Nicaragua's President Daniel Ortega (l.) addresses the audience as Venezuela's Foreign Minister Nicolas Madero looks on during the inauguration of the Foro de Sao Paulo (Sao Paulo meeting) in Managua on May 18, 2011. The Foro de Sao Paulo is a meeting of left-wing political parties and organizations from Latin American and Caribbean nations. (Jorge Cabrera/Reuters)
Leftists across Latin America gather for Sao Paulo Forum congress in Nicaragua
For people whose worldviews were informed by a rigid Cold War paradigm of left versus right, sometimes it’s hard to move beyond the notions of a universe tidily divided into easily digestible concepts of good and bad, socialist and capitalist.
That’s especially true in Latin America, where political discourse is often constructed using antiquated terms, nebulous concepts, and old fears from a bygone era.
The opening of the São Paulo Forum, a Latin American and Caribbean conference of left-leaning political parties and social movements that is holding its 17th international congress this week in Nicaragua's capital, Managua, is a case in point.
“The battle is the same against capitalism, with its most sophisticated forms of domination,” said Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega, opening the forum. He was in his element flanked by a gaggle of 257 international leftists and personalities from 32 countries – everyone from Cuban apparatchiks, Chilean anarchists, Vietnamese Communists, and Libyan diplomats, to deposed former Honduran President Manuel Zelaya (the only guy in the room wearing a suit and tie, in daring defiance of the socialist-casual dress code).
Encouraged by enthusiastic applause from the international delegates, and the hoots of approval from his Sandinista Youth fan club dressed in their pink T-shirt uniforms, Mr. Ortega comfortably stepped into his role of the elder socialist statesman. “The tyranny of capitalism! The tyranny of imperialism!” Ortega waxed, squinting into the distance as if the lights were too bright.
Yet despite the predictable rhetoric by this year's host, the São Paulo Forum actually brings together leftist politicos whose own ideological views are – in many cases – more radically divergent than the left-right divide.
This year’s congress offered a variety pack of hemisphere’s leftist parties and movements, from Argentine communists and Puerto Rican socialists to dapper Nicaraguan Sandinistas who drive SUVs and wear designer sunglasses.
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At Wednesday night’s opening ceremony, there was enough variety of “leftist flavors” to give Baskin-Robbins a run for its money. Cuban Communist Party representative Ricardo Alarcón says socialism in Latin America is like a “multicolored rainbow” reflective of all the “richness and color that our people and cultures are capable of giving.”
Even Ortega, basher of all things capitalist, has been commended by the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and other conservative elements for achievements unbecoming of a socialist, such as maintaining macroeconomic stability, promoting job creation in the textile sector, and acting with fiscal responsibility,
But apparently, at least for the opening night, he did not want his leftist audience to believe the hype.
"We are not going to become administrators of capitalism – because that’s what they want! They try to divide us by saying: ‘This left is democratic because they accept the rules of Washington. And those who don’t accept Washington’s rules are anti-democratic’,” Ortega said.
Migrants who were found in two trailer trucks bound for the United States, sit under the guard of a policeman in Tuxtla Gutierrez, Mexico, Tuesday May 17, 2011. Chiapas authorities say they rescued 513 migrants: 410 of the migrants were from Guatemala, 47 from El Salvador, 32 from Ecuador, 12 from India, six from Nepal, three from China and one each from Japan, the Dominican Republic and Honduras. (Alejandro Estrada/AP)
More than 500 migrants found crammed in trailers in Mexico
Yesterday, I asked whether the dangers in Mexico were deterring migrants from attempting to come to the US.
A new case shows that demand is still strong, and is global. Over 500 undocumented migrants en route to the US were recently found crammed into two trailer trucks, dehydrated and desperately clinging onto ropes strung within the trailers, in the southern Mexican state of Chiapas.
Most of the rescued migrants were from Central America but also came from as far as Nepal, India, China, and even Japan.
It is believed to be the biggest case of human smuggling uncovered in Mexico in recent years. The smugglers were discovered Tuesday after driving through a police checkpoint that had X-ray equipment outside the Chiapas state capital, Tuxtla Gutierrez. There were 240 migrants in one truck, 273 in the other. The migrants said they paid $7,000 each for the journey. Four people have been arrested so far in the case.
"It is the largest rescue of migrants traveling in inhuman conditions," a spokesman from the attorney general's office told the AFP news service.
This “rescue” comes as Mexico has been under fire to improve the security and human rights protections of migrants found crossing through the country – after 72 migrants were massacred last August in a ranch in northern Mexico, allegedly at the hands of the Zetas drug trafficking group. Mexico’s human rights group says that over 10,000 migrants were kidnapped between April and September of last year.
Even as the Mexican government demands fairer treatment of its compatriots in the US, it often turns a blind eye to Central Americans passing through its own country who suffer at the hands of smugglers, drug dealers, and even certified immigration authorities.
The massacre in August put more pressure on authorities to correct what many call a double standard. Lawmakers last month approved a law to “strengthen the protection and security” of migrants.
