As Haiti’s Crisis Escalated Under Jovenel Moïse, Who Was Assassinated This Week, International Observers Stood By

Oil rigs from the Pemex Ku-S oil processing center, part of the Ku-Maloob-Zaap complex, are seen in the Gulf of Mexico on Aug. 5, 2010. Alfredo Estrella/AFP/Getty Images

A Colombian-Argentine deal at CAF. Colombia’s Sergio Díaz-Granados won a selection process to head the CAF Development Bank of Latin America for a five-year term. El País reported that because the leadership choice is made by consensus, the bank handled fierce opposition to Díaz-Granados from Argentina and Mexico by naming Argentina’s candidate, Christian Asinelli, a CAF vice president whose recommendations Díaz-Granados pledged to consult.

Uruguay’s trade flirtations. Uruguay told fellow members of the Mercosur trade bloc Argentina, Brazil, and Paraguay that it will pursue bilateral trade agreements with countries outside the bloc. Uruguay and Brazil have called unsuccessfully for a reduction in Mercosur’s common external tariff.

Chile’s head constitutional assemblywoman. The Indigenous Mapuche linguist Elisa Loncón won an election for president of Chile’s constituent assembly with 96 of the body’s 155 votes, pledging that the new constitution would make Chile “plurinational and multicultural.” 

Makeup of Chile’s Constituent Assembly

Seats by bloc, out of 155

Source: CELAG, Latin American Strategic Center of Geopolitics

As if the CAF and Mercosur tensions were not enough, Argentina will play Brazil in Saturday’s Copa América final in a match that some commentators predict will be technically superior to the final between Italy and England at the UEFA European Championship on Sunday. The two national teams are among the world’s best, their top players are among the world’s best, and their rivalry is bigger, according to the Brazilian sports journalist Mauro Cezar Pereira. While Brazil is the home team, Argentina is coming off a year marked by the death of its spiritual icon, Diego Maradona. 

Question of the Week

In what year was the assassination of a Haitian president followed by a U.S. military invasion that went on to become a near two-decade occupation? 

A. 1908
B. 1915
C. 1922
D. 1930

In Focus: Colombian ‘False Positives’ Reverberate

Picture of fake tombs placed in front of the Congress building during a protest against the false positives, massacres, and forced disappearances by Colombian authorities in Bogota on March 6, 2009.

A picture of fake tombs placed in front of the Congress building during a protest against the false positives, massacres, and forced disappearances by Colombian authorities in Bogotá on March 6, 2009. Mauricio Duenas/AFP/Getty Images

On Tuesday, Colombia’s transitional justice court issued its first sentence for people—in this case, 10 army officers and one civilian—who killed or forcibly disappeared civilians during the country’s internal conflict, incorrectly labeling victims as guerrillas to boost the appearance of battlefield victories for the Colombian army. 

The court estimates that, between 2002 and 2008, more than 6,400 Colombians fell victim to such crimes, which became known as “false positives.” Tuesday’s ruling found that the killings constituted crimes against humanity and stemmed from both institutional pressure to raise kill counts and widespread stigma against Colombian civilians, Judge Catalina Díaz said.  

The JEP proves its mettle. Even after the false positives had been tried in Colombia’s normal justice system, Tuesday’s ruling was the first time that an officer who held the rank of general at the time of the crimes was indicted, underscoring the power of the transitional justice court—known by its Spanish acronym, JEP—to bring new levels of accountability. 

The court expects to issue at least five more indictments for similar killings. Among its seven different lines of investigation about the conflict, those regarding false positives and crimes committed by guerrilla leaders have been the first to lead to charges. In late April, a group of former guerrilla leaders officially accepted responsibility for crimes the JEP ruled they committed.  

Sentencing versus reform. While families of the false positive victims welcomed this week’s indictments, the past few months in Colombia have shown that abuse of authority is still far too common among the country’s security officials. Police killings of anti-government protesters have prompted widespread calls for police reform, and even U.S. President Joe Biden discussed the need for accountability for law enforcement on his first-ever call with Colombian President Iván Duque last week.  

In early June, Duque issued a proposal for police reform that did not include a key civil society demand of shifting police from defense ministry to interior ministry supervision. Nor was Colombian society broadly consulted on the plan’s design. Police reform appears poised to remain a prominent issue in the country’s presidential election next year.

And the answer is…

B. 1915

Haitian President Vilbrun Guillaume Sam was assassinated in July 1915. Soon after, U.S. troops began a nearly 20-year occupation of the country, during which the United States took control of Haiti’s banks, forced it to rewrite its constitution so it would be friendlier to foreign property owners, and fought off several insurgencies. The U.S. governance template outlived the occupation: After the U.S. departure in 1934, Haiti’s central government continued to control rural politics and quash dissent with an army the United States helped create, the journalist Jonathan Katz has written.

Source link : https://foreignpolicy.com/2021/07/09/latin-america-haiti-president-assassination-political-crisis/

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Publish date : 2021-07-09 03:00:00

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