IRTF News

As delegations from countries in the Western hemisphere are set to arrive in Los Angeles, California for the Summit of the Americas, Mexico’s president said Monday he would not attend the gathering at which the administration of US President Joe Biden will try to advance a vision of a “secure, middle class and democratic” region, according to the White House. The ambitious, if broad, agenda – which is expected to include efforts to boost US leadership through economic cooperation, combating public health crises, countering climate change and stemming migration – has been overshadowed for weeks by rumblings that Washington planned to exclude Nicaragua, Cuba and Venezuela from the event, citing human rights concerns and lack of democratic rule. On Monday, the Reuters news agency reported that the White House had finalised the guest list excluding the three countries. Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador announced soon after he would boycott the summit because it did not include all countries in the Americas.

Mexico's ruling party won four of six state elections held on Sunday, preliminary results showed on Monday, strengthening President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador's grip on power ahead of the contest to succeed him in 2024. Lopez Obrador's leftist National Regeneration Movement (MORENA) and its allies captured the governorships in the states of Oaxaca, Quintana Roo, Hidalgo and Tamaulipas, according to preliminary vote counts by electoral authorities. Meanwhile, opposition candidates had big leads in the central state of Aguascalientes and Durango in the north, broadly in line with results anticipated by opinion polls. All six states holding elections began Sunday in opposition hands.

Alonso Salgado, Donaldo Rosales, and Marco Tulio Paredes Molina; Ricardo Avila and Carlos Peralta. Three defenders and two social communicators were murdered this month in Honduras. The death toll since the beginning of the year has rise to over 10. And while the case of 19 MILPAH defenders whose criminalizing charges were dropped can be celebrated, it is concerning that May also brought about new cases of criminalized defenders. Looking at the extractive industries, we see a similar mixed picture. Open pit mining has been prohibited, but mining operations continue to expand in Honduras bringing about environmental damage, repression and criminalization. Some hope comes from the visit by a UN exploratory mission on the possible installation of a UN-backed anti-corruption mission as well as from the strengthening of the Honduran anti-corruption body UFERCO. JOH, meanwhile, pleaded not guilty in New York. His trial will continue in September. Welcome to another month in Honduras.

More than a year into U.S. President Joe Biden's sweeping effort to tackle the "root causes" of migration with aid to Central America, projects likely worth millions of dollars have been canceled or put on hold due to corruption and governance concerns, U.S. officials and others tracking the issue said. The setbacks come as the Biden administration is hosting the Summit of the Americas in Los Angeles next week, where the United States hopes to find common ground with other nations and issue a joint statement on migration. At the same time, corruption in Guatemala, El Salvador and Honduras has also limited potential investment from U.S. companies, another prong of Biden's strategy, according to a group coordinating the effort. In one striking example, the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) abruptly suspended an undisclosed amount of funding tied to Guatemala's justice ministry in July 2021 after the firing of a special prosecutor targeting corruption days earlier. USAID also redirected funding away from projects linked to the justice ministry in El Salvador weeks after El Salvador's Congress, dominated by lawmakers aligned with President Nayib Bukele, voted to remove top judges and the attorney general in May 2021. 

There is no better example of the complex need for localization than Haiti, where it is a first step to correcting historic exploitation of the Haitian peoples and their land, including the “double debt” that has burdened the country for over two centuries. Violence, hyperinflation, and fuel and food shortages have deepened poverty. Fleeing Haitians continue to risk their lives to find refuge, only to be turned back at borders. Absent an elected and empowered government, donors must find ways to credibly work directly with local NGOs and civil society groups. Here are three practical reasons why this is the only way forward, and the actions to take accordingly.

Amnesty International has accused El Salvador’s government of committing “massive human rights violations” during an extraordinary security crackdown that has seen more than 36,000 people arrested in just over two months. The clampdown was orchestrated by the Central American country’s authoritarian-minded president, Nayib Bukele, in late March after a sudden eruption of bloodshed that saw 87 murders in a single weekend. Bukele’s response to those killings was swift and severe, with pro-government lawmakers approving a draconian state of exception which entered its third month last week. This week, Bukele’s security minister, Gustavo Villatoro, claimed 36,277 people had been detained since their “war on gangs” began: 31,163 men and 5,114 women.

Seeking asylum is never an easy process. Families, children, and adults forced to flee their homes experience the trauma of violence or other life-threatening circumstances at their place of origin, the rupture of leaving their past lives behind, and the uncertainty of where and how to find refuge. But in recent years, this already difficult path has become increasingly fraught with obstacles for the rising population of protection-seeking people arriving at Mexico’s southern border, the majority of whom make their asylum claims in the city of Tapachula, Chiapas.

On April 26 and 27, Guatemalans demonstrated throughout the country, blocking roads and demanding an end to high food and fuel prices, as well as calling for government accountability and the resignation of President Alejandro Giammattei. Protesters carried signs stating “we are the generation that will no longer remain quiet before injustice,” and “if there is no justice for the people, there will be no peace for the government.” Above all, the Paro Multinacional (multinational strike), organized by the Comité de Desarrollo Campesino (Campesino Development Committee, CODECA), demands that the Guatemalan government give voice and recognition to the country’s more than 24 Indigneous nations. A member of CODECA, who preferred not to be named to emphasize the collective nature of the group, claimed that the organization’s fight is one of the right to territory, which goes beyond land and encompasses the right to resources, culture, and history. “It is about more than land to harvest,” he stated, “it is about the people who inhabit it and, above all, the natural resources, which is what the Indigenous communities in Guatemala protect.”

Please see a summary of the letters we sent to heads of state and other high-level officials in Colombia, El Salvador, Guatemala, and Honduras, urging their swift action in response to human rights abuses occurring in their countries.  We join with civil society groups in Latin America to (1) protect people living under threat, (2) demand investigations into human rights crimes, and (3) bring human rights criminals to justice…..IRTF’s Rapid Response Network (RRN) volunteers write six letters in response to urgent human rights cases each month. We send copies of these letters to US ambassadors, embassy human rights officers, the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, regional representatives of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, and desk officers at the US State Department. To read the letters, see https://www.irtfcleveland.org/content/rrn , or ask us to mail you hard copies.

The first round of the Presidential elections in Colombia was marked by the real possibility of a triumph of the political left, a stalemate in the peace process, the proliferation of armed groups, and growing violence. Gustavo Petro, former senator and former mayor of Bogota, obtained 40 percent of the votes and Rodolfo Hernández, an emerging candidate, came in second with 28 percent. One of the big questions ahead of the second round on June 19 is whether Hernández will be able to capitalize on the 55 percent of voters who did not choose Petro. In this interview, Gimena Sánchez, Director for the Andes at WOLA and Adam Isacson, Director for Defense Oversight at WOLA, discuss the main challenges the new president will face, the risks of electoral violence, and the implications of Colombia’s new political map for the bilateral relationship with the United States.