Briefings & Intelligence
30-07-2015: Latin American Weekly Report
El Salvador under siege as maras go on killing spree
El Salvador’s deteriorating public security situation is taking a sharp turn for the worse. In the course of 72 hours this week mara gang members murdered seven bus drivers and paralysed public transport in and around the capital San Salvador with an enforced strike, in order to ratchet up the pressure on the government led by President Salvador Sánchez Cerén. As the number of homicides has spiralled in recent months to levels not seen since the country’s brutal civil war (1980-1992), the government has refused to hold talks with the maras. It remains defiant. Sánchez Cerén is promising to pour more military on to the streets to support the police, while he and other senior officials in the ruling left-wing Frente Farabundo Martí para la Liberación Nacional (FMLN) are making increasingly wild claims of a multifaceted destabilisation campaign orchestrated by the main right- wing opposition Alianza Republicana Nacionalista (Arena).
- LatinNews
Briefings & Intelligence
23-07-2015: Latin American Weekly Report
Rock-bottom approval ratings, an economy in recession and an increasingly hostile congress are not on their own sufficient to initiate impeachment proceedings against Brazil’s President Dilma Rousseff. However, they make the conditions for such a process more likely. In another bad week for Rousseff, her mentor and predecessor, Lula da Silva (2003-2011), faced a criminal investigation; an opinion poll found just 7.7% of Brazilians approved of her administration; the government was forced to revise down its fiscal surplus target (with the economy now predicted to shrink by 1.49% this year), and the speaker of the federal lower chamber of congress, Eduardo Cunha, declared his open opposition to the executive.
- LatinNews
Briefings & Intelligence
20-07-2015: Latin American Economy Business report
Greece, seen from Latin America
- LatinNews
Briefings & Intelligence
16-07-2015: Latin American Weekly Report
Daring prison escape of Mexico’s ‘El Chapo’ leaves Peña Nieto reeling
The capture of Joaquín ‘El Chapo’ Guzmán Loera, the leader of Mexico’s Sinaloa drug-trafficking organisation (DTO), in February 2014 was lauded as the most significant blow against drug-trafficking for over a decade, underpinning the credibility of President Enrique Peña Nieto. As such, Guzmán’s escape from maximum security prison at the weekend is a significant setback in the fight against drug-trafficking, and a sharp blow to Peña Nieto’s credibility and that of Mexico’s institutions.
- LatinNews
Canning Papers
Brazil and Mexico – cold shoulder or warm embrace?: Canning Papers
Brazil and Mexico, the world’s seventh and fifteenth largest economies respectively, account for 55% of Latin America's population, over half of its GDP and 58% of its exports. Yet bilateral merchandise trade between the two in 2014 was a relatively trifling US$9.2bn, down from a record high of just US$10.2bn in 2012. Despite numerous attempts to forge closer ties over the past twenty years, self-interest has repeatedly scuppered approximation. There are signs, however, that recent engagement may result in a more significant and productive relationship.
Briefings & Intelligence
09-07-2015: Latin American Weekly Report
With pressure mounting on Santos Farc backs off
Colombia’s armed conflict is not just being fought on the ground but in the head. And in the intense psychological war conducted over the course of the last week the guerrillas blinked first. The Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia (Farc) announced that the unilateral ceasefire it suspended on 22 May would be revived for one month on 20 July. This in the wake of a plea from the ‘guarantor nations’ of the peace process for both sides to take urgent measures to de-escalate the conflict after President Juan Manuel Santos and the head of the government negotiating team in Cuba, Humberto de la Calle, stressed that Farc aggression over the last month had brought the prospect of the abandonment of the process closer than at any stage since it began in October 2012. Santos complemented his rhetoric with action, replacing the military high command with some of the most successful operational figures in the armed forces.
- LatinNews