Indigenous defender murdered in Costa Rica (Feb. 26, 2020)

News Briefs

Costa Rica

• An mob armed with sticks, machetes, stones and at least one gun killed an indigenous defender trying to reclaim ancestral land in Costa Rica. Monday's attack took place in Térraba, where human rights groups had warned authorities in recent days about non-indigenous groups violently confronting Brörán families reclaiming ancestral land. Though Costa Rica is Central America's safest country, the murder is part of a growing trend of violent attacks, racist harassment and trumped-up retaliatory lawsuits against the indigenous Bribri and Brörán people, reports the Guardian.

Regional Relations

• The upcoming OAS elections showcase competing visions for the region, particularly over how to react to Venezuela's implosion, reports Americas Quarterly, which interviews candidates Hugo de Zela and María Fernanda Espinosa. (Incumbent Luis Almagro chose not to respond.)

Mexico

• Violence is increasingly used by diverse people with different motives in Mexico, part of the widespread failure of the militarized war against drugs. But the drug war has long been insufficient to explain the country's violence, write Alejandra Sánchez Inzunza and José Luis Pardo Veiras in a New York Times Español op-ed. "In reality, more than a war between cartels and the government, Mexicans suffer the consequences of a violent struggle for control and the conquest of territory and its riches in which legal and illegal powers are involved and often complicit."

Haiti

• In the midst of a prolonged political crisis that has Haiti's parliament shut-down, President Jovenel Moïse is ruling by fiat. The answer, he told the Financial Times, is a new constitution granting the executive broader powers.

Protests

• Protest movements in Latin American countries have distinct national components that make generalizing hard. That being said, the Latin America Risk Report also notes that "these protests and the government responses to them are not happening in isolation. The protesters watch each other, learn from each other, take inspiration from each other. Governments monitor what sort of strategies work on the negotiation-to-repression continuum and also watch how strongly and consistently international criticism occurs in the wake of abuses by security forces." Demonstrations are in the works and likely to heat up the streets in Colombia, Venezuela, Chile, Brazil, Dominican Republic, Haiti, Guyana, Ecuador and Mexico in the next month.

Chile

• Chileans are bracing for a return to bigger protests in March, a month in which people return from the Southern Hemisphere summer holiday and mark the anniversaries of victims of the 1973-1990 military dictatorship, and international women's day, reports Reuters.

Colombia

• A committee in Colombia’s lower house of Congress will investigate allegations by an ex-senator who fled the country that President Ivan Duque participated in vote-buying and sought to have her assassinated, reports Reuters.

• Colombia's constitutional court is set to rule on whether women can seek legal abortions during the first 16 weeks of pregnancy -- it will be a landmark decision in a country with restrictive reproductive rights laws, reports Reuters.

• China is betting hard on Colombia, reports Al Jazeera. In addition to gold mine purchases, a Chinese consortium won the contract to build Bogotá's new metro system.

Borders

• The U.S. Supreme Court declined to revive a lawsuit by the family of a Mexican teenager killed by US border agent who shot him from across the border in Texas. The decision ratifies that foreign nationals cannot pursue civil rights cases in American courts, reports Reuters. But Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg said in a dissent that “there is still no good reason why Hernández’s parents should face a closed courtroom door," reports the Washington Post.

Venezuela

• The U.S. Trump administration will step up enforcement of its sanctions against Venezuela's Maduro government, reports Reuters.

Amazon

• This documentary embeds with the Guardians, an indigenous group taking up arms to hunt down illegal loggers and fight for their land. (Nightline)

Brazil

• Carnival is increasingly an act of resistance in Bolsonaro-ruled Brazil, reports the New York Times.

• Evangelical groups are increasingly influential in Brazilian politics -- and, to a far lesser degree, Carnival too now! (Guardian)

Uruguay

• Luis Lacalle Pou will swear in as Uruguay's president on Sunday, he told Americas Quarterly that he hopes he’ll be able to find some consensus within his coalition on three key issues: fiscal consolidation, tackling rising crime and turning the country into a magnet for migrants.  

Did I miss something, get something wrong, or do you have a different take? Let me know ...   Latin America Daily Briefing