Security & Strategic Review - September 2023

President Joe Biden’s administration in the US has suspended satellite monitoring of Colombian coca cultivation, quietly dropping one of the key tools in its war on drugs while providing no public explanation for the change.... Read More

A wave of violence swept through Ecuador’s prison system after riots began on 22 July at the Penitenciaría del Litoral in Guayaquil, the largest prison in the country which has been the site of repeated massacres since 2020.... Read More

On 14 August Bolivia’s consul general in Chile, José Pinelo, met with Chile’s foreign minister, Alberto van Klaveren, in the Chilean capital Santiago to discuss border issues such as migration and transnational crime.... Read More

Brazil’s government led by President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva announced a package of security initiatives on 21 July, the ‘Programa de Ação na Segurança’ (PAS).... Read More

At the end of July Brazil’s national statistics institute (Ibge) released its first-ever census on the country’s Afro-Brazilian 'quilombola' population - Afro-Brazilian communities who identify as the descendants of escaped slaves who established their own settlements.... Read More

Paraguay’s anti-drugs agency (Senad) and Brazil’s federal police (PF) have long collaborated in their efforts to combat the activities of drug trafficking organisations (DTOs) operating near the countries’ border regions.... Read More

The latest Global Peace Index of Australia-headquartered think tank the Institute for Economics and Peace’s (IEP), published in July, highlighted that violent crime has become less of a concern in Argentina.... Read More

A key chapter in the investigation into the infamous Ayotzinapa case ended on 31 July, as the inter-disciplinary group of independent experts (GIEI) terminated its collaboration with Mexico’s government on the case.... Read More

On 7 August the International Whaling Commission (IWC), an intergovernmental organisation that regulates whaling and fisheries management, announced it had issued its first-ever extinction alert for the vaquita marina porpoise, a critically endangered marine mammal that is endemic to Mexico’s Gulf of California.... Read More

Criticism has been mounting on both sides of the border to the installation of an anti-migrant river barrier in the Rio Grande.... Read More

On 9 August El Salvador’s 84-member unicameral legislature voted for another 30-day extension of the state of emergency, the 17th since March 2022, when President Nayib Bukele initiated his crackdown on the country’s street gangs.... Read More

The World Meteorological Organisation (WMO) has said that there is a 90% probability of a moderate-to-strong El Niño weather pattern persisting during the second half of 2023.... Read More

On 9 August, the International Day of the World’s Indigenous Peoples, Brian Nichols, a senior Western Hemisphere official at the US State Department, tweeted that under the Nicaraguan government led by President Daniel Ortega, indigenous groups face “violent settler incursions & one of the most rapid rates of deforestation.” These words of concern from abroad regarding the plight of the indigenous community under Ortega has been backed up by action: in July the United Nations (UN) Green Climate Fund (GCF) suspended a US$117m forest conservation project in Nicaragua citing “escalating violence against indigenous people” – the first such decision since its creation in 2010.... Read More

In July a delegation of experts appointed by the United Nations (UN) arrived in Tegucigalpa to begin analysing the creation of a new international commission against corruption and impunity in Honduras (CICIH).... Read More

At a time when the US is becoming increasingly worried about China’s influence in the Caribbean, and at a time when Guyana’s importance within the Caribbean is growing dramatically, there will have been some concern in Washington about the warmth of Guyana-China relations on display during President Irfaan Ali’s recent visit to Beijing.... Read More

*** UN PROJECT TO IMPROVE EARLY WARNING SYSTEMS COMPLETED.... Read More