Some links that I never got around to

Taylor Dibbert has a piece in Foreign Policy Journal on Amnesty and Guatemala's Civil War.

Annie Bird has a long article in Counterpunch on Marching Towards the Past in Guatemala.

The Independent has a profile on Francisco Dall'Anese. 

Jose Miguel Cruz has an article in Latin American Politics & Society on Criminal Violence and Democratization in Central America: The Survival of the Violent State.

Finally, congratulations to Greg at Two Weeks Notice on his promotion to full professor.

Presidential Approval Ratings

CID-Gallup released approval ratings for the various Central American presidents last week. The surveys were carried out in October and November.

Given how disappointed many Salvadorans and Salvadoran watchers are with President Funes, it's interesting to see that the majority of the population still evaluate him so favorably. Fifty-seven percent say that he has done a good or very good job. The numbers are well below his highs, but pretty darn good particularly compared to his neighbors.

In Guatemala, Colom leaves office with terrible support, the lowest in the region at 17%. I tend to give Colom a little higher marks than those surveyed for a few reasons. Murders are down again this year and should be at their lowest level since 2005. Poverty has increased, but it's been a tough international economic environment and Guatemala has been struck by a number of natural disasters that have not helped.

Colom was politically destroyed by the Rosenberg murder/suicide through no fault of his own. Congress has been mostly useless. The media were never fond of Colom and have given him a harder time than previous presidents. I hope that this is a sign of independence and maturity on the part of the media that will continue into the next administration, but we will have to wait and see.

While the government isn't against using violence to evict campesinos and to support business interests, the Colom administration does not appear to have been operating death squads out of government ministries like previous ones have.

While the perceived level of corruption as measured by Transparency International increased in 2011, I think that a lot of the increase can be explained by the media's coverage of corruption cases and successful arrests (and subsequent acquittals) of high profile individuals. For now, I am not convinced that corruption is much higher than previous administrations. While the media makes it sound as it corruption in government offices didn't exist before Colom, there's a reasons that CICIG was brought to Guatemala.

Finally, Colom's administration has moved to arrest several high profile drug traffickers, former presidents, and human rights violators from the civil war years.

Now, Colom wasn't personally responsible for all that occurred during his term. But that doesn't matter. Guatemalans have spoken and it's not pretty. Colom has the lowest approval ratings of all the Central American presidents.

Central America Links

Here are several links to Central American stories that might be of interest.

·         Guatemala's tale of two societies (Mail & Guardian)

·         Guatemalan journalist keeps secrets of drug killings for posthumous video (Guardian)

·         Like Water for Gold in El Salvador (The Nation)

·         How Nicaragua made the most of Hugo Chavez's riches (Global Post)

·         Ortega’s rhetoric worries Nicaragua bishop (Miami Herald)

·         Thousands of Migrant Kids Trapped Inside the World’s Border Politics (Color Lines)

·         Central American Migrants Preyed on By Organised Crime, Police  (IPS)

Trying Harder in Central America

Here's Boz

While the situations are different, I think a lesson is that there is no amount of money that the US could put on the table and no amount of attention the US could give that would guarantee Central America's success in fighting organized crime. 

We should invest more in Central America's security and economic development. How that money is spent and how Central America invests in itself matter more than the raw number of US resources thrown at a problem.

It reminds me of the undergraduate papers I read every semester where the solution to any of the world's most intractable problems is simply to try harder. Every problem can be solved if we (or they) just tried harder. On the one hand, that's what makes the US great sometimes. We can solve any problem if we just put a little more effort into it.

On the other hand, it's really frustrating that many people think that we are not winning the war on drugs/organized crime/corruption/poverty/illegal immigration/terrorism, etc. simply because we're not trying hard enough.

Visitors to Central America up by 10% in 2010

According to numbers reported by the tourism ministries in Belize, Costa Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua and Panama, the number of tourists to the region increased by 10.8% in 2010 compared to 2009 numbers. (I have no idea why the article rounded down to 10% rather than up to 11%).

Belize - 1,035,577 visitors arrived in 2010, 10% more than the previous year.

Costa Rica - reported a total of 2,485,191 visitors, an increase of 8.6% on the previous year. 

El Salvador - received 1,604,358 visitors, 8.34% more than in 2009.

Panama - received 1,685,295 visitors, 7.83% more than the previous year.

Nicaragua  - 1,071,660 visitors, an increase of 6%. 

Guatemala - 1,875,776 visitors in 2010, up by 5.57%. 

Honduras - an increase in visitors of 2.92%.

The report doesn't give total numbers for Honduras, but it's probably an indication that the 2009 coup impacted Honduras as a tourist destination.

The Other Wall

Prensa Libre

US-based Central America Events

If you are in the New York or D.C. area on Thursday, there are some great events scheduled. In New York, The Center for Human Rights and Peace Studies at Lehman College, CUNY has put together a conference on New Pathways to Justice: An International Conference to Stop Violence Against Women in Central America.

The conference will feature more than a dozen speakers from Costa Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, and Nicaragua, as well as the United States, representing a panoply of institutions and organizations, from "cold case" detectives and forensic specialists to prosecutors, judges, and human rights advocates...

The aim of the conference is to stop violence against women in Central America, including feminicide (the murder of women), promote human rights, and enhance women's participation in their respective societies. Crime-scene investigations, forensic methods, and prosecutor investigations will be discussed.

The conference includes an impressive list of US and international speakers and is free and open to the public. It will also be broadcast live at http://www.lehman.edu/.

