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In Guatemala, elites are angling to thwart the presidential runoff election that unexpectedly has an anti-establishment candidate on the ballot. Minutes before electoral authorities certified the results of the June 25 election, officials moved to oust one of the parties from the race. Protesters have taken to the streets to reject the maneuver, widely condemned as a politically motivated attack on the electoral process. On July 12, the Supreme Electoral Tribunal was set to officially announce the results of the first-round presidential vote, confirming that former first lady Sandra Torres of the UNE party would face progressive upstart Bernardo Arévalo of the Movimiento Semilla in a runoff on August 20. A Constitutional Court order had paused the release of official results pending a review of the vote tallies. But that process concluded last week without changing the results. Then, on July 12, the Special Prosecutor’s Office Against Impunity (FECI) suspended Semilla’s legal status, alleging the party falsified signatures when gathering support for the party. On July 13, the Public Prosecutor’s Office raided the offices of the Supreme Electoral Tribunal. |
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Prensa Comunitaria called the move “a coup d’état without the military, a coup dealt from the courts and the MP (Public Prosecutor’s Office).” The watchdog coalition Mirador Electoral slammed it as an “open act of illegality,” pointing to Article 92 of the electoral law that stipulates that parties cannot be suspended after an election has officially been called. The country’s most powerful business lobby, CACIF, also cited the electoral law and called for respect for the Supreme Electoral Tribunal and “the will of Guatemalans expressed at the ballot box.” Speaking to Prensa Libre, Arévalo characterized his party’s suspension as an attempt by political elites to head off a potential Semilla win in the runoff. “It is a desperate action by a criminal group that realizes that its days are numbered in terms of its control over political power,” he said. “They tried to derail this process through illegal measures and a review of the votes that ultimately confirmed the results.” He called the move a “technical coup d’état” and condemned it as “absolutely illegal” and unconstitutional. The head of FECI, Rafael Curruchiche, controversially took over the post in 2021 after his predecessor, Juan Francisco Sandoval, was abruptly sacked in a move seen as retaliation for his efforts to investigate corruption at the highest levels of the government—an alleged bribery scheme implicating sitting president Alejandro Giammatei. Sandoval promptly fled the country out of fear of further reprisals, joining a then-growing list of former anti-corruption prosecutors forced into exile amid increasing persecution of activists, journalists, Indigenous leaders, and anti-impunity campaigners. |
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"Who else than Rafael Curruchiche to represent the interests of the corrupt?" Sandoval said in a video at the time. The U.S. State Department has listed Curruchiche in its Corrupt and Undemocratic Actors Report, noting that he has “obstructed investigations into acts of corruption by disrupting high-profile corruption cases against government officials.” Now, Semilla has launched a legal challenge against FECI’s decision to suspend the party’s status and has vowed to remain on the campaign trail in preparation for the runoff. “What is at stake in this moment is not what happens to Semilla and whether Semilla passes to the second round,” Arévalo told Prensa Libre, later adding: “What is at stake is democracy and the possibility of having a dignified future.” Arévalo called Guatemalans from diverse social sectors to peacefully raise their voices against the assault on the democratic process. Guatemalan society as a whole, he said, can “finally tell this corrupt, criminal, political pact that their days are over in this country and that now it is the honest citizens who are going to retake the reins of Guatemala’s destiny.” |
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In solidarity,
NACLA staff |
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Check out our Mid-Year Impact Report! Last December, NACLA raised over $20,000 to continue providing a platform for analysis from diverse Left perspectives, while growing our capacity and impact. Our supporters helped us take 2023 in stride, and we're so grateful for the support and solidarity! Now that we're halfway through the year, we want to share with you what we've accomplished so far. Read the full report here, and consider making a donation today to help us keep up the momentum for the rest of 2023! |
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#NACLAFoto of the Week "I made a drawing of a dream I had. When we Yanomami sleep, we fly in our dreams...This drawing is about dreams, about continuing to have a good and healthy forest." Words and artwork by Ehuana Yaira Yanomami, published in a photoessay in the Summer 2023 NACLA Report, "Amazonia on the Brink." Available in Portuguese. *To be featured in our weekly photography column, please submit a hi-res photo and a short caption to info@nacla.org. |
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Ehuana Yaira Yanomami, 2023 |
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- In Mexico, a reporter with the national newspaper La Jornada was killed in the western state of Nayarit. The body of Luis Martín Sánchez Iñíguez, who had gone missing days prior, was found July 8 near the city of Tepic. According to the state prosecutor’s office, his body showed “signs of violence” and was left with two handwritten signs, although authorities did not reveal what they said. The Committee to Protect Journalists’ Jan-Albert Hootsen said the killing “underscores the crisis of deadly violence and impunity that continues to plague the Mexican press.” Mexico is the deadliest country in the hemisphere for journalists. According to some counts, 15 journalists were killed in the country last year alone.
