Venezuela arrests five more foreigners
Oct. 18, 2024
Venezuela’s government said it arrested five foreign citizens for their alleged connection to a plot to destabilize the country. Government authorities said they detained three U.S. citizens, a Peruvian and a Bolivian. Last month Interior Minister Diosdado Cabello announced the arrests of three U.S. citizens, two Spaniards and a Czech citizen whom he accused of traveling to Venezuela to assassinate President Nicolás Maduro.
The new list of detainees, which also included one Bolivian and one Peruvian, brings the number of foreign detainees in Venezuela to at least 12.
Maduro has previously leveraged detained U.S. citizens in negotiations with the U.S.
(Al Jazeera, Associated Press, Reuters)
More Venezuela
The president of Venezuela’s National Electoral Council, Elvis Amoroso, briefly reappeared on camera Tuesday. He had been absent from public appearances for 71-days, since declaring Maduro’s much challenged reelection victory, reports the Miami Herald.
Venezuela lawmakers ousted Juan Carlos Delpino, a national electoral board member who declared irregularities regarding July, and urged the Prosecutor’s Office to promptly initiate a criminal investigation into him. (Bloomberg)
A group of former presidents from Latin America and Spain called for an international front to prevent Maduro from remaining in power. (Miami Herald)
Regional
“Call it the food paradox: Even as the region produces and exports more food than ever before, it faces enormous challenges feeding its own people,” reports Americas Quarterly. “Experts say that Latin American governments need to prioritize food security and boost spending on programs that have a track record of success, like school-feeding campaigns. They also need to reorganize existing programs—such as money and food handouts—and use tools like tax policy and nutrition regulations to promote healthier eating.”
Regional Relations
Donald Trump’s potential “return to the White House would lead to a far more interventionist U.S. foreign policy, as was the case during his first term,” argues Oliver Stuenkel in Foreign Policy. “A second Trump presidency would likely see the return of more explicit U.S. pressure on Latin American countries to pick sides in the brewing competition between the United States and China. That could create considerable friction in the region, just as it did during Trump’s first term in office, when many countries warmed to China’s embrace.”
U.S. presidential candidate Donald Trump’s unfinished border wall leaves “thousands of acres in the liminal space between the border and the barrier,” reports the Washington Post.
Colombia
“Deforestation rates are rising in Colombia, after government negotiations with guerrillas who control swathes of the Amazon stumbled,” according to a new International Crisis Group report. Reviving talks is critical, but Colombia’s government must also “assert its authority in the Amazon through development programs fostering livelihoods that do not harm the environment, efforts to combat large-scale environmental offenders and reinforced coordination of security, peace and environment policies.”
FARC dissident group the EMC has the ability to slow or accelerate deforestation at will, according to the report. (Associated Press)
“The strength of Colombia’s powerful AGC criminal group will pose a serious challenge in nascent peace negotiations, according to a recent report,” by Fundación Ideas Para la Paz, which raises “concerns the group lacks genuine interest in peace and may use the talks to solidify its criminal clout,” according to InSight Crime.
A number of initiatives by ethnic communities in Colombia’s Amazon seek to fight back against the environmental devastation inflicted upon the Atrato river, reports the Associated Press.
Colombian ambassador to the U.S., Daniel García-Peña, spoke to Jacobin about the right-wing lawfare campaign against President Gustavo Petro, cutting diplomatic ties with Israel, and a more independent Colombia.
China has invited Colombia to join the Belt and Road Initiative and is “exploring the possibility of a free-trade agreement,” reports the South China Morning Post.
Regional
Latin American governments are increasingly adopting mano dura initiatives to combat gangs, organized crime, and insecurity. Sebastian Cutrona, Lucia Dammert, and Jonathan D. Rosen offer a definition for a term with little conceptual clarity. (Latin America Politics and Society, via Latin America Risk Report)
Haiti
“Gang violence is not new in Haiti — it is something that has always existed,” Robert Fatton, told Responsible Statecraft. “What is new now is that the gangs have gained a very serious degree of autonomy vis-à-vis the people who used to nurture them financially and politically.”
Chile
Five years after Chile’s massive social protests ignited, theproblems that fueled the uprising have been overtaken by public safety concerns, write Robert Funk in Americas Quarterly.
More Regional Relations
Argentine officials say they have received and are analyzing Brazil's request for the extradition of Brazilian nationals linked to an alleged 2023 coup attempt, reports Reuters.
US. Ambassador to Mexico Ken Salazar said that there is no pause in the strong relations between the Mexican government and the U.S. embassy in the country, reports Reuters.
Mexico
Mexican midwives are at the forefront of providing personalized and dignified reproductive health care. But their work is under threat from a proposed government policy that aims to regulate maternal and neonatal healthcare nationally, reports Nacla.
Uruguay
Uruguay’s upcoming presidential election “has been eclipsed by the plebiscite to reform the constitution to backtrack elements of the pension reform the government passed in 2023, as well as introduce new reforms that would make pensions more generous and eliminate the private pillar of Uruguay’s pension system,” writes Nicolás Saldías in Americas Quarterly.
Bolivia
“Bolivia’s troubles are perhaps best described by a phrase frequently used by Morales’s former vice president, a “catastrophic stalemate,”” writes Martín Mendoza-Botelho in the Wilson Center’s Weekly Asado.
Letras
A new novel brings to life legendary Mexican president Benito Juárez’s mysterious months in exile in New Orleans — Americas Quarterly