Castro relative met with drug traffickers

Sept. 4, 2024

Investigative reporters obtained a 2013 video in which some of Honduras’ top drug traffickers met with Carlos Zelaya, President Xiomara Castro’s brother-in-law, and offered to give over half a million dollars to his party’s presidential campaign that year.

The footage was taken from a spy camera embedded in a watch worn by one of the traffickers in the meeting, but “the pictures and audio are clear enough to show the drug traffickers reminisce about previous contributions allegedly paid to former President Manuel “Mel” Zelaya, the husband of Castro, brother to Carlos, and founder of the ruling Libre Party,” reports InSight Crime, which broke the story yesterday, together with Univisión.

“The video is another startling piece of evidence that reveals the depth of drug traffickers’ infiltration of the political class in Honduras,” reports InSight Crime.

Carlos Zelaya admitted to journalists during an impromptu press conference on August 31 that he went to San Pedro Sula at the invitation of several “businessmen” and spoke to the drug traffickers. He stepped down from his lawmaker post, but claimed he did not previously know who would be at the meeting.

But in the video he openly explains the distribution of the promised donations, reports Univisión.

“These reports add damning evidence to drug traffickers’ multiple courtroom testimonies accusing Manuel and Carlos Zelaya of having past campaign ties to drug traffickers,” according to El Faro.

The revelations add a new perspective to Castro’s abrupt announcement last week that she would seek to end Honduras’ U.S. extradition treaty. According to InSight Crime, the Castro administration made the announcement after the reporters had spoken with one of the participants in the 2013 meeting.

“The cancelation of extradition by the Castro government could be aimed at protecting key government officials from prosecution in the United States and will certainly frustrate the ability of both countries to hold transnational organized crime groups to account,” reported InSight Crime yesterday.

Castro yesterday accused the U.S. Embassy of orchestrating a coup d’état. “The plan to destroy my democratic socialist government and the upcoming electoral process is underway,” she said.

More Honduras

• InSight Crime profiles Los Cachiros.

---

Mexico’s lower chamber passed judicial reform

Mexico’s Chamber of Deputies approved President Andrés Manuel López Obrador’s judicial reform bill yesterday, after a marathon session. The vote passes the bill in general terms, and will now pass to a debate on particulars, reports Animal Político. (See Monday’s post.)

The lower house will now have to iron out more than 600 details of the bill before it moves to the Senate. The ruling Morena coalition is just one seat short of a supermajority, and the measure is widely expected to pass, reports the New York Times.

Critics say the overhaul, which would make all federal judges elected, would stack the courts in favor of López Obrador’s party, politicize the judicial system and pose a threat to foreign investment, reports the Associated Press.

Eight of the 11 Supreme Court justices voted to suspend sessions for the rest of the week, yesterday, in support of striking judicial employees at the high court. Judicial workers, who have been on strike for over three weeks, protested outside the Chamber of Deputies building, yesterday. They blocked entry to the building, hoping to delay the vote, and pushing lawmakers to relocate to an alternate venue. (El País, New York Times, El País)

Under the new rules, lawyers who want to run for judgeships must meet requirements of minimum grades in school, a law degree and five years of relevant experience. Candidates will be assigned TV and radio advertising slots and would not be allowed public or private funding, reports the Financial Times.

Three judges have so far given separate orders blocking debate on the bill, though this has not affected proceedings, reports Animal Político.

Business leaders are concerned that a politicized justice system will complicate their investments, reports the Financial Times.

AMLO’s judicial reform proposal would be catastrophic for Mexico’s democratic institutions and its place in the USMCA, argues Ryan Berg at CSIS. “It is not hyperbole to say that Mexico’s ability to continue playing a starring role as a strategic partner in economic security initiatives and nearshoring could evaporate in the wake of Plan C’s passage.”

Mexican president-elect Claudia Sheinbaum maintains that the reform will only democratize an elite, opaque government power. “If judges, magistrates and ministers are elected by the people, where is the authoritarianism?” (La Jornada)

Bolivia

• Bolivia is one of the few countries in the region with elected judges, a reform that has been conflicted and conflictive, reports El País.