Last week, immigration directors in seven states were fired after rescued migrants said that regional immigration authorities kidnapped them and handed them over to drug trafficking groups. That agency has now promised to use lie detectors and other confidence testing to clean up the organization.
Ironically, if Mexico does place greater attention on cleaning up its institutions and punishing perpetrators of crime, it may attract those migrants currently scared off – even if that translates into higher chances of getting “caught” crossing illegally through the country.
Police agents look at a message written in blood at the site of a massacre at a local ranch in the hamlet Caserio La Bomba, in La Libertad, northern Guatemala, Sunday May 15, 2011. Assailants killed over two dozen, decapitating most of the victims on the ranch near the Mexico border, according to National Civil Police spokesman Donald Gonzalez. (Nuestro Diario/AP)
Guatemala massacre points to influence of Mexican drug gang
A massacre in northern Guatemala, which has left at least 27 people dead, is another reminder of the growing influence exerted by powerful Mexican drug gang, the Zetas, in Central America.
The Zetas may have first entered Guatemala at the invitation of two drug bosses, Otoniel Turcios and Hearst Walter Overdick. But instead of partnering with local Guatemalan smugglers, the Mexicans became intent on displacing them.
The Zetas cemented their presence in Guatemala in 2008, when they ambushed and killed local crimelord Juan Jose Leon. Dislodging the Leon clan gave the Zetas power over key trafficking routes in the northern departments of Zacapa, Alta Verapaz, and Peten. It was in the latter that the recent massacre took place. In Peten, the government has now declared a "state of siege" similar to the security surge that failed to drive Zetas from Alta Verapaz at the end of last year.
As proved by the Peten killings, the Zetas' presence in Guatemala has drawn attention because of their willingness to use brutality. In contrast to the other Mexican cartel with sizeable presence in Central America, that of Sinaloa, the Zetas have frequently used extreme violence to establish control over a territory. While the Sinaloans have attempted to maintain their operations in Guatemala's western Huehuetenango department by buying the silence of authorities and negotiating deals with local traffickers, the Zetas have proven themselves more disposed to fight and kill their rivals.
IN PICTURES: Mexico's drug war
In other Northern Triangle countries, the Zetas have been more accomodating to local gangs, although no less ambitious in expanding their operations. As recently noted by El Salvador President Mauricio Funes, the Zetas have made contact with gangs like the Mara Salvatrucha (MS-13) and the Barrio 18 (18), which echoes statements made by the president and the defense minister in 2010.
In El Salvador, the Zetas use gangs as drug peddlers and hired assasins, not for the purpose of trafficking cocaine via international routes. However, there is evidence that MS-13 is interested in deepening their relationship with the Zetas, with some cells reportedly soliciting training in combat from the Mexicans.
Like Guatemala, where the Zetas have recruited from the army's special forces unit, the Kaibiles, the Mexican group has also reportedly attempted to recruit members of the security forces in El Salvador, according to officials. In July 2010, a former Salvadorean police officer was killed in a shootout with the Mexican army in Nuevo Leon, one of nine police agents who may have found work with the Zetas in Mexico, reports El Salvadorean paper El Diario de Hoy.
In Honduras, the Zetas are based in the departments of Olancho and Cortes, managing air and sea routes for the trafficking of cocaine. Here, there is also evidence of the Zetas using local gangs as hired guns: in February 2010, Honduran intelligence officials said they intercepted a note in which Barrio 18 discussed receiving payment from the Zetas, in exchange for killing the security minister. The Mexican gang has also been able to establish control over human smuggling and arms trafficking routes in the country, according to one report.
Elsewhere in Central America, there is little evidence of the Zetas wielding the same kind of power and influence as they do in the Northern Triangle. In Costa Rica, where the murder rate has doubled since 2000, reaching 11 homicides per 100,000 residents last year, the increased violenced is blamed on drug trafficking. But while the Sinaloa Cartel is known to have a powerful presence here, the Zetas are not yet believed to have arrived. Similarly, in Nicaragua, the Zetas are not thought to maintain personnel inside the country.
--- Elyssa Pachico is a writer for Insight – Organized Crime in the Americas, which provides research, analysis, and investigation of the criminal world throughout the region. Find all of her articles here.
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In this photo taken on April 27, 2011, state police officers patrol a highway between Ciudad Victoria and Matamoros, Mexico. A total of 183 bodies have been found in mass graves near San Fernando, most of them were presumably people kidnapped from buses traveling between Ciudad Victoria, capital of Tamaulipas state, and the border town of Matamoros, according to authorities. (Alexandre Meneghini/AP)
Will violence in Mexico impact immigrant pool in US?
Is crime in Mexico driving down immigration to the US?
US Customs and Border Protection recently released data showing the number of those arrested trying to cross the US-Mexico is down sharply. There were 447,731 undocumented immigrants arrested in fiscal year 2010, reported CNN. That is a 58 percent decrease from fiscal year 2006.
Officials say that the number of agents along the border, which doubled during the same time frame, has played a preventive role.
