Venezuela has released 533 protest detainees
Dec. 17, 2024
A man detained in Venezuela during the civil unrest that followed the country’s disputed July presidential election died in custody yesterday. It is the third such death reported by an inmates’ rights organization, reports the Associated Press.
Separately, Venezuela's attorney general said yesterday that 533 people arrested for taking part in protests after the election have been freed. More than 2,000 people were arrested for taking part post-electoral protests, according to the government. (Reuters)
Venezuela has been releasing hundreds of prisoners in recent weeks, ahead of the Jan. 10 inauguration of a new presidential term — President Nicolás Maduro claims to have won reelection, but most of the international community has questioned the victory. (See last Friday’s post.)
Opposition leader María Corina Machado called on the international community to support a handover of power in Venezuela on Jan. 10, linking her country’s struggle for democracy to that of Cuba and Nicaragua. (Efecto Cocuyo)
Machado and Edmundo Urrutia, who is widely believed to have won July’s election, are receiving the European Parliament’s Sakharov Prize today in name of the opposition.
More Venezuela
Venezuelan officials detained an Argentine security official who was traveling to visit his wife and two-year-old son in Táchira, as well as an a local employee at the Argentine embassy in Caracas — prompting diplomatic pushback from Argentina. (Buenos Aires Times)
Prosecutors seek Morales’ arrest
Bolivian prosecutors sought the arrest of former President Evo Morales, in relation to a sexual abuse investigation involving an alleged relationship with a 15-year-old girl. The arrest warrant, which still must be approved by a judge, was issued after Morales defied an order to testify in the case, reports the Associated Press.
Morales has been holed up in the rural area of Chapare, since talk of his potential arrest started in September. His supporters have periodically clashed with security forces.
Prosecutors said they had been granted authority to issue the warrant on October 16, but had advanced with caution given grassroots defense of the former president at the time.
The faceoff between Morales and his former protege, President Luis Arce, has paralyzed the country for months and blocked movement of goods, and contributed to a national fuel shortage, reports the New York Times.
The high-profile scandal has played out in the lead-up to the 2025 presidential elections, with Morales accusing Arce’s government of conducting "lawfare" to "proscribe" him from the electoral race, reports AFP.
Haiti
More than 150 people were killed in a second major massacre in Haiti last week - a clash between gang members and self-defense groups in the rural town of Petite-Rivière. Coupled with the Wharf Jérémie killings, the episodes “highlight the anarchy engulfing Haiti and the morbid fallout of a country’s descent into chaos: Haitians now fear being gunned down by warlords or being hacked to death by their own neighbors,” reports the Miami Herald.
Migration
U.S. president-elect Donald Trump’s threats to carry out mass deportations has countries in Central America bracing for a potential influx of vulnerable migrants — a situation they are ill-prepared to handle, reports the Associated Press.
Mexico
Former Gulf cartel leader Osiel Cárdenas Guillén was returned to Mexico after serving 14 years in U.S. prison and was quickly re-arrested and sent to a maximum security penitentiary to face Mexican charges, reports the Associated Press.
Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum signed into law a series of constitutional reforms protecting women’s rights — including gender equality, pay equality and the right to live a life free of violence. (El País)
Regional Relations
Sheinbaum met with her Colombian counterpart, Gustavo Petro, and agreed, among other things to greater cooperation on migration issues, reports El País.
Yesterday Petro announced that he has asked the United States to expedite the declassification of archival records on the 1985 Palace of Justice case. “The request is an important step forward for human rights advocates seeking to clarify the motivations and actions of the M-19 insurgents who stormed the building on November 6, 1985, and the Colombian government’s responsibility for those who died in the fire that tore through the seat of Colombia’s judicial branch and for the disappearances that occurred in the aftermath,” according to the National Security Archive.
Colombia
Halfway through Colombian President Gustavo Petro’s term, his ambitious “Total Peace” policy, which aims to strike deals with all the country’s armed and criminal groups remains bogged down. “But Petro’s efforts still have some merits,” writes Mie Hoejris Dahl in New Lines. “He has established peace talks with at least nine different armed groups — something no other Colombian president has attempted.”
Brazil
“A Brazilian judge has ordered a song by British pop superstar Adele, Million Years Ago, be pulled worldwide – including on streaming services – over a continuing plagiarism claim by a Brazilian composer,” reports AFP.
Argentina
Argentina’s government said the country emerged from severe recession in the third quarter of this year. “The expansion was driven by a rebound in consumer spending and capital investment from a sharp decline earlier this year, and continued strong growth in agriculture and mining exports. Manufacturing and construction remain deeply depressed,” reports the Financial Times.
Argentine officials are contemplating whether to introduce a managed exchange rate regime — a “dirty float” — once it lifts its current foreign exchange controls next year, reports Bloomberg.
Cuba
Cuban Economy Minister Joaquín Alonso Vázquez forecast the country’s economy would grow 1% in 2025 after a dismal year marked by one of the country's worst energy crisis in decades, reports Reuters.
Regional
Paraguayan authorities arrested 26 people in a crackdown on suspected illegal deforestation along the country’s border with Brazil and Argentina. (Associated Press)
Latino activists in the U.S. South are seeking to draw links between U.S. imperialism in Latin America and Israel’s Palestine policy, reports Nacla.