Security & Strategic Review - August 2024

On 4 July Mexico’s President-elect Claudia Sheinbaum announced that Omar García Harfuch would head up the public security ministry (SSPC) when she takes office on 1 October.... Read More

Bolivia’s deeply polarised politics has formed two opposing interpretations of the military uprising of 26 June, when the army’s top commander, General Juan José Zúñiga, stormed the presidential palace only to beat a hasty retreat after speaking with President Luis Arce.... Read More

Colombia’s left-wing government led by President Gustavo Petro is making strong progress in its promise to slash deforestation.... Read More

The massive violent crime wave that began forming in Ecuador in 2020 has its roots in both the legal and illegal arms trade, according to a report released in June by the Observatorio Ecuatoriano de Crimen Organizado (Oeco), a local think tank.... Read More

The supreme court (STF) ruled in late June to decriminalise the possession of up to 40g of cannabis for personal use, in a high-profile case which has inflamed tensions between the judiciary and legislature.... Read More

Environmental groups, such as international NGO World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF), have warned that a severe drought this year could cause the worst ever wildfire season in one of the world’s largest and most biodiverse wetlands, the Pantanal biome of south-western Brazil.... Read More

Authorities intercepted a large shipment of cocaine on 15 July at a port in the capital Asunción.... Read More

Demonstrators took to the streets on 13 July in the town of 9 de Julio, in the north-eastern province of Corrientes, to mark one month since a young boy named Loan Danilo Peña went missing.... Read More

In its World Drug Report published on 26 June, the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) highlighted the challenges presented by synthetic drugs.... Read More

Minerva Pérez Castro, the head of Mexico’s national chamber of fishing and aquiculture industries (Canainpesca) in Baja California state, was murdered in an apparently targeted attack in the port city of Ensenada on 8 July.... Read More

Authorities in Mexico’s northern state of Coahuila announced that biological remains had been found on 3 July during the recently rebooted search effort in the Pasta de Conchos coal mine, where 65 miners were killed following an explosion in 2006.... Read More

Since being sworn in for a five-year term on 1 July, Panama’s new right-of-centre President José Raúl Mulino has moved on his key campaign pledge to reduce illegal migration through the Darién Gap, a roadless expanse of jungle on Panama’s border with Colombia, through which a record 520,000 migrants crossed in 2023.... Read More

If the US has recently been trumpeting its efforts to cooperate with Panama on reducing illegal migration, in contrast, in late June US Assistant Secretary of State for Western Hemisphere Affairs Brian Nichols criticised the actions of Nicaragua’s authoritarian government led by President Daniel Ortega, accusing it of promoting illegal migration.... Read More

The recent murder of Anastacio Tzib Caal, the general secretary of textile workers union Sindicato de Trabajadores de la Empresa SAE-A Texpia II (Sitratexpia) and the national coordination leader of the national network of maquila unions in Guatemala, has provoked outcry – both domestically and abroad.... Read More

In June Honduras’ leftist Partido Libertad y Refundación (Libre) government led by President Xiomara Castro announced 14 emergency measures to further tackle insecurity, following on from its declaration of a state of emergency back in November 2022 to crack down on extortion and gangs, which had already drawn concern [SSR-24-01].... Read More

Guyana will go to the polls within 18 months, most likely in November 2025.... Read More

The 2024 Caribbean Investment Forum (CIF) was held in Georgetown, Guyana, from 10-12 July.... Read More