Venezuela

• “Venezuelan authorities are committing widespread human rights violations against protesters, bystanders, opposition leaders, and critics following the July 28” presidential election, Human Rights Watch said in a new report. The group said it has documented that “Venezuelan authorities and pro-government armed groups known as “colectivos” have committed widespread abuses, including killings, arbitrary detention and prosecution, and harassment of critics.”

• Venezuelan opposition candidate Edmundo González Urrutia has not sought asylum, his lawyer said yesterday, after a judge issued an arrests warrant for him. (AFP, see yesterday’s post)

• Brazil's top foreign policy adviser, Celso Amorim, said the arrest warrant for González was "very concerning" and said there was a clear "authoritarian escalation" in the country, reports Reuters. (See yesterday’s post.)

• The post-electoral repression was to be expected, InterAmerican Dialogue’s Tamara Taraciuk told El País. She believes the Maduro government moved foward with elections in order to obtain international recognition and “miscalculated the margin of success of the opposition and its organizational capacity. Then, when election day ended with so much clarity in the streets and with the evidence of the minutes that the opposition published a couple of days later, the regime did what it does best: entrench itself in power, repress and attack.”

Brazil

• Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva said he hopes the crisis surrounding the social network X in Brazil might teach the world that “it isn’t obliged to put up with [Elon] Musk’s far-right free-for-all just because he is rich”. (Guardian)

• The narrative of a clash of titans in Brazil between Supreme Court Judge Alexandre de Moraes and billionaire Elon Musk misses the real point, that the judge is upholding Brazilian legislation, writes Eliane Brum in El País. In the midst of the battle, isolated Amazon communities that depend on Musk’s satellite internet company for connection risk being cut off.

• “It is an opportunity to think about internet connectivity for what it is: a public policy that cannot be held hostage by an individual. Right now, in the largest rainforest on the planet, we are held hostage by Elon Musk’s Starlink. How the state has allowed this to happen is the most urgent question to address,” she writes. (El País)

• Starlink backtracked yesterday and said it will comply with the judicial order to block X, reports the Associated Press. It “was the first sign of any backing down by Mr. Musk in Brazil since he began battling with the authorities there last month,” reports the New York Times.

• The record-setting fires in Brazil are a sign of climate change, yet the issue remains off the political radar ahead of next month’s municipal elections, notes Sumauma in an editorial.

• A group of former Brazilian drug gang criminals have launched a new podcast series aimed at dissuading youths from following the same path, reports the Guardian.

Nicaragua

• A new United Nations report released yesterday detailed alleged crimes committed by Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega’s government, including an intensifying crackdown on dissent enforced with a new wave of arbitrary arrests and torture, reports Reuters.

• Nicaragua’s Ortega-controlled National Assembly approved criminal code changes that allow the government to try opponents in absentia and seize the assets of the condemned, giving a legal foundation to a practise that is already carried out by the government, reports the Associated Press.

Chile

• Chile’s Boric administration withdrew articles referring to gender and human rights from a proposal to create a Security Ministry, in response to opposition from right-wing parties to their inclusion. (La Tercera)

Colombia

• Truckers in major Colombian cities blocked highways to protest a recent increase in the price of diesel fuel, reports the Associated Press.

• “In the rugged Micay Canyon of southwestern Colombia, rebel groups have beefed up their presence over the past two years despite efforts by Colombian President Gustavo Petro to negotiate peace deals with these irregular armies under a strategy known as total peace,” reports the Associated Press.

Argentina

• Argentine President Javier Milei significantly reduced the scope of the country’s access to public information law, by presidential decree, on Monday. (El País)

• The visit by ruling-party lawmakers to jailed human rights violators “was one more step forward in the Milei administration's strategy to erase the memory of the repression committed against the Argentine people,” writes Daniel Cholakian in Nacla.

Peru

• Peruvian President Dina Boluarte shuffled her cabinet, but maintained some of the most controversial officials, according to El País.

• “At least two loggers have been shot dead with arrows, one has been injured and two more are missing after a confrontation with members of the “uncontacted” Mashco Piro people in the Peruvian Amazon,” reports the Guardian. Indigenous activists have criticized the government for failing to recognize and protect the isolated people’s territory.

Culture Corner

• Read your way through Buenos Aires - New York Times

• Mexican singer Jaramar Soto has dedicated a three-decade career to antique baroque music, part of Sephardic tradition, and it’s mixture with Mexican culture. (El País)