But it seems that migrants are also weighing the pros of earning American dollars against the real threat that criminals in Mexico will take their lives before they even get the chance.
Migrants, mostly from Central America, have long talked about the perils of traversing Mexico. As we reported in July 2007 from Tapachula – along Mexico’s southern border – migrants, even children, have always faced robbery, threats, and extortion from smugglers, corrupted immigration officials, and common criminals.
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But stolen cash and even beatings were the kinds of risks poor migrants were willing to take.
Now, anecdotally at least, they are becoming much more cautious.
Last summer, a photographer and I visited the town of Tultitlan north of Mexico City. It is an industrial crossroads where migrants switch trains en route to the US. Several of them told us of the dangers they faced, big and small. One man from Nicaragua, Juan Palacios, was traveling with a friend who was kidnapped while waiting for a train. Mr. Palacios escaped the same fate, and made it to Tultitlan where he refused to go further.
This was right before the news of the massacre of 72 migrants last August in northern Mexico, on a ranch across the border from Texas, rocked Mexico. The migrants, mostly from Central America, were allegedly snatched off a bus and killed by the notorious Zetas drug-trafficking gang after refusing to work as recruits.
This spring, reports of missing bus passengers began surfacing in Tamaulipas. Weeks later mass graves were found, with some 200 bodies so far found in this one area alone. It is unclear how many of them are migrants. But a group of rescued migrants who had been kidnapped recently claimed that immigration officials delivered them to drug groups.
As drug crime grows, it seems, the shakedown has turned into something far riskier.
Shaken by the news, Mexico recently pledged – again – to root out corruption. The immigration agency fired seven officials last week in the states of Tamaulipas, Veracruz, Tabasco, Oaxaca, Mexico State, San Luis Potosí, and Quintana Roo.
The institution’s head said they will also resort to lie detector tests to ensure a clean institution.
But the police have also been undergoing a series of confidence testing since Mexican President Felipe Calderón took office promising to reform the police, and that has done little to restore citizen faith in their cops. In fact, among the first arrests in the mass graves case of Tamaulipas? The municipal police.
Naguanagua, Venezuela. Alidio Lugo, a storeowner, has lost his refrigerator due to blackouts that have roiled this part of town, in the industrial city of Valencia. Protests broke out over forced blackouts, as Venezuela faces an electricity shortage. (Sara Miller Llana)
Venezuela resorts to rationing amid new blackouts
Nothing exemplifies the mismanagement of Venezuela more than the electricity crisis. Through a series of missteps and the lack of investment, Venezuela continues to be mired in an electrical crisis over a year and a half after it began. We have gone from blaming El Niño, to saying the problem had been solved, to now saying it is the increase in use of electricity that created the problem.
A while back I wrote this post to show the timeline of contradictions by the government, and I have actually been updating it given all that is being said. So, if you are interested in the problem, that post is dynamic, as I add news links to it. Check it out.
What is interesting is that, despite the vice president’s claim that “the growth in demand” is one of the main culprits of the electrical problem, data shows otherwise, as at least peak demand was higher in 2009 and 2010, due mostly to lower temperatures this year.
The problem seems to be due more to not only the lack of investment, but the lack of planning and capable people making the decisions. Miguel Lara, former Head of OPSIS, said that the solutions implemented "were inconvenient and what they did was to purchase new problems and not worry about maintainance,” while a former vice minister of energy says that the electric system has become a patchwork.
But Jose Manuel Aller, a professor of engineering at the Universidad Simon Bolivar, makes more serious accusations. He says that because there was an emergency, purchases without bids were allowed, but that many of those acquired are inadequate, of dubious origin, and very expensive.
This is the case, says Professor Aller, of the distributed power plants that came from Cuba. They should have cost half of the between $1.6 and 1.8 billion.
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The same is true of the barges that were purchased from General Electric, which cost $250 million each. The market price for those is $160 million. Reportedly, the overcharge is so that they could be delivered in 2011.
While the government spent all of 2010 blaming the rains, now the Guri dam is 10 meters above the operational level as it has never really stopped raining all year, but between problems with generation and problems with transmission, there is insufficient capacity.
Meanwhile, the government installed thermoelectric power plants that run on natural gas, but the country’s production continues to go down and fuel oil has been used in some of them.
--- Miguel Octavio, a Venezuelan, is not a fan of Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez. You can read his blog here.
Introducing Latin America Monitor
Hi everyone and welcome to the Latin America Monitor!
I'm Sara Miller Llana, the Monitor’s Latin America Bureau Chief in Mexico City, and I will be curating the blog and generating much of the material. But we will also be posting a range of stuff from our wide network of stringers from throughout the region.
We have also invited several guest bloggers, whose pieces we will re-post regularly. Some of them are US based “Latin Americanists” who closely follow certain countries or overall US policy in the region; others live in the countries they are blogging about.
All of them have interesting things to say. Join the debate in our comments section. And if you have ideas or things you want us to be discussing, don’t hesitate to send your thoughts to me at llanas@csps.com.
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