Anti-Militarism: News & Updates

Colombia’s upcoming presidential elections on May 29 are taking place at a time of great tension, rising insecurity, economic challenges, polarization, and distrust in government. These elections also mark the first time a socially-progressive candidate, Gustavo Petro, in a country ruled by the right and moderates for decades, has the possibility of winning the presidency. This is an overview of some of the main human rights and security challenges facing Colombia that the next President will need to address, and how U.S. policymakers can support them in doing so.

After decades in which Honduras served as a bridge state along the cocaine highway from South America to the United States, coca plantations are now spreading across the country like an invasive plant whose seeds are carried in the wind. In 2021, authorities eradicated a record amount of coca plants. This year, hardly a week has gone by without the discovery of another plantation, and authorities are already on the verge of shattering last year’s record. Cocaine production in Honduras is still in its infancy and unlikely to ever come close to the levels of the biggest three cocaine producers: Colombia, Peru and Bolivia. But if left unchecked, it could give rise to a new generation of drug traffickers, and refortify clans of old, much like the shifting of drug routes from the Caribbean to Central America did at the turn of the century.

More than a dozen gunmen opened fire in two bars in the central Mexican city of Celaya late on Monday, killing at least 11 people in an apparent gangland shooting, local officials and media said. Seven women and three men were killed at the scene in shootings in two bars, according to a statement by security officials in Celaya, Guanajuato state, which said the attack happened in the Valle Hermoso neighborhood. An eleventh victim, a woman, later died at the hospital, according to a state government spokesperson. Two other people were wounded.

Mexico’s immigration enforcement is increasingly militarized with the armed forces and National Guard now accounting for more migrant detentions than immigration agents, according to a report published Tuesday by six nongovernmental organizations. The human rights and migrant advocacy groups, among them the Foundation for Justice and the Democratic State of Law, say that many of the detentions are also arbitrary, based on racial profiling and have led to abuses. The armed forces are supposed to just be supporting immigration agents in their work, but the organizations found that they are now responsible for the majority of detentions.

May 23 was to be the end of a shameful chapter in the recent history of human rights in the United States. Back on April 1, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) had determined that the COVID-19 pandemic had eased sufficiently to make the so-called “Title 42” border policy unnecessary. So far in 2022, U.S. immigration courts have granted asylum or other relief in 48.4 percent of the 23,590 cases they have heard. Title 42 has prevented tens of thousands of other cases from even being filed. This means there is a gigantic probability that the pandemic measure, which did not expire on May 23, has sent many people back to severe harm or death. This is the most serious consequence of keeping Title 42 in place. But there are others.

Many Latin American and Caribbean governments are unhappy with the US government’s decision to exclude Cuba, Venezuela, and Nicaragua from the summit. Countries throughout the hemisphere have grown accustomed to US double standards where democracy and human rights protections are flaunted. Who can forget that the United States managed to have Cuba expelled from the Organization of American States (OAS) but never batted an eye over the memberships of Chile under Augusto Pinochet, Argentina under Jorge Rafael Videla, or Guatemala under Rios Montt, to name but a few murderous governments?

The decision of a federal judge that forced the United States to continue the immediate expulsion of migrants under Title 42 placed Ciudad Juárez on the cusp of a new humanitarian crisis, due to the daily increase in the migrant population on this border. The flow of more than 100 expelled per day from U.S. territory under Title 42 and the growing arrival of migrants waiting to cross the border has the shelters close to being saturated. Hundreds of other migrants are in spaces that they rent on their own in hotels or homes, while others live in houses in abandoned conditions. Even with the continuation of Title 42, officials are concerned the massive concentration of migrants in this community will continue to increase due to the expulsion of people from the north and those who continue to arrive from the south.

Discussions about the possible installation of an International Commission Against Corruption and Impunity (CICIH) —president Xiomara Castro's campaign promise— has stirred up lobbying to control the Judiciary and the Public Ministry.  There are intense movements in the National Congress to adjust the election processes of the Attorney General and the 15 new magistrates of the CSJ in 2023. To analyze this situation, the experiences of the CICIG in Guatemala and of the CICIES in El Salvador are useful, as they are similar commissions despite being in different contexts. 

Mexican immigration agents can no longer conduct stop and search operations on buses and highways after the country’s supreme court ruled that such checks are racist, discriminatory and therefore unconstitutional. The landmark ruling, handed down in Mexico City on Wednesday, found in favour of three young Indigenous Mexicans who were detained and abused by immigration (INM) officials in 2015 during a US-backed crackdown. “The decision represents an opportunity to stop the discriminatory and racist practices by immigration authorities and the national guard who utilize racial profiling to detect migrants, that have led to arbitrary detentions of both immigrants and Mexicans,” said Gretchen Kuhner, director of the Institute for Women in Migration which helped bring the case.