Security & Strategic Review - February 2024

Against all odds, anti-corruption reformer Bernardo Arévalo, who won a resounding victory in Guatemala’s 20 August election on the pledge to tackle the ‘pacto de corruptos’ network of institutional corruption [SSR-23-08], was finally sworn in as president last month.... Read More

A nationwide criminal uprising on 9 January revealed the ineffectiveness of Ecuadorean security policies of recent years.... Read More

Peru’s justice system descended into turmoil in the final weeks of 2023, with then attorney general Patricia Benavides suspended after being accused of leading a corruption network within the public prosecutors’ office.... Read More

Colombia’s President Gustavo Petro declared a state of disaster on 25 January as he sought to mobilise international support to tackle 31 wildfires burning around the country.... Read More

The heads of Brazil’s three branches of government held a ceremony to celebrate the resilience of the country’s democratic institutions one year after the 8 January riots, when thousands of right-wing rioters stormed government buildings in Brasília, many of whom were calling for a military intervention to overturn the 2022 election defeat of former president Jair Bolsonaro (2019-2023).... Read More

Argentina’s armed forces has undergone a major shake-up following new decrees published on 2 January by the government led by President Javier Milei which replaced the commanding officers of the army, navy, and air force.... Read More

Civil society organisations in Argentina launched a petition on 15 January which called for environmental legislation to be maintained, amid efforts by the government of President Javier Milei to pass sweeping plans for deregulation.... Read More

On 16 January Chile’s senate ratified the United Nations (UN) High Seas Treaty, which aims to establish protected marine areas.... Read More

Lorenza Cano had been searching for her missing brother for almost five-and-a-half years when she went missing herself on 15 January.... Read More

Claudia Sheinbaum, the presidential candidate for the ruling Movimiento Regeneración Nacional (Morena), found herself having to defend her campaign against allegations of attempted illicit financing on 10 January.... Read More

January has seen a surge in political violence in Mexico, with politicians - many of them opposition candidates running for local seats in this year’s elections – falling victim to fatal attacks.... Read More

Migrants face a multitude of dangers when crossing Mexico.... Read More

In its first address of the New Year, on 8 January Honduras’s private sector lobby Cohep called on the leftist Partido Libertad y Refundación (Libre) government led by President Xiomara Castro to make good on its pledge to establish a United Nations (UN) anti-corruption commission (CICIH) – a key campaign promise of Castro, who took office in January 2022.... Read More

In January Nicaragua’s official gazette published changes to the country’s constitution which weaken the judiciary.... Read More

Two heightened US security warnings on the Caribbean, as well as the publication of the latest Corruption Perceptions Index (CPI) by the NGO Transparency International, have kept Caribbean Community (Caricom) security and governance issues in the spotlight at the start of 2024.... Read More

Citizenship by Investment (CBI) programmes are hugely important for those Caribbean countries that have them, namely Antigua & Barbuda, Dominica, Grenada, St Kitts & Nevis, and St Lucia, but they also cause anxieties over the type of people who might be benefiting from the programmes.... Read More

*** BOUTERSE DISAPPEARS IN SURINAME.... Read More