Franco assassination masterminds arrested
March 25, 2024
Brazilian police arrested three people in relation to the 2018 assassination of Rio de Janeiro councillor Marielle Franco. Officers arrested Chiquinho and Domingos Brazão — two brothers who once served on Rio’s City Council — on accusations that they ordered Franco’s murder to silence her battles against corruption. Former Rio police chief Rivaldo Barbosa was also detained yesterday.
According to the police investigation the Brazão brothers ordered the 2018 hit, while Barbosa helped with planning and later worked to sabotage the investigation, reports Reuters.
“The operation – named Murder, Inc – was launched at the crack of dawn on Sunday and came just over six years after the shooting of Franco and her driver, Anderson Gomes, caused an international outcry,” reports the Guardian. “The question, “Quem mandou matar Marielle?” (“Who ordered Marielle’s murder?”) has become a rallying cry for the Brazilian left, at protests and on social media, but for years that question has gone unanswered.”
Marille Franco’s sister, Anielle, the current minister of racial equality in the Lula administration, celebrated the arrests. “Only God knows how long we have dreamed of this day,” she said. “Today is another large step toward being able to get an answer to the question we’ve asked these last years: ‘Who ordered Mari’s killing, and why?’” (Washington Post)
Before her killing, Franco was a rising star in Brazilian politics, who spoke out against Rio de Janeiro’s notorious violence, “arguing it was rooted in deep inequality and a corrupt, brutal police force,” reports the New York Times. “She also took on Rio’s militias, the criminal paramilitary groups founded by former police officers that control many favelas and extort their residents.”
"This investigation is a kind of x-ray of how militias and organized crime operate in Rio de Janeiro and at how there is a, let's say, intertwining with some political bodies and some public bodies," said Brazilian Justice Minister Ricardo Lewandowski at a news conference yesterday.
Yoris to head Venezuelan opposition ticket
Venezuela’s opposition unity platform named Corina Yoris as its candidate for the July presidential election. Yoris, an 80-year-old philosophy professor who was off of the country’s political radar, will take the place of María Corina Machado, who won the opposition primary election by a landslide last year, but has been barred from running from office by the Maduro government.
“We have found a person of my total trust, honorable, who is going to fulfill this procedure,” Machado said Friday. “This was a decision that arose from within the discussion of the unitary forces and that gives us all confidence.” Analysts on Friday celebrated the unity of the often fractious Venezuelan opposition.
Yoris was a surprise replacement for Machado, named just ahead of today’s deadline for candidate registration. But today Yoris denounced that the National Electoral Council (CNE) has prevented her from registering, a move she said trampled on her civic rights.
On Friday Machado noted that previous to the announcement of Yoris’ candidacy, she had not been subject to a ban on running for office. Yoris was part of the group of civil society personalities that formed part of the opposition’s National Primary Commission and has an extensive academic resume.
Yoris emphasized in a press conference today that she is not a substitute candidate, though she is widely portrayed as a proxy for Machado. Previous to Friday, many analysts said a proxy candidate was the best way for Machado to access the ballot. In Venezuela political parties can substitute candidates up to 10 days before the election, if electoral authorities approve.
If she wins the election in July, Yoris said her first act as president will be to release Venezuela's political prisoners, who number at least 250 and include civilians and members of the military.
(El País, Efecto Cocuyo, Associated Press, Reuters, New York Times, Wall Street Journal)
Yoris’s attempt to run comes at a moment of great desire for change among many Venezuelans, but there is little leverage against the Maduro government, journalists Luz Mely Reyes and Boris Muñoz told Carlos Chamorro. (Confidencial)
More Venezuela
Venezuela's Maduro-loyal congress passed a law creating a federal state in the disputed oil-rich area of Essequibo across the border in Guyana. Guyana slammed the move as a "flagrant violation" of its sovereignty, on Friday. (AFP)
A former fighter pilot jailed in Venezuela in February for his ties to a prominent human rights attorney is an employee of U.S. oil firm Chevron, reports the Associated Press. A wave of repression by the Maduro government against critics is straining last year’s detente with the U.S. government.
Argentina commemorates coup — Milei justifies it
Tens of thousands of demonstrators marched in Argentina yesterday to commemorate the 48th anniversary of the last civilian-military dictatorship, which carried out a systematic plan of repression based on forced disappearances, torture and execution in which about 30,000 people were killed. Attendance at the annual march was galvanized by the denialism of President Javier Milei and government officials, reports AFP.
Yesterday Milei released a video calling for justice — not for the victims of state terrorism, but for victims of violence from illegal armed groups that preceded the 1976 coup. The video sought to portray the military’s repression as part of a wider context of conflict, a “dirty war" hypothesis that had been widely discredited but is making a comeback under the country’s right-wing government. (Associated Press)
“President Javier Milei and the highest authorities of the country repeat forms of denialism and relativism of state terrorism,” the Center of Legal and Social Studies (CELS), a human rights organization founded in 1979, said in a statement. CELS said tributes were now being paid in military barracks to regime officials convicted of crimes against humanity with the endorsement of the political authorities. (Guardian)
Last week a member of an activist group of children of victims of the dictatorship was attacked in her home, and one of the president’s favorite slogans (Viva la Libertad Carajo) was painted on her wall. The group said Milei had not called the victim or the organization to condemn the attack. Nor has he done so publicly. (Guardian)
More Argentina
An executive branch resolution by Argentina’s Milei admistration, broadening the scope for security agents’ use of firearms in a context of increased gang violence in Rosario, “counter to basic human rights standards and opens the door to abuse,” according to Human Rights Watch. “The resolution contains loopholes and ambiguities that could allow security officers to employ firearms in an unacceptably broad set of circumstances.”
One hundred days into Milei’s administration, it is an open question how far his voters “are willing to go to turn Argentina’s economy around,” writes Uki Goñi in a New York Times op-ed. “Milei may be testing the limits of Argentina’s on-and-off-again democracy to fulfill his dream of transforming it from a soft, populist, welfare- and social-rights-driven nation into a libertarian utopia...”
Haiti
An old story that Haitians made a deal with the Devil to gain freedom from the French in the 18th Century resurfaces periodically when the country faces turbulence. “Now, as criminal violence in Haiti spikes, its embattled prime minister prepares to step down and the United States tries once again to stand up a new government, the tale is resurfacing — aided, this time, by social media,” reports the Washington Post.
Colombia
Colombia’s Petro administration has genuine interest in the environment, but the government’s actual commitment to biodiversity is checkered, reports Americas Quarterly.
Migration
Facing a shortage of agricultural workers, Mexico is planning to soon open a database of 14,000 jobs in agriculture and other sectors to non-Mexicans, reports the Washington Post.
45% of Chileans are concerned about immigration in the country, the highest percentage among 29 countries surveyed globally by Ipsos. (Americas Migration Brief)
Anguilla
Anguilla has cashed in on the fortuitous fashion of its assigned internet domain “ai.” Companies interested in telegraphing they are at the fore of the artificial intelligence boom pay the British territory for internet addresses that end in “.ai” — last year, Anguilla’s government made about $32 million from those fees, more than 10 percent of territory’s GDP, reports the New York Times.