Haiti
An international mission to assist Haiti’s embattled security forces will likely deploy early this year. Foreign assistance is necessary, “but the mission must overcome daunting operational and political challenges for it to be effective,” warns the Crisis Group in a new report.
“Major challenges lie in wait for the mission once it is on the ground. Haiti’s gangs could ally to battle it together. Fighting in Haiti’s ramshackle urban neighbourhoods will put innocent civilians at risk. Links between corrupt police and the gangs could make it difficult to maintain operational secrecy. For all these reasons, preparation will be of critical importance.” (Crisis Group)
Deployment should occur with “sufficient troops, training and equipment to overpower the gangs” and “should prepare for urban combat, and develop community-level sources of intelligence, to help minimise civilian harm. A political settlement and major reforms will be required for gains to endure.” (Crisis Group)
Ecuador
Ecuadorean President Daniel Noboa announced the construction of two new maximum security prisons that will mimic the mega-detention center built by the Bukele administration in El Salvador as part of a crackdown on gangs. (AFP)
Noboa said he would seek to hold a referendum on imposing tighter security measures in response to the country’s acute security crisis. The referendum would seek approval from voters on lengthening prison sentences for serious crimes like homicide and arms trafficking, among others, as well for Ecuador's military to eradicate international criminal groups operating in the country. (Reuters)
“Homicide statistics don’t tell the whole story about a country’s pattern of violence. But the record-setting figures seen in Ecuador in the past year underscore the depth of the security crisis driven by organized crime,” explains InSight Crime in a new report.
Colombia
Colombian President Gustavo Petro has put environmental justice at the center of his agenda, the setbacks he has encountered “say a lot about the challenges that countries of the Global South encounter when trying to leave extractive industries behind and decarbonize their economies,” according to Jacobin.
Guatemala
Guatemalan president-elect Bernardo Arévalo met yesterday Honduran President Xiomara Castro, saying he would seek to work together in "defense of democracy" when he assumes office in ten days. (AFP)
Former Guatemalan President Otto Pérez Molina, convicted of fraud and conspiracy, was released from prison more than eight years after his resignation and arrest to wait out his appeal or confirmation of his sentence, reports the Associated Press.
Argentina
Argentina’s peso has been weakening in parallel markets, risking fanning inflation already estimated to have surpassed 200% last month. The Milei administration will meet with IMF officials on Monday, reports Bloomberg.
Forrest Hylton condenses Argentine history in a nutshell in order to understand the current context, concluding that “since Perón, there has been no way for wealthy Argentinians to disappear el pueblo from politics. Neoliberalism and heavy policing are (once again) the tools being deployed to remove Peronism, along with hard-won labour and social rights, so that markets will be able to perform their magic, and individual citizens will at last be free from the sin of ‘collectivism’ to accumulate wealth and property.
“And yet, however spent Peronism may be as a political force, the CGT will not go quietly into the night, and nor will Argentina’s militant labour and social movements,” he writes in the London Review of Books.
El Salvador
El Salvador’s government tore down the Reconciliation Monument, a symbol of the end of a bloody civil war that took place between 1980 and 1992, which President Nayib Bukele branded "unsightly" and an apology for pacts between the left and right, reports AFP.
Brazil
Brazil’s success as a fintech hub has made it a hotspot for financial crime, reports the Economist.
Brazil’s Superior Electoral Court has published a draft resolution proposing new regulations for use of AI in electoral campaigns, to be discussed in public hearings later this month, according to the Brazil Report.
Suriname
Suriname’s highest court upheld a 20-year prison sentence against former military dictator Desi Bouterse on Dec. 20. Bouterse was convicted of murder in 2019 for the 1982 killings of 15 political opponents, involving lawyers, journalists, businessmen, and military personnel, two years after Bouterse took power following a coup. (Just Caribbean Updates)
Panama
The union representing workers at First Quantum's copper mine in Panama “warned of another union's plan to "invade" the site next week, the latest face-off over the now-shuttered mine that provoked nationwide protests last year,” reports Reuters.
Regional
“Latin America’s economies continued to be the worst-performing in the developing world in 2023. To boost economic growth, the region’s political leaders must increase their investments in science and technology, foster regional integration, and reaffirm their commitment to democratic governance,” argues José Antonio Ocampo in Project Syndicate.
Mexico
Mexico will hold the largest general election in its history in a single-round vote on June 2. Voters will elect candidates for president, all 128 seats in the Senate, all 500 seats in the Chamber of Deputies, nine governors and thousands of local offices. Americas Quarterly profiles the two main presidential candidates: Xóchitl Gálvez and Claudia Sheinbaum.
A cartel set up internet atennas its own makeshift internet antennas in several Michoacán state towns, using stolen equipment, and told locals they had to pay to use its wifi service or they would be killed, according to prosecutors. (Associated Press)
Histories
Historians have generally assumed that the transatlantic slave trade ended in 1867, but new research found it actually continued into the following decade, reports the Guardian.
“Photographer and visual storyteller Annie Grossinger has used her own pictures and archival photos to reconstruct the career of her grandfather and CIA station chief John Dougherty, who was linked to the 1954 CIA-sponsored coup in Guatemala. Her book, Serpent Tongue, offers a personal narrative about this dark period in the history of the two nations,” reports the Guardian.
Critter Corner
“Two mycologists have embarked on a research expedition in the unprotected rainforests of the upper Amazon. Their mission is to meticulously document some of the world’s rarest fungi, which have been rapidly declining due to changes in climate, illegal logging and mining,” reports the Guardian.