Guatemala has deployed in recent days some 150 police personnel in Haiti to add muscle to the so far failed multinational security mission, mainly composed of Kenyan personnel. El Salvador, for its part, sent 8 more police. The United States has tried to convert this force, which is short of human and material resources, into a standard U.N. peacekeeping mission, but has met with opposition from Russia and China. Meanwhile, gang violence has not abated in the devastated Caribbean nation, with scandalous cases of massive massacres and other blows to the table from the gangs that plague it. One rather worrying one was the still confusing armed attack against journalists covering the reopening of the capital's main hospital—closed since March because of rampant violence—in which a policeman and two journalists were killed. A gang leader who claimed responsibility for the attack said that “[organizers] had not counted on them” to carry out the event, over which other doubts—related to the authorities´ performance hover. It is estimated that almost 90% of Port-au-Prince is under gang control.
A group of 75 Guatemalan soldiers arrived in Haiti to boost a UN-backed mission to restore order amid chaos wrought by gangs https://t.co/e0ADxzpw7z pic.twitter.com/QTCrF64Dg0
— Reuters (@Reuters) January 5, 2025
Ecuador
While the climate of insecurity entrenches this South American nation, this Sunday the electoral campaign for the elections of February 9th began. An authoritarian Daniel Noboa intends to run without taking a license that one electoral official has said is mandatory for campaigning, all because he does not want to cede power to his vice-president Veronica Abad, with whom he has been at odds since before arriving at the Carondelet Palace. The government argues that it is not reelection because Noboa is only “completing” the presidential term of Guillermo Lasso. It seems vacuous to me when I read the Ecuadorian Constitution. Noboa is president. An “express” president, if you will, but a president elected by the citizens, and from Carondelet he cannot campaign according to the legal system in use.
Abad said that this Sunday she would assume “the constitutional presidency of the Republic of Ecuador by express mandate of the law” while Noboa “participates as a presidential candidate in the electoral campaign”. The president has reappointed an interim vice-president alleging non-compliance with the duties of Abad, who is resisting traveling to Turkey, where she has been assigned. Abad recently defeated a shameful suspension introduced by the Ministry of Labor. Noboa leads in voting intentions by four percentage points ahead of Correa-propelled Luisa González, who lost to the Miami-born in the 2023 runoff. Political violence overshadowed the last electoral exercise in Ecuador, with the death of presidential candidate Fernando Villavicencio as its most painful note. In 2024 the country also added an energy nightmare that strained the social consensus.
SourceMexico
The Attorney General's Office of the State of Tabasco said that seven people were killed in a new armed attack on a bar in the town of Villahermosa, where six were reported in a similar incident a short time ago. Five people were seriously injured as a result of the attack. In Tabasco, there is a dangerous upturn in violence attributed to organized crime. President Sheinbaum said this problem would not be solved “with an iron fist” but with “honesty and justice”. However, there is talk of a greater frontality of her government when confronting cartels and particularly in appeasing the tense situation in the state of Sinaloa, where the confusing arrest of a historic drug lord in Texas unleashed an inferno with its center in Culiacan, the capital. Last Saturday, 6 murders were reported there, and in general, there are now close to 680 murders attributed to the wave of violence featuring the Chapitos—heirs of “El Chapo” Guzmán—and the people of El Mayo Zambada—the capo arrested allegedly after being kidnapped by a son of “El Chapo”.
🔴#Entérate | Asegurada y bajo resguardo de las autoridades del estado permanece el Bar La Casita Azul, ubicado en la colonia Tamulté de las Barrancas de #Villahermosa.
— El Heraldo de Tabasco (@heraldodetab) January 5, 2025
📹 José Pérez pic.twitter.com/jg4ROW4Yle
And this is all for our report today. I have referenced the sources dynamically in the text, and remember you can learn how and where to follow the LATAM trail news by reading my work here. Have a nice day.
