Wave of activist killings -- Guardian
April 10, 2023
At least two dozen environmental defenders have been murdered so far this year in Mexico and Central America, according to the Guardian. The violence has left Indigenous and rural communities “reeling amid a lack of government protection and widespread impunity.”
While local specifics vary, experts point to a common “toxic mix of impunity, corruption and organised crime have permitted – and even encouraged – the imposition of extractive industries such as mining, energy and plantation crops in areas where communities depend on the land and water sources to thrive.”
El Salvador
U.S. immigration authorities arrested a retired Salvadoran military officer last week week on charges of participating in the brutal 1981 El Mozote massacre, in which more than 1,000 villagers, mostly women and children, were slaughtered. (Reuters)
But once deported, Roberto Garay Saravia will be freed in El Salvador: “Salvadoran authorities have never issued a warrant against any of the officers accused of El Mozote,” reports El Faro.
In a region beset with violence, El Salvador’s ruthless crackdown on street gangs is resonating with citizens and political leaders. But the security victory has come at a stunning human rights cost, the erosion of civil liberties and the country’s descent into an increasingly autocratic police state, reports the New York Times.
Ecuador
Ecuador’s easing of gun restrictions in the face of growing violence mimics strategies that have failed elsewhere in the region, reports InSight Crime. (See last Monday’s briefs.) The article notes that the restrictions lifted by the government last week were put in place in 2011, during a time of increasing violence, and were followed by a precipitous drop in the country’s murder rate.
Regional
“A wave of murders in the Colombia-Brazil-Peru tri-border area has raised concerns about the increasing power of Brazilian groups and the violence they may commit in order to control this key drug trafficking corridor,” reports InSight Crime.
Mexico
A February shooting carried out by uniformed Mexican soldiers in Nuevo Laredo — five people were killed and two injured — is emblematic of the troubled use of armed forces for policing in the country, reports the New York Times. The U.N. has called for an independent investigation into the Nuevo Laredo killings, citing the military’s history of excessive use of force in the city.
A U.S. move to labeling Mexican drug trafficking organizations as terrorist groups “would mischaracterize the security threat and apply the wrong tools to tackle the problem”, according to InSight Crime.
Regional Relations
Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador hosted a virtual meeting of Latin American leaders last week aimed at creating a regional anti-inflation plan targeting basic food prices by reducing commercial, financial and logistical barriers to trade. (El País, Aristegui Noticias)
Migration
The UN has launched the first Network on Missing Migrants in the Americas, noting, “The exact number of those who die transiting through this region is unknown, but records compiled by the Missing Migrants Project indicate that between 2014 and 2022, at least 7,495 people lost their lives in the region.” (Americas Migration Brief)
Peru
Embattled Peruvian President Dina Boluarte might make it to 2026’s scheduled elections — not due to her own popularity (which is at 15 percent) but because the country’s dysfunctional political class has failed to agree on a plan for early elections, writes Andrea Moncada in Americas Quarterly.
Lima’s ultraconservative mayor shut down the city’s museum commemorating Peru’s internal conflict in the 1980s and 90s, “a move that human rights activists fear reflects a growing denial of the mass killings carried out by the armed forces in the conflict,” reports the Guardian.
Brazil
Community organizing in Brazilian favelas during the Covid-19 pandemic offers valuable lessons for health officials and researchers who seek to help marginalized communities: it ”starts with recognizing the grass roots power that has kept them resilient for so long,” writes Amy Maxmen in the New York Times.
Guatemala
New York Times profiles Mayan actress María Mercedes Coroy, a film star who intersperses Hollywood with her “normal” life of farming and trading in a Guatemalan town.
Letras
“Macunaíma: The Hero With No Character,” the 1928 novel by Brazilian Mário de Andrade, “has long been seen as an allegory for Brazil’s unique cultural blend,” according to the New York Times.
The New York Times’ “Essential Gabriel García Márquez”
Team Carpincho
For the region’s (many) fans of the capybara, Joshua Collins delves into how how the Vatican nearly drove the rodent into extinction in the 18th century by declaring the animal to be a fish. (Pirate Wire Services)