Former Venezuelan presidential candidate Edmundo González Urrutia said he was forced to sign a letter recognizing President Nicolás Maduro as the victor in July’s elections.
González, who is now in exile in Spain, said in a video posted yesterday on social media that he was required to sign the letter before being permitted to leave the country. Gonzalez said he was met at the Spanish embassy in Caracas, where he was sheltering, by Venezuelan Vice President Delcy Rodriguez and her brother Jorge Rodriguez, president of the National Assembly, who gave him the letter to sign.
Spain denied involvement in negotiations between González and the Venezuelan government regarding the letter.
(Efecto Cocuyo, Associated Press, Reuters, Reuters, Guardian)
Opposition leader María Corina Machado believes that Maduro’s government subjected 75-year-old González to a psychological terror that pushed him into exile, reports El País.
Electronic tally sheets obtained by González’s political coalition and verified by independent audits appear to prove he won the July 28 election by a landslide.
The European Parliament recognized González as Venezuela’s democratically elected president, in a non-binding resolution today. (Efecto Cocuyo)
Colombia suspends ELN talks
Colombia’s government suspended peace talks with the National Liberation Army (ELN) armed group, after an attack on a military base killed two soldiers and injured 25 more. (See yesterday’s post.)
“During these months the government has sent the ELN multiple proposals. Today the dialogue process is suspended. Its viability is severely damaged, and its continuity can only be recovered with an unequivocal manifestation of the ELN’s will for peace,” said the government’s peace delegation in a statement that did not completely close the door to the process, notes EFE.
The ELN, ended a cease-fire with the Colombian government in August, but was still involved in peace talks aimed at ending more than five decades of conflict, reports the Associated Press. The talks had been in crisis for months after the government decided to begin separate negotiations with a unit in the southwest of the country that had split from the rest of the ELN, reports Reuters.
“The collapse of negotiations with the ELN suggests that Petro’s Total Peace plan may be taking its last breath, as the ELN continues to consolidate power along the Colombian-Venezuelan border,” according to InSight Crime. The ELN is protected in Venezuela, where it maintains a relationship with President Nicolás Maduro and is involved in various criminal economies, including drug trafficking, mining, and extortion.
Brazil
The X social network suddenly went live again for many across Brazil, yesterday, after three weeks of being blocked under orders from Brazil’s Supreme Court. The reestablishment of service responds to a technical change in how X routes its internet traffic, enabling the site to evade internet provides’ digital roadblocks, reports the New York Times.
X said the change was inadvertent, but Supreme Court Justice Alexandre de Moraes – who ordered the original ban as part of an attempt to crack down on anti-democratic, far-right voices – described the move as a deliberate attempt “to circumvent the court’s blocking order,” reports the Guardian.
Brazil’s Supreme Court will impose a fine of about $1 million per day on X and satellite internet provider Starlink after service to the social media platform was temporarily restored, reports the Financial Times.
Haiti
Haiti’s government created a provisional electoral council yesterday - albeit with only 7 of the legally required 9 members. Haiti has not had elections since 2016, and the interim government that took power in April has been tasked with organizing elections next year, in order for a new government to assume office in February 2026. (Associated Press)
The council already has representatives for seven seats that represent religious groups, journalists, farmers and unions, the prime minister's office said, yesterday. The two remaining seats, one for human rights organizations and another for women's rights organizations, still lack a delegate, reports Reuters.
Haitian Prime Minister Garry Conille and Edgard Leblanc Fils, the head of the nine-member Transitional Presidential Council, will be in New York next week for the United Nations General Assembly, as the United Nations Security Council analyzes the next steps for the multinational security support mission in Haiti. (Miami Herald)
United Nations Secretary General António Guterres lamented the lack of financing for the multinational security support mission led by Kenya, which suffers from underfunding, understaffing and lack of equipment. (Miami Herald)
Mexico
Mexican lawmakers are discussing a reform that would put the civilian National Guard under military auspices. The government attempted a similar shift last year, but was rebuffed by the Supreme Court, reports El País.
The reform flies in the face of the spirit of the National Guard’s creation as a civilian security force in 2019, reports Animal Político.
The militarization of internal security is severely problematic in terms of human rights, warns the Centro ProDH. (Animal Político)
Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador called on former Secretary of Public Security Genaro García Luna, who was convicted on drug trafficking charges in the United States last year, present evidence to support his accusations that AMLO has links to drug trafficking. (Associated Press)
Peru
Peruvian President Dina Boluarte declared a state of emergency in three regions affected by devastating forest fires that have burned through swathes of the nation's Andean and Amazonian crop lands and left 16 dead.
Cuba
Upwards of 600,000 people in Cuba - more than 1 in 20 of the population - are suffering from water supply issues, adding to the misery provoked by food and medicine shortages, reports Reuters.
Regional
A former CIA officer who drugged and sexually assaulted dozens of women was sentenced to 30 years in prison, yesterday. The assaults date back to 2006 and took place in multiple countries, including Mexico and Peru, reports the Guardian.
Migration
“Guatemala’s circular migration offers legal, safer pathways for workers to make a living in the US and support their home communities – surely a better alternative to the migration crisis in the Americas,” reports the Guardian.