Honduran President Pepe Lobo traveled to Miami Tuesday where he spoke at his alma mater, the University of Miami, which hosted its fifth annual Latin America conference. The trip was Lobo’s first to the United States since he assumed the presidency in January. And, according to the Miami Herald, the visit came as Lobo continues to seek international recognition for his government while at once attempting to hold back a rising crime wave and keep Honduran economy afloat. All three, however, remain difficult challenges for the president, even while the US and other international financial organizations have successfully lobbied for an end to economic sanctions. Here’s what the Herald reports on the former issue of recognition:
[Lobo] still is not recognized by the majority of Latin American countries, and Honduras has not been readmitted to either the Organization of American States, a hemispheric body, or even SICA, the regional Central America organization. Brazil, a major power bloc in the region, is snubbing him, even as Lobo fielded his first call from President Barack Obama on Monday.
Politico has the inside scoop President Obama’s first phone conversation with President Lobo. The White House said Mr. Obama “expressed his concern” to Lobo about the killings of journalists and activists in Honduras, and he also “commended President Lobo for his leadership in his first months in office in promoting national reconciliation.” In its full statement on the phone call, the White House also added that “The President took particular note of the Truth Commission agreed to as part of the Tegucigalpa-San Jose Accord and championed by President Lobo that is set to begin its work in the coming days.” However, others have reported in recent days, the truth commission process has found very little support within Honduras. Lobo insisted Tuesday that the process would continue to go forward: “We will get everybody who was fighting in 2009 to hug. They will. It's important for them to reconcile … It's important in Honduras for everything to be known.”
In other news:
· Amnesty International released a new statement yesterday, demanding that Mexican authorities halt rights abuses being committed against “tens of thousands of Central American irregular migrants that every year attempt to reach the US by crossing Mexico.” According to Rupert Knox, contributor to Amnesty’s report “Invisible Victims,” “migrants in Mexico are facing a major human rights crisis leaving them with virtually no access to justice, fearing reprisals and deportation if they complain of abuses.” Knox goes on to call the journey through Mexico “one of the best dangerous in the world” for Central Americans. In just six months of 2009, kidnappings surged to 10,000. An astounding six out of ten migrant women and girls are also victims of sexual violence while traveling north, says Amnesty. Among the organization’s recommendations: 1. Legislative reforms to ensure access to justice 2. The creation of a federal task force to coordinate and implement new measures and 3. The publication of data on abuses against migrants and the steps taken to bring those responsible to account, including public officials.
· The BBC links the Amnesty migrant report to Mexico’s own denunciation of rights violations under Arizona’s new immigration law. That condemnation grew ever stronger Tuesday when the Mexican government issued a travel alert for nationals traveling to the US border state. The LA Times reports that President Calderon said Monday that the legislation “criminalizes” the largely social and economic phenomenon of migration. On Tuesday, the government-affiliated Institute for Mexicans Abroad called for a Mexican boycott of Arizona-based US Airways. And Sonora governor Guillermo Padres Elias said he would be cancelling an upcoming summit his state has hosted with Arizona twice-a-year for over a generation. Also, according to AQ, the governments of Guatemala and El Salvador added their own voices of condemnation against the Arizona law Tuesday with Guatemala’s Alvaro Colom saying it was in total contradiction to President Obama’s goal of “humanizing” US immigration law.
· Also on Mexico, the AP reports on a new study from the British and Canadian International Centre for Science in Drug Policy which shows that “when police crack down on drug users and dealers, the result is almost always an increase in violence.” “Law enforcement is the biggest single expenditure on drugs, yet has rarely been evaluated. This work indicates an urgent need to shift resources from counterproductive law enforcement to a health-based public health approach,” says Gerry Stimson, executive director of the International Harm Reduction Association which is holding a conference in Liverpool this week. When asked about the new report, former US drug czar John Walters, provided a different interpretation. Walters argues that spikes of attacks and killings after law enforcement crackdowns are almost entirely between criminals, and, thus, in a warped way, it may represent a success.
