American and Latin American Politics, Society, and Culture
InSight Crime reports that Huge Ecuador Cocaine Seizures Signal Growing Role in Drug Trade – employing previously-used transit points,
Several factors could explain this trend, including the boom in neighboring Colombia’s coca production, as well as an estimated increase in production in Peru.
Read the full report and analysis.
You may recall this,
Benjamin Weingarten writes about Where Democracy Really Does Die in Darkness. Obsessed with Trump, Western media ignore the march of authoritarianism around the world. Weingarten writes on Turkey and Hong Kong, and has this to say about Venezuela,
Another story that the media largely ignore is that of the collapse of Venezuela under socialism. The Left’s “May Day”—better titled Victims of Communism Day— came and went with barely a peep about the collapse of the once-vibrant Latin American nation under Hugo Chavez/Nicolás Maduro Stalinism. Just as Turkey is about to fall under the veil of Islamist tyranny, Venezuela is reaching the logical conclusion of Leftist tyranny. Thousands have been taking to the streets in protest. Citizens are going hungry in a country that was once the richest in the region. The government is seizing the assets of global corporations. Inflation is running at 280 percent. In a nation that had banned private gun ownership, Maduro is now planning to arm up to 400,000 loyalists to preserve some semblance of order. Central planning and other attacks on individual liberty and private property rights have turned Venezuela into another failed Communist experiment, leaving its people mired in violence, poverty, and misery.
You might think that the downfall of a nation in America’s hemisphere under democratically elected socialists might be subject to intense media coverage. You would be wrong. Could it be that the Left does not wish to report on the end results of its policies?
The Health Minister got the boot after
Ministry data published this week showed cases of infant mortality rose 30 per cent, maternal mortality 65 per cent and malaria shot up 76 per cent last year. There was also a jump in illnesses such as diphtheria and Zika.
But it’s free healthcare!
Russia, Russia: Russian Oil Deals Provide A Lifeline For Venezuela’s Embattled Maduro.
Russia plans to start supplying wheat to Venezuela this year.
In a document revealed by Brazil’s Federal Supreme Tribunal, the wife of Brazilian publicist Joao Santana, Mónica Moura, confessed that she received $11 million at the Venezuelan Foreign Ministry headquarters, directly from Nicolás’ hands when he was the Foreign Minister. The Santana-Moura partnership was the brains behind el finado’s last re-election campaign back in 2012: “Chávez, corazón del pueblo.”
As part of her plea bargain with Brazilian justice, Moura confessed under oath that Nicolás handed her $11 million in cash and still owed her $15 more million. Nicolás demanded Moura receive all payments for the campaign without declaring them, with some of the payments fronted Odebrecht and Andrade Gutierrez.
The protests continue,
No end in sight. No sleep, tear gas galore and daily clashes. Covering the protests in #venezuela @AFPblogs https://t.co/dqzHxoN71P pic.twitter.com/3GeB7ZEevK
— AFP Correspondent (@AFPblogs) May 12, 2017
Following up on yesterday’s post, Brazil’s former president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva was in court and, as expected (emphasis added)
vigorously defended himself in during a court deposition here Wednesday, denying that he had a role in a monumental corruption scheme being investigated by a judge who has become popular for his crusade against graft.
In a show of defiance to Judge Sergio Moro, Mr. Lula repeated his intention to run for the presidency next year, implying that the investigation wouldn’t stop him from returning to office and thereby putting him into a position where he would be immune from charges.
Oh. That.
You can watch the full deposition on YouTube,
Thousands of supporters had gathered outside the Curitba courthouse while Lula was questioned for five hours.
Lula would be banned from running for public office if found guilty
in any of the five trials he faces this year in cases centering on how construction companies overcharged Petrobras on projects, with the illegal funds then channeled to politicians. Mr. da Silva has been indicted on five indictments of corruption, influence-peddling and money-laundering charges.
The Curitiba questions had to do with allegations that he and Mrs. Lula received $1.2 million from OAS, a company that did business with Petrobras, involving a three-story penthouse Lula claims he never owned.
Dovid Margolin reports on What Life Is Like for Jews in Cuba. Now that Americans can easily visit the “Latin paradise,” I jumped at the opportunity to see first-hand the reality of life for its few remaining Jews. It isn’t pretty.
In Cuba, what with the added factors of a failed Marxist economic policy and the all-encompassing police state, almost all hope of actualizing one’s potential has disappeared. What remains is a naturally sunny people resigned to their forlorn reality. As for the remaining and mainly elderly Jews, they have seen their lives pass by, their God-given potential suffocated by a man-made revolution.
Read the whole thing.
The London-based International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS) says that “conflicts in Mexico and Central America” are deadlier than the war zones in Iraq and Afghanistan. Drudge tweeted about it,
MEXICO 2ND DEADLIEST COUNTRY; TOPS AFGHAN, IRAQ… https://t.co/i4FtSpLiHV
— DRUDGE REPORT (@DRUDGE_REPORT) May 9, 2017
Predictably, the Mexican government on Wednesday rejected the study as “unfounded and irresponsible,” and a senior government official who preferred to remain anonymous said that the study’s
conclusions handed “false arguments” to Mr. Trump to criticize Mexico at a time of tense relations between the two countries.
The irony-poor Interior Ministry also put out a statement claiming
that the homicide rate remains low compared to other countries in the region such as Venezuela and Brazil.
As if.
But facts are a hard thing (emphasis added),
security remains a serious problem in Mexico. An estimated 10,000 people have died each year on average in crimes related to drug gangs since the government began deploying the armed forces to cartel hot spots in late 2006, given the ineffectiveness of local police forces that are often incompetent or corrupt, according to security expert Alejandro Hope. Another 30,000 people are missing, most of them presumed to be victims of the cartels.
Mexico’s homicide rate increased in 2015 and 2016 after three years of declines. Around 21,000 people were murdered last year, a 22% increase from 2015, according to preliminary figures from the Interior Ministry. Experts expect homicides could rise to more than 22,000 in 2017, which would be the highest since 2011 if the trend from the first three months of the year continues.
Then there is the issue of corruption, where Mexico ranks as one of the more corrupt (123 out of 176 countries) nations in the world .
Meanwhile, over in Tamaulipas, cartel factions fight it out while the governors are on the lam.
InSight Crime has news on organized crime in Mexico.
UPDATE
Linked to by Silvio Canto. Thank you!
We talked about this in today’s podcast,
Podcasting live now in @SCantojr's show https://t.co/5VnW3gfYOs
— Fausta (@Fausta) May 11, 2017
An insult to anyone who loves freedom.
Read my article. NYC to honor convicted terrorist as “National Freedom Hero”
Brazil’s ex-President Lula in court over corruption
Lula is facing five charges related to the Car Wash scandal, a three-year investigation that has embroiled more than 100 politicians.
If convicted, he could face jail. If he gets off, he could return to the presidency in the 2018 elections.
He denies any wrongdoing.
Lula will give his testimony at a court in the southern city of Curitiba, where hundreds of his red-shirted supporters have been gathering to protest.
O Globo has live coverage.
It’s been a rough week for Lula; yesterday a judge shut down the Lula Institute:
A Brazilian judge ordered on Tuesday that the institute founded by former President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva suspend its operations.
The ruling was made by federal Judge Ricardo Augusto Soares Leite, who is overseeing one of the five prosecutions Lula faces for alleged corruption
.
While Mexico slams Texas’s new “sanctuary city” law, rival factions of the Gulf Cartel are fighting over control of the border state of Tamaulipas.
Cartel Chronicles reports:
The fighting took place early Tuesday morning setting off the eighth day of gun battles in this city. Law enforcement officials confirmed to Breitbart Texas that the fighting took place along the Esfuerzo Nacional neighborhood on the city’s western side. The fighting began when three gunmen began to fire at a police convoy fatally injuring one of the officers and striking two others. Police officers fought off the attack and then chased the gunmen who tried to flee the are during a short chase. The fighting led to the shutdown of the highway that connects this border city with the industrial hub of Monterrey, Nuevo Leon, one of the busiest avenues in the city.
During the exchange of gunfire, a taco vendor was struck by a stray bullet and died at the scene. Tamaulipas government officials confirmed the five casualties, as well as the seizure of three rifles and two vehicles used in the firefight. As Breitbart Texas has been reporting, rival factions of the Gulf Cartel have been fighting for control of this border city setting off a series of daily gun battles where convoys of gunmen have been roaming the streets seeking out their rivals.
Last year InSight crime reported that Elites, Organized Crime Share Long History in Tamaulipas, Mexico, one of the country’s “most criminally infested states.”
As you may recall, former state governor Tomás Yarrington was being deported from Italy; he is wanted in Mexico and the U.S. on charges of drug trafficking and money laundering. Another governor facing drug charges in the U.S., Eugenio Hernández Flores, remains on the lam.