Santa Marta Five on trial en ES
Oct. 10, 2024
A trial against five environmental activists in El Salvador, who are accused of a civil-war crime, started on Tuesday. The case against Miguel Ángel Gámez, Alejandro Laínez García, Pedro Antonio Rivas Laínez, Antonio Pacheco and Saúl Agustín Rivas Ortega “has proceeded in almost total secrecy amid widespread allegations of legal violations,” reports the Guardian.
The defendants are five anti-mining activists who helped secure a historic mining ban in El Salvador in 2017. They led a 13-year grassroots-led campaign to ban metal mining to protect the country’s water and farmland from further contamination. They had denounced suspicious land sales and mining interests operating in the Cabañas department.
But the “Santa Marta Five” were arrested in January of this year on charges of “illicit association”in relation to an alleged murder that took place in 1989, during the country’s civil war. (Nacla, Frontline Defenders)
In a letter to the government in March 2023, a group of UN special rapporteurs and the vice-president of the UN working group on arbitrary detention, said: “We fear that the case is an attempt to intimidate those who seek to defend the environment in the country, and especially those who defend human rights from the negative impacts of mining.”
“Bukele’s interest in mining is part of a broader effort to secure international investment for industries that include bitcoin, tourism and fossil fuel exploration – which environmental experts say risk generating forced displacement, social conflict and water shortages,” reports the Guardian.
Critics of the case against the Santa Marta Five “have highlighted not only the Salvadoran government's failure to show any proof of the men's guilt, but also the fact that perpetrators of civil war-related crimes are protected under a 1992 amnesty agreement between the government and FMLN,” notes Brett Wilkins at Common Dreams.
Sheinbaum’s security strategy
Mexico's new Sheinbaum administration presented its plan to combat violence and crime, vowing to strengthen the National Guard police force and boost intelligence gathering in a bid to reduce murders, kidnappings and extortion. Security Minister Omar Garcia Harfuch outlined a four-pronged approach that will also focus on treating the economic and social causes of crime and improving coordination between crime-fighting institutions, reports Reuters.
While the Associated Press portrays the plan largely as a continuation of the previous government’s, Animal Político is more nuanced: of the four axes, two continue policies of the AMLO administration — attention to the causes of violence and consolidation of the National Guard — while two represent innovations — strengthening intelligence and investigation; and coordination between institutions of the Security Cabinet and state authorities.
More Mexico
Four mayors asked Mexican national authorities for protection after a Guerrero state mayor was assassinated. (Associated Press)
Mexican Economy Secretary Marcelo Ebrard suggested his country will actively take the U.S. side in looming trade battles with China. (Associated Press)
Haiti
The death toll in a brutal gang attack last Friday in the Haitian town of Pont-Sondé has risen to 115, reports the Associated Press. The victims included babies, young mothers and the elderly, with the gang approaching Pont-Sondé via canoes to catch residents by surprise, according to a local human rights group. (See last Friday’s post.)
Gunmen invaded another town north of Port-au-Prince today, shooting at people and setting homes on fire. Residents in the coastal town of Arcahaie called radio stations pleading for help and asking that police come and save them. (Associated Press)
Colombia
Colombian President Gustavo Petro has denounced an investigation by electoral authorities into his campaign financing as a coup attempt. But “political reality and judicial timeframes make it impossible to oust the president before his mandate ends,” writes Juanita León in Silla Vacía. Though it is convenient to certain interests to “weaken the president with a judicial investigation, very few people would be interested in seeing it go so far as to abort the presidential mandate.”
“In Quibdó, Colombia, local criminal gangs have put women in their crosshairs because of their links to rival groups, resorting to gender-based violence as a strategy for territorial control,” reports InSight Crime.
Argentina
Argentina's Chamber of Deputies failed to obtain the two-thirds majority required to reverse President Javier Milei's veto of a law that would have boosted university funding. The vote is a victory for Milei, who has a small minority in Congress, but has allied with conservative lawmakers. (Reuters)
Milei told the Financial Times that setting a fixed timeframe to scrap currency controls, in keeping with a campaign promise, is contrary to his libertarian philosophy: “I cannot set dates because I don’t think like a central planner. We think in terms of a regime of freedom.”
Brazil
Brazilians are back on Twitter, reports the Associated Press. (See yesterday’s post.)
Guatemala
Nine press freedom organizations called for the release of Guatemalan journalist José Ruben Zamora, who has spent 800 days in detention since his July 29, 2002 arrest on charges of money laundering charges—which international organizations describe as arbitrary and politically motivated. (Committee to Protect Journalists)
Ecuador
Ecuador’s President Daniel Noboa’s reelection hopes have been hard hit by electricity blackouts and difficult progress reducing the country’s violent crime, reports Americas Quarterly.
The U.S. State Department said it has barred former Ecuador President Rafael Correa and former Vice President Jorge Glas from entry into the United States due to involvement in corruption, reports Reuters.
Regional
“Soy is big business in South America, which now produces more than half of the planet’s supply following 50 years of extraordinary growth—a truly epic story that involves technological innovation, both the helping hand and the hindrance of government, and the rise of middle classes half a world away,” reports Americas Quarterly. “The question facing the industry today is whether those days of heady expansion are over.,”
“Economic growth across Latin America and the Caribbean is seen slowing to 1.9% this year from 2.1% in 2023 before accelerating again in 2025, according to the World Bank, which warned in a report that the region has so far missed the opportunity for growth brought on by global changes to supply chains.” - Reuters
Migration
Sister Rosita Milesi, a Brazilian nun who has helped refugees and migrants for 40 years, won the Nansen prize awarded every year by the U.N. High Commission for Refugees for outstanding work to protect internally displaced and stateless people. (Reuters)
Flora
A reforestation project in Rio de Janeiro has developed, over nearly forty years, to become a public policy with important social and environmental impact. The programme, known today as Refloresta Rio (Reforest Rio), has transformed the city’s landscape. “Reforested sites include mangroves and vegetation-covered sandbars called restinga, as well as wooded mountainsides around favelas,” reports the Guardian.