Latin America Daily Briefing

Jan. 17, 2025

El Salvador

• About 2,000 Salvadorans demonstrated on Sunday in San Salvador to demand the release of their family members “unjustly” imprisoned during President Nayib Bukele’s anti-gang war, in effect since 2022, reports the AFP.

Haiti

• In 2024 “Haiti’s crisis has reached catastrophic levels, with allied criminal groups intensifying large-scale, coordinated attacks on the population and key state infrastructure, nearly paralyzing much of the country and worsening the already dire human rights and humanitarian situation,” Human Rights Watch said in its newly released World Report 2025.

Guatemala

• InSight Crime has an in-depth investigation on the challenges facing Guatemalan President Bernardo Arévalo, whose administration is hamstrung by the entrenched “Pact of the Corrupt,” a network of graft that encompasses much of the judicial and political system.

• Among the takeaways from the report: “There is no simple means of overhauling corrupt institutions. With corruption so entrenched, any attempt to meaningfully purge institutions under the executive’s purview could leave the government with insufficient staff to perform basic functions. In some cases, ministers have continued to employ technical staff suspected of corruption, simply because the

  government could not find an adequate replacement. In other cases, bureaucratic hurdles have prevented ministries from firing officials accused of corruption. This presents a paradoxical scenario, in which respecting due process may actually make it harder for the executive branch to clean house.”

Colombia

• Colombian President Gustavo Petro heads into the final year of his term in a challenging environment — Congress has passed few laws, and blocked most of his signature reform efforts. “Proposals regarding health and labor reforms will be considered this semester, two years after the first versions were presented, and no one is betting that Petro will be successful,” writes Ricardo Ávila in Americas Quarterly.

Ecuador

• Ecuador’s violent security crisis needs judicial reform to tackle its roots: “While Daniel Noboa’s government has had some success bringing the murder rate down, it hasn’t done the less glamorous work of shoring up the country’s weak justice system to fight criminals in accordance with the law,” writes Human Rights Watch Americas Director Juanita Goebertus in Americas Quarterly. “This, rather than bellicose rhetoric and shows of force that threaten human rights, should be the priority moving forward. There’s much that Noboa, or whoever wins next month’s election, can do.”

• Noboa is three points shy of a first round win in February’s presidential elections, 47.1%, according to a Comunicaliza poll. Support for his socialist rival Luisa Gonzalez rose to 33% from 29.3%, the poll found. (Bloomberg)

Regional Relations

• “Despite the aggressive rhetoric of Trump and his cabinet, their approach to tackling organized crime in Latin America is unlikely to yield substantial or lasting changes to criminal dynamics in the region,” according to InSight Crime.

• Experts say designating Mexican cartels as terrorist organizations — as Secretary of State nominee Marco Rubio defended this week in the Senate — wouldn’t give the U.S. many more tools to go after organized crime, and that it may simply be a threat to force more action from Mexico itself, reports the Guardian. (See yesterday’s post.)

• Guatemalan President Bernardo Arévalo told the Associated Press he anticipates issues like immigration will generate tension with the incoming Trump administration, but also sees shared interests.

• Much of Venezuela’s organized crime future hinges on what the incoming U.S. administration’s approach is, writes Jeremy McDermott in InSight Crime. “If he continues the hard-line policies of his first term, then sanctions on Venezuelan oil and gold are likely to force Maduro to use allies like China and Russia to purchase these commodities and illegal international brokers to circumvent sanctions.”

Venezuela

• Venezuela inflation was 48% annually in 2024, the lowest in 12 years, President Nicolas Maduro told lawmakers in an annual address to the national assembly and other officials this week. (Reuters)

• “The Venezuelan government has engaged in overt repression to stifle dissent and cling to power,” said Juanita Goebertus, Americas director at Human Rights Watch, in the context of the newly released 2025 report. “Maduro’s swearing

  in is the culmination of an election that blatantly disregarded the people’s will, and solidifies Venezuela’s consolidation of authoritarianism.” (See Monday’s post)

• Venezuela’s renowned system for teaching music to children from disadvantaged backgrounds, “El Sistema,” is about to reach its 50th anniversary, and the the Simón Bolívar Symphony Orchestra of Venezuela is on tour for a sold-out, nine-concert anniversary tour. Amid calls for boycotts by critics of Nicolás Maduro who say the program is a political organization, Marshall Marcus defends the transformative power of El Sistema. (Guardian)

Nicaragua

• Exiled Nicaraguan singer and “artivist” Olguita Acuña says she has a duty to raise awareness of her country’s situation - Guardian

Flora and Fauna

• Vanilla – the world’s second-most expensive spice after saffron – has emerged as a lifeline for Colombian communities long gripped by hardship, reports the Guardian. In Choco, vanilla has long grown wild, but until recently local farmers were unaware of its commercial and financial value.

• Animals found hitchhiking around the world on cut flowers sold internationally — like a tiny Colombian tree frog that traveled to the UK on a bunch of roses — are just the tip of the iceberg: “imported cut flowers and pot plants are becoming an increasing risk for invasive species,” reports the Guardian.