Santa Marta Five is on trial in ES

A trial began Tuesday against five environmental activists in El Salvador accused of a civil war crime. The case against Miguel Ángel Gámez, Alejandro Laínez García, Pedro Antonio Rivas Laínez, Antonio Pacheco and Saúl Agustín Rivas Ortega “has been conducted in almost total secrecy amid widespread allegations of legal violations,” reports the Guardian.

The defendants are five anti-mining activists who helped secure a historic mining ban in El Salvador in 2017. They led a thirteen-year grassroots campaign to ban metal mining to protect the country’s water and agricultural land from further contamination. They had exposed suspicious land sales and mining interests in the Cabañas department.

But the “Santa Marta Five” were arrested in January this year on charges of “illegal association” in connection with an alleged murder that took place in 1989, during the country’s civil war. (Nacla, Defenders on the front lines)

In a letter to the government in March 2023, a group of UN special rapporteurs and the vice-chair of the UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention said: “We fear that the case is an attempt to intimidate those trying to defend the environment. in the country, and especially those who defend human rights against the negative consequences of mining.”

“Bukele’s interest in mining is part of a broader effort to secure international investment for industries such as bitcoin, tourism and fossil fuel exploration – which environmental experts say pose the risk of forced displacement, social conflict and water shortages,” reports the Guardian.

Critics of the case against the Santa Marta Five “have emphasized not only the inability of the Salvadoran government to show any evidence of the men’s guilt, but also the fact that perpetrators of crimes linked to the civil war are protected under a 1992 amnesty agreement between the government and the United States. FMLN,” notes Brett Wilkins Common dreams.

The new Mexican government Sheinbaum presented its plan to combat violence and crime, promising to strengthen the National Guard police and boost intelligence collection in an effort to reduce murders, kidnappings and extortions. Security Minister Omar Garcia Harfuch outlined a four-pronged approach that will also focus on addressing the economic and social causes of crime and improving coordination among crime-fighting institutions, reports Reuters.

While the Associated press portrays the plan largely as a continuation of the previous government’s plan, Animal politics is more nuanced: of the four axes, two continue the policies of the AMLO government – ​​attention to the causes of the violence and consolidation of the National Guard – while two represent innovations – strengthening intelligence and research; and coordination between Security Cabinet institutions and state authorities.

More Mexico

• Four mayors asked Mexican national authorities for protection after a mayor in Guerrero state was murdered. (Associated press)

• Mexican Economy Minister Marcelo Ebrard suggested that his country will actively take the American side in the looming trade battle with China. (Associated press)

Haiti

• The death toll in a brutal gang attack last Friday in the Haitian city of Pont-Sondé has risen to 115, reports the Associated press. The victims included babies, young mothers and the elderly. The gang approached Pont-Sondé via canoes to surprise residents, a local human rights group said. (See last Friday’s message.)

• Gunmen invaded another town north of Port-au-Prince today, shooting at people and setting houses on fire. Residents of the coastal town of Arcahaie called radio stations to plead for help and asked police to come rescue them. (Associated press)

Colombia

• Colombian President Gustavo Petro has labeled an investigation by election authorities into his campaign financing as an attempted coup. But “political realities and judicial deadlines make it impossible to depose the president before his mandate expires,” writes Juanita León in Silla Vacia. While it is convenient for certain interests to “weaken the president with a judicial investigation, very few people would be interested in this going so far as to cut short the presidential mandate.”

• “In Quibdó, Colombia, local criminal gangs have targeted women for their ties to rival groups, resorting to gender-based violence as a strategy for territorial control,” reports InSight Crime.

Argentina

• Argentina’s Chamber of Deputies failed to reach the two-thirds majority needed to overturn President Javier Milei’s veto of a law that would have boosted university funding. The vote is a victory for Milei, who has a small minority in Congress but has joined conservative lawmakers. (Reuters)

• Milei told the Financial times that setting a fixed timeframe for removing currency controls, in line with a campaign promise, runs counter to his libertarian philosophy: “I can’t set dates because I don’t think like a central planner. We think in terms of a regime of freedom.”

Brazil

Guatemala

• Nine press freedom organizations called for the release of Guatemalan journalist José Ruben Zamora, who has spent 800 days in detention since his arrest on July 29, 2002 on money laundering charges – which international organizations described as arbitrary and politically motivated. (Committee to Protect Journalists)

Ecuador

• Ecuador’s President Daniel Noboa’s re-election hopes have been hit hard by electricity outages and slow progress in reducing violent crime in the country, reports say Quarterly America.

• The US State Department said it has barred former Ecuadorian President Rafael Correa and former Vice President Jorge Glas from entering the United States due to their involvement in corruption, reports Reuters.

Regional

• “Soy is big business in South America, now producing more than half the planet’s supply after fifty years of extraordinary growth – a truly epic story that encompasses technological innovation, both government’s helpers and hindrances, and the emergence of small and medium-sized enterprises. classes half a world away,” reports Quarterly America. “The question facing the industry today is whether the days of heady expansion are over.”

• “Economic growth in Latin America and the Caribbean is expected to slow from 2.1% in 2023 to 1.9% this year before accelerating again in 2025, according to the World Bank, which warned in a report that the region has so far missed the opportunity for growth. caused by global changes in supply chains.” – Reuters

Migration

• Sister Rosita Milesi, a Brazilian nun who has helped refugees and migrants for 40 years, has won the Nansen Prize, awarded each year by the UN High Commissioner for Refugees, for outstanding work protecting internally displaced and stateless people. (Reuters)

Flora

• Over almost forty years, a reforestation project in Rio de Janeiro has developed into a government policy with important social and ecological consequences. The program, now known as Refloresta Rio (Herbos Rio), has transformed the city’s landscape. “Reforested areas include mangroves and vegetation-covered sandbanks called restinga, as well as forested mountain slopes around favelas,” reports the Guardian.