruption of water and electric services, and this week’s arrest of a longtime local employee of the Argentine embassy,” reports the Associated Press.
Human Rights Watch voiced concern that political repression, which intensified after the July presidential elections, could increase further ahead of the Jan. 10 inauguration day in Venezuela.
More Regional Relations
In recent years few years, “Chinese companies have established themselves deeper into supply chains, developed stronger trade links and increased manufacturing in Mexico,” in an effort to take advantage of the country’s free trade agreement with the U.S. and Canada, according to the Financial Times.
But derailing the USMCA North American trade agreement will only benefit China’s and Russia’s global ambitions, argue Antonio Ortiz-Mena and Diego Marroquín Bitar in Americas Quarterly.
Mexico
In recent years Mexico’s military has become enmeshed in a number of public sectors unrelated to security — including airports, seaports and customs, as well as a passenger airline, the Mayan Train and a chain of luxury hotels. President Claudia Sheinbaum praised the military this weekend and seems set continue her predecessor’s relationship with the armed forces, according to the Guardian.
Migration
Migrant caravans continue to be a regular feature in Central America en route to the U.S. — but they don’t grab the headlines they used to, because of Mexico’s longstanding use of a combination of carrots and sticks to dissolve them, reports the Washington Post.
Almost half the 1.4 million people with pending deportation orders in the U-S. cannot be sent back to their home country — some because their home country won’t take them, reports the Washington Post. (Via Americas Migration Brief)
Haiti
A group of Haitian political parties said the Transitional Presidential Council is violating the spirit of the April political accord that established a transitional government, and asked CARICOM to intervene. It is the latest development indicating that the fraught transitional process might be failing, reports the Miami Herald.
“EL PAÍS recounts the terror endured by the Wharf Jérémie neighborhood in Port-au-Prince on December 6, when an armed gang killed at least 184 people, leaving an open wound in the heart of the community.”
Argentina
Argentine President Javier Milei lowered the required age for gun ownership by decree, and his government has presented a bill that would loosen gun regulations. These moves, coupled with officials who glorify gun use on social media, contribute to a potential increase in violence, according to critics. (El País)
Italy’s government granted Milei citizenship, due to his family roots, provoking outrage among Italian opposition politicians who contrasted his treatment with that of the children born in Italy of migrant parents, reports Reuters.
Colombia
Colombia’s trade minister said the country is hoping to renegotiate the terms of its bilateral investment treaty with the UK over concerns the deal favors foreign companies over the state, reports the Financial Times.
Regional
Criminal profiles of 2024 - InSight Crime
Critter Corner
By rejecting traditional grazing and maintaining trees and wildlife habitats alongside pasture, some Colombian beef farmers are turning their land carbon positive, reports the Guardian.
A heron took flight in Rio de Janeiro yesterday, after veterinarians saved it from near-certain death by removing a plastic cup attached to its neck and blocking its throat, reports AFP.