Mexico & Central America News and Discussions

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weatheriscool
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Mexico & Central America News and Discussions

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In Mexico, cartels are hunting down police at their homes
By MARK STEVENSON2 hours ago

MEXICO CITY (AP) — The notoriously violent Jalisco cartel has responded to Mexico’s “hugs, not bullets” policy with a policy of its own: The cartel kidnapped several members of an elite police force in the state of Guanajuato, tortured them to obtain names and addresses of fellow officers and is now hunting down and killing police at their homes, on their days off, in front of their families.

It is a type of direct attack on officers seldom seen outside of the most gang-plagued nations of Central America and poses the most direct challenge yet to President Andrés Manuel López Obrador’s policy of avoiding violence and rejecting any war on the cartels.

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https://apnews.com/article/caribbean-me ... a5a6a6c266
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Yuli Ban
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I know people IRL who hate the War on Drugs and the horrible violence who would still say that legalizing drugs is the worst possible option, against literally all evidence, just because they bought into all the War on Drugs and D.A.R.E. propaganda.
And remember my friend, future events such as these will affect you in the future
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caltrek
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Wife of El Chapo Pleads Guilty to All Charges

https://www.courthousenews.com/wife-of- ... l-charges/

Introduction:
WASHINGTON (Courthouse News) — The wife of notorious Mexican drug lord Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán Loera pleaded guilty on Thursday to aiding her husband in running his global drug empire and helping to plan his intricate 2015 escape from a Mexican prison.

Emma Coronel Aispuro, 32, appeared this morning before a federal judge in Washington, four months after she was arrested at Dulles International Airport — the product of a nearly two-year investigation by U.S. law enforcement into the the former beauty queen’s deep involvement with the Sinaloa cartel’s inner workings.

Making her arrest particularly surprising, though, was the absence of any attempt to charge Coronel in Brooklyn during her husband’s three-month trial, 2019 conviction and sentence to life plus 30 years in a U.S. federal prison.

Speaking through an interpreter Thursday, Coronel pleaded guilty to all three counts against her: conspiring to distribute cocaine, methamphetamine, heroin and marijuana in the United States; conspiring to conduct financial transactions to distribute controlled substances; and engaging in transactions and dealings in property designated to a narcotics trafficker.

The first count holds up to life in prison and a fine up to $10 million, the second up to 20 years and $500,000 and the third up to 10 years and $250,000.
Don't mourn, organize.

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caltrek
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U.S. Investment Alone Won’t Solve Central America’s Migrant Crisis
by Nicole Narea
June 18, 2021

https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics ... ca-migrant

Extract:
(Vox) Vice President Kamala Harris recently announced a partnership with 12 private-sector companies and organizations to support “inclusive economic development” in the Northern Triangle of Central America, which includes Guatemala, Honduras, and El Salvador. US government agencies, including the State Department, will also work with governments in the region to remove impediments to international investment and foster new private-sector partnerships.
Conclusion:
...the influence of US corporations in the region hasn’t been all positive in the past. They have engaged in their own kind of exploitative business practices: for example, preventing workplaces from unionizing by simply taking their business to another country in the region to assure themselves cheap labor, Chacon said.

He added that the US government has historically ignored these practices and allowed American companies to perpetuate “voracious capitalism.” The Biden administration can’t allow international companies to repeat those mistakes. Just as the Biden administration is turning attention to worker rights in the US, it should do the same in Central America, Chacon said.

And some say the administration should focus its efforts primarily on coordinating with local civil society groups, who better understand the challenges on the ground than any large multinational corporation or organization or even US government agency. Harris has prioritized meeting with such groups early on — particularly in Guatemala, which has the most developed civil society of the three countries — but advocates from the region want to see even more collaboration.