However, if you can't make the NY conference but are instead fortunate enough to be in the Washington, D.C. areaon Thursday, the Latin American Program of the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars and the World Bank are hosting

CRIME AND VIOLENCE IN CENTRAL AMERICA

With

FRANCISCO DALL’ANESE, COMMISSIONER

INTERNATIONAL COMMISSION AGAINST IMPUNITY IN GUATEMALA (CICIG)

FELIPE JARAMILLO,

COUNTRY DIRECTOR FOR CENTRAL AMERICA, THE WORLD BANK

RODRIGO SERRANO-BERTHET, Senior SOCIAL Development Specialist, THE WORLD BANK

JEANNETTE AGUILAR, DIRECTOR, IUDOP, UNIVERSIDAD CENTROAMERICANA, EL SALVADOR

You'll be able to view the webcast here.

It looks like you won't go wrong with either event.

News from Central America

Here are a few English-language stories related to Central America, most of which should be interesting to you I hope.

On Tuesday, the people of El Salvador celebrated Missing Children's Day with a variety of activities throughout the country. The day´s activities included a moment of silence in schools, the issuing of a commemorative stamp, a university essay contest award ceremony, and signing performances.

Pro-Busqueda is an organization that remains at the forefront of helping to locate children who were disappeared during the war.

In Big Fish Eat the Small Fish, Danilo Valladares discusses the difficulties confronting "Thousands of small-scale fishers in Central America [are] fighting for survival in the face of free trade deals, transnational corporations, mega tourism projects and pollution that is harming marine life." Large-scale commercial fishers have mainly benefited from recent trade deals.

Valladares also has the story of Guatemala: Forced evictions - peasant farms razed to the ground, a story about the displacement of indigenous farmers in Alta Verapaz.
Eleven Guatemalan women are suing Toronto-based HudBay Minerals and its subsidiarity, HMI Nickel, for $55 million dollars. The women claim that they were assaulted and gang-raped by security and police forces near the company's operations in 2007. Some of the attackers were wearing company uniforms.

Emily Ruiz, a 4-year-old US citizen who was deported along with her grandfather, to his (and her parents') native country, Guatemala, has finally returned to New York. When her grandfather with whom she was travelling was denied entry to the US, she was sent back to Guatemala with him.
 
Albright College and Alvernia University, two Pennsylvania colleges, are working with Salvadoran filmmakers on a Documentary To Focus On Violent Gang With Ties To Reading.
 
Fox News Latino has a brief blurb on weapons entering Mexico from Central America that appeared in US cables released through Wikileaks (Mexican cartels get heavy weapons from CentAm, U.S. cables say).

Ex-Interior Minister Carlos Vielmann appeared before a Spanish court to fight his extradition back to Guatemala. He stand accused of a variety of crimes, including the 2006 summary executions of seven inmates at the Pavon prison and the killing of three inmates from another jail a year earlier.
Also check out two recent Hemispheric Briefs for coverage of event in Honduras (one and two - halfway down each post). And since I don't comment much on Honduras, you should always check out Honduras Culture and Politics for insightful commentary.

Now back to one of my "favorite" books on El Salvador, Paying the Price: Ignacio Ellacuria and the Murdered Jesuits of El Salvador by Teresa Whitfield.

Presidential Approval Ratings

I started to write a post on Mitofsky's compilation of presidential approval ratings around the hemisphere this morning, but fortunately Boz beat me to it. Check out his website for more discussion.

Here's how Central American leaders stand.

• Mauricio Funes 72%
• Ricardo Martinelli 65%
• Porfirio Lobo 51%
• Laura Chinchilla 45%
• Alvaro Colom 41%
• Daniel Ortega 40%

Now back to work on an R and R.

Valenzuela heads to Central America

From the State Dept.

Assistant Secretary of State for Western Hemisphere Affairs Arturo A. Valenzuela will travel to Honduras, Guatemala and El Salvador December 5-9 in a visit designed to discuss ongoing security cooperation, strengthening of democratic governance and renewed efforts to advance coordination on citizen security.

In his first stop in Tegucigalpa, Honduras, on Sunday, December 5, and Monday, December 6, he will meet with Honduran President Lobo and other government officials and political, business, and civil society leaders; in Guatemala City, Guatemala, on Monday, December 6, and Tuesday, December 7, Dr. Valenzuela will meet with President Colom and Francisco Dall’Anese of the International Commission Against Impunity in Guatemala as well as members of civil society and the business community.

In San Salvador, El Salvador, on Wednesday, December 8, and Thursday, December 9, he will discuss with President Funes and other officials the broad range of bilateral issues of interest to both countries. Additionally, in each country, he will meet with officials and community leaders to discuss bilateral and regional issues, such as our cooperation to promote inclusive economic opportunity.

Kind of weird press release.  Valenzuela is going to El Salvador, Honduras, and Guatemala to "discuss ongoing security cooperation, strengthening of democratic governance and renewed efforts to advance coordination on citizen security."  We're okay there.

So in Honduras, he'll meet with President Lobo, other government officials, and political, business, and civil society leaders.  In Guatemala, he'll meet with President Colom, Dall’Anese of CICIG, as well as members of civil society and the business community.  In El Salvador, he'll meet with President Funes and other officials.  Finally, in each country, Valenzuela will meet with "officials and community leaders." 

Wouldn't it have been more clear to announce that he'll meet with each country's president, other political leaders, and representatives from business and civil society?  Where do military leaders and police officials fit in?

Second, where's the Valenzuela is going to the region to discuss the Honduras memo and to prepare them for the release of other damaging memos related to Central America over the last several decades?