The Miami Herald features a story on Haiti in its Americas section this morning, reporting on the priorities of new UN special envoy Bill Clinton in the country. Clinton, along with UN Sec. General Ban Ki Moon, spoke at the UN in New York yesterday at a time when “Haitian President Rene Preval tries to avert yet another political crisis,” says the MH. Haiti's parliament decided to raise the country's minimum wage from $1.70 to $4.90 a day and the move has triggered weeks of protests by a group that characterizes itself as state university students and demands Preval sign the legislation. Two dozen, the majority non-students, have thus far been arrested during the protests which have targeted, among other locations, Prime Minister Michele Pierre Louis’ student-oriented NGO in Port-Au-Prince. However, in his comments Monday, former President Clinton did not address the current conflict directly. He said he did not plan to involve himself in the UN or Haiti’s day-to-day operations but rather he confronted reports in the Haitian media which have said his job is part of an imperial takeover of Haitian politics. “All I want to do is help the Haitians take over control of their own destiny. That's all I have ever wanted for Haiti,” Clinton remarked. To do this, Clinton will focus his efforts on “helping the hurricane-ravaged nation rebuild by attracting private investors and alternative energy sources, encouraging better coordination among thousands of nongovernmental organizations already working on the ground, and getting the international community to ante up the $353 million in pledges it promised at April's donors conference in Washington,” writes the paper.
From Mexico, the LA Times writes about a campaign in Mexico to nullify election ballots in next month’s legislative elections. Some activists around the country are encouraging fellow Mexicans to place an X on their voting ballots, rendering them null and void, as an act of protest against politics as usual in Mexico. According to the LAT, “disenchanted voters charge that self-interested politicians have failed to address long-standing public corruption, crime and the death count that comes with it, a sclerotic school system, poverty and, lately, an economic tailspin.” The movement, called “voto nulo,” has spread rapidly via the internet to become one of the most important issues of the July 5 elections. One civic group, says the paper, has taken the campaign beyond simply placing an X on their ballot, urging voters to nullify voting cards by writing in the name of a fictional candidate: Esperanza Marchita, meaning “wilted hope.” It is not yet known how many will actually participate in the act of protest on election day, but organizers say if 10% were to nullify their ballots, it would be a huge success—and a strong message against the current way of doing politics in the country.
Also from Mexico, the Wall Street Journal says the Mexican army has arrested 10 of its own officers for allegedly accepting payments from drug cartels wanting to be tipped off about anti-drug operations against cartel gangs. Those detained are believed to have been connected to the Sinaloa cartel, run by the infamous Joaquian “El Chapo” Guzman Loera. According to past WSJ reporting, this is not the first time that the Mexican army has been linked to the Sinaloa cartel. El Chapo has regularly visited a ranch in the remote mountains of Chihuahua state, writes the paper, and has allegedly had some protection from the Mexican army in doing so. Nevertheless, even with the corruption charges being leveled against high ranking military officers, many believe the government of Felipe Calderón has little choice but to use the military since many of the country's 1,600 municipal and state police forces are “corrupt and act as armed branches of Mexico's warring drug cartels.”
A third story on Mexico, this time an AP report in the Washington Post, covers drug violence on Mexico’s West Coast, reporting on the assassination of a priest and two seminarians on Monday. The three were organizing a spiritual retreat in Acapulco when they were shot in their car. No arrests have yet been made, nor has a motive been determined, but the Catholic Church says they are increasingly the target of drug-related violence. In April, priests in northern Mexico were urged to take extra precautions after an archbishop there commented on where the nation's most-wanted trafficker may live, writes the AP.
And in the New York Times, the AP also writes from Peru, saying the Peruvian government has promised Amazonian indigenous groups that it will ask Congress to revoke decrees that many say would open up vast tracts of Amazonian land for oil, gas, and mining exploration. Protests against the decrees have been on-going for over two months, boiling over into violence that some say could have killed 60 on June 5. The government still maintains that 24 of its officers and just 9 indigenous protestors were killed. However, indigenous leaders say as many of 30 civilians were murdered. The Peruvian environment minister has also said the government is willing to end the curfew and state of siege in Bagua state, adding that Indian leaders have promised in return to end a blockade that has cut a key road into the central Amazon. AIDESEP, the principal Amazonian Indian Federation, did not participate in Monday's negotiations, but it will join talks with the government that are to begin immediately in Lima, reports say.
In other news, the AP also reports on new statistics released by Mexico's National Human Rights Commission which shows that nearly 10,000 predominantly Central American migrants crossing the country to reach the United States are kidnapped for ransom every year. An estimated 9,758 migrants were kidnapped in Mexico between September and February by drug gangs or at times Mexican authorities. Total ransom payments are estimated to amount to about $25 million over that six month period.
The MH has the third piece in its series on extrajudicial killings in Colombia. In today’s piece, the paper tells the story of a young Colombian who had hoped to join the armed forces but became one of hundreds killed by the military and presented to the public as a slain guerrilla fighter. Currently, a Colombian prosecutor is investigating over 1,800 similar cases of so-called “false positives.”
Finally, two opinions. In the NYT, an op-ed on the drug war by a former senior Homeland Security adviser who says a dispute between Immigration and Customs Enforcement (part of DHS) and the DEA will seriously hamper efforts to thwart a spillover of drug violence into the U.S. if not remedied. Under current law, Immigration and Customs agents can investigate any crime connected to the American border while DEA holds jurisdiction to investigate any and all drug crimes. Many DEA agents feel that Immigration and Customs Enforcement are increasingly encroaching on their turf by handling drug issues at the border. And in the MH, Adm. James Stavridis, outgoing commander of US SouthCom, writes of working together with Latin American militaries on “whole of government” approaches to security in the Americas during his tenure as SouthCom commander. He writes of “success in Colombia” and humanitarian assistance programs which Stavridis says have connected military personnel with other government agencies and nongovernmental organizations in the region.
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