Panama-U.S. agree to deport Darién migrants
July 2, 2024
Panama’s new president José Raúl Mulino took office yesterday — and immediately signed a deal with the U.S. to reduce migration across the Darién Gap. Under the new agreement, the U.S. will pay for flights and assist Panama in deporting migrants who make the treacherous crossing across the jungle from Colombia.
“I won’t allow Panama to be an open path for thousands of people who enter our country illegally, supported by an international organization related to drug trafficking and human trafficking,” Mulino said during his inauguration speech.
Under the terms of the agreement, U.S. Homeland Security teams on the ground in Panama would help the government there train personnel and build up its own expertise and ability to determine which migrants, under Panama’s immigration laws, could be removed from the country, reports the Associated Press.
U.S. Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas, who Mulino’s inauguration yesterday, said the agreement is part of "a regional response" to migration.
The Darién is increasingly the focal point of migration advocacy, as the previously impassable isthmus has morphed into a migrant superhighway under the aegis of organized crime groups. More than half a million people traversed the corridor last year and more than 190,000 people have crossed so far in 2024, notes the Associated Press.
The agreement “underscores how much the U.S. — under Democratic and Republican administrations — has come to rely on other countries to reduce migrant crossings along its southern border,” according to CBS News.
Maduro announces negotiations with the U.S.
Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro said his government plans to resume negotiations with the U.S. Maduro said he had received offers from the U.S. Biden administration over the past two months, and had decided to accept.
"Next Wednesday, negotiations with the United States will resume," Maduro said on state television.
The unilateral announcement comes ahead of a closely watched presidential election later this month. Opinion polls favor a major opposition coalition, but few believe that the Maduro government, which has repeatedly carried out repression against critics, will simply bow out.
The U.S. granted Venezuela’s government relief from crippling economic sanctions after Maduro reached an agreement with the opposition last year laying out a minimum framework for democratic elections. But the U.S. reinstated the sanctions in response to the Maduro government’s failure to keep its end of the bargain.
(Associated Press, AFP, Reuters)
More Venezuela
Polling indicates that Venezuela’s Chavista government would lose presidential elections later this month — if they are held under credible conditions. The International Crisis Group spoke with government insiders to gauge potential reactions to a defeat.
“… The best way for foreign governments and the opposition to avert turmoil would be to prepare for intensive but discreet diplomacy that acknowledges the fears of those who may lose power. … The slender possibility of a peaceful election and a handover of power will depend on a balance that will be hard to achieve: a genuine battle for votes, combined with assurances from domestic political forces and foreign powers that the vote is not life-threatening to chavismo and its leaders. (International Crisis Group)
Regional Relations
Bolivia’s government summoned the Argentine ambassador to address the Argentine govenrment’s claim that an attempted military coup in Bolivia last week was a hoax. Argentine Presidnet Javier Milei attacked Bolivia’s history of socialist governments, which he said endangers democracy, reports the Associated Press.
Milei will visit Brazil this weekend. He will attend CPAC Brazil, a conservative gathering where the Argentine leader will meet with former President Jair Bolsonaro, rather than Brazil’s current leader, President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva. (Reuters)
Further, Milei will avoid the July 8 Mercosur Summit in Paraguay, ostensibly due to scheduling issues, but Argentine media reports it’s in ordre to avoid meeting with his Brazilian counterpart, who the Argentine leader has excoriated ideologically, calling him a “perfectly idiotic dinosaur.” In a post on social media today Milei defended his previous criticism of Lula as “corrupt” and “communist.” (Buenos Aires Herald, Ámbito) Last week Lula indicated he expected an apology from Milei ahead of any meeting. (Página 12)
Satellite imagery analyzed by CSIS analyzes potential areas of Chinese activity in Cuba, “an unprecedented look at four active sites in Cuba capable of conducting electronic surveillance operations.”
InSight Crime was cited in the U.S. government’s sentencing submission against Juan Orlando Hernández.
Brazil
Brazil’s national data protection authority ordered Meta to stop using Instagram and Facebook posts to train generative artificial intelligence systems in the country. The authority set a daily fine in case of non-compliance. (Reuters, Brazilian Report)
“Violence increased in parts of northern Brazil over the past decade as criminal factions, bolstered by mass incarceration, fought over emerging cocaine trafficking routes in this region,” reports InSight Crime based on the newly released Atlas of Violence 2024.
“As criminal groups combine forces with miners in Brazil’s Yanomami Indigenous Territory, officials have found it more difficult to control the spread of crime and violence that have killed hundreds of Yanomami,” reports Mongabay.
A series of book bans targeting volumes with race, gender and LGBTQ+ themes have proliferated in recent years in Brazil. “Although scattered through different states and cities, the cases have a common factor: there are usually politicians behind them, and in most cases, they support the former far-right president Jair Bolsonaro,” reports the Guardian.
Regional
At least four people have died as Hurricane Beryl wreaked “almost complete destruction” on small and vulnerable islands in the Caribbean since Sunday. The hurricane has strengthened to Category 5 and is heading to Jamaica, after causing massive destruction in Granada and St. Vincent and the Grenadines. Hundreds of buildings, including homes, schools, hospitals and police stations, have been badly damaged or completely destroyed, reports the Guardian.
Beryl was forecast to start losing intensity today but still to be near major hurricane strength when it passes near Jamaica on Wednesday, the Cayman Islands on Thursday and Mexico’s Yucatan Peninsula on Friday, according to the National Hurricane Center. (Associated Press)
In just days Hurricane Beryl intensified from a tropical storm to a Category 5 hurricane, a "quick escalation that “was a direct result of the above-average sea surface temperatures as well as a harbinger of what is to come this hurricane season,” reports the New York Times.
Mexico
“Mexican officials investigating videos shared on social media showing bodies in a dumper truck have found 19 corpses in La Concordia, in the southern state of Chiapas,” reports the BBC. (See yesterday’s briefs.)
Chile
A Chilean-American filed a criminal complaint against Chile’s government, alleging that it engaged in a systematic plan to steal thousands of babies from perceived enemies of the state in the 1970s and 1980s. The case “aims to advance the task of Chilean prosecutors and human rights groups working on accountability for crimes committed under Gen. Augusto Pinochet,” reports the Associated Press.
Critter Corner
High Country News reports on efforts to conserve the phalarope, a bird species that migrates all along the Western Hemisphere via salt lakes — and collaborative efforts by scientists in the U.S. and Argentina to protect it and its ecosystem.