Thursday, March 12, 2015

Guatemala: Vice President from the US visits Guatemala. Roxana Baldetti the big absence

Vice President from the US visits Guatemala. Roxana Baldetti the big absence

courtesy: NomadaGT

On March the 2nd, the Vice President from the United States, Joe Biden, made his second visit to Guatemala. He was supposed to have a reunion with the members of the Northern triangle of Central America to discuss matters of financing and prioritizing a regional plan to stop the immigration, increase the public security and also against corruption.

The visit lasted three days, having a very rigorous protocol schedule to fulfill all the activities they were supposed to cover. It's important to mention, that this second visit was slightly different from the first one, due to the fact that Guatemalan Vice President, Roxana Baldetti, was left out from all the activities.

During the visit held on 2014, the protocol was that the Guatemalan Vice President had to welcome and receive its similar from the United States. This time, things were completely different, the one in charge of receiveng Mr. Biden was Guatemala's President Otto Perez Molina with his wife Rosa Leal. Therefore, the abrupt change has created a lot of expectations as well as versions of what may have happened.

The official party, gave a public conference to provide an explanation about the Vice President's absence saying that Baldetti was in a trip in Europe, without specifying the details on the purpose of the trip. Prensa Libre said she was supporting one of his sons in the US because he was suffering from severe injuries and he needed medical treatment.

Nevertheless, there are other versions of the story. In a non official statement, it has been said that the organizers of the event wanted Roxana Baldetti out of any activities with Mr. Biden. It's known that he even brought his wife, so the protocol would've demanded the presence of Otto Perez Molina's wife rather than the Vice President's. There are two different theories about this request. Firstly, because it has been said that she was trying to persuade the congress to remove CICIG (an institution against crime and corruption from ONU) from Guatemala, and the US wants the institution to keep working in Guatemala. Secondly, because Roxana Baldetti seem to have strong connections with the drug trafficker known as "La Reina del Sur" Marlloy Chacon. Apparently, an important character of international affairs, such as Joe Biden, cant afford to share public activities with someone accused and being investigated for corruption.

Guatemala: Gun attack against two journalists

Journalists murder under suspicious conditions

source: Prensa Libre

On Tuesday, March the 10th, two journalists were shot to death in Suchitepequez, Mazatenango. According to eye witnesses, three journalists, Jose Danilo Lopez from Prensa Libre, Federico Salazar and Marvin Tunchez from Radio Nuevo Mundo were walking in the park and all of a sudden, two suspects approached them in a blue motorcycle, and attacked them with shot guns. Lopez and Salazar died in the scene, while Tunchez was taken to a local hospital severely injured.

According to the first investigations, there's a version that a third person was involved and in charge of letting the attackers in motorcyle know when to make the attack. One of the suspects was captured by the police in a nearby area.

This case have had a lot of attention from the media because one of the journalists involved had been threatened since 2008 for making some notes on San Lorenzo Suchitepequez Mayor, Jose Linares Rojas and Juan Manuel Delgado, former Mazatenango's mayor. According to a written claim made by Danilo Lopez in July 9th, 2013, he was warned by the mayor that if he didn't quit publishing about him, he would face terrible consequences because he was dealing with someone "with power and money."

The reports written by Jose Danilo Lopez are about Q2.8 million missing from the municipality and that the mayor reported were invested in public constructions. Is not known yet if the attack had to do with some reports the journalists were about to publish about the same mayor or if they would have been working in involving a bigger net of corruption in that Department.

Guatemalan Press Association and other activists have been working on paceful marchs demanding respect for life, profession and freedom of speech.

Tuesday, March 10, 2015

Mexico: Capture of Omar Treviño

Last week, mexican police arrested the leader of the Zetas cartel in an early morning near the city of Monterrey.

Alejandro "Omar" Treviño Morales, who went by the name "Z-42," was seized in San Pedro Garza García – the wealthiest town in Latin America.
The media claim that it was a "clean capture" due to Treviño's peacefully giving himself up to the authorities.

Treviño Morales had a $5 million bounty placed on his head by the US Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA), while the Mexican authorities offered a 30 million pesos reward for information leading to his arrest. In the US he was also wanted for drug trafficking.

He had taken the helm of the cartel – which controls much of the north east of Mexico, and thus a large part of the strategically-vital border with the US – in July 2013, when his brother, Miguel Treviño Morales, was captured.

The family – Miguel, Omar and their brother Jose – were pillars of the Zetas cartel, which was formed in 2010 as a breakaway faction of the Gulf cartel.

México captura a Omar Trevino

Mexico's most wanted: Which drug lords have been captured under Enrique Peña Nieto?

Venezuela: US government announces new sanctions on Venezuela

Obama administration just threw an executive order announcing the targeting of seven Venezuelan officials, that the United States says, are involved in corruption in Venezuelan and violated human rights there.

The President of the United Stated stated that the target of those individuals, and that the Treasury Department is authorized as well to target other Venezuelan individuals. They claim that those peopole assets in the US will be frozen and prohibited form traveling to the country. Treasury will be able to add more people to their list.

"We are deeply concerned by the Venezuelan government's efforts to escalate intimidation of its political opponents. Venezuela's problems cannot be solved by criminalizing dissent," the White House said in a release. (cnbc.com)

Who are these officers?

Commander of the Strategic Defense Central Region Integral (REDI), Antonio Benavides Torres; the director of the political police SEBIN Gustavo González López; the president of the Corporación Venezolana de Guayana and former commander of the National Guard Noguera Just Pietri and prosecutor Katherine Haringhton.

The complete list of sanctioned officers is complete with the director of the Bolivarian National Police Manuel Pérez Urdaneta, the commander of the 31 Armoured Brigade of the Army Manuel Bernal Martinez and the Inspector General of the Armed Forces Miguel Vivas Landino.

El Salvador: El Salvador announces a slow process and irregularities in vote counting

After having their elections past March 1st, El Salvador still has no answer about the final results.

El Salvador's Supreme Electoral Tribunal (TSE) announced the normalization of the vote counting process. Julio Olivo, the President of the TSE, called on voters to remain calm as the final vote count could take up to seven days. As they reported that the preliminary count was suspended due to a system failure in the digital electoral database and that the votes would be counted manually.

Opinion polls in the lead-up to the vote suggested that the Farabundo Marti National Liberation Front (FMLN), which currently controls 31 seats, had an 11-point advantage over its right-wing political rival the ARENA party.

According to preliminary reports the FMLN has won 86 of the 262 mayorships of El Salvador in the March 1 elections, including the capital San Salvador.

Eventhough there are man groups and organizations showing their disconfort about the situation, Olivo said in an interview that no political party is going to tell them how to work.

"I'm telling you, you are not going to settle me down and I make you responsible for my personal intgrity" Olivo said.

The Elections:

At the beggining of the month, Salvadoran citizens voted for:

84 seats in Congress

262 mayors

3,000 municipal council members (aprox)

20 representatives for the Central American Parliament

Monday, March 9, 2015

Nicaragua: It's a family matter

Photo Credit: Google/ticotimes

Nicaragua's President Daniel Ortega, is violating the constitution by giving an official charge to his wife and kids.

During a visit to Costa Rica, this past January, Ortega named his wife Rosario Murillo "foreign minister", his daughters as special advisers and his son went holding a ministerial post.

This is just a clear example of how nepotism works during Ortega's Sandinista government. Since he was elected for the second time in 2007, Ortega has named his wife several times with different charges, as spokeswomen and chief of Communication and Citizenship Council , which allowes her to control several media outlets.

Also, in Nicaragua's news paper there are several poitings against Ortega's way of leading his governent.

Past January, La Prensa published that Ortega had named a Puerto Rican as a an Advisor.

Colombia: Colombia will extradit FARC leader , while investigating possible violation of ceasefire

The Colombian government authorized the extradition to The United States of the guerrilla leader of the FARC, Eduardo Cabrera alias El Cura requierd by a court of the district of New York for the crimes of drug trafficking.

El Cura was a mid-level commander of the Southern Block of the guerrilla group FARC, according to the authorities.

The charges brought against him are “conspiring to import cocaine into the United States and to manufacture and distribute cocaine with the knowledge and intent that the substance would be imported to the United States.” (colombia reports.co)
The insurgent was arrested in November 2013 in the southern department of Caquetá , in a joint operation of the Office, Army and Police. Cabrera is accused of being the link of the Southern Block of the FARC drug trafficking, and US officials blame the shipping of more than 500 thousand kilograms of cocaine to the US market .

Colombia autorizó la extradición a EEUU de un líder de las FARC acusado de narcotráfico

Insight Politics Latin America