· And, from the AP, the Mexican Senate passed a bill Tuesday which would make soldiers accountable to civilian courts for abuses involving civilians. The legislation now goes to the lower house for a vote.
· With daily drug-related violence reports from Mexico, news that the leader of the Labor Party in Guerrero was gunned down over the weekend. An organized crime syndicate is suspected of carrying out the murder. And, at Global Post, more on Mexico’s new “national cell phone registry,” an attempt to prevent “virtual kidnappings.”
· On the international front, Brazilian foreign minister Celso Amorim is in Iran this week, once again stating his country’s opposition to a new round of UN sanctions against the country while also asking the Iranians to “be more flexible” around the issue of nuclear fuel exchanges. Amorim’s visit paves the way for President Lula da Silva’s own trip to Tehran set for May 15 and 16.
· Also on Iran and Latin America, Reuters reports that Southcom head, Gen. Douglas Fraser, told a group of defense reporters Tuesday that, contrary to a Pentagon report on a new Iranian Revolutionary Guard presence in Venezuela, there is no new evidence on the matter. “We see a growing Iranian interest and engagement with Venezuela. ... It's a diplomatic, it's a commercial presence. I haven't seen evidence of a military presence,” said Fraser. But Fraser seemed more confused than anything else about last week’s report. “I see an increasing presence of Iran in Latin America. ... I don't have all the details of what that means,” he said.
· This news on Venezuela comes as nearly everyone reports that the moment has finally arrived: Hugo Chavez is on Twitter. The AP has the best lead: “Hugo Chavez is starting to use Twitter to counter his opponents online, forcing a president who often talks for hours to sum up each thought in 140 characters or less.” Chavez can be followed online as “chavezcandanga.” His first tweet apparently occurred at 12:14am last night. The AP again does the translating of the president’s first message: “Hey how's it going? I appeared like I said I would: at midnight. I'm off to Brazil. And very happy to work for Venezuela. We will be victorious!!” Chavez already has 23,000 “followers” after one day. [For some perspective, Barack Obama has 3.8 million followers while Benjamin Netanyahu has just 3,547].
· In Peru, the Shining Path ambushed and killed a police officer and two civilians taking part in coca eradication around Aucayacu – one of two remaining rebel strongholds, according to the BBC. The attack was the first by the Shining Path in 2010.
· MercoPress reports that Brazil seeks to enlarge the size of its military from 300,000 to 500,000 over the next twenty years.
· Costa Rican President Oscar Arias, meanwhile, penned a note to Uruguay’s Pepe Mujica this week, asking that Uruguay follow Costa Rica’s lead in disbanding its military. The full text of the letter is here. The first paragraph is an interesting start:
“I do not write today to Don Jose Alberto Mujica Cordano, but to “Pepe” the revolutionary, that man who in the midst of the mud of horror, always kept intact the flower of justice, that dreamer who never turned off the light of utopia, not even in the darkest corner of his overlooked cell, that idealist who championed, despite insults and threats, an abiding faith in a better future for Uruguay and Latin America. I write to “Pepe” to say that there is still, in the backpack of time, a final utopia: the abolition of the Uruguayan army.”
· In Argentina, the Supreme Court has overturned pardons formerly granted to dictator Jorge Videla and his economy minister, José Martínez de Hoz. The move paves the way for a new trial against both.
· Haitian President Rene Preval called for international aid Monday to help organize elections by the end of the year. The words came after meeting with Brazil’s Lula da Silva at a meeting of Caribbean nations.
· And finally, in an interview with Spain’s El País, José Manuel Martínez, Latin American representative to the UNODC discusses how Central America has become the “crossroads” of drug trafficking and organized crime. According to Martínez, only improved coordination among Central American countries will halt organized crime syndicates most active in the sub region.
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