- Agência Pública has published a series of articles highlighting the role of 10 companies in the crimes of the 1964-1985 dictatorship. The reporting is based on new research in a project titled “Corporate responsibility for rights violations during the dictatorship.” Findings include that Grupo Folha, one of the largest conglomerates in the country’s concentrated media landscape, played a stronger role in propping up the regime than previously understood, and that regime operatives within the state oil company Petrobras worked to surveil “subversive” workers. Other companies in the reporting include Fiat, energy company Itaipu Binacional, and pulp and paper manufacturer Aracruz Celulose, among others.
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- Colombia reports that deforestation dropped by 29 percent last year, the lowest rate since 2013. In the Amazon, the rate dropped by 26 percent. But Rodrigo Botero of the Bogotá-based Foundation for Conservation and Sustainable Development told journalists that the decrease is “surely very unstable [and] vulnerable.” Writing in NACLA’s Summer 2023 issue “Amazonia on the Brink,” Botero argued that protecting the Amazon in Colombia is a complex governance issue that must include peace negotiations with armed groups vying for territorial control in parts of the forest. “We need to keep a close eye on this,” Botero told The Guardian.
- A new United Nations report has found that poor maternal health outcomes for women of African descent in North and South America is a result of structural racism. The report analyzed data from Brazil, Colombia, Costa Rica, Cuba, Panama, Suriname, Trinidad and Tobago, the United States, and Uruguay—countries for which comparable data was available—and found that “Afrodescendent maternal deaths in particular are alarmingly high.” The United States had the worst outcomes, with Black women—regardless of income and education level—three times more likely to die during or soon after pregnancy than white women. “When a Black woman dies during childbirth, whether in São Paulo, Bogotá or New York, it’s often put down to her lifestyle or to individual failure,” Dr. Natalia Kanem told The New York Times. The report “categorically refutes that,” she said. The report calls on governments to support the maternal, sexual, and reproductive health of Black women and girls by “addressing the root causes of structural racism, sexism, and discrimination.”
- In El Salvador, the Nuevas Ideas party has officially confirmed President Nayib Bukele as its presidential candidate in the 2024 election, despite a constitutional ban on presidents seeking immediate reelection. No challengers contested Bukele’s bid to become the party’s pick. “Our history has been marked by the concentration of power, authoritarianism, rigged elections, and violations of human rights,” the human rights organization Cristosal said in a statement. “We must not repeat the conditions to establish, once again, a dictatorial regime in El Salvador.”
- In Uruguay, residents of the Montevideo area have spent more than 60 days without drinking water. As the supply dwindled in freshwater reservoirs amid historic drought, authorities mixed brackish water into the drinking water supply, turning the stuff in the taps salty. Many have slammed the government’s neoliberal policies favoring transnational corporate interests for exacerbating the crisis. Plans to build a Google data center that will guzzle millions of gallons of water to cool its servers, for example, have sparked protests. In the words of the Commission to Defend Water and Life, as The Guardian reports: “This is not drought, it’s pillage.” Read our June 16 newsletter for more on Uruguay’s water woes.
- More than two years have passed since the assassination of Haitian President Jovenel Moïse, and still no one has been formally charged in the country for the murder. Meanwhile, suspects in proceedings in South Florida include an FBI informant and two former DEA informants. Writing in The New York Times, Jake Johnston argues that “the United States should lift the veil of secrecy surrounding the case [and] pursue every lead, no matter where it takes investigators.” In an open letter to top U.S. foreign affairs officials, NYU Law’s Global Justice Clinic and Harvard Law’s International Human Rights Clinic criticize Washington’s “unjustified support” for de facto Haitian prime minister, Ariel Henry, who is implicated in the assassination. Highlighting the “deteriorating crisis” since the July 7, 2021 assassination, including harrowing gang violence, the letter calls for U.S. and international support to stop the flow of U.S. arms to Haiti and establish a legitimate transition government tasked with facilitating elections. The country currently has no elected officials.
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From the NACLA Report: Available open access for limited time. |
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North American Congress on Latin America
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(212) 992-6965 | info@nacla.org |
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