US sanctions former Haitian president Martelly

Aug. 21, 2024

The United States has imposed sanctions on former Haitian president Michel Martelly, “for his role in the global illicit drug trade,” the State Department said yesterday. Martelly lives in Miami but maintains a prominent political profile in Haiti, reports the Miami Herald. He served from 2011 to 2016, a period of time characterized by post-earthquake reconstruction, in which gang violence and drug trafficking flourished in Haiti. He also governed over the alleged embezzlement of nearly $2 billion in aid from the Venezuelan oil program known as PetroCaribe, a major scandal that fomented mass protests.

In a statement, State Department spokesperson Vedant Patel said Martelly “abused his influence to facilitate drug trafficking and has sponsored multiple Haiti-based gangs.” (Associated Press)

The United States in recent years has imposed sanctions on Haitian gang leaders and the politicians and business leaders who support them. “But the sanctions on Martelly, a popular singer nicknamed “Sweet Micky” who splits his time between Haiti and Miami, are viewed as particularly significant,” reports the Washington Post.

It was unclear how the sanctions would affect Martelly, who is a U.S. resident and lives in Miami, reports the New York Times. The sanctions will freeze Martelly's US assets and bar US citizens from doing business with him. Canada similarly sanctioned Martelly and two former prime ministers in 2022, reports Deutsche Welle.

More Haiti

• A group of former Caricom leaders who seek to support Haiti’s transitional government said there must be a “speedy resolution” to allegations of corruption against members of the presidential council, if Haitians are to preserve the integrity of the ongoing political transition forged in Jamaica in March. (Miami Herald)

Colombia

• Dozens of former FARC guerrilla fighters and their families were forced to abandon a village built for their demobilization, yesterday, after receiving death threats by a still-active rebel group, reports the Associated Press.

El Salvador

• El Faro interviews businessman Fidel Zavala, who spent 13 months in multiple prisons, and silently observed how inmates around him died. In the Mariona Prison, Zavala was named to a trusted post where, due to mass overcrowding, he assisted guards with headcounts of the number of total inmates in each cell. “No one died a natural death,” Zavala told Carlos Martínez. “I had to write down the names of those who left in black bags.”

• “Upon his release, Zavala did something highly unusual —even unprecedented— in today’s El Salvador: He personally sued Osiris Luna, the director-general of the Bureau of Prisons, and the wardens of the two facilities where he was held, for crimes including torture,” reports El Faro English.

Venezuela

• The opposition to Venezuela’s Chavistas have a history of rejecting electoral losses and coup mongering — but this should not blind leftists to the blatant fraud that Nicolás Maduro’s administration has attempted with the latest presidential elections, writes Gabriel Hetland in Sidecar. If the left is to “defend the real gains of Chavismo during the 2000s and 2010s, it must give up on consoling fantasies and take a clear-eyed look at the country’s degeneration.”

• Alberto Barrera Tyszka writes in El País about Maduro’s political history: “The most radical sector of the right has always maintained that Maduro was elected by the Cubans, that he was merely an instrument of Castro-communism. Obviously, the presence and power of Cubans in Venezuela is undeniable, but it is not the only element that explains our reality. Chavismo has transformed itself into a complex corporation, with different groups that Maduro has managed to control, administering and distributing the different spheres of command and wealth.”

• Venezuela's government-loyal National Assembly delayed debate on a law against "fascism" that critics say would facilitate a crackdown on political opponents. (AFP)

• Over a hundred employees at Venezuela's state oil company PDVSA, plus others in the oil ministry and parts of the public sector, have been forced to resign over their political views since last month's disputed election, according to workers and unions. (Reuters)

• “An oil spill has dumped black sludge on beaches along Venezuela's northwestern coast and affected fishing in the area,” reports AFP.

Ecuador

• A year after Ecuadorean citizens voted to halt all future oil drilling in Yasuní National Park, the government is nowhere near close to meeting its deadline, reports Mongabay.

Brazil

• Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva met on Monday with lower house Speaker Arthur Lira at the presidential palace amid the crisis between the three branches of government, after the Supreme Court suspended lawmakers’ budget amendments, reports Bloomberg based on Folha de S. Paulo.

• Kite fighting has caused horrific injuries and even deaths in Brazil — a bill moving through Brazil’s Congress is seeking to prohibit the manufacture, sale and use of the razor-sharp lines nationwide, reports the Associated Press.

Argentina

• Argentina’s far-right Milei administration has actively sought to rollback feminist advances — facing a hostile onslaught, activists are focusing on how poverty disproportionately impacts women, and how this could become the movement’s next rallying point, I write in Boom.

• Argentine authorities said they quarantined a cargo ship in the Paraná River over a suspected case of mpox onboard, reports Reuters.