Nicaragua under investigation for abuses
Dec. 11, 2024
The U.S. Biden administration is opening an investigation into labor and human rights abuses in Nicaragua, amid growing concerns over President Daniel Ortega’s increasingly authoritarian rule. The move impacts relations with a country the U.S. has a free trade deal with — the Central America Free Trade Agreement — and could result in retaliatory actions, reports the Associated Press.
The investigation could lead to penalties or even reimpose tariffs on certain goods. It could also lead to the temporary suspension of CAFTA-DR or treaty renegotiation, Inter-American Dialogue investigator Manuel Orozco told El País. The U.S. is Nicaragua’s main trade partner: 55 percent of Nicaragua’s exports go to the U.S. under CAFTA-DR and 30 percent of Nicaragua’s imports come from the U.S.
Nicaragua
The Nicaragua Never Again Human Rights Collective said that it had documented the torture of 183 men and 46 women out of some 2,000 people arrested in connection to 2018 anti-government protests. In a report, the NGO, which is based in neighboring Costa Rica, said at least 178 of those who testified reported suffering abuse such as beatings, beatings with weapons, rape, death threats and threats or aggression against family members, reports Reuters.
Mexico
Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum asked governors of states bordering the U.S. to prepare for an onslaught of migrant deportations, in response to reiterated threats from U.S. president-elect Donald Trump. (El País)
A Mexican congressman of the ruling Morena party was assassinated yesterday in his homestate of Veracruz — the latest example of political violence afflicting Mexico. (Guardian)
Venezuela
Venezuela’s political opposition signaled openness toward a flexible timeline for a government transition — a shift from its previous insistence on Jan. 10, when the new presidential term begins. “The move underscores the challenges the opposition coalition faces to deliver on its promise to remove President Nicolás Maduro from office, even as dozens of nations back the faction’s claim to victory and denounce the government for electoral fraud,” reports the Associated Press.
Opposition leader María Corina Machado, who is in hiding in Venezuela, asked Chilean President Gabriel Boric for support in the case of the six political aides living under siege in the Argentine embassy residences, reports El País. She called for international recognition of Edmundo González as the legitimate president of Venezuela after Jan. 10.
Venezuela’s government is attempting to boost its economy by building tourism infrastructure, and in doing so is doing environmental damage to ecologically-delicate areas, especially fragile Caribbean coral reefs already threatened by climate change, reports Reuters.
Haiti
Members of the gang run by Micanor Altès, also known as Monel Felix and Wa Mikanò, were yesterday still persecuting residents of the Port-au-Prince neighborhood where they slaughtered more than 180 people last Friday and Saturday, reports the Associated Press. (See Monday’s post.)
The massacre and grim reports of what happened “highlight the depth of criminal control in the country’s capital, Port-au-Prince, where a largely absent state has left citizens exposed to depraved gang attacks,” reports InSight Crime.
Brazil
Criminal gangs are operating in over a third of municipalities in Brazil’s Amazon rainforest driving a boom in violence, according to new report by the Brazilian Forum on Public Safety. (Associated Press)
Around 80% of Brazil’s leading beef and cow leather companies and their financiers have made no commitments to stop deforestation, according to a new report by Global Canopy. (Associated Press)
Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva’s health scare this week has put a spotlight on the three-time leader’s centrality for the country’s left — and the vacuum his absence would create, reports Reuters.
Trinidad and Tobago
A push to give Tobago more self-governance was defeated in the Trinidad and Tobago parliament. Local politicians described it as a major setback in a decades-long battle for more political and economic independence, reports the Guardian.
Argentina
Argentine President Javier Milei marked his one year anniversary — and international human rights day — with a decree eliminating Indigenous group’s legal protections from eviction from ancestral territories. (Página 12)
International markets are enthusiastic about Milei, and that optimism is likely to last at least another year, but “don’t mistake a great 2025 and 2026 for Argentina becoming a developed market,” warns James Bosworth in Latin America Risk Report. “Don’t confuse the boom years of a boom-bust cycle with being a permanent escape from that cycle. Argentina remains Argentina.” (See yesterday’s briefs.)
Milei’s success over the past year has rested on his tackling inflation, but his points of weakness remain the economy, poverty and his anti-alliance political style, argues Carlos Pagni in El País.
The Argentine president’s push for extraction and cuts to land protections have left people fearing for their way of life – and environmentalists concerned about the future, reports the Guardian.
Regional
“Dengue fever is sweeping across the Caribbean and the Americas, with a record 12.6 million suspected cases of the mosquito-transmitted virus reported this year,” reports the Associated Press.
Critter Corner
Scientists have detected fentanyl in three bottlenose dolphin populations off Mexico’s coast - El País