Civil society groups in the Northern Triangle are “much more committed to see that the projects are successful,” Chacon said. “The US would do much better by not only investing more, but investing in a truly new set of partners, both in the rural areas as well as in the cities.”
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weatheriscool
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Official: Haiti President Jovenel Mose assassinated at home
Source: AP

By EVENS SANON and DÁNICA COTO

PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti (AP) — Haitian President Jovenel Moïse was assassinated in an attack on his private residence, the country’s interim prime minister said in a statement Wednesday, calling it a “hateful, inhumane and barbaric act.”

First Lady Martine Moïse was hospitalized following the overnight attack, interim Premier Claude Joseph said. The nation of more than 11 million people had grown increasingly unstable and disgruntled under Moïse.

“The country’s security situation is under the control of the National Police of Haiti and the Armed Forces of Haiti,” Joseph said in a statement from his office. “Democracy and the republic will win.”

In the early morning hours of Wednesday, the streets were largely empty in the Caribbean nation’s capital of Port-au-Prince, but some people ransacked businesses in one area.

Read more: https://apnews.com/article/caribbean-ha ... e8d59c6af2
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caltrek
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^^^More on that:

Agencies Probe U.S., Colombian Ties to Moise Assassination
July 9, 2021

Introduction:
(Al Jazeera) Law enforcement and intelligence agencies are probing ties of two Haitian-American men and a group of Colombian mercenaries to the assassination of Haiti President Jovenel Moise in the Haitian capital Port-au-Prince as a manhunt for a number of gunmen believed to be still at large continues.

The United States, Colombia and Interpol are joining a fast-moving investigation of the assassination after Haitian police arrested 17 members of a 28-man hit squad that Haitian police said assassinated President Moise on Wednesday.

Three Colombian mercenaries were killed and eight others were still being sought by Haitian police. The US is sending FBI agents and Department of Homeland Security (DHS) officials to Port-au-Prince.

“In response to the Haitian government’s request for security and investigative assistance, we will be sending senior FBI and DHS officials to Port-au-Prince to assess the situation and how we may be able to assist,” White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki said.

“The investigation is being led by Haitian police forces on the ground,” Psaki added.
Don't mourn, organize.

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caltrek
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U.S.-Backed Haitian Government Reportedly Requests American Intervention
by Brett Wilkins
July 9, 2021

https://www.commondreams.org/news/2021/ ... tervention

Introduction:
(Common Dreams) One observer noted that Wednesday's assassination of President Jovenel Moïse "has left Haitians at home and in the diaspora conflicted and uneasy about what could come next."

Officials from Haiti's U.S.-backed government on Friday reportedly requested the deployment of American troops to the Caribbean nation to protect key assets—and presumably the regime itself—amid the chaotic aftermath of Wednesday's assassination of President Jovenel Moïse in Port-au-Prince.

The New York Times reports Haitian officials have asked for U.S. troops to intervene to protect the nation's port, airport, gasoline reserves, and other critical infrastructure from possible attack by foreign mercenaries. Matthias Pierre, Haiti's elections minister, said the request was made because U.S. President Joe Biden and Secretary of State Antony Blinken had promised to help his country in the wake of Moïse's murder.

While Jalina Porter, a deputy State Department spokesperson, would not confirm the Haitian request for U.S. troops, White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki said Friday that senior homeland security and FBI officials would travel to Haiti "as soon as possible" to determine how to best help there.

Details of Wednesday's assassination are still emerging (see for example the preceding story in this thread).
Don't mourn, organize.

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weatheriscool
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Colombians held in Haitian president's assassination claim ties to Miami-area security firm
Source: McClatchy

BY JACQUELINE CHARLES, KEVIN G. HALL, ANTONIO MARIA DELGADO, AND BIANCA PADRÓ OCASIO
JULY 10, 2021 03:38 PM, UPDATED 36 MINUTES AGO
The Miami area is looming ever larger as investigators question the men held in the plot to assassinate Haitian President Jovenel Moïse.

Seventeen Colombians and two Haitian Americans from South Florida are in custody in Haiti. A person who interviewed the detained Colombians in Haiti told the Miami Herald that the men claimed to have been recruited to do work in Haiti by an under-the-radar firm in Doral called CTU Security. It is run by a Venezuelan émigré, Antonio Enmanuel Intriago Valera.



This screenshot from the Facebook page of Venezuelan emigre Antonio Intriago shows that he opposes the Maduro regime in Venezuela. Captured Colombians accused of participating in the July 7, 2021, assassination of Haiti’s president claim they were hired by Intriago’s Doral-based company CTU Security. Relatives of the detained say they were there to provide security for wealthy people.

. . .

Multiple sources in Haiti, requesting anonymity for their safety, have confirmed to the Herald that the detained men said they were hired by CTU, and several of the men indicated they had been in Haiti for at least three months, some longer. It is unclear if they knew or believed CTU leaders were aware of the assassination plot.

. . .

Solages worked as a maintenance director at a senior-living center in Lantana until this past April 12. Little is known about the other man but documents obtained Saturday show his name may have been reversed in the Haitian proceedings and that it is really Joseph Gertand Vincent. His sparse public footprint shows he was indicted in 1999 for making a false statement on a passport application and given probation.
Read more: https://www.mcclatchydc.com/news/invest ... 00808.html
weatheriscool
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‘We Are Not Afraid’: Thousands Of People Protesting On The Streets Of Cuba
By CBSMiami.com Team
July 11, 2021 at 6:50 pm
Filed Under:Cuba, Local TV, Miami News
MIAMI (CBSMiami) – Chanting “we are not afraid,” thousands of Cubans took to the streets Sunday to demand the end of the communist dictatorship.

The COVID crisis has only exacerbated the unrest on the island nation, which is why protesters also called for food and vaccines.
https://miami.cbslocal.com/2021/07/11/cuba-protests/
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caltrek
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The Hidden Hand of the US Blockade Sparks Cuba Protests
by Medea Benjamin and Leonard Flores
July 13, 2021

https://www.commondreams.org/views/2021 ... a-protests

Introduction:
(Common Dreams) Protests erupted in various Cuban cities the weekend of July 11 over dire economic conditions and a surge in Covid-19 cases. They are the biggest protests to hit Cuba in three decades, and they may well continue in the coming weeks. They come on the heels of artists' protests in Havana at the end of 2020, and have extended to many parts of the island. But their scale has been exaggerated by the Western press and by Cuban Americans who have been predicting, for 60 years, the imminent fall of the Cuban government.

Media outlets like The New York Times wrote about "hundreds of Cubans" while Reuters described them as thousands. In either case, Cuba has a population of 11 million people. The protests pale in comparison, both in terms of turnout and in state repression, to mass mobilizations that have rocked Colombia, Haiti, Chile, Ecuador and other Latin American countries over the past few years—or even Portland, Oregon, or Ferguson, Missouri. Moreover, U.S. media have paid little attention to the counter protesters, who have gone out into the streets to express their support for the government and Cuban Revolution. This includes Cuban President Miguel Díaz-Canel, who marched in the streets of Havana after denouncing the protests as an attempt to "fracture the unity of the people."

The protests should also be understood in the context of a brutal economic war waged by the United States against the island nation for more than 60 years. This was laid out clearly by the U.S. Deputy Assistant Secretary of State in 1960, when he explicitly called for "denying money and supplies to Cuba, to decrease monetary and real wages, to bring about hunger, desperation and overthrow of government." This strategy has failed in its goal of regime change for decades, and it is unlikely to be successful now.
Admittedly, this is a "media report" upon which I rely to give me a picture of what is happening in Cuba. Personally, I have never visited the country. However, I have attended events featuring visitors from Cuba and have had discussions with people who have visited that country. The tone of this article is consistent with impressions I have received from those personal experiences.
Don't mourn, organize.

-Joe Hill
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