The U.S. military airlifted non-essential embassy personnel from Haiti, yesterday, and added troops to bolster embassy security, after dozens of heavily armed gang fighters tried to seize Port-au-Prince’s political quarter, reports the Guardian. EU and German representatives left for the Dominican Republic yesterday. (AFP)
Criminal groups intensified attacks on Friday, in an ongoing onslaught apparently aimed at toppling the embattled government of Prime Minister Ariel Henry, who has been trapped in Puerto Rico since last week, unable to return to Haiti.
“Haiti is on the brink of a total collapse or takeover of the state as violent criminal groups seeking to overthrow the government have attacked police officers and state institutions, including prisons,” Human Rights Watch warned on Friday.
“The streets of Port-au-Prince reek with the stench of the dead … a grisly new marker of the violence and dysfunction,” reports the Washington Post.
“The gangs might well emerge as the arbiter of Haiti’s immediate future,” said Haitian political scientist Robert Fatton. The chaos is such that “the situation is ripe for Haitians — victimized by the growing wave of unending violence, killings, kidnappings and rapes since the assassination of President Jovenel Moïse in 2021 — to welcome a ruthless authoritarian leader who promises to put an end to the bloodshed,” according to the Miami Herald.
Indeed, Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele — known for a controversial but popular security policy based on human rights violations and mass detentions — bragged he could “fix” Haiti, on social media yesterday, provided he obtains "a UNSC (United Nations Security Council) resolution, the consent of the host country, and all the mission expenses to be covered." (AFP)
“There is no shortage of candidates in Haiti who covet leadership. Some can make a case to a degree of legitimacy — former politicians, respected members of civic society, previous government officials. And some are essentially warlords with violent histories who have amassed a large armed following and are already laying a claim to leadership,” notes the Miami Herald, reviewing some of the main names.
The Guardian profiles on of the potential powerbrokers of the transition, former policeman turned criminal gang leader Jimmy Cherizier, many say his sobriquet “Barbecue” stems from a habit of incinerating his victims.
More Haiti
Caribbean leaders issued a call late on Friday for an emergency meeting Monday in Jamaica on what they called Haiti’s “dire” situation. They have invited the United States, France, Canada, the UN and Brazil to the meeting. (Guardian) U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken will be in attendance.
The United States and Caribbean leaders have been trying to convince Henry that to continue in power is “untenable,” reports the New York Times.
“Since President Aristide provided weapons to his supporters more than 20 years ago, collusion between political parties and criminal groups has been a constant in the country,” reports Liberátion. (via Etienne Côté-Paluck)
Maduro gov’t arrests a Machado campaign leader
Venezuela's attorney general announced the arrest of a regional campaign leader, Emill Brandt Ulloa, for opposition leader María Corina Machado, citing alleged conspiracy, among other crimes, reports Reuters. Machado is legally banned from running in the presidential elections now scheduled for July 28.
Machado has rejected naming a substitute to run for the unity opposition platform, saying the ban against her is unconstitutional, reports Efecto Cocuyo.
The Maduro government has proved inflexible on the issue — despite agreements with the opposition and the United States signed in October, and has targeted Macahdo allies and members of civil society in a repressive crackdown against critical voices in recent weeks. (El País)
In January, three regional leaders of Machado's team were arrested and linked to an alleged conspiracy against the government, according to information from the attorney general's office.
More Venezuela
“Only high abstention, or the fracture of the opposition, can save them (Chavismo) from an imminent electoral debacle,” argues Machado ally Andrés Caleca on social media. (via Geoff Ramsey)
Regional Relations
Former British Prime Minister Boris Johnson flew to Venezuela last month to meet with President Nicolás Maduro, in unofficial talks. He discussed Russia and Ukraine with a president whose legitimacy is not recognized by Britain — and he says David Cameron knew, according to the Sunday Times which broke the story yesterday.
Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva’s innovative foreign policy — a centerpiece of his third mandate — focuses on giving voice to the Global South, and non-alignment with the great powers, while maintaining good relations with the U.S., China and Russia. But his efforts are often misinterpreted in the West, more focused on a Cold War perspective, I write in Cenital.
“When one has a unilateral position, anything that others say is misunderstood,” Lula’s chief foreign policy advisor Celso Amorim told me. “What I see is a more complicated world, with more closed spaces. As if it were a game, a jigsaw puzzle in which the pieces are very close, not fitted together, but very close, and where the space to act is less.” (Cenital)
Russia is actively promoting “neutrality” and nonalignment in the region, leveraging trade and digital media to build on existing skepticism of the U.S. in Latin America, write Ryan Berg and Rubi Bledsoe in Americas Quarterly.
If Lula’s focus is engagement with Latin America, his neighbor to the south, Argentine President Javier Milei is trending the opposite way, writes Juan Tokatlian, also in Cenital. Milei’s disdain for the region is unprecedented, even compared to predecesors like Carlos Menem and Mauricio Macri whose diplomacy was more focused on the “First World.”
Argentina
“Milei has rescinded a 48% raise for himself and his cabinet following backlash over the increase and his claim that it was automatic despite signing the decree authorizing it. News of the salary increase, the president’s response, the backlash, and the announced decree annulments all happened on” social media over the weekend, reports the Buenos Aires Herald.
A series of point blank assassinations in the Argentine city of Rosario has the city in upheaval over drug gang violence — public transportation workers are on strike, joined by other unions in protest, and the federal government is sending security reinforcements. It is believed the killings are related to a crackdown within prisons, involving Bukele style images of stripped down inmates croweded on the floor at gunpoint. (Cenital)
Honduras
Former Honduran president Juan Orlando Hernández was convicted of cocaine trafficking by a jury in U.S. federal court, Friday. He faces a mandatory minimum sentence of 40 years in prison, reports the Guardian.
“The verdict concluded a dramatic three-week trial, during which witnesses testified that Hernández accepted millions of dollars of bribes from criminal groups and used the presidency and key state institutions to protect drug traffickers,” reports InSight Crime.
Mexico
Mexican police officers shot and killed a student from the Ayotzinapa rural teachers college last week. “The episode comes at a moment of increased tension between the government and students at the college, which is linked to one of the worst atrocities in Mexico’s recent history,” reports the New York Times. (See Friday’s briefs for Alma Guillermoprieto’s account of the Ayotzinapa 43.)
Cuba
“The Cuban government announced it is investigating the recently fired economy minister Alejandro Gil for suspicion of corruption and has arrested one of the most successful private entrepreneurs on the island in a connected case,” reports the Miami Herald.
Regional
“Cities across Latin America were cloaked in purple Friday as hundreds of thousands of women marched to commemorate International Women’s Day, coming at a moment of change in a region marred by soaring levels of violence against women,” reports the Associated Press.
“According to figures from the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean, a woman is killed for gender-related reasons in the continent every two hours.” (Associated Press)
Dengue “is ripping through much of South America, where scientists say rising temperatures due to climate change have both extended the territorial range of the mosquito that carries dengue and increased its proliferation,” reports the Washington Post.
Culture Corner
The once-sleepy Colombian town of Aracataca, writer Gabriel García Márquez’s hometown, has been transformed “a sort of Gabolandia,” rife with references to his work and images of yellow butterflies, reports the New York Times.