Edited with Canva.
Venezuela
Chavismo has raised the tone of its criticism of the primaries held by the opposition last Sunday, labeling them as "fraudulent", and affirming that, as they would have elected a candidate who is not qualified to compete, the bloc violated the agreements signed in Barbados last week. The president of the Venezuelan National Assembly has said that "what happened on Sunday is not verifiable, it was not even an election". It is fair to say in this sense that the electoral authority, de facto controlled by Miraflores, Olympically dismissed for months a request for support from the opposition in this regard.
Jorge Rodríguez, a veteran Chavista politician and the representative of that tendency in the talks with the opposition (source of the image).
Rodríguez has questioned the number of voters reported by the organizing commission of the process, in the order of 2,4 million in the last figure just released. In his statements, yesterday, the head of the legislators said that the process would be discussed at the negotiating table with the opposition, and I would not rule out the possibility of them promoting something from the judiciary in this sense, at least to serve as an irritant. Looking back, the electoral authority hinted a month before that it had "exclusive competence" for the celebration of this type of election within the parties. Caracas would be hiding behind this potential non-compliance—which, if the case, it intelligently allowed to happen—to defend its call to review whether or not there was a breach of the agreement. María Corina Machado, the apparently unobjectionable winner of the day, has countered by stating that the exercise was clean all along the line. In her favor, for the moment, we remember that the reasonable doubt—the one exposed by Rodríguez—is an important first step within the heuristic method, but it will always need—in the last instance—solid evidence to become law.
Drugs here and there
An important point that we have never highlighted here regarding the problem of drug trafficking is how the region, as the producer of the "raw material", ends up paying with its noble blood the consumption needs of European and North American citizens, as well as the economic returns of the criminal organizations that are in charge of the supply chain there (in Europe, for example, drug trafficking groups raise more than 30 billion dollars annually from the retail marketing of narcotics).
Mexican President Andres Manuel López Obrador has denounced much of the simplism by some U.S. politicians when they say that all responsibility for the fentanyl crisis lies with the Aztec nation—some 70,000 deaths were reported last year due to indiscriminate consumption there—forgetting the dimension marked by questions such as who and where consumes, what to do to reduce consumption, or who controls distribution at home? Violence is also connected in this case with the U.S. since it is from there that Mexican criminal gangs are supplied with precision weapons. Just below I share with you some material on the latter subject from CBS.
It is therefore a question of being fair when it comes to assigning responsibilities. Every actor has something to blame, and so to do. If demand is depressed in the receiving countries, it is expected that the intensity of production in the sending ones will fall, with a tangible reduction in the violence that drug trafficking causes. Anyway, something is being done here, however. The anti-drug division of the Peruvian police seized three tons of cocaine that had the United States as its final destination, with an incoming value of more than 91.65 million dollars. Last weekend, the Costa Rican Public Prosecutor's Office announced the seizure of more than two tons of the same drug in a container on its way to Belgium, carrying fresh fruit. Finally, and this time in Paraguay, yesterday, Tuesday, the authorities seized some 3,3 tons of cocaine again, camouflaged in a load of low-quality rice, and which represented 140 million dollars on Belgian soil, to where this volume of drugs was also sent. So Belgium, do we have a problem?
Seized drug, Paraguay (source).
México
The federal government approved the dispatch of 300 members of the National Guard to the municipality of Coyuca de Benítez, in mourning after the brutal murder of 13 people, including the Secretary of Security of that locality, by hired killers who acted without mercy, as if they enjoyed the hunt (in yesterday's report I worked this unfortunate event).
National Guard officers near the entrance to El Papayo, a town in Coyuca de Benítez where the horrendous crime of 13 policemen took place last Monday (source of the image).
Something I criticize the Mexican President is the way he tries to lower tensions about the huge problem he has with organized crime, in sharp contrast with the terrible, bloody, and deadly impact that this scourge has on people's lives. AMLO can and should be very critical of himself, and externalize all the anger that such scandalous events must produce in him without implying a political suicide. Why? Because when he entered the National Palace the cancer caused by organized crime had already metastasized in that society. He was unable to solve it, yes, but that saintly challenge would have been beyond anyone.
Your quick regional roundup
Broad popular sectors continue to protest strongly in the Panamanian capital against an agreement between the government and a Canadian company for operating the largest open-pit copper mine in Central America. The people dispute the constitutionality of the agreement, as well as the danger it would pose to the environment. As part of the mobilization, strategic highways of the country have been closed, and there have been confrontations with law enforcement officers, who have used tear gas in the face of a population, that has not been left without responding with stones.
In Rio de Janeiro, where there has been a harsh response from criminal organizations to the authorities attempt to recover the power de facto in some communities, the local government has appealed to helicopters and drones to monitor the return to "calm", something difficult in Rio. Brasilia is considering militarizing the streets, but for the moment has decided to keep the governor's powers. Airports and other areas over which the federal government has competence and preponderance would be reinforced.
And this is all for our one-hundred-third report. I have referenced the sources dynamically in the text, and remember you can learn how and where to follow the LATAM trail news by reading my work here. Have a nice day.
Edited with Canva.