Venezuelan opposition, dissident chavistas create Frente Amplio against Maduro (March 9, 2018)

News Briefs

• Venezuelan opposition parties and dissident chavistas united in a broad umbrella group in opposition to President Nicolás Maduro's reelection bid. The newly created Frente Amplio Venezuela Libre doesn't lack for internal tensions, however, notes Efecto Cocuyo. The main points of agreement are to boycott the upcoming presidential elections, reports Reuters. (Efecto Cocuyo presents the new group's main faces.)

• Boycott advocates are critical of opposition candidate Henri Falcón who has decided to run against Maduro, despite a lack of guarantees regarding the electoral process. They say Falcón is lending a veneer of legitimacy to rigged elections. Falcón supporters counter that abstaining doesn't solve anything, reports Efecto Cocuyo.

• Severe violations of the right to health, as well as difficulties accessing food and other basic services, are putting thousands of people’s lives at risk in Venezuela and fueling a regional forced migration crisis, Amnesty International said today. The organization launched a new digital platform on the Venezuelan exodus spurred by lack of medical and basic food supplies. "Local human rights organizations have said that Venezuela is suffering from an 80% to 90% shortage in medicine supplies; half of the nation’s hospitals are not functioning; and there has been a 50% drop in the number of medical staff at the public centers that provide 90% of health services."

• The U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights Zeid Ra’ad al-Hussein said his office received credible reports of "hundreds of extra-judicial killings in recent years, both during protests and security operations," in Venezuela. He urged the U.N. Human Rights Council to create a commission to investigate allegations of violations by security forces, reports Reuters. Zeid called on the government to allow U.N. investigators into the country, reports EFE. The High Commissioner also criticized the upcoming presidential election, which he said "does not in any way fulfill minimal conditions for free and credible elections."

• The U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization said that preliminary data indicates that hunger in Venezuela continued to grow last year, reports Runrunes.

• Over thirty Peruvian lawmakers from across the political spectrum supported a motion to debate the impeachment of President Pedro Pablo Kuczynski yesterday. He is accused of dishonesty regarding consulting contracts with companies under investigation for corruption, especially Odebrecht, reports La Mula. Several parties are awaiting PPK's testimony to the Lava Jato commission before deciding whether they would support his ouster, reports La República. His fate could be determined next week. At least 87 votes would be needed to impeach Kuczynski, reports Reuters. A motion to impeach him in December, in relation to alleged impropriety in relation to Odebrecht, failed. (See yesterday's post.) 

• Odebrecht and Lava Jato corruption seems to have implicated all of Peru's recent leadership. While the initial response might be to renovate the political elite, the answer lies in institutional reform, argues Alberto Vergara in a New York Times Español op-ed.

• The FARC political party's sudden exit from Colombia's presidential race -- after candidate Rodrigo Londoño underwent heart surgery this week -- is a setback for the peace process, according to the New York Times. (See yesterday's briefs.) Though Londoño bowed out because of health concerns, the party suspended campaigning over a month ago due to lack of security guarantees.

• Londoño voters will likely opt for Gustavo Petro instead, increasing his popularity but also saddling him with what critics call "castrochavismo," reports La Silla Vacía.

• Colombians head to the polls for legislative elections this Sunday. La Silla Vacía reports on the local battles.

• Cuba and the U.S. are increasingly distanced diplomatically, ostensibly over "sonic attacks" on U.S. embassy personnel. However, Cubans increasingly see the incident as an excuse by the Trump administration to rollback Obama administration rapprochement, and the less diplomatic contact the two countries have, the harder it will be to resume relations, warns William LeoGrande in Americas Quarterly. "The United States and Cuba made surprisingly fast diplomatic progress in the last two years of the Obama administration, signing two dozen bilateral agreements and dramatically expanding trade and travel. Ending the Cold War in the Caribbean was overwhelmingly popular among ordinary citizens in both countries. The current freeze in relations puts those gains at risk, giving both governments good reason to re-double their efforts to find a way out."

• Paraguayan authorities arrested 15 Curuguaty police officers for allegedly attempting to steal illegally logged wood seized in a police operation. According to InSight Crime, the arrests "highlight a perennial regional problem — police corruption — as well as the relatively low risks and high rewards associated with illegal logging in Latin America."

• U.K. scientists have started on £4.7 million project to develop a Zika vaccine, reports the Guardian.

• The U.S. closed its consular office in Playa del Carmen and warned travelers to avoid the Mexican resort city, reports the Washington Post.

• An "Oceans Eleven" worthy heist in a Sao Paulo airport this weekend highlights the growing issue of cargo theft in Brazil. Renato Lima of the the Brazilian Forum on Public Security told the Guardian that it's an example of how organized crime is spreading everywhere, and points to the inadequacy of the militarization of Rio de Janeiro as a public policy response.

• While there is a focus on urban violence in Brazil, rural assassinations are on the rise, writes Gregory Morton in the New York Review of Books. " ... And these assassinations take place against a background of economic crisis and political malfeasance. As corruption trials generate a crescendo of public attention on law and order, the countryside becomes bloodier." He links the killings, often tied to land disputes, to a general right-ward shift in Brazilian politics. "Operation Car Wash signals a new emphasis in the exercise of state power: prosecutorial action, rather than welfare provision. The law-and-order state currently enjoys tremendous popularity. With more and more elected politicians facing allegations of corruption, judges and police emerge as the heroes of the day. ... As many in Brazil have come to associate “big government” with corruption, the country’s new emphasis on law-and-order has given some cover to a conservative challenge to the welfare state." He notes critically, that while financial malfeasance is increasingly scrutinized, the killings of rural activists remain largely impune.

• Public debate about the Brazilian military is largely focused on its new role in Rio de Janeiro internal security. But in Americas Quarterly Oliver Stuenkel analyzes the diplomatic ramifications Brazil's participation in an upcoming U.N. peacekeeping mission in the Central African Republic. "Despite the risks, a more careful analysis shows that Brazil’s decision to send approximately 750 soldiers to Central Africa is one of the Temer administration’s more far-sighted foreign policy decisions," he writes.

• Hundreds of thousands of women marched in favor of a bill legalizing abortion in Argentina, reports